80 birds with one stone

i started writing this a couple weeks ago and didn't finish it. that's what happens with most everything that isn't my regular work here at the American Research Center - or "arsee" as we refer to it in our daily laments and litanies.

i've gotten a lot of emails and been generally overwhelmed with my inability to respond. As I told my friend Bryan:

"Everytime I try to write an email I get derailed because I can't send it until its a complete thought and I never get around to making a complete thought. So now i'm like half a dozen thoughts backed up. I don't know if i can finish this thought because its late and i never get enough sleep. But i have a blog that I never have time to post to and only my mom reads apparently and at some point i'm going to just have to give up on responding to emails and respond to them in my blog. Then I can kill like 80 birds with one stone." So here goes. I will try to make this blog a place where I answer questions and capture what it’s really like.

4am my dreams are intermingled with the sound of Arabic prayers droning out of a loudspeaker. it's Friday morning before the Eid holiday, I've gone to bed just hours ago, and my dreams are drowned now in this muffled shouting. I am jolted from the mostly sensical world of my dreams into the sometimes nonsensical always magical place that is Egypt, this place that I live in and love. Allah Akhbar.

The prayers today are especially aggressive. It's "Friday's sermon" or "Friday's rant" as my housemate says. It sounds kind of like the 3rd Reich, a political rant, or a Pink Floyd song from The Wall. The megaphone definitely takes prayer to a different place. Pam, my housemate, is convinced he's screaming at the top of the lungs about how to slaughter goats. They are lined up now at the butcher's in the market, I saw 50 of them or so, driving by in our balidy bus last night, penned up and necks soon to be slit.

"Eid al-Adha" or just Eid for short celebrates Ibrahim's (or Abraham depending on which side of the fence you stand) near sacrifice of his son to Allah (or God). According to the Koran and not far off from the Biblical version, "the devil tempted Ibrahim by saying he should disobey Allah and spare his son. As Ibrahim was about to sacrifice his son, Allah intervened and instead provided a ram as the sacrifice. This is why today all over the world Muslims who have the means to, sacrifice an animal (usually a goat or a sheep), as a reminder of Ibrahim's obedience to Allah. The meat is then shared out with family, friends (Muslims or non-Muslims), as well as the poor members of the community. (Islam names Ishmael as the son who was to be sacrificed, whereas the Judeo-Christian name Isaac)." Thank you wikipedia.

Nicholas: On a scale of 1 to 10 you ask - how do you rate it in terms of magic?

At least a 9 or a 10. There is magic everywhere. Today it was giant hot air balloons being lit in great numbers outside of Karnak Temple where we work. Leaving the temple complex in the company van, I was so overcome by the spontaneity and the flame and color of it all that I had to get out of the van and tell my co-workers I'd walk home because I couldn't not take pictures. Owen, my friend in photographic jaunts, jumped out to join me. Children swarmed around to watch the torches inflate the mammoth rainbow billows as a dozen men struggled to brace the basket down to the earth, children circling in pairs and threes on bicycles and tugging on my arm to have their picture taken. If you have time to do things other than work, then you can participate in such magic everyday and that is more than enough.

Anxiety?

Maybe a 7 or 8 but it diminishes quickly, after a week or two its not so bad, and after two months its all but gone. I should point out that this is specifically Luxorian anxiety, as Cairo has its own version. Being home to some of the world's most amazing Egyptian antiquities, you can't escape the tourist culture here. The collective inertia of thousands of years of tourism has left a permanent stain on this town, and the initial weeks in Luxor can be crushing. You cannot leave the flat without being haggled by at least a dozen people.

The techniques of approaching foreigners, over thousands of years have evolved becoming increasingly more abrupt, short, and aggressive. The questions employed to hook a tourist into your service no longer require full sentences or even a verb, but instead consist of one word - they are more like demands then questions, from "BUKSHISH" with the gesture of an open hand (give me money) to "KALESH?" (want a ride in my carriage) and they are always repeated half a dozen times despite your negative or non-response. They come from children or from carriage riders, taxi drivers, shop owners, shoe shiners, in short, from everyone. At first, such behavior can be maddening. You have no way of waving off these hagglers, no way to communicate that you have been through this routine every day for the past two months and no you don't want to ride in their carriage/taxi/shoeshine chair, no way of regaining your invisible nature – something you took for granted back home.

Last week, determined to get out of Luxor for the Eid holiday, Owen and I planned a trip out to the Red Sea. We chose the more remote of the Red Sea venues, setting our sights on Dahab - which sells itself as the ideal backpacker/diving locale. Cairo confirmed my belief despite it's movie theaters & bowling allies on ships, i still prefer Luxor. One does however quickly tire of the haggling culture that seems to dart at you from every alley, cornerstore, horse carriage, cafe, and felucca dock in Luxor and so its really necessary to get away periodically. Once a month, I’d say, to keep it together.

Outside of its Starbucks and ex-pat McDonalds complete with kiddie slides, Cairo offers the rare opportunity to disappear into the crowd. It’s a strange sensation getting off the train from Luxor - you are no longer a walking neon wallet, fair game for any Egyptian in their favorite sport – which is intricate and employs jokes, lies, and the use of “brother” “friend” and other such things to suggest friendliness.
Each nationality triggers different lines, puns. Traveling with Owen, as soon as people find out he’s from Canada, they always use the “Canada Dry” line – they don’t seem to have much material here. America is a little more of a watershed – they almost ubiquitously mention Obama or Bush, and this is a fun game.

The opportunity to disappear into the crowd in Cairo is an immense relief – getting of the train it’s as if your humanity has been restored. But the smog, the game of frogger required to cross the street & the lack of nature will drive you out quickly.
Our company helped us organize a private microbus to Dahab. Although it ended up costing twice as much as we expected and broke my bank completely, I’d say it was still a good call – the public bus from Cairo to Dahab is known to make excessive stops along the way, turning a 7-8 hour drive into a 17 hour drive. Sounds kind of horrific to me.

So it was a bourgeoisie commute to a backpacker mecca I suppose – somewhat of a contradiction – we dropped over $200 to get from Cairo to the Red Sea – where our room ran us only $20 a night. The ride was bumpy enough to send you leaping out of your sleep every couple miles when the back of the bus jolted over a bump. We started with the AC blasting in our sterile luxurious micro-bus, a strange contrast to regular Egyptian life which is infiltrated with dust – the strong aroma of cologne wafting from our 3 escorts – hair slicked back with gel, forever sporting sunglasses and the same balady cassette tape playing over and over for the first four hours. All of this didn’t faze me in the slightest. The highlight was when we stopped for the restroom and I came out into the convenient store looking for TP and one of our guys was trying to ask me what I wanted, and seemed to communicate that no, they didn’t sell any TP. So I bought some cologne-scented wet wipes & left with a wonderful smelling rear. Then when I stepped outside to get back into the micro-bus the guy came up to me holding a rolling paper, assuming I had asked to buy papers to smoke hash in; I smiled & said no thanks, explaining that I had only wanted papers for the toilet. They then purchased another balady cassette tape, some mango juice, and cookies and we were on our way.

As the sun was setting the mountains moved in – everything dappled in red light and cyan shadows. By the time we got to Sharma Al Sheik – the huge resort town 100km from Dahab – a real life Las Vegas times Disney World plopped right down in the middle of the Egptian desert – it was pitch black. Egyptian drivers, by the way, turn off their headlights while driving at night, a practice which baffles foreigners, the running explanation being that they see it as a way of conserving battery power – and rely on laying on the horns and/or flashing their lights whenever approaching an oncoming vehicle/person/obstacle.

We fly along with the speedometer beeping – the sound only going away when we dropped below 120km up against the balady music it sounded like a hospital heart monitor, communicating that indeed we were alive, but at any moment a family on a motorcycle could appear on the road at the same time as an oncoming truck and the whole thing would just go down ugly.

Bryan: What are things like out there? Still enjoying it? Can you find beer? Are there any stories or series you're working on in addition to the blocks?
I am ecstatic to be here. Honest. The magic hasn’t worn out yet. My previous blog entry spoke of itches yet to be scratched, but I must admit, that at present, I think they are scratched. I really wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now. It’s been a while since I’ve felt that way, so I’m just kind of waiting for the curtain to fall and wake up from the dream. I know that these things don’t last forever, but I’ve really got all my chips in on getting hired for a second year. Some of my co-workers say its wishful thinking to suppose they’ll extend the project and our contracts another year, but this is my deep and sincere hope.

Beer. Yes, Luxor is infamous for two beers: Luxor and Sakara. Both are mediocre but do-able. I’ve discovered a third beer called Nuba which really takes the cake. It’s a smooth dark beer that tastes strikingly like Newcastle. We’ve been trying to get our hands on the case of the stuff so that we have it back at the flat. Right now we’re finishing up the whiskey that we purchased at the airport on the way in. After that, it might get a little desperate. But you should know that there are bars here. Ex-pat bars.

Genesis – for example - this bar is the thing of legends – it’s run by a Ukrainian woman with typical Slavic temperament and a deadpan expression. Her two kids run about the bar – McKenzie is a two year old girl with curly locks who makes meowing sounds and tugs at her mothers skirt and the boy, a 6 or 7 year old, frequently beats everyone at pool, almost beating me the last time I was there. and she has a huge great dame which takes the couch beside the pool table as its bed. There is also a set of furniture upside down glued to the ceiling, sometimes birds can be seen flying around inside. also the tables are aquariums and they actually have a pool inside the bar which should soon be made available to the public. On top of all this they have karaoke, when the Ukrainian woman isn’t in a PMS mood, you can sing anything from Aretha to Amy Winehouse to Justin Timberlake. All in all, I am a big fan, but I still haven’t worked up the nerve to speak to her in Russian.

Alright. That’s it for now. I have a million more things to talk about, adventures in Dahab, adventures in work and in play, but I’m averaging 4 hours a sleep a night this week, so things gotta change.

PS - some dude that works in the kitchen who is our buddy gave me this gallabeya as a present which is bright orange and has a hoodie and says 7 ELEVEN across it with a buttload of sequence. America, just you wait.

un-scratched

but beneath it all there's an itch that never gets scratched. sometimes it feels useless to even start something that you know you won't finish. it's in every aspect of my life at this moment - living on the fly. not being able to properly respond to letters, to follow up with different projects/plans, not actually having human relations with anyone except a handful of egyptologists and one particular human being who is like a dream to me, moving in and out of what is real/ sometimes very dear to me, sometimes a total stranger. i am grateful for that. it's nice - this drifting, you just have to accept that it always comes with that feeling of something missing underneath it all. and don't fall victim to drink. once you've had one or two it will make the missing part swell until you can't keep it down anymore and it will start to seem like the only thing. i am not missing anyone in particular or any one place. i have been adrift it seems, for the last several years. a real live tumble-weed. there is also the knowledge that it will get scratched later down the line - that itch. that for now, vacations on the red sea with my unexpected interlocutor is enough to get me through the month. that bike rides through the town are enough to get me through the week. that an evening on the roof is enough to just push me through into the next day.

but reading this, dear reader, i realize that i have given you all the wrong impression. don't get me wrong, as far as my life is concerned, i've got 95% of the itches covered over here. life has always been for me a battle with the notion of "the grass is always greener" but never have i been so satisfied with where i am. i don't want to be anywhere else at this moment. i merely wanted to express the underlying sublime feeling that comes with this life. i like it very much. me myself and i.

it's time

to take a vacation. i will catch up with posting/emailing and all that from here:

thanks and giving

2.12am. forever exhausted. tonight was "thanksgiving" i remember a small piece of turkey within chicago house, i remember stellar mashed potatoes, squash, beets, and something resembling coleslaw. too many cigarettes. too many whiskey cokes. sakara. finally i discovered GENESIS bar and it lived up to all of its expectations: the cold-faced Ukranian woman running Kareoke and her amazing child, brown curls and puppy sounds, a gargantuan Great Dame dog passed out on the couch, my voice became shrill from shouting - there was Respect, I will Survive, Justin Timberlake, Oasis, BeeGees and many horrible songs, billiards, drinks i had no money to pay for, after the French mission, being tossed upon someone's shoulder multiple times. pressure points. twisted wrists. more beer. much love. french things i didnt understand. wigs. fake chest hair. these are the moments that seem like a dream to me.

the desert has miles and miles. i have to pinch myself to remember i'm alive. we will get to the red sea. we will swim in the salted waters. pinch ourselves again. beach.

i got paid

Not really. Just a small cash advance to get me through the month. My salary hasn't come through yet because of complications wiring to American bank accounts. At present I have $110 in my bank account. I had to pay a $200 termination fee to T-MOBILE (evil) for a phone that I had in the states for 5 months and that pretty much emptied it out. I am paying minimal loans, but come January most to all of my salary for a couple months will go into eliminating my grad school loans once and for all. Funny, I only went for one year, got no degree, but managed to accrue 30 grand in loans. This is unique to America really, and a real issue for the next 4-8 years of Obama's administration in my opinion. I believe they recognize how ridiculous the cost of American education has become.

I suppose I was somewhat foolish for attending Grad school for a year, but I like to believe that maybe it had something to do with where I am now. Let me remind myself that I am in Egypt. I am not paying rent. I am working my butt off as always, but what a place for adventures and photographs.

I don't want to meditate too long on the difficulties of making it as a photographer in the here and now, because I find myself in a beautiful situation at present, but I worry about the future. There will have to be some major thought put into it - whether its buddying up with a Travel Magazine or an Airline Magazine and freelance articles or really marketing oneself via Photoshelter or other such micro-stock sites or doing a lot of Weddings - but there is a way. In Russia, I enjoyed juggling working at a magazine, shooting corporate parties, teaching English, and DJing. And I barely scraped by - which is how I anticipate to live my life - barely scraping by. For now I have no problem with that. I imagine down the line I'll have to find a way to have a more stable income, but for my young life, this is fine.

My friend and mentor Sean McDevitt is a master of all trades: teaches at Pratt and Snow Farm (an arts summer camp in Massachusetts), works at a studio in Manhattan, DJ's weddings, bar mitzfahs, parties, and works as a Mac technician. All at once. And somehow manages to make art and have a great life and an awesome wife. I really admire that. He was the one who turned me onto photography and it is in that spirit that I'd like to follow. Some kind of Renaissance woman existence that combines white water, photography, travel and DJing. Mmm. Delicious.

goals

i kind of feel like i haven't taken a good picture since i've been here. now i know that's not true, but that's what this place does. there's an amazing picture around every corner, alley way, in every face, and on every doorstep. its everywhere. i've never been so visually overwhelmed before. today we took a ferry to the west bank - the other side of the nile, and then rented bikes for a couple bucks and rode them through sugar cane fields and down dirt roads, passing huge ancient egyptian statues as we went, boys on bicycles riding up next to us and having conversation, motorcycles whizzing by every other second, cats, dogs, women in burkas. this is where i live and i want to keep it forever. as always i have that horrible sensation (that i've had my whole life) like i'm letting everything pass me by. like i'm not stopping to get that (at least) one amazing shot per day. for me the photographer, this is a good emotion, it makes me stop. but for me as a person, maybe this is a detrimental emotion, as i quickly become overwhelmed by my inability to capture this place within a frame. that is my goal. i want my photos to be more visually complex, to be layered, to have puns, and give you immediate gut reactions.

thankfully, i think i can do this. i met with my boss this weekend, she came down from cairo for a couple days and she caught me at the computer attempting to remove every last spec of dust from a talatat block photo. we had been arranging to meet for days now and she just happened to graze by my computer. i barely got the words "Shari, I...." out of my mouth before she said "No. Sara, you don't need to do that." and that was that. the last two weeks or so I had been killing myself painfully editing each talatat block in Photoshop, removing dust, straightening the letter board, blah blah blah. And now it comes - freedom. I am no longer an appendage of the imac or the chair. I can be me again.

so i think my stomach is recovering and i will have time to go out into the market every day and that will be my goal. it doesnt matter how crap i feel - i will go out with my camera and my flash (because i need to learn how to properly use it in a crazy crowded situation) and i will get at least one ridiculous photograph a day. right?

Horizontal is the new vertical

It's 4.44pm on a Thursday - November 6th to be precise. It's about 80 degrees outside and extremely sunny. I'm sitting in the darkness of my hostel room with the lights out and the shade drawn where I make my permanent residence for the next 8 and half months, in the beautiful city of Luxor, Egypt. It is the place of dreams: smash India, the Middle East, and Africa together and imagine the possibilities.

I am stuffed, exhausted, dehydrated, intestinally destroyed, and elated. I'm drinking a re-hydration beverage that tastes like the ocean with sugar added and it will launch me into my daily one hour comatose sleep that happens after lunch and before dinner where I have epic dreams and wake up with a slow thundering heartbeat. Often its just a walk upstairs to get a towel to clean the photo equipment that leads to me falling asleep with all my clothes on and my industrial air conditioner blasting as donkeys hee haw and the collective prayers of a thousand men droan from outside my window.

Thus far I have had no time. And I mean it. Up at 6.30am each morning and out to the temple by 7.30am where I photograph talatat blocks until 2pm, these are "stone blocks of standardized size (ca. 27 by 27 by 54 cm, corresponding to ½ by ½ by 1 ancient Egyptian cubits) used during the reign of Akhenaton in the building of the Aton temples at Karnak and Akhetaten." Thank you wikipedia. The blocks can be dated around 1350-1330 BC (as I like to say "older than God") and feature a wide range of images, including everything from standard hyroglyphics to images of horses, cows, sacrifice, offerings, kings, and queens. The people I work with are versed enough in Egyptology that they can literally read the blocks as if they were a book - it's quite impressive. Indeed, I have been hired by the American Research Center to photograph 16,000 such blocks. I think everyone has recognized this to be impossible and I feel a little better about my inability to realize that goal. To do that within 9 months, I'd have to shoot about 100 a day, or one every 10 minutes. But each rock must be carefully wrestled from a staggering stack inside a cave-like magazine so that it can be documented, treated with various resins and chemicals, given a unique number, and cleaned before it gets to me, where it must be properly leveled, dusted off, and lit with the studio lighting to highlight all of its relief/detail before I can move on to the next rock. All of this under a tent in the desert of Karnak Temple.

The most amazing thing about working in this place is the way you are surrounded by mind-blowing artifacts and its not like they are always set aside as tourists attractions, much of the time they are just an inherent part of the landscape. Just outside the ARCE hostel for example is a huge trench that resembles a huge moat or a miles-long empty swimming pool with a dust floor featuring beheaded Sphynxes for as far as the eye can see. They are not set apart from the city, but instead intermingling with sleeping dogs, horses, children playing soccer and stick fighting, even karate lessons.

While I am completely overwhelmed and underslept I feel very blessed to be here. I love my day job. This is by far the best I've ever had it. Sure I don't have a long line of amazing work to brag about, I've scooped ice cream for famous people in New York City, served up delicious Jerk Chicken Sandwiches and Lattes at a cafe in Brooklyn, worked on an English Magazine in St. Petersburg and freelanced for the St. Petersburg Times and taught English to hip elite business men and women there. So this basically blows everything out of the water.

The challenge for me will be to make my time here work for me. I came into this job thinking I'd have too much time on my hands, that I'd take up some stoic monastic life studying Arabic and teaching myself to play the guitar in my room. The reality is I have zero time and I have to find a way to change my workflow around so that I can put aside time for myself - for exploring this place, photographing it, and other activities. I cannot get too wrapped up in my work to let the opportunity pass me by. Thus far it's been staying up until 11pm dusting talatat in Photoshop and straightening images and fixing backgrounds and black levels. I will meet with my boss tomorrow to figure out how I can do my job without investing 12 hours a day into it.

There is always a running list of extra-curicular activies to be had - beyond the little favors: printing some photos of the guys from work, helping the guy at Karnac with his Russian in exchange for Arabic, taking the birthday girl out for dinner, going to the market for necessary fabrics and accessories - beyond that there are bicycles to be had, to take a ferry out the West Bank (the other side of the Nile) and ride through the sugar cane and photograph, get some motorcycles and drive over the bridge miles down the road, rent a hot air balloon and sail a mile high above the city, which is caked in satellite dishes and epic sunsets. A trip to Morocco here. A jaunt to Uganda there. A New Years visit to St. Petersburg?

There is too much. Too much. And free cappucinos from the kitchen. Tuesday, actually, was the first day I actually resented not being in America. I stayed up until 2am to catch the first polls of the Presidential Election come in and then I was up at 6.30am watching Obama give his acceptance speech, almost in tears, before I had to run out to work. I would have liked to experience that in America, the excitement, but I'm getting it from all the over here, where Obama is championed by the Egyptians and they are still congratulating me on his victory. They, like the rest of the world, recognize what this means. Things are going to change.



I will be back in July. By that time, America will have gotten a taste of Obama-style government. It will be interesting to see if the same spark that is lit in the hearts of Americans and foreigners is still lit then, because as he said, the road ahead is long and hard, but I have every faith in Obama, his administration and the country's ability to bounce back. I, like Michelle Obama, would be one to say things like its not until recently that I've felt truly proud of my country. I know she's gotten a great deal of flack for that statement but the last 8 years have been rough and ideal-shattering. I want America to be regarded with respect and admiration again. I don't want to be associated with my country's abominable actions in Iraq and Guantanamo. Now, for the first time in years, I am proud to say that I'm an American, because I know that this image of us has changed. The enormous strength and convictions of one man and all the excitement, hope and positive energy he evokes has transformed the game.



I am excited about returning to America someday. I probably won't make it my permanent residence until my old age, but I love what's happening there. For now though, I like this life. I have always been interested almost solely in two things: photography and travel. If this is the way to do it then I'm sold. This place is amazing.

hi mom

for more photos of me on the roof of the hostel and other activities in Luxor, go here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ommphoto/

Day 1 & 2

(yesterday)

I have been running on adrenaline for what seems like days now although today was just day one. Really though, today was an eternity -- everything, literally everything blowing my mind. There is little time to write about it because there is so much to do. And this is how I like it. Non-stop. Jimmy-puff sent me a quote:

"There's been time this whole time. You can't kill time with your heart. Everything takes time. Bees have to move very fast to stay still."

(today)

Well the sadness is gone. It disappeared immediately after the first night. I haven't had a sad thought since. Not one. Every thought is an exclamation point. A lack of vocabulary. A feeling of being humble. I feel like this will be the best year.

There are a billion plans: plans to trek out to the red sea and go diving in the world's best diving waters. Plans to rent a motorcycle and drive it to more world-class Egyptian ruins, plans plans plans. Everynight we all find ourselves on the roof of the Hostel where the sunsets are so epic and the stories are endless. Archeologists have crazy stories. Arabic comes about half a dozen words a day. I've got my basic greetings and numbers 1-10 down. In general, Egyptian people amaze me. They are incredibly kind and compassionate. Considering our government's actions in the Middle East I didn't expect such a warm welcome. And my job. I love my job. I'm working in one of the most amazing places in the world. I can't really describe it. There's just ancient Egyptian temples and blocks and hieroglyphics everywhere you turn, lying everywhere. It feels like I'm on some Hollywood set for Indiana Jones and its all there for you to touch. Climb on. Read. Interpret. It's one of those things you have experience in the flesh.

Time to go clean the gear of dust - to insure that it lasts this will be necessary to do almost everyday. Dust is everywhere and it is so fine - like powder. when you step in it, it bubbles up and covers your leg in a layer of soot.

I came into this thinking - I will have to learn to be with myself for a year, I will have to find ways to keep my mind and heart healthy - play the guitar, study Arabic, live the Stoic life. I was so intent on being careful to keep the lonely at bay. But I see that that will not be an issue. My days are full, and I don't need to look for any activities to busy me.

Day 1, Luxor Egypt

After commuting for something like 36 hours I finally arrived in Luxor, Egypt last night around 9.30pm. It is now 8.30am and I've been up since 6am. I was instructed to sleep - no working allowed on this first day, but the adrenaline of being here, the red light pouring in through my window and the time zone confusion woke me up at 6. I have to say it - I am thrilled to be here. Last night, my heart was heavy with travel and a bit of anxiety, I went to bed with a racing heart and my stomach raw. I wanted arms around me to take me into sleep someone to comfort me and beyond a few chat messaging sessions with my dear friends there was only me myself and I in my big new bed. I put on the ring my mother gave me, she had said, "so your father can be with you now" with his birthstone in it. When she had given it to me in the States I could not imagine wearing it, but now it has taken on new meaning. It is my protector in a sense, but also a way of not being alone. I have told myself that this year is for me, that it will be a meditation on getting my life together, on developing a career, on becoming more grounded and adult. This means, obviously, not fretting about men and boys and relationships and not meditating on lonliness. So wearing this ring, I almost feel like I've been married off, like I don't have to muck around in all of that anymore, that my goals are real and in front of me, guiding me through this place. Maybe it will also prevent some haggling out of respect for the sanctity of marriage. That would be an added bonus.

For now, I will try to get some sleep in before we go off to the temples where I'll be spending the next 9 months. Once Owen, the other photographer who travelled with me yesterday from New York awakes and eats breakfast, we'll be on our way. He was able to sleep in it seems.

More soon. Very soon. There is much to be said for this place.

sand falling

I am in need of sleep. Soon it will be take the train to the other train to take the cab to the house where the equipment arrives. then take a cab to the airport the next day to inspect the equipment with the other photographer. get it ready to cross borders. go back into town drink drinks. kiss a boys lips many times. as many as possible in one night. and oh my brothers. somehow fall asleep. to rise again the next day and return to the airport and fly many many hours and then sit at another airport many many hours to fly another hour to arrive and by cab to go to the place. the place which is the temple. and brothers. put your bags down, take a shower, and crawl under the covers. to awake alone in the room with the sun pouring in. this is the desert friends.

And in between all that - vote for Obama. Pick up business cards. Mail
cell phone to girl. Buy vitamins.

But for now. A poem.

To The Hand

What the eye sees is a dream of sight
What it wakes to
is a dream of sight

and in the dream
for every real lock
there is only one real key
and it's in some other dream
now invisible

it's the key to the one real door
it opens the water and the sky both at once
it's already in the downward river
with my hand on it
my real hand

and i am saying to the hand
turn

open the river

- W.S. Merwin

Airplane log: NYC to Istanbul June 2002

People can’t fly anymore without recalling that image of a 747 flying into the world trade. It’s an image perpetually fresh in our minds, a permanent picture-file catalogued in our collective database. When I look at the blank monitors on the plane, and everyone around me tucked away in sleep, wrapped up in identical blankets, knocked out by the lowered levels of oxygen, I see the image pop up on the screen again like it did for a week, playing on loop like a trendy new music video. DeLillo was right, we all get some kind of deep kick from watching human catastrophes on a large scale. The power of the present moment rarely reveals itself to America on any kind of intimate basis. People in China die. US embassies in Africa get blown up. The Palestinians send in suicide bombers. But New York is ours, they said, our king, with every rook, pawn, knight, and castle standing firm. New York goes down in the permanent archives.

I hate when they lower the oxygen. Everyone else falls into a coma but I just get a migraine. My head starts rolling like it does after days without sleep. Ideas spontaneously emerge in the strange space of a silent sleeping city, crawling through the thin air between the stratosphere and space itself. All of a sudden all your ideas seem urgently important. But it’s only because you are writing them under this oxygen-deprived cave-man condition. There is something almost ancient and holy about all of it. Back in the day nomads and Native Americans huddled around fires in tee-pee villages. Up here in the sky, purses and money pouches is our fuel. We jingle our jewelry and sleep; hibernate together, our ghostly breaths and nose-hummings mesh together into a celestial amen. We are the elite, we have gathered here to pray. We just don’t know it.

07.03.05

it is my task to not think of
you a hundred times a day;
to occupy myself with the quotidian,
the spiritual even,
but not you.
and if it comes up in conversation
by association or conjecture, "you",
it is to be a kind of mourning
a kind of letting go.
i wish there were a contract
that i could sign, telling me
in small or large font that
if my love were true enough,
that i could trust that my
number would come up one of
these dayz. that somehow by
default the sun would rise 700
days from now, & you would
return & i, i'd be figured out,
everything finally okay like a
bath filled with water warm
& ready for displacement.

january 2004

the sound of thunder can only
make me think that the
whole world is inside of
a huge paper bag.
the sky stretched overhead
like a plush electric-
blanket, quiverring with
the collective charge of
24 million energizer bunnies.
we all march around like
that, trying to look well-
acquainted to the earth.

march 2003

Angled & snipped
like paper snowflake
remake my heart
every day
origami heart
origami eyes
i shall not suffer the
same demons
i shall walk straight lines
the language of small talk is
leaving my lips
Jack Kerouac has moved in
again, colonized my ears
like honeycombs. dripping the
saliva of golden hornet-soldiers
Bukowski has moved in again.
Ginsberg. do not bite your tongue
at me sir. i'm repainting the
town brown. turning over the
soil & putting down new
bulbs.

shortcomings of mankind (may 2004)

1. airports
2. tv guides
3. elections
4. telephones
5. academia
6. suicide
7. crushes
8. college tuition
9. time crunch
10. stomach acid

saturday oct. 9th 2004

but every once in a while there comes
this most amazing day that unravels
out before you like a neverending red
carpet. you recall the memories like
they was last year and by the time your
head hits the pillow your cheeks
are flushed. heart embers still hot.
you sink into the other world
as easy as you sunk into
this one. there are good days.

wednesday, early August 2004

3 strikes. strikes
across the heart
and you're out.

three strikes
why did i even
attempt

i come home. come
home. you break my
heart everytime. you
make me cry. i had to
get drunk before i could
see you each time. bar
tender knew it was
bad news. i saw it in
his eyes.

maybe she is better. i can
accept that. the dark
eyes. the strapless shirts.
she's got it - i see it -
but it still doesn't give you the
right to sit there silent
& make me feel like i
don't exist - i guess this is
where people move on. they
say - i've got mine, &
you've got yours. so long.

i found you, in a city of millions. sitting at
the bar where jimmy said you would be sitting.
sitting with your lady love drinking the same
whiskey you always drank, discussing matters of
business. worried they'll make your life hell
for stealing half a bottle of olive oil. you
see me - greet me, but again there's nothing
to say. i just got back from russia
again & i'm doing the rounds.

yes, you're part of the rounds, believe it or
not - i don't know why now. there'll
be no more crawling back now, boy.
i see it now clearly as day - we can't
be friends in this world that's getting
more & more scatterred. my heart
thunders these days but i feel more
human walking the earth alone anyway
i don't remember how to walk with
someone else.

i wrapped my feet so they
wouldn't blister. i drank plenty
before i let my best friend call
you on the phone, but it's the
same shit everytime. the same
disappointment. do you remember
what it's like to be alone? i've
always been like this, since i
can remember. i can't afford you
making it all hurtful again.
so, yes. goodbye. i know you've
already said it years ago, in her
arms & eyes. but i say it now with
confidence. i'm broken. you have
jumped ship. it's tragic, but
the ocean is infinite.

so this is it, right? what day is
today? it's wednesday. early august. and
i don't think my heart breaks anymore
i'm at a loss for words, though. i don't
really feel like it's a sensation that's
even worth writing about either, because
life is so manic. schitzophrenic like the
weather, it's probably kind of like the
feeling you get from fasting for a
long time or being oxygen-deprived
from climbing at high altitude. it's
the spit in the back of your throat &
then suddenly your tongue is numb & you
are no longer the mind looking out
through your eyes. all of a sudden
your visual perception, you notice, is
now in a separate place from your
mental processes. as if someone
started projecting a movie in your
head from behind your eyes.
you never walked
into the theater, though. you never
even bought a ticket.

welcome to the desert

"Your a traveler at heart. There will be many journeys."

the grammar was off, but the fortune
cookie was right
as was Rushina when she told
me back in Petersburg
once you know what you want
clearly one thing above all
other things
write it down on a piece of
paper
it will come true
she wrote down: a man
i wrote down: Egypt

that feeling

do you get that feeling
once you've had a drink
and there's a couple in front of you
and they are all touchy feely
the guy is kissing her on the cheek
and rubbing her arm or holding her hand
i am getting to that place where i
really need arms around me
do you get that feeling?
like you are going to fall into the arms
of the first person that is acceptable.

sept 7

emptied out and alone like
every sunday morning. i
greet the world pale and
underslept from some
couple's couch or friend's bed
i carry a sense of lostness
that no one seems to
be able to relate to.
a visitor?
a future resident - regular?
how long can it last? a year?

plans

currently im thinking this:

take temporary residency in philly at my
friends apartment for 100 bucks a week
find stupid coffee shop/book store job
until i can land something decent

possibly fly to new orleans at some
point, end of october or other time
when serene is there
get introduced, decide if i can hack
it in a post-apocolyptic swamp

get back north. make plans. make more art
get a better camera, some lights
shoot some weddings do some
freelance
get a career
choose life
choose obama

fleur

what did i get myself into

first day of work and i already wanna quit.
ahh, so much for me and corporate america,
i was just trying to make a buck, but i
forgot i'd have to sell my soul

my day started at 6.30am, roll outta bed
and eyes are red. couldn't sleep of course.
make yourself pretty, put cover-up on the
poisen ivy leg scars. put on a nice
outfit. do your hair. grab the cold
coffee and pasta outta the fridge.
grab the directions. and go.
one hour drive on some treachorous
highway in american chas peak
-that's rush hour in russian.

i get there 45 minutes early,
drive around in my car for a nice
place to sit down and eat
something. there's nothing but
fastfood so i pass and go
to work. wait in the lobby for a half
hour or so reading a book. lady comes
down to meet me, brings me upstairs
to my cubicle. no one is around yet,
too early i guess. she has nothing
for me to do, except read an old
machine manual that some italians
made. i read that until the man
shows up. he gives me a little
tour of the G14 machine - the
one that makes the packaging for your
nice italian coffee with the valve
on it to keep it fresh

then i get about a 200 page manual
print out that i'm just supposed to
sit and read. it's straight up
just like machine parts - i can't
tell you how f-ing sleepy this is making
me. i've downed a whole canteen of
coffee and i have to go back for more
and they've got the air conditioning
up so high i've got goosebumps and i'm
tugging at my sleeves to keep me warm.


i watch the hours drag on. at five ocklock
i inquire about my hours, i can leave, i
am informed. i leave. i get outside and
realize that the car i borrowed from
my ugandan pal won't start. i left the
headlights on. i go back into the plant
asking random people for jumper cables.
nobody seems to be able to help and
the people who usually take care of it
aren't around. i almost start crying.
the idea of asking my mom to drive an hour
in traffic to come jump start this car
isn't appealing. somehow this ukrainian
guy pops up - igor. he's mutters something
about having some personal cables around
and we go for a walk. im like - "igor where
are you from?" he says "ukraine". "oh nice,
i speak russian." "me too" he says.
he's got a 29 year old kid it turns out
we walk out to the parking lot and he shuttles
me over to my dead car. "ok gde tvoya mashina?"
"where is your car?" we drive around to the
other side and after some fidgeting we get it
working and i thank the man in Russian, he says
"no thang" in Russian and i'm on my way.

an hour and a half later, after missing the
turnpike exit and screaming at all the drivers
passing me, i get home. exhausted. dehydrated.
depressed. my mom of course wants to know
how it went. i tell her it was horrible. i
start to cook a burger and i'm so hungry
i don't let it cook all the way. i dress it
with mustard, ketchup, gluten free bread,
tomatoes and i go out onto the porch where
i am alone and i start to tear into the
burger but it's totally raw inside but
i'm so frusterated i continue to eat it out of
rage and i'm simultaneously crying into my
burger and it's just getting messy and
then i get so angry i yell and spit it out
and get mustard everywhere. i lay my head
down on the picnic table and cry into the
wood.

i don't know if i can get up tomorrow
and do this all over again. when i got home
i wanted to call someone, but i realized i
really don't have anyone to call anymore.
my friendships have dried up. my relationships
have scattered to the wind. maybe i will
scatter to the wind. maybe soon.

visit to my sister's

Make a Smilebox slideshow

a logical impossibility

"You know, this happens a lot to Russians. The Soviet Union is gone, and the borders are as free and passable as they've ever been. And yet, when a Russian moves between the two universes, this feeling of finality persists, the logical impossibility of a place like Russia existing alongside the civilized world, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, sharing the same atmosphere with, say, Vladivostok. It was like those mathematical concepts I could never understand in high school: if, then. If Russia exists, then the West is a mirage; conversely, if Russia does not exist, then and only then is the West real and tangible. No wonder young people talk about "going beyond the cordon" when they talk of emigrating, as if Russia were ringed by a vast cordon sanitaire. Either you stay in the leper colony or you get out into the wider world and maybe try to spread your disease to others."

Absurdistan Gary Schneider , 2006

poem from high school

how dissappointing is
the end of my day
with what
tether of imagination
do i recall your
image
this is my illness,
charmer,
my time feels,
unimportant,
trivial
how easily do I
become distempered
by the good fortune
of my satellites
the elements
cutting down and nearing
that blood organ
the domain
of affections
tenderly snipped
you are a test.

Sun June 1st

Gotta write Denis a letter - apologize. I'm so out of it right now, trying to steer my head clear of depression. Keeping busy definitely is the key for me. I should explain how I've been unable to be productive without a computer. I should explain all the film from the Grand Canyon and Portland, just sitting around. About how Sobaka magazine requested a picture from me and I couldn't even send it because I couldn't hook up my hard drive to my mother's computer, and then when I finally got to a computer in Philadelphia, I brought the wrong harddrive. Many tasks don't get done like this.

I should explain the empty hours wandering around the city with Anastasia, with Wilkes, and with Tim. I was telling Wilkes - I guess life makes a lot more sense when you know that you'll go home and every night eventually that other person will be there - it makes life make a lot more sense. What is that that the kid in Into the Wild wrote? Something like "true emotion is shared emotion" I'll have to look it up.

Everyday I consider the possibilities - the next step. Someday it will be great to have a home, to have someone to come home to. Today I felt so unexperienced at life. I helped Tim move into a new apartment - a row home on a block where he's the only white guy, him and his brother and his brother's girlfriend. I helped these folks move, packed up the Uhaul, drove over the new place and unpacked it. And Tim's brother is 22 i think and he feels so adult. He's lived in Bolivia and his girlfriend is fearless - the way she drives the U-haul and seems to have already lived a whole life - you know, its like she's done all this before and this is her 2nd life. I don't know where all that confidence and i-know-what-I'm-doing feeling comes from, but I sure don't have it.
America is strange though. What I expected. I don't really know where to insert myself into it - I don't know if I"ll ever feel at home here - and I'm not saying that I'll feel at home in some other country - doubt it, I suppose it's just a general feeling of not belonging anywhere.

But what about this girl - this girl that was locked up in a basement for 8 years in Austria ( not the one who was locked up for 20 ). She comes out and she starts her own talk show. A 20 year old - she was down there from the ages of 10 to 18. She never even finished high school. I mean she was right about the being gutsy thing - about how you'll never grow if you don't present yourself with challenges. So I have much respect and I hope I can learn to live with dignity.

I should get back to the San Fran kids just in case - tell them I'll be available in July. I should do the job search on Craigs list and the other journalism search engines rigorously.

I should explain the feeling of being a renegade of sorts - running from one person's house to the next - from one city to another. I'll use writing and reading to heal I guess. and NPR. Folks behind me on the train speaking Russian - comforting - I will apply for the interpreter's job - I would enjoy that.

I would have talked to you now. on the train. but you are asleep. it will often be like that. calls will happen at the wrong time. i could not talk then with the noise of the hipsters on mushrooms in their utopian freak show, with the muffled mobile phone connection, with Wilkes sitting next to me, and the sun beating down on me. I'm sorry. I do miss you now, quiet on the train, in need of a shoulder to lean on, a hand to hold. But out there in the middle of all that mess, I am outside of myself.

a new life

I want a new life. I want a new life where I get up every morning before 9am and I accomplish things. I want a new life where I don't go online every 8 hours to fullfill the void that is my life. I want to be outside everyday, on a bike or running. Things are out of control at the moment. Every day I seem to be able to do less and less. I use to have an agenda and things got done, but now everyday my ability to set a task for myself and accomplish decreases and decreases. It's been raining for days. Last night I couldn't sleep at all. Up all night, turning over and over on the couch, going online to chat with friends and family, listening to music, I even took a bath after the sun came up but even that didn't feel good. Something is wrong. Just a couple weeks now, and I'll be in a new place with a new agenda. A blank slate.

you keep secret, i keep dream

“Y’know, I grew up in a different generation. I grew up after World War II, and boys did different things in those days. You went camping. You went hunting. You boxed. And the image of a writer, to someone starting off in those days was not some schmuck who went to graduate school. It was Jack London, Nelson Algren, Ernest Hemingway. Especially coming from Chicago–a writer was a knock-around guy. Someone who got a job as a reporter or drove a cab. I think the reason there are a lot of novels about How Mean My Mother Was to Me and all that shit is because the writers may have learned something called ‘technique,’ but they’ve neglected to have a life. What the fuck are they gonna write about?”

–David Mamet

old friends

One fine night back in March 2008, a bunch of old friends managed to get together at a bar. Some hadn't seen each other in years. Some had been in some silent war or grudge which prevented them from speaking. Others had recently fallen in love, others out. Some had plans to move back to America. Some had plans to move away. Some were horribly lonely and in need of a good time. But for a good hour or so, all of them were devilishly happy. Those who were down and out remembered that we're all in the gutter together. They laughed, knocked back a few drinks, and went home smiling. For the most part.

Cathartic

You probably think I'm miserable all the time. What a sensitive creature. So fragile and pathetic. But I'm not. I would rather not talk to you if you are just calling to say that you aren't coming home. Music blaring in the background. The voices of your bandmates. I would rather not talk to you because I've been in a good mood all day since we parted ways after lunch. And then you call and boom. Now I'm angry. I wish you didn't have that power over me. I hope in your next life you get to be with someone who's totally preoccupied with her bands. Who leaves you every weekend. Who's only in town half the time.

Your bandmates. I hope you like them a lot, because they're going to be the only thing you've got.

I'm sorry, though. Sorry I'm so full of anger. I guess you never really intended for me to hurt, and never really understood why I turn off the moment you say something that upsets me. Quizzical. Why I cannot look you in the eye. Why I answer all of your questions with either silence or a dead-tone one word answer.

So I guess I don't know how it's done - being my boyfriend. I couldn't tell you. It probably seems like everything falls under scrutiny. So you ignore it. You don't respond to my messages and I don't say them to your face. So we cast this silent war. SMS's, emails, silent lunches. Weekends with you in other cities.

Last weekend I got so drunk off the tall drinks and the graduated cylinders of Jagermeister that looked like blood, carried around by those girls in the skimpy little red cheerleader things, that I almost left this world the following day. I had to come back into the city in the morning to stroll around [read: teach English] with some important guy from Coca-Cola, he got me a slice of the salmon/broccoli kish and i touched it once with my fork and I had to excuse myself to go the bathroom. Sweating, heart racing, I washed my hands and swore to myself that I would not puke on this nice man in that cafe. Two hours later when he let me go, I got on the metro - rode until I got to Electrosila and had to get off. Again, heart started pumping and I stood up suddenly, as if something bad had happened. Breathing hard and standing near the doors. Wishing the people leaning on either sides of the doors would move away, in case the vomit starting flying. I tried to focus my thoughts, deep breath. Just a couple more seconds. Take it easy, now. Get off - walk around the platform until I think I'm ready for the escalator. OK, here we go. 2 minutes later I'm out. AIR. snow. sleet. cold. Don't care. I walk. I walk the 5 kilometers home along the highway.

...

Denis makes a mean soup.

home, i, me, my

I'm discovering myself again in the music I used to listen to and the things i used to read and write. its funny to rediscover yourself like this, having being buried in someone elses world, in their domestic life, their records, their food. this is not a bad thing - let me emphasize. i use spices i never used before - i use dill as often as possible. i fucking love tea. especially the funky mixed tea with black and green tea together and rose petals. but to hear again the songs that used to guide me, and read the poets who used to form my world, it is so refreshing. to dream again of home.

letter to j

i did it! i know its not a big deal for anyone else - but it is for me, these days small things mean the world to me. I stayed up till 4 last night drowning myself in TV and internet and youtube and meditating on how i'm letting my life slip away and how i should be able to go to bed as soon as i'm tired and wake up in the morning and live everyday. and i shocked myself. I was able to pull myself out of bed at 8am and catch the marshutka/train all the way up to chkalovsky to hop on the circus bus back down to pavlosk. i photographed the event and although they are not the amazing shots i took before I'm just proud that i got my ass down there and shot and talked to the volunteer who's in charge right now about my plans to go back to the states and work out some kind of grant with SOROS to help raise money for these guys. thats one of my ideas. It's true - i'll come back here from time to time but i know now that its time to explore other parts of the world. there is so much more to see than this sappy gray city. Larisa the art director of the circus said in the busride back "why are you so dependent on russia?" and she's brought it up before and she's absolutely right, and thats why, i told her , i'm on my way out, because i need to see some other places.

but most of all, im learning that i want to work with people that are interested in helping people/ improving the state of the world. before it was a pipe dream and now it is just a fact of life. i remember discussions with you where you were all torn up about having to help people - make the world more equal and I agree, there just has to be a way to do what you love and help the world at the same time. you feel me? i think you do cause i think you're doing it.

fleur

Letter to Mom about buying ticket back to the US

It's very hard to press the button. It's very hard to move. Despite how much I want it I'm sure you can understand - my life here as become easy - clients call me to teach them English for 20-30 bucks and hour (mostly just means talking to them), and I record advertisings for phone companies, translate website, do photoshoots, and DJ - free drinks and 40 bucks a night. I have a free friend haircutter, connections at the St. Petersburg Times, the homeless agency, the child circus, Russian and American friends, discount cards at restaurants, and free entrance to night clubs. You see? I will have this all if I ever want to come back, but it truly is daunting to leave it and start again from scratch.

Ha.

Sara

Phonecalls from Shnur's Satellite Telephone

Russia is such a strange place for the first week or so of January. People are universally unreachable, don't pick up their phones and are generally out of contact. It is undefined when they will return to work, when they will even be able to remember what day it is. I have been getting to bed late, around 4am and rising around 2 or 3pm. That leaves one hour of light. Not so hot for someone who is sitting at home all day by themselves.

I don't really know how to be happy for Denis when he calls from Switzerland. He always asks how I am and is very kind and notes that yes, I have a cold and offers help and asks about my day. But when its always the same thing, and he notes the tone in my voice, the "fuck you tone". He tells me about how they snowboarded all day and now they're up in the mountains and about to play a concert at this beautiful venue there where John Lennon once went to hang out with his wife (he just read that in the biography of Lennon I bought him for New Year's). I cannot be excited or happy for him though. "You're in a really bad mood, what's that all about?" It's always the same questions and my lack of answers. "I'm fine, just sick of sitting at home by myself." So I am a bitch. I hang up the phone and I'm generally frustrated because I thought I'd gotten over this being mad thing, but I cannot seem to have a conversation with him where I don't hang up the phone and he is upset with me for being so mean and I'm upset with myself for being like this. I don't know. I guess I've realized about a year ago that the situation doesn't work for me as a person, that I need to be away from this life where one of us is off doing things and seeing things and the other is always stuck and always depressed.

But the point is I'm not depressed I guess it's just that when he calls and I'm sitting in this dark room as I always am, tapping away on this computer, I wonder sometimes, what could I possibly say "Hope your concert goes well! How was the mountain? Did you snowboard well? Sounds rad!" I just cant be that person. I guess its mostly about me sending him a signal that this is not OK. Or that I'm not happy with the situation or whatever. If you can imagine - it's been going on for one and half years, so it's not going to change.

But it doesn't matter, I always hang up the phone feeling bad. "Do you miss me?" he asks and I don't know how to answer that question either.

I write back an SMS: "I'm okay you know and I don't try to be mean and you aren't doing anything wrong by calling... I just can't bring myself to be happy for you when it's always the same situation. You are always very kind and considerate and I always come across as a bitch and I feel bad afterwards. But I don't know what to say sometimes. It feels so unfair sometimes to hear about how great it is where you are. I hope you understand."

I had wanted to write a 2nd: "Of course I miss you. You are always away from me. Now I want to get away." But I caved in and just wrote "Whatever, I'm over it, I'm making good art and of course I miss you."

After all this I get a response a couple minutes later: "OK Malipus (the equivalent of babydoll i suppose) sleep tide :)" Yes, with the stupid smiley face attached and the incorrect spelling of 'tight'. It's nine oclock. If he were listening to me when I was talking to him on the phone he would have known that lately I'm going to bed somewhere around 4am. So this message kind of just struck me as - "ok, my little stupid girlfriend, go to sleep now, I'm going to go snort another line of coke and drink another shot and go on stage and play my rock and roll now. Nighty night." I donno about you but its moments like this when I know this isn't the person for me. Conversation, serious conversation, is something that me and Denis don't have. I know it's just an SMS message, but this is Fleur here - you know, I am an emotional sensitive person that needs to be able to talk things through with people and in our case, it's just not there at all.

PHew. Got that out. Now I can move onto something else. [Happy face here.]

Letter to Denis

I made a little artistic breakthrough today and I'm feeling much better. Artistic breakthroughs are really all I need in life. And the occasional friend. It's funny though, how these things come about. You can't just sit down and decide you're going to write an awesome song - it usually comes out of some pain/drama in your life. Like your song "Last night" - i feel like that sort of just came to you when you started thinking about all of the rough shit you've had to deal with in your life. Anywho, that's how my emotions are - very much dependent on what im making with my photography. So i apologize for saying or writing things you don't wanna hear. I know that it doesn't really matter where I am in the world - its more about being able to apply myself to my work - to be productive and creative. And its definitely a process - It can take a week, a year, or 10 years to get to the place where you are consistently making good art, but its always something you cant really control - it comes by accident by life experiences and all that.

It's 4am and I'm still awake. Head is on fire. It's like this. You have shitloads of time - a whole two weeks with no work and not a clue of what to do with yourself - hating yourself for not going out and shooting amazing pictures the way you used to. the way you shot when you first came to russia, and everything was fresh and seen from an alien's point of view. I passed a flaming dumpster on my way out the house but i didn't stop to shoot it. Then I start to get down on myself - so much time! You wait and pray that some kind of creative push will come to you. Then it finally comes. Finally, it comes, and now all you need is time, and most of all, to keep the spark going. Sometimes it means staying up all night cause in the morning it will be gone. Sometimes its about having nothing else to do - total isolation, no work, no appointments. If I could be more efficient at seizing this creative thing when it happens, oh man, oh man, i'd be unstoppable - the way i used to attack my scrapbooks as a kid, and make the most raddest collages. If i could bring that creative force back, the spur of the moment all-nighters where my hands are flying and they can do no wrong. I remember discovering it with the National Geographic magazines. Cutting and pasting and everything that i put down, every haphazard scene was electric and so very right.

I'll have to scan it I suppose and get it on flickr. The world, at the moment, is run by flickr, didn't you know?

Fleur

fuck sadness