rick, cris and the open culture party

 

i love the company of youth.....it broadens my perspectives and keeps me out of the old fart rut....not that there's much
chance that i'll fall in......i was invited to a college party that was going on around the block from my house....it was relaxed and uninhibited except for a nude trampoline show.....all sorts of people that got along with one another......racially mixed, gender unspecific, artsy/intellectual, gentle and fun-loving.......i was told that, should the 'cops' come by.....the party was wild and noisy, i suppose....i was to be the party spokesman and answer the door to blow the cops off.....well, they did come by, asked if everything was o.k., then departed with smiles, saying "have a good time!".......now, i'm a designated chaperone.....where's the hash?

JUDY DATER PHOTO

This is my favorite Judy Dater photo.....and, as fate would have it, a signed silver gelatin print is up for sale today.......resist, resist....but...it's of Imogene Cunningham and Twinka!.......you don't need it!.....resist....resist....i wonder if the current owner/seller will trade it for a hundred views of a sourwood tree! I'll throw in a nude self-portrait......an old one, of course......


Human by Falling You

FALL IN THE MOUNTAINS

 


My favorite tree is the sourwood that grows by the cabin.....I've photographed it from every perspective, in all seasons and from just about all my personal moods.....the tree and Bunnie are constants that i have documented, continually, for some time now.....the sourwood is so baroque, with thousands of looks....When Reis and I go to the cabin, Reis heads out to mountain tops and mountain streams, in search of the great photograph.....lazy me.....i just keep photographing the sourwood, Bunnie and things nearby......every branch has become familiar, yet a thousand photographs await............
the leaves should be splendidly georgeous in a couple of weeks.........

THE BUSTER BROWN X-RAY MACHINE

 

Since I've already made reference to this.....the above picture is of a flourescope which stood in the middle of Dunnavant's shoe department.......every Saturday morning i would stand upon it and wiggle my toes around, amused and entertained......from my teens until today, i have experienced pain in my feet and ankles.......makes me wonder! the 40's and 50's were such a naive time for Americans......

SCISSORS

 

it seems that about half my family appears to have many, many pairs of sizzors......i have even inherited several dozen pairs of them... the long Boker's were my Grandmothers, as were the black, enameled pair.....the manicure scissors were my Mother's....and, since i never toss much sentiment, i still have my "paper" scissors from grade school and the odd, specialty scissors that i inherited from a barber who sheared my Father....they are the most precise, and the sharpest! there are many styles of nail-clippers, also.....but i've limited my collection of these to a dozen or so, including a pair of enameled parrot clippers that Mother used to clip my kiddie nails......they probably came with a pair of "poll parrot" or "buster brown" shoes......

BIG BILLS

 

In the '50's, when the average guy was making $40 a week, these "big bills" were in circulation....my grandfather kept a few in his "toolbox" vault... Now that the dollar is worth a nickel, the largest bills in general circulation are $100's, which may, if you're fortunate, pay for a bag of groceries at Whole Foods.....It seems so quaint that we even bother with pennies anymore....few will even lean to pick up one....

AUDIONICS

i recently found this great work of art, upgraded my Polk surrounds to Bower & Wilkins, and acquired a Sony digital high def FM tuner......and, to my amazement, everything just clicked......the acoustics of my theatre room and the equipment just melded into perfection........I'm listening to Hearts Of Space on XM radio and the sound is just perfect.......after changing audio and video equipment, constantly for 45 years......everything just gelled......tomorrow i will replace an optical cable and add the Zune player! Thank you Mr. Fosgate!

Pioneer Elite is on Fosgate's heels, however......

pǝqɹnɟǝɹ

MORE FOOD FAVORITES

I love organ meats like veal liver with onions, chicken livers tempura and....a southern favorite, young pig's livers cooked with spicy creamed eggs and served on mildly bittersweet rose petals with beaten biscuits and tart marmmlade.....So many find these to be disgusting, but what about pate' Strasbourg, sliced truffles with champagne and still-warm French bread..... so, eat some crestor or lipitor......

the wandering line

I WENT THROUGH A PERIOD IN WHICH I OBSESSIVELY CRANKED OUT THESE LINE DRAWINGS....
MANY YEARS AGO, I TOSSED THEM IN THE TRASH. I WAS SURPRISED THAT A FRIEND HAD PLACED THEM IN THE RAFTERS OF THE GARAGE.....SOME CRITTERS ATE SOME BUT I WAS GRATEFUL TO SEE THEM AGAIN....THIS ONE WAS DONE AROUND 1972......

BERNACHON CHOCOLATE

Gently roast the finest cocoa beans, hand picked in Madagascar or Sri Lanka, to remove humidity, then...if necessary....roast a bit more until the flavor and aroma peaks... Then nib and ground the beans, add extra cocoa butter and the finest Bourbon vanilla and organic sugars, allow this couverture to conch for a few days to refine the texture and remove traces of astringency......adding thick Normandy cream with beurre de Charentes as a foil to the rich, fatty filberts from Piedmont and almonds from Provence and perhaps some pistachios from Sicily....and perhaps a few fruit confits and citris fruit peels! Or just call Jean Jacques Bernachon and order from his chocolate shop, in Lyon, and have some delivered to your palette........I know.....I know.....I haven't disregarded Fauchon's concoctions of Valrhona or Jean-Paul Hevin's chocolate easter eggs or Le Roux's bitter chocolate sylvies that melt in one's breath on a warm spring afternoon picnic........ Now that i'm worked up, juices flowing within my cheeks and flooding beneath my hungry tongue, i'm off to the kitchen to prepare a much humbler offering for my bridgemates, this evening......

MY FAVORITE SPORT

 



I'm eager for the Skating Season to begin!
Although I have never seen a football, soccer, or basketball game....well, not a whole one, anyway....
I just love skating....and behave like other sports enthusiasts who know their favorite player's
statistics and history.......this pic is of Scott Moir and Tess Virtue, whom i predict will step to
the podium this season.....or will Meryl Davis and Charlie White....or will Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto recover from last season's defeat and wear the crowns?...it seems odd, even to me, who was trained as a ballroom dancer, that I
find ballroom dancing really Vegasy creepy, but I am enthralled by ice dance......

bas relief plaque

 

 

This bronze of Jean Henri Fabre (1823-1915), French entomologist and author who popularized insect natural history is a favorite miniature sculpture, by a favorite sculptor, Louis Patriarche. He wrote ten volumes of Souvenirs entomologiques (1879-1907) in which he recorded his perceptive field observations of insect behaviour. Although his career began as a professor of physics, and in 1866 he isolated alizarin (the colouring agent in madder), his life work became the study of insects, about which he wrote in elegant prose. From his study of parasitic wasps he deduced that much of the wasp's behaviour is inherited and not learned. Victor Hugo dubbed him "the insects’ Homer" and Edmond Rostand named him the "Virgil of insects." Darwin cited him as "an incomparable observer."

GREEN PLETHORA

 

Fall is just ahead....the house is full of plants and i have to bring this assortment of plants, plus many others,
in for wintering........a formidible task that must be performed each year.......in Spring, i make cuttings to send
to friends; nevertheless each plant is much larger than the year before......so my home's interior looks like an extension of the Fuqua Conservatory.........the squirrels have the attic space in mind, too, for i hear them scurrying around looking for suitable nesting for the cold winter ahead.........

Book 2 CD2 Well-Tempered Clavier by Daniel Ben Pienaar

Bunnie smiling with her eyes closed

 

why do i take so many pictures of Bunnie? Could be that she's always with me........ and not bad to look at, either....

MY CONSTANT OBSERVANCES

One is my observation of the "stink" cactus, which i am always photographing........the relatively
uninteresting cactus produces these monstrous yellow flowers which attract these other-wordly
flies that, in turn, lay their eggs within the stinky anthers......the tiny maggots become food for the
birds and insects that are not repelled by the awful smell of rotting, putrified flesh that the beautiful
flowers produce.........then the gigantic flowers collapse into soft velvet and drop to the earth, exhausted......

BLUR COMPOSITIONS

This is the only photograph that I took of JoAnn and Alison.......left, and right......
I'm not certain of my intentions, but there are many of these "blurred" photographs........
Perhaps it's about not seeing more than a blur of a moment in time........temporality, maybe..

MOTHER WITH GARDENIA

taken when she was still in her teens, before she lost the baby fat from her cheeks......
she hated this pic and resigned it to the cedar chest......

a one-time event

me photographing Katrina, Steven and Mimi.....at Hartsville Airport, early 70's........
katrina, forlorn......steven, occupied......mimi, hypervigilant.......me, watching.....

MOODS AND TONES OF EXPRESSION

"Haec omnibus agenda sunt"

The Passive Mood and modern equivalent of the periphrastic mood,
common in Latin, are seldom utilized in modern American english.



Sometimes i am perceived as quaintly old fashioned, even formal and

remote, by my use of the passive voice in both writing and

speech, as well as by my lack of modal auxiliary verbs in written


correspondence.



Should we not all endeavor  to clarify our expression in words in
such a manner that clearly depicts the multi-layered thoughts that lie beneath the active voice?

This observation having been made, this writer shall lunch; thereafter, become a spectator, a passive observer,

silently interpreting the art of language that others employ to communicate their feelings and intentions to me.

"Just you wait, 'enry 'iggins, just you wait!", you say?

MOSQUITO WEATHER

 

bunnie is a mosquito magnet, so she has to wear a sock on her head when she is out hunting......
she looks like she's ready to storm the Bastille.

wandering tongues and folding time

one of a series of wandering tongue ink line drawings that flowed out, in quick succession......after this outpouring, i wondered what the urgency of expression was all about......an entire world lay within some fold of my memory, and requested documentation.....

FINDING THE SOLAR PLEXUS