Back In The Saddle

After my vision-loss I stopped taking photographs. Not completely: I tried a few times to use my digital camera but was so discouraged by awful results that I halted the effort. Those experiences hurtled me into profound despair. That was three years ago.

I'm feeling better now, physically and mentally. I want to resume photography. Even if the outcome isn't perfect. I always found the process -- looking at the world, considering visual possibilities and metaphors, seizing images -- to be creative and restorative.

My plan now is to work around my visual limitations. I want to re-capture both the enthusiasm I used to have for photography and the magic possible when using real film. There's alchemy involved in playing with silver crystals suspended in gelatin.

I'm gonna start by pulling out my favorite camera, a 1972 Kodak Instamatic 30. In my view the camera's technical deficiencies are creative strengths. They challenge you to think deeper, do more and explore the unknown.

Here are a couple of photos I made in the past with this kinky camera.

"Straight To Hell"

Netflix just released a drama from Japan. With no fanfare or publicity push.

Which is a shame because the show is THE BEST THING ON TELEVISION right now. An ensorcelling portrayal of a woman who grew up in extreme poverty after World War II, succeeded in business against big odds, got entangled with Yakuza (organized crime), endured hardships, became skilled at exploiting people, achieved celebrity as a fortune teller on TV, and sold millions of books. Multiple scandals in her life were revealed in 2006 but she overcame even them. She lived in comfort until 2021 when she died at 83 years old. This is a true story based on a real person who's famous in Japan.

The show could (and should) become a global hit. Dōitashimashite.

Spring!

I welcomed Spring this week at Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay (NY). 

After frequent fluctuation between Winter/Summer, Spring finally made its appearance. Yay!

My "Outfit"

I've reached the age where, when I go out in the morning to retrieve empty garbage cans, I don't bother putting on clothes. I just wear a bathrobe over my pajamas.

My role-model for this is Tony Soprano. If it's okay for Tony -- a powerful mob-boss -- to walk down the driveway in a bathrobe, then it's good enough for me.

National Library Week

Today starts National Library Week. Sponsored by American Library Association, the week celebrates libraries for promoting literacy, education, and community. The theme this year is "Find Your Joy," encouraging patrons to explore resources and spaces offered by public libraries.

No place supports my growth as a person more than the local library. From childhood on, it has opened doors at no cost. I borrow books there, read dozens of magazines in their comfy lounges, bring home movies on DVD, and meet others sharing my interests (like a local photography group and a book club). Yay, libraries! 

Aldous Huxley

"When the student is ready, a teacher will appear." An adage containing truth.

Aldous Huxley was a famous British author whose name is familiar to many of us. His classic "Brave New World" is required reading in most schools. I read it in high school and was impressed by its prescient understanding of authoritarian regimes and their use of technology to numb a general populace.

What I didn't know until this week is the breadth of Huxley's oeuvre. He wrote dozens of books on a wide variety of topics. I discovered this during my reading of Michael Pollan's last two books which cite, quote and address Huxley's work. Toward the end of Huxley's life he migrated from political and social commentary to questions of human consciousness, reality and art. These are my chief obsessions right now and I find Huxley's insights, written 70 years ago, as current as today's dinner-bell.

I just read Huxley's other classic work "The Doors of Perception" (1954) and quasi-sequel "Heaven and Hell" (1956). Both blow me away. "The Doors of Perception" was inspiration for the name of Jim Morrison's rock-band in the Sixties (The Doors); its title comes from a 1793 book by poet William Blake.

Here are a few of my favorite lines from the books:

- "The urge to transcend self-conscious selfhood is...a principal appetite of the soul."

- "[T]he artist is congenitally equipped to see all the time. His perception is not limited to what is biologically or socially useful. A little of the knowledge belonging to Mind at Large oozes past the reducing valve of brain and ego, into his consciousness. It is a knowledge of the intrinsic significance of every existent. For the artist...draperies are living hieroglyphs that stand in some peculiarly expressive way for the unfathomable mystery of pure being."

- "...the power to see things with my eyes shut."

- "...return to the reassuring banality of everyday experience."

Curious Coda: When Huxley was a teenaged student at Eton, he contracted a disease that left him almost totally blind. His vision improved slightly after two years but was seriously impaired for the rest of his life. Huxley described the loss of his eyesight as "an event which prevented [him] from becoming a complete public school English-gentleman." (Brits call private school "public school"; Eton College is an elite private boarding school.)

Internet Slang

Sometimes Internet slang has actual use.

We face pressure to conform our whole lives. Late in life, however, our tolerance for it diminishes. 

We have individual preferences on subjects like art, entertainment, personal activity. Those preferences deserve respect.

I'm adopting the trendy expression: "Don't yuck my yum!"