Morning

OK, so maybe I'm not stopping after all.

My blog pal JDZS hit the nail on the head when he questioned my compulsion to write every day. I think I'm going to just loosen up the format a bit here, and instead write when I feel like I have something to say. Not only will that be far less exhausting -- it will probably also dispel my nagging feelings of blog insincerity or superfluousness. It makes sense that those feelings would arise when I'm writing just because I feel like I should.

Also, I'm doing away with those silly place/date headlines. Now that I'm posting more than photos, they're just confusing.

Isn't this exciting? The psychodrama of Steve's blog?

So, anyway, thanks for indulging me on my break, y'all. Fair warning: I'm going to take another one in about a week, when I'm going on vacation. But for now, I'm back!

Hiatus

Yesterday I went to the Zendo for the first time in a couple of weeks. I have been so busy that I haven’t really had a chance to sit much, and of course I was in Ithaca last weekend so I missed my normal Sunday Zendo visit.

It was interesting but difficult to sit -- my mind felt very speedy and I felt a little out of practice! But one thing came to me very clearly: I think I want to stop this blog.

I don’t know whether it’s going to be permanent. It might be. But I at least want to take a two-week break and see how things go. “Shadows and Light” has been around for a year and a half, with me writing pretty much every day, and it may have lived its life.

I find myself enjoying Flickr much more these days. I like focusing on the photography and in some ways I’ve always found this blog more constraining than satisfying. With my name attached, there’s so much I feel I can’t say.

Maybe someday I’ll create a different blog under a nom de plume. Or maybe I’ll just do photos on Flickr, since photography is what motivated my online life in the first place. Or maybe after a break I’ll pick up again here with renewed energy.

My plan is to go on blog vacation until the Monday before Halloween. (The 28th, I think?) Then I will come back and tell you what’s up. Meanwhile, I’ll keep reading all of your blogs -- and if you want to see what’s been catching my eye, visit me on Flickr!

Ithaca, N.Y., October 2007

I went to see “Into the Wild” last night, FINALLY, and it’s a great movie. The cinematography is exceptional and really conveys the amazing beauty of Alaska, and the performances were excellent, particularly Catherine Keener, Hal Holbrook and Emile Hirsch.

It’s the story of Christopher McCandless, a recent college graduate who took the name Alexander Supertramp and hiked alone into the Alaskan wilderness, making a home for himself in an abandoned bus. He lived there for months, shooting game and gathering food, but eventually starved to death. The movie explores his motivations for rejecting modern life in search of something deeper, as well as his ultimate fate.

I can definitely identify with the desire to reject the essential trappings of our society: money, technology, status, ambition. McCandless seemed motivated by writers like Thoreau, in search of essential truths.

But he also lacked common sense, frankly, or rejected it as another impediment. He had an amazingly self-centered approach to life, abandoning his family and refusing to become bound by friendships. In choosing to live with no safety net, he left himself vulnerable, as he discovered.

I think what he lacked was balance - partly due to youthful exuberance, maybe. The practical side of me just winced when he did things like burn his cash and donate all his savings ($24,000) to charity. I mean, you want to have SOME kind of back-up plan, right? We DO live in the world, as much as we might want to reject it. Or maybe I’m just way too cautious, a trait that Alexander Supertramp would have scoffed at.

Mercer Street, SoHo, Sept. 2007

This is a Reya-esque photo: Reflections of buildings in a car window.

Thank God it's the weekend! And I have no plans to speak of, which is a welcome relief. I'm going to a movie with some friends, and I'll go to the gym and the Zendo tomorrow - that's about it. I love unstructured free time, especially in this amazing crisp weather.

My recent talk of favorite music prompted a friend to send me an article about Joni Mitchell's newest album. I didn't even know she was still recording - last I'd heard, she quit to focus on painting. This was my favorite line:

Record company executives today, she said, "want clones ... They don't love music. They love golf and porno."

Mercer Street, August 2007

The creature above, by street artist Dirty Boards, may as well be me celebrating my 15 minutes of fame.

Another of our New York street artists, who goes by the name BilliKid, makes big posters of a pink Cadillac convertible with his buddies behind the wheel -- artist friends, gallery owners or street art photographers. I have been so honored. That’s right, folks - I’m currently driving the Caddy on West 27th Street.

Check it out here.

BilliKid met me a couple of weeks ago and took my photo. He then used it to work me into his cartoon fantasy. I even have a personalized license plate!

I haven’t yet gone to see it myself. The weather this week has been so miserably rainy and my schedule has been so busy that I just haven’t been able to trek over there. I hope to see it this weekend - if it’s not gone by then! (That’s one of the uncertainties of street art - it could last months, or it could be torn down almost immediately.)

Oh, and as for the best Beatles song - I promised this discussion yesterday - I personally go for the later Beatles, and I like their more unusual stuff. “I Am the Walrus,” for example, is a great song. And of course I like “Yesterday” and “Hey Jude” and “The Long and Winding Road,” but they’re not challenging enough to be the best, in my opinion.

I opt for “A Day in the Life,” from the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. With those mysterious lyrics - “four thousand holes in Blackburn Lancashire” - and that intense orchestral crescendo at the end, well, it wins my vote.

Bleecker Street, Sept. 2007

At work yesterday we were editing a story about vinyl records, and the fact that some people prefer them to CDs or MP3 recordings. The writer included her own list of the top 10 recommended vinyl albums. But we were hesitant to use her list -- we wanted a more “expert” source. So we consulted Rolling Stone magazine. All this got us talking about favorite albums.

Making a list like this is so difficult - it morphs and changes depending on criteria. Are we talking about top-selling albums? Artistically significant albums? Albums we listen to the most?

I was glad to see that Rolling Stone had something like four or five Beatles albums in its top ten of all time, a list published in 2003. That’s staying power! Then again, Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” album, which I think is one of the best recordings ever made, was way down at No. 30.

So, you know, it’s all subjective.

In addition to “Blue,” and most everything by the Beatles after about 1964, my own top 10 would have to include “Bookends” by Simon & Garfunkel, though virtually any of their albums could justifiably claim a spot. I love early albums by Cat Stevens, Carly Simon, Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary. More recent brilliant albums would have to include Tracy Chapman’s first, and Sinead O’Connor’s “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got.” (Both almost 20 years old now -- yikes!)

We also got onto a discussion about the best Beatles song. But I’ll save that debate for tomorrow!


Here now, by request, for my friend Lettuce, is a picture of my Laurel Burch mug -- which I wrote about a couple of days ago. Cool, huh?

Ithaca, N.Y., October 2007

When we were in Ithaca, my friend David decided to buy some inexpensive sunglasses, because he'd left his at home. So we stopped in at an optician, where the glasses were way too expensive, but the shadows from the window display were just right!

And now, I’m just lying in bed with the cat, drinking coffee and listening to the rain. My kind of morning!