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OMG (Oh My Greenwich)
Still beyond excited about my upcoming trip to London. We’ll be staying with friends in Greenwich, which is such a lovely part of the city. In my anticipation, I keep adding photos from our last trip out there to my shop. So these two are now available in a variety of print sizes here. Above is a view of the Royal Naval Academy from the walkway at the Queen’s House, and below is the rising on the Cutty Sark.
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Read This
Required Reading. I came across this story a few weeks ago. It’s quiet and heartbreaking and powerful. “Winter of Departures” by Susanna Kwan. Recently, at a neighbor’s memorial, I saw a young man in uniform press a button inside the barrel of his bugle, his white gloves bright against the polished yellow metal, before bringing the instrument to his lips and filling the cemetery with the sound of “Taps.” During the minute the song played, the muscles in his cheeks and neck did not move. No one else seemed to notice it was a recording. Another man in uniform presented the family with a flag folded into a soft-cornered triangle…
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Quoted
As a kid, I knew all of the dinosaurs. It’s one of those tragedies that I’ve forgotten what dinosaurs are cool. — Matt Smith
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Reading Watching Listening
Reading… Keats. Because his poems are beautiful. And in a week of terrifying, angering, saddening news, in a week of deadlines and stress and no sleep, I needed a moment or two of beauty. Watching… The Hour. British dramas rarely disappoint me, and given that this one stars both Dominic West and Ben Wishaw, revolves around a 1950s news program and has a healthy dose of political intrigue, it is actually surprising it has taken me this long to get around to watching it. But get around to it I did. Now I’m just upset that it was cancelled after two series. Listening… “Kool Thing” by Sonic Youth.…
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London Calling
Another round of uploads to the shop this week. You can find all of the photos in this post for sale as prints by clicking here or through the “Shop” tab at the top of the page. I’m headed back to London in about three weeks, and I am incredibly excited about the trip. That city truly has my heart in a way that very few places do. Since I can’t transport myself there immediately, I am contenting myself by stealing a few minutes here and there to edit some photos from my last trip and get them up in the shop.
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Read This
Required Reading. I am in the midst of one of those weeks that is low on sleep, high on coffee and worries and tears. When life gets like this I start to wonder if maybe, just maybe, I should have chosen to be someone else, some other version of myself. This piece somehow understands that. Hallie Cantor’s “Types of Women I Could Be, But Am Not“. I could be a woman who works at a cozy coffee shop where the baked goods are actually good. My warm smile would offer my customers a tiny emotional oasis from the bustling “rat race” of their regular lives. I would have only a…
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Quoted
On one side of the balance is the need for home, for the deep solid roots of place and belonging; on the other is the desire for travel and motion, for the single separate spark of the self freely moving forward, out into time, into the great absorbing stream of the world. A fierce internal debate, between staying moored and drifting away, between holding on and letting go. Perhaps wisdom lies in our ability to negotiate between these two poles. Necessary to us, both of them – but how to live in connection without feeling suffocated, compromised, erased? We long to connect; we fear that if we do, our freedom and…
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Reading Watching Listening
Reading… An endless selection of at best moderately enjoyable texts for school and work. So nothing I think anyone else needs to check out. Watching… The Americans. Guys, this show is good. Compelling acting and interesting plot lines. Listening… Basically the entire Barra MacNeils catalog. But especially The Question which massively informed my musical tastes growing up. I have particular love for “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan” and “She the Ocean”. The Ballad of Lucy Jordan (how quintessentially mid-90s is this video?) She the Ocean
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Fogged In/Wrong Way
I’ve added a few more images to my print shop, including 8×10 prints of this image. It is many years old. Pre-dslr. I think I was on my second digital camera. You know, when it was exciting to have 3 megapixels and a 1.5″ screen. But while I love fog, I am rarely successful at photographing it. This image though, gets it. Not just visually, but something about the weight and density, something about the closeness and dampness.
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Read This
Required Reading. This New Yorker piece made me laugh. Out loud. This is a rarer occurrence than I would really like it to be, but, alas, life has left me grouchy and angry and scowl-y, so for writing to elicit anything more than a subdued chortle from me is impressive. But this piece did that. Perhaps it’s because I love people watching. Perhaps it’s because making up amusing stories about people in public delights me. Perhaps it is because it is so well written that I can picture it like a tv episode in my head. Perhaps it’s something else. But regardless, You should read “A Breakup Ceremony in Mccarran Park”…