BirchLane.net

January 2006

Tuesday 31

Xenia Hausner. A book arrived today--a gift from Forum Gallery; a copy of the new book Xenia Hausner Hide and Seek, which was published in conjunction with a major exhibition of her work that opened at the Ludwig Museum, Koblenz and travels in February to KunstHaus Museum in Vienna. Below, a photo of one of her paintings--in the office at Forum Gallery. Her website.

And this, something from a few years ago, taken at a luncheon in NYC.

Monday 30

Shots. Today I re-worked 12 images in Photoshop for submission to Shots Magazine. Sandy of Sandy Carson Gallery suggested that I should do this. I submitted 6 "hay stacks" and 6 from my Times Square Series, entitling them "Famous Men, Women & Places," after Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.

Sunday 29

Scanning and Editing. What a day: I scanned about 20 negatives, got hired for another wedding, and two portraits, and made contact with Ana Maria, an old friend from Hearst Magazines. And Daryl and Kiley came over for dinner. I woke to this:

One of the scanned negs:

For Daryl and Kiley I roasted a chicken (honey/mustard glaze), par-boiled asparagus and then warmed in olive oil and butter and covered with parmesan cheese, basmati rice. And they each had two Toasted Almond bars.

Saturday 28

An Old Journal Entry. The second paragraph was written by William Maxwell, one of the twentieth century's great American writers and a longtime fiction editor at The New Yorker. I used it here as a starting point to what follows.

The day after my father remarried I read the short story Brecon gave to me. Maybe she gave me the story because in my last letter to her I sounded less then enthusiastic about the wedding; I don't know. But in the story the author wrote:

"My father was all but undone by mother's death. In the evening after supper he walked the floor and I walked with him, with my arm around his waist...He would walk from the living room into the front hall, then, turning, past the grandfather's clock and on into the library, and from the library into the living room. Or he would walk from the library into the dining room and then into the living room by another doorway, and back to the front hall. Because he didn't say anything, I didn't either. I only tried to sense, as he was about to turn, which room he was going to next so we wouldn't bump into each other. His eyes were focused on things not in those rooms, and his face was the color of ashes...I don't know by what means my father came to terms with his grief. All I know is that it was more than a year before the color came back into his face and he could smile when somebody said something funny...After I couldn't remember anymore expect in a general way what she looked like I could still remember the sound of her voice, and I clung to that. I also clung to the idea that if things remained exactly the way they were, if we were careful not to take a step in any direction from the place we were now, we would somehow get back to the way it was before she died. I knew that this was not a rational belief, but the alternative--that when people die they are really gone--was much more than I could manage then or for a long time afterward...In fairy tales the coming of a stepmother is never regarded as anything but a misfortune. Presumably this is not because of the great number of second wives who are unkind to the children of their husband's first marriage, though examples of this could be found, but because of the universal resentment on the childrens part of an outsider. So that the father to remarry is an act of betrayal not only of the dead mother but of them, no matter what the stepmother is like."

After my mother died, my sisters, Michelle and Darlene, found the Christmas presents that my mother had hidden in her bedroom closet--shirts, books, cooking utensils. Nothing had changed or everything had. Red leaves where there were green. Far from the Pioneer Valley, where Betsy and I lived, memory sought to define itself in the same sense as clocks appear to mark the progression of time. "I get so moody sometime," my father said. "I went up to the attic to get some Christmas decorations, but I gave up."

That was in the winter four years ago. New Jersey with snow falling. New Jersey where love was then a system of knowledge. Photographs of many women and finally the development of this human situation--everybody from New Jersey wants to work in New York City. Attache cases full of case histories, in January, when it was always cold and so much snow on the ground.

I really thought that working here would start a new game, having lived for so long in past history, in the shadow of the backstop on the green grass, on one of those days of black rain which brings tears that make the stadium look different; you can barely see the mound, and as your cleats sink deeper into the squishy batter's box, by now your parents gone, you can barely see yourself sinking slowly into the future which is already a series of moments in time, like short and extended slumps broken out of--the next time you are pole-vaulting, now falling when you see your parents beyond the track as you hit the blue foam mat, nothing changes and everything does; your Aunt Vicky dead--that image in the garage light, the sound of the car's engine, the smell; years later it's alcohol or cancer that takes them away from you until here you are on a September day wanting to ask your father only one thing: "Dad, do you ever think about mommy?" Or mom? You can't remember, her photographs and your memories so halting and unguarded are the only things left with which to content yourself.

When the wedding ceremony ended I was still half-dreaming, as my father and stepmother, Donna, turned away from the alter and Rev. Nancy E. Muth, and walked toward the aisle where they parted, my father hugging his children, Donna hugging her children; then switching places and, finally, as they hugged and kissed in the aisle, the friends and family applauded.

"Should we go up front?" I asked Betsy.

"No. I think we should stay here," she said.

We were standing in the third row and I had been dreaming about a woman I met the night before at the garage where I had my car fixed. "Did your father and mother have a big ceremony?" No. "Are you married?" Yes. "When is your anniversary?" The 25th. "That was my wedding anniversary but my husband's dead." Later, I found out from the mechanic that he was killed in a head-on car collision. "Have a drink on me," she said when we said goodbye.

In one memory the champagne came and brunch began. Betsy and I had been married five years and Denise and Rick were treating us to brunch because they were thinking about getting married and wanted our advice. "What do you think," my father said one night. "Should Donna and I get married?"

This figural group is a spiritual scene frozen in their movements. This the end of this family and the beginning of another. In the aisle Fred and Donna kiss. We all stand there, and I am standing there, too.

On Cruger Island, Dennis, Debbie, Betsy and I are standing at cliff's edge overlooking the Hudson River, watching the long, flat boats haul cement to New York City. If we we lean too far forward, we should surely slip and fall the distance to rock bottom. I imagine the silent fall. "Thirty feet," Dennis says. Dennis, my younger brother, is in love. Marriage is in his future and because life is unpredictable, and short, there are photographs that recall this event. It is all vision and where vision takes us the body cannot follow. Beyond the river I know there exists an artist's colony. Here. We came here and are taking photographs. Betsy looks out toward the Catskills. In many photographs we are laughing. We are all in love, and I too am in love. We smoke a joint.

Minutes earlier, walking from the school picnic toward the river, we stop to look at the garden. It is a planned oasis. It was a cooling, pleasant place on the river's east side exploding into a grand architectural painting with a building, stairs, fountains and terraces. As we walked, the garden quadrupled, then quintupled in size. Water was important.

Dennis' vision is fortunately one that will not pass away. Stopping, he quoted Wordsworth to us:

And in the frosty season, when the sun
Was set, and, visible for many a mile,
The cottage-windows through the twilight blazed,
I heeded not the summons: happy time
It was indeed for all of us; for me
It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud
The village-clock tolled six--I wheeled about,
Proud and exulting like an untired horse
That cares not for his home.--All shod with steel
We hissed along the polished ice, in games
Confederate, imitative of the chase
And woodland pleasures,--the resounding horn,
The pack loud-chiming, and the hunted hare.
So through the darkness and the cold we flew,
And not a voice was idle: with the din
Smitten, the precipices rang aloud;
The leafless trees and every icy crag
Tinkled like iron; while far-distant hills
Into the tumult sent an alien sound
Of melancholy, not unnoticed while the stars,
Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west
The orange sky of evening died away.
Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, or sportively
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng,
To cut across the reflex of a star;
Image, that, flying still before me, gleamed
Upon the glassy plain: and oftentimes,
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still
The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs
Wheeled by me--even as if the earth had rolled
With visible motion her diurnal round!
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched
Till all was tranquil as a summer sea.

Friday 27

42nd Street & Eight Avenue. Northeast corner, early 80s.

Thursday 26

Late Afternoon. I noticed that the days are getting longer.

Wednesday 25

Hoboken.

Tuesday 24

This morning.

"The beauty of New York rests on an entirely different base. It's unintentional. It arose independent of human design, like a stalagmitic cavern. Forms which are in themselves quite ugly turn up fortuitously, without design, in such incredible surroundings that they sparkle with a sudden wonderous poetry." --- Milan Kundera

Monday 23

This morning.

An artist friend wrote to me today and said she thought I am "the Brassai of Times Square." I am not sure about that but I must continue working on the book and then people can order copies online. Tonight I need to write Kat and Peri. I ventured out of Times Square the other day and scanned a few negs from Coney Island. These two are from Hoboken.

Sunday 22

How Long? This is what people are asking me about my book. How long till it is published? I imagine it is going to take another four--six weeks to finishing scanning the negatives, edit them and get essays from Kat and Peri. Here is a favorite old one:

This morning I was asked to photograph a septet this afternoon. In scouting out locations in the building I came across this:

Saturday 21

Discovery. Continuing to scan and edit the photos today, I searched out an old friend, James, on google. I came up empty-handed. But I had an old birth announcement that he and his wife, Nance, sent out years ago. I searched her name. And buried pages into google, I learned that James passed away. I found Nance's e-mail address in an artist's guestbook (again via google) and wrote to say hello and how sorry I was to learn about her loss. We exchanged a few e-mails back-and-forth; she wants to visit for the opening. She is still in touch with some of the people from Tin Pan Alley; The Drongos, who were from Australia and moved to NYC to work with Red Mole, a theatre group. I have many photos of them playing on the streets of NYC.

Friday 20

The Conformist. Tonight on TCM:

“Transports you into a world of pure style.” – A.O. Scott, The New York Times “An eye-watering testimony to the erstwhile dash of international cinema... an orgasm of coolness, ravishing compositions, camera gymnastics and atmospheric resonance.” – Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice “Voluptuously styled to a degree rarely seen in cinema, Bernardo Bertolucci's gorgeous 1970 political thriller, set in a noirish, Mussolini-era Europe, will always be a benchmark of high-art exquisiteness.” – Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York “It's still a knock-out... As momentous as the work of Welles & company on Citizen Kane, showing a new generation how to look at movies... [The] rerelease at Film Forum proves that The Conformist has been the single most influential movie of the past 35 years.” – Armond White, New York Press (1970) In Mussolini’s Italy, Jean-Louis Trintignant’s repressed haut bourgeois Marcello Clerici, trying to purge memories of a youthful, homosexual episode (and murder), joins the Fascists in a desperate attempt to fit in. As the reluctant Judas motors to his personal Gethsemane (the assassination of his leftist mentor, whose Paris address, in a pointed homage, matched Jean-Luc Godard’s real one), he flashes back to a dance party for the blind; an insane asylum in a stadium; and wife Stefania Sandrelli and lover Dominque Sanda dancing the tango in a working-class hall. But those are only a few of the anthology pieces of this political thriller, others including Trintignant’s honeymoon coupling with Sandrelli in a train compartment as the sun sets outside their window; a bimbo lolling on the desk of a fascist functionary, glimpsed in the recesses of his cavernous office; a murder victim’s hands leaving bloody streaks on a limousine parked in a wintry forest. Bertolucci’s masterwork, adapted from the novel by Alberto Moravia, boasts an authentic Art Deco look created by production designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti, a score by the great Georges Delerue (Contempt, Jules and Jim) and eyepopping color cinematography by Vittorio Storaro (who personally oversaw the film’s 1995 restoration). “Carries with it a rejuvenating jolt of youthful creative energy, the memory of a time when movies were the most important art and their creative possibilities seemed endless.” – Dave Kehr. “Juggling past and present with the same bravura flourish as Welles in Citizen Kane, Bertolucci conjures a dazzling historical and personal perspective (the marbled insane asylum where his father is incarcerated; the classical vistas of Mussolini’s corridors of power, the dance hall where two women tease in an ambiguous tango; the forest road where the assassination runs horribly counter to expectation), demonstrating how the search for normality ends in the inevitable discovery that there is no such thing.” – Tom Milne, Time Out (London). another review: Until this re-release of The Conformist, those wanting to see (or re-see) Bernardo Bertolucci's underrated 1970 film had to make due with an inferior video copy that boasts watery visuals and atrocious dubbing. However, under the supervision of cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, this new, restored version of The Conformist has been pieced together which includes four minutes of footage excised from the original. Put into extremely limited release by Paramount Pictures, this gives movie-lovers an opportunity to view one of the director's pre-Last Tango in Paris pictures in the way it was originally intended to be seen. The non-linear manner in which The Conformist is presented makes Reservoir Dogs' twisty narrative seem straightforward by comparison. It's entirely possible that some viewers will still be confused two-thirds of the way through the running length. Regardless of how much (or how little) you understand, however, it's important to pay careful attention. Before the closing credits, all -- or at least enough -- will be made clear. Often, restored 1960s and 1970s films appear outdated when shown to today's audiences (Midnight Cowboy, while still a potent film, falls into that category). However, this is definitely not true of Bertolucci's picture. Those not knowing the production date might easily mistake this for a product of '90s cinema. Part of the reason is that The Conformist is set in the 1930s and 40s, but the care that Bertolucci and Storaro put into the look of the production defies dating. Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is an ambitious professor in 1938 Italy. As Mussolini comes into power, Clerici lets it be known that he is a fascist, and soon a blind friend has gotten him an assignment with the secret police. After marrying Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli), Clerici takes a honeymoon in Paris where he is given an assignment -- assassinate one of his old university teachers, Professor Quadri (Enzo Tarascio), who is now the head of an anti-fascist resistance group. Once in Paris, however, Clerici is assailed by doubts. Memories of a childhood incident with a gun haunt him, and he doesn't know if he'll be able to pull the trigger. He becomes sexually obsessed with Quadri's young wife Anna (Dominique Sanda) even as she lusts after Giulia. All-the-while, Clerici's co-conspirator (Gastone Moschin) eggs him on. Throughout the film, all Clerici really wants to do is live a life of normality. He gets married because that's the expected thing. He joins the fascist party because that's the best way to conform. Only in the final scene are the depths of his desperation revealed in a passionate and telling manner. Storaro and Bertolucci have fashioned a visual masterpiece in The Conformist, with some of the best use of light and shadow ever in a motion picture. This isn't just photography, it's art -- powerful, beautiful, and effective. There's a scene in the woods, with sunlight streaming between trees, that's breathtaking to behold -- and all the more stunning because of the brutal events that take place before this background. The Conformist is a fine blend of drama and suspense that boasts several strong performances. The real reason to see this film, however, is to absorb Storaro's technique, that of a true master at work. Whether in a theater or on video, this cleaned-up version is worth a look. © 1994 James Berardinelli

Meanwhile, a friend today suggested I have an exhibition to coincide with the "publication" of my photography book of Times Square. I think it is a good idea. But I don't own a gallery anymore so I am thinking that the Apollo Grill in Eastworks, the building in which I live, might be interested. Here is an image I am considering:

Thursday 19

New Links.

Dorothy Simpson Krause

Catherine McIntyre

Marta Glinska

Snarkywood

Wednesday 18

Rain and Wind and then Sun. And then more rain.

An elder Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, "A fight is going on inside me...it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.   One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.  The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.  This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too."  They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?" The old Cherokee simply replied... "The one you feed."

My book: I am getting a tremendous reception.

Tuesday 17

Monday 16

Times Square.  Today I worked on the book and "advertised" for two editors: a photo editor and an essayist to write a commentary on the images and this place in time. This character was often found on Fifth Avenue or Madison Avenue.

Al Gore's speech, which he delivered today in Washington.

Sunday 15

Football. I watched four games this weekend---me! Flurries early this morning:

Daryl and Kiley came over for dinner:

Saturday 14

Rain and Fog.

Friday 13

Not There. I was looking through old negatives today and I thought I would start scanning some that represent people and places that simply are not there anymore. Below, Hoboken, 1970s--now completely changed--modernized; gentrified.

They will all appear here:

Online digital course here.

Thursday 12

Renewal.

"But poetry is where we always turn in times of trouble and triumph. Literature is where we turn to sustain and renew ourselves for the challenges we face in our lives." -Quotation taken from this interview with Samantha Chang, new director of the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop

When I woke this morning I chained the alligator near the front door to my loft. I opened the door. I went to make coffee. The alligator liked to stare at Hawkeye, the black cat that lived across the hall. I wanted no company. The alligator would protect me from unwanted visitors and snap at them as they approached Studio # 9. My landlord might be coming over to ask about rent. I told the alligator to be on the watch for him. The alligator slept under my bed. It was hard work getting him downstairs this morning. I think I woke him from a dream. I think he was dreaming of girls in grass skirts. I think I had the same dream. But I can’t be sure. He doesn’t talk to me. As I dragged him down the stairs, he snapped the whole time. But when I said I would give him a big bowl of coffee and cream he smiled. I think he was once a dog. I think that is why he likes to sleep under my bed. When I was married I had a dog. Her name was Daisy. Princess Daisy. Sometimes she slept under the bed. I told one person to be careful around the alligator. I told the newspaper boy. When I was his age I was a newspaper boy. If an adult didn’t tip me I would throw the paper as hard as I could at the screen door. The adult never said anything to me about the hole. Maybe they thought an alligator snapped at it. The alligator is at the door now. He is snapping at the feet of people as they walk up and down the hall. Our coffee is almost ready. The alligator doesn’t have a name. I really should have a name for him. Turn around, I say, our coffee is almost ready. It sounds so mean. Turn around, Fred, our coffee is almost ready. This sounds friendly. And I want to remain on friendly terms with the alligator. I think he will like the name--Fred. Fred. I need to tell him about he baby across the hall. Yes, I really must. Her name is Ava. He must not snap at her. I treat Fred as if he were a dog. Fred, come, want your coffee?

Wednesday 11

Four Forty-Four.

In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.
You dance inside my chest,
where no one sees you,
but sometimes I do,
and that sight becomes this art.

~Rumi

Tuesday 10

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Sun, with all those planets revolving around it and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing better to do… ~Galileo

 

And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, this is the way; walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand and when ye turn to the left. Isaiah 30:21

Monday 09

Progress.

Sunday 08

New York City. The other day a friend asked me if I thought of moving; as in moving to New York City or Montreal; Boston; Portland--anywhere, for that matter, out of The Pioneer Valley. And I have thought about it. And I have looked at the art/photography and sales postings on Monster and Craigslist and NYFA. But it was just a thought. Yet who knows. Danielle will be out on her own soon and Daryl will be in college. Of course, this is all hypothetical. And I love living here in The Pioneer Valley, which is close to New York City, Boston and Montreal. I just need to find work. I don't really want to move.

Photography has been to me what a journal has been to a writer, a record of things seen and experienced, moments in the flow of times, documents of significance to me, experiments in "seeing." ~Beaumont Newhall

I find the art of Masao Yamamoto very inspiring. So I photographed this today:

"Trees and Rock Bank," Shih t'ao (1641-c.1717)

My primordial nature has no liking for the life in the cities.
To be free from the noise I built a thatched cottage
Far away in the depth of the mountains.
Wandering here and there I carry no thought.
When spring comes I watch the birds;
In summer I bathe in the running stream;
In autumn I climb the highest peaks;
During the winter I am warming up in the sun.
This I enjoy the real flavor of the seasons.
Let the sun and moon revolve by themselves!
When I have time I read the sutras,
When I am tired I sleep on my straw bed.
If you ask me, "Whom do you see in your dreams?"
I would answer, "The Yellow Emperor." *
It was he who transmitted the secret teaching to me,
Which I am forbidden to pass on to you.
I have worn the black robe now for decades.
The meaning of the teaching is profound and vast like the ocean.
When I reveal it in my brush-stroke, its merits are limitless.
Should I explain this secret teaching to you
The solid mountains, I am afraid, would blow away.

*The earliest Taoist ruler according to legend.

Saturday 07

Walking on Ice. Today I worked on a new website dedicated to my portraits, watched football and walked out on the ice.

The sunset.

Friday 06

Something's Gotta Give.

Two more of Becky:

Thursday 05

Something Has To Give.

Yesterday, or the day before, a friend wrote to me:

It's clear that God has given you a gift. He doesn't give such gifts to people without a purpose. Only, He's not too good at telling us what that purpose may be, or help us with clear-cut directions on how to get to the point where we understand what we're to do with it. I remember the last series of images from your days just prior to moving in to your current studio building. With the beauty of fall colors all around you your images were, instead, focused closely on individual leaves or flowers, dried up and dead. They still clung to their stalks, as if by habit, as if they didn't realize their purpose in life had been fulfilled and time had moved on past them. You tend not to write much about yourself and your feelings in your journal, but since those days I've felt you're still expressing a lot by the types of images you are choosing to share with us.

We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same. ~Carlos Castaneda

Last year: Tara.

BLINGO

Wednesday 04

Portraits. When I am not looking for a job (I am almost all day and every day as unemployment insurance does not start for a few weeks and UPS will not need me until February and I have a mountain of bills), I have been studying a few photo-journalists, fashion photographers and portrait photographers. I think my work ranks right up there with the best of them. This morning I designed a new website which will illustrate only my portrait/fashion photos which I will then send along to some magazine art/photo buyers. This image below is a favorite from last year. Some people wrote to me today about it saying:

~It's way to good for either Sports Illustrated  or The New York Times Sunday Magazine. It should......grace the walls of an art museum . ~Stunning work, Bruce. That belongs on the walls of the Ansel Adams Gallery here in Yosemite.

Spirituality is seeded, germinates, sprouts, and blossoms in the mundane. It is to be found and nurtured in the smallest of daily activities. The spirituality that feeds the soul and ultimately heals our psychological wounds may be found in those sacred objects that dress themselves in the accoutrements of the ordinary. ~Thomas Moore Care of the Soul

A few nature images from today:

Tuesday 03

Snow. A friend writes to me this morning:

I had a dream last night that I was somewhere and looked around and everything looked like your photography.

Monday 02

Sunday 01

Providence.

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy,
the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness.

Concerning all acts of initiative and creation,
there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which
kills countless ideas and splendid plans:
that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.
A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents,
meetings and material assistance
which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.

~Goethe