Only The Marvelous

Power Over Me

“I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.”  ~ Anais Nin

Restart-level Button

Life Boat

 How many do overs do you get in life? How many chances does a person get to start again? Thinking in terms of a video game my mind wanders to the restart-level button almost inherent in every game made. A chance to start the level (the game) again. The option to abandon the progress you have fought to achieve and go back to a previously saved checkpoint and, begin again. The need to begin again is of course a direct result of meeting an insurmountable obstacle on your path. Failure and the feeling that if you started again you would be able to make it to point past this point and achieve far greater forward progress. It would seem the number of times possible would be infinite dependent upon how much effort you choose to devote to finishing that particular game. And how much are you willing to give up of the forward progress you have already made. Sometimes it involves not much of a backward motion. Other times it is a complete restart of the game. Everything gained previous, lost.

How many chances does a person get to start again? A difficult question to answer at first thought. Certainly after some pondering it becomes rather obvious that it is at the heart of it, a very simple answer. As many as you desire. Every second of every minute of very hour of every day, a person can choose to start again. Of course the effort to alter ones course is completely dependant upon the situation you find yourself in at that very moment of your life. Picture life being a great big ocean. Sometimes the life course you are on is akin to floating along in a rowboat on that ocean. Alone, with someone else, or with many. But lets speak in terms of one. You. Every stroke of the oar (or if you are lucky enough two oars) gives you a propel in a direction of your choosing. Almost at will an extension of your thoughts is directed to your arms, the paddle pushes against the resistance of the water and you move. Conversely a thought to stop your motion is as easily obtained, by means of not paddling or dragging the paddle in the water thus creating a braking condition. So in essence altering your course is as simple as making a thought to do so. Now let's take this concept and extrapolate it out to the size of an ocean liner. This being a metaphor for a much bigger involvement of a situation in your life. The same simplicity of changing your course is there. Just think it. Quite obviously the effort needed to carry out the same change of course would be so much greater. Think of a mighty ocean liner chugging along at top speed. You then decide to change course. The mechanics and physics involved and required are immensely greater. Yet it can still be done. Takes more time and effort but it can be done. Another choice in all of this is to just sit by and do nothing. So your boat just drifts. Wherever the waves take you. At times stuck between waves and just spinning in a circle. Say you are a passenger in that rowboat. Another person doing the rowing, choosing the direction, the speed, the course. You just passively ride along. To some this is the ideal type of life. The passenger. Never having to make decisions or put out effort. But to many being the passenger is an ultimately frustrating thing. Maybe at first it is fun because it is new, different from what you have experienced. In life the greatest thing you can find is another person ready, willing and able to sit beside you in that rowboat and man one of the oars. As great a concept of happiness that that may be it is also not the easiest shoe to fill. Regardless, you are a passenger in a rowboat with another rowing. Whether you had previous arrangements of a final destination or not you are moving in the same direction right at the moment. So maybe the best of intentions were made to continue in a particular direction but the ocean constantly pushed you off your course. As the passenger you sit and do nothing but live the life of a rider. As you ride you see things along the way. You observe the rower veering or straying off the supposed route. Sometimes you may witness another boat or boats flying by with what appears to be a much better time being had by the passengers on board, than the one of which you are travelling in. Based on things you see, you question whether the boat you are in is the right one. In time you may realize the boat you are on is going someplace that you wouldn't have chosen. Again, some don't care, they are just along for the ride. While others will stay the passive passenger and allow another to choose the course of their life. All the while feeling like something isn't right. Building resentment, a feeling of futile wasted energy in the wrong direction. In time a feeling comes for the need to change the direction of travel. This need builds and festers to the point it becomes overwhelming. This is where choices come into play. Stay the passenger and say or do nothing. Seemingly not a choice but in fact a definite choice. Next option would be something as simple as voicing your sentiments of the matter to the person manning the oars. The results of this would be tied directly to the persona's of the passenger and the oarsman. Could be very little effort required to make a change or could be something that leaves the boat still in the water, drifting whichever way the ocean currents take you while you hem and haw, argue about the direction and speed. Another choice somewhat more upsetting in nature would be grabbing the paddle(s) and overcoming the present direction and changing it to a course of your liking. Again this would have mixed results dependant upon the ideals of the characters involved, one unfortunate and not quite anticipated result could be the forced exit of one of the occupants from the boat. One other option would be to just jump the fuck out of the boat. Yeah that's pretty drastic, and most certainly not an easy choice to make. Giving up every bit of your dry, safe transport to enter into a wet, cold world of which you seemingly have nothing. Giving up all of your forward progress and going to a point previous in life, and starting again. History teaches that to abandon ship is like a last ditch effort to save yourself. The only possible remaining choice that one can make to alter their direction. Give up everything in the name of saving yourself. No guarantees that you will be saved or redirected to a better destination. At times feeling like a twig in a whirlpool. Nothing to stand on, just the hope that somebody will throw you a lifeline. A rescuer to come along that will pull you from the overwhelming feeling of being lost at sea. Be it the person from the boat of which you just jumped out of or another that may come drifting along and find you floating there. How strong must you be to refuse the helping hand of the person of which boat you just jumped from. Saying emphatically No! I will not get back into THAT boat. Cold alone in a vast ocean. Only the hope of another boat to come along. Maybe a big ocean liner or coast guard rescue boat, if it comes to that. The point is you do have a choice any second of any minute of any day to alter your course in this life. To think that for some, they would never have the will or desire to change anything. Just put up with the course in the name of not having to upset the balance in the boat or worst of all jumping into the water - giving up everything. To others the choice to always row alone. Never to have to worry about changing your course if you didn't want to. A lot more work to be sure. And lonely. For some a constant supply of partners to ride along with. Talk them into rowing with you then when you feel they can no longer be of use, throw them overboard and replace with a new fresh set of arms. This choice would at some point have undesired results as well. For when you finally get tired of rowing and would like to rely on another, none will want to get in your boat and assist. As mentioned earlier, the happiest arrangement is finding that one other person that you can sit beside and row through the ocean of life to a common destination with. Both people rowing together altering course as needed and desired as a team. Times when one just couldn't row the other picking up the slack. And if at times it gets to be too much for either rower to handle and they mistakenly jump overboard, to know that that boat would circle around and you would find that outstretched helping hand ready, willing and able to pull you back into the boat. And you wanting to be pulled in. How fucking awesome! The ocean in a sense becomes a stream. And you just rowing your boat gently down the stream.

A constant restart-level button or never the need for one. Depends how you look at it. Wherein as much as having a restart-level button in life seems like such a far fetched idea it would appear that it not be to far off from reality. As in the video game world they aren't found easily and certainly you have to make some amount of forward progress to see them. They are there disguised and hidden in the choices that we make. Every second of every minute of every day.

 Row row row your boat gently down the stream.

What's Missing

The Missing Piece

It's the same puzzle for everyone yet the piece that's missing is different.

The Pursuit of Redemption

this was written 13 September 2011 for a project:

Green

The Pursuit of Redemption 

me, I'm mostly green. Not that I go out of my way to be so. Just normal everyday things. Water conservation; when I'm running water, I actively think about if it's necessary to keep it running to accomplish the task at hand. Little things. Recycling. I recycle paper and such. A lot of it ends up being consumed in fires that I have from time to time. Maybe not the greenest way, but it's not piled up in a landfill somewhere. Also recycle bottle and cans, nothing to difficult about that. Just throwing the used container into a different bin. When it came to empty beer cans (ewe, don't like beer from a can) and bottles they would just go in the bin with the other glass and cans. Or if there was a bunch of them, like from a party, my brother would take them in and get the 5 cents deposit that is charged on each container. I've brought back beer bottles and cans in my younger days. Then the consumption level would make bringing back the emptys actually worth a few bucks. But lately I don't drink as much as I used to. Recently we had a rather large Labor Day party. The party was actually to celebrate a few things. My 50th day of life, my daughter's going off to college and a couple of other lesser things. Naturally there was a lot of trash afterward. In the trash was a considerable amount of empty beer bottles, enough to warrant a trip to the redemption center to cash them in and collect the deposit. I have to admit I haven't turned in a beer bottle for redemption of the deposit for some time now. I knew they had collection machines for cans and bottles but never really gave any thought to their operation. I guess it would make sense that these machines would somehow compact the empties to put a lot more into a smaller space. So it would just seem that the cans would be crushed allowing them to occupy about a tenth of the physical space they they originally had. Now the bottles, hmm, never really thought about them. Well I found the truth of the matter the other day. One of the local redemption centers is located in a liquor store, makes sense. So I pull up and bring my collection of assorted empty beer bottles into the redemption room. My first look around shows a bunch of machines, okay. Then further inspection tells there is a machine for cans, check. Another for plastic bottles, like soda pop and such. Then the third type is for glass beer bottles, that's me. I set myself up in front of the machine and prepare to begin the process. I'm not sure what to expect as I place my first bottle into this circular 5 inch hole that is closed off by spring shut doors. I push the bottle through the doors and a mechanism actually grabs the bottle from you and starts it on the way to its demise. Next you hear some whirring, I suppose the machine was checking the bar code to ensure that it is in fact a 5 cent deposit bottle. Everything so far clears in my mind as the way it would be. The next step is what took me and actually manifested into the reason for this post. Something in the machine takes and physically breaks the bottle. A clunk or two then you hear the sound of thousands of pieces of glass raining down. Whoa, how cool is that. Immediately a bunch of thoughts pass through my mind. First, now I understand how they compact the bottles for easier transport. Second, my penchant for the sound of breaking glass is on high alert. How great is this? So I put another in. The same process occurs. whir, click, clank, clunk....chink, chink, chink, chink. I'm elated. Ever since I was young I've had this thing for the sound of breaking glass. It stirs something inside of me. I'm not sure the exact reasons why. So for the next 20 minutes or so, my soul was abuzz with the pursuit of redemption.

Shooting On the Red Line

took this yesterday:

Waiting on The Red Line

it was running late. i was bored and inspired by the scene before me. started shooting. was soon chastised by transit cop. he stated i am not allowed to take pictures in the tunnel. i knew he was wrong but i gave in and stopped shooting. when i got home i did some research. thinking now that i should have kept right on shooting...

Unlawful arrest for subway photography costs city $30k

http://secondavenuesagas.com/2010/02/10/unlawfuly-arrest-for-subway-photography-costs-city-30k/

Here Lyes

I have always felt myself as being grounded but this may be a bit too much...

Here Lyes

this was taken yesterday in the Old Granary Burial Ground Boston, Massachusetts, along with these:

Rebel With A Cause

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Adams

P. R.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Revere

Throwing Copper

this was written 28 November 2012 as part of a 365 project. top photo was taken then, bottom photo taken yesterday.

Throwing Copper

First off, let me state that i wouldn't consider myself rich; not sure that i would even want to be. i have written a bit about this previously so i won't go much into that aspect. i am comfortable enough, for me. Second point i would like to make is that i don't particularly like to carry loose change around with me, travel light and unjingly. In the older days of cash prominence, change would come back home with me but not typically make it back out of the house. It would sit in some type of collection vessel. Sometimes years. Then one day when the vessel was about to spill over or i was a bit short of the paper stuff i would undertake the task of sorting and rolling then cashing in. i really have no use for pennies. It still bewilders me that as a society we couldn't have come to some type of ruling that items for sale would have to be rounded to the nickel therefore eliminating the need for the penny altogether. It costs the government something like 2.5 cents to make a one cent penny. i don't believe many businesses would stay afloat using that ratio in manufacturing costs. But rounding up or down to the nickel would surely leave somebody somewhere feeling cheated. Which is what is i suppose the real point of all these words is about, greed.

Everyday we hear about deficit this or debt that. So prominent in the news today is the looming Fiscal Cliff (a created deadline brought about by the lack of culpability of our past elected officials) and how both sides won't budge on what they feel is unfair taking of their monies and entitlements. Why should i have to help them. How come they don't pay the same as us. To me it is sickening, as it simply boils down to pure greed. Listen to the news reports today, on all the top hype networks, and you will hear about the record Powerball jackpot that is hoped to be won tonight. People are spending simply ridiculous amounts of money for a 1 in 175,000,000 chance of winning. Something like $300,000,000 was spent in the past week. (yeah, i bought one. 1) Somebody put it as: take 175,000,000 pennies and place them in a line from coast to coast with one of them having an X drawn on it. Then drive to anywhere along the line, stop and turn one over. Black Friday sales figures are at record breaking levels, for the past four years. Something like a billion dollars was spent over the past weekend. All of that for necessities, i'm sure. With these amounts constantly thrown about, a penny seems like an absolute trivial trinket.

i have always been in the habit of viewing the change in my hand as i walk out of a store after having made a purchase. Any pennies that didn't stand out as being old or a key date would get tossed to the ground. i harken back to the days of being a little boy and finding a penny or two on the ground. What a thrill. My hope is that some child walking into the store with their parent would see my dropped pieces of copper and get the same thrill. Of course in this day and age the thrill has probably lost most of its luster. Give  a kid a penny and watch the look they give you. But i still do it. Also of course, these days i typically don't deal with cash much more. How long before we become a completely cashless society? My point in all of this is if each person living in the world would give up one penny, it would equate to something like $70,000,000. Imagine if we could talk people into giving one dollar? Easy to say. 326/365

Bowl of Rain

Look out of any window

any morning, any evening, any day

Maybe the sun is shining

birds are winging or

rain is falling from a heavy sky -

What do you want me to do,

to do for you to see you through?

this is all a dream we dreamed

one afternoon long ago

Walk out of any doorway

feel your way, feel your way

like the day before

Maybe you'll find direction

around some corner

where it's been waiting to meet you -

What do you want me to do,

to watch for you while you're sleeping?

Well please don't be surprised

when you find me dreaming too

Look into any eyes

you find by you, you can see

clear through to another day

I know it's been seen before

through other eyes on other days

while going home -

What do you want me to do,

to do for you to see you through?

It's all a dream we dreamed

one afternoon long ago

Walk into splintered sunlight

Inch your way through dead dreams

to another land

Maybe you're tired and broken

Your tongue is twisted

with words half spoken

and thoughts unclear

What do you want me to do

to do for you to see you through

A a box of rain will ease the pain

and love will see you through

Just a box of rain -

wind and water -

Believe it if you need it,

if you don't just pass it on

Sun and shower -

Wind and rain -

in and out the window

like a moth before a flame

It's just a box of rain

I don't know who put it there

Believe it if you need it

or leave it if you dare

But it's just a box of rain

or a ribbon for your hair

Such a long long time to be gone

and a short time to be there

Oh The Wind

Oh The Winds

Oh the winds.

at times they blow so favorably

sail us across lakes, oceans

push us up mountains or above

blow out the dust and dirt that gathers

part the clouds

bring the sun

allow us to see away down the road

Oh the winds.

sometimes they change so suddenly

upend your mighty ship

tear tall buildings down

they bring in more filth and debris

make you stumble

let you fall

bring clouds so dark you think it's the end

Oh the winds.

other times they don't blow at all

leave us in peace, calm

let things settle out

in time the air can grow stuffy, stale

bring the breeze

blow the wind

then they come and blow your world away

Oh the winds.

a wish to harness their mighty power

have them work for us

let them hold, support you

propel you up and over things that block 

push you forward

hold you aloft

so you wouldn't trip on the shit in the road

Oh the winds.

history teaches there is strength in numbers

you stand together

two stronger than one

strong enough to brace, embrace any ill winds

let them blow

as they will

we laugh as they blow, safe inside together as one

Oh the winds.

over time they will never stop blowing

in our ships ever on we sail

together, alone, floating on

all of us trying to reach a port, a home

avoiding the bad

seeking the good

to find the sure steady wind we can ride into forever

~ mr_j Alexander

4/24/2001

It seems like yesterday

But it was long ago

Janey was lovely, she was the queen of my nights

There in the darkness with the radio playlng low

And the secrets that we shared

The mountains that we moved

Caught like a wildfire out of control

Till there was nothing left to burn and nothing left to prove

And I remember what she said to me

How she swore that it never would end

I remember how she held me oh so tight

Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then

Against the wind

We were runnin' against the wind

We were young and strong, we were runnin'

Against the wind

And the years rolled slowly past

And I found myself alone

Surrounded by strangers I thought were my friends

I found myself further and further from my home

And I guess I lost my way

There were oh so many roads

I was living to run and running to live

Never worried about paying or even how much I owed

Moving eight miles a minute for months at a time

Breaking all of the rules that would bend

I began to find myself searchin'

Searchin' for shelter again and again

Against the wind

A little something against the wind

I found myself seeking shelter against the wind

Well those drifters days are past me now

I've got so much more to think about

Deadlines and commitments

What to leave in, what to leave out

Against the wind

I'm still runnin' against the wind

I'm older now but still running

Against the wind

Well I'm older now and still running

Against the wind

Two Sides of a Tree

Some People See  

Some people see the tracks
Some people see the ties
Some people see the tree
Some people see the trunk
Some people see the branches
Some people see the leaves
Some people see the writing
Some people see the light
What do you see?

Catch A Star(fish)

Loving Hands

Some days I feel like a starfish left behind in a tidal pool, by the outgoing tide. Some of those days loving hands help me back out.

1/2

This was written and photod last year as part of a 365 project:

One Half 

It is so true; the older you get, the faster time flies. Can this year already be 1/2 over? Judging by the count on my 365 project the answer is yes. I cannot believe it’s July 1st! So here i sit with 183 pics under my belt (and on my stream). I’m not sure about other fellow photographers but i can firmly state that that 183 does not at all even come close to signifying how many pics were taken to get there. On some lucky days i catch a notion of what the shot for the day will be and can grab the camera and execute it with let’s say less than 5 shots. Most days however, my perfectionistic nature demands that i take 10, 20 or 30 shots to achieve that one. That doesn’t mean that all the others are no good, they just don’t measure up as what i was seeking. Most days it is a struggle to get that one shot, compositionalwise. Once i have decided on the comp i must then sit and sift through a handful or more of what appear to be the exact same shot, studying the subtle nuances that differ between them. Okay now i have narrowed it down to one shot. Ahhh, a sigh of relief. But that is only brief as now i must figure out the presentation of the shot, i.e. contrasts, saturation etc. It is sometimes almost a part time job. Mind you, i’m not complaining. For deep inside of me resides some strange force that derives extreme satisfaction from all the, at times, frustration of the process. I admit, some days i take shortcuts and settle for something that is less than fully satisfying. And i’m left a dozen shots that could each be a great photo in their own right. I can’t dump them. So they sit in folders waiting for their moment that may never ever come. Time doesn’t allow for each one to be fully put forth. How many hours can i devote to this and still maintain all the other aspects of my life?
Today marks a significant level anyway it is looked at. I fell far short last year and have managed to stick to it this year and for that simple fact I Am proud. The much bigger plus is that i feel i have become a better photographer. I have been forced to, which i guess is the greater part of a 365 project’s purpose. I know i am much more proficient at using my tool. I’m now going on 3 years as the owner of a Canon 450D and take pride in the fact that i can almost change the rudimentary settings on the fly without even looking. That is to say without pulling my eye away from the viewfinder. Still a lot more to learn, and i hope i will. The second half of the year will allow for another 183 shots. Multiply that by 5, 10 or 20 and i would guess that i would be forced to learn more. Can i make it till the end? Time will tell. 183/365
P.S. this shot was the result of 14 shots and i am about 86% happy with the result.