September 2012
notan
September 2012: I’m doing visual calisthenics this week, putting my head on a swivel and looking in any direction but straight ahead. I wonder how long this dude has been watching my daily commute?
“Politics is what’s in their freezer, whose kid got killed, who’s got a job, who lost a house, how all the bankers ought to be hanged.” —from “Politics,” by J.T. Barbarese, Poetry magazine, July/August 2012
August 2012: Yep, that’s my hand.
July 2012
July 2012: These guys probably weren’t much older than me, judging by the grizzly, gray stubble and wrinkles around the eyes. But all of us were smiling that morning as we walked down to the beach. We differed only in that I was beginning a long day of “work” directing a shoot, and they either took the day off or were playing hooky. Surfing in Oregon, even in July, is no mild proposition. The water is frigid, and the waves seem to break all over the place. I didn’t hear a single complaint from them, though. They looked like they loved every second of it.
July 2012: Every direction I looked, I saw texture of every sort.
July 2012: Water is like some sort of wand in Oregon. It blesses everything it touches, even cold, black rock.
July 2012
July 2012
July 2012
July 2012
July 2012: Although I’ve been home for two weeks, I’ve traveled to Oregon nearly every day in my mind. Now for the hard part—how to make the return real.
July 2012: I limited myself to one armful between Powell’s and Broadway Books, which is quite frugal for me. Only one title was on my hit list, “City,” by William H. Whyte. I loaned my treasured copy to a friend several years ago and missed it. The rest, however, were unplanned discoveries that bring a type of bliss that only browsing a good bookstore can bring. I devour good writing and enjoy rereading well-crafted sentences, which is why three Alexandar Hemon novels are on top. I found two Wendell Berry collections that I didn’t have and added one that stopped me in my tracks. “November Twenty Six Nineteen Hundred Sixty Three” is a poem he wrote in the wake of JFK’s death that is illustrated by Ben Shahn, one of my favorite artists. “Rogue River Journal,” about one man’s winter alone in the woods, is a type of book that always has a place in my library. Similarly, Thoreau’s “The Journal” makes a nice companion and is destined to be a dog-eared regular in my bag. I enjoy Adam Gopnik’s writing in The New Yorker immensely and can’t wait to dig into his memoir of moving to Paris with his wife and newborn.
July 2012, Oregon Coast. Oh, what nature weaves with such ease.
