A Couple Palins for President

Peak technology is past too (for some things)

So my new interest in photography has reminded me of something interesting. That digital is nowhere, nowhere near the apex of perfection that analog achieved in its total evolution from the 1890s to the 1970s. In music recording or photography for two cases in point. The mania for vinyl is more than sentimentality. It sounds good. If you have a good turntable from the 60s or 70s you know they are works of art with their strobe tuners and exquisite tone arm mechanisms that pump out smooth analog tube recordings through a tube amplifier. Warm golden stuff that. Digital equals convenience and a level of quality, but not sublime yet. Same is true with digital cameras, they are fabulous and convenient but the feeling and aura of the old 35mm's or medium format cameras still lingers. Its been such a pleasure for me to move into shooting with analog cameras. They focus differently, the feel different (heavier for one) and this peak technology can be had pretty cheaply. In one case for me I bought a Nikon L35 at the thrift store for three dollars.





Heavy metal casing, excellent lens, range finding, simple use a true SLR in the most compact form that real analog quality would allow. (That means its still pretty big in 1979) The other analog camera I have is a 1966 minolta srT. Its a brute of a camera, heavy, heavy duty. Super lens, super mirror in the camera itself. Its alot of fun to not look at a little digital LCD and really focus on the subject in a way that you can see the depth and the nuance of what you're shooting. Alot of people with digital cameras will never know how difference and still make lovely images. It's the nuance that they miss. Hopefully I can make that feeling come out in the pictures.





So as we get set to switch from analog to digital everything give digital time, someday it will be as elegant as analog was/is. Remember analog had the better part of a century.

El Greco to Velazquez at the Nasher

The Nasher Museum at Duke University is home to a unique show of the artistic taste and acumen of Spain at the time of Philip III via the inventory of his favorite the Duke of Lerma. This period of history was vital for Spanish art and literature. The first image to grab my attention was El Greco's "The Vision of St. John." The painting depicts scenes from Revelation where those worthy of heaven are raised and clothed. It has an exaggerated composition with St. John himself in the foreground reacting to the scene behind him and looking to heaven. The figural arrangement of this painting (and all of El Greco's work to me) is amazingly modern. The standing and floating figures are not unlike a Cezanne line drawing from centuries later. The paint treatment, brush strokes and perspectives are way ahead of their time in all the El Greco images I saw. El Greco's crucifixion image of Christ is detailed lovely and dark. Its small scale meant for a private devotional space yet the image itself is deep with texture and landscape.

The volume and intensity of Religious works in the show is a testament to the power and influence of the Catholic Church and the cultural reinforcement of the teachings and values of it. This kind of art could viscerally inspire and demand adherence to doctrine.

The first Velazquez I encountered was his Immaculate Conception in all its beauty and apparent celebration of the divine in the mortal. The image of Mary is that of a non-idealized young woman beautifully executed. Her ordinariness makes her extraordinary. She is standing on a full moon in front of the sun surrounded by clouds. The tonalities in this image are soft and somber. None of the drama of color portrayed in the other similar images. To me this image was made to inspire contemplation of the divine mystery on a more human scale. Another Velazquez that telegraphs a story is his portrait of Luis de Gongora y Argote. The suprisingly modern image shows the embittered face of a cynical and lost poet. Someone who has been worn by the machinations the Spanish court.

One of the few other images that stuck with me that were not by these two masters was Vicente Carducho's "The Stigmatization of Saint Francis", Showing St. Francis himself literally being drawn to Christ in a surreal scene. The figure of St. Francis flying to a crucified Christ on a winged crucifix. The idea of a personal relationship with Christ might be the intent here or showing the rapture of St. Francis in his attraction to God in Christ. There is something in this painting that invokes for me the work of Fra Angelico some 200 years earlier.

There is a room full of still life paintings and a large display of pottery and glassware from the period along with Royal portraiture all well curated and displayed for the public.

The Obama Acceptance Speech

I listened with interest to Barack Obama's acceptance speech last night in Denver. When he finally said he was going to enumerate what change meant to him I started jotting notes. This was what was on the pad when I was done:

- Tax breaks for job creation - not shipping jobs overseas
- Promotion of startup companies
- A tax cut for 95% of Americans
- A tax increase on the top 5%
- Energy independence by 2010
- Investment in American Teachers
- Service based scholarships for College bound poor.
- Tackling Healthcare, guaranteeing Americans the same level of healthcare that Congress recieves.
- Equal pay for men and women.
- Within policy disputes focus on areas of agreement rather than an all or nothing approach to legislating. (Abortion was an example cited where both sides of the aisle could cooperate on pregnancy prevention programs.)
- Renew the Military, but pursue policy as the big stick primarily.
- Action not talk on Afghanistan
- A timeline for pullout from Iraq (Iraq is creating a deficit for the US where the Iraq government has a large surplus).
- End Bush Policies:
Attacking Iraq won't stop terrorism.
Supporting Georgia is straining old alliances

Catch-phrases that stayed with me were "Change doesn't come from Washington, it comes to Washington" and "This election isn't about me, its about you"

A good speech. I still want more specifics. On to the debates to focus the differences.

The Hold Steady at the Cats Cradle - August 12, 2008

Ok so this was my first THS show ever as I missed them last year and I was going to be damned sure I didn't miss them again after the buzz they generated. I love the album "Boys and Girls in America" and am pretty high on "Stay Positive" AND it was the day before my birthday, so no excuses this time, except I didn't have a ticket AND it was sold out. I had an unexplainable weird feeling of uber-confidence about getting into this show. So I just went with it. Sure enough I managed to get into the show (Thanks Billy, and yes I do owe you one.) just as THS were starting their set. Shoulder to shoulder with everyone else we were sweatily catapulted to some kind of rock nirvana. The energy of the crowd really got the band pumped up.
Craig Finn (who is the unlikeliest looking frontman ever) brought an amazing intensity and ,dare we say?, showmanship to the set as well as his trademark vocal/verbal irony. Tad Kubler supplied the rock on the lead guitar. His tone was stunning and his playing even better. Galen Polivka on bass certainly held it all together with Bobby Drake, these two are definitely the bedrock under THS's trademark throb. I love it when a band sounds better than their record and you know their recordings were not augmented by the studio but potentially limited by what can go through a wire. Definitely the case here. I'd list particular favorites but it was all good. (really). Although this stretch of back to back "Party Pit", "Navy Sheets", "Chips Ahoy", "Stuck Between Stations" was very satisfying indeed.

Here is the set list:

Ask For Aderall
Constructive Summer
Yeah Sapphire
Sequestered in Memphis
The Swish
U Can Make Him Like You
Party Pit
Navy Sheets
Chips Ahoy
Stuck Between Stations
Cheyenne Sunrise
One For the Cutters
Lord I'm Discouraged
Your Little Hoodrat Friend
Magazines
How A Resurrection Really Feels
Slapped Actress
(Encore)
Both Crosses
Stay Positive
Most People are DJs
Killer Parties

Don Dixon and the Jump Rabbits

On August 2, 2008 Don Dixon and his band the Jump Rabbits (Jamie Hoover and Jim Brock) plugged their new album of covers called "Nu Look" with a performance at the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro. The album is a gathering of songs from southern 80's pop history reincarnated by this no-nonsense rock trio. Featuring songs from Parthenon Huxley (rick rock), the dBs, Matt Barrett and others this 10 song CD bristles with muscular grooves and nostalgia. The opener was Jeffrey Dean Foster and it started so early I unfortunately missed it. The Jump Rabbits set began with selections from more recent Dixon albums and then they preceeded on to play the whole "Nu Look" album. Hightlights include a very agressively rhythmed "Amplifier" by the dBs, a suitibly peppy "Sputnik" (HEY!), Told You So (a Dixon chestnut) and capped the set with a euphoric "Six Pack" (Matt Barrett). Ironic that such a depressing lyric could rock so hard. Regardless it was masters of R&B and Rock hard at work. The encore included a terrific funky version of "Calling out for Love" which Don co-wrote with Marshall Crenshaw.

Compound Images Without Photoshop

Yes you can make a complex image within an image without Photoshopping it to death. I decided to try out a technique of photographing an image in combination with a reflection made by a pane of glass. The result was really nice.



Arranging the framed glass on a tripod and angling it to create the reflection at sunset and photographing straight into it. One complex image, no photoshop required.