BirchLane.net

February 2007

Wednesday 28

Patterns.

Tuesday 27

More Good News. More pageants booked; these in Vegas and Florida. Plus, a few more. Pageant Director says she loves my photos and loves working with me.

Monday 26

Good News. People like the photos from Sunday. I got a lot accomplished today.

Sunday 25

National Northeast Pageant. Notes: Great weekend: made money; have good photographs; booked three more pageants.

More here:

Saturday 24

National Northeast Pageant. Drove to Bedford, NH. Got a flat. Joined AAA. Got flat fixed. Registration went well and I met some good people. Had a fine dinner late at Carrabbas: Cozze In Bianco--Fresh cold water mussels steamed in white wine, basil, lemon butter, and Pernod.

Cousins:

Friday 23

My Dinner With Susan. She brought wine. I made salmon. Lots of laughs.

A few more photos:

Thursday 22

Trip to Boston.  Susan and I drove to Boston to pick up Daryl and his friend. I took everyone out for dinner to The Poor House. It snowed. Thank God we were in Susan's car. On the way home we listened to one of Daryl's CDs.

I found an old CF card earlier in the day. This was the only image on it.

Wednesday 21

Business Plan/Planning. Making great progress on (FINALLY) writing a business plan.

Tuesday 20

Notes.

Monday 19

Your Heart's Desire. "May I read aloud to you?" she asked. One our way home from MassMoCA, Susan read to me. A chapter (Your Heart's Desire) in a book entitled "Power Through Constructive Thinking," by Emmet Fox. The chapter begins:

And old adage says: "God has a plan for every man, and He has one for you," and this is absolutely true. (more to come)

Sunday 18

Jazz Sunday.  About my dinner with Susan last night; later--first: this morning. I went to the Easthampton Congregational Church her in Easthampton. I arrived a few minutes late, missing the Miles Davis Prelude, but was ecstatic to realize it was Jazz Sunday. "The theme: Improvisation--the spontaneous response of the Spirit--is the theme of worship. When we free ourselves from the constraints of highly organized worship, we create room for the Holy Spirit to come alive in new, creative, and unpredictable ways." The service featured a six-piece jazz band, including singer; when she sang "God Bless The Child" during the offering, tears welled up in my eyes. And when the band played and the choir sand "Walkin' Through The Wilderness," the 80+ year-old-woman in the pew in front of me swayed. We sang "Spirit of God, Descend upon My Heart," "Wade in the Water," "They'll Know We Are Christians," "God Be With You." Preceding the Pastoral Prayer, the band played Duke Ellington's "Come Sunday." It was truly an amazing service.

I then went food shopping, came home and shot my daily self-portrait, posted it, wrote, read, and went for a walk.

On the internet I read this:

Week of Last Epiphany - Sunday A reading from a homily of Origen, Priest and Theologian [d. c. 254] Christ is the "light of the world" and he enlightens the Church with his light. And as the moon receives its light from the sun so as in turn to enlighten the night, so does the Church, receiving her light from Christ, enlighten all who dwell in the night of ignorance. It is Christ, therefore, who is "the true light which gives light to every one coming into the world"; and the Church, receiving his light, becomes herself "the light of the world," "enlightening those in darkness," in accord with Christ's word to his disciples: "You are the light of the world." This goes to show that Christ is the light of the apostles, and the apostles in their turn are the light of the world. The sun and the moon shed light on our bodies; in the same way Christ and the Church shed light on our minds. At least they enlighten them if we are not spiritually blind people. Just as the sun and moon do not fail to shed their light on the blind who are unable to benefit by the light, so does Christ send his light into our minds; but we shall not receive any enlightenment if we meet it with blindness. If that is so, let the blind first follow Christ crying out: "Son of David, have pity on us." Then once they have recovered their sight, thanks to his favor, they will be able to benefit by the radiation of the splendor of the light. Again, all who see are not equally illumined by Christ, but all are enlightened according to their capacity to receive the light. The eyes of our body are not equally enlightened by the sun. Also, the higher we climb in high places, and the higher the spot from which we contemplate the sunrise, the better we also perceive the sun's splendor and its warmth. The same is true of our mind. The more we go up and rise Christward and expose ourselves to the splendor of his light, the more wonderfully and brilliantly we too shall be flooded with his brightness, as he said himself through the Prophet: "Come near to me and I shall come near to you, says the Lord." And elsewhere: "Am I a god near at hand only, says the Lord, and not a God far off?" It is not by the same road, however, that all of us go to him, but "according to each one's abilities." We might go to him with the crowds and he would feed us with parables lest we faint in the way because we are fasting; or we might remain constantly at his feet intently listening to his words, without being anxious about diverse services, "having chosen the better portion" and we "shall not be deprived of it." By coming closer to him we also receive more light from him. And if, like the apostles, we do not separate ourselves in the least from him and faithfully remain with him in all his tribulations, he then explains to us secretly what he had said to the crowds, and greater is the brightness with which he enlightens us. Finally, if we can ascend with him to the top of the mountain, like Peter, James and John, not only do we receive the enlightenment from Christ, but we hear the very voice of the Father. Homily 1 on Genesis 5-17

Last night I had dinner at Susan's house in West Springfield. She had invited me over on Friday. It was a beautiful home; beautifully painted and decorated. I felt at home. I brought a bottle of wine, flowers, and the cake from the Friday night. We opened the wine, poured it into glasses, and sat on a couch in a "reading" room (A room in which she also makes her soap; you would never know soap was made in this room as it was spotless and looked like a library.) She made a mango chutney dip. We sat and talked for an hour or so and then we went out for dinner. She had a gift certificate to a restaurant a few miles away. It was very enjoyable.

Saturday 17

The Postponed Valentine's Day Dinner. Her name is Susan. We celebrated Valentine's Day Friday night. I made dinner (menu to follow). She brought wine. She brought books. She brought soap; she makes soap. She brought chocolate cake:

I made:
Mixed Greens, Asparagus, Grilled Salmon Salad (mostly my recipe);
Spinach and Ricotta Pappardelle (Lidia Bastianich);
Sauteed Chicken with Olives, Capers and Roasted Lemons (Lidia's recipes)
Asparagus with Butter and Parmessan (Patricia Wells).
Yummy. Great conversation. Great time.

Friday 16

Getting Ready.

Thursday 15

Pamela. Susan. Kim. Barbara. And David and Casey. And Spring Training. (Not a folk rock group--But people I need to write about)

For example:

Pamela invited me over this afternoon for tea and we talked about art, religion, and The Apollo Grill and I found ......

Susan and I talked on the phone......

Barbara told me not to worry...

David and I went for a walk and talked about...

Casey asked me about Susan and......

And today pitchers and catchers start Spring Training and......

Meanwhile:

 

 

 

 

Wednesday 14

Valentine's Day. What do you think, Bruce? She asked. Is this a good thing?

Tuesday 13

Nadine;  She has been living with me for one year, today.

Publishers' Bindings -- The Art of Books. 1815-1930.

Monday 12

Sunday 11

"You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all, just as an intelligence without the possibility of expression is not really an intelligence. Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing." The legendary surrealist Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel on the existential importance of memory.

 

Saturday 10

Gallery Night. I was very impressed with Kathranne Knight; the boldness and the beauty. Below a study and the finished work--applied directly on to the wall.

Second floor, Eastworks.

Friday 09

Electric.

Thursday 08

 

Wednesday 07

Little Miss Sunshine. Last night it was confirmed that I am the "Official Photographer" for a pageant at the end of the month in New Hampshire. There will be at least 40+ contestants. I emailed the mom of Miss Junior Teen America  and asked her opinion about what to charge as my intuition told me I was under-charging. She agreed and suggested that I significantly up my price. Good news.

Meanwhile, sunset on the 4th floor in Eastworks:

 

Tuesday 06

I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show. ~Andrew Wyeth

Monday 05

.

Sunday 04

Portraits.

A friend writes"

I don’t know how to put a period on all this right now, and maybe it is only a comma.  But I will emphasize one of the earliest ideas that was discovered as I developed these interrelated websites:  If you are ever feeling desperate, at your wit’s end, or exhausted, then consider getting outside of your current patterns, your current physical environments, your grooved stimuli, and your current social environments.  Find new books, movies, music, and people to interact with.  Get several different, diverse perspectives and new interpretations of what you have been through.  While you may think you know everything and remember everything clearly, usually there’s another way to see the things we are “sure” we already know.  When in doubt, expect there is at least one more option you have not yet learned or considered that may lead to a better solution for everyone. Love always, OneMoreOption

Saturday 03

Ana Answers.

Friday 02

Big Box.

Thursday 01

What Remains.  "It never occurred to me to leave home to make art," says the photographer Sally Mann, who built a career chronicling the lives of her children. "The things that are close to you are the things that you can photograph the best." (Review: "Mother Land: Recent Georgia and Virginia Landscapes")

In a documentary I watched last night from Steve Cantor, Mann embarks on a new project: a provocative photo series that explores the subject of death through the images of not only her son and two daughters but her husband, Larry, whose body is changing because of a rare form of muscular dystrophy.

She also looks at how nature assimilates the body once life has left it, and in doing so confronts American attitudes toward death, through photographs examining the scars left on her property after an armed fugitive, being hunted by the police, shot himself; landscapes from the Civil War battlefield of Antietam; a forensics study showing human decomposition; and images of the bones and skin of her pet greyhound long since departed.

Late in the afternoon, I went for a walk. Upon my return from I ran into my friend, Victor (photographer and organ repairman) and he showed me a few beautiful prints he framed for a show he is having in Northampton; one, a corn cob, which was created by putting it right on the scanner was stunning.