Out With The Old, In With The New

*The pile of wood on the floor in the background is her old bench. I made an exact replica. No use changing something that had worked fine for twenty years. She likes her new one.

Country Project

I'm remaking this rotted bench for my mother-in-law (while listening to Workingman's Dead by The GD.)
Lets call it a belated Christmas/"It Would Be Cool If You Fucking Liked Me" present...

Will post the competed project by Friday.

Excerpt From [sic]

Merry Christmas

Lummi Until Further Notice

Happy Holidays!

Xoxo
Skeltis/Bush

Yeah yeah 111111

As of 2:49pm this afternoon, I'm a bonafide thirty-five year old. All this eleven eleven eleven hoopla - yeah, sweet.

Happy birthday to you.

Working The BVI While Tanning The Fat - 11/01-11/08

We'll be making funness (which is not a word, but should be) while down there at Bitter End, but I won't be able to show you anything until weeks after getting back to NY.

In the meantime enjoy this video from the lovely Ms. Williams.

Somewhere To Disappear

This last week has been busy socially. Something my week's generally are not, are socially busy. Juggling projects, trying to stay fit and healthy, occupying two kids (granted, both of which see more of their mom during the day) and wanting to get enough rest at night, doesn't leave much time for socializing. Some parents can pull off a bustling social life without feeling fatigue or parent-guilt, but I don't know who those people are or how they do it. This week, day and night, has been packed with meetings, dinners and events. And I'm tired. And inspired.

One meeting in particular led me to the recent documentary about photographer Alec Soth. The filmmakers follow Soth around the mid-western United States while searching for reclusive individuals to photograph. A friend set me up to have coffee with the film's producer, Sophie Mas, who after our meeting, sent me the film to watch. I won't say much more about the movie, as it has yet to be released, other than it's an interesting story, and Soth showcases isolation very well.

Something that stood out to me from the film was a quote from one of the films subjects:

"This may be hell, but I can take what I've got and do what I can do to turn it in to heaven."

Now, this sounds cheesy when read out of context, but that shouldn't matter. It also doesn't matter that it refers to biblical lore. He could be referring to anything. [His] statement applies to all things and I love it - it's such a simple concept about not taking anything for granted. Whether or not it's something I consciously practice on a daily basis is another story. Doesn't change the brilliance of it.

Mark Cuban's Blog

Mark Cuban's recent blog post, "My Soapbox Advice to the OWS Movement and then some: I may not know much, but I know a lot of it"  is a brilliant read. 

I had to re-read this post twice in order to begin to understand what he's on about - the market, most of the related terminology and it's purpose never really interested me, until recently.

Read it. I think you'll find some intriguing ideas to knock around. Share it. Talk with people about them.

Because. All Of It. Race Cars, etc.

LEGENDS ARE FOREVER: Rally Legend 2011 from Tadej P on Vimeo.

My Last (Half) Pack. I Quit.

Gawker's COTD (October 12, 2011)

This afternoon the topic was about oversharing.

This is only tangentially related, but I'm curious as to whether anyone else has encountered the same bizarre phenomenon I did or if I just happen to know a bunch of people wildly lacking in boundaries and a basic grasp of reality. I disabled my Facebook account one day. No fanfare, no drama; I just clicked through and disabled it because it was sucking up too much of my time, I was uncomfortable with the way a lot of people were behaving there, and it was creating friction in my daily life.

This decision, one I consider personal and something I am under no obligation to explain or justify to anyone, pissed a lot of people off. A lot. Like, I lost real-life friendships over my "selfishness" and "inconsideration" in opting out of sharing every aspect of my life with them in real-time. It's been several months, and I've felt no real desire to get sucked back into the shitstorm that my FB newsfeed tended to be and I *really* have no interest in participating in it myself, but I'm still at a loss as to how to react to the realization that some people have honestly grown to believe that if I do not make myself available to them 24/7 and share every thought I have and decision I make with them (they were also angry—??—that I changed jobs without, I guess, getting their permission first? I don't know) I am a terrible person and an unfit friend.

Then again, I've also always been the person to argue that my possession of a cell phone in no way obligates me to make myself immediately available at other people's convenience, which also pisses people off, so maybe I'm just a misanthrope. But I sincerely miss being allowed to create my own schedule and manage my own life without being thought of as a jerk for doing so. I also find I miss the pursuit and maintenance of strong friendships—lazy Sunday afternoon phone calls, coffee dates, and one-on-one face-time instead of virtual sharing with a crowd. Social networking seems, to my mind, to engender a lot of false intimacy, but people also seem to be too busy to make time to grow real intimacy. I don't know. The whole thing makes me a little sad, and nostalgic for the time when we knew fewer people, but worked at really knowing them better.

Rest In Peace

"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose."
- Steve Jobs, 2005

Self-Portrait Series: Film No. 4: THURS 1:15pm

Occupy Wall Street

Myself and a colleague arrived at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan around 5:15am yesterday morning. I shot portraits of the protesters and he conducted interviews with each of the subjects photographed. It was interesting and honestly, a bit sad. I'm not going to get in to that though. We made some nice pictures of the occupants, but my favorite pictures show two of the reporters there to cover the protest.

Balmain Spring 2012 RTW: So Hot, Trashy-So-Good

The Spring 2012 Balmain show suits my taste. I can't explain why, but I love it. African Safari meets Disco meets (Cocaine Country) Cowgirl.

Here's Another Example As To Why The General Population Hates Police Officers

DJ Shadow, 'The Less You Know, The Better'

Have a listen via NPR

The Battle for Libya

Most of the links I post on this blog come from either the NYT or The New Yorker's web site. I rarely stray further than these two institutions - there's not much of a need - they're simply the best. The image above is a perfect example of the quality (photo)-journalism being produced for The Times. This picture could very well have been shot by Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Gregory Crewdson, Taryn Simon, Todd Hido (in look, not content), Annie, David Drebin, Jeff Wall, maybe even Alec Soth on a particularly bright day. The list goes on... it's a beautiful image, and a lot of professional photographers went after this look at one time in their career. I recall experimenting with this look for about a year in 2001-2002. Taryn, Alexei (Hay) both learned from PL, and their earliest work was a direct scrub of his before they found their own direction. Justine Parsons, who used to also shoot with Alexei, (full disclosure: they are both old friends whom I have worked with many times) also adopted this look back in the very late 90's, early 2000's, and applied it to many fashion stories.

I mention all these photographers because they all have at one time, in their own way, painstakingly choreographed their photographs to achieve a look or feeling similar (taking liberties from my perspective) to this picture, yet this image, a combat photograph, captures a pure moment within a very dangerous circumstance, no crew, no large production, no bulging budget necessary. Timing, some luck, a lot of experience and a cache of adrenaline made this image. I've been staring at it, coffee in hand, for ten minutes while slowly waking up, wondering what in god's name that man on the ground is going through.

Image: The New York Times: Asmaa Waguih/Reuters

Apparently Peter Gatien Doesn't Laugh Anymore

So says his daughter.