mystic, connecticut

As a Valentine's gift to each other, Mark and I took the train to Mystic and passed along the seashore for nearly two hours. We decided to go to this sleepy seafaring village because there is so little to do there. We figured we'd read and write and not go shopping. Well, we bought 21 books at Annette's Antique & Treasure Shop.

Some highlights: The Jackson Pollock is a 1967 exhibition catalogue from the MoMA. The show was supposed to be directed by Frank O'Hara (love him) but he passed away and was replaced by William S. Lieberman. It cost me $2 and is a chronology of his life and work. The Eureka book is an amazing book from the 70's all about inventions. From The Picture Press is another MoMA catalogue from 1973 with amazing photo journalism.

The food was really the highlight. I am a new burning hearted adorer of the lobster roll. Such a simple idea, such deliciousness! As for Mystic Pizza, yes, we did. It's far cheesier than you can even imagine and I'm not talking about the pizza. They play the movie on three different screens, sell merch, and there are little head shots of horse-laugh Julia everywhere. I may be ribbing her a bit thick but I once played a drinking game in Portland, Oregon with friends where we watched My Best Friend's Wedding and took a shot of tequila every time she did that laugh of hers. We got drunk fast.

Lastly, throughout my weekend I had to read Native Son by Richard Wright for my class with E.L. Doctorow. It's really not a blast to read about two grotesque murders before getting pretty for dinner but it is for the most part a good book as it's chilly voice is so frightening I couldn't put it down. I'd say more specifically but I'd be giving it all away. It is profound that the main character Bigger actually admires Hitler's ability to control others. He is so oppressed he does not consider that Hitler is just another white man as a threat but rather finds him a strange hero. It's disgusting and says so much of the confusion surrounding civil rights which is my blood, sweat, and tears with my book. I'm writing a book that I hope reexamines those issues through a family and it's chilling to think how little civil rights has progressed. So many assume it has but even the health care team in D.C. is facing abuse similar to the sixties; that means bricks flying through windows and hate signs. Civil rights is devastating territory as we just can't govern morality.

flannery o'connor - childhood home

Flannery O'Connor's childhood home in Savannah on Lafayette Square. It neighbors the Hamilton Turner Inn and from the upstairs window there is a terrific view of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.

Flannery's Crib. I'm sure you are curious. The screen was to keep the baby from contact with insects, yellow fever, and obviously from falling out. It's like an airy coffin or a display case for curiosities which Flannery of course was.

bonaventure cemetery

Bonaventure is a favorite place and I want to be buried here. If you think thats gothic, ahem, I've actually made out to Morrissey in this cemetery. It's lovely to come read by the river or just to walk amongst the ancient and gorgeous gravestones. The lovely redhead is my close friend Jesse whom I've known since high school and we were roommates freshmen year at the Savannah College of Art & Design. I just got a historical society book on the place so I will be updating this entry with some history soon.

savannah, i love you

I miss drinking tall PBR's at Pinkie Master's. I miss being knuckle deep in guache. I miss Spanish Moss drenched trees and ghost stories even when they're bad. I miss Bonaventure and the river. I miss Forsyth Park and porches. I miss excellent customer service and talking to strangers. I miss reading books at Gallery Espresso.

quotes from the fitzgerald's

“We grew up founding our dreams on the infinite promise of American advertising. I still believe that one can learn to play the piano by mail and that mud will give you a perfect complexion.”

 Zelda Fitzgerald

Family quarrels are bitter things. They don't go according to any rules. They're not like aches or wounds, they're more like splits in the skin that won't heal because there's not enough material.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

rich cohen - "closing time"

I love this essay on the automobile industry by Rich Cohen in The Believer and namely the talk of car salesmen:

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200909/?read=article_cohen

Some favorite passages:

"In my early years, between the ages of seven and fourteen, this meant a trip to Steve Foley Cadillac on Skokie Highway, in Northbrook, Illinois, which I loved, as the showroom of Foley Cadillac, unlike the shabby, product-stuffed showrooms of today, was glamour and glitz, with each new Cadillac raised on a white pedestal, where it seemed to drift, as in a cloud, above the everyday world. At some point, though, I would slip away from my father and the back-and-forth taking place in the office that salesmen, as I later learned, call “the pit,” or “the hole,” and wander among the Cadillacs, slide behind the huge steering wheels, breathe deep the new-car smell, play with the 8-track and cruise control. I look back on those occasions as Adam in his later years must have looked back on his lazy days of doing nothing and wanting nothing to do in the Garden."

"A few years later, he brought me to buy my first car. This was done as I imagine fathers in other, exotic, more interesting cultures bring their sons for that first trip to the whorehouse. I did not go to the Cadillac dealer, of course, but to the used-Honda lot a few miles down Skokie Highway. Did my father stand a foot behind me as I made this deal, nodding, frowning, monitoring? Of course he did. I narrowed the field to a 1984 Honda Civic, a hideous fishbowl of a car. It scored well in twenty of the twenty-three categories on the checklist my father had given me, hand-printed in all-caps. As I was talking numbers, eating up time, preparing “the nibble,” my father called me aside. We stood under the streetlamp, lit to dispel the midwinter Chicago gloom, as traffic whistled past."

"The room is bugged—know that. A manager in back is eating a sandwich as he listens to every word you say."

sorry readers & an opening

I am devastatingly behind on this. I've been on two trips and have an army's worth of blogs to get together. Sorry to those of you who are faithful readers. In the meantime here's a friends opening I recommend.

my favorite painting for january

"Summer Evening" - Edward Hopper

talisi, alabama

These are Holga's shot in the sleepy streets of Talasi (now Tallassee), Alabama. The hotel still operates and serves an amazing lunch of gargantuan southern style favorites. The creepier shots are within an abandoned house on Lake Martin. My mom and I decided to take a peek. She brought a steak knife, just in case. Everything appeared as if they had merely left a few things behind except in the kitchen where a bowl of soup sat half-full by a box of Cheez-Its. My inner Nancy Drew was delighted and yet, after reaching the bedroom we were convinced the place was haunted or someone very bizarre was inhabiting it. The bedroom was as unsettling as the photograph and freezing, odd for a summer afternoon in Alabama. These are the finer photos. I will add some Polaroids that have some interesting ghost-like light effects once I can carve some time to scan them in.

eric ogden = killer photographer

Calling All Locals!

Eric Ogden has a show opening on Thursday and carrying on through March.

Above the flier is a Cormac McCarthy shot that lives in my studio above the work table. It was taken around the filming of No Country for Old Men. I was gifted the beauty for helping Eric edit an intro for one of his many projects. He's got a way with light and is a very nice guy. Go Thursday or later!

Onward to an unrelated topic, I am slowly and steadily putting together 11-12 blogs about my recent trip down South. Hold your horses!