Yesterday I went to see the work of Cang Xin. Cang Xin is a photographer and a shaman. He is someone who believes that all things have spirit. His color photographs in the series Man and the Sky Series 1 and 2 are pictures of Chinese landscape populated by men (and a few women) chest-deep […]
Earlier this week I went to see Michael Somoroff’s “The Absence of the Subject.” In this series of photographs and video installations, Somoroff has taken the photographs of turn-of-the-century German photographer August Sander and removed the people, the subject. What remains is a haunting sense of waiting. A table set for tea, an open gate, […]
This morning I went outside to cut some roses for my dining room table. I spent the first fifteen minutes snipping off decayed blossoms, deadheading. Several of the blooms had one, two, or three petals, still vibrant in color, still clinging to the hip. Some were nestled cheek by jowl with tight-in-the-bud flowers-to-be. Others were […]
Yesterday afternoon son the elder and I went for a bike ride. I lifted my face to the warming sun. To my right, an orange trumpet vine climbed a long-needled pine tree, the many tiny roots of each sucking “foot” fingering its way deep into rough bark. The tires sing against the road. Up ahead, […]
Yesterday while stopped for a red light I glanced up at the sky. The setting sun shone from behind passing clouds. Spokes of sun framed the largest cloud, like a Russian icon. The stoplight changed and I drove on, only to pull off the road moments later. Bumping down an unpaved sidestreet, I chased clouds […]
This week, finally back from Fotofest, I bought myself some tulips. They are the color of a child’s cheek, flushed from play, and as delicate as the breath on your neck from a child asleep on your shoulder. I put them in a handpainted vase striped green and white, the green the color of tulip […]
Today driving home from dropping off son the elder at school, I passed a house with a fresh coat of white paint. Adorning the rail of the porch was a row of white pots, each with a bright red geranium. Later, on the way to Starbucks, I passed a house with purple shades, the color […]
Yesterday my Dubliners CD arrived. I’d gone looking for some Irish music with which to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with my tiny students. The Dubliners brought back memories of a second story apartment in an old house in Omaha, Nebraska. Two doctors shared quarters, one Irish and the product of a Jesuit education, a repository […]
This morning I dug out a bottle of face cleanser I hadn’t used in a while, the one I can’t buy any more. A creamy foam that left my face feeling smooth and clean. I squeeze out one of the last drops of a sample moisturizer, the one I haven’t bought for myself yet because […]
This morning son the older and I had a tiff. He was having trouble with a piece of equipment, and I, eating breakfast and reading the paper, was annoyed at the interruption. I too had a bit of trouble with the recalcitrant hardware but with a moment of focused attention resolved the issue. You just […]