BirchLane.net
February 2004
Sunday 29
Bookmark.
There's an invisible world out there, and we are living in it.
~Bill Viola, artist
Saturday 28
For A Dancer.
Friday 27
Acquisitions. From Forbes Library, Northampton, Massachusetts:
Modigliani & The Artists of Montparnasse
Kiki Smith (Prints, Books & Things)
Steichen. The Master Prints 1895-1914
Catherine & Igor Stravinsky, A Family Album
Igor Stravinsky by Michael Oliver
Mosaic, Memoirs by Lincoln KirsteinAn internet friend, inspired by a photograph I posted a few days ago, e-mailed me his interpretation:
Thursday 26
Direction. I posted a photograph of the Central Park Reservoir here early this morning and this comment I received late this morning is typical of the e-mails have been receiving from people:
As always, this is SO inspiring and fabulous. Yes, you MUST make these entries into a book. MUST.
I'm working on the publishing thing as fast as I can. I want to own your work in book format. *enthusiastic nod*The Reservoir, named the "Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir" in 1994, is a favorite Central Park attraction for joggers, bird watchers, and tourists who enjoy some of the best views of the New York City skyline.
The 106-acre water body, holds over a billion gallons of water and was completed in 1862 while the Park was under construction. The reservoir no longer distributes fresh water to Manhattan residents but it provides fresh water to the Pool, the Loch, and the Harlem Meer.
Before I came upon the reservoir, I was at the American Bible Institute, where one can often find a very interesting exhibition; as was the case on Monday.
Prayers and Dreams, 1998
Kyra E. Hicks
96 x 75 inches
Cotton, machine appliqué, machine quilted“This quilt includes 112 different packets with an individual personal prayer or dream enclosed within. This quilt was stitched to help recall past aspirations at a low point in my life. I slept under this quilt for several weeks and soon my life situation started to change.”
At the American Bible Society we read:
Threads of Faith: Recent Works from the Women of Color Quilters Network examines contemporary African American quilts produced by a community inspired by faith, the Bible and American Christian traditions. The 53 quilts on display, made by 33 members of the Women of Color Quilters Network, testify to the continuing responsive nature of this traditional craft. They record personal histories, make political statements, celebrate family values, and reflect the role of faith and Christian tradition in shared history, regardless of personal religious belief. Faith connects these African American artists both to their individual pasts and their collective legacy. The quilts are divided into five thematic categories: biblical narratives (Sacred Moments: From Scripture to Cloth), women and family (Bearing Witness), prayers and spiritual mediations (Hope: The Anchor of Our Souls), worship through the arts (Blessed are the Piece Makers), and African American experiences (We Have Come this Far by Faith). The varied individual perceptions of and responses to the role faith plays in the larger world are recorded in the artists’ own words. Their voices reveal the diversity of this particular group of artists – a diversity mirroring the larger African American quilting community.
After marveling at these quilts, I walked through Central Park, stopping along the way to take a few photos. My final destination was The Jewish Museum where "Focus on the Soul: The Photographs of Lotte Jacobi" was on exhibit:
Over eighty vintage prints by the German-American photographer Lotte Jacobi (born in West Prussia in 1896; died in United States in 1990) will showcase her contribution to the history of photography. Jacobi learned the principles of photography from her father, and, in 1927, took over the family portrait studio in Berlin. Photography was a profession relatively open to women during the Weimar era.
Jacobi's vivid portraits filled the pages of the illustrated press, promoting the new cult of celebrity. Among her subjects are some of the most remarkable figures in German and American art and culture including Albert Einstein, Marc Chagall, Peter Lorre, Lotte Lenya and Robert Frost, whose portraits will be included in this exhibition. She was a leading practitioner of both abstract and documentary photography.
After 1933 Jacobi concealed her Jewish identity by working under various pseudonyms, and in 1935 she immigrated to New York City, opening a studio on Central Park West. Later she moved to New Hampshire where she continued to photograph noted subjects and to develop her extraordinary oeuvre that poetically documents the nuances of the human condition.Wednesday 25
Aunt Mary's Alligator. I started to read Lincoln Kirstein's Memoirs ("Mosaic") tonight and the the first chapter reminded me of the pet alligator my Aunt Mary had, which was usually sitting under a small end table and which always, I might add, frightened the daylights out of me. First, a quote, at the start of the book:
In writing my life in 1835, I make many discoveries about it. These are of two kinds; they are like great fragments of fresco on a wall, long forgotten, reappear suddenly, and by the side of these well-preserved portions there are great gaps where there's nothing left but bare bricks on the wall. Plaster, upon which the fresco was painted, has fallen; the fresco has gone forever. There are no dates beside the pieces that remain, and now I have to hunt for them. ~Stendhal, La Vie de Henri Brulard
Tuesday 24
Walking Tour. Early Sunday morning I found myself walking the oddly deserted streets of Fort Lee, New Jersey while my father slept. As I walked I saw what I hadn't seen during my numerous stays in Fort Lee. There was an old clothing store on Main Street that seemed from another era; certainly it was as most of the stores are now of Japanese or Korean origin.
My Dad, who had his second knew operation on Friday, seemed quite chipper and without much pain. We had left-over Chinese food, talked, and read.
Saturday 21
Manhattan. Off to New Jersey today to take care of my dad who had knee surgery yesterday.
Friday 20
Ansel Adams. His birthday. My photographs.
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take,
but by the moments that take our breath away.
Thursday 19
Antonio Barone. A relative. I do not know. I need to know. Born Valledolmo, Sicily on May 20, 1889. Barone was a pupil of DuMond, Mora, Bridgman, and Chase at the ASL in NYC. Active in NYC from 1917, he appears to have divided his time between the East and West Coasts. Vice President Art Students League, NYC.
Although he worked in oil, he was mainly a watercolorist. The influence of Chase is evident in his work. Barone died in NYC in July 1971.
Member: Oakland AA. Exh: PPIE, 1915 (bronze medal); Philadelphia Art Club, 1917 (gold medal); Carnegie Institute, 1920; PAFA, 1921.
Two paintings by Antonio:
I have a Peter Gabriel song stuck in my mind :
"Mercy Street"
for anne sexton
looking down on empty streets, all she can see
are the dreams all made solid
are the dreams all made real
all of the buildings, all of those cars
were once just a dream
in somebody's head
she pictures the broken glass, she pictures the steam
she pictures a soul
with no leak at the seam
lets take the boat out
wait until darkness
let's take the boat out
wait until darkness comes
nowhere in the corridors of pale green and grey
nowhere in the suburbs
in the cold light of day
there in the midst of it so alive and alone
words support like bone
dreaming of mercy st.
wear your inside out
dreaming of mercy
in your daddy('s arms again
dreaming of mercy st.
'swear they moved that sign
dreaming of mercy
in your daddy's arms
pulling out the papers from the drawers that slide smooth
tugging at the darkness, word upon word
confessing all the secret things in the warm velvet box
to the priest-he's the doctor
he can handle the shocks
dreaming of the tenderness-the tremble in the hips
of kissing Mary's lips
dreaming of mercy st.
wear your insides out
dreaming of mercy
in your daddy's arms again
dreaming of mercy st.
'swear they moved that sign
looking for mercy
in your daddy's arms
mercy, mercy, looking for mercy
mercy, mercy, looking for mercy
Anne, with her father is out in the boat
riding the water
riding the waves on the sea
Wednesday 18
The Camera and The Pencil. I have always found it amusing (if not annoying) when people ask, "What kind of camera did you use to take that picture." I have always felt it is like asking a poet what kind of pencil did he use to write a poem. .
Tuesday 17
Portrait of Jonathan Edwards as a Young Man and The Nature of Beauty.
(copy here)
Monday 16
Paint Your Masterpiece and The Free Press. Last night I was re-reading Ezra Pound's concise masterpiece ABC of Reading and was struck by this:
Rome rose with the idiom of Caesar, Ovid, and Tacitus, she declined in a welter of rhetoric, the diplomat's 'language to conceal thought'...
Language doesn't exist in a vacuum (Pound). This, it would seem, there is a direct correlation between language, i.e. rhetoric (language to conceal thought) and keeping the "free in free press." (more later)
Can we in any manner predict the future? (Aside: this morning I heard Bruce Springsteen's song "It's Hard to be a Saint in the City," thus the photo here seems appropriate for a number of reasons.)
Sunday 15.
The Poems. They are difficult to write. Pound wrote: "Literature is language charged with meaning. Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree....Literature is news that stays news.
"Your poems. Are they difficult?"
She smiled and, unaccustomed to speaking English, answered carefully, drawing a line in the air with two delicately pinched fingers holding an imaginary pen. "They are difficult--to write."
He laughed, startled and charmed. "But not to read?"
She seemed puzzled by his laugh, but did not withdraw her smile, though its corners deepened in a defensive, feminine way. "I think," she said, "not so very."
"Good." Brainlessly he repeated "Good," disarmed by her unexpected quality of truth.
~John Updike, The Bulgarian Poetess-- the opening sentences]
Our minister gave an impassioned sermon today entitled "Thrice Blessed," which focused on "the giving of oneself to another out of love." Tears were shed by many; I could hear them fall. (more here)
Saturday 14
Saturday Afternoons at The Movies. When I was a child, Saturday afternoons were often spent in the darkness of the Oritani or Fox movie theatres in Hackensack, New Jersey; The Fox Theatre 0pened in 1932, a fairly large Art Deco movie house seating over 2200. The last first-run movie there was Jaws 2. After that, it was closed with an "under renovation" sign outside. It never re-opened and was later demolished. A pity if not a crime. I believe the Oritani was stripped and pillared of its art deco moldings, curtains, chandeliers, etc and carved and butchered into three smaller movie theatres. I remember there were ushers and we went to The Fox to see A Hard Days Night and it was sold-out and all the girls screamed throughout the entire movie.
I watched the film "Chance and Coincidences" by Claude Lelouch this afternoon on the Sundance Channel and found it quite moving. Two views here and here.
"'The greater the misfortune, the greater life is to live' [...] I, too, am deeply convinced that the greatness of human beings reveals itself through the size of the obstacles that chance throws along their way. I've tried to film the fate of a woman who seemed to have everything and was about to lose everything, except, perhaps, the will to live... By following the knotted thread of coincidence, I traced the journey of this woman who perhaps doesn't realize that living her life means, in reality, traveling towards herself... " "I am a relentless optimist," says the filmmaker, "trying to defend the unbearable suspense that chance creates when it holds the strings which guide each of our steps."
~ Claude Lelouch
Either I am an "relentless optimist" or simply, what, simply trying to survive, as Lelouch says, by successfully overcoming the obstacles I face. So it is no Treasure Island I seek, rather it is a life in balance.
Before the Lelouch film I watched La Jette by Chris Marker, one of my favorite films. Named by Pauline Kale as "the greatest science fiction film ever made.", Chris Marker's haunting and provocative 1962 film was the inspiration for Terry Gilliam's "Twelve Monkeys." Although this film is no more than 29 minutes long and contains but a single moving image, perhaps no other film has matched its combination of devastating emotional power, formal brilliance and philosophical complexity. The story Marker tells - a stunning parable of our modern fate - is about the death of the world, about loss, memory, hope, and the indomitable power of love. J.G. Ballard says "This strange and poetic film, a fusion of science fiction, psychological fable, and photo montage...creates its own conventions from scratch. It triumphantly succeeds where science fiction invariably fails." I found The script And here is an online artwork dedicated to it. The photo below always reminds me of the movie and the movie always reminds me of the photo.
Friday 13
The Thinker.
Thursday 12
Big Red Tomato. I am unemployed and because I am unemployed I have not been making my weekly trips for work to New York City. But if I was working and I was in New York City the day would conclude having dinner with my dad at the same great Italian restaurant in Fort Lee, New Jersey (Big Red Tomato) where we go every time I spend the night with him after an exhausting, yet always thrilling, day in New York City; where the woman below was once the hostess.
Daisy looked so Caravaggio-like.
Wednesday 11
I Saw Art. It was an advertisement, on the radio; I do not remember what for--but I remember they quoted Kermit The Frog:
"How important are the visual arts in our society? I feel strongly that the visual arts are of vast and incalculable importance. Of course, I could be prejudiced. I am visual art."
~Kermit the Frog, MuppetSo, today: I got out; I also read the following today and thought it quite interesting:
Inaction fuels helplessness, generating the worst kinds of stressful states of mind: desperation and despondency. We become trapped in habit patterns of negative thinking, blind to opportunities, victimized by powerlessness. Setting goals helps reverse these conditions. By defining targets and taking small, consistent steps toward them, we clear a path through the complexity. Instead of being stuck, we become empowered.
Tuesday 10
Looking. I need to get out of the house more often.
One of the deepest pleasures in life is looking. Simply looking. Looking at streets, traffic, faces, windows, shops, parks, churches, books, newspapers, and all the creatures and creations of life itself. Instead of looking long and steadily, we tend to get brief, quick looks at things before we hasten on, half-blind with purpose."
~Brendan Kennelly
I found an interesting resource on letterpress printing today.
Monday 09
Manhattan. I am in conflict about this image. When I first found it in my archives, I thought, what a beautiful photo of New York City--and I couldn't get the Rogers & Hart song, "Manhattan," out of my mind. Yet, something was troubling me; I went back to the archives and noticed the date--taken not too long after 9/11 but I don't know how long after. So, I wonder, if this fog early one morning or fallout from the Twin Towers.
Sunday 08
The Autonomy of The Spirit.
What would it be like if you lived each day, each breath, as a work of art in
progress? Imagine that you are a Masterpiece unfolding, every second of
every day, a work of art taking form with every breath.
~ Thomas Crum
This morning's sermon was entitled "Let It Shine," and, yes, we sang "This Little Light of Mine." But the most moving moment was when the soloist, Stephanie Carlson, sand Pie Jesu by Faure in Latin:
Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem sempiternam.
Later, late in the afternoon, the sun and the snow melded together in the back yard to create a beautiful landscape which reminded me of rolling waves far out to sea.
Saturday 07
The Anatomy of The Soul.
Question: How do we see the love of God in the book of nature? We see all around us fruits and plants and animal life brought to fruition and then to destruction, and among men cruelty, misery, tragedies and enmities everywhere.
Answer: It is a difference of focus. If we focus our mind upon all that is good and beautiful we shall see - in spite of all the ugliness that exists in nature and especially more pronounced in human nature - that the ugliness will cover itself. We will spread a cover over it and see all that is beautiful, and to whatever lacks beauty we will be able to add, taking it from all that is beautiful in our heart where beauty has sufficiently been collected. But if we focus our mind upon all the ugliness that exists in nature - and in human nature - there will be much of it. It will take up all our attention and there will come a time when we shall not be able to see any good anywhere. We shall see all cruelty, ugliness, wickedness and unkindness everywhere....
In order to help the poor we ought to be rich [in spirit], and in order to take away the badness of a person we ought to be so much more good. That goodness must be earned, as money is earned. That earning of goodness is collecting goodness wherever we find it, and if we do not focus on goodness we will not be able to collect it sufficiently. What happens is that man becomes agitated by all the absence of goodness he sees. Being himself poor he cannot add to it, and unconsciously he develops in his own nature what he sees. He thinks, 'Oh poor person! I should so much like you to be good', but that does not help that person. His looking at the badness, his agitation, only adds one more wicked person to the lot. When one has focused one's eyes on goodness one will add to beauty, but when a man's eyes are focused on what is bad he will collect enough wickedness for him to be added himself to the number of the wicked in the end, for he receives the same impression.
Besides, by criticizing, by judging, by looking at wickedness with contempt, one does not help the wicked or the stupid person. The one who helps is he who is ready to overlook, who is ready to forgive, to tolerate, to take disadvantages he may have to meet with patiently. It is he who can help
A person who is able to help others should not hide himself but do his best to come out into the world. 'Raise up your light high', it is said. All that is in you should be brought out, and if the conditions hinder you, break through the conditions! That is the strength of life.
You are love - you come from love - you are made by love -you cannot cease to love.
--- from The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Smiling Forehead, Chapter V, Love
Watercolor by my friend Vincent Udry. Ballet photo by Philippe Pache.
Friday 06
Isaiah. Writing on Sunday now to update this it seems interesting that today in church we read the following; I entitled this entry "Isaiah" on Friday:
In the year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. 2Above him stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. 3And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. 4And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. 5Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts. 6Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: 7and he touched my mouth with it, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin forgiven. 8And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I; send me. Isaiah 6: 1-8
Thursday 05
Spring Training. Snow is on the ground here at Birch Lane and more snow is expected to fall tomorrow and Saturday but Spring Training is only a few weeks away. This I know because I read it in the newspaper.
And thanks to Betsy, I began my Spring Training a few weeks ago, working out almost every day with Daryl at Smith College; I pick him up at the high school and we head on over to the gym at Smith, usually with a few of his friends in the car--Charlie and Hannah. Yesterday, though, I took the day off to take some photos around the campus; not a very successful outing but I did see this:
Not sure what happened with the color below but it does have an interesting feel to it:
Wednesday 04
Pentangle. Woke this morning to five inches of wet snow and quiet but for the melting snow falling from the pine tree as rain; and I heard Pentangle; the snows they melt.....
The snows they melt the soonest when the wind begins to sing
And the corn it ripens faster when the frosts are settlin' in
And when a woman tells me that my face she'll soon forget
Before we part I'll wage a corn she's fain to follow it yetFor the snows they melt the soonest when the winds begin to sing
And the swallows flies without a thought as long as it is spring
But when spring goes and winter blows my love she will be fain
For all her pride to follow me across the stormy mainFor the snows they melt the soonest when the winds begin to sing
And the bee that flew when summer shone in winter cannot sting
And I've seen a woman's anger melt between the night and morn
So it's surely not a harder thing to welt a woman's scornSo dont' you bid me farewll now no farewell I'll receive
But you must lie with my lass then kiss and take your leave
And I'll wait here till the woodcock calls and the martin takes the wing
For the snows they melt the soonest when the winds begin to singTonight was our last night of chili, which I made for the Super Bowl. (add here)
Tuesday 03
Subject. (editing)
Monday 02
Children and Dogs. In church yesterday, we (note to self/edit mode)
Maybe it it the photography below; I started thinking about Rita's Soda Shop in Ramsey, New Jersey. After High School let out, we would all walk the short distance down Main Street to hang out at Rita's.
We would often find Susanne at Rita's.
What, I wonder, do kids do today after school? Today's paper reports (edited):
Complaints about the lack of activities for young people were a common theme at Northampton's first Youth Summit Saturday. But for one night at least, the event itself provided an enjoyable evening for teens. In numerous breakout sessions, participants discussed ideas like bringing a youth-oriented performance space and a teen center. In addition, student bands performed and free food was provided by several local businesses.
About 50 high school and middle school students attended the summit, organized by the city's Youth Commission and held at the Florence Community Center as a way to highlight the concerns of youth in the city.
One concern at the forefront was how to create more things for teens to do in the city.
Other topics of discussion included the MCAS (brought up when state Sen. Stan Rosenberg dropped by); the city's noise ordinance and the relationship between teens and shop owners downtown, who sometimes complain about people loitering outside their stores.
Sunday 01
Super Bowl Sunday. A long time ago:
