Photography Thinks
So, exhausted after the first day of reconstruction. Tomas, master builder and redesigner, leads the crew on this not so exciting journey. All we are doing is make the place livable. Included in this are: color, shape and a door of dignity in the bathroom. On our way.
So, when you move, you need health care providers: doctors, dentists, massage therapists. Anxiety producing. Fill out forms. Connect with insurers. Get used to new hands probing your mouth, anus, ears and all the other orifices that make your system work.
Dentists! Bad experiences. Small teeth. Bad gums. Years to get the mouth under control. Don’t have all my teeth. Implants have cost a fortune. Periodic visits to periodontist, dentists, endodontists and tooth crafters whose jobs I cannot describe have worked on me. Root canals! But if I want to eat something other than knishes and Ensure I need to go.
Here is my new hygienist, Stacie. She did a great job as I gripped the chair. But, how many of us look at the people working on us? We shut our eyes, hoping it won’t hurt, but feeling better when our teeth are clean and our mouth feels good. She may look like she’s from outer space, but she did a great job on my mouth.
So, in Burlington, we lived in a condo on the third floor. No grills allowed, at least not ones with charcoal or gas. Had an electric grill which sort of boiled stuff. No lines or burn marks. Now, back in a home, I got a grill.
Now, I am not one of those champion grillers. I like chicken and steak, veggies, corn. Don’t have dry rubs or special marinades, except for one made with Jack Daniels and maple syrup. I can turn out a meal for two, eliminating the need for a giant unit. Not really invested in the skill, but love to cook.
Have given away all my tools. Need a fork, spatula and tongs. Wire brush. Cutting board. Cover. All new stuff and an extra tank. Feel like I live at Home Depot.
Bigger question: will we cook. Down here, everyone goes out to dinner. Early bird specials. Off season reductions if you pay cash. Not so easy to find locally grown stuff or prime meat. But being home has its benefits, especially since we pay so much for Comcast and A/C. Best thing: no drinking and driving.
So, always good to leave the world better than you found it, however you do it. Don Featherstone, a man whose name you don’t know, did. His art graces lawns from here to everywhere, unless you live in a gated community where uniformity trumps art. You see the plastic forms and without knowing why, you feel better about life. And, we owe the feeling to some guy who, one day, sitting at work, in a plastics factory, far away from the Everglades, but obviously close to Wonderland, created a flamingo.
My Father died on Father’s Day. He’d been sick for a long while. I was a kid. Didn’t get to know him all that well, though people said I looked and acted just like him. Bought him a present to give him when he came back from the hospital. Don’t remember what I bought him or what I did with it. Don’t have many images of him. I can see myself in his eyes. He wouldda loved Sharon.
Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris has several areas honoring Jewish dead. The French didn’t do enough to save Jews when the Nazis invaded. Selfish and self-absorbed, some helped load the trains headed to the death chambers. Somber as it may seem, this sculpture of a death procession reminds us, “never again.”
So, what does this have to do with today, DuckToday? I am sad and depressed about the killings in Charleston. A friend brushed it off saying that had there been a Temple near-by, Jews would have been killed. To me, that avoided the point. Racism and anti-semitism, while rooted in hatred, irrational hatred, aren’t the same things. Hey, we were all slaves! But to hate because of the color of one’s skin, thinking one person is better than another, that their bloods shouldn’t be mixed, that they don’t deserve a place on the planet, in the valley of human kind, that is unfathonable.
I mourn the 6,000,000 as much as I mourn the 9 who died needlessly. Acts of terrorism, both, man’s hatred of his fellow man never abates. Very sad.
So, we went to Paris for a month. Planned a while ago, we just wanted to hang out, not jump from a Viking River Boat or a bus. Rented a pied a terre in the Marais, the traditional inner city home for France’s Jewish population. We found it alive and vibrant, not hidden and Jews not afraid.
Now, that’s not to say they publicize their home. Doors and windows don’t have any Jewish images – no stars, no tablets, no lions or lambs.
You can still wrap with a Lubovich, rebbe in training.
And, you can buy falafel, if you can figure out who has the best and are willing to stand in line and eat standing up.
So, we just came back from a trip to Paris and settled in. We have not had a chance to breathe comfortably or eat in. Boxes piled everywhere. Have not been to London or seen anyone’s underpants, but we drove from VT to FL, packed and unpacked (enough), flew to Paris and hung out on a beach. Now back to real life, if you can call it that living in South East Florida, West Boynton Beach, Valencia Reserve.
Some have asked where we lived. For someone like myself who didn’t like to go anywhere, we have moved a lot since 1999. Thought I’d be Brooklyn dead, but as one of my friends from Maple Street said, “you cannot predict the future.” Moved too many time recently, running away, more than I was running towards. Hopefully, I am here, now.
I took some pictures, along the way. Not enough. None up to the standard of Frank Zachary, who died at 101. He worked with Slim Adams, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa and Arnold Newman, selecting images for style magazines of the day, magazines that informed, in addition to selling lifestyles of the rich and famous. He defined how looking at well structured images, by great photographers, could make the reader feel as if he was at the place pictured, not just sitting in a chair looking at them. Without his eye, none of the shots would have been seen by so many.
All of the shooters he worked with are my heroes, photographers whose work make you want to give up your camera. Not sure any editor would ever look at my stuff, another reason not to share and to give up. Well, I won’t.
So, we moved to South Florida, Boynton Beach. It’s near Del Ray. Haven’t seen Norman and Deena Burg for years, and, I mean years. We went out to eat. Deli food always comforts the Jewish soul. Went through the family tree. Many we remembered are dead. Some still alive, doing better than others.
Whose left and where are they? What do they look like? What are they doing?
Told them how we got here and why. Not a big deal, except that it took so long. But then again, it is. They are family.
Don’t have a lot of family. Nepotism didn’t help me a bit. But knowing people love Sharon, because of her desire to make family makes me happy. And it obviously makes others feel good, too.
So, twofer, today. Two people whose art shaped my life in different ways died. One a musician. The other an actor. I borrowed these images from the NYT today, loving them as they show the people as old men. As I look at their pictures, I can hear them performing. Their works will live forever, even if they couldn’t.
