Gray City
Crissy Field, 2011
Monday, January 30, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
The Pale King
This could have been a great book. Parts of it are breathtaking. But it is incoherent and incomplete, and the only person who might fix it is gone.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Blind
Paul Strand, Blind, 1916
Does anyone believe this woman is blind?
Isn’t the point of the picture that she’s not?
Someone forgot to tell Gerry Badger. In The Pleasures of Good Photographs, Badger actually criticizes Strand for taking advantage of his subject:
“Of course, the blind woman was one of Strand’s easier targets, precisely because she could not see the photographer at work. Thus the image emphasizes, cruelly yet most vividly, the control of the photographer who captures or steals an unasked-for representation of a wholly unsuspecting soul.”
He then relegates Strand’s thoughts on the matter to a skeptical footnote:
“Apparently the photographer, sensitive to the candid nature of these street images in relation to the studied nobility with which he tried to invest later subjects, insisted that the woman was not totally blind, and was not a beggar, but had a license from the city of New York to trade on the streets.”
Yet as anyone with eyes can see, the woman is in fact wearing a badge that says “Licensed Peddler, New York City.”
Badger’s must be blindness of a different kind. But The Pleasures of Good Photographs is, generally, a pleasure nonetheless.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Monday, January 09, 2012
Francesca Woodman
Francesca Woodman, Untitled, Providence, 1975-78
Francesca Woodman's intensity was extraordinary, but so inwardly directed it must have been suffocating.
(At SFMOMA through February 20.)
Thursday, January 05, 2012
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Sunday, January 01, 2012
Friday, December 30, 2011
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Monday, December 26, 2011
Friday, December 23, 2011
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
San Francisco
25th Avenue, 2011
Thought I'd just let things go to the dogs for the holidays. We're on autopilot. See you next year.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Thursday, December 08, 2011
Monday, December 05, 2011
Thursday, December 01, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Melancholia
Lars von Trier/Zentropa
Is life on earth evil?
Nah.
Are we just too dumb to live?
Probably.
Is this a great movie?
Yes.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
Holy Shit
Etienne Carjat, Arthur Rimbaud, 1871
I'm the first to admit that my education has been uneven. I grew up looking at pictures, reading novels, and listening to rock and roll. And that was about it.
This has had pluses and minuses.
Among the former, I still have little or no idea, outside of sports, what's on television. The Fonz? Kardashians? All the same to me.
More regrettably, I know very little about classical music. Opera? Except for when it's over, I know nothing.
Worse still, I've never really read any poetry.
Until the other day, that is, when, having seen a review, I bought a copy of Rimbaud's Illuminations, translated by John Ashbery.
I can't believe I've lived my whole life without this.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
Monday, November 07, 2011
Occupy Wall Street?
Paul Strand, Wall Street, 1915
I worked on Wall Street once.
I was a securities analyst. A person paid to pitch stocks to banks and the like. A person paid to lie, often.
It was a pretty poor life. Not just because of all the dishonesty, but because it had no content. Except money.
Nobody's fault but my own. Still, if you ask me, what's needed now goes way beyond mere occupation.
But occupation's a start.
Friday, November 04, 2011
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
Monday, October 31, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
