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January 31, 2020

WEEK 3 OF 2020

... yes, i did say "one entry per week" ... hmmmm, right, how about we consider that i'm going to try to average that, okay ...

... john and i made a little wanderabout down along the coast ... we found this really cool railroad spike sculpture near rockport ...
         
    
... temperature hovering around freezing, little wind, and the warmth of the sunshine made for a most pleasant mid-winter day along the coast ...
         
    
... john gifted me a little glass crystal ball ...
         
    
... sea ice was trying to form along the shore ...
         
    
... perhaps canada's desolate arctic coastline from low earth orbit—no, simply a tiny bit of ice melting in the sun atop a granite breakwater block ... fascinating ...
         
    
... just for fun ...
         
    
... hmmmm, do you think they've made their point ...
         
    
... hidden in the glade i spied upon the plaid-jacketed nutty-haired super-duper-lens guy ...
         
    
... in the little harbourside park across the street from camden's public library, edna st. vincent millay, a child of the little town who became a gift to the entire world ...
         
  
... here she is in 1914, photographed by arnold genthe, a great portrait photographer from the early 1900s ...
         
ARNOLD GENTHE
  
... i've always liked her words, of which some have inspired my photography ...
         
I see things with my own eyes,
just as if they were the first eyes that ever saw,
and then I set about to tell, as best I can,
just what I've seen.
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

... me, a quick snap by john using my semi-super-duper lens ...
         
    
... in the harbor, almost-ice water ...
         
    
... from a long ago age, a time when during the second game of a double-header it was easy to find an empty seat right alongside the dugout in fenway park ...
         
    
... not all that shabby, considering that i shot this little guy through the plastic screened window on bill's sunporch ...
         




January 16, 2020

WEEK 2 OF 2020

       
... my "once a week journaling" idea is already proving more difficult a transition than i'd anticipated, but i'm going to keep at it ...

... as i've said, this year i'm going to distance myself a bit from facebook ... nothing to do with acquaintances and friends and family, it's simply that during the coming eleven months i don't believe that spending time in facebook will be healthy for me ... i'm hoping all of you will stay with me here, and that you will converse with me using messages, emails, texts, or, perhaps, even the little "comment" box on the right side of this page ... if i've not already placed you in my journal contact list, please make sure i get your email address ...

... slushy snow and slick ice this morning, so john an i made our little wanderabout of the town ... down by the 2¢ bridge i snapped a nice portrait of him, and i also managed to find a nice perspective of the 117 year-old span ...
      
  
       
... at the new hotel being constructed across the street from me i chanced upon a most interesting composition ...
      
       
... dr. bill asked me to do some family portraits for christmas ... using my home-refurbished sunpak 611 and scratch-built battery pack, i was quite pleased at how well i was able to light his daughter's living room ...
      
  
       
... from several years ago, john on one of our coastal wanderabouts ...
      
       
... christmas at the tracy's ... here walker and dan celebrate a moment of brotherly sharing (and, yes, we all enjoyed it while it lasted) ...
      
       
... dan's growing up, meagan—well, she's almost there ...
      
  
       
... grant observes while dad performs the most ancient of christmas rituals, "figuring it out" ...
      
       
... his little foot chaotically resembling a spinning windmill with a loose bearing, clearly entertained, grant has no idea that mom is also teaching him to read ...
      
  
... tom, who now towers over me and is training his way to running a marathon, while my wonderful kitchen cleanin' emily's great smile proves that some christmas presents are, indeed, timeless ...
      
  
  
... county commissioner robert asked me to take a picture of him at his "office" in the skowhegan municipal building  ... turns out that canine sheriff brady is the center of attention in somerset county ...
      


       
... my friend, bill (dr. d.), wanted a new photo for his linked-in account ... i snapped this one while he was cleaning the driveway at the cottage in milbridge ...
      
       
... a few days later he came over and i took a few more in my "studio" (read that: big room with a patch of white painted on a wall) ... this is his as usual response to my "smile a bit" request ... i'm fast on the shutter finger, and i couldn't resist playing with this result ...
      
       
... i did manage to get two nice shots of him, which, considering how he is in front of  camera, is a pretty good result ...
    
   
       
... em and dan came over to help me with house cleaning ... after we took a stroll down by the head of the falls ...
      
       
... baby little tessa is growing up so fast ... i think she figured out christmas ...
      
       
... using the latest version of photoshop, i revisited one of my favorite color slides of pa ... this was taken in 1978, when he had fulfilled his lifelong dream of "retiring" to the west indies ... he'd built a giant fish trap and had it anchored next to a coral head about sixty-feet from the shore (only another twenty-feet to his living room) ... with it he was feeding ma and himself, and also the rest of the neighborhood ... still, i miss him ...
      

... there you go, "week 2" of 2020 ... hmmmmm, maybe this'll be the year we find that monolith on the moon ... ??? ...

... what a wonderful week, indeed ...
      

January 4, 2020

CHANNELING MA WITH OATMEAL COOKIES

    
... i decided to make cookies ... all by myself ... from scratch ... figured step one was to find a recipe, then follow it ... internet for the first, the second would be will power ... put bowls holding the ingredients on my counter, then, before mixing them up i took a moment to close my eyes and step back into ma's kitchen ... i picked our house in alaska, circa 1961, of course, because cookies are most appreciated by a ten-year old ...

... as i worked i found myself immersed in a sea of memory ... waves of metallic creaking as the oven liner expanded, an aromatic fog parfait wafting about me ... "that's good, patrick, but you need to tap the pan after you've floured it" ... how satisfying, the sublime satisfaction of an egg cracked perfectly ... "no, don't add everything at once, a little of each in turn" ... pa, in the living room reading argosy magazine, suzzie galloping around the house on her little wooden stick horse, mike reading, a boys' life magazine being pretty much the only thing to distinguish him from pa ... ma, "if you don't stop eating the batter we won't have any cookies" ...

... (that was one of our serious philosophical debates: "why," we would ponder,"does it matter when we eat them" ... to this day, i believe, the issue remains unresolved) ...

... making cookies with ma, creating knowing how temporary the creation would be, was another of many lessons in the meaning of time ...

... and, yes, i cried a bit as i was licking the bowl ...
     

... as christmas should be ...
     
     
    
... from a little around town wanderabout ... the waterville's soon-to-be posh hotel ... i wonder if the tree will be respected ...
     
    
... one of my main street friends ...
     
     
    
... robert asked me to take a photograph of him in his government office ... while there i also snapped a few images of brady and his chums ...
     

     
     
    
... john and i shared a little wanderabout in the direction of pittsfield ... at vittles we enjoyed a most excellent lunch, after which i noticed some dried plants outside the bank ... while taking this picture a bank lady came out, "oh, what are you doing"  ... "just enjoying the dried plants" ... she accepted this with a smile, which i thought was nice but also—well, i mean, do you think someone would answer, "oh, i'm casing your bank for a heist i'm planning" ...
     
     
    
... i like this picture 'cause it shows exactly what i saw ...
     
     
    
... envisioned even as i pressed the shutter button, the simplicity and symmetry of the composition belies the two hours it took to coax it from the original images ...
     
     
    
... i'm going to do something a bit different this year ... rather than posting per event or happening or whim, my plan is to make a journal entry once a week ... "why," you ask ... no idea ... also, i'm going to distance myself from facebook ... again, "why" ... many reasons, but probably foremost is my belief that this year that particular venue is going to become an unhealthy place for me ... if you're not already on my journal mailing list and you'd like to have your address added, please do so using the comment box or send me an email ...

... also, this year i'm going to republish "the rocker" as an on-line ebook ... "why, this, patrick" ... that one's easy, it will please me to have more people read the stories i write ...

... time for bed, but—hmmmm, is no way i'm going to pause "caddyshack" ... after all, it is quite possibly the greatest movie ever made ...

... g'night ...