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The phrase "Do I dare disturb the universe?" originates from T.S. Eliot's poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." This poignant line encapsulates the internal struggle of the speaker as he contemplates the impact of his actions on the world around him. It raises profound questions about self-doubt, existentialism, and the fear of taking risks. The use of the word "dare" suggests a challenge, implying that the speaker is weighing the consequences of his choices against the potential for change or upheaval.
the phrase serves as a catalyst for deeper thought about the nature of existence and the courage it takes to effect change.
www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/44212/the-l...
We’ve had a death in the family recently. I remembered reading Frankl years ago where he described how to find meaning in grief. It was useful, but I think our cat “Junior” is more helpful. He’s a grey short hair, the third we’ve had in 3 decades. They are very sensitive cats and seem to be able to read their humans’ emotions. Junior has been very attentive towards us lately.
The cat in the background is “Wendy” who is a tortoise shell. We all know how torties are. “Sorry for your loss, but when are you going to feed me?” She’s a sweet cat too, in her way.
"I'm Not Young, But I'm Not Through"
Another Menomena lyric (from Muscle'n Flo). Maybe its because I'm turning 30 this year, or maybe its because I'm in the middle of my Saturn Return (Gaya), but I've been doing a lot of revisiting of old ideas, deconstructing the world around me, and whilst dealing with existential issues, I've found a new curiosity about life and the possibilities still ahead. I'm not so young anymore, but I'm pretty sure I've still got a lot more to do before I'm through.
...si può entrare nella vita solo a prezzo di una terribile ansia.
(F. Kafka)
youtu.be/OXme9SsYa3E (Anouar Brahem)
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (/ˈsɑrtrə/; French: [saʁtʁ]; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism and phenomenology, and one of the leading figures in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism.
Sartre's primary idea is that people, as humans, are "condemned to be free". This theory relies upon his position that there is no creator, and is illustrated using the example of the paper cutter. Sartre says that if one considered a paper cutter, one would assume that the creator would have had a plan for it: an essence. Sartre said that human beings have no essence before their existence because there is no Creator. Thus: "existence precedes essence". This forms the basis for his assertion that since one cannot explain one's own actions and behaviour by referencing any specific human nature, they are necessarily fully responsible for those actions. "We are left alone, without excuse."
Sartre maintained that the concepts of authenticity and individuality have to be earned but not learned. We need to experience "death consciousness" so as to wake up ourselves as to what is really important; the authentic in our lives which is life experience, not knowledge.Death draws the final point when we as beings cease to live for ourselves and permanently become objects that exist only for the outside world. As such, death emphasizes the burden of our free, individual existence.
As a junior lecturer at the Lycée du Havre in 1938, Sartre wrote the novel La Nausée (Nausea), which serves in some ways as a manifesto of existentialism and remains one of his most famous books. Taking a page from the German phenomenological movement, he believed that our ideas are the product of experiences of real-life situations, and that novels and plays can well describe such fundamental experiences, having equal value to discursive essays for the elaboration of philosophical theories such as existentialism. With such purpose, this novel concerns a dejected researcher (Roquentin) in a town similar to Le Havre who becomes starkly conscious of the fact that inanimate objects and situations remain absolutely indifferent to his existence. As such, they show themselves to be resistant to whatever significance human consciousness might perceive in them.
He also took inspiration from phenomenologist epistemology, explained by Franz Adler in this way: "Man chooses and makes himself by acting. Any action implies the judgment that he is right under the circumstances not only for the actor, but also for everybody else in similar circumstances."
This indifference of "things in themselves" (closely linked with the later notion of "being-in-itself" in his Being and Nothingness) has the effect of highlighting all the more the freedom Roquentin has to perceive and act in the world; everywhere he looks, he finds situations imbued with meanings which bear the stamp of his existence. Hence the "nausea" referred to in the title of the book; all that he encounters in his everyday life is suffused with a pervasive, even horrible, taste—specifically, his freedom. The book takes the term from Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, where it is used in the context of the often nauseating quality of existence. No matter how much Roquentin longs for something else or something different, he cannot get away from this harrowing evidence of his engagement with the world.
The novel also acts as a terrifying realization of some of Kant's fundamental ideas; Sartre uses the idea of the autonomy of the will (that morality is derived from our ability to choose in reality; the ability to choose being derived from human freedom; embodied in the famous saying "Condemned to be free") as a way to show the world's indifference to the individual. The freedom that Kant exposed is here a strong burden, for the freedom to act towards objects is ultimately useless, and the practical application of Kant's ideas proves to be bitterly rejected.
L'enfer, c'est les autres
Quand on écrit une pièce, il y a toujours des causes occasionnelles et des soucis profonds. La cause occasionnelle c'est que, au moment où j'ai écrit Huis clos, vers 1943 et début 44, j'avais trois amis et je voulais qu'ils jouent une pièce, une pièce de moi, sans avantager aucun d'eux. C'est-à-dire, je voulais qu'ils restent ensemble tout le temps sur la scène. Parce que je me disais que s'il y en a un qui s'en va, il pensera que les autres ont un meilleur rôle au moment où il s'en va. Je voulais donc les garder ensemble. Et je me suis dit, comment peut-on mettre ensemble trois personnes sans jamais en faire sortir l'une d'elles et les garder sur la scène jusqu'au bout, comme pour l'éternité. C'est là que m'est venue l'idée de les mettre en enfer et de les faire chacun le bourreau des deux autres.
Telle est la cause occasionnelle. Par la suite, d'ailleurs, je dois dire, ces trois amis n'ont pas joué la pièce, et comme vous le savez, c'est Michel Vitold, Tania Balachova et Gaby Sylvia qui l'ont jouée.
Mais il y avait à ce moment-là des soucis plus généraux et j'ai voulu exprimer autre chose dans la pièce que, simplement, ce que l'occasion me donnait. J'ai voulu dire « l'enfer c'est les autres ». Mais « l'enfer c'est les autres » a été toujours mal compris. On a cru que je voulais dire par là que nos rapports avec les autres étaient toujours empoisonnés, que c'était toujours des rapports infernaux. Or, c'est tout autre chose que je veux dire. Je veux dire que si les rapports avec autrui sont tordus, viciés, alors l'autre ne peut être que l'enfer. Pourquoi ? Parce que les autres sont, au fond, ce qu'il y a de plus important en nous-mêmes, pour notre propre connaissance de nous-mêmes. Quand nous pensons sur nous, quand nous essayons de nous connaître, au fond nous usons des connaissances que les autres ont déjà sur nous, nous nous jugeons avec les moyens que les autres ont, nous ont donné, de nous juger. Quoi que je dise sur moi, toujours le jugement d'autrui entre dedans. Quoi que je sente de moi, le jugement d'autrui entre dedans. Ce qui veut dire que, si mes rapports sont mauvais, je me mets dans la totale dépendance d'autrui et alors, en effet, je suis en enfer. Et il existe une quantité de gens dans le monde qui sont en enfer parce qu'ils dépendent trop du jugement d'autrui. Mais cela ne veut nullement dire qu'on ne puisse avoir d'autres rapports avec les autres, ça marque simplement l'importance capitale de tous les autres pour chacun de nous.
Deuxième chose que je voudrais dire, c'est que ces gens ne sont pas semblables à nous. Les trois personnes que vous entendrez dans Huis clos ne nous ressemblent pas en ceci que nous sommes tous vivants et qu'ils sont morts. Bien entendu, ici, « morts » symbolise quelque chose. Ce que j'ai voulu indiquer, c'est précisément que beaucoup de gens sont encroûtés dans une série d'habitudes, de coutumes, qu'ils ont sur eux des jugements dont ils souffrent mais qu'ils ne cherchent même pas à changer. Et que ces gens-là sont comme morts, en ce sens qu'ils ne peuvent pas briser le cadre de leurs soucis, de leurs préoccupations et de leurs coutumes et qu'ils restent ainsi victimes souvent des jugements que l'on a portés sur eux.
À partir de là, il est bien évident qu'ils sont lâches ou méchants. Par exemple, s'ils ont commencé à être lâches, rien ne vient changer le fait qu'ils étaient lâches. C'est pour cela qu'ils sont morts, c'est pour cela, c'est une manière de dire que c'est une « mort vivante » que d'être entouré par le souci perpétuel de jugements et d'actions que l'on ne veut pas changer.
De sorte que, en vérité, comme nous sommes vivants, j'ai voulu montrer, par l'absurde, l'importance, chez nous, de la liberté, c'est-à-dire l'importance de changer les actes par d'autres actes. Quel que soit le cercle d'enfer dans lequel nous vivons, je pense que nous sommes libres de le briser. Et si les gens ne le brisent pas, c'est encore librement qu'ils y restent. De sorte qu'ils se mettent librement en enfer.
Vous voyez donc que « rapport avec les autres », « encroûtement » et « liberté », liberté comme l'autre face à peine suggérée, ce sont les trois thèmes de la pièce.
Je voudrais qu'on se le rappelle quand vous entendrez dire... « L'enfer c'est les autres ».
Je tiens à ajouter, en terminant, qu'il m'est arrivé en 1944, à la première représentation, un très rare bonheur, très rare pour les auteurs dramatiques : c'est que les personnages ont été incarnés de telle manière par les trois acteurs, et aussi par Chauffard, le valet d'enfer, qui l'a toujours jouée depuis, que je ne puis plus me représenter mes propres imaginations autrement que sous les traits de Michel Vitold, Gaby Sylvia, de Tania Balachova et de Chauffard. Depuis, la pièce a été rejouée par d'autres acteurs, et je tiens en particulier à dire que j'ai vu Christiane Lenier, quand elle l'a jouée, et que j'ai admiré quelle excellente Inès elle a été.
L'enfer, c'est les Autres, Sartre
23 juillet 2009
Il serait erroné de croire, comme on peut le lire sur Internet, que la formule de Sartre relève de la misanthropie. « L'enfer, c'est les Autres » ne signifie pas que la compagnie des autres hommes me fait vivre un enfer, et qu'après tout, je serai bien plus heureux s'ils n'étaient pas là. Sartre ne veut en aucun cas dire que les Autres me sont désagréables, tout égocentriques ou caractériels qu'ils sont.
Cette citation de Sartre se situe presque à la fin de Huis clos, la plus connue de ses pièces de théâtre. Dans cette pièce, trois personnages (Garcin, Inès, Estelle) se retrouvent dans le même appartement, alors qu'ils ne se connaissent pas le moins du monde. Leur seul point commun est qu'ils sont tous les trois morts ; et que ce sont tous des assassins. Ils comprennent qu'ils sont en fait en enfer, même si rien ne le laisserai penser à première vue. L'appartement dans lequel ils sont réunis n'a rien d'une salle de torture, il ressemble à une très luxueuse cellule. Où sont les pals, les fouets, les grils, et tous les engins infernaux ?
Ils découvrent un enfer qui est bien moins terrible que prévu. En tout cas, ils le pensent au début. Car ils se rendent vite compte, ensuite, qu'ils sont chacun le bourreau l'un de l'autre. Voilà ce qui fait dire à Garcin : « Alors c'est ça l'enfer. Je n'aurais jamais cru... Vous vous rappelez : le souffre, le bûcher, le gril... Ah! Quelle plaisanterie. Pas besoin de gril : l'enfer, c'est les Autres. »
Ils sont tous les trois confinés dans cet appartement, sans issue, face à face. Ils ne peuvent plus s'éviter ou s'ignorer. Leur enfer, leur torture, ce n'est jamais les supplices physiques de la géhenne, mais bien plutôt, pour chacun, la présence des deux autres à ses côtés. Observé, aucun d'entre eux ne pourra jamais trouver le répit. La souffrance est bien plus mentale que physique ici.
A l'aide de cette pièce de théâtre, l'intention de Sartre est de simplifier sa philosophie, de la rendre abordable au plus grand nombre en l'imageant, en la mettant en scène. En faisant dire à Garcin, « l'enfer, c'est les Autres », Sartre veut d'abord mettre l'accent sur son athéisme. L'enfer n'existe pas, Dieu non plus, il n'y a pire souffrance que de vivre, ici et maintenant, sur cette terre. Cette souffrance, c'est ce que signifie en second lieu sa citation, vient de l'impossibilité pour l'homme de se détacher du regard des autres. C'est ce qu'il appelle ailleurs l'intersubjectivité. Les autres sont la condition de mon existence, sans eux, je ne suis rien ; mais ce sont aussi des juges auxquels je ne peux jamais me soustraire.
NOTES
SARTRE J.-P., Huis clos suivi de Les mouches, Paris, Gallimard, 2004.
Ibid., p.93.
SARTRE J.-P., L’existentialisme est un humanisme, Paris, Gallimard, 1996, p.59.
ces gens-là sont comme morts, en ce sens qu'ils ne peuvent pas briser le cadre de leurs soucis, de leurs préoccupations et de leurs coutumes et qu'ils restent ainsi victimes souvent des jugements que l'on a portés sur eux.JP Sartre
"l'enfer c'est les autres » a été toujours mal compris. On a cru que je voulais dire par là que nos rapports avec les autres étaient toujours empoisonnés, que c'était toujours des rapports infernaux. Or, c'est tout autre chose que je veux dire. Je veux dire que si les rapports avec autrui sont tordus, viciés, alors l'autre ne peut être que l'enfer. Pourquoi ? Parce que les autres sont, au fond, ce qu'il y a de plus important en nous-mêmes, pour notre propre connaissance de nous-mêmes. Quand nous pensons sur nous, quand nous essayons de nous connaître, au fond nous usons des connaissances que les autres ont déjà sur nous, nous nous jugeons avec les moyens que les autres ont, nous ont donné, de nous juger. Quoi que je dise sur moi, toujours le jugement d'autrui entre dedans. Quoi que je sente de moi, le jugement d'autrui entre dedans. Ce qui veut dire que, si mes rapports sont mauvais, je me mets dans la totale dépendance d'autrui et alors, en effet, je suis en enfer. Et il existe une quantité de gens dans le monde qui sont en enfer parce qu ils dépendent trop du jugement d'autrui. Mais cela ne veut nullement dire qu'on ne puisse avoir d'autres rapports avec les autres, ça marque simplement l'importance capitale de tous les autres pour chacun de nous." Jean Sol Partre
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flamingos mostly are in a big crowd, but this one has chosen, to think all over while being separated ...
Robert Indiana, an American Pop artist known for his "scuptural poems," is best known for his "LOVE" with a titled "O." This image, first created for a Christmas card for the Museum of Modern Art in 1964, was included on an 8 cent United States Postal Service postage stamp in 1973, the first of their regular series of "love stamps." This sculptural version on Sixth Avenue in one of many. The others can be found on the Pratt Institute campus in Brooklyn, NY; the Indianapolis Museum of Art; Scottsdale's Civic Center, in so called "LOVE Park" in Philadelphia, the New Orleans Museum of Art's sculpture garden, on the University of Pennsylvania campus, at the Museum of Modern Art at Brigham Young University, on the campus of Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, outside the Taipei 101 tower in Taiwan, at the Red Rock Resort Spa and Casino in Las Vegas, in Shinjuku Tokyo JAPAN, and on the world-famous Orchard Road, Singapore.
Infamously, Indiana failed to register a copyright for the work, and found it difficult to deter unauthorized commercial use. The image has been reproduced in countless times in varying forms, including sculptures, posters, and 3-D desk ornaments. It has been translated into Hebrew, Chinese, and Spanish. It strongly influenced the original cover of Love Story, the Erich Segal novel. It was parodied on the Rage Against the Machine album cover for Renegades, as well as the cover for Oasis' single Little by Little from the 2002 album Heathen Chemistry. Recently it has been parodied by London artist D*Face with his "HATE", the "A" tilted similarly. The LOVE emblem has been adopted by skateboarders, frequently used in skateboard magazines and videos. After skateboarding was banned in Philadelphia's LOVE Park, the emblem was used by organizations opposing the ban.[
Indiana moved to New York City in 1954 and joined the pop art movement, using distinctive imagery drawing on commercial art approaches blended with existentialism, that gradually moved toward what Indiana calls "sculptural poems". Indiana's work often consists of bold, simple, iconic images, especially numbers and short words like "EAT", "HUG", and "LOVE". He is also known for painting the unique basketball court formerly used by the Milwaukee Bucks in that city's U.S. Cellular Arena, with a large M shape taking up each half of the court.
Indiana, born Robert Clark,moved to New York City in 1954 and joined the pop art movement, using distinctive imagery drawing on commercial art approaches blended with existentialism. Indiana's work often consists of bold, simple, iconic images, especially numbers and short words like "EAT", "HUG", and, of course, "LOVE". He is also known for painting the unique basketball court formerly used by the Milwaukee Bucks in that city's U.S. Cellular Arena, with a large M shape taking up each half of the court. Despite his early success at the center of the art world, Indiana retreated to rural obscurity in later life. Indiana has lived as a resident in the island town of Vinalhaven, Maine since 1978.
Juliette Gréco, French singer and actress, grande dame of French art song, icon of post-WWII France and the St-Germain-des-Prés “existentialist” scene, dies in Ramatuelle, France, at age 93. A very classy and talented lady, a “free singer and songstress of freedom,” as the daily Le Figaro described her. 😰 😰 😰
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From BBC News
Juliette Gréco, the sexy chanteuse who personified the spirit and style of post-war Paris and who later inherited Édith Piaf's exquisite mantle as grande-dame of French song, was born on 7 February, 1927 in Montpellier on the French Mediterranean coast.
Captured by the Gestapo
Her father, a police commissioner from Corsica, walked out when Juliette was still small. She, and her sister Charlotte, were raised mainly by their grandparents, and the nuns at the local convent, until their mother moved them to Paris.
It was wartime and Paris was an occupied city. Juliette's mother risked everything working with the Resistance. In 1943, disaster struck and the Gestapo arrested them all. "A French Gestapo officer humiliated me," she recalled. "I became so upset that I punched him on the nose. Well, that cost me!"
As a teenager, Juliette Gréco was captured by the Gestapo and thrown into prison. Her mother and sister were hauled off to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in northern Germany. It was a women-only prison opened on the personal orders of Heinrich Himmler.
Many were gassed, thousands more perished of disease, starvation, overwork and despair. In all, 50,000 women died within its walls before the war was over.
Juliette was spared the camps. Just 15 years old, she was thrown into the notorious women's prison in Fresnes, just south of Paris. It was a foul place where the Gestapo held, tortured and often murdered members of the Resistance.
Released a few months later, all she had were the blue cotton dress and sandals she'd been wearing when she was rounded up. It was the coldest winter on record and she had no home to return to. So Gréco walked the eight miles back into town.
Miraculously, both mother and daughter made it through Ravensbrück. After the liberation, Juliette went every day to the Lutétia hotel, where survivors were arriving. One day, among a crowd of skeletal, liberated prisoners, she spotted them. "We held each other tight, in silence. There were no words for what I felt at that instant."
Existentialist muse
The war over, Juliette moved to Saint-Germain-des-Prés, on the left bank of the Seine, making ends meet singing in cafes. "I had no food, so I bought a pipe and some very strong tobacco, and I smoked it in my room so I could forget my hunger", she said.
Orson Wells and Juliette Gréco were friends from the post-war Parisian social scene. Dirt poor, she was reliant on male friends to lend her things to wear. Everything was too big but it kept out the cold. The baggy clothes, the long black hair, her stunning looks and dark makeup meant you couldn't miss her. She was "the black muse of Saint-Germain-des-Prés", captivating the Parisian post-war beau-monde.
In 1946, they would gather at the famous cellar club, Le Tabou; Juliette Gréco at the microphone, Picasso, Orson Wells and Marlene Dietrich at the bar. Marlon Brando would give her a lift home on his bike.
The existentialists loved her for the way she looked. Juliette was fascinated by their unconventional style and mindset. "Black provides space for the imaginary," she said. They all believed in living for the now.
Photographers Robert Doisneau and Henri Cartier-Bresson captured her beauty with their cameras. Jean Cocteau asked her to star in his film, Orpheus.
But she was also loved for her voice, the perfect interpreter of melancholy songs capturing a post-war generation's hunger for life as freedom returned to the city.
Philosophers and writers Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus both wrote lyrics for her. "Her voice carries millions of poems that haven't been written yet," Sartre insisted. "It is like a warm light that revives the embers burning inside of us all. In her mouth, my words become precious stones."
Miles Davis
Existentialism gave post-war Paris its intellectual identity. But its soundtrack was American jazz. They had a passionate love affair but never married. "You'd be seen as a negro's whore in America", he told her.
Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Django Reinhardt were all huge stars. Of course, she knew them all. One night, unable to afford a ticket, Gréco snuck back stage at the Salle Pleyel on the Rue Faubourg Saint Honoré, to watch the legendary jazz trumpeter, Miles Davis.
It would be the beginning of a passionate love affair that would last until the end of his life. He was already married, with a child fathered at the age of 17. He spoke no French, she had no English. None of that mattered in bohemian Paris.
Gréco was transfixed by his looks and his talent. "In profile, he was a real Giacometti", she said. "He had a face of great beauty. You didn't have to be a scholar or a specialist in jazz to be struck by him. There was such an unusual harmony between the man, the instrument and the sound - it was pretty shattering."
"Why don't you marry her?" asked Jean-Paul Sartre. "Because I love her too much to make her unhappy," came Miles Davis' reply. The problem was his colour. "You'd be seen as a negro's whore in America", he said. "It would destroy your career."
Years later, there was a terrible incident in New York, which Davis said proved him right. Gréco had a nice suite at the Waldorf Hotel and invited Miles to dinner. "The face of the maitre d'hôtel when he came in was indescribable", she recalled.
"After two hours, the food was more or less thrown in our faces. The meal was long and painful, and he left." She took the waiter's hand, made as if she were about to kiss it, and spat in his palm.
At four o'clock in the morning, Davis called her. He was in tears. "I couldn't come by myself," he said. "I don't ever want to see you again here, in a country where this kind of relationship is impossible." She realised they had made a terrible mistake. The humiliation bit deep.
"In America, his colour was made blatantly obvious to me, whereas in Paris I didn't even notice that he was black", she later wrote.
He was not her only lover. There were dozens of heartbroken men, and some women, left reeling in her wake. Some even committed suicide after she left them.
She was unapologetic that she spread her affections so widely. "What do I care what other people think?," she'd say to anyone who asked.
It was said she loved the philosopher, Albert Camus, and the racing driver, Jean-Pierre Wimille, until he was killed in the Buenos Aires Grand Prix.
There was Hollywood movie mogul, Darryl F Zanuck. He gave her a starring role in John Huston's Roots of Heaven, alongside Errol Flynn. Another tycoon, David O Selznick, sent her a private plane so she could dine with him in London and offered her a fortune to sign a 7 year contract.
"I declined politely, trying not to laugh," she said. "Hollywood was definitely not for me."
There were three marriages; to actors Philippe Lemaire, with whom she had a daughter, and Michel Piccoli. And then, for twenty years, to the pianist Gérard Jouannest until his death in 2018.
Music and politics
Gréco was less a composer than a great interpreter of other people's songs, notably Jacques Brel and George Brassens.
The French newspaper, Libération, said she spat and caressed "the words like a Fauvist painter crushes colours onto his canvas with his knife".
Si tu t'imagines, Parlez-moi d`amour, and Je suis comme je suis were the big hits of the early years. Later, there were collaborations with Serge Gainsbourg, never one to miss working with a beautiful woman.
She became a sought-after performer far beyond the cafes of Saint-Germain, constantly in demand world-wide, including Germany, the US and Japan.
Scarred by her experience with the Gestapo, she hesitated to star in the country responsible for Ravensbrück. She finally agreed in 1959, singing with tears in her eyes remembering her mother's treatment.
She was very proud that young people made up most of the audience. But she kept returning to Hamburg and Berlin, mixing her own material with songs by her friend, Marlene Dietrich. In 2005, she even released an album in German, Abendlied (Evening Song).
Politically, she was firmly on the left. She campaigned against the wars in both Algeria and Vietnam. And then, there was her command performance for Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean dictator in 1981.
He thought it was a coup persuading the great star to perform in Santiago. She walked on to rapturous applause and gave him a show entirely consisting of songs he had banned. "I went off to dead silence", she recalled. "It was the greatest triumph of my career."
Musically, she forever experimented. In 2009, she released Je Me Souviens de Tout, an album mixing the traditional with cutting-edge French song, including rapper-cum-slam-poet, Abd Al Malik.
Gréco refused to remain forever the existentialist it-girl of the 1940s, preferring to look forwards rather than back.
But a few years later, at the age of 87, it was time to say goodbye. It would not be long before a stroke would cut her down. She launched a worldwide farewell tour, Merci. Thousands packed the great Olympia Hall in Paris, to see the legend for the last time.
The “high priestess» of existentialism played out in style, treating the crowds to classics such as Déshabillez-moi, Sous le ciel de Paris, and Jacques Brel’s great anthem, Amsterdam.
The grande-dame of French song, she may have been. But on that emotional night, she performed to an audience made up almost entirely of young people.
After an astonishing life and career that had lasted more than 70 years, Juliette Gréco was immensely proud of that.
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Adieu, mademoiselle Gréco, et merci !!! 😰 😰 😰
my friend Klaas doing his favorite job: throwing his shadow like a sundial - a German saying: "Mach es wie die Sonnenuhr, zähl die heitren Stunden nur"
Mirrored Metropolis: Finding Self in the Cityscape
Story:
I am lost in the endless cycle of this cityscape, constantly seeing myself reflected in its modern shiny surfaces. The red traffic light blinks intermittently in a never-ending cycle, symbolising urban monotony. Taking a selfie, I see myself being captured in countless fragments, reflecting the driver, pedestrian, and street lamp. I am a quantified self, trapped in the repetitive narrative of city life. Each photo is a breadcrumb leading me back to myself. I am a loop within a loop, echoing endlessly in the digital corridors of eternity. To break free, I must acknowledge the prison of my gaze. But for now, I remain trapped in the perpetual selfie of existence, a figure multiplied yet diminished. It's just another form of content.
Description:
Dive into a visual journey where philosophy meets urban photography. "Echoes of Existence" is a series that explores the Sartrean concept of self through the medium of the selfie. Witness the seamless blend of self-awareness and city vibrancy, and join us in pondering the eternal question of existence amidst the chaotic beauty of urban life.
Keywords:
Urban Philosophy, Self-Reflection, Existentialism, Cityscape Photography, Selfie Art, Sartrean Thought, Reflective Imagery, Contemporary Art
Blogger: www.jjfbbennett.com/2024/04/finding-self-in-cityscape.html
I saw him sitting on a ledge in downtown Toronto on a sunny, chilly late-winter day. His hat and beard caught my attention as features that would contribute to a good street portrait. As I got closer I became even more interested in photographing him and having a chat. He was, however, on his phone with a shopping bag at his feet (see comment photo below) so I would have to wait.
I walked down the block a few meters and decided to give him time to complete his phone call which appeared to be a relaxed social chat. I used the time to evaluate the location and think about the light. He was in harsh backlight but next to him was a fence that provided open shade. The building across the street was reflecting a softer light from the north. After five minutes I was feeling uneasy. Not only was I beginning to feel like a loiterer, but I was putting in a lot of time waiting for a stranger who might very well decline my request. I decided to stick it out a bit longer and soon I could see that he was wrapping up the call.
I approached him, introduced myself, and made my project request. His response was a very comfortable one. “Oh. Ok. That’s fine. I do, however, need to make one more quick call if you don’t mind waiting. Then I’ll be happy to do it.” I said I would remain nearby and having made the connection, I felt more comfortable waiting. When his call was finished he introduced himself. Meet Stephen. “But people call me The Dude.” He showed me his t-shirt from the cult movie The Big Lebowski with Jeff Daniels portrait on it and the movie quote “The Dude Abides.” Quirky and intriguing.
I positioned Stephen against the brown fence I had decided upon and took a few photos with minor adjustments to manage reflections on his glasses. I gave him my contact card and explained a bit more about the Human Family project and I could see his interest. He pulled out his own business card and gave it to me and I noticed that it detailed medical credentials. He smiled and said e said “I’m a Philosopher Psychiatrist.” Knock me over with a feather. I am surprised and amazed by the fascinating people I meet while pursuing my Human Family project.
As we began to talk, Stephen suggested we walk a bit because he was to meet his friend nearby. He peeked into a nearby restaurant window – no friend there. Since his friend wasn’t in the restaurant he would be next door. He suggested we step inside the next building to get out of the wind while finishing our chat. Inside the doors we stood on the dim, cramped landing between the door and a staircase. As we got acquainted a few men came in and out, politely excusing themselves for squeezing between us in the cramped space. “You probably don’t realize it, Jeff, but this is a gay sauna.” I explained that I had worked many years just a block away on the edge of the gay village but had not known this nondescript building to be a gay sauna.
I learned that Stephen and I are the same age (72) and that he just celebrated his birthday with a party last night. He grew up in Toronto and began studies for a medical career as encouraged by his parents. They were “liberal Jews” and having a doctor for a son suited their plans. He discovered that he had little interest in medicine but pursued it for a couple of years to please his parents before switching to philosophy which was a much better fit. He got a Master’s degree in Philosophy but later returned to medical school when he became interested in psychoanalysis. Upon completing his medical and psychiatric training he did, in fact, become a psychoanalyst. He met the famous “radical psychiatrist” R. D. Laing and was strongly influenced by his existentialism and phenomenology. He worked with R. D. Laing and his group while also working for the National Health Service. In all, he spent 25 years in London England before returning to Toronto. You can read more about his fascinating and accomplished background here: livinginstitute.org/stephen-ticktin and here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Ticktin. Stephen currently maintains an Existential Psychotherapy practice in Toronto’s west end.
As should be the case with any good psychotherapist, I found Stephen warm, friendly, and easy to talk to. He had a sense of humor that sparkled. What about The Dude t-shirt? He displayed it again and told me “If you haven’t seen the movie, you should. It’s a fun movie and The Dude is a great character.” I wanted a photo of Stephen’s Dude t-shirt but it was challenging because I needed to somehow prop the door to the street open enough to let in enough light and also contend with getting enough distance in the cramped entryway of the building to capture his face and the shirt. I held the door open with one hand, squeezed myself against the wall, and held the camera awkwardly in my other hand. Stephen provided another popular culture reference to his world by suggesting that I visit the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man.” Wikipedia summarizes the song as follows: “Dylan's song revolves around the mishaps of a Mr. Jones, who keeps blundering into strange situations, and the more questions he asks, the less the world makes sense to him.”
Hey, I told you Stephen is an interesting fellow.
Stephen’s advice to his younger self? He smiled and said “Go with your passion. If I had followed my passion when young, I would have been a musician, not a doctor.” His message to the project? “It would be the same advice I sometimes share with my patients: “Establish a comfortable distance.”
Just before we said goodbye, Stephen introduced me to a friend who was trying to get past us while exiting the building. Stephen greeted him and said “Meet Jeff. He’s doing a photography project and has been taking some photos of me. Hey, by the way, you missed a heck of a party last night.” His friend apologized for missing the birthday party and said he knew he had a good one but he had another obligation.
It was great meeting you Stephen. Happy Birthday and thank you for being part of my project. This is my 701st submission to The Human Family Group on Flickr.
You can view more street portraits and stories by visiting The Human Family.
Hmmm. Alternatively, ice may not exist. If ice does exist, then we've assumed something exist and, therefore, anything could exist. If ice can exist, then I can exist. God can exist. Perhaps the world around me is not just an illusion. Oh wait, this sign could be an illusion. Time to read some more Kant, Hume, Camus, Popper and Schopenhauer.
If the world exists, then I still want to know why.
Who would have guessed that the department of transportation could have been so philosophical?
I'm teaching Existentialism for Little Children in an entirely thrifted outfit - a Vivienne Westwood for John Smedley knit, a Kookai skirt & Golden Italian Leather Sandals. Homemade necklaces by me & bangles from 'Diva'.
*
Radikale Transzendenz * | Radical Transcendence *
- * -
... Looking into the mirror - Seeing my face in it - And the words and signs on the mirror glass - Looking deep - Long and deep - And even deeper - Deeper - So deep until I look through my face - Looking into me - Until the thoughts dissolve - Until the face dissolves in its familiar forms - Until the words and signs dissolve - Until I dissolve in this form - And come to me deep inside at the same time ... *
- * -
... In den Spiegel blicken - Darin mein Gesicht sehen - Und die Worte und Zeichen auf dem Spiegelglas - Tief hineinblicken - Lang und tief - Und immer tiefer - Tiefer - So tief bis ich durch das Gesicht blicke - In mich hineinblicke - Bis sich die Gedanken auflösen - Das Gesicht in seinen bekannten Formen auflöst - Die Worte und Zeichen sich auflösen - Bis ich mich in dieser Form auflöse - Und gleichzeitig tief im Inneren zu mir gelange ... *
- * -
Photo: Patricia Adler
- * -
Wolfgang Sterneck:
In the Cracks of the World *
Photo-Reports: www.flickr.com/sterneck/sets
Articles and Visions: www.sterneck.net
- * -
John Macquarrie - An Existentialist Theology
Pelican Books 1535. 1973
Cover Design: Germano Facetti
Cover Artist: Max Bill - "Two Separate Accents"
Alberto Giacometti, Walking Man II (1/6), 1960, bronze, 188.5 × 27.9 × 110.7 cm (National Gallery of Art)
Oct 25th, 2015 -- There is bittersweet beauty in knowing that the waves will inevitably wash away all his hard work. The evanescent nature of this piece is a reminder that moments in life are fleeting. When the tides begin to rise, the waves will either wash away a blank canvas, or the waves will wash away a work of art; inexorably, the beach will return once again to being blank.
But be present for when the canvas is not blank.
Like a camera capturing a memory in a picture, be sure to store away those fleet moments in your memories.
Gilded in the oak savanna.
In the leaning hills, where the summer sun turns the grassland to tinder, the savanna is a wind chime, rustling a harmonious lullaby like a new deck of cards in nimble fingers. Grasshoppers and mayflies and the chaff of newly dried seed catch in the sun. A dry, hot blizzard in an amber streetlamp.
The Arastradero Open Space Preserve is home to rattlesnakes, coyotes, and mountain lions and innumerable flavors of insects and birds, yet it is the trees that bring me here time and again. Before the axe and the wheel came to this land, enormous oak savannas like this one stretched across the midwest, the southwest and here along the west coast.
But the axe and the wheel did come and the savannas left. I like to think of the craggy and twisted forms that remain as wounded but unbent descendants of the stalwart soldiers who resisted the blade and the advance of civilization to hold the dusty California soil to the ground and to provide shade for the coyotes and mountain lions and rattlesnakes that weave through the tall grass of the American Veldt. As these sentinels slowly march from mother to child up and down the wind-tousled steppe, we flit about the outskirts of this preserve as insects, building and gnawing and living and dying. I hope that’s all we’ll ever do.
I came to the Arastradero preserve to connect with a particularly beautiful oak I’d passed (and photographed) on hikes before. I found her on the hillside as ever, arms outstretched, singing in the late evening breeze, fluttering fingers of bright green.
As I stood for a while here on the hillside, gilded in the afternoon, alone with my thoughts but for the oak and the whisper of the breeze and the hum-drum clicks and tweets of grassland animals, I thought, “I’ve been away too long,” and was reminded of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, and I’ve been thinking about it since.
I came back to the preserve to reconnect with a spot where I’d taken an old photo. Only now do I realize that same photograph was made nearly a year ago to the date. Oliver (who now runs and speaks and laughs) was with us then, asleep as an absolutely tiny three-month-old infant.
The change over the last year in Oliver provided, for me, a stark contrast with the constancy of the natural world, of these stalwart trees. How little they’ve changed. How little indeed will they change over the next century. Long may they roam on these hills and long may they feed my heart.
------------
In the leaning hills.
I’ve cared a great deal about taking photographs for a long time. When people ask me how long I’ve been “into” photography, I often don’t have an answer. I can vividly remember becoming interested in my father’s camera when I was a kid. No idea how old.
In point of fact, my mother was cleaning house recently and asked that I sort through some old papers of mine. Tucked in a bunch of junk were loads of old prints made with a Vivitar point and shoot given me by my parents sometime while I was in fifth grade. The landscape/candid ideas are all there, but the execution was a long way from developed (and often still is)!
I found a renewed passion for image making when I was in college and then again in graduate school, although if truth be told, it’s been relatively steady for most of my life and those moments of renewed energy are likely just an interpretation of mine in hindsight.
I often return to the question of “Why?” Why should photography feel a bit like breathing and why should I derive so much satisfaction from it? I have loads of standard answers that you see on photoblogs and photo news sites ad naseum, revolving around physical/emotional enjoyment and the risk/reward of creativity and sharing, but these are pretty unsatisfactory.
I’ll tell you that the social networking and community aspects of photography are not what drives me to carry a camera to beautiful places. Neither is building a portfolio of images what puts my feet out the door. Although I run this blog and make every effort to post frequently, I often find myself going to great lengths to make images I find interesting and then leaving them on the hard disk at home for months or years at a time.
This isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy every part of the process, from shooting to publishing; it’s just that, if those weren’t a feature of the photography/photoblog world, I would still shoot.
There is something about images and cameras that has always spoken to me, something in the process of making an extraordinary image that drives me across states and out of bed at strange hours. Images lie at the boundary between real and surreal, between ordinary and fantastic. They can tell the truth, they can lie, but good ones never let you know which. I find it thrilling to compare the different truths of the reality and the image made after. I like to imagine for a moment that the world is as strange as photographs make it seem, then I realize it’s far stranger.
I photograph because that’s who I am, it’s an authentic expression of myself. I mean authentic in the existential sense—that I am doing what comes naturally and being true to who I am. Sometimes explanations and reasons are trite and you just have to accept that you are what you are. Simply put, photography is.
Of course, existentialism takes for granted that, to the mind, the material world presents itself as incongruous and absurd. And maybe that’s what I find so damned rewarding about photography; the world is messy and strange and absurd, but there is a great harmony and undeniable humanity in standing amongst the nodding, tawny, and wind-threshed grain, catching on a wafer of silicon a few trillion photons that have spent eons bouncing around the interior of our sun, all the while inundated with the smells of flowering plants and buzzing insects, luring one another to sex and death in the burning heart of the afternoon, in the leaning hills.
Is he falling or is he recovering?
Is he panicking or is he regrouping?
Is he giving up or is he about to charge?
...the answer lies only within himself.
(Done using watercolour pencils and a black biro pen)
one of my humorous friends playing a Mexican musician after he crossed successfully the border between Mexico and the USA...
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More at my art site: rsmithings.com
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Moving from scene to scene, how do we know when the elements are right for a moment? By not thinking about it, perhaps. So we grasp for understanding from ground, to sky, climbing many branches to get there. Maybe this is what it might look like.
Contact emiller@lightflightstudios.com to buy a high quality version or rights to the picture. This is copy-righted material.
dobro, sunlight + cat: my national steel, resonator guitar (dobro) reflects some sunlight, while our cat is on her early morning patrol - P.S.: the idea for the title is by André Fromont :-)
I almost didn't take this shot -- I was watching those small black clouds vanish before my eyes and this was all that was left of them by the time that I was able to snap a photo.
I had some thoughts verging on existentialism associated with this photo, but it's way too late at night to think of such things. And there's much to do tomorrow. Perhaps another time.
Gilded in the oak savanna.
In the leaning hills, where the summer sun turns the grassland to tinder, the savanna is a wind chime, rustling a harmonious lullaby like a new deck of cards in nimble fingers. Grasshoppers and mayflies and the chaff of newly dried seed catch in the sun. A dry, hot blizzard in an amber streetlamp.
The Arastradero Open Space Preserve is home to rattlesnakes, coyotes, and mountain lions and innumerable flavors of insects and birds, yet it is the trees that bring me here time and again. Before the axe and the wheel came to this land, enormous oak savannas like this one stretched across the midwest, the southwest and here along the west coast.
But the axe and the wheel did come and the savannas left. I like to think of the craggy and twisted forms that remain as wounded but unbent descendants of the stalwart soldiers who resisted the blade and the advance of civilization to hold the dusty California soil to the ground and to provide shade for the coyotes and mountain lions and rattlesnakes that weave through the tall grass of the American Veldt. As these sentinels slowly march from mother to child up and down the wind-tousled steppe, we flit about the outskirts of this preserve as insects, building and gnawing and living and dying. I hope that’s all we’ll ever do.
I came to the Arastradero preserve to connect with a particularly beautiful oak I’d passed (and photographed) on hikes before. I found her on the hillside as ever, arms outstretched, singing in the late evening breeze, fluttering fingers of bright green.
As I stood for a while here on the hillside, gilded in the afternoon, alone with my thoughts but for the oak and the whisper of the breeze and the hum-drum clicks and tweets of grassland animals, I thought, “I’ve been away too long,” and was reminded of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, and I’ve been thinking about it since.
I came back to the preserve to reconnect with a spot where I’d taken an old photo. Only now do I realize that same photograph was made nearly a year ago to the date. Oliver (who now runs and speaks and laughs) was with us then, asleep as an absolutely tiny three-month-old infant.
The change over the last year in Oliver provided, for me, a stark contrast with the constancy of the natural world, of these stalwart trees. How little they’ve changed. How little indeed will they change over the next century. Long may they roam on these hills and long may they feed my heart.
------------
In the leaning hills.
I’ve cared a great deal about taking photographs for a long time. When people ask me how long I’ve been “into” photography, I often don’t have an answer. I can vividly remember becoming interested in my father’s camera when I was a kid. No idea how old.
In point of fact, my mother was cleaning house recently and asked that I sort through some old papers of mine. Tucked in a bunch of junk were loads of old prints made with a Vivitar point and shoot given me by my parents sometime while I was in fifth grade. The landscape/candid ideas are all there, but the execution was a long way from developed (and often still is)!
I found a renewed passion for image making when I was in college and then again in graduate school, although if truth be told, it’s been relatively steady for most of my life and those moments of renewed energy are likely just an interpretation of mine in hindsight.
I often return to the question of “Why?” Why should photography feel a bit like breathing and why should I derive so much satisfaction from it? I have loads of standard answers that you see on photoblogs and photo news sites ad naseum, revolving around physical/emotional enjoyment and the risk/reward of creativity and sharing, but these are pretty unsatisfactory.
I’ll tell you that the social networking and community aspects of photography are not what drives me to carry a camera to beautiful places. Neither is building a portfolio of images what puts my feet out the door. Although I run this blog and make every effort to post frequently, I often find myself going to great lengths to make images I find interesting and then leaving them on the hard disk at home for months or years at a time.
This isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy every part of the process, from shooting to publishing; it’s just that, if those weren’t a feature of the photography/photoblog world, I would still shoot.
There is something about images and cameras that has always spoken to me, something in the process of making an extraordinary image that drives me across states and out of bed at strange hours. Images lie at the boundary between real and surreal, between ordinary and fantastic. They can tell the truth, they can lie, but good ones never let you know which. I find it thrilling to compare the different truths of the reality and the image made after. I like to imagine for a moment that the world is as strange as photographs make it seem, then I realize it’s far stranger.
I photograph because that’s who I am, it’s an authentic expression of myself. I mean authentic in the existential sense—that I am doing what comes naturally and being true to who I am. Sometimes explanations and reasons are trite and you just have to accept that you are what you are. Simply put, photography is.
Of course, existentialism takes for granted that, to the mind, the material world presents itself as incongruous and absurd. And maybe that’s what I find so damned rewarding about photography; the world is messy and strange and absurd, but there is a great harmony and undeniable humanity in standing amongst the nodding, tawny, and wind-threshed grain, catching on a wafer of silicon a few trillion photons that have spent eons bouncing around the interior of our sun, all the while inundated with the smells of flowering plants and buzzing insects, luring one another to sex and death in the burning heart of the afternoon, in the leaning hills.
Gilded in the oak savanna.
In the leaning hills, where the summer sun turns the grassland to tinder, the savanna is a wind chime, rustling a harmonious lullaby like a new deck of cards in nimble fingers. Grasshoppers and mayflies and the chaff of newly dried seed catch in the sun. A dry, hot blizzard in an amber streetlamp.
The Arastradero Open Space Preserve is home to rattlesnakes, coyotes, and mountain lions and innumerable flavors of insects and birds, yet it is the trees that bring me here time and again. Before the axe and the wheel came to this land, enormous oak savannas like this one stretched across the midwest, the southwest and here along the west coast.
But the axe and the wheel did come and the savannas left. I like to think of the craggy and twisted forms that remain as wounded but unbent descendants of the stalwart soldiers who resisted the blade and the advance of civilization to hold the dusty California soil to the ground and to provide shade for the coyotes and mountain lions and rattlesnakes that weave through the tall grass of the American Veldt. As these sentinels slowly march from mother to child up and down the wind-tousled steppe, we flit about the outskirts of this preserve as insects, building and gnawing and living and dying. I hope that’s all we’ll ever do.
I came to the Arastradero preserve to connect with a particularly beautiful oak I’d passed (and photographed) on hikes before. I found her on the hillside as ever, arms outstretched, singing in the late evening breeze, fluttering fingers of bright green.
As I stood for a while here on the hillside, gilded in the afternoon, alone with my thoughts but for the oak and the whisper of the breeze and the hum-drum clicks and tweets of grassland animals, I thought, “I’ve been away too long,” and was reminded of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, and I’ve been thinking about it since.
I came back to the preserve to reconnect with a spot where I’d taken an old photo. Only now do I realize that same photograph was made nearly a year ago to the date. Oliver (who now runs and speaks and laughs) was with us then, asleep as an absolutely tiny three-month-old infant.
The change over the last year in Oliver provided, for me, a stark contrast with the constancy of the natural world, of these stalwart trees. How little they’ve changed. How little indeed will they change over the next century. Long may they roam on these hills and long may they feed my heart.
------------
In the leaning hills.
I’ve cared a great deal about taking photographs for a long time. When people ask me how long I’ve been “into” photography, I often don’t have an answer. I can vividly remember becoming interested in my father’s camera when I was a kid. No idea how old.
In point of fact, my mother was cleaning house recently and asked that I sort through some old papers of mine. Tucked in a bunch of junk were loads of old prints made with a Vivitar point and shoot given me by my parents sometime while I was in fifth grade. The landscape/candid ideas are all there, but the execution was a long way from developed (and often still is)!
I found a renewed passion for image making when I was in college and then again in graduate school, although if truth be told, it’s been relatively steady for most of my life and those moments of renewed energy are likely just an interpretation of mine in hindsight.
I often return to the question of “Why?” Why should photography feel a bit like breathing and why should I derive so much satisfaction from it? I have loads of standard answers that you see on photoblogs and photo news sites ad naseum, revolving around physical/emotional enjoyment and the risk/reward of creativity and sharing, but these are pretty unsatisfactory.
I’ll tell you that the social networking and community aspects of photography are not what drives me to carry a camera to beautiful places. Neither is building a portfolio of images what puts my feet out the door. Although I run this blog and make every effort to post frequently, I often find myself going to great lengths to make images I find interesting and then leaving them on the hard disk at home for months or years at a time.
This isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy every part of the process, from shooting to publishing; it’s just that, if those weren’t a feature of the photography/photoblog world, I would still shoot.
There is something about images and cameras that has always spoken to me, something in the process of making an extraordinary image that drives me across states and out of bed at strange hours. Images lie at the boundary between real and surreal, between ordinary and fantastic. They can tell the truth, they can lie, but good ones never let you know which. I find it thrilling to compare the different truths of the reality and the image made after. I like to imagine for a moment that the world is as strange as photographs make it seem, then I realize it’s far stranger.
I photograph because that’s who I am, it’s an authentic expression of myself. I mean authentic in the existential sense—that I am doing what comes naturally and being true to who I am. Sometimes explanations and reasons are trite and you just have to accept that you are what you are. Simply put, photography is.
Of course, existentialism takes for granted that, to the mind, the material world presents itself as incongruous and absurd. And maybe that’s what I find so damned rewarding about photography; the world is messy and strange and absurd, but there is a great harmony and undeniable humanity in standing amongst the nodding, tawny, and wind-threshed grain, catching on a wafer of silicon a few trillion photons that have spent eons bouncing around the interior of our sun, all the while inundated with the smells of flowering plants and buzzing insects, luring one another to sex and death in the burning heart of the afternoon, in the leaning hills.
Gilded in the oak savanna.
In the leaning hills, where the summer sun turns the grassland to tinder, the savanna is a wind chime, rustling a harmonious lullaby like a new deck of cards in nimble fingers. Grasshoppers and mayflies and the chaff of newly dried seed catch in the sun. A dry, hot blizzard in an amber streetlamp.
The Arastradero Open Space Preserve is home to rattlesnakes, coyotes, and mountain lions and innumerable flavors of insects and birds, yet it is the trees that bring me here time and again. Before the axe and the wheel came to this land, enormous oak savannas like this one stretched across the midwest, the southwest and here along the west coast.
But the axe and the wheel did come and the savannas left. I like to think of the craggy and twisted forms that remain as wounded but unbent descendants of the stalwart soldiers who resisted the blade and the advance of civilization to hold the dusty California soil to the ground and to provide shade for the coyotes and mountain lions and rattlesnakes that weave through the tall grass of the American Veldt. As these sentinels slowly march from mother to child up and down the wind-tousled steppe, we flit about the outskirts of this preserve as insects, building and gnawing and living and dying. I hope that’s all we’ll ever do.
I came to the Arastradero preserve to connect with a particularly beautiful oak I’d passed (and photographed) on hikes before. I found her on the hillside as ever, arms outstretched, singing in the late evening breeze, fluttering fingers of bright green.
As I stood for a while here on the hillside, gilded in the afternoon, alone with my thoughts but for the oak and the whisper of the breeze and the hum-drum clicks and tweets of grassland animals, I thought, “I’ve been away too long,” and was reminded of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, and I’ve been thinking about it since.
I came back to the preserve to reconnect with a spot where I’d taken an old photo. Only now do I realize that same photograph was made nearly a year ago to the date. Oliver (who now runs and speaks and laughs) was with us then, asleep as an absolutely tiny three-month-old infant.
The change over the last year in Oliver provided, for me, a stark contrast with the constancy of the natural world, of these stalwart trees. How little they’ve changed. How little indeed will they change over the next century. Long may they roam on these hills and long may they feed my heart.
------------
In the leaning hills.
I’ve cared a great deal about taking photographs for a long time. When people ask me how long I’ve been “into” photography, I often don’t have an answer. I can vividly remember becoming interested in my father’s camera when I was a kid. No idea how old.
In point of fact, my mother was cleaning house recently and asked that I sort through some old papers of mine. Tucked in a bunch of junk were loads of old prints made with a Vivitar point and shoot given me by my parents sometime while I was in fifth grade. The landscape/candid ideas are all there, but the execution was a long way from developed (and often still is)!
I found a renewed passion for image making when I was in college and then again in graduate school, although if truth be told, it’s been relatively steady for most of my life and those moments of renewed energy are likely just an interpretation of mine in hindsight.
I often return to the question of “Why?” Why should photography feel a bit like breathing and why should I derive so much satisfaction from it? I have loads of standard answers that you see on photoblogs and photo news sites ad naseum, revolving around physical/emotional enjoyment and the risk/reward of creativity and sharing, but these are pretty unsatisfactory.
I’ll tell you that the social networking and community aspects of photography are not what drives me to carry a camera to beautiful places. Neither is building a portfolio of images what puts my feet out the door. Although I run this blog and make every effort to post frequently, I often find myself going to great lengths to make images I find interesting and then leaving them on the hard disk at home for months or years at a time.
This isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy every part of the process, from shooting to publishing; it’s just that, if those weren’t a feature of the photography/photoblog world, I would still shoot.
There is something about images and cameras that has always spoken to me, something in the process of making an extraordinary image that drives me across states and out of bed at strange hours. Images lie at the boundary between real and surreal, between ordinary and fantastic. They can tell the truth, they can lie, but good ones never let you know which. I find it thrilling to compare the different truths of the reality and the image made after. I like to imagine for a moment that the world is as strange as photographs make it seem, then I realize it’s far stranger.
I photograph because that’s who I am, it’s an authentic expression of myself. I mean authentic in the existential sense—that I am doing what comes naturally and being true to who I am. Sometimes explanations and reasons are trite and you just have to accept that you are what you are. Simply put, photography is.
Of course, existentialism takes for granted that, to the mind, the material world presents itself as incongruous and absurd. And maybe that’s what I find so damned rewarding about photography; the world is messy and strange and absurd, but there is a great harmony and undeniable humanity in standing amongst the nodding, tawny, and wind-threshed grain, catching on a wafer of silicon a few trillion photons that have spent eons bouncing around the interior of our sun, all the while inundated with the smells of flowering plants and buzzing insects, luring one another to sex and death in the burning heart of the afternoon, in the leaning hills.