Sunday, February 22, 2009
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Reclining Buddha, Rangoon, Burma
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Pictures of prisoners from the S21 Prison (Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum), Phnom Penh. Cambodia.
Captioning these pictures today reminded me how hard it was to visit this place... well actually the visiting it wasn't hard, it was the thinking about it. I think you're tempted to view these pictures as thin, gauzy portraits from a distant past. But that's not true. That is not what is in front of you. Each image is so distinctly different; each person so clearly individual. Then I looked at the news online and saw that Dith Pran died. His story is what made this place real to me then, and I thought of it often when I was there.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Scary rabbit-head girl, Seattle, Wa.
I have some incredibly detailed memories about being a kid.
In some ways these are a little disturbing; I can recall eerie details about being locked in the car by one terribly incompetent (and philandering) baby-sitter while she "visited" her boyfriend at a construction site in Orinda or some damn place. I can recall what the road looked like blurring past as I almost fell out of a Karmen Ghia at 6 yrs old. I can also recall the kindly bakers at the Alpha Beta store who would give us sugar cookies just for saying "Please" and the landlords who gave us miniature candy bars every time we brought up the rent check.
But I digress. What I mean to remember now are the strains of AM radio, slinking out of the speakers in my mom's Datsun Honeybee, and the particular ability that kids have to hear mondegreens.
Part of the problem of course is this: kids don't know a lot. At the age of 5 or 6 kids are still really learning their language and figuring out how language works and how metaphors work and other complicated things. It's understandable that sometimes you hear things that don't make sense and just shrug at it. So it was with me and the radio.
I almost don't want to learn the real lyrics to Elton John's "Daniel" -- just hearing one snippet of that song casts me back to Mohr Lane and the Del Rio Circle and some crazy kid-world that I still recall so sharply.... it's one of those funny things; I'm almost afraid that if I understand that song I'll forget those memories and lose all that knowledge forever.
I made this mistake a few years ago, finally succumbing to the curiosity about what the hell Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville was about-- I can't even remember now what I thought this song was about when I was a kid, but it was a damn sight more interesting than the real thing. Lost jigger of salt?!? Give me a break!
There was some other song from the same time, I thought the man was singing about his sadness about being left with seven hundred children... I understood later that it was just seven hungry children.
Don't tell me. I don't want to know.
In some ways these are a little disturbing; I can recall eerie details about being locked in the car by one terribly incompetent (and philandering) baby-sitter while she "visited" her boyfriend at a construction site in Orinda or some damn place. I can recall what the road looked like blurring past as I almost fell out of a Karmen Ghia at 6 yrs old. I can also recall the kindly bakers at the Alpha Beta store who would give us sugar cookies just for saying "Please" and the landlords who gave us miniature candy bars every time we brought up the rent check.
But I digress. What I mean to remember now are the strains of AM radio, slinking out of the speakers in my mom's Datsun Honeybee, and the particular ability that kids have to hear mondegreens.
Part of the problem of course is this: kids don't know a lot. At the age of 5 or 6 kids are still really learning their language and figuring out how language works and how metaphors work and other complicated things. It's understandable that sometimes you hear things that don't make sense and just shrug at it. So it was with me and the radio.
I almost don't want to learn the real lyrics to Elton John's "Daniel" -- just hearing one snippet of that song casts me back to Mohr Lane and the Del Rio Circle and some crazy kid-world that I still recall so sharply.... it's one of those funny things; I'm almost afraid that if I understand that song I'll forget those memories and lose all that knowledge forever.
I made this mistake a few years ago, finally succumbing to the curiosity about what the hell Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville was about-- I can't even remember now what I thought this song was about when I was a kid, but it was a damn sight more interesting than the real thing. Lost jigger of salt?!? Give me a break!
There was some other song from the same time, I thought the man was singing about his sadness about being left with seven hundred children... I understood later that it was just seven hungry children.
Don't tell me. I don't want to know.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
I 80 at twilight.
I really do have a love/hate relationship with driving. On the one hand, I love the chance to be alone and thoughtful and sing along to the ipod cranked up uncomfortably loud. On the other hand, sometimes the drives we get here in California are so long and straight and lonely that all you ever want to do is get to the end of it.
Without the distraction of traffic, and the strange clumping and speeding caused by just a few too many cars on the road, what is there to do exactly? Of course some of you are thinking, "Well you drive, you pay attention to the road and you just drive"....but its not that simple. There are stories to think up, soundtracks that need movies and sometimes, pictures that need taking.
I cannot recommend taking pictures while driving, even if it is just with your phone. But the problem is: when else would you take a picture like this? As a passenger your job is entertaining the driver and keeping an eye out for where you can pick up a snack. As the driver, it's all up to you.
Without the distraction of traffic, and the strange clumping and speeding caused by just a few too many cars on the road, what is there to do exactly? Of course some of you are thinking, "Well you drive, you pay attention to the road and you just drive"....but its not that simple. There are stories to think up, soundtracks that need movies and sometimes, pictures that need taking.
I cannot recommend taking pictures while driving, even if it is just with your phone. But the problem is: when else would you take a picture like this? As a passenger your job is entertaining the driver and keeping an eye out for where you can pick up a snack. As the driver, it's all up to you.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Hotel hallway, Costa Mesa, Ca.
This place made me think it was a good setting for a Coen brothers movie. Just full of creepy potential!
Saturday, December 15, 2007
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