In Washington, D.C., a white van is no longer simply a white van. A white van is a terrorist devise. It is something from which deranged men--and, yes, it is always men--direct high-power rifle fire randomly into the pedestrian mass. A white van is a potential bomb waiting to ignite during a rush hour morning. A white van is a message sent from deranged "holy" men in far away lands. And, perhaps what is most frightening, a white van is ubiquitous. They are everywhere, on every corner, at every intersection. It seems that vans only come in one color: white, a symbol of purity and innocence. How's that for irony?

Stumble It!

A very good photo blog from Portugal posted a shadowed light pole image last week. This is the soul mate to that photo, published in solidarity with light pool lovers everywhere.

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7140/1364/1600/lamperception.jpg

Two light poles on two sides of the Atlantic. It is a small world afterall, just like the folks at Disney told us so long ago!

Stumble It!

Today is the 1 year anniversary of the MusicFromTheFilm photo blog. Because I could think of no other way to celebrate, I repeat the first entry from January 2005. In case you missed it then. Or something.

"Sometimes it's hard to take it all in at once. Sometimes you just have to sit back, or stand back, take your chin in one or more hands, and just try to figure it out. Even then, it might not make sense all at once. Sometimes what's going on has to become clear in stages. Sometimes none of it makes sense no matter how long it digests or how hard it's pondered."

Stumble It!

I'm sure that it's just the way you've always pictured it. Hot pink and all!

Stumble It!

It's sort of like Picasso or one of those guys. But more like Music From The Film. Sunlight and a stand-up bass played by a stand-up guy.

Stumble It!

She had been watching him for days. Now that she had tracked and followed him across the country, she wanted to know everything he did. He was the man responsible for the death of her husband and young son. He was the man who spent a few weeks in court appointed detox after the car crash and then was free. He wouldn’t be free for much longer. Last week she had met a man who built a black box for her containing plastic explosives and a cell phone. The box was now attached to the bottom of his car. She followed him down the tree lined street and pulled over to the curb when he turned his car into the curved driveway. She lit a cigarette, reached for her mobile phone and dialed the number. Then she turned up the volume on the car radio.

Stumble It!

Stumble It!

Stumble It!

I had this weird dream last night: a neighbor had put their house up for sale, or it had been up for sale for awhile but I just learned about it, and the deal was that no one could go inside to look around. The owners wouldn't allow anyone to come inside of the house. Everyone had to judge the liveability of the house by looking at the outside. The owners wouldn't or didn't explain why they didn't want anyone to go inside of their home. I didn't ask. I looked at the outside of the house, like everyone else did, and then left to go back home, thinking to myself that it was going to take a long time for that house to sell.

Stumble It!

The storm is coming. It's been building for awhile. The sky will open up and it will rain, and the rain will wash away the grime in the streets, and the water will flow away, into storm sewers, where it will be channeled to the Bay which is suffocating on the stench and on the filth. Afterwards, when the rain has stopped, here it will be cool and clean and quiet, until the next storm.

Stumble It!

Love and Peace in the land of Evil and Venal. I still can figure out how it all happened this way. I guess history will eventually tell us.

Stumble It!

Ahhh, it was a grand long weekend at White Grass. Thanks, Chip, for finding the snow! And to Laurie, thanks for the restoration. We will be bathed in the glow until the next time.

Stumble It!

Stumble It!

I’m a little saddened every year about this time. It’s not only because of the weather, which is cold and damp and gray and dim. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday is an official holiday in the U.S. and although the holiday celebrates his birth, it is his death that I remember on the holiday. I was a college student in 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. I was studying for some examination with a friend in the dorm. I am guessing that the test was for French, which was my worst subject. I never made time to study it; the French text book always ended up at the bottom of the stack of books I had to read or study. I was in my friend’s dorm room and the radio was on, as was usual. The campus radio station broadcast a great selection of rock, classical, jazz, just everything all mixed up together with some occasional dialog about current events on campus and in the country. The war in Vietnam would have been a primary topic then. It was quiet in the room. My friend was at his desk, I was sitting on his roommate’s bed with my back against the painted cinder block wall. His roommate was away somewhere. The radio sat on the desk and was just loud enough for both of us to hear. The D.J. came on after a long set of music, sounding tired, and announced that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot while on the balcony of his hotel room in Atlanta, Georgia. My friend, without a word, turned around and looked at me, pained, then stood up and walked from the room. I don’t know where he went, but he wasn’t in class for the test the next day. After he left, I just sat there, stunned. The room was quiet. The radio was on, but there was no music and the D.J. didn’t speak for a long time. I sat on the bed and thought to myself: “This is the end, then. This ends all hope for a peaceful resolution. We are truly alone now.” And I still think, that in some way, that is how I feel. We are alone now, having lost something that can never be regained.

Stumble It!

If you want to be noticed in Washington, DC, wear yellow pants.

Stumble It!

The cafe was closed for the season. The tourists had mostly all gone back to the places that they came from. The city was quietly draped in Winter grays. The umbrellas that only a few weeks ago sheltered the out of town diners from the sun, now looked like ghosts; a part of the Winter landscape. The people who lived here had their city back for the moment, but few seemed to be willing to take advantage of that fact. The days were short, the weather cold. And many of the cafes were closed.

Stumble It!

I don't think that Jackson Pollack could've done better.

Stumble It!

I got the Winter Blues again.

Stumble It!

A walk in the woods.

Stumble It!

It was always the same dream. Or, rather, always the same nightmare. She woke up in a strange house; a large house somewhere away from the road. It was dark in the house. The sun was just coming up over the horizon and so the light was yellow and bright where it came in through the windows. As she slowly moved through the rooms, wondering where she was and how she had gotten there, the fact that she knew this place began to grow stronger. This was the movie star's house in California. She remembered it as it she had once been there before, but she knew that that wasn't true. She'd never been in California before, and certainly never in a movie star's house there. She could see the dust floating in the air as she walked through the open rooms. The movie star lived there with her husband, who was a director from Eastern Europe. They were both celebrities, but he was probably better known. She remembered that the movie star was pregnant with their first baby. It was very quiet in the house and yet she felt very afraid to be there. She came around a corner after passing through a dining room. That's when she saw the blood on the floor and that's when she saw the bodies. That's when she screamed and woke up, shaking.

Stumble It!

The hunted, the haunted, the hopeless, the lost, the shoppers out for bargains, whatever the cost.

Stumble It!

The promised land.

Stumble It!

Happy New Year! It feels, somehow, oddly like the old one: same city, same war, same leadership in place, same conflicts, same hunger, same sameness. Just a different number to put on my checks: 06 instead of 05. It will all grow to be something new, however, in the Spring. Of that, I am certain.

Stumble It!

Deck the walls with rounds of holly (and big, big bows)! Then strangle the trees with tiny lights! It's a festive look!

Stumble It!