Hyungkoo Lee is just one of many, many talented South Korean artists that I admire. This image comes from a series of interesting images created with invented "medical inspired" braces. They remind me the fantastical "pseudo-science" of French sci-fi like Jeunet & Caro's Le Cite Des Enfants Perdus
and Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys
which itself was adapted from the French film La Jetee.
We bought this plant the other day. I'm not sure what it is, but we're in the process of seeking a pot. We really like many of the local plants here in Houston (or plants that have become local). This was surprisingly cheap.
I enjoy this myspace blog, the gentleman travels a lot and these images are from portugal. I am continually fascinated by bone chapels, both because of the notion of the body as architecture, but also because of the way in which these images and places have been cast out of our cultural consciousness... Check out the blog here.
I have grown accustom to seeing these memorials along highways and in the shadows underneath over passes, but it's still fairly uncommon to encounter them next to a sidewalk on a city street. Many of the ones I've seen appear to be makeshift, constructed (I often imagine) in the heat of the moment or for a one time visitation. But this one reflects a more fixed and permanent plan. The cross is marked by the remembered person's name and flowers appear rather regularly by its side.
Though it's about a block from my home, I have yet to catch a glimpse of who replaces the flowers. In absence of knowing this person, the memorial strikes me in different ways. Sometimes walking by, it pushes thoughts of the transient and arbitrary nature of our existence into my mind. Sometimes it simply fills me with an odd voyeuristic compulsion to catch a glimpse of the memorial's caretaker. Yet other times I find myself daring myself to touch the memorial--the same way you dare yourself to touch the body at a wake.
Our relocation is complete. It appears we have something of a predator in the backyard, I've been documenting its movements. Inside we've finished the walls and the chairs are on their way. Yesterday, we stopped at a lovely place called the Village Greenery a small distance from the new place. We ended up buying a pine for the house (pictures are coming) and some other kind of regional plant that I am not really familiar with... (pictures also coming).
We did run into a bit of good luck on move in, a gecko was hiding in our bathroom. I'm not sure that's good luck :-) but you know, that's what I was told.
It's been a couple of weeks now, but I had a chance to photograph a gentleman named Lucas. He's a dancer and choreographer here in Houston. He was pleasant enough to open his routine and day up to me.
I had the opportunity recently to photograph Belinda Smith in her studio at Winter Street. In the last few weeks, I've become interested in photographing artists and dancers. Belinda was nice enough to let me photo her while she worked.
Fear.
It sounded simple to me when I was younger. I was afraid of bugs, particularly the large kinds. I had flipped on the lights in the garage at the age of eight only to find a mantis crawling onto my hand. I screamed and was afraid of the dark garage for a few years after that.
I employed fear in horror stories that I wrote as a child. Mostly I indicated fear through invoking the narrator-voice to inform the reader that “Tom was afraid”. Sometimes I even got clever and subtle showing and telling at the same time “Tom shook... with fear.”
After my father went to prison, I stopped writing stories. I understood a new kind of fear. Fear that the world would pull out from under me. This was fear of an arbitrary hand that could and would strike without reason or purpose at any moment. The consequences were as all encompassing as the motivations were vague.
Oddly this fear filled me with the belief, though not necessarily the reality, that I was impervious to the normal ‘fears’ of day to day life. Whatever exactly those might be, as I had no full understanding of them. I thought the tragedies in my life made me an exception and so I spoke more plainly and bluntly, at the cost of many friendships.
Armed with this false sense of freedom, I wrote again in college. This writing was less escapist and more confrontational. While the forms and goals were different the thrill and contentment were the same. When I wrote I was neither afraid nor anxious. I was simply quiet inside.
I took a year off after college to write, to become a writer (however one becomes a writer). Instead I was paralyzed by fear and anxiety and propelled back into graduate school. Graduate school and having a parent in prison are surprisingly similar experiences. Everything is stripped away from you as you are charged to use the full range of your coping skills just to survive the movements of that great invisible hand from above... or more specifically the descending thumb on that hand.
And now I am free. Free of imprisoned childhoods and of the arbitrary tasks of graduate school. Some days I still am filled with the anxiety of vague high stakes deadlines and problems. Some days I sit down and I write and then I am quiet inside.
But now, despite all my inner monologue of not being afraid, I am filled with dread over the consequences of what might spill out onto the page if I remove my restraints. This fear vacuums the floor twice a week and prepares gourmet meals. It takes three showers some days and reads about plastic bottles on the internet for four hours. Sometimes it just sits at a desk and clicks “refresh” on my e-mail over and over again. And as it does all this, I get louder and louder inside. Anxiety builds sometimes to a point of sleeplessness. I know what I have to do, I know what I want to do, but this feeling is standing in my way.
When I ask... what is it I’m feeling... all the noise inside pushes the word out clearly.
Fear.