Montmartre by Night
05.31.2008 | 11:54 PM • Filed in:
Travel
Yours truly with Julie amid the mob of tourists
searching for an authentic Moulin Rouge moment.
A Visit to
Montparnasse
05.31.2008 | 05:45 PM • Filed in:
Pic of the
Day:Travel
I came to revere some of my long dead heroes—Beckett,
Colette, Maupassant, Man Ray, Baudelaire, Brancusi,
Serge Gainsbourg—but did not expect to feel grief.
Not my own, but that of an elderly woman in a
sky-blue checked suit, bent over a mossy, concrete
tomb, clutching her rosaries, her weeping face hidden
in her hands. Though I’d seen a few nontourists
filling watering cans, sweeping away moldering
leaves, arranging fresh bouquets of flowers, their
actions seemed more a ritual than an expression of
loss. If I’d been a more courageous photographer, I
would have moved closer, filled the frame with her
private grief. But I can’t do that anymore, not just
because I’ve grown more cowardly, but because the
intensity of her grief was so palpable I did not want
to risk violating it. It awakened fresh memories of
my dead father and how I had not wept for him, hadn’t
felt like it. I missed him, despite my complicated
relationship with him, but the loss was not
inconsolable like this woman’s. Perhaps it was a
sister, a child, a husband, a lover that lay in that
tomb. Or perhaps she suddenly felt that soon she,
too, would be inside that cold box beside the one she
grieved for. As dozens of visitors wandered through
the grid of graves, cameras and maps in hand, I began
to feel the indifference of time. What would be
written on my grave? Would anybody really grieve for
me? Would there be money to pay for my plot’s upkeep?
What’s worth leaving behind? Death is an enormously
powerful equalizer.
Musée d'Orsay
05.29.2008 | 11:20 PM • Filed in:
Pic of the
Day:Travel:Light
Musée Rodin
05.29.2008 | 11:18 PM • Filed in:
Pic of the
Day:Travel
Montparnasse Cemetary
05.28.2008 | 09:30 PM • Filed in:
Photography:Writing
Beckett and Baudelaire, among many others...
Pigeons on Rue Schoelcher,
near Montparnasse Cemetary
05.26.2008 | 11:16 PM • Filed in:
Pic of the
Day:Animals
Paris! (Jardin de
Luxembourg)
05.25.2008 | 05:18 PM • Filed in:
Pic of the
Day:Travel
The Americans Turns
50!
05.20.2008 | 10:53 PM • Filed in:
Photography:Art
One of the most influential photography books of all
time is coming out in a 50th anniversary edition. No
doubt about it, Robert Frank had a major influence on
me. I view his balance of detachment, social
commentary, and poetry nothing short of pure genius.
The guy has/had eyes! And he never kept still, always
moved on and innovated.
The Americans is
like Miles Davis’
Kind of Blue,
groundbreaking, iconic. Neither artist was foolish
enough to rest on his laurels or repeat the past.
That’s why they ended up being great.
Some of My Favorite Photos from the
Book
He was one of the first to use the flag
compositionally, exploiting its graphic form in ways
many Americans found offensive and unpatriotic.
He photographed everyone, black, white, latino, rich
and poor. Part of Frank’s gift was that he wasn’t
dogmatic or biased. He seemed to treat all subjects
equally, with dignity and an open mind.
He was a formalist as well as a poet. This picture
taken on the East River flashed in my mind when I was
writing a couple of scenes in my novel about the
ferry and Ellis Island.
This picture is both compositionally and emotionally
perfect. The elevator girl’s expression, the blur of
the woman in the mink stole, the silhouette of the
portly man with glasses, plus the angle of the
composition adds movement and tension. The positive
and negative spaces are just amazing, an interesting
jigsaw puzzle, seemingly reconfigurable.
More on the 50th
For more commentary on Robert Frank and this
anniversary, go
here,
here, and
here. 2009 will bring a
travelling exposition, starting at the
National Gallery.
Subway Snooze
05.15.2008 | 12:10 AM • Filed in:
Pic of the
Day
Flags and Contrails on
Canal Street
05.13.2008 | 11:59 PM • Filed in:
Pic of the
Day:Light
Bowling Green Station
Shadows
05.13.2008 | 12:07 AM • Filed in:
Pic of the
Day:Light
Statue of Liberty: Two
Frames
05.11.2008 | 08:21 PM • Filed in:
Pic of the
Day
God Light over Hudson
05.06.2008 | 11:12 PM • Filed in:
Pic of the
Day:Light
Dogwoods and Nighttime
Pear Tree Buds
05.03.2008 | 08:20 PM • Filed in:
Nature:Pic of the
Day:Light
Houellebecq vs. Mom
05.01.2008 | 05:12 PM • Filed in:
Writing
Lucie Ceccaldi, the 83-year-old mother of
Michel Houellebecq, is fighting back. She's tired of
being the slut in his books and has decided to trash
him in her own memoir,
L'Innocente. She
dares him to malign her again or "he's going to get
hit in the gob with a walking stick and that'll knock
all his teeth out, that's for sure." Read about the
mother and son
here.