Photography Thinks
Morikami Museum and Gardens reopened today. It is like we were reconnected to our lives. We see new things every time we go and never seem to stop loving being there.
Summer colors on the way. Plants haven’t really awakened, but will as the rain and sun return. The reds aren’t that red and the yellows are a little green, but who cares.
Not that I know what the symbolism of all the sculpture or the shapes of the gardens, but I feel it.
Keep Your Distance
Not that we don’t have enough problems, but it is now Hurricane Season. Covid causes death, despair and disease. Rain and wind destructs, demolishes and decimates. Any way you look at it, society gets eradicated in an unpleasant way.
The canals await the rainfall, already over their early June limit. Deadly frogs live around them. Lizards and geckos which didn’t die due to climate change (no cold spell) abound and there is no species to eat them or drive them away. Unbelievers continue to ignore the signs, partying on the beaches and in the clubs. Well, so-be-it.
We went to the early opening for members, but the power was out due to a thunder storm. Felt normal being able to visit a cultural institution in the midst of Corona and Black Lives Matter. We even dressed for the date.
We returned the next day. Only a few people present. Museum show featured Self-Portraits from the National Gallery and prints by Steichen. We dressed again.
I got to see a Chuck Close, one of my favorites and pose with him. Too complicated to explain here.
But Steichen will always be the start, the greatest portraitist of the 20th Century. He invented it. Here is a self-portrait where he photographs himself as a painter. He preferred photography and destroyed many of his paintings.
My next-door neighbor, Charles Highstien, MD is or was an Otolaryngologist, ENT. Helped heal many people during his medical career. Now he makes art.
His stuff comes from nature, birds, snakes, imaginary creatures. He builds forms, covers them with bubble wrap and paints them.
The lanai onside his home serves as his studio. Weather permitting he works the plein air, watching the birds land, fish jump and trees blow in the wind.
Cannot say there is a market for his work. He does commissions and would like to show. As with the rest of us aging artists, no one is going to buy our work and no wife is going to let us clutter the home with it.
What a waste of a human being Donald Trump is. He still has supporters, haters all in their own little way. He wants US to die, so he and his buddies can have more and more and more and more easily recognize each other, because who remains will be white and not old.
His latest solution for a Covid-19 cure is right on your kitchen counter and can be combined with two previous suggestions. I don’t want you doing it. Maybe he will, using Jared or the Baron as test subjects.
First, write out a will using a bleach pen and write your name down on your forehead. Inhale a little in each nostril to get you going. Drink a little Fantastic, after spraying it on your clothes, removing any dirt or grease or grime you missed while washing.
Then insert the fork into your toaster.
Now what? I always wanted to make a contribution. Now, all I can do is survive. Can’t go out. Cannot volunteer. Don’t have all that much money to donate. I just have to not get sick, er sicker. I have been reading and writing, wondering what the meaning of life is. A lifetime learner, what will my knowledge mean to anyone other than me?
I don’t gamble and I cannot play sports. I have problems with the political process, having been killed by the system, a condition that bars me from commenting and having my thoughts considered. I have basic health care and maybe just enough money to make it. My cancer doctor says my immune system is working, but I am not prepared to test it. Not going to a gym or a night club. But I do miss museums, watching people who know more or less than I do about art, look at framed images, sculptures and whatever they call the rest. So I wonder.
So, some of you may know Theodore, Sharon’s bear from childhood. He used to come to court with me, riding in my brief case. Judge Archie Gorfinkel signed the adoption papers at our wedding. He always has a positive attitude and strong opinions about life, love and the pursuit of happiness. He has been a part of Sharon’s life, forever.