I am a rich man, I am a very rich man, I have good pants on, stitched and stitched

I went down to North Carolina this weekend to help my sister move a mattress out of storage, and while I was down there I rephotographed the piano at Roxy's. The second photo is of a dresser my sister decided to burn. I also took some a few landscape shots that I plan to post later this week. I'm working on a little essay on the history of the landscape--Hudson River school, Ansel Adams, Robert Adams and other "New Topographers," "post landscape" photography, whatever. I don't really know what I'm talking about, so it's taking me a while to write. I'm also not sure how I feel about the following poem--I turn 28 this year, though, and it makes more sense now than it did a few years ago when i first read it.


Self-Portrait At 28

by David Berman

I know it's a bad title
but I'm giving it to myself as a gift
on a day nearly canceled by sunlight
when the entire hill is approaching
the ideal of Virginia
brochured with goldenrod and loblolly
and I think "at least I have not woken up
with a bloody knife in my hand"
by then having absently wandered
one hundred yards from the house
while still seated in this chair
with my eyes closed.

It is a certain hill
the one I imagine when I hear the word "hill"
and if the apocalypse turns out
to be a world-wide nervous breakdown
if our five billion minds collapse at once
well I'd call that a surprise ending
and this hill would still be beautiful
a place I wouldn't mind dying
alone or with you.

I am trying to get at something
and I want to talk very plainly to you
so that we are both comforted by the honesty.
You see there is a window by my desk
I stare out when I am stuck
though the outdoors has rarely inspired me to write
and I don't know why I keep staring at it.

My childhood hasn't made good material either
mostly being a mulch of white minutes
with a few stand out moments,
popping tar bubbles on the driveway in the summer
a certain amount of pride at school
everytime they called it "our sun"
and playing football when the only play
was "go out long" are what stand out now.

If squeezed for more information
I can remember old clock radios
with flipping metal numbers
and an entree called Surf and Turf.

As a way of getting in touch with my origins
every night I set the alarm clock
for the time I was born so that waking up
becomes a historical reenactment and the first thing I do
is take a reading of the day and try to flow with it like
when you're riding a mechanical bull and you strain to learn
the pattern quickly so you don't inadverantly resist it.

II two

I can't remember being born
and no one else can remember it either
even the doctor who I met years later
at a cocktail party.
It's one of the little disappointments
that makes you think about getting away
going to Holly Springs or Coral Gables
and taking a room on the square
with a landlady whose hands are scoured
by disinfectant, telling the people you meet
that you are from Alaska, and listen
to what they have to say about Alaska
until you have learned much more about Alaska
than you ever will about Holly Springs or Coral Gables.

Sometimes I am buying a newspaper
in a strange city and think
"I am about to learn what it's like to live here."
Oftentimes there is a news item
about the complaints of homeowners
who live beside the airport
and I realize that I read an article
on this subject nearly once a year
and always receive the same image.

I am in bed late at night
in my house near the airport
listening to the jets fly overhead
a strange wife sleeping beside me.
In my mind, the bedroom is an amalgamation
of various cold medicine commercial sets
(there is always a box of tissue on the nightstand).

I know these recurring news articles are clues,
flaws in the design though I haven't figured out
how to string them together yet,
but I've begun to notice that the same people
are dying over and over again,
for instance Minnie Pearl
who died this year
for the fourth time in four years.

III three

Today is the first day of Lent
and once again I'm not really sure what it is.
How many more years will I let pass
before I take the trouble to ask someone?

It reminds of this morning
when you were getting ready for work.
I was sitting by the space heater
numbly watching you dress
and when you asked why I never wear a robe
I had so many good reasons
I didn't know where to begin.

If you were cool in high school
you didn't ask too many questions.
You could tell who'd been to last night's
big metal concert by the new t-shirts in the hallway.
You didn't have to ask
and that's what cool was:
the ability to deduct
to know without asking.
And the pressure to simulate coolness
means not asking when you don't know,
which is why kids grow ever more stupid.

A yearbook's endpages, filled with promises
to stay in touch, stand as proof of the uselessness
of a teenager's promise. Not like I'm dying
for a letter from the class stoner
ten years on but...

Do you remember the way the girls
would call out "love you!"
conveniently leaving out the "I"
as if they didn't want to commit
to their own declarations.

I agree that the "I" is a pretty heavy concept
and hope you won't get uncomfortable
if I should go into some deeper stuff here.

IV four

There are things I've given up on
like recording funny answering machine messages.
It's part of growing older
and the human race as a group
has matured along the same lines.
It seems our comedy dates the quickest.
If you laugh out loud at Shakespeare's jokes
I hope you won't be insulted
if I say you're trying too hard.
Even sketches from the original Saturday Night Live
seem slow-witted and obvious now.

It's just that our advances are irrepressible.
Nowadays little kids can't even set up lemonade stands.
It makes people too self-conscious about the past,
though try explaining that to a kid.

I'm not saying it should be this way.
All this new technology
will eventually give us new feelings
that will never completely displace the old ones
leaving everyone feeling quite nervous
and split in two.

We will travel to Mars
even as folks on Earth
are still ripping open potato chip
bags with their teeth.

Why? I don't have the time or intelligence
to make all the connections
like my friend Gordon
(this is a true story)
who grew up in Braintree Massachusetts
and had never pictured a brain snagged in a tree
until I brought it up.
He'd never broken the name down to its parts.
By then it was too late.
He had moved to Coral Gables.

V five

The hill out my window is still looking beautiful
suffused in a kind of gold national park light
and it seems to say,
I'm sorry the world could not possibly
use another poem about Orpheus
but I'm available if you're not working
on a self-portrait or anything.

I'm watching my dog have nightmares,
twitching and whining on the office floor
and I try to imagine what beast
has cornered him in the meadow
where his dreams are set.

I'm just letting the day be what it is:
a place for a large number of things
to gather and interact --
not even a place but an occasion
a reality for real things.

Friends warned me not to get too psychedelic
or religious with this piece:
"They won't accept it if it's too psychedelic
or religious," but these are valid topics
and I'm the one with the dog twitching on the floor
possibly dreaming of me
that part of me that would beat a dog
for no good reason
no reason that a dog could see.

I am trying to get at something so simple
that I have to talk plainly
so the words don't disfigure it
and if it turns out that what I say is untrue
then at least let it be harmless
like a leaky boat in the reeds
that is bothering no one.

VI six

I can't trust the accuracy of my own memories,
many of them having blended with sentimental
telephone and margarine commercials
plainly ruined by Madison Avenue
though no one seems to call the advertising world
"Madison Avenue" anymore. Have they moved?
Let's get an update on this.

But first I have some business to take care of.
I walked out to the hill behind our house
which looks positively Alaskan today
and it would be easier to explain this
if I had a picture to show you
but I was with our young dog
and he was running through the tall grass
like running through the tall grass
is all of life together
until a bird calls or he finds a beer can
and that thing fills all the space in his head.

You see,
his mind can only hold one thought at a time
and when he finally hears me call his name
he looks up and cocks his head
and for a single moment
my voice is everything:

Self-portrait at 28.

You'll search and search but you'll never find nowhere on earth to find peace of mind

I've been listening to Neil Young's Tonight's the Night a lot lately, and it strikes me as fairly spiritual, so today's lyrics/poetry are from that album.

Roll Another Number (for the Road)

It's too dark to put the keys in my ignition
And the morning sun is yet to climb my hood ornament.
But before too long I might see those flashing red lights
Look out, mama, 'cause I'm coming home tonight.

Think I'll roll another number for the road,
I feel able to get under any load.
Though my feet aren't on the ground,
I been standing on the sound
Of some open-hearted people going down.

I'm not going back to Woodstock for a while,
Though I long to hear that lonesome hippie smile.
I'm a million miles away from that helicopter day
No, I don't believe I'll be going back that way.

Think I'll roll another number for the road,
I feel able to get under any load.
Though my feet aren't on the ground,
I been standing on the sound
Of some open-hearted people going down.

Tired Eyes

Well he shot four men in a cocaine deal
and he left them lying in an open field
full of old cars with bullet holes in the mirrors.
He tried to do his best but he could not.

Please take my advice, please take my advice,
please take my advice.
Open up the tired eyes, open up the tired eyes.

Well, it wasn't supposed to go down that way.
But they burned his brother, you know, and they left him lying
in the driveway. They let him down with nothing.
He tried to do his best but he could not.

Please take my advice, please take my advice
Please take my advice.
Open up the tired eyes, Open up the tired eyes.

Well tell me more, tell me more
I mean was he a heavy doper or was he just a loser?
He was a friend of yours. What do you mean
he had bullet holes in his mirrors?
He tried to do his best but he could not.

Please take my advice, please take my advice
Please take my advice.
Open up the tired eyes, open up the tired eyes.

Please take my advice, please take my advice
Please take my advice.
Open up the tired eyes, open up the tired eyes.

Like a river that don't know where it's flowing, I took a wrong turn and I kept on going

I looked over the photos from the trip to the Cascades, and I can't really say that I'm happy with any of them. For the most part, I took photos of tangled limbs and fallen trees choking up the flow of the creek. I had in mind some of Lee Friedlander's later photos and Mark Tucker's photos (he has a nice web page) of limbs and vines in front of old houses. Most of my photos just look like a mess. There's no separation or distinction like in Friedlander's stuff. In any case, the above photos are the ones I was least unhappy with. I actually like the last one pretty well, but I think I'm going to shoot it again (presuming the logs stay in place) when there's more greenery.

On my way back from the Cascades, I was listening to Bruce Springsteen's The River, and I got so pulled into the world of the song "The River" that I ran a red light in downtown Blacksburg. I was jolted out of my little revery by the sound car horns and tires squealing. Luckily, I made it through the light safely. In any case, to complete my account of the Cascades trip, I'm going to post the lyrics to the song. If you haven't heard it, find it and give it a listen--I'll admit it's a little maudlin, but I'm a sucker for songs about broken dreams.

I come from down in the valley
where mister when you're young
They bring you up to do like your daddy done
Me and Mary we met in high school
when she was just seventeen
We'd ride out of that valley down to where the fields were green

We'd go down to the river
And into the river we'd dive
Oh down to the river we'd ride

Then I got Mary pregnant
and man that was all she wrote
And for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat
We went down to the courthouse
and the judge put it all to rest
No wedding day smiles no walk down the aisle
No flowers no wedding dress

That night we went down to the river
And into the river we'd dive
Oh down to the river we did ride

I got a job working construction for the Johnstown Company
But lately there ain't been much work on account of the economy
Now all them things that seemed so important
Well mister they vanished right into the air
Now I just act like I don't remember
And Mary acts like she don't care

But I remember us riding in my brother's car
Her body tan and wet down at the reservoir
At night on them banks I'd lie awake
And pull her close just to feel each breath she'd take
Now those memories come back to haunt me
they haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don't come true
Or is it something worse
that sends me down to the river
though I know the river is dry
That sends me down to the river tonight
Down to the river
my baby and I
Oh down to the river we ride

my heart's running 'round like a chicken with its head cut off, all around the barnyard falling in and out of love

With moving out of my apartment and wrapping up the semester at RU, the last couple of weeks have been really busy, and I haven't been shooting much. I went hiking to the Cascades (a sixty foot waterfall outside of Blacksburg, VA) yesterday, but I'm not very good at taking photos of nature. Although I love hiking and being outdoors, I can't do anything with it photographically. It's hard to avoid either: a) a calendar shot or b) something that just looks generally like shit. I did take a few photos, though, and I may post some tomorrow; I haven't looked at them on the computer yet. Just to have something to post, I've went back through my signs folder and selected a few. I like the juxtoposition of the "Look Inside" sign and the absurd chicken head.

i got the rooster, i got the crow, i got the ebb, i got the flow--hey, i'm big in Japan!

The man in the first and third photos is my dad. I drove down to his house yesterday to try to temporarily escape the dark cloud hanging over Radford/Blacksburg in the wake of the horrific events at Tech. I'm also posting a poem I wrote a few years back. Photography has taken the place of poetry for me recently, but I've been feeling inspired to write again lately. On a related note, I'm a faculty co-advisor to RU's literary and arts magazine, Exit 109, and they had a wonderful reading last night for the premier of this year's magazine. Those of you who check out this blog and are students/faculty at RU should pick up a copy of the magazine--it's filled with really good poetry/art.

The Weight of Silence

Staring out at the river
my mind draws me back
to the time we spent floating
in that ancient green
flat-bottomed boat, hoping
the hull would not crack.

All that day, there was something
I wanted to tell you,
something about loss--
how it rises in us unexpected
like a spring flood--
but only breath rose to my lips,
as insubstantial as mist,
and we listened to the water
purl over stones.

Drifting back to back
among treetops and boulders
worn smooth by the slapping currents,
our lines cast in separate angles
into the passing flow,
we fished the deep pools,
plumbed the river's bottom.

Our lines came up empty.
Moss covered.

you think it's easy, but you're wrong, i am not 1/2 of the problem, _________ is stained and it's not my fault

The weather and my camera have frustrated my efforts to shoot much lately. I've expiremented with different settings on my Nikon D50, but I can't seem to get accurate color, which is frustrating. I took 30 or so shots of an abandoned school yesterday, but every shot was too "warm"--i.e. yellow. I don't have photoshop, and wouldn't know how to use it if I did, so the color thing is irritating. The above shots are--in my opinion--some of the better ones I've taken over the last few days.

two poems by denis johnson

man walking to work

the dawn is a quality laid across
the freeway like the visable
memory of the ocean that kept all this
a secret for a hundred million years.
I am not moving and I am not standing still.
I am only something the wind strikes and clears,
and I feel myself fade like the sky,
the whole of Ohio a mirror gone blank.
my jacket keeps me. my zipper
bangs on my guitar. lord god help me
out by the lake after the shift at Frigidaire
when i stop laughing and taste how wet the beer
is in my mouth, suddenly recognizing the true
wedding of passage and arrival I am invited to.

retirement

i would like to be just an old man with my gin,
retiring even from these leaves into
my big, gradual silence beyond the wood
and it will be good,
wife, because i have pointed to you,
and you have become real, within

this darker stillness my eyes grow too wide
it must be that seeing you in the trees
becoming softer than i ever dreamed
has made it all seem
a multitude of nonsense, all the seas,
the planets, all i wrote. i lied,

i swear to you i lied, becoming old and so
very drunk, when i did not lie to you.

I know you like to line dance, everything so democratic and cool, but baby there's no guidance when random rules

Photos by Christian Patterson







I haven't been able to get out and shoot much during the last few weeks, and I don't have much of my own work that I feel like posting, so I decided to post on Christian Patterson, who I initially learned of through searching for interviews with William Eggleston. If you're interested in his work, he has a nice website: christianpatterson.com and a blog. On his blog the other day he mentioned how he admires photographers who incorporate a variety of subject matter and approaches in their work, but still manage to convey a consistent style and feeling, and--as you can see from the above photos--this fits his own photography well. The influence of Eggleston is obvious, but he stills manages to create a distinct style/feel--absurdity, detached humor, understatement. To me, his style brings to mind James Tate's poetry--or, perhaps even more so, the poetry/lyrics of David Berman (Silver Jews), who studied under Tate.

--this first poem is from Tate, not the best example of the style I'm thinking of, but a good poem.

Never Again the Same

Speaking of sunsets,
last night's was shocking.
I mean, sunsets aren't supposed to frighten you, are they?
Well, this one was terrifying.
Sure, it was beautiful, but far too beautiful.
It wasn't natural.
One climax followed another and then another
until your knees went weak
and you couldn't breathe.
The colors were definitely not of this world,
peaches dripping opium,
pandemonium of tangerines,
inferno of irises,
Plutonian emeralds,
all swirling and churning, swabbing,
like it was playing with us,
like we were nothing,
as if our whole lives were a preparation for this,
this for which nothing could have prepared us
and for which we could not have been less prepared.
The mockery of it all stung us bitterly.
And when it was finally over
we whimpered and cried and howled.
And then the streetlights came on as always
and we looked into one another's eyes--
ancient caves with still pools
and those little transparent fish
who have never seen even one ray of light.
And the calm that returned to us
was not even our own.

The Wild Kindness
by David Berman

I wrote a letter to a wildflower
on a classic nitrogen afternoon.
Some power that hardly looked like power
said I'm only perfect in an empty room.

Four dogs in the distance
each stands for a kindness.
Bluebirds lodged in an evergreen altar
I'm gonna shine out in the wild silence
and spurn the sin of giving in.

Oil paintings of x-rated picnics.
Behind the walls of medication I'm free.
Every falling leaf in a compact mirror
hits a target that we can't see.

Grass grows in the icebox.
The year ends in the next room
It is autumn and my camouflage is dying
instead of time there will be lateness
and let forever be delayed.

I died my hair in a motel void
met the coroner at the Dreamgate Frontier
He took my hand said I'll help you boy
if you really want to disappear

Four dogs in the distance
each stands for a silence.
Bluebirds lodged in an evergreen altar
I'm gonna shine out in the wild kindness
and hold the world to its word.

Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007, RIP

Isolated as far as you go, I'm well versed in the walls of worst

i drove out after my classes yesterday evening and looked for things to shoot, but didn't find much. as i was driving home i saw shadows reflecting off of this building and thought it looked interesting.

here's a Charles Bukowski poem for you--

my father

was a truly amazing man
he pretended to be
rich
even though we lived on beans and mush and weenies
when we sat down to eat, he said,
"not everybody can eat like this."

and because he wanted to be rich or because he actually
thought he was rich
he always voted Republican
and he voted for Hoover against Roosevelt
and he lost
and then he voted for Alf Landon against Roosevelt
and he lost again
saying, "I don't know what this world is coming to,
now we've got that god damned Red in there again
and the Russians will be in our backyard next!"

I think it was my father who made me decide to
become a bum.
I decided that if a man like that wants to be rich
then I want to be poor.

and I became a bum.
I lived on nickles and dimes and in cheap rooms and
on park benches.
I thought maybe the bums knew something.

but I found out that most of the bums wanted to be
rich too.
they had just failed at that.

so caught between my father and the bums
I had no place to go
and I went there fast and slow.
never voted Republican
never voted.

buried him
like an oddity of the earth
like a hundred thousand oddities
like millions of other oddities,
wasted.

Tonight, I think I'm gonna go downtown, tonight I think I'm gonna look around, for something I couldn't see when this world was more real to me

Under the Poplars

by Cesar Vallejo

Like priestly imprisoned poets,
the poplars of blood have fallen asleep.
On the hills, the flocks of Bethlehem
chew arias of grass at sunset.

The ancient shepherd, who shivers
at the last martyrdoms of light,
in his Easter eyes has caught
a purebred flock of stars.

Formed in orphanhood, he goes down
with rumors of burial to the praying field,
and the sheep bells are seasoned
with shadow.

It survives, the blue warped
In iron, and on it, pupils shrouded,
A dog etches its pastoral howl.

i wrote a song with a hundred lines, i picked a bunch of dandelions, i walked her through the trembling pines, but she just didn't want to

I thought spring had sprung in SW Virginia--the children chirping, the frogs singing like constellations, tufts of grass rising from beneath the ice machines--but this morning it's 32, and tomorrow's forecasted high is 38. My classes (I teach research writing and American Lit. at Radford University) are winding down, and I'm feeling exhausted, like it's time to "throw some tea and bread into a sack and jump over the back fence," as Muir says. I realize the elements of today's post (and most other days) are completed unrelated--I thought about using a different song line, but then decided that the light-hearted, somewhat silly song would strike a nice balance with the poem.

Salmon
by Kim Addonizio

In this shallow creek
they flop and writhe forward as the dead
float back toward them. Oh, I know

what I should say: fierce burning in the body
as her eggs burst free, milky cloud
of sperm as he quickens them. I should stand

on the bridge with my camera,
frame the white froth of rapids where one
arcs up for an instant in its final grace.

But I have to go down among
the rocks the glacier left
and squat at the edge of the water

where a stinking pile of them lies,
where one crow balances and sinks
its beak into a gelid eye.

I have to study the small holes
gouged into their skin, their useless gills,
their gowns of black flies. I can't

make them sing. I want to,
but all they do is open
their mouths a little wider

so the water pours in
until I feel like I'm drowning.
On the bridge the tour bus waits

and someone waves, and calls down
It's time, and the current keeps lifting
dirt from the bottom to cover the eggs.

You spend half of the morning just trying to wake up, half the evening just trying to calm down

Not much to say about these. I pass by the red stairs most every day, and they always give me a feeling of well-being. Also, I read on Christian Patterson's blog yesterday that the Aperture foundation recently held a panel on photography, and the publishers/educators gathered there produced a list of do's/don'ts for photographers. Of course the list was ridiculous, but one of the "do's" fit my post today: "Do it big—if you can’t do it big, do it red." I do like my red stairs, but the yellow is nice too.

Also, a poem for you to enjoy--

Lap

by Frank Stanford

She pours sweetmilk over me before the sun comes up
Her dress is like a tent in the desert
Her whippings don't count

She buys the young men suits
And they cross the river with someone else
And check-in at Hotel Nemo

She buries her pay in a bucket
Every new moon
She cuts her snuff with happy dust

I trace her butt in the shade
Like a Spanish Oak
We throw light bread to the fish

She mosaics the Lord's mysteries
With scales and egg yolks
Emma is a humming

I've got a cow that went dry and a hen that won't lay, a big stack of bills that gets bigger each day, I'm busted

I've been thinking about doing a series of photos on cash advance stores for some time now. If their social significance isn't immediately obvious, their ubiquity round these parts certainly is--they are springing up everywhere around SW Virginia. There are at least 5 in Radford/Fairlawn. On the one hand, it's true that many people need short-term loans to avoid late fees at the bank or handle emergencies (i.e.-car breaking down). I've been in that position a few times myself, and the cash advance places were the easiest solution. That ease, though, is part of the problem. Once you've borrowed money, there's a tendency to want to do it any time things get tight. Also, most payday loan services purposely create a cycle of debt by getting customers to "reloan" or rollover their initial debt on the day they pay. While paying $15 on a $100 loan isn't bad, it certainly can be if you keep paying that $15 every week or two weeks. Moreover, continually borrowing money to scrape by doesn't solve the underlying problem, which (most of the time) involves not making enough money to survive.

In any case, I'd been thinking about taking photos of these two places loan places for a while. The green building is a former garage turned payday loan service in Roanoke. The other is Danny's Title Loan in Fairlawn. I suppose the pink deck is meant to draw people in, and it worked with me, though I didn't attempt to get a loan on my car title (it's an 89 Plymouth that I paid $300 for, so I doubt I could borrow money on it). I'd like to continue this project, but while photographing yesterday I had one of my first photography related disagreements/altercations that made me question whether I should proceed. It's an interesting story, but I'm not going to relate it here. It was very frustrating, but it kind of made me feel like I'd broke into the big league of wierdo photographers. It also drove home the point that if I'm going to photograph anything other than the Blue-Ridge Parkway or my immediate family, I need to think of better lies to explain myself.

Memory is a strange bell, jubilee and knell

William Christenberry









William Christenberry provides a nice pairing/follow up to Eggleston because they are both important to the history of color photography and because they both primarily photograph the American South. While Eggleston wouldn't want to be known as a regionalist, Christenberry is open about his love for and connection to his home state of Alabama, particularly Hale County.

Since the mid-sixties, Christenberry has been shooting buildings/vernacular architecture around Hale County (where Walker Evans took the photos for his collaborative effort on tenant farmers with James Agee, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men). After graduating from the University of Alabama, he began taking photos of local buildings to use for his abstract expressionist paintings. Up until recently, all of his photos were taken with an inexpensive Kodak Brownie camera, the cheap lense adding to the faded quality already present in his subject matter.

I'm personally drawn to Christenberry for a number of reasons, one of which is that I share his desire to preserve aspects of the South that are changing, disappearing. Although most of his photos are simple, straightforward shots of buildings, he manages to create a feeling and atmosphere similar to what one finds the writings O'Connor, Faulkner, and Welty (the quote "the South is a state of mind" comes to mind). Throughout the South (and everywhere else, really), that distinct atmosphere is changing, giving way to a world of shopping malls, chain restaurants, suburbs, homogenization. Christenberry's photos don't look back on the past with nostalgia necessarily (although nostalgia originally meant homesickness, and Christenberry's photos are undeniably connected to Alabama as "home"). Still, he doesn't present his "home" with an easy sentimentality; rather, he shows the positives and negatives, the "jubilee and knell" (one of Christenberry's more controversial shows is the "Klan Room," which includes various sculptures, drawings, paintings, and so on related to racism in the South).

One major point about Christenberry that I've neglected to mention is that he photographs many of the same places year after year, showing the passage of time and his ongoing dialogue with the place. He has photographed many of the same buildings since 1968 (i.e.--the green one in this post). Many have remained relatively the same, and others went through various transformations before being torn down. In addition to photographing vernacular architecture, Christenberry also creates amazingly realistic sculptures of some of the buildings, occassionally using the actual dirt from the place as a base, and like his friend and mentor Walker Evans he collects old signs (the last photo in the post).

There's a directness to Christenberry's photos that I really like. While typing this entry, I've been thinking of William Carlos Williams' poems, specifically:

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

As an undergrad I thought this poem was meaningless, that it was too simple to say anything. As I've gotten older, though, I've grown to appreciate the simplicity of the poem. In part, the poem is a response to Eliot's "The Wasteland," an abstruse poem laden with allusions to myth and esoteric literature. Whereas Eliot (an expatriot) largely embraced a European intellectual tradition, Williams wanted to create an "American" poem in vernacular language. Similarly, Christenberry's photos can be looked at as small, direct poems to Hale County. They are simple, but not simplistic. Perhaps the "so much" in Williams' poem is his entire world-view, everything that he loves. In a similar way, I think Christenberry's simple photos of modest buildings can tell us much about who he is and the place that helped shape him.

we spoke of many things, fools and kings, and this he said to me, "the greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love and be loved in return"

William Eggleston










Around the same time I became interested in photography, the Silver Jews released Tanglewood Numbers (a great cd). The first thing that grabbed my attention about the cd was the photo on the front, which I later learned was by William Eggleston. I soon went to the library and checked out 2 1/4, the only collection of Eggleston's photos the RU library owns, and I wasn't disappointed. Each photo expanded my sense of what's possible--and in my opinion Los Alamos and Eggleston's Guide are stronger collections than 2 1/4.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Eggleston is known as the father of color photography. Along with Stephen Shore and a few others, he helped make color legitimate (and eventually very fashionable) in galleries and museums. Eggleston is also known for shooting the detritus of everyday life--the banal, mundane (though perhaps extraordinary) "stuff" that we normally overlook. His first show at the Museum of Modern Art included photos of the inside of a packed freezer, shoes underneath a bed, and a child's tricycle shot from ground level. This penchant for lavishing attention on things that normally go unnoticed has provided the main point of contention over Eggleston's work. In response to the MOMA show, New York Times art critic Hilton Kramer said, "Perfectly banal, perhaps. Perfectly boring, certainly." The MOMA show was in 76, and Eggleston's shows are still met by many with bafflement and incredulity. However, as novelist Eudora Welty pointed out in her Introduction to Eggleston's Democratic Forest, Eggleston photographs the mundane world, but “no subject is fuller of implications than the mundane world.”

A large part of what interests me about Eggleston is his resistance to being categorized. His photographs have the ability to make viewers pause, and this pause provides an opening for genuine engagement, a genuine aesthetic experience, to occur. Too often, even sophisticated artwork is pre-packaged to fit an existing theory or idea, and this often leads to closure rather than wonder or inspiration (or perhaps anxiety). On an online discussion post I was reading, one person said Eggleston's photos looked like they were taken by a three year old; this was undoubtedly intended as criticism, but it could also be read as praise. To my mind, restoring our sense of wonder--and unease--with the familiar world is a task of immeasurable value.

I'm shifting gears here, but I wanted to note that Eggleston's photos appear on the covers of albums by Big Star, Alex Chilton, and Primal Scream, and Eggleston plays piano on Big Stars' album Third/Sister Lovers (thus the line from the Nat King Cole song that opens this post). Also, in the late 60's, Eggleston, Artist/Photographer William Christenberry (tomorrow's post), and Big Star's lead singer Alex Chilton performed some Dada plays in Memphis, which fits nicely with Eggleston's penchant for de-familiarizing (and Chilton's. give Like Flies on Sherbert a listen). I mention this because it's all part of why I find Eggleston fascinating. He's an all around interesting guy.

In any case, Christenberry is up tomorrow, then I may post some of my own stuff again on Wednesday. I'm off to work on my life's work, a postmodern epic (oxymoron?) poem about cockfighting--and the disintegration of the self in a post "appalachian values" Appalachia. I'm envisioning the main character as a man fluttering between worlds and value systems--a kind of Hemingway code hero of the cockfighting ring slowly giving way to the eroding forces of the academy and the marketplace. Seriously, I haven't had dinner, and I'm getting loony; I tend to say silly, self-effacing things when I've been staring at a computer screen for too long. So, goodbye until tomorrow.