This painting, by my late father when he was in art school at Pratt, hung in our house when I was growing up. It’s a wonderful, slightly surrealist work with great sense of light, depth, and sly details like the nude couple under a tree in the far left background. Time has not been kind to it, there is pretty serious flaking of the paint around the edges. Finally got out some krazy glue and spray varnish today, hoping to restore some structural integrity so I can get it up on the wall.
The Spring Tune
Brushing off some music I’ve had in my pocket for some time, hopefully I’ll be doing some recording over the winter. This came to mind, poetic words for creativity in general from a children’s book by Finnish author and illustrator Tove Jansson. If you don’t know The Moomins (which means most Americans), you’re missing out:
It’s the right evening for a tune, Snufkin thought. A new tune, one part expectation, two parts sadness, and for the rest, just the great delight of walking alone and liking it.
He had kept this tune under his hat for several days but hadn’t quite dared to take it out yet. It had to grow into a kind of happy conviction. Then, he would simply have to put his lips to the mouth organ, and all the notes would jump instantly into their places.
If he released them too soon they might get stuck crossways and make only a half-good tune, or he might lose them altogether and never be in the right mood to get hold of them again. Tunes are serious things, especially if they have to be jolly and sad at the same time.
But this evening Snufkin felt rather sure of his tune. It was there, waiting, nearly full-grown – and it was going to be the best he ever made.
Then, when he arrived in Moominvalley, he’d sit on the bridge rail and play it, and Moomintroll would say at once: That’s a good one. Really a good one.
- from “The Spring Tune”, Tales From Moominvalley
Waiting Room Review
Nice review of The Waiting Room over on the phot(o)lia blog.
http://photolia.tumblr.com/post/20511639880/the-waiting-room-bill-crandall
Belarus, a post-Soviet country “squeezed between Europe and Russia”. The most common association is probably Chernobyl and current political regime referred to as “the last dictatorship in Europe”. No surprise that those few photographers who get to that part of Europe focus on one of those issues. Bill Crandall did something very different. He came to Belarus to document everyday life and he spent one decade visiting the country: observing, learning, reflecting. [S]ome images are just surreal, others are very intimate, many are captivating but all of them create beautiful and intriguing narratives […].
RIP Pancake Mountain
Really sorry to see Pancake Mountain call it quits. See the farewell video here.
Scott Stuckey, the mastermind of the indie children’s show, is a long-time friend. He poured his creative genius into PM, really left it all on the field. So many cool musicians visited the Mountain for the privilege of playing for dancing kiddies and being interviewed by sheep puppet Rufus Leaking. Ian MacKaye wrote the song Vowel Movement for the show, it’s one of the best songs I’ve ever heard for kids (and Scott’s video for it is great). My six-year-old loves it.
But in the end commercial TV just wasn’t biting and you can only keep a labor of love going so long on free labor.
I’m proud to have been a part of PM in the early days, mostly doing still photos but also helping with scripting and whatever else needed doing. It was pretty amazing - one day Henry Rollins would come in for a sketch, the next we’d be filming George Clinton in the alley behind the 930 Club (while the band was still playing inside!), the next we’d be setting up a kids’ dance party with Thievery Corporation.
I can’t say I’m surprised PM didn’t quite make it to the next level, simply because you’d expect resistance and lack of vision from the TV powers-that-be for such a scrappy, quirky, underdog production. But those were the attributes that made it so damn cool. The bands sure ‘got it’ though.
Scott, congratulations and kudos for all that you did achieve with Pancake Mountain. You showed a whole way of doing things - a truly indie/DIY approach that celebrated both music and kids in a totally non-cheesy way that adults could actually stomach as well. Looking forward to whatever comes next!
The Waiting is Over
My book The Waiting Room - Photographs from Belarus is now available in a first edition of 500. The introduction, in English and Russian, is by Belarusian author Victor Martinovich. The book is a ten-year body of work finally achieving final form.
Check here for more info about the book.
Whenever I travel I am so dependent on other people, without whom I couldn’t get anything done. Huge thanks to everyone who helped me so much over the years!
Havel and Me
Almost cried today when I read Havel had passed away. In 2005 I was in Prague briefly and crashed as usual with my friend Karel Cudlin in Zizkov. As always Karel had a lot going on, this particular day was the exhibit opening of his commissioned work shooting backstage at the Czech National Theater for a full season. Afterward we headed over to a restaurant for the after-party. We’re sitting there and suddenly he says, ‘ah, Havel is here!’. Sure enough, over in the adjacent dining room was Vaclav Havel and a little entourage around a table.
Knowing Karel used to be one of Havel’s personal photographers, I shamelessly begged for an intro. 'Yeah, sure!’ Karel said, eyes twinkling as he angled us through the crowd. A moment’s wait, a few words in Czech from Karel, and there I was shaking the man’s hand (Karel managed to step back and get a pic, pardon the motion blur, it was really dark in there and it happened fast). I forget now what I said, but I’m pretty sure it was forgettable. Anyway, I gave him a few small photo prints I happened to have and said goodbye.
That was about it (and plenty). A bit later I stepped outside the restaurant and there was Havel, by himself, talking on the phone on the little Prague side street. I can’t remember if I didn’t have my camera, or would have felt like an ass for using it, but it’s fine as just a memory.
Such a modest, unassuming guy but a real giant, in the league of Mandela (whose time may be drawing near as well I’m afraid). Why are there so few truth tellers of that stature, people who can not only really see through the weeds that others get lost in, but have the talent to express that vision? When you lose one, the world seems suddenly darker. Like we’ve lost a protector, whose mere presence affirms our best - and rebukes our worst - impulses.
VOA Interview
The Voice of America (Russian Service) reported on my Belarus work and upcoming Waiting Room photo book. Unfortunately the links to the main piece and their photo blog don’t exist anymore. But they interviewed me by email (published in Russian), see below for the answers I gave them in English.
—–
How did you decide to start doing photography? What was the starting point?
My father was an artist and photographer. We had a small darkroom in our home, he taught me not just about developing film and how to make a good print, but also how to really see. So this was the very beginning. Until my early 20s I was more into music, I played guitar in various bands and studied music in college. But gradually photography sort of took over my creative interest. I did both for a while but eventually chose photography as my main focus. Though I think a feeling for music still informs my visual side as well. It all goes together.
What kind of camera did you use when you start doing photography?
I started with film cameras, this was before digital existed. My first camera was a Canon AE-1. Later I did much of my personal work with the Leica M6. Now I am doing mostly digital. I made a decision that I needed to find a way to do ‘my thing’ with digital cameras, instead of stubbornly holding onto film. I don’t need a $5000 camera though, I sort of go the other way - working with more modest tools like smaller cameras and phone cameras and trying to maximize them. I very much like some small Ricoh digital cameras that give me the quality I need but allow me to take a nimble, discreet approach. Instead of being the guy with the huge camera doing something serious. More and more in this world, that’s the way to get negative attention. Sometimes I prefer not to be taken seriously by people when I am working.
The work of what famous photographers impresses you the most? Why?
When I started I was very excited by Cartier-Bresson, Josef Koudelka, Marc Riboud… especially Koudelka. He is so uncompromising in his vision. I met him a couple times recently and it was very special for me. His work has a sense of mystery, ambiguity, and suggestiveness that really appealed to me and still does. In fact, I quite like many lesser known Czech photographers, like Viktor Kolar, Vojta Dukat, Bohdan Holomicek, and my good friend Karel Cudlin. Something in the Czech photo DNA I guess. The photographers who impress me are not necessarily virtuosos, but they can make magic out of ordinary subject matter.
Sometimes people say that it’s necessary to go somewhere in order to take pictures. How did you decide to go to Belarus?
I think it’s not so important to go somewhere, although of course the exotic and unfamiliar are more arousing to our senses. Photographing the familiar is harder for sure. Though I’m trying to find fresh ways of seeing what is around me close to home. Either way, it’s more important what is in your mind, what is your sensibility, your point of view. This is influenced by everything, by who you are, by art, film, literature, music…
With all that said, I am very interested in places, and I am driven by the desire to capture the essence of a place. Not literally, but impressionistically, with a point of view. I first went to Belarus as part of my broader project shooting in various parts of Eastern Europe over some years. I’m interested in how different countries have evolved - and are evolving - since the end of communism. There are quite different case studies if you consider places like Prague, Kosovo, Serbia, Ukraine, Belarus… But any broader context is only a kind of backdrop, when I go somewhere I am not trying to work as a news reporter. I’m simply looking for what interests me, what feels true on a universal and enduring level, what is ambiguous instead of literal. I want to understand correctly but not be confined by the need to describe or explain. I guess I am offering impressions not facts, but impressions informed by facts.
How is it possible to capture a moment in order to make a special picture?
Well, it’s necessary to be able to anticipate, to be sensitive, to be in command of your equipment and technique, and to have a kind of inner intensity so that when you respond it’s like a coiled spring being released. It helps to study human nature, and develop your ideas so that when a moment comes along you can even recognize it as 'your’ moment. If you don’t have some idea what you are trying to do, at least some set of ideas you are drawing from, how will you know that a particular moment crystallizes your thoughts in some way?
Why are most of your pictures in black and white?
I’ve always preferred black and white. It distills the scene to the essentials of mood, emotion, composition, etc. It’s more mysterious and I like mystery. Color can be like visual noise if it’s not well-handled, and I don’t think I handle it that well. Though for the past year or so I’ve been doing a color series that I quite like, so maybe I’m getting better.
Do you think there are some special details in the photojournalist’s work, for example in Belarus? Did you get into some extreme situation there and in the USA?
I haven’t really had any special problems in Belarus, no one really bothers me when I’m working. Well, there was one crazy guy who got in my face the first time I was there, but I think he just had anger management issues. But I’m not usually shooting things that are politically sensitive so there shouldn’t really be any issues. The second time I had an exhibition in Minsk showing some of this work, I actually got some positive coverage in the state media. I suppose it’s ironic that I’ve been detained shooting in Washington DC, but not in Belarus. I had gone to take pictures of the Pentagon after September 11. At that time there was surveillance of everyone who came and went there. I spent a long time sitting, waiting, at the site for the right light before I started shooting. Then the next day I came back with my wife, who is a radio and TV reporter. Some soldiers thought we were suspicious and questioned us for a little while. Made me miss my good light!
There are so many incredible and interesting and funny experiences and people you meet when you do this kind of independent work. It might be boring to talk about them. It’s like older people who tell war stories, the memories are powerful for them but not necessarily for others. On the other hand, photographing in another place can often be quite lonely, even depressing, to wake up each morning, maybe not feeling well or whatever, trying to figure out what you will do that day to move your project toward success.
Do you think that the world has changed? And working in the style of Cartier-Bresson is very difficult since there are a lot of privacy concerns?
Yes, in many places it has become harder to work as a street photographer, though snap-and-run is a relatively small part of what I do. Often it’s more about being able to work my way into situations or scenarios that allow for some degree of at least unspoken permission or tolerance from the people around me. It’s never been easy, plus now there are so many real or imagined security concerns. It’s a complicated subject, this whole new landscape of privacy, security, the internet, etc. But often people are flattered to have their picture taken, as long as they feel you don’t have some kind of negative agenda. You have to be transparent, open in your intentions, this can be felt despite language barriers.
There is an opinion that photography is the art of one thousand details, for example, the organization of the trip. How do you get ready for the trip? Is it possible to compensate all spending?
Well, first of all, I am rarely compensated for any spending! At least not right away, and not always in the form of direct payment. Grants can help, I’ve had a couple that made a big difference. But karma has a way of working, efforts are often re-paid in unexpected ways.
It’s true that maybe 80 percent of the effort is putting yourself in the position to even have a chance to make a good photo. Then you try not to screw it up. I personally don’t plan every detail of a trip, a lot is left to fate. Of course the basics are in place, but sometimes even where I will sleep, where I will go, can be subject to change. On another level, getting ready for a trip involves a certain mental preparation, including a certain amount of preconceiving what I’m looking for. But once I’m working, I try not to think too much, I try to respond intuitively.
With what famous magazines or publishers did you work?
I worked a lot for many years for the Washington Post, New York Times, and many other newspapers. I’ve been published in many magazines in the US and Europe, though usually from assignments they give me, not my own projects. I consider myself a reformed/former photojournalist, now pursuing my own projects is all that’s really important to me. It’s fine and nice when a publication presents your work, and that used to drive me. But I think you can only take your photography to the next level when you stop worrying about whether it will fill an editor’s need.
What is the range of payment for photographers who work for famous magazines or publishers?
In general the rates for newspapers are quite low, and the contract terms are not to the photographer’s advantage. Magazines pay more, but the whole industry is of course declining. It’s a very difficult time for those who are used to relying on income from magazine assignments. I have a teaching job now, so that gives me less time to shoot, but less financial pressure. I’m working on a few projects but for the short term future, I’m more concerned with shaping the work I’ve already done and getting it out there. In addition to The Waiting Room, I’ve got a couple other books I’m planning to self-publish. Self-publishing is a whole separate conversation.
What kind of camera do you use now?
The last time I used the Leica with film was in spring of 2009, in Belarus. I’m not saying I’ll never shoot film again because I like film. But I’m pretty comfortable now using my little Ricohs when I go off to work on a project (or even for most local assignment work from clients). Specifically, I have two Ricoh GXR cameras, one with a wide angle, one with a normal lens. I never use zooms. I have used the Ricoh GRD series point and shoot cameras quite a lot. I can hang the results next to my Leica shots with no problems. But I’m not really into equipment. You need the right tool that you enjoy using, but it’s just a tool.
What is the recipe for success?
You can’t really worry about success. Don’t worry about 'being a photographer’. Worry about your craft and your vision, and realizing that you are up against the best in the world. We are saturated in pictures, many are wonderful, yet so many are mediocre or worse. Mediocrity won’t cut it. So be relentless and self-critical. You have to be great. If you are not, don’t kid yourself because of ego or whatever. Either figure out how to get better or go do something else. We have enough images in the world, in fact many more than we need. We don’t need the technically perfect, the banal, the superficial, the outlandish.
I don’t know the definition of success, let alone the recipe. But I would say develop your own vision, think of yourself as a visual author. Develop your ideas and your sensibility. I tell my students the only reason we need more photos in the world is if they are YOUR photos. So, you have to figure out what that means and how to achieve it. Then do it, and keep doing it.
Also, I personally think we have too much, not too little, photography that shows what is wrong with the world, under the idea that you are creating awareness. I’m not telling people NOT to do this, because of course awareness is important. But I saw the last World Press exhibit and very little of it was interesting to me. So much of it was very hard to look at on a human level, and just made me tired. We already know the world is fucked up, in countless ways. We cannot sugar-coat reality; as a great photographer friend of mine said, sentimentality won’t save us. But photography, for me, is about so much more than just showing the problems of the world. Ok, maybe I tend to have melancholic atmospheres and textures in my work. But I am neither a nihilist nor a romantic. I’m not setting out to show the negative or the positive. We need to be critical but not cynical. We have to avoid kitsch at all costs, but I am not embarrassed about the word humanism. Photography should have humor, hope, beauty, wonder, poignancy, and of course mystery. Because life is above all mysterious, right?
Fotoweek Talk
I’ll be giving a presentation and talk tomorrow (Sat) at 11am, kicking off FotoWeekDC’s lecture series in the former Borders space downtown. I’ll show work from The Waiting Room, my 10-year project in Belarus looking at this little-known country on the edge of Europe. The book should be out shortly (I’d hoped to have it by tomorrow but it was not to be). In the meantime, anyone who attends will get a free copy of the e-book version.
The place is massive and is decked out with cool photography, worth a look anyway. Hope you can join me!
Wings of Desire
Since I started teaching in 2008, I haven’t really had a true summer break. Various family matters have always seemed to take over right on cue. I actually finished the week before last, but last week my daughter had not yet started summer camp. So today I mark as the first real day of summer. Meaning hours each day - actual blocks of time - to rest, think, have coffee, read, and of course immerse in long-neglected creative efforts like publishing my Belarus book, making music, developing some web projects, etc.
So I watched Wings of Desire again the other day on DVD - as normal creative sustenance, to revisit the late Peter Falk’s role, and to see how it all holds up. Man, not only does it hold up, it’s perhaps gotten better since it was made in the 80s. Then I watched it again today, this time with the running commentary by Wim Wenders and Falk switched on.
My goodness I’m glad I did. In a gentle, almost languid way, they (mostly Wenders but Falk too) provide beautiful and often profound insight into so many new layers of the film. You will make connections you didn’t perceive before, more fully appreciate the truly amazing BW cinematography, and grasp what a miraculous and unique movie it really is:
That Wenders was working without a script or storyboards. That the circus was named for Henri Alekan, the film’s cinematographer (of Roman Holiday and La Belle et la Bête fame, among many others). That many of Peter Falk’s scenes - like sketching the old woman, and trying on all the different hats - were based on things Falk himself was doing anyway on set. How much of a historical document the film has become with all the recent changes in the Berlin cityscape. That Solveig Dommartin did all her own trapeze work, all without a net even during training, and once badly fell. That there was an alternative ending with Cassiel, the other angel, becoming human too.
And don’t reach for the remote during the closing credits, Wenders keeps talking and it’s fairly mind-blowing. As the credits roll, the first thing that appears is a dedication to ‘Yasujiro, François, and Andrej’. He explains it’s a reference to directors Ozu, Truffaut, and Tarkovsky, and how their work inspired him. It’s an exquisite moment. I recently discovered the complicated, spiritual genius of Tarkovsky (thanks Gabriela and Mark!) and could totally see what he meant.
I had to post all this right away, while my synapses are still smoking. Maybe this is all ho-hum or too precious for some people. Whatever, that’s their loss to dismiss moments such as these, when something you thought you knew suddenly takes on a whole new life and richness, and makes transcendent creative connections that are universal, of the highest order.
Ah, summer break. Nice way to start.
for de Volkskrant (Amsterdam).
NYC’s Evolving Bikescape
NYC for de Volkskrant
Before last weekend, I don’t think I had ever taken a single picture in New York City. Nothing of consequence for sure, but literally I may have taken less than five frames there, total, in my life, except for casual pictures of friends.
Strange I guess, but I always felt the same way as I feel about Paris - what in the hell am I going to shoot there that hasn’t been done a million times? In Paris I did sort of figure out a little hook for a short series a few years ago. In New York I’ve never even had the urge to try. Gun firmly in holster. I can’t really explain it.
So when a Dutch newspaper asked me to do some photos for a little travel piece about changes in lower Manhattan, it was both exciting and a little daunting. I’d have one day (well, much less after the train to and from DC the same day). So in the end it was lunchtime to dusk.
Thank god it was good weather and I was with the reporter, a great guy who skillfully steered us to choice spots. On top of everything I wasn’t feeling too great, so that’s a bummer when you’re praying your energy won’t fail you.
I used the opportunity to take the leap and shoot it all with my little Ricohs. Not to be a gearhead, but I’m loving working with the GRD and GXR in tandem. Just a 28 and a 50, light and nimble, great quality, and you come off as non-serious, a curious goofball, which can be a good thing when working on the street.
It was a pretty good day in the end. Of course I was shooting what was needed for the job, but I gave myself total license to have fun and shoot how I wanted. I found it interesting what some of the pics ended up reflecting - the ongoing transformation of NYC into a properly groomed city. I remember the 80s when you’d arrive in New York and it just seemed hopeless, unredeemable. The seedy and the funky and the shitty and the bohemian and the thrilling are largely gone. What was worst and best about the place.
But from an urbanistic point of view, what has come along with the tourists and soulless kitsch of places like Times Square (which, come on, was always kitsch, formerly just with enough danger and scruff to make it interesting) are some world-class improvements. I was pretty impressed with the subtle vibe in places like Battery Park, DUMBO, around the WTC, the new pavilion around the Staten Island ferry terminal…
There is, dare I say it, an emerging urban grace amid the city’s muscular exoskeleton.
I Saw Ah-nold
Driving home this evening I spotted ol’ Arnold Schwarzenegger cruising west on the Pennsylvania Avenue cycletrack, right below the Capitol. Caught up to him on Constitution to make sure I had a clear shot from the car. I know, Citizen Paparazzi. Apparently the former governator had a meeting earlier in the day with Obama about immigration reform.
FotoDC/Flash
The press/VIP night for FotoDC’s big FLASH exhibit is tomorrow (Thurs) night, with the public opening Friday night in Crystal City, VA. Click here for more info.
There was a panel of five jurors from the top tier of the DC photo world - a short selection from my Belarus series (including the above pic from Minsk in 2009) was chosen by Philip Brookman, chief curator at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Which is obviously exciting, though my one complaint was that each person submitting work only had eight minutes with their chosen curator, about enough time for how-you-doing and a quick slideshow before an official hoverer moved in to break things up. Brookman is certainly someone I would’ve liked to get into more of a conversation with.
But I nitpick. It’s great how FotoweekDC has become the year-round FotoDC, pulling together all kinds of cool events like this. Kudos to founder Theo Adamstein and crew, working hard to put the DC photo scene on the international map.
Scholastics Awards
Super excited, today I learned that seven (!) of my photo students won awards from the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers. Including one girl who was awarded for her great portfolio (most are for single images). The AYAW Scholastic Awards are very prestigious and have helped launch young artists for decades. Past winners have included Andy Warhol and Richard Avedon as teenagers.
Review
What are the film, music, and book experiences that you most connected with in the last year? Not that came out in 2010 necessarily, but that you saw/heard/read in the last year. Work that not only entertained but somehow elevated to essential creative nourishment/inspiration, maybe even infused into your own work somehow.
Ok, mine:
Film - The Road (in a tie with Secret of Kells)
The Road, from the book by Cormac McCarthy, is a literate, spare, somber, monochrome, post-apocalyptic thriller. The, um, cannibalism theme aside, the father-son dynamic is so powerful and profound, I don’t know how I got through this one at a time when my own father was gravely ill. Surprisingly, I didn’t find this film depressing at all, it’s actually strangely beautiful. But then again I have a strong stomach for quality melancholia.
Secret of Kells is simply a thing of beauty. The eye-candy of the animation would have been enough, but married to an intelligent, nuanced, non-sentimental sense of culture and myth it acquires layers that most films of any kind don’t have. People who criticize the supposedly thin storyline are missing the point. [It’s good for kids, but be careful - when the vikings finally arrive and get straight to business, there are some very scary moments. Though not much worse than Disney can be at times, or those flying monkeys in Wizard of Oz.]
I know, the two films couldn’t be more different on the surface. But thinking just now, I realize they are actually sort of the same. A boy and his father (or father-figure in Kells), trying to find hope and light in the face of primal threats.
~
Music - Jonsi concert at 930 Club
My friend and I agreed the Jonsi show was like hearing music that was perhaps 10 or 20 years ahead of the curve. I loved the unconstrained inventiveness of the individual musicians - especially the drummer, my god, but others in more subtle ways - the stage set and projections that conjured nature, dreams…
And of course Jonsi’s music, which even at its most ethereal seemed to break free of the lead weight that can sometimes bog down Sigur Ros’ material. It could spring to life with a surprisingly exuberant charm that really was, to use the dreaded term, uplifting.
~
Book - Moominland Midwinter
Yes, I know, my Moomins fixation again. My daughter isn’t quite ready for the original storybooks, but I sure was, especially as an antidote to Dora saturation.
The Moomin family are hibernating through the winter months, as Moomins do. But young Moomintroll wakes up somehow, and he can’t get back to sleep or rouse any of his family. So, all alone at first, he sets out to discover the mysteries of rural Nordic winter. Eventually he has a series of minor-key adventures with a set of interesting and often elusive creatures and characters taking winter refuge nearby. Finally spring comes and everyone wakes up, just as he’s getting the hang of the winter world.
Maybe doesn’t sound like much, but Finnish author and illustrator Tove Jansson is a quirky, unsentimental master of atmosphere, tone, and character. Yes, it’s for kids but it’s unafraid to be dark in interesting ways. There’s a kind of mystical art in here if you’re receptive to it. If you’re a parent who can’t stand the usual crap of modern kids’ books and TV for one more second, this book is pure tonic. A great adult read, especially in winter.
~
I’ve been working on a couple of projects that have definitely been watered by little elements of all of these. Though probably (hopefully) not in obvious ways. Stand by, they’re both unfinished but I hope to roll them out sometime soon!
Dot Dash Review
Nice little online review from Ear Candy Mag:
Dot Dash,“Dot Dash” (Edition 59 Records)
Promising debut from this band of seasoned DC players. There’s jangle pop here, but also a darker edge to the songwriting that will take the listener in different directions.
Lead singer Terry Banks (ex-Tree Fort Angst) has a subtle touch with lyrics that support the music interplay well. The rhythm section propels each tune along with precision, not surprising since bassist Hunter Bennett did time in post punkers Weatherhead, and drummer Danny Ingram was a road warrior with Swervedriver in the mid-90’s. This four piece is rounded out by Bill Crandall’s restrained leads, which recall Paul Weller at his peak.
You will be singing along to “That Was Now, This Is Then” by the end of this EP, and be left wanting more.
You can find the mini-CD on Edition 59’s MySpace page. You’ll have to scroll around a bit, look for number 063 in the list.
White Ribbon
The cinematographer of The White Ribbon, Christian Berger, on ‘modern black and white’ -
Berger admits he can’t quite describe the style or mode that he has dubbed “modern black and white”, but told Art Beat they [he and director Michael Haneke] wanted to use the abstraction of black and white without adopting the other aesthetic implications that go with old film stock.
Indeed, the end result feels inexplicably modern: a clear, crisp contrast with a more richly layered scale of gray tones than the conventional black and white of the past. Berger filmed “White Ribbon” in digital color negative, removing the color in post-production.
Chainguard Revolution
A short time ago I started a new blog, District Citizen Cycling. It’s a mix of photos (mine, see slideshow above for some samples), short video clips, articles, links, etc springing from my somewhat new passion for what might be called a European (mainly Dutch/Danish) model of biking and bike culture - dressed in normal clothes, riding slower, sitting more upright, trying to follow traffic laws, ideally on a bike with a chainguard, fenders, even a skirt over the rear wheel. ‘Citizen cycling’, aka upright biking, sit-up biking, utility biking, etc.
Tongue somewhat in cheek, I subtitled the blog 'Chainguard Revolution’. Meaning in order to ride-as-you-are, it all starts with the chainguard et al. No pant-leg clips or worrying about getting splattered in wet weather. A 'revolution’ because bicycling needs a model of urban riding that is more attractive to the masses. So a driver could see a citizen cyclist toodling along comfortably upright on their commute or errands and think, hey, that could be me.
It quickly becomes a self-reinforcing cycle - if vastly more non-bikers start biking, the city can justify even more bicycle amenities like protected bike lanes, traffic tends to calm, and the quality of life increases overall. Even drivers benefit from less traffic. Getting around becomes more sustainable, healthier, more fun. The worst part of your day (the commute) becomes the best.
Seems people everywhere are having a similar lightbulb moment. Just look at Copenhagen, Amsterdam, or Munich. Or Montreal or emerging bike cities like New York. Ask half a million Danes who commute by bike everyday, generally without incident and without helmets. Their bikescape is that safe and well-developed (the helmet debate is a whole other issue, and a tiresome one at that).
Anyway I hope you’ll take a look, even if you’re not interested in biking per se. I’m no bike geek myself, at times the blog is as much about Washington, its neighborhoods, and a certain urban aesthetic as it is about the city’s emerging bike culture.
In other words it’s not just biking. A better biking city is a better city.
You can follow District Citizen Cycling on Facebook and Twitter (@dcitizencycling).
A Mountain Memorial
I’d never been out West. Always East. I flew to Colorado with my father’s ashes, so he could have his final rest near his mother, up in the mountains. From the plane, you could see how the unsettling flatness of the midwestern prairie slams right up against the Rockies, just like they tell you. But it’s still pretty remarkable and exotic.
My aunt Janet Saunders (my father’s twin) and her son Rob picked me up at the Denver airport. Cousin Rob and I hadn’t seen each other since we were very young, now he’s middle-aged. Guess I’m getting there too… Rob’s a Republican generally but of the increasingly rare thoughtful kind (like my dad was, usually). He has no use for the Tea Party. Says he’s actually getting more liberal, the way things are going. He and his mother share a wry, flinty sense of humor marked by a funny staccato laugh. Their whole family is somehow both quintessentially American and quite worldly, having traveled and lived around the world growing up with their late father, who was in the oil exploration business.
From the airport we made a beeline straight up into the Rockies. Wildfires were billowing smoke off to the north, up the slope from the urban sprawl. Soon we were in the mountain town of Frisco, where my cousin Susan, Rob’s sister, has a share in a nice condo overlooking a lake. Frisco is not too touristy, more of a real town. The altitude and low humidity take their toll pretty quick, everyone tells you to drink a lot of water and take it easy. Which helps, but if you’re a lowlander you can find yourself walking around feeling pretty dry and just a little off overall. The first night I woke up gasping at one point, my throat and sinuses parched.
The next day we headed further on, past the Continental Divide, to the ski resort town of Vail, where their family used to have a house. They bought just before Vail transformed into a millionaires’ winter playground. Back when they lived there, if a relative died they could simply go out their back door, up the mountain a bit into the White River National Forest, and spread the ashes. (Cremation seems to be the thing in the Crandall/Saunders clan.)
My grandmother Elizabeth (Betty) Crandall is there on a upper ridge. Everyone was younger and healthier then and could make the trek. Just below, from more recent years, are my cousin Bruce (Susan and Rob’s brother), who died too young, and their father Bob, who died just a few months ago. Aunt Janet plans to be up there as well, hopefully not too soon. She dutifully wheels her oxygen tank around with her, otherwise going pretty strong and sharp for 80. Though she might say otherwise.
Since they sold that Vail house (a McMansion has taken its place), we had to sort of cut through a neighbor’s driveway to get up into the forest. We had a brief memorial circle, holding hands under the watchful eyes of a squawking black squirrel that appeared out of nowhere. Aunt Janet and cousin Susan waited at the bottom and Rob and I set off with my father’s urn.
That’s when it really set in. It was so stunning in every direction, yet it was so hard to keep emotions in check, do the job I was there to do. My father loved this area when he visited. He made so many beautiful photos in Colorado - for a self-proclaimed ‘poor man’s Ansel Adams with a twist’, it was hard to go wrong photo-wise. I felt like it was HIS landscape. His father and mother actually met in Colorado, up in Boulder I think, so maybe he felt the connection.
Trudging up the path, deep, gothic shade would break out into brash midday sunshine and back again. Rob pointed out where cousin Bruce was spread, and Uncle Bob. Lodgepole trees stood devastated by pine beetles, amid little clusters of aspen shimmering gold and beautiful healthy blue spruce framing the distant mountaintops. Circle of life.
A final steep climb to the small clearing where dad’s mother rests. It’s a view worthy of someone like my father who was a visual artist and very classically American himself, with a real feeling for the land in a old-time sense.
I had given Rob my other camera, I wanted to fully document this experience. He took some really nice shots. I can’t imagine doing a much more profound thing in my lifetime. I want to be able to put myself back in that moment, to help me stay connected to my dad who will rest so far away.
I found a suitable spot next to his mother, marked by a distinctive rock in case I go back. I opened the cardboard American flag urn I bought from the funeral home. A so-called dispersal urn. I spread his ashes as carefully as I could, it’s hard not to get the ashes - which are more like sand - on you in the breeze. It doesn’t waft away like you think it might.
Then, well, that’s it. Said final goodbyes. I think he’ll be at peace there, I hope so. I hope he likes it. How to know?
We went back down the mountain, mostly in silence. Later, Rob and I drove around the area. He stopped to drop a fishing line in Gore Creek for a few minutes, just down the slope from where my dad is. We figured this is where winter snow runoff would pass by, carrying minute pieces of my father’s being with it, feeding into the Colorado River via the Eagle River, and onward to the Gulf of Mexico and the waters of the world. I took a few small stones from the clear, rushing stream to take home.
The next day, back down through the outskirts of Denver and the flight home. The modern airport, with its distinctive cloth 'sails’, looks like a futuristic ship marooned on the vast prairie. I still couldn’t shake the strangeness of the whole endeavor. But I was satisfied.
Back home now in Washington, back to family, work, onward pursuits. I miss my father of course. But I know I did everything I could to make something beautiful from his passing.
So hard that I can’t even call him on the phone for our usual chats. I still have a saved voice mail message from him, from near the end. I play it back sometimes. He said he was having problems dialing out with the hospital phone. “I want to talk to you… I’m not sure what to do.”
Feeling the same way right now, dad.
Poland’s tradition of theater poster-art
The poster art tradition in Poland really intrigues me. I was thinking about it today since a bistro in my neighborhood has several cool examples on the walls, which my four-year-old daughter and I were eyeing and discussing over lunch.
Since the late 1800s, with perhaps a heyday between the 1950s and 1980s, you’d have Polish artists commissioned to create bold, highly conceptual posters to announce various cultural events. Opera, theater, film, exhibitions, etc. The imagery tended to be surrealistic, but also often could be sexual, macabre, or whimsical. Never veering into sentimentality or kitsch.
As this nice summary of the genre (and the societal conditions that nurtured it) says:
Polish posters were not only pieces of art, but also intellectual labyrinths and games of hide-and-seek. Posters referred not only to emotions, but to intellect as well. Viewers were required to think.
Amazingly, these artists were simultaneously fulfilling the commission (make the client happy!), crystallizing the subject matter conceptually, even lacing the visuals with sly commentary on the subject matter, all while putting a distinctive, daring personal stamp on each work - yet still generally fitting in to the long arc of the tradition.
Even more amazingly, this kind of work became part of their mass culture, even in later years under communism. In fact, inevitably, it’s the modern era that has done the most to kill off unique Polish poster art, which has been rapidly supplanted by standard commercial street advertising for all the usual reasons.