Photography Thinks
How did Columbus Day become a National Holiday? I know how it became the day for Italian Americans. An Italo/American named Joe Columbo, one who may have had organized crime connections, didn’t like hearing bad things being said about his ancestry, so, in 1970, he started the Italian American Civil Rights League and held a rally in Columbus Circle.
The Birds opened this semester’s presentation by Access Cinema in Hinesburg. Very challenging list of films on Ken Peck’s list. Engaging discussion after the movie. Sixteen signed up. Ken wants the entire auditorium filled. Audacious expectations. And, I don’t think watching a movie in such an overwhelming venue will be fun or enlightening if so many people are watching.
I realize that I am not supposed to be in a cemetery, because I am a Kohane. So I go in my street clothes, instead of my priestly garb. One day, I will lie here in a shroud, to be followed by Sharon. Pretty wierd feeling to be looking up at the sky from the spot where I will lay for eternity.
Had not seen him for a while. He was sitting behind the bandstand. Complained that he couldn’t get his eye drop prescription filled for a day and was having trouble seeing.
To make a relationship work, you need to have things in common with your companion, otherwise you don’t have anything to talk about and you don’t need to be together. Sharon and I share film in common. Luckily, we both like film noir. Otherwise, we have lots of conflicting tastes. You could not guess correctly, if you tried who likes what.
Christo spoke, backed by images of his and Jeanne Claude’s work. Some wept for her. “Jeanne Claude used to say, ‘we were born on the same day of separate Mothers.'” He covets the artistic process, while recognizing the politics of his craft. Not only a visionary, but he is, as Ashley Montagu would say, “a cultured man, an artist, an artist in humanity.”
The Pharaohs had boats to take them to the Netherworld. Some at Hope Cemetery have their lives as drivers recognized in death. Another must have liked to drive while listening to music. One has the car ready to drive the causeway to heaven. The graphics and sculptures make going to graveyards uplifting and interesting. All the dead have stories, but few have illustrations that hint of their lives. The addition of images gives those who didn’t know the person interred a hint as to their backgrounds and reminds those who do of something of importance to their loved one which they adorned to the grave in what must have been an act of love.
Jim Winner died at 81. He developed the Club Antitheft device for cars, changing the lives of car thieves and car owners. No longer could someone with a screwdriver pop the ignition and drive a car away, basically without fear of being caught; no longer did drivers park their cars, fearing they would not be there upon return. Not sure whether theft insurance dropped in price, but anxiety certainly did.
