Monthly Archives: July 2023

layers

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I almost never look back at my own photographs. I figure I’ve already made the shot, processed it in the way I wanted to, then either posted it somewhere or…you know, didn’t post it at all. Either way, I’ve already seen the photo; why look at it again?

I don’t feel that way about the photographs of other folks. I’ll still look at photos by Eggleston (today is his birthday, by the way) or Kertész or maybe one of the Pages (Tim or Homer), for example. There’s almost always something new to be discovered or appreciated when you look at the work of the photographic Big Hats.

But this morning, as I was going about my usual morning routine (after watching Nigeria’s amazing win over Australia in the Women’s World Cup), I saw this photo on Facebook:

I thought, “Damn, that’s solid work, right there.” Then I realized it was a photo I’d shot nine years ago. It was a weird experience–seeing a photo I’d taken but looking at it like it was the work of a stranger. What made it weird was that as I looked at the photo, I could remember why I’d shot it and what sparked the desire to shoot it.

It was all about layers. The wooden bridge under my feet, the water under the bridge, the lily pads on the water, the fish under the water, the stones under the fish in the water, the reflection of the bridge on the water, my reflection on the water standing on the bridge above the water, the reflection of the trees above me on the water, the reflection of the clouds above the trees.

I remember standing on that bridge in Wisconsin and being struck with an immediate sense of absolute location, if that makes sense. I was at that particular spot on the globe on that particular day. It was sort of a Doctor Who moment–time and relative dimension in space. No other person could be in that particular spot at that particular moment. That’s true constantly, of course, but it’s pretty rare that we actually think about the reality of it.

I also recall very deliberately composing the shot in my head. I shot two frames; this one, shot rather quickly but intentionally slightly askew. The second shot was more formally composed, with the line of the bridge horizontal along the bottom of the frame. The more formal shot was…well, uninteresting. It has all the same elements as the photo above, but it’s strangely unemotional. Two photographs of the same thing, taken seconds apart, but only one of them works. That just seems sort of freaky. But normal. Freaky-normal.

I like this photograph. I like it both as a photo, and as a personal experience. Maybe it takes the distance of a few years to be able to actually see your own photos.

in a small town

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I wouldn’t know Jason Aldean from Adam’s off ox, but he’s stirred up a fuss with his song Try That in a Small Town. I say ‘his song’ as if Aldean wrote it. He didn’t. The song was actually written by four guys: Kelley Lovelace, Kurt Allison, Neil Thrasher, and Tully Kennedy. Aldean just recorded the song.

Anyway, I listened to it. I sort of assumed it would be a traditional country-western song. You know…simple form, folksy lyrics, standard country music instruments (like fiddles or banjos or a steel guitar). But it’s not. Musically, it’s rock. Fairly hard rock at that. But the lyrics are sung in a sort of semi-traditional nasal country voice. Like a lot of country music, though, it’s short. Three minutes. Which is plenty long enough.

It’s the lyrics, of course, that make this song controversial. The lyrics were clearly intended to be controversial. The lyrics were meant to make everybody angry–to get folks to argue about it. It’s not so much a song as it is a musical grift. Get folks pissed off, keep the song in the public eye, put some coin in pockets.

It’s basically a cartoonish MAGA anthem made up of racist right-wing nightmares, faux tough guy attitude, hollow patriotism, all backed up with threats of violence. It’s a classic MAGA conglomeration of self-pity, masculine insecurity, misogyny, and free-floating resentment and rage. It’s a song written by assholes, recorded by an asshole, meant to be consumed by assholes.

Seriously, it would be comical if it weren’t so stupidly hateful and transparently phony. Try This in a Small Town is the musical version of a dentist buying a Harley and wearing leathers. It’s a mall security guard who joins a ‘militia’ and wears camo with his ‘warrior’ buddies on weekends. It’s the appliance store assistant manager who believes he was passed over for promotion because he’s white and male.

Try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own

That’s the ugly heart of the song, right there. We take care of our own. If you’re not one of our own, you don’t belong and you’d best get the fuck out of town.

And hey, people have done just that. Folks who don’t fit in their small hometowns have always packed up and left. That’s one of the main reasons small towns are failing. The kids who are bored have left. The creative people have left. The curious people have left. The people who ask too many questions, they’ve left to find answers. And most of them don’t come back.

I recommend you don’t
Try that in a small town
Full of good ol’ boys, raised up right
If you’re looking for a fight
Try that in a small town

The ONLY people looking for a fight in a small town are the ones who are so absolutely certain they’re right; the ones who get to define ‘our own’. If you’re in the minority, you’re looking to avoid a fight. You know you’re not welcome, you know you’re outnumbered, and you know there are folks in your community who hate you and are actually eager to kick the everloving shit out of you. So you leave the first fucking chance you get.

And hey, that’s what happens. The people who don’t fit in, they leave. The young leave. The creative people leave. The curious people leave. The people who get bored leave. The people who want more from life, they leave. The people who want to try new things, they have to leave. The people who write songs, they leave.

There are actually a LOT of good songs about small towns. Songs that aren’t specifically designed for rage-grifting. Songs in almost every musical genre. Songs that look realistically and honestly at life in small towns. Some of them are celebratory, some are nostalgic, most of them are sad.

And over a double Bourbon
He said “I’ll tell you man to man,
This town died forty years ago.
Son, get out while you can.”

You want to know about life in small towns? Don’t look to assholes like Jason Aldean.

the first book i bought with my own money

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I don’t remember how old I was. Maybe ten or twelve. It was summer vacation; we were staying at the family house on the south end of Pawleys Island, South Carolina. The island was pretty primitive back then. There wasn’t much for a kid to do–wander around the dunes, play on the beach, noodle around the salt marsh, walk to a sort of gas station/market where you could buy an RC cola and a packet of Tom’s peanuts.

One day I saw an old guy sitting in the dunes, reading a thick paperback book. Because I was just a kid and probably bored, I asked him what he was reading. And instead of giving me the title, he read a couple of paragraphs aloud. It was language unlike anything I’d ever heard before. Something about a forest at dawn and knight on a horse in misty light, the horse stamping its foot, its nostrils flaring and the vapor of its breath hanging like smoke in the air, and something about flashing of silver.

At least that’s how I remember it. The scene was as distant from summertime Pawleys Island as you could possibly get; I was enchanted. I don’t remember anything about our conversation, but at some point he wrote the title of the book on a scrap of paper. Le Morte d’Arthur. Even the title seemed wildly exotic.

Summer ended, we returned home. I hoarded my allowance, learned where a bookstore was located (I hadn’t even been aware there were shops that sold nothing but books), and asked for the book. The clerk said they didn’t carry it, but offered me another book, which he said was the same story. The Once and Future King, by T.H. White. I don’t recall how much it cost…buck and a quarter, maybe. But I bought it. And read it.

In a way, it was the perfect book for a kid. It begins as a children’s story–the protagonist (Wart, who will eventually become King Arthur) is the companion of Kay. Kay is destined to become a knight; Wart will be his squire. But Wart meets and befriends a wizard–Merlin, of course–and under Merlin’s tutorage, Wart begins to have adventures. He’s magically transformed into an ant, a migrating goose, a fish. There are episodes in which Wart helps Robin Hood or meets King Pellinore who is searching for the Questing Beast. It’s all amusing and fun, but there are subtle lessons being taught about power and privilege, about violence and pacifism, about decency and friendship.

As the novel progresses, it morphs into a more adult tale. Wart yanks a sword out of an anvil and a stone, becomes King Arthur, and the lessons he learned as Wart are translated into adult struggles. He has to deal with love and lust and jealousy and greed and betrayal. He tries to find a balance between strength and mercy, between law and justice, between love and friendship. Issues of ego and concepts of self-worth complicate everything. Relationships get really fucking complex.

Unlike the beginning of the story, the ending of The Once and Future King is entirely unchildlike. Arthur fails. He tries very hard to be a good person, but the world he tries to create comes undone. Cruelty and violence and war unravel his attempts at kindness and decency. The ending is sad and beautifully tragic, but still weirdly hopeful.

Decades have passed since I bought that book. The summer house on Pawleys Island is gone. In fact, the entire southern end of the island is gone, swept away by Hurricane Hugo. I hung onto that paperback copy of The Once and Future King for a couple of decades, but like everything else in the world, it eventually fell apart. At some point I bought and read Le Morte d’Arthur, and I searched the novel for the scene I remembered as a child. Couldn’t find it. I’ve decided it was swept away along with the beach house. That old guy I met in the dunes? He was almost certainly younger than I am now.

As I write this, it occurs to me that my entire life sort of resembles the story arc of The Once and Future King. I never pulled a sword out of stone or became rightwise king born of all England, but I’ve had my share of adventures. And while I’ve tried hard to be a good person, I’ve often failed. I’ve seen much more of cruelty and violence and death than I’d like. I have, at times, been cruel and occasionally violent, which fills me with regret and for which I try to make amends.

I suppose that makes that old guy in the dunes of Pawleys Island my Merlin. That’s a nice thought. Like Merlin did for Wart, that old guy introduced me to the lessons that have shaped the way I’ve moved through the world. Curiosity is good and should be indulged, strangers are often worth talking to, justice can be tempered by mercy, might doesn’t make right but some things are worth fighting for, love is never wrong but is sometimes painful, and it doesn’t necessarily matter if you lose so long as you’re trying do what’s right.

all i can do is ask the question

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Hey, you guys! Remember five years ago today? Comrade Donald Trump and Vlad Putin got to hang out together privately for a couple of hours–no aides, no note-takers, just Trump and Putin and their respective interpreters. Just a couple of guys, kicking back, kidding around, bullshitting, having fun.

Afterwards, they held a press conference, during which a reporter from the Associated Press, Jonathan Lemire, asked the following question of Trump:

“Dude, Putin says he didn’t have nothing to do with the election interference in 2016. But every U.S. intelligence agency–and I mean every goddamn one of them–says Russia did. So, my question for you sir is, who do you believe?”

That may not be an exact quote. But here’s what Trump said in response:

“[A]ll I can do is ask the question. My people came to me, Dan Coats, came to me and some others they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

Which was pretty goddamn lame, really. We all saw Trump shuffling into the press conference looking like he’d been whipped out back behind the garden shed (and not in a fun way). It was either an incredibly pathetic display of craven spinelessness OR a staggeringly stupid level of gullibility. Right? I mean, imagine…

Lord Eddard Stark: “All I can do is ask the question. My people came to me, they said they think it’s Lannisters causing all the fuss. I have Tywin Lannister; he just said it’s not his people. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

Elliot Ness: All I can do is ask the question. My people came to me, they said they think it’s Capone’s mob smuggling liquor. I have Capone; he just said it’s not his mob. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.

Janet Leigh: All I can do is ask the question. People came to me, they said I should think twice before taking a shower in this creepy motel. I have Norman Bates, the proprietor of this fine roadside establishment; he just said there’s no reason NOT to take a shower. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why there would be.

Miss Elizabeth Bennett: All I can do is ask the question. That dreadful Mr. Darcy came to me, claiming Dear Mr. Wickham, whose manners are above reproach, is a cad and, dare I say it, a bounder and should not be trusted to keep company with my sister. I have Wickham; he assures me most passionately he is nothing of the sort and has only the purest and most honorable intentions toward sweet, foolish Lydia. I will say this: I see no reason why he should be denied entry to the dance.

Jim Hawkins: All I can do is ask the question. People came to me and some say they think Long John Silver is a pirate and potentiallyy a mutineer. I have Mr. Silver, who despite his severe disabilty has demonstrated a long career as a sailor. He said he is unaware of any treasure map has no plans to mutiny. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why he should.

John McClane: All I can do is ask the question. My people came to me and suggested Hans Gruber might be a terrorist. Others said he may simply be a greedy motherfucker acting under the guise of a radical political agenda. I have Harry Ellis, who actually works in Nakatomi Plaza, he says I should listen to what Hans has to say. I don’t see any reason not to listen.

gender bullshit

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There’s a long…and I mean seriously long, as in Please babby Jeebus, is this thing ever going to end long…opinion piece on the meaning of masculinity in this morning’s Washington Post. It’s entitled Men are lost. Here’s a map out of the wilderness, and frankly, that title alone would normally be enough for me to ignore it. Except it was written by Christine Emba, whose opinion I value. So what the hell, I read it.

And hey, she does a good job of examining the ways people are trying to define masculinity these days. The piece is well-researched, thoughtful, well-written, and determinedly even-handed (which is probably why it’s so fucking long). But as I continued to read it, I kept asking myself the same question: who the fuck cares?

There are some really really really broad categories of being that are ultimately undefinable. They resist definition because they’re so broad and vague and elastic. Who is a man? Who is Black? Who is an artist? Who is a parent? Who is a Red Sox fan? Who is a healer? Who is an athlete? Who is an influencer? Who is a cook?

I mean, it’s possible–even necessary–to organize a specific set of requirements necessary to meet professional standards to define some roles. There are prerequisite training and skills to become, say, a licensed hair stylist. But that’s an administrative thing; if you style your own hair, then hey bingo, as far as I’m concerned you’re a hair stylist.

But trying to define these broad generic categories is basically bullshit. Don’t nobody get to set any goddamn rules on who is (or is not) a man or a woman. And why the fuck would anybody want to? Why would anybody waste a single fucking moment fretting about it?

Toward the end of her opinion piece, Emba writes this:

For all their problems, the strict gender roles of the past did give boys a script for how to be a man. But if trying to smash the patriarchy has left a vacuum in our ideal of masculinity, it also gives us a chance at a fresh start: an opportunity to take what is useful from models of the past and repurpose it for boys and men today.

Well, she’s right that the past DID give boys a script for how to be men (and for girls to know how to be women), but isn’t that the source of the problem? A script is just the written text for a performance. We don’t need no script to be who we are. We are already who we are. People need to stop acting and just fucking relax.

(Engraving by Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc)

Emba also mentions that ‘trying to smash the patriarchy has left a vacuum in our ideal of masculinity.’ Well, yeah. That’s the whole fucking point, isn’t it. Scrap that shit. Scrap the ideal of femininity too. Scrap the concept of ideals, because they’re imaginary. There IS NO IDEAL man or woman. No ideal cook or artist or Red Sox fan or parent or Black person (and stop thinking of Idris Elba, okay, just stop it). There’s only somebody’s bullshit notion of what they think is ideal.

Here’s another part of the problem. If we smash the patriarchy and replace it with the matriarchy, would that be better? Well, yeah, probably. But that has its own set of problems, and eventually we’d need to smash that as well.

Emba ends her opinion piece with this:

The old script for masculinity might be on its way out. It’s time we replaced it with something better.

This is just my opinion: if you define yourself as a man, then you’re a man. If you refuse to define yourself along any gender line, ain’t nothing wrong with that. Because the problem isn’t gender, really. The problem is the script. Emba got that point right.

People are comfortable with a script. A script tells them what to do, how to behave, where to stand, what to say and when to say it. People like a script. So yeah, maybe Emba is right that we need to replace it. Not just the ‘masculinity’ script, but the gender script. Maybe all we really need is a script that says this: Don’t be an asshole.

That’s a good script because asshole is also one of those categories that resist definition because they’re so broad and vague and elastic. If the script is don’t be an asshole, the actor would have to consider their entire galaxy of self-defined asshole behaviors. And then NOT do those things. That would solve a whole lot of problems.

bluesky smilin’ at me

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I’ve been asked to give my initial impression of Bluesky, the social network. I was invited to join about a month ago (courtesy of Bryce Fields, an old Flickr friend), and I have to say, it’s not quite what I expected it to be. But it is pretty much what I hoped it would be.

I was reluctant to leave Twitter because it fed a lot of my niche interests. Yeah, it was messy and ugly and getting more hateful by the hour, but it also allowed me to get a regular info-fix of crows, politics, archaeology, William Gibson fashion views, lizards, peculiar chunks of history, the US Women’s National Team (soccer), mortuary symbolism, and lots of other stuff. Twitter was like a Big Box store unfortunately staffed by Nazis but well-stocked with a lot of weird shit I wanted to know. I didn’t think there could be a venue where I could find all of that in a hate-free environment.

Twitter, as awful as it was (and still is), was also incredibly useful for real-time news. If something newsworthy was happening somewhere in the world, it was happening on Twitter. I’m talking about anything newsworthy–whether it was a riot or a natural disaster or some guy who found a human toe in a can of soup. Sure, you had to be alert for massive amounts of misinformation and even deliberate hateful disinformation, but Twitter served a purpose.

So here’s the question: does Bluesky work well enough to replace Twitter? Yes, it does. Bluesky isn’t quite there in terms of newsworthiness…yet. But it shows real potential in regard to my niche interests. And best of all, it’s virtually Nazi-free. Hell, it’s actually (and I hesitate to say this for fear of jinxing it) very pleasant. It’s comfortable without being ‘safe’ if that makes sense.

It’s important to remember that Bluesky is still in Beta, which means that a number of things we take for granted on other social media are missing. Stuff like hashtags or the ability to construct long discussion threads or DMs. Maybe those things will come later, I don’t know. At this point, their absence only marginally detracts from the experience.

The Bluesky experience is relaxed and welcoming. Some of this may be because it’s still fairly small. But, at the risk of sounding sappy, the users make a genuine effort to get along with each other. I’ve seen very little drama or rancor. There’s almost no indication of the sort of asshole culture that thrives on Twitter. I’m not saying there aren’t any assholes on Bluesky; I’m saying that assholes are handled better on Bluesky. There’s a relaxed Don’t Feed the Asshole vibe. Instead of trading insults or entering into pointless arguments with transphobic Nazis, users on Bluesky tend to just mute or block them. You can’t own the libs if the libs just ignore your existence.

It’s also nice to see Big Hat users (you know what I mean…folks who are well-known or famous in certain circles, and have hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter, folks who wear a Big Hat) interacting with new users, especially when those users don’t know they’re Big Hats. On Twitter, you probably wouldn’t see Neil Gaiman helping a new user learn how to change his Bluesky handle to include his personal domain name. On Twitter you probably wouldn’t see somebody tell John Scalzi, “I followed you because you were kind and funny; I didn’t know you were famous.” That’s one of the things I’ve enjoyed the most about Bluesky–how accessible everybody is. It doesn’t mean people will pay attention to what you post (very little of what I post gets any attention), but it means you can easily find yourself asking questions about blue crayfish of somebody who turns out to be the Research Curator of Non-molluscan Invertebrates at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences.

My only real complaint with Bluesky is that I occasionally encounter users whose sincere preachiness I find mildly annoying…even when they’re right. There are folks who seem to seek out images posted without an Alt description in order to remind them (gently and with respect) that they really really should include Alt descriptions of images out of courtesy for visually impaired or autistic users. But even though I find it annoying, that’s probably the best way to change online culture. The sad fact is, some folks need to be reminded to be decent people. And (confession time!), I have to admit I never gave much thought to Alt descriptions before. Now I’ve set a filter on Bluesky that won’t allow me to post an image UNLESS I include an Alt description. That’s how Bluesky works; it encourages you to be decent.

I’ve been asked if Bluesky is supportive of LGBTQ+ communities. And the answer is no. It’s not merely supportive; it’s fucking celebratory. I’m not saying it’s an ongoing party, but there are corners of Bluesky culture that would make homophobes and transphobes really uncomfortable. Which, in my opinion, is another mark in its favor. It’s also nice that you can set filters that allow you to choose whether or not you want to see images of somebody wearing ass-less chaps and a sailor hat.

Also, there are lots of photos of dogs and cats (and sometimes the people associated with them). And for some reason, I see a lot of potato recipes. I’m okay with that.

Bluesky isn’t perfect. For example, there’s a noticeable absence of crow discussion. But the people here are tremendously enthusiastic, and that sort of makes up for the lack of crows. It’s that universal level of enthusiasm that makes Bluesky so attractive to me. Everybody here seems to be enthusiastic about something (like, say, star nosed moles). They’re also enthusiastic about creating a social network that is tolerant and accepting of almost everything except assholes.

As the site grows, it’ll change. It’s to be hoped that it will get even better, but that’s a gamble, isn’t it. For now, I’ve found it to be the most comfortable, welcoming, easy-to-use social network. It won’t suit everybody, of course, but I feel at home here.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Don’t forget, we need to burn the patriarchy. Burn it to the ground, gather the ashes, piss on them, douse them in oil, and set them on fire again. Burn the patriarchy, then drive a stake directly through the ashes where its heart used to be, and then set fire to the stake. Burn that fucker one more time. And keep burning it, over and over. Burn it for generations. Then nuke it from orbit. Then have tea.

scotus / minority report

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Hey, you guys. Remember when Tom Cruise made a movie about a government bureaucracy that allowed police in the future to arrest murderers BEFORE they committed any actual murders, based entirely on the “psychic impressions” of three weird bald folks floating in a tank? Remember that? Wasn’t that cool?

Tom Cruise ain’t got a thing on the Supreme Court of the United States! SCOTUS is now making Constitutional rulings based on FUTURE EVENTS THAT HAVEN’T EVEN HAPPENED YET! I am NOT making this up.

SCOTUS Minority Report consultants

There’s this woman in Colorado, Lorie Smith, who is right now being told that IN THE FUTURE she’ll be forced to design wedding websites for some icky gay folks who will IN THE FUTURE want to get gay married. And SCOTUS has decided that she shouldn’t be forced against her will IN THE FUTURE to do this thing that she hasn’t been asked by any actual real person to do…YET.

In her defense, Lorie Smith has said she was contacted THE DAY AFTER SHE FILED HER LAWSUIT by a guy named Stewart who was totally gay and he told her, that he and Mike (also totally gay) “…are getting married early next year and would love some design work done for our invites, placenames etc. We might also stretch to a website.” But on account of her firmly held religious Christian beliefs, Ms. Smith firmly told totally gay Stewart that she would firmly NOT design any wedding website for icky gay people when they ask her to IN THE FUTURE.

Sure, IN THE PRESENT Stewart claims he’s not gay at all, and that he’s been married to a woman for like 15 years, and that he’s never asked Ms. Smith for a wedding website celebrating his icky gay marriage to this Mike person who he doesn’t even know…YET. But obviously, IN THE FUTURE Stewart will discover he’s actually completely gay and will fall in love with Mike (also gay) and they’ll decided to get icky gay married and will IN THE FUTURE ask Lorie Smith to make them a website.

But now she won’t have to do that, because Minority Report SCOTUS has consulted those bald folks in the pool and they said “Nuh uh.”

“So you’re saying Stewart will…what? Dump his wife??!!”

Ain’t science great? Unless, you’re Stewart and Mike, who won’t get to have a Lorie Smith designed website for their icky gay wedding. Also, tough beans for the current Mrs. Stewart, who’s gonna get stone dumped at some point, poor thing.