Category: photography

Valencia Reserve Closes Facilities

So, now we don’t even have a pool to swim in until everyone who came in contact with a covid positive neighbor are tested. One person stops residents of 1,000 homes from enjoying the amenities. Person remains anonymous, nameless. We don’t know male, female, republican, democrat.

No pickle ball, not that I play. The covid positive talked to someone who played so that got closed, too. Many here avoid masks anyway.

Tennis courts, clubhouse, everything, including bocce, shuffleboard and basketball. No problem getting a parking space, because no one is using any of the recreational, educational, creative or entertainment venues.

A chaise is available at appropriate social distancing, but the pool deck cannot be accessed. I’d say we were in hell; temp over 100 degrees, global warming caused and many here are Republicans. Good thing I don’t need medical care, because the hospitals are filled, their staffs overworked. Death rates climb. Don’t worry about us, Publix remains open. Total Wine delivers.

Alan Mark Ulick, Died Yesterday


My cousin, Alan Ulick, the son of my Father’s sister Gert died in his home yesterday. His marital partner of 25 or so years, Harry Small, was at his bedside. I think he was 83. Very Sad.

On the wall in my gallery hangs a picture of his Mother and my Father when they were kids. I had a second image and decided to look him up and give it to him, along with a picture of our Grandmother, Hannah Duckman, after whom my Brother, Henry Hannah, and his Daughter, Hannah are named. This image was made in 1921.

Other than a brief meeting, a few minutes or less, in 1954, when he was a teenager and I was a kid, we had never seen or spoken to one another. This past winter, Google found him living nearby in Hollywood FL.

I called. We spoke. Alan and Harry came to our home for lunch. I learned about him. He learned about me from the internet (no time to explain), plus I told him the little family history there is of the remaining Duckman family.

I gave him the pictures, an outdated family genealogical history done by cousins Jerry Winter and Herb Sumliner (in which he is named) and shot this image, along with a few others. We hugged and they left.

We agreed we would get together again, but his illness and treatments prevented it. I would have liked knowing him better.

 

 

 

Sharon Orders In

So, I got fucked for calling Nancy Mukasey Rothenberg, Princess Nancy. She was absent from court, often, planning her wedding, leaving her cases unprepared, I was told. It was a Jewish insult, according the Commissar Stern, a term abhorred by Jewish girls/women, though none I knew. Sharon never got her Prince, like Nancy did, she got me. What Sharon does well, like some Jewish women, is she orders in. And in this time of Corona, that is a skill devoutly to be wished. We are still married, despite Nancy’s efforts to cause otherwise. Is she?

Stutthof Guard Convicted


SignWhen you visit a Concentration Camp, your mind wants to see the people who perished there, hear their cries and question the ones who allowed the holocaust to happen. Learning that a guard has been convicted may bring some relief, but not much, and certainly no sympathy.

The guards entered here, through these gates. The camp sat in a residential area. It was more a work camp, than a death camp. But when you could not work, you died. The neighbors denied its existence, despite the smells.

The prisoners entered in cattle cars on a specially built track.

They slept in these bunks.

Peed and shit in these toilets set behind barbed wire.

When they were no longer useful, 50,ooo were gassed in this crematorium.

Some were just hung, to make an example of the penalty for laziness or not following the rules.

We mourn them, today, and everyday. Nothing will erase the horror.

Nathan Bedford Forrest Removed

In September, we visited Memphis, ostensibly to see the Motel, Graceland and Sun Records. Arriving early for our tour of the place where Elvis recorded, we walked to a nearby park which had been the subject of litigation and consternation over a monument erected to honor Nathan Bedford Forrest.

An American flag flew over the statue’s base. I was appalled. Here is a man who massacred 300 helpless black Union soldiers and served as the first wizard of the KKK and not only do they have a monument to him, but after it is removed they fly an American flag.

As an artist, I love to look at statues, reminded as I am of their three dimensional quality,  a level of visual arts not allowed to photographers, as well as their historical value, but they belong in  museums where people have the choice of looking at them or looking away. And parks, nature parks, educating people about nature and schools, where people learn to read and think, should not be named after them. 

Yes, he is an historical figure and someone who should be studied. But so should Dr. King who was murdered in the same area. No statue stands at the motel, a place our tour guide neglected to have the bus stop. I wouldn’t want one there either, but I would have wanted to step out on the terrace and cry.

Yesterday, I watched The General, one of the greatest films ever made, starring America’s leading comic actor. But, is it still relevant as it portrays a Confederate victory, a Rebel outsmarting the Union Army? Yes, as a historical artifact. Not worthy of a statue, though.