It’s hard

Not the withdrawal from writing the entries but the new old way of working. It is 21:30, I am the train back to Winthrop Harbour. I have time to write this so that when finally arrive home I can upload it to blogger and voilà! Fifteen minutes later I can be asleep assured of a good four hours before heading back into school.

The entry will be there awaiting mendacious comments about the pure life. I can wonder who is reading it and go about packing for to-morrow.

It is hard because while I am writing I could still be writing it on the ride home, I haven’t made the image, and while I have stamps, I still have to print out the message and the address labels. I had forgot how easy things become with command “c” and command “v”.

I forgot about the cost.

I am frantic that it has been a week and I haven’t been able to get anything out in the post. It seems that at one time all of this was second nature and I could whip things out quicker than one could say live journal. It seems that I have to get into that rhythm again. while I was complaining on how long the entries where now I cannot fill a standard 7x5inch card.

I am soldering on though, driven by the idea of relative selectivity, form liking the fact that the entry has actually existed and is passing though time and all will arrive in different states with different histories depending on how much care the various post offices will afford it along its way. I like that it is forcing me back into the darkroom to give a longer deeper look at the snaps chosen as I will have to make quite a few of them.

We interrupt this blog…

Running down my rss feeds of the latest entries in blogland, I stop to think over the musings of pen and m of why blogs die. Only a fortnight a dropped one from my tool bar there hadn’t been an entry in four months. I reckoned that the person had simply moved on.

I then thought it isn’t why they die but why we think that they have to hang around? Last summer during the CBC strike there was a blog what was run only during the walkout. When the walk out ended it ended. Using the pen part of pen and m are blogs like North American soaps that go on forever, instead of, say, Latin American one where there is a beginning middle and end. Some do run their course.

Then there are the blogs in which I tune out – as I am sure two of the three that are reading this simply because it isn’t interesting anymore – if ever.

On my tool bar I have six standing rss feeds. Some are those who are linked to mine, others have links to areas am fond off – guess – a couple are from Baltimore as there was this twist of coincidence that would only happen with a blog. Of the six only four are worth reading regularly not because the others are boring per se but they seem more like book reports – I am talking here of the diary like blogs not the political ones that I read which I look at in a different light as they are trying to engender debate. The ones that I am having trouble now are the Friendster type blog which could have been a e-mail.

I was reading Michael Winter’s blog – not only because he drinks at the Ship Inn – but because he was a writer and it was set up to have him convey his feelings during the book tour for THE
Reading it though – I haven’t read the book yet – was interesting as there was a style that came from the entries a style that although I didn’t know it as I hadn’t read his first book THIS ALL HAPPENED, was the style of the novel. This brought up the question what is destined for the blog and what for his future novel. Were these notes. He did seem to be working through styles in them.

From a Newfoundland lit link I found two other writers who while are still making entries they BIG WHY. The tour is over he is teaching in Toronto and the blog didn’t officially end – should check it out to see if it has strarted again – but petered out.
seem to be more about the promotion of their writing and saying hello to all their friends who happened to show up at book signings.

I am not saying that these should die but if circulation were one of the ways of keeping a blog alive they would be gone.

Personally I like solipsism coupled with an awareness around one – the constant question “how does one fit in.”

Making the universal personal, I wonder about YYT. It was set up as the postal system in Canada was horrific – it would take weeks to get a letter across the country even worse crossing international boundaries. My handwriting was/is terrible and I couldn’t risk the eyesight of what few friends I had.

I had done a hybrid when I was in Rio de Janeiro in 2001. spending the last hour the internet café was open around the corner from Pça Gal. Osório in Ipanema, blind carbon copying six people about the days exploits – and cursing when once I hit the plug turned off the computer and had to start over again.

I had time, late at night from IDEAS through BETWEEN THE COVERS. I would write down the days events then – and this has a lot to do with it. drive to the airport where at the time there was free wireless internet access to post the entries. I do believe that having to go someplace – the way I would to post a letter kept it going.

The blog would go into hiatus when I wasn’t on the rock. So in essence there would be anything between a fortnight’s to a month’s worth of entries then eleven months of silence.

It wasn’t needed I could use the post office.

Then something happened. I began to stretch the rules. Last winter I wrote – and bored people silly - about the preparations. It was stretched again as I then started writing whenever I was on the road, then when I wasn’t. The justification was other blogs of place where the place was being lost.

However, I was losing something else which hit me while reading pen and m. I was in the Bristol post office posting my books when Terry asked if I needed stamps.

No I didn’t but why not? Driving back to Peasants Pissoir I realised that I hadn’t bought stamps in two months. There were still some 20 odd stamps from the 40 I bought in September. I had missed the Gee’s Bend stamps, was only half way through the super heroes and barely touched the baseball ones.

Blogging being easier, had usurped my mailings. I cannot blame it all on blogging. It was things digital – I realised that while I was making a ton of snaps, I hadn’t been in the darkroom. It was all done digitally.

For some there is nothing wrong with this but for me I want that distance between the making and seeing the image. I am not so divested and this way the outing is brought back.

This semester – I still think in semester. I am only using film – hence no snaps with the entries.

As you can tell the quickness of response digitally adds verbosity, there was a time when I would have had to edit this down to the back of a 7x5 inch postcard. I liked sending the phlogs – photo logs – off. liked chatting to the people at the post office, like wondering when they would arrive and know that at least 30 people would see them – whether they would be read… I am almost sure that less people read the blog than the cards.

I liked the beginning of a subscription service that came by default. I liked getting responses in the post something that the writer had touched, it didn’t matter if it took forever to arrive from Honoka’a, Montpellier, or River Forest. It isn’t quite the same seeing a number after a name in the Safari tool bar, although I do like comment tag and I think that kept this going – that and the serendipitous comments from people who happened upon it.

I didn’t know what went where, how was I to distinguish my postcards, from the blog, from the book that I carry with me. If my real postings have suffered my notes to myself are even worse. One fountain pen broke without me knowing it the other ran out of ink. I cannot remember the last time my second and third fingers were ink stained.

I had forgot all of this and while I don’t expect anyone to be as backward looking as me and thus expect nothing in the post I am going to stop the until now invisible slide toward everything intangible and cyber and return to the hackneyed art challenged books and cards that would be at the mercy of the post and not Google. Flickr was the first to go, although I guess I shall have to add something soon so that I don’t lose the site.

This is returning – more or less - to its original idea – in use when travelling as a back up. If I have your address it things will arrive that have nothing to do with cable offers. This is in hibernation and – I hope – will wake up in January from Sullivan’s Loop in Pouch.



Besides Ubaldo and Ziquinho are back from repair.

too much time in airports

Look deal with it, I think about the Rock daily, I miss the Avalon – well except for certain parts just west of the capital - having the first sun in North America blind me in the morning, being bored with passing whales,icebergs, moose and caribou, pints to finish the day at the Duke, hating Route 20 to Pouch. I even miss the seclusion Bonne Bay and the emptiness of the Barrens, the Conception Trinity Bay loop, and can now even make a case for Corner Brook – but would be hard pressed. I want to revisit the pond ocean debate.

I am trying to make a quick trip up there so that 2006 will not pass without me having to set my watch to half past the hour - highly unlikely now.

I am hoping, planning to be up in Pouch in January – although mentioning this will probably jinx it – and while I do like trying to find real Newfoundlanders in the new terminal at Pearson’s, the first sighting of the island being darker than the Gulf and guessing what cities the lights below belong to, I want to drive.

While one can feel the distance flying, it is more or less due to the hassle of flying, not the feeling that one is going any place.

Driving in January is out of the question – I think this is that nasty thing called maturity talking, it cannot be that bad if one is patient. Ferries do run when they can tolerate the sea, and once through the Wreck House on the Trans Canada well it should be clear sailing. One needs time One cannot make time.

It could be due to the prodigal summer when while driving through Connecticut and Massachusetts was a pain, the anticipation of a world without “W”, the emptying out of people, and the symbols of safe harbour – Irving Mainways and Tim Horton’s – rejuvenated the passage through Maine.

It could be the nostalgia over taking the annoyances – I now think that the best night on the main land was Fredericton – things that at the time were bothersome are now remembered at surreal.

Nostalgia taking over again – for I swore that I would never kill myself toting a 10x8 with me anymore – but making books of the platinotypes for Amy and my evil twin is so soothing that I want to take something larger than medium format. I want to see what I have been making while there. Working digitally is not the same thing. There is no period of rest between tasks.

Mimicking the layout of the Parks House, I have this plan of turning Sullivan’s Loop into a hybrid work space, 19th century with a U.V. plate burner, and 21st with a scanner and an inkjet printer.

I want to reinitiate the slow photography movement. I want to travel around the bays and along the roads that go only to one place, Route 370 to Buchans, Route 360 to Harbour Breton making sure that I hit 361-365, 210 for the Burin Loop, 10-52 to St Shott’s. Am being realist and putting off 480 to Burgeo once again I’ll need a machine from T.J. I want to document the going not the destination as for the longest time the Republic was precisely that from trans-Atlantic flights to cable stations.

I want to do this in winter, as unlike down here people do not hide indoors, there are even fewer of them, I want the added land as ponds and other bodies of water freeze over, winters on the side that I shall be aren’t as bad as those in the upper Midwest, and I won’t sweat as much with the equipment.

Even though John Gushue has used it for his blog the series is potentially called “…” as in its double meaning it sums up what I am trying to do.

Face it I cannot approach the province from a point of ignorance anymore. I am going with a plan.

On top of everything risking my job and possibly tenure status at the greatest art school of time thanks to our fearless leader who if there were one should win the Warren G. Harding award for effectiveness in his position, I want to make content rich beautiful images. (Now using the word “images” I am going to get an e-mail from a Tulane grad candidate).

This distance and rampant nostalgia is effecting my work for at one time I wanted to return and make a series on Mount Pearl, Paradise and Conception Bay South.

Planes don’t know how to deal with plate film. They see sealed boxes and want to open them. They cannot comprehend film not in little metal canisters or at least in something. Even though it is sealed and passes through the x-rays they want to open those boxes.

Shipping them in the luggage is no longer an option. I don’t want to have to explain pyro chemistry. The only option is land based travel – remember that.

Remember talking to someone at the Deer Lake Irving when I travelled by DRL to Corner Brook who had made it up from the Boston States and was going to St. Anthony by coach. I know that I can take a train as far as Halifax and the DRL from Port-aux-Basques to the Avalon, but Halifax to North Sydney…

The series of rants started when I did some research. Three trains to Halifax – Chicago to Toronto, Toronto to Montréal, and Montréal Halifax which is only marginally faster than driving.

I long for the day when people get fed up with shoeless, liquid-less, remove everything from your pockets air travel and the return land/sea transport where the idea is to get someplace, the way the Empire Builder, Southern Crescent and Flying Scotsman did. I can negotiate planes, and feel so grown up when I do but I prefer the pent-up anticipation with the little milestones moving more slowly.

Finishing this rant, I know that this will have to be modified to turn it from a pipe dream. Another reason I like the Rock is the risks that I take, being where it is one has to commit, I just have to determine what of the above is necessity – being there - and what can be modified – everything else.

Even though I used the single trip ticket on the light rail stretching the idea of “single trip” a bit, I am still at Thurgood Marshall Airport with two hours to spare. Security didn’t even help, no unmanageable Midway type queues, no one yelling out orders, only two people in front of me. The TSA worker who went through my bags even give me tips. This time it was the film in the film shield bag. No one had to o.k. my contact lens fluid. I have even taken the time to decide where I am going to have lunch – pad thai and a couple of spring rolls – actually hot and sour soup they don’t have spring rolls - but I was thinking a burrito, by passed the three bookshops.

This wouldn’t be bad if I could pull a Winogrand and leave the bag someplace and make snaps, but I keep hearing the warnings.

I wanted to do a couple of kamikaze runs to my uncle and M. but I was trying to be dutiful and help my mum unpack a bit.

Then a moment of lucidity, and I realised that the light rail passes North Linthicum, where she parks, and since one sometimes – well never from Mount Washington - has to transfer to get to the airport I could do it there.

For some reason I got down at the Yards, thinking a doughnut but got a pumpkin cream cheese muffin which I didn’t dare eat on the light rail as getting down the driver admonished “NO EATING!!!”

Basking in the early morning sun outside the yards, I had my muffin while watching people –very few for a rush hour more cars than people the trains were empty.

A nervous moment as a fare checker got down from the northbound train and crossed the track to my side. Waited an extra train.

A slight panic at North Linthicum as the lot was fuller than expected and there was the possibility of her taking a long weekend. Systemically walked the rows found it and still had time to make a few snaps before the next train.

Now the wait pacing myself

Leaving the condo someone asked if I were driving back.
-No I have to work to-morrow.

But, leaving at 8am, twelve hour drive, am in Peasants Pissoir at 7pm. Flying leave at 8am – car to light rail to plane to Orange Line to Brown Line to Red Line to Purple Line to Metra to car will be back in Wisconsin at 6pm.

milford mill

after getting up on the m-3 that moved from its spot closing the door before i could get in to a spot ten feet away, i notice two men and a woman leave the metro station.

they look around and since it is raining i think that they are heading to the shelter but wonder why they are not getting on this bus.

a minute later a transit cop - known for ticketing people eating on the trains - looks about then heads in the same direction.

one man heads toward her, trying to deflect her. she keeps going.

the woman comes from behind a concrete outbuilding picking up her now ground soaked jacket.

a few seconds later the other man comes out sheepishly looking down at his crouch from a hidden passage way.

the transit cop collects their drivers licence and leads the three back into the station.

i then realised that at least they separated into a men's and women's "toilets" when the need arose.

reisterstown plaza

even though the train is nearly empty - the only other people are sitting behind me - a man sits beside me and cranes his neck to see out the window.

the people behind me smirk

cherry hill - charm city riddle

man behind me with the sniffles
cold or cocaine.

linthicum

Although it is 55 degrees, there is a smell of winter on the light rail.
Windows closed, wool stored since last year worn again.

My four ounce bottle of contact lens solution is determined not a threat.

The anticipation is always worse than the actual event and even though now there are three queues to stand in going through security and Midway is a mess, I was in the “secure” area looking for coffee in 15 minutes.

What makes it hateful is the lack of fore thought. Halfway down the queue there is a man yelling something and gesturing to people to join another queue. I am one of the many who head to him only to hear that if we have liquids to get back into the queue that we are in.

It seems that this was the liquid free area and all the rest had to have our liquids looked at, our boarding passes stamped and told to place them in a separate bin going through x-rays.

It seems that everyone in front of me is a candidate for the next model programme as gallon baggies of make-up are being shown. I feel embarrassed about the 4 ounce – actually 3,5 ounces but still over the limit – bottle of lens solution.

So now I am balancing, boarding pass, i.d., bags, computer, shoes, and a baggie of liquid as I make my way to the Valhalla of the boarding area.

Needless to say nothing was checked, they glance at my boarding pass much less the scribble and officious stamp that would have made any petty bureaucrat of the Costa e Silva years in Brasil envious.

But I do feel safe – if I ignore that bloke beside me with his bottled water in the liquid free zone between security and the gate.

So I am flying out to Baltimore to-morrow. Noon flight Southwest A Airlines out of Midway. It means that I have to get up at 5AM. I have to get up at that time as the commuter train that heads into Chicago leaves at six, I then will have to transfer over to the Orange Line. This will get me in the security queue in plenty of time to get to the gate.

It is a two hour flight.

On the other end I’ll await the light rail from Marshall Airport change to the metro at Lexington Market then to the M-3 at Old Court Road.

I hate flying. I am not afraid of flying. I hate flying. It isn’t all the travel to fly I could have paid more and flown out of Milwaukee giving me a couple of hours more sleep – my thriftiness showing through again. After all if I lived along the Great Northern, down the Burin or in Burgeo more time would be spent getting to the terminal than on the plane. It is what the Airlines control that make it so haeful.

This isn’t helped by the Hamilton-Paterson piece in the Granta devoted to travel in which he mentions that Planes are not a green way to travel and that airlines infantasise the passengers.

It is not only that I don’t buy the fact that the world is safer because I take off my shoes, that keeping my mouthwash to under 3 oz will assure me arriving at my destination.

It is the clinging to primitivism that has me anxious whenever I have to fly. My clinging to film as my recording preference has me worrying the closer I get to the check point. Even though I use lead bags – and wonder why no one wonders what is in them – empty my cameras and try to make things go as easily as possible. I am never sure until I can see the results of the trip that nothing was damaged.

It is U.S. security’s suspicion that touching the bag in the process of examining it, will somehow taint the results has me cringing when they pick up my bag and I see my cameras edging their way out of their compartments. Asking them to be careful only aggravates the situation. That isn’t true in smaller airports people are great it is the self important ones where one encounters all the problems.

Unfortunately there is no other option. Outside if the east coast, trains are more ground based cruises – more important to be going than to actually going anywhere why else would one see cars passing the train when a railway parallels a road.

Coaches, while faster than trains, cost more than flying.

So I give up to my fate, try to pack well remember to strip as snake my way through the queue – belt off, watch off, keys and coins in courier bag, remember to pick up laptop, try to keep my eye on my possessions as they pass through the machine while I have to wait for the person who forgot about his telephone, his keys and what ever else he ignored. Watch attempting not to lunge as they almost drop a camera, as they make sure they searched every hidden pockets knowing that the end there is a cold soggy pizza to be had or an overpriced piece of fruit to fortify myself on the food free flight.

alzhemers nation

anyone else find it ironic that on the same week that congress passed a law which, in essence, denies all rights of detainees access to a fair trial, Iva Toguri - whose mother died in a japanese internment – read concentration - camp in california and who was prosecuted for treason for being toyko rose based on the lying testimony of two witnesses coached by the government and was imprisoned for six years - died?

mad city

My over dependence on the sun has me conflicted on my days off. Monday I spent the day confirming my neighbours’ fears about me as I made platinotypes on the front lawn – moving the green plastic Adirondack chair to be in the sunny spots during the day.

I wanted to be out and about but was enjoying the relatively productive day as soon as the sun appeared sometime after 9AM. It was a bit frustrating when it started to cloud over and I had to guess compensate but all in all a great day.

So Tuesday, I had to decide whether I continue to hang around peasants pissoir or head out. I had planned on Madison for sometime and although I wanted to finish the project. I had to get our of the safeness of staying around the house.

Simply being out changed my demeanour. There is a well worn track to Madison via Janesville but thinking that I had plenty of time, decided to take the slower route through – well around Whitewater, the Fort and Cambridge. I even modified that by taking county trunk O through Heart Prairie.

Places to stop when the days become even shorter and the outings closer to home.

Did stop outside Cambridge - turned around I saw a small ballpark by a bowling alley in State Road 12 – made some snaps. The owner came out – curious – chatted about the mini replica of Fenway and the Green Monster in London - he scoffs it is used only once a year - and found out that this was a whiffle ball park.

Was determined not to go to the east side and the usual places – kicked myself for not bringing the bike – but I knew that turning back to get it would have had me rushing. Parked along Monona Bay and headed through Brittingham Park to Vilas.

You can have San Fran, being out and about in Madison is my tonic. People are actually visible on the streets, I worry more about the bike lanes than the cars. Where in Chicago it doesn’t matter what street I walk down as they are all the same. At each corner in Vilas I would fret on which way to go knowing full well than something would not be seen.

Chose the alleys – real alleys some not paved not cement blocked fortressed back gardens. Property delineated by shrubbery. Where in Chicago status is conferred by how many German engineered machines you have in the garage, here it was the quirks. Whereas in Chicago concrete seems to be the city mineral, in Madison, there were more bird feeders per house than I have seen anywhere this side of Britain.

The day passed with me zigzagging to Monroe Street. Stopped in to see what type of art was up at Edgewood College and entered without being stripped searched. More wanderings to Regent Street trying not to walk on the bike path.

General paranoia and fear of others is general trust and acceptance. Haven’t gone far but have made a far amount of snaps without falling into the rampant urban formalism that occurred in Balamer and San Fran. I was making snaps of things and situations. Neighbourhoods out commercial streets – Monroe to Regent back, noticed lofts beginning to take over by WORT but was more upset that the launderette had closed, a sure sign of gentrification.

A large Chai at Zoma in Atwood out in the back garden looking at the community gardens before choosing a different way back, thinking that I have fortified myself for the welcoming nurturing atmosphere of the greatest art school in the history of humankind.

My ex professor on whom I trained my secretive mailing runs when he lived in Beloit – the big O – says Balamer is good for my work wonder what he’d say about Madison.

noticed...

at the security desk
person– I guess that my i.d. has expired
security guard – are you an alum?
-yes
-go ahead

that welcoming feeling...

the thursday ritual

What’s the problem here

In the Sunday New York Times Style magazine on travel there is Sofia Coppola's Paris. I pass over it. In the newsprint travel section a shorter article on the Cerrados. I look up Cerrados as I did when there was an article on Casa de Areia filed in the Lençoís in Maranhão.

There is an article on food in Lucca Italy in Travel. In the book review, A LAND GONE LONESOME - an inland voyage along the Yukon River by Dan O’Neill I race to addall.com to see its price.

I cannot tell if I choose the more remote places due to curiosity or my disdain of those who champion the more well known ones.

We head down to Columbia College, Amy and me, to listen to Tim Davis talk. Want to make the effort to go to their lectures again. It brings back memories of my time there. I want to see who still goes from Columbia.

While the area is gentrifying quickly due mainly to Columbia and the other colleges just north of it, it still can be a bit raw, but even so there are no blockades at the Michigan Avenue entrance, nor the Harrison Street one. There is a lone security guard well beyond the lift, the foyer is teeming with students and non students alike. We walk by and head into the auditorium. I find my seat then head up to the second floor to the toilet before the lecture.

After the lecture we all wander over to the gallery to have some of the wine and cheese before heading out.

Back over at THE School facing the park, around the corner from where Daley is dumping money for beautification of the lakefront, the security guard wants me to scan my I.D. as I pass through the barrier before entering nearly deserted building.

Belgium, Denmark, Luxemburg and Beyond

I had planned to leave at 7:30 it was 8:30 but I wasn’t going to let that bother me. I was not in a rush. I had plenty of time. I wasn’t going to leave things out.

T.B was holding court at Alterra as I was picking up my coffee for the week. I nodded.

-Hey…you.

Was back on the road before I was forced to exchange pleasantries or enter his little fiefdom. Traffic was fine, I knew that I had to get out of the boring parts – problem with heading north out of Milwaukee – it is only I-43 tended to try to ignore everything until Sheboygan when I needed a coffee but wasn’t going to the Starbucks.

I can make it to Manitowoc.

Pressing my luck with the great outing to Silver Lake and actually photographing things that I had planned. I thought I would combine two outings by photographing in the towns we speed through trying to make it to Door County for breakfast at the sister Bay café.
I would actually stop in Algoma, I would pull off the road when the fancy hit. I brought along Joãozão – it will be a loss when that camera finally gives up.

I also wanted to see work of some students at UWGB and since I was heading that way I could sneak something into Stephen Perkins’s box in De Pere. Since I was heading up via Manitowoc I could also sneak by and drop off something at John and Julie’s. I’d make it a day of dump and runs.

Weather was so good that I hated being in the machine. Windows open and seemed to be doing well time wise.

Stopped at the Culture Café for a large dark roast and chatted with the owner and some locals for a bit. Seemed like he wanted to sell the place and move somewhere where there wasn’t a Wal-Mart. Talked about homogenisation of the country – without looking at the city limits sign you could be anywhere. Both picked remote locations we would like to see and hang out.

I was somewhat surprised at my lucidity and my lack of wanting to make time, usually I must get away from these chats – even though I like them - as I have a long way to go. It could have been the lady in Silver Lake but I was not in a hurry at all and like hanging about to chat. This was mirroring the outings of Gros Morne residency. Headed out to the machine to get Joãozão to make a snap of him and was on my way.

The dump and run in De Pere was a slam-dunk, as I knew he wasn’t at home and I had done it enough that I had it down pat. Year of this sort of activity with the big O in Beloit trained me well.

The show at UWGB was a mixed bag, smaller than I thought work all over the place, varying quality, but knew three people in it. Would have a look then head on to make snaps, walking slowly by Perkins’s office when I leave for while I know what he looks like he has no idea of what I look like.

I liked it like this. My anonymity meant that I could possibly be seen dropping things off but not be caught. It meant that while the correspondence started out with him having the upper hand, I now had it as I would/could drive up drop off and leave. I simply at times want to test fate but knowing that if I become known the whole exercise would change.

There was a mistake in the show – an image was mislabelled. My plan changed, I would go to his office – the door was open – knock and state that there was a mis-labelled print in the gallery.

Went to the bog to gather courage but when I came out his assistant was in the office and spending forever with some problem she was having.

Now I was getting antsy, I saw time passing my day out and about shortening, me panicking and racing back. I gave myself fifteen minutes waiting time.

Well 20

Well 25

I was going to leave when I heard that they both were going to leave to check on something together.

An even better plan sprung to mind.

As they left the office…
-Excuse me I have to get back to Peasants Pissoir – I said shaking his hand – but there is a print mislabelled in the show, it says Polaroid Pinhole when it uses conventional film.
-Oh, oh thank you as he walks on and I walk in the opposite direction.

I reach the end of the hall when
-Excuse me
I slow and turn around
-What is your name?
-You don’t want to know. I round corner and disappear.

Out in the car park relishing the time it took to realise who I was, I headed east toward Luxemburg, passing Denmark on my way to Algoma.

Still quite pleased with myself but this time for noticing things along the road and actually stopping and at times making a u turn and heading back. Bright early afternoon sun, remarked to my self when the temp gets to about 10-15C I really start to work.

Parked at the lake but was more interested in the village, went for the usual suspects, areas between houses, the football/baseball stadium like the horseshoe pitch complex, taverns, motels.

Again what a difference being above the tension line meant, the one cop and me crossed paths many time but he didn’t bother to get out. Made a strange pattern walking the town and spent more time that I thought I would meaning that I wouldn’t be able to take in Kewanee – nice temperature but shorter light hours. The trip south was via the back roads that I usually don’t take when we are racing to and from D.C. this was mainly for the drive as it was too dark to make any snaps. It was reconnaissance for the next time.
Wanted a decent place to eat found a Cousin Submarine in a pathetic mall attached to the K-Mart. Stopped once again at the Culture Café

-Hey you’re back also.
Ordered a lattè we made fun of someone who wanted decaf skim mocha. He mentioned that I wasn’t making photographs this. Took him up on his dare and got out Joãozão this time photographing the other person in the place. I was shown pictures of a cat his dog had mauled – it was sitting quietly outside the shop. Saw that he had sandwiches and vegetarian fare but he was closing soon had to be somewhere else.

He asked what I thought of Governor Doyle. He isn’t Mark Green was the only good thing I could say, a discussion of Wisconsin politics and a mention that he asked as the Doyle campaign was wanting to use his café for a stop in Manitowoc. He was on the verge of okaying it.

-But if it were Green? Hell no, I’d tell him to fuck off

Misjudged the remaining gasoline and the distance remaining meaning that I had to buy outrageously expensive gasoline in Whitefolks Bay.

An outing of old 380 miles and I wasn’t even winded.

the new/old normal

Coming back from a new pizzeria in Wheatland – Luisa’s, which is in a hollow that speeding fibs pass when racing to Lake Geneva – we were always interested and for once we decided to try it out.

Didn’t buy the owner yelling to the hostess to give us the best table in the house (non-smoking) as it was in the middle of the room in front of the big screen TV. I would have preferred the second best – the empty one by the window. But liked the place it was a bar with a restaurant attached where around here we get eateries pretending to be restaurants or take-aways with a couple of tables in a strip mall. It was a place that locals hang out in again endangering the roads of western Kenosha County when they have to drive home. It had things that would bring me back to make snaps both formally and for the street furniture– horseshoe pitch, playground.

Driving nostalgically back through the lake district it was too dark to make any snaps so I made my usual note to myself to return to make some snaps.

Surprisingly I did just that to-day. After the usual stop at the post office in Bristol, I headed over to Silver Lake not ready to photograph Luisa’s – still in big city mode where suspicion abounds and since they lived above the place, didn’t want to have to explain why I liked their scoreboards. Headed to a forlorn playground with a basketball court in the middle of a field and the most frightening duck rides I have ever seen.

There is a reason why – while the most mendacious of us prefer cities that have more people than most provinces – I like places that would fit into St. Pat’s ball park. Left the machine open while wandering along the river, people who passed did the Wisconsin version of the Newfoundland nod – it involves waving.

I slowed down. Utility people said hello, and nice day and didn’t worry about the safety of their electric lines. I could stop every place simply pull over get out and wander.

Did it three times. Stopping in front of taverns – the Riverview and Uncle George’s for the buildings but for how things were arranged around them. Another basketball court, again in a strange place – miss a shot and get it by the passing delivery van.

While wandering downtown Silver Lake by default, I kept going a bit further when something caught my eye, was stopped by a lady who was out getting her post.

She was curious and oddly proud that someone would walk about here town. She had lived there 52 years taught at Westosha Central and Wheatland Middle told me the history of every building in the village. She sits on front porches for their sociability disdains back decks. In talking about Silver Lake she was telling the history of most small towns – post office now out of town, bank closed – now a restaurant, where there were two grocers now she has to go to Paddock Lake. A group still meet in the morning at the Citgo for coffee before heading off to start the day. People waved as they passed, she’d crane her neck to see who was in the machine.

Finding people who have time made me have time. At the beginning of the chat, I was trying to check my watch – like I had things to do – but an hour later when she had to go back and feed her cat, I had the sense of mind to make a snap of her as if I were in the true north. Acclimatised now, I wish that I had stopped at Luisa’s.

Yet another reason why being away from the rock for long periods of time is not good for my reasoning.

I just replaced my courier bag – which I should have done three years ago when I lost Carol’s Mont Blanc fountain pen while walking the East Coast Trail to Cape St. Francis. Now I fear that all the technology i carry in it will plummet to the ground.

It is being custom made and my colour choice is that of the Republic of Newfoundland – pink white and green.

Up there it will be seen as love for the intangibles of the province – they already know I am crazy. Down here though, I fear that I will be perceived as yet another aging metrosexual.

What was the last line of ANIMAL FARM?

Am on my way to the train pretty pleased with myself after buying some inkjet paper from Calumet – and drooling irrationally over the used Leica M6 in the case. I still fill that to be a real photographer one has to have one. Irrational as I had just walked from the school and chickening out on my own manner of working for the term, I brought along Joaõzaõ, instead of the leiquina. Walking from the greatest art school in the history of humankind to the shop I kick myself for not following my own rules as I see many potential snaps – if I could get through all the stuff in my bag and slow down to make them as I am afraid that I’ll miss the train.

Again I had misjudged the time, things went more smoothly than I had expected and now I could dig in the now even fuller bag and make snaps along the way.

I see a giant patio brolly stuck through a wall with the back half bent so that a worker can have a place get out of the sun.

I see the worker – a flagger directing traffic for a construction site – we exchange weather greetings I make the snap – actually two – and am on my way.

-who are you with?
-huh? As I turn to see two men coming toward me
-who are you with.
-what do you mean?
-you have a camera.
-what’s your hobby
-my hobby isn’t photographing electric substations, we can call the police and have for this.
this may be what they call maturity but I didn’t get snide, took a deep breath and …
-you see that brolly there I wanted… I walked over to where I stood, held up my camera and beckoned them over. Holding up Joãoão so they could look through it,
I made this snap. when I did this I thought is boring so I came around to her – ordered them to where I was – and made this snap.
One man – the silent one - was smirking.
-by the way although “things have changed” the street is still public and I am allowed to do what I wish.
-yes but with terrorism.
-ok I am terrorist. I want an image of this do I take a camera out as big as this? I walk by and make a snap with my mobile camera phone. I realise that you cannot determine what and who is a terrorist why anyone of us three can be one so some sort of …. – I couldn’t think of the word profile – assessment is made. But your fear and suspicion effects everything. I spoke to that woman – pointing to the flagger – when I am up north in Canada I would have made her snap as I make a snap of everyone I speak to up there. here I don’t as everyone is wary…you can see everyone as a terrorist and not function as you walk the world in doubt or you can realise that most people aren’t have some trust and continue to have a pretty normal life. I choose the second as it is too exhausting to suspect everyone.

- i cannot get my students to venture outdoors to see the surreal in the real world because of incidents like this. They anticipate this and prefer to stay in the studio.

They leave but I yell across so if you fish I can ask where you sell them?
-no I fix cars
-so what garage do you work at?
-I don’t I don’t want money to ruin it.
-me too.

Leaving I felt that the terrorist tipping point has been crossed. the country really is on a downward spiral. People approach others not out of curiosity – but suspicion. Logic is no longer in the equation. The two forgot that the newly built substation was built by a yachting club, and a commuter train runs behind it.

Realising the last time that I was stopped when photographing in the streets was in the Soviet Union – well no we were told not to photograph bridges and airports. The last time was in Rio de Janeiro, during the dictatorship when I leaned a military installation to photograph Santos Dumont Airport for a paper on modern Brasilian architecture.

To paraphrase Pogo "I have seen the enemy and they is us."

after four days of rain...

On the Metra I see the allotments at Peterson and Ridge are becoming quite strange.

Driving up Clark I find a part of Chicago where façade ennui hasn’t taken over.

I have to help someone set up their website in Andersonville a place where one enters amon goeth like but leaves puravida.

An outing of nostalgia, where I don’t hold out as much hope as the walk through Bucktown for while I won’t run into any urban pioneers afraid that I’ll take their basketball hoop, the area isn’t renown for serendipity - streets too straight, alleys too neat, shops too tidy. It is more out of curiosity and to walk Clark Street north of Devon that I go at all.

Going against what went well in the Bucktown outing, I take Joãozão. Don’t expect to photograph anything moving. Andersonville seems more rural than urban.

The first half of the walk – up Ravenswood from the station - was as predicted, a walk nothing really caught my fancy to stop, wondered what would have been if I had taken a more residential street. The alleys seemed promising due to their age more than the mismatching of styles. I was just barely on time so I kept moving.

Then I forgot where Hermitage was, west of the tracks or east – thought east but when I saw Ashland I began to panic. This doesn’t happen to me, I don’t get lost in a grid in my old neighbourhood.

Headed west of the tracks and again as I approached Damen knew it couldn’t be this way. The address would put it in the middle of a cemetery.

Asked bike messagers
-Is Hermitage this way?
-Armitage is four miles south
-not Armitage, Hermitage
-don’t know we are from the south side.

I try again this time some workers
-Is Hermitage this way?
-Armitage? And he begins to point.
-no Hermitage
-kak?
-Hermitage kak ermitage
-not Armitage.
-ah don’t know.

Finally found a couple of cops doing what a couple of cops do talking to each other from their respective machines and asked.

The supposed real purpose of the trip was a washout. Incompatibility problems P.C v. Mac. My programmes wouldn’t work etc. To save face showed her how to use blogger toshare images.

After a respectable amount of time I left and continued my trek northward to the Rogers Park station.

This part of the journey lived somewhat up to what I was looking for. The allotments were more than I expected. I wanted a snap of this deck set up where to people had left out two deck chairs a table and a couple of brollys, to overlook the vegs, there was even a bit of indoor outdoor carpeting.

Being there however I was more intrigued by the differentiation of the spaces, and how paths were made to get to the allotments that were in the back near the railway embankment – it seems this is the place carpeting goes to die. Two Asian women were working in theirs, one picking some vegs, the other watering, both in their world ignoring everything outside.

I tried to photograph, the irrigation systems and what people had left to make their place like their garden. Was astounded by the trust as with the patio set they could be taken at anytime – but this may be due to my world’s greatest art school cynicism where trust only goes as far as making sure you scan your i.d. when you enter the building.

Clark Street was too crowded and things already open. Driving it was on a Sunday when the shops were closed and I didn’t have to bother with people wondering why I was aiming Joãozão at their building. The image that stood out was the made bed in a loading dock with the owner’s possessions in a shopping cart nearby a block from the police station. Some thing was made of the trip as at Lunt with time to spare I started to explore alleys again and made images that while formal dealt with the social also – hoops, excavated lots, shopping carts filled with possessions, closed taverns, toys, barking dogs.

-thanks so much i couldn't have done it without you. what do you want the most?
-time
i am given cash.

60622

A rainy wander through Bucktown as I am to hand over the negs of the wedding from the camera that wasn't dropped in San Fran. Train to Clybourn – hoping – can that be right? – to see the encampment on the platform that was there the last time i detrained here.

Ignoring everything I wrote not a month ago I take a 35mm, thinking that it will be perfect for documenting the plethora of preggers pushing prams at Milk and Honey – pure fantasy on my part. Am a bit edgy as I didn’t bring anything but the 35 – I am going Luddite until January forsaking digital picture making devices. It isn’t so much raining but heavy misting but it is one of those rare moments when I am lucid and while I start with the usual fall back of looking for the formal, it ends pretty quickly as once again I head for alleys that I haven’t been down.

The snaps seem to be heading back to the essence of people not there with a little social context thrown in. The usual suspects show up in the imagery – basketball hoops, chairs, street furniture even an Atget like broom. At times I forget that it is raining and aim the camera skyward to photograph some trapped balloons – imaging the house they were at they were probably trying to escape. Wipe the lens with my shirt – forgetting that it isn’t a Holga.

Typical Chicago street theatre – best example was a couple on bikes crossing against the lights – make that ignoring them – upset when a lorry driver almost runs into them and gives them the finger. Hear them bitching as they head up Wood Street
-The man should just chill out (do people even say “chill out” anymore)?

As usual I gawk so much – this time only under the eye of a Latino worker wondering – to himself – why I am photographing in the rain – that I have to race to make the meeting.

An attempt as being social at lunch. The place lives up to my stereotype as the young and visibly knocked up come in to place their orders am pretty proud as I seem to be handling the day well until we go our separate ways and I have the choice of making a train in 15 minutes or waiting an extra 60. While I could be wandering and snapping the urge to flee Chicago takes over and I walk decidedly toward the station trying to ignore all these situations determined to slow me down.

A shorthanded meeting with an ex student at the Ashland and Cortland bus shelter.
-Hey, still living in Lincoln Park
-Yep. Still teaching at the tute?
-Yep.
-Gotta catch a train.
-Gotta wait for a bus.
-Heard from Branko.
-No but there is his website.
-Still have yours.
-Yep. You?
-Yep.

Even though I knew that it was coming, Enright waxing nostalgic about his summer sojourn on the Bonavista, opening the new season of the Sunday Edition, it didn’t help my more than a year absence from the rock.

I had already started a strategy that will help me through the term. The various stimuli range from the overtly sentimental – listening to The Ode, television adverts for the province and the Nissan Bonavista on youtube to heading over to the Can Lit section of my bookshelf and playing book tag.

It started with Michael Winter’s This All Happened, and was going to continue with the new Lisa Moore novel but am going to continue with Winter's The Big Why before moving on through the Ship Inn writer’s mafia.

I do intend to continue with Moore, Michael Crummey and end up with Wayne Johnston’s latest – hope it is better than the Navigator of New York – hoping that it will be out in paperback by then. By then new links will appear and I’ll be carried on until he experience is firsthand.

The habit doesn’t break me – thanks to addall.com, the only rules are that I don’t buy hardcover as they are too heavy and awkward to carry with all the new technologies that I have to tote back and forth to school.

I only buy the next book when I have finished the one that I am reading.

The last is no books set in pre confederation Newfoundland – which may kill the Johnston book.

without comment

Needing to get away from things cyber, I bike to the lake to prepare for upcoming classes – like driving, biking gives me time to think.

School is in, it is after Labour Day, the beaches along the lake are empty. I get to choose the bench with the best view.

As I slow at a promising picnic table, a cargo shorted, button downed shirted, sandaled man appears at a particularly messy table talking to himself. He has one of those mobile earphone jobbies. He seems as startled as me as he walks back to his van.

I choose a table nearby – stare out at the lake and begin.

He seems at a loss as he returns with his Schwinn still talking on his mobile. He glances over, he rests his bike on “his” table, looks again and heads to the beach.

He paces between breakwaters, 100 metres, every time he turns around, he acts as if he wants to be at ease, he ventures into the lake then seeming to feel that this is not the manner of a mobile toting man comes out. His shirt is unbuttoned and he stops talking but starts again even louder. He ventures into the lake again, shivers and leaves this time still on the phone. His sandals come off and walks the tide line, on the return trip, he leaves his sandals. His shirt dangles from his shoulder GQ style, on the return, it has disappeared. He walks into the lake again this time resolved that he will never reconcile being away from his desk and at ease continuing his conversation on the phone.

The shortening days catch up as I race the light to make one more platinotype. In July I could have still started one at 5PM I move the frame further and further away until it is out on the state road where it catches the attention of passers by – and works a conversation starter but not as a effective means of exposure as the setting sun wins.

A friend of mine, in a post card, rails against the art world saying that it is more and more inward looking excluding the rest of the world.

While I am in agreement, I think he is hyperbolising a bit as I scan my I.D. to be allowed entry to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

I have a pint (US) of Smithwicks at Brehon’s hoping that my alcoholic Madeleine will transport me to the Duke.

I blame its failure on the idea that the beer doesn’t travel well.

One year away, Montréal bagels from the Georgetown Bakery have become delicious in theory.

OCEAN BEACH

Not the bus the Who were thinking of.

Contrasting inclinations of what to do on the last day. we were going to rest the legs but there were so many things we haven’t seen. Is this a time of winding down or making that last push.

My inclination is to make that last push. But first we had to prepare for the new regulations of airlines by posting all our liquids back to Peasants Pissoir. In San Fran it is easier to find an internet café –even in the Tenderloin – than a post office. Even the postal worker had problems.

That done, I was at a loss. The idea was to wander the Castro and the Mission districts but both of us were tiring of Market Street and the filth of Valencia that we gave up at Dubose. One can take so much filth.

We decided to head to the ocean one last time as it was a perfect day weather wise – around 12C.

One thing we liked are the non automated transfers where the drivers were giving us about three hours instead of 90 minutes. We headed back to the hotel, picked up our winter gear then waited for the Geary Bus to the Ocean.

While I was complaining about the residents being stand-offish, it seems that while waiting for the bus, we ran into one who had had a double espresso in every café in Nob Hill, she chatted away, where was everyone from, what were we waiting for, she was awaiting her hubby who was circling the block, welcome to the United States. We breathed a sigh of relief when the bus came.

We wish that we hadn’t as the bus could have been the George Orwell Down and Out in London and Paris Theme Bus from the rank odour that rushed out like so many commuters on a rush hour bus. It stank, stale air, unwashed clothing, it made me think longingly of Greyhound coaches as the air would be fresher. No one would open the windows as it was cold out. This couldn’t be blamed on the people of the Tenderloin as we caught it just west of Union Square.

The excuse for the walk was the usual sightseeing spots, Cliff House then along the ocean to see the Golden Gate Bridge again – actually I just wanted to wander and getting down the giant windmill interested me more than the ocean.

Finally got the giant camera, didn’t see where it was a camera except for the camera obscura aspect until some other tourist after realising it was closed – the boarded windows nor the padlocks weren’t clues – pretended to turn a nob while her boyfriend photographed her.

Too many people about. Wanted to photograph around the Sutro Baths but people were climbing all over them. A few surreal images, a bit of documenting the graffiti, and a walk to see the Golden Gate.

Until we saw that the path was closed. This proved to be the theme of the day. Both of us thirsty we searched out a café like the ones we found south of the park but found ourselves in a rampantly residential area. Walking toward the city and not wanting to be fooled again. We determined to walk only so far then take the bus – Carol had a hankering for some take-away from Greens for one last time.

One last chance to see the Golden Gate as we tried before hopping on the California bus to see it from China Beach failed.

I didn’t want takeaway – even from Greens, I wanted something Asian – I thought so I left Carol at the hotel and headed out on the same transfer to find some food. Walked the Tenderloin but having a flash of déja vu or my modus operandi in Baltimore, headed down to the MUNI to see the ocean one more time down by the zoo at the end of the L line. Heading out I saw how most of the MUNI rail – J.K.M - had a terminus at Balboa Park. I thought that I would – all on the transfer – head over on one line the M then back on another the J. When done I would ridden all the MUNI Rail lines.

Liked West Portal, like Taraval got down at 48th and Stoat and walked to the ocean in the dusk but first photographed the mini area of old motels in the area – without too much success as I tilted the camera a bit much. Arriving at the beach I made some standard snaps when the sun came out from under the clouds and set in the ocean. Events like this make wandering worth it. Some more snaps of restaurants, the offices of the motor inns and façades before hopping back on the L Line which – luckily for me not for anyone else - was the K and was heading to Balboa Park.

Too dark to do anything – meaning photograph – so stared, got down at Balboa Park and waited the J to head back.

And waited, and waited, waited, saw everything else leave. An hour later – when they are to run ever 15 minutes – I saw a J at the station, waited for the driver to open the door.

Even though she saw me standing there, I must have been at the wrong spot as she drove off, ignoring me. Being in San Fran this long I didn’t expect her to open the door to explain, but I did expect a pointing to where the stop was. Raced beside the tram until I got to what I thought was the stop but I must have missed it by a millimetre as she pulled past then opened the door. No comment no remarks simply adhering to the Red Stripe Advert admonishing bus drivers for not being more humane.

The ride again showed me how compact the city was as I was heading down Church Street. Paralleling the area we had planned to walk. Wished that I had more time but it couldn’t have been a better ending.

Returned with no food – I find that I only eat when I am bored the reason I lost so much weight last summer – as Carol was picking up the phone to ring missing persons.

rest day

It is moving day, a sizeable chunk of it will be the move from the condo into the Adagio. Not the move so much but the wait until the room is ready.

We had resolved that to-day we would give our legs a rest, and not try anything that would remotely resemble the walk yesterday – there would be no time.

After coffee at the Gallery Café, the wait until being too bored to wait any more we phone the hotel and find that our room is ready. Walk the baggage over and start making calculations. If we can check in in 15 minutes we can make it to the ferry to Sausalito.

It was close. Threw the stuff into the room and raced down Geary Street to Market - where the distance was farther than I thought - and into the terminal with two minutes to spare. This took a great deal of personal discipline on my part as when I walk I tend to slow down and gawk a bit and lose the reason we were trying to make time.

I like ferries – again the idea of demarcation – but also a time of enforced quiet, one cannot walk across the bay. My favourite area was taken – the bow – and was a bit disappointed by the boat – in some areas more advanced than I expected - a café – in others less so, no prow to stand on while heading down the bay toward the Golden Gate.

We sat in the back where I tried to act my age – and not like the camera toting – photographer’s vested monopodded backwards baseball capped man – and sit quietly. I couldn’t, with restraint I had to peak around the front to see the bridge – the bay bridge still looks more impressive to me – and the Pacific and tried to figure out which of all those homes on the opposite shore was Sausalito.

I can see no reason for Sausalito. A row of rampantly touristy shops, I couldn’t find a place where the locals would shop. Walked out of town toward the Golden Gate then back, tried to hire a machine to see the Muir Woods to no avail – I am sure the rental agent couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to leave Sausalito. Walked back down the main street checked the ferry times still an hour to go. Amused myself by looking at fig trees, walking the pedestrian lanes behind the shops, photographing a basketball court, yeah right future NBA stars from here, and keeping away from the main drag.

Here again I ran across the unhelpfulness of the locals, the surly woman at the information booth would give only an answer to the question asked so one had to plan.

Wandering the main street again, saw a bus that headed back to downtown San Fran so back to the information booth.

-the bus…
-15 minutes before the hour – it is $2.00.
and she foisted a piece of paper on me.
Not exactly the correct information but what she assumed I was asking and thanks to her the day was saved. She was giving me information to the bridge to walk across it. Why not.

Clueless people: two.
Waiting for the bus there were two Japanese tourists who sat in the middle of a bench for four. An experiment, Carol sits down and I sit on the edge. No movement on their part whatsoever.

Surly People: two.
The bus arrives we get on and do what the paper says – pay $2.00 – tell the driver where we want to get off and sit down. The bus climbs the hill out of town, stops, he mumbles something, doesn’t open the door, and sets off over the bridge.

That couldn’t have been our stop it was only two minutes out of town we could have walked that and nearly did. that short ride isn’t two dollars worth.

Waiting for the tolls on the San Francisco side I go up and ask where the stop is.
-Could it be when I announced it back on the other side.
-You mean when you cleared your throat? Sorry that I am a bit hard of hearing.
Another woman pipes up
- I’ve had him before he is mean.
We get down on the San Fran side hurling some obscenities at him as a parting shot and try to decide what to do.
Obviously walk the bridge twice back over to Marin County and then back to catch a bus.

We have been lucky for weather it was clear, and warm. The bridge wasn’t enshrouded in fog. Again the walk should have assuaged my boundary lust – and there was a tinge when I saw the Marin County line on it - but nope – more formal images came, tried to deal with the lengthening shadows, tried to ignore the people. Made a note how out of tune I was with the rest as reading the paper the info woman gave us, we were walking on the bay side which is supposed to be the more interesting side when all I wanted to do was walk on the ocean side.

Surly people: three
Trying to get a bus to Fort Mason for Greens, we notice the bus that is supposed to go there pull up but the destination sign is different. I try to ask
- Get on get on
We do so only to find out from a rider that, no, this doesn’t go to the Fort but way out of our way to Daly City. We get down.

The bus ride frustrated me as I goes along the main road to the bridge that has all those nice non chain motor inns of the past. Wanted to get down.

Greens was the saving grace, the server polite and funny, the food great. I pigged out sorry that I had only one stomach to give to the meal.

I cannot understand – however - how a restaurant can call itself vegetarian and use cheese with rennet. It seems that the challenge would come from finding a rennet less Parmesan to incorporate in the dishes that use it. My ears perk up when certain ingredients are mentioned the table beside us was having something with the cheese. This came up while I was asking for olive oil for the bread. She wanted to know if I were a vegan.
-Living in Wisconsin? Hardly.


Walked back to the hotel down Van Ness so that I could marvel at more seedy motor inns and Carol could experience first hand the Tenderloin at night.

backhanded enlightenment

I was nonplussed by my reaction – or lack of it – upon seeing the Pacific. After all my raison d’être is significant lines of demarcation and coming upon them not having any enlightenment. It also seems – however – that I am constantly reminded of those other points – the bridge dividing New Hampshire from Maine, customs heading into New Brunswick – changing time, “it is noon 12:30 on the island or - for those - off island “nine o’clock a half hour later in Newfoundland. Even standing on the edge of the Atlantic I imagine the lands beyond – which way exactly is Eire, Greenland? Here, however, in Ocean Beach, I only thought of the sand, the objects on it, and the view along it. The let down of lack of revelation didn’t happen as the supposed significance never manifested itself.

I was surprised how I didn’t realise that the water was on the “wrong” side, I thought briefly of the next landfall being Asia but I didn’t strain to see Korea, China, Taiwan etc.

This feeling or lack of it pervaded the stay. I seem to think – because of how it is treated on television mainly – that the Pacific Time zone is different. It is ignored when mentioning the hours of programming – 9:oo eastern 8:00 central. The only time this happens is during Sunday televised football when it seems games start in the late morning. Here, however, there was none of this reference. I didn’t compare nor did I realise that when I was experiencing the day most of the country was finished with its. Here I thought about the rest of North America not at all.

a sunday stroll

To give the legs a rest we were heading out to the ocean, Carol had never seen the Pacific and I wanted to see if looking west over water would be the same as from Sally’s Cove.right brother I am going his way thanks.
The Gulf of St. Lawrence has the Pacific beat as it lived up to its name.

After getting down from the MUNI line along Judah and holding our breaths in the toilets, out to the water where some kites were flying, some people were fishing, a homeless person had stored his belongings and there were remnants of bonfires. Oh so bucolic.

The official walk was through Golden Gate Park back to UCSF. Walking parks aren’t things that I am interested in I prefer neighbourhoods. There are two things that I photograph things and street furniture and I find parks are lacking in both – especially parks that border on wilderness.

Ah but this is why one travels with someone. While she was looking at the potted and dried plants that grow wild out here, I was noticing San Fran’s not so hidden problem.

I went to photograph some things when I realised that I was photographing a homeless person’s encampment. It was discrete, neatly arranged, and the sort of thing one would pass thinking that a parks worker had missed something until I looked in and saw the sleeping bag and more valuable objects.

I photographed it. Being a cold-hearted bastard, the only thing I could think of was was Ubaldo and colour the right choice or should I go black and white and more rectangular. Nope colour it was, in homage to the Wizard of Oz in reverse and She’s Gotta Have it. Ran across two more encampments in the park one just around from a full picnic area another I couldn’t photograph as someone was in it. I want the belongings not the people as they are too loaded a subject matter and prone to value judgements. Without the people while the places were neat there was the hint that it was left.

This brought back the plight of the homeless in San Fran. They are everywhere and it seems people can ignore them the way the rich ignore the poor in say Mumbai. I noticed by simply acknowledging them was a start in making them feel human. They would thank us for simply saying sorry when they asked for money or trying to sell the local paper. Later on my own walking down to the Civic Centre MUNI station seeing a wheelchair bound man trying to make it up the hill, I offered help. When I started to push him up another homeless came.
-That’s all

I guess I would trouble me less if this were Baltimore where the place looks like it is barely surviving but as I have said this is San Francisco. Our hotel in the tenderloin was $300 a night and we had to walk pass places where people were waiting to get inside for the evening. Saw one valet at the corner of O’Farrell and Taylor outside a posh nightclub trying to chase one away.
-What do you want punk you son of a bitch!
-You know one can’t be here.

Left the park in an area that I prefer just south of the park, shops and cafés without the pretension of the areas closer to downtown.

The only chain was a Jamba Juice. We passed three cafés fought over where to eat and settled on Arizmendi Bakery for the pizza and breads, sat outside started up a conversation with two ladies who seemed to mimic what I was eating. Another reason why I like this area, outside of the nice run down nature of San Francisco south of the Park and closer to the ocean, people talk to you here and don’t seem so solipsistic. Until now the only ones who were decent were the help at the rehearsal dinner and the street people.

San Franciscans are not the friendliest people about this would become even more evident and they are self involved. Find the narrowest point any place and that is where they will stand – entryways, under construction, where halls narrow, they seem to congregate there.

There is a joke. Put two brits in a phone booth and they will never touch put to yanks in an aeroplane hanger and they will run into each other. I think you can add place a dozen San Franciscans in a hotel and they’ll all stand in the doorway.

Naturally I made a snap of the two women. Twice for Ubaldo in decided to jam, so Joãozão came to the rescue. I have come to the conclusion that he will be used until he finally falls apart in my hands as he is the preferred camera. The ideal note taker. I’ll miss the Plaubel when it’s gone but I’m not going to protect it.

It is never meant to be this way but after the snack we headed back into the park as I wanted to see Kezar Stadium. We found ourselves in Haight Street so walked to Asbury. This street should be allowed to die. Most people on it parents weren’t born when it was in it heyday and it legitimacy is brought into question when there is a Gap nearby. Nostalgic grime and decay is still grime and decay. It had the feel of a theme park. Sort of a hippie Williamsburg. Wondered if they had people dress up as hippies on week-ends and had sit in re-enactments.

Naturally an area that I wanted to photograph but too many people would need to come early when it was empty.

Then we noticed that we had walked the entire length of Haight Street and since we were just up Market at Powell. We walked back to Nob Hill as supper was being readied for the street people and they were beginning to congregate in various areas along Market.

Found another set of belongings but as I was preparing to make a snap, the pile moved and I put the camera down.

Back at the condo, Carol couldn’t go on but I wanted to walk Columbus Avenue. That was the idea but by myself I started to wander and was too far South of Columbus to pick it up and ended up walking through this utopiaville to the Embarcadero, where another group of street people were staking their claims for the evening. I wanted to photograph the empty encampments but didn’t know if they belonged to the people who were sitting nearby on benches.

Asked, it was ok with them it wasn’t their stuff, made a few snaps, one man came up soon after to sit by his stuff as he was afraid that I was going to take it. In sight of one encampment GQ guy and Cosmo girl were kissing before hopping into their beemer.

Walked back to Columbus Avenue and up it but it darkening quickly put away the real cameras and brought out the digital and made snaps of the tables outside of American Zoetrope – eat your heart out Ngolo – then for some reason all the places selling baseball caps.

Stood and stared at City Lights looked at the books in the window which – of course drew a crowd – see above. None of them knew about the bookshop, Ferlinghetti I don’t know oh Kerouac yeah I heard of him as they look at the books.

Back at the condo I realised that I had walked from Ocean to Bay across the city and that I hadn’t had anything to eat.

Chutneys or Shalamar Shalamar or Chutneys.

WHY CHICAGO SUCKS

At the dinner sitting at the "artist's" table, two things come up. What we do and where we are from.

The what we do is dealt with quickly, as Amy and I both are artists – I prefer photographer – and teach in the nation’s number one photography department at the world's greatest art establishment. We were seated at the table with Catherine Wagner and her partner. Who countered with
-Oh? Who’s there now? Joy’s gone, Barbara Crane’s retired, so has Ken, Fred's dead. Is Barbara de Genevieve still there? haven’t heard much about it lately.

So I guess the answer is a bunch of nobodies.

When it gets down to where are you from, people seem to feel that they have say “what a great city” when Chicago is mentioned. I don't mention Chicago. Amy said yeah. I said it sucks.

Ah lively debate.
Chicago sucks as it is over regulated. While I am no fan of San Fran – that later – at least the neighbourhoods are distinct. The shops along Fillmore are not like the shops along Haight nor along Judah. There aren’t teardowns in up and coming areas people rehab. I saw little of what is happening in any area that is surrounding the loop, the pulling down of a modest house for the building of the oversized fortress. Don’t know why this is not happening in San Fran but it makes for more interesting walks and a the feeling that new ground is being covered. Neighbourhoods like West Portal, Castro, or along Taraval Boulevard have shops that engage the surreal of the recent past rather than the urge to be oh so trendy – and failing. In a city a third the size of Chicago I found more places to hang out and have a non Starbucks coffee than in the city of big shoulders.

Both Chicago and San Fran are based on a grid but while it may be harder to find addresses in San Fran’s case they have managed to make the grid more interesting – see neighbourhoods above. Add to this the lanes and alleys stairs and cul-de-sacs and the place is rife for exploration. In Chicago is Division Street all that much different than North Avenue.

San Fran where property values are outrageous decided to keep the Presidio green, Chicago which had the same opportunity with the old marshalling yards east of the Loop and the South Loop turned it into Condoland.

Didn’t find in San Francisco a park built to the glory of an Il Duce like mayor which is closed for private parties more than it is open as Millennium Park is.

From downtown San Francisco, I can see the Marin headlands, Mount Tam where Breezer, Fisher et all started the mountain bike craze. From Ocean Beach I can see Half Moon Bay and – I think Stinson Beach.

From Chicago I can see Schaumburg and Gary.

Restaurant choices - anything like Greens or Millennium for the vegetarian in Chicago San Fran 3 x 0 Chicago. Organics abound. Not enough time to go into he choices of Indian, East Asian, West Asian, Mexican food. I would come back hungry as I couldn’t make a decision – Shalamar or Chutney. Chutney or Shalamar…

As for diversity…

But the art scene in Chicago… yeah but what do you do the second day. All the galleries can be seen in a decent weekend – pretty lame for the once second city. While San Fran may not be any better, it does have an excuse it being much smaller.

The polite fallback was Chicago is too worried about competing with New York City to let its traits shine.

To poorly paraphrase Gertrude Stein concerning traits, there is no there there.

first things first...

So let’s get this over with straight away. As the wedding ceremony is beginning, I place on camera around my neck to pick up another – so I think – but instead hear this great bang – don’t know how to convey the sound of reinforced plastic hitting a hardwood floor – and an oh shit as she is beginning to walk toward the priest.

Needless to say right now I am a bit nervous as at first the only problem seemed to be the back and me having to force it. I then – a few rolls later when I had some time – checked the rangefinder focus and found it was a bit off. I am hoping that the discrepancy is less than the depth of field.

The wedding was rife with trouble as later on the other photographer had her bag taken – her bag with all the film from the weekend in it.

The day started off well, Carol’s legs aching a bit from the hills as we headed out to the Gallery Café for coffee.

I had found it the last time I was here when the people I was staying with would sleep the morning away making me a nervous ansty wreck. They slept so heavily and so long that I could leave the place and do a nice wander before they stirred.

This was great as I was up before the city was and could make a decent amount of work without people getting in the way. One such walk was up from the Mission District through Chinatown and Nob Hill where even in winter it was warm enough to sit out and have a quiet café au lait before seeing if they were stirring yet.

The place was easy enough to find as it was on the cable car line. I was tempted to check e-mail as being San Fran there were terminals but luckily this place was as backward as me and I forgot how to open applications on OS9.

Like having to write postcards even though people have to decipher my scribbles. The idea of the choice of card the message and then the stamp works for me – although here just north of Silicon Valley while I have seen a lot of postal workers, I have yet to see a post office. Post cards weigh less than a power book.
Ah but I seems that technology always wins as trying first find a post office then queue up to buy stamps had me leaving it.

Then a walk along the cable car line to the bay to get in the prerequisites – a view of the golden gate a scoff at Fisherman’s Wharf and Ghiradelli square and a look out for another place to have coffee while making a bay area formal snaps.

I admit it is a fall back position but I do like to see how people demarcate their property especially in tight situations. I also wanted to see what a real art school looked like so I kept discretely looking for S.F.A.I.

I didn’t want to see the wharf the end of the cable car lines etc. I want to walk the row of seedy motor inns along Lombard Street on the way to the bridge. I want to walk Columbus Avenue as it is a diagonal and passes City Lights – don’t care much for Kerouac Way as these places seem rife for me. But I do know that surprises come everywhere and new shocks me into thinking.

Made some messy snaps along the bay, some Mondrian like images in Fort Mason. Before heading back to get ready for the wedding.

The walk to the wedding was the most frustrating so far. Segregating the wedding snaps from mine not wanting them to get confused, I had to walk without making snaps – a pity as we were early and Fillmore Street was my type of haunting ground.

IT IS LIKE ST. JOHN’S BUT WITHOUT THE BUBBLE.

Before leaving the departure lounge at the airport in San Francisco, we run into stereotypes. Along the hallways, everyone is on a laptop – and new to me – most are Apples, There isn’t a person seated without one.

Making our way to the Airtrain, we run into a bunch of buff boys who look more like they hang out at the gym than on any playing field.

Taking the BART into the city, it is a parade of teen-age mothers with their month old children – being San Fran of all nationalities and creeds.

-Louise is going to gaol. She sold three pounds to a cop.

San Fran has this mystical aura to it as being one of the great cities – romantic technically savvy, very diverse – but I never see it. I saw people who seemed to have staked out their own public dust bin as their shopping area. every open area along the embargadero had someone in a stupor while hugging some brand of cheap alcohol. I have become friends with the street person outside the Walgreens in Sutter street. The first thing I notice is the poverty.
Outside Il Fornaio out on the patio having wine I saw a man with a specially made cane so that he could place it over pennies in the fountain and pick them up with out getting wet.

It is not like Baltimore’s third world like poverty – the poor and homeless seem not to hang around Harbour Place – her being an open minded city the poor seem to have made ground rules not to congregate and have their own turfs so that one can pretty much go about one’s business without being overwhelmed by them.

I remember this from the last time. a city where there seem to be a great deal of homeless.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t like it - would like it more if I could get a decent pint of Smithwicks overlooking the lengthening shadows creeping up to the Irving sign on the South Side Hills – it is a great wandering city and has me call into question my thesis on one of the reasons Chicago isn’t – the grid.

Anyway

After standing baffled like many others in front of the BART ticket dispensers we headed for Powell and Pine where we were staying, Reckoned that we could avoid the walk up the hill with the cable car but after seeing the block long queue, decided to walk. Again the training walking between the old Wordplay and where I parked the machine did me well, I could take the hills like a pro luggage and all, Carol had to become acclimatised. I was getting visibly annoyed with the crowds and was wondering if people here didn’t know how to walk – they seem to be five abreast – or the pavements were exceedingly narrow. We kept having to dodge people.

Checked in at Powell Place – strange that just north of Silicon Valley where when I checked for wireless signal, this place charges for internet access – and went up to our rooms. I was tsk tsked when I said I had brought my computer by the concierge ‘ you are hear to get out’. I countered in a 21st century way ‘but how do I download my snaps?’

Rooms is the perfect word, the condo is tidy well laid out and feels like the rooms one would have when one “went up to town” than the usual time share condo. Was shocked on how nice it was it is laid out so that even though it is small one can be in one room without seeing someone in another even with the doors open, There is no long hallway.

Being in Powell Street I can complain in an oh so exclusive way about the constant whine of the cables and the clattering of the cable cars as they trundle past. I could be a perfect refuge and fits with my present anti big sentiment.

Am careful with the walking as I tend to overdo it and it been a long time since Carol has gone for a walk with me. Try not to divert, attempt to take the shortest route.

Well I tried, I went a bit out of my way as walking up Stockton didn’t look as exciting as the Embarcadero so we went a couple of blocks too far east.

Then I overestimated the time it would take to get to the restaurant so a wander up to Pier 39 to look at the bay and to start with some bay area.

It was a rehearsal dinner that we were heading to and thinking it would be a small affair took only 10 rolls and only black and white.

I reckoned that with a camera I would walk more slowly and thus Carol would work on her endurance.

I forgot that when we walk – while I can take hills and walk forever – I gawk when I wander. Like a well trained school child at the busy intersection I look in every direction as I walk along the street. I usually have to catch up with her as her manner of walking is closer to a fitness hike. The outings are usually me mentally remarking as something, then looking up to see Carol a good block away. I, again, knowing that we have to be someplace, even reigned back the making of snaps made mental notes of places to return to.

The dinner was a bigger affair than I had thought and nearly ran out of film. Darkness saved me to an extent. My legs were getting stiff from sitting so long. I had wanted to pass by City Lights on the way to the restaurant now was looking to seeing it on the walk back.

Two blocks from...

this snap, while wandering over to make a drop at a hypercaffeinated friend’s in Wicker Park – I wander the alleys of Bucktown/Wicker Park hoping that they would be interesting enough for some Chi-town formalism, they aren’t but that is another entry – I am changing film as this bloke, having just seen his beemer driving wife off from their three car garage with the prerequisite basketball hoop over the cream city brick just below the garage level deck – where are all these white basketball players – sees me change film curse Ubaldo as the repair at International Camera wasn’t made, and attempt to make a snap with all the satellite dishes, fences, and the cables they must sweep the alley I have never seen one this clean. He trying to be nonchalant takes out the basketball and attempts a few hoops – blowing one of my potential photographs. As I pass
- hello
- hi
- what are you doing?
- making photographs
I walk on imaging what of his possessions he’d try to save when I come back after the scoping the place out and how he wished he had moved to that gated community rather than live in the “grit” of the North West side.