“When I lived in other places I looked on their evils with the curious eye of a traveler; I was not responsible for them; it cost me nothing to be a critic, for I had not been there long, and I did not feel that I would stay. But here, now that I am both native and citizen, there is no immunity to what is wrong. It is impossible to escape the sense that I am involved in history.”
-Wendell Berry
I’ve known these kids since I was a wee little Dave. They’re some of the most talented, insane, chillaxed and photogenic folks I know.
Sunday night we decided to hit up the local mall. As we pulled into the parking lot, I turned to my friend Joanna and exclaimed “YOU! Since you’re a girl, you will help me pick out some clothes, because I have the fashion sense of a colorblind chimp!”
…and I really do. Also Joanna looked bored out her mind with three guys… and we all know that if kids start getting antsy you give them a pointless task.
Like moving rocks, or finding imaginary storehouses of candy or making them count the stars on a cloudy night, or picking out clothes for you.
After walking down the aisles of skate/surf/jobless-ruffian apparel for about half an hour I looked down to find this stylish hoodie…
PHOTOSHOOT!
There’s nothing wrong with being sexy
But can I Philosophize in it?
Blue Steel.
Halfway into the shoot, I realized that my fly was down…. Appropriate measures were taken.
++
To One Steeped in Bitterness
By Denise Levertov
++
Nail the rose
to your mind’s door
like a rat, a thwarted chickenhawk.
Yes, it has had its day.
And the water
poured for you
which you disdain to drink,
yes, throw it away.
Yet the fierce rose
stole nothing
from your cooped heart,
nor plucked your timid eye;
and from that inviolate rock
the liquid light
was drawn, that’s dusty now
and your lips dry.
Walking the riverbank
of fine black silt.
Cottonwood shadows loaf
in red relief.
Scents reach me from the worked fields
-those supple thighs of Earth laying on either bank,
appetent-
coyly suggesting fruitfulness.
River looks up to me, it seems.
The color of old sheep dog eyes,
blind, opaque and blue.
They turn to me anyway
in excitement.
Either from the rush of melting snow,
and simple, dumb science…
or because someone has noticed it.
I’ve noticed.
And much more: Wondered.
++
Much happens when we’re not there.
Many trees, not only that famous one, over and over,
fall in the forest. We don’t see, but something sees,
or someone, a different kind of someone,
a different molecular model, or entities
not made of molecules anyway; or nothing, no one:
but something has taken place, taken space,
been present, absent,
returned…
Denise Levertov, “Window-Blind”
