Gitmo crossing? Or just a coincidental arrangement of fences and signs? You decide.

Stumble It!

A week and some daze away at the beach looking at the horizon where sky meets the sea and sound of the surf crashing blends in with the sound of cars passing on Route 1, loosing I.Q. points and taking things as they come. Returning to D.C. amid incredible rain storms with flooding almost everywhere. As we drive toward home, I notice sprinkled throughout the countryside of Delaware and Maryland, developments of Extra Large McMansions on what used to be farmland. They probably exist everywhere in America by now. I know I've seen this strange crop in Virginia and North Carolina as well. The homes stick out like gigantic melons in the middle of a field; 20 or 30 of them clumped together with no trees anywhere near to give them some shelter or to hide them from the road. After the recent rains, some of them seem to float above the flooded earth, elephant like. Who buys these things? Retiring farmers cashing in on the good money that corn or tobacco or chickens or cattle or horses bring? Maybe these could be updated migrant worker housing? Unlikely, probably. People yearning to "get away from it all"? Wouldn't McMansions out in the middle of nowhere be one of the things that they would want to get away from? It's all a mystery to me. I guest that's why I'm not a real estate agent, or at least one of the no doubt several reasons I'm not a real estate agent.

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Aware bears who care dare.

Stumble It!

Four things overheard on the street:

1) "I told her she was gettin' in way too deep. But all she said was 'Fuck off'."
2) (to a cell phone) "I'm two blocks away. Why don't you walk up one and I'll walk down one and we can meet in the middle. Where are you?"
3) "It's always deepest before the dawn, baby. Always deepest right then."
4) Don't you ever talk to me like that again, or I'll slap your face off!"

Stumble It!

He said: "The first job I had out of college was for a woman who ran a theatre company. It was a diner theatre company, actually. I was the "back office guy". I kept track of where the money was coming from and where it went. She was a widow. Her husband had been a recent member of the money pile made by the Vanderbilts. That huge pile of money had gotten smaller as it traveled over the generations. But, there was enough for a big house and a diner theatre company. She was either on "ups" when she needed to be up, or "downs" when she needed to be down. The kitchen drawers were filled with prescription bottles. Sometimes, after the day was done, we'd hang out in the kitchen and talk. Sometimes, in the morning, before everything started to happen, she'd tell me about what she did the night before. Sometimes it was theatre, or a film, but most likely it was about a friend who came over for a drink. One morning she told me about an actor friend who came over, locked himself in the bathroom, and cut his penis off. She was very matter-of-fact. I didn't know what to say, other than 'Oh, God', so I went upstairs to the office and wrote checks."

Stumble It!

It was a bad accident. He knew that. The SUV had come from out of nowhere and hit them straight on; there hadn't been any time to react or get out of the way. He always knew, somehow, that his life would be filled with drama. He knew that after he graduated from school that he would make lots of money and have lots of friends to keep him company and keep him amused. He knew that he was talented and good looking and that woman were attracted to him. He knew that he would live a long time in health and that he would be well known and admired. He knew that he had everything going for him. But, he hurt all over now as the ambulance sped toward the nearest hospital. He could taste blood in him month and he felt tired. He didn't know where his friend, who was sitting next to him in the car, was now. He could hear the sirens and knew that he would soon be good care, but, as the ambulance stopped and as the back doors opened and as they rushed to get him into the emergency room, he realized, in a crystalline moment, that he really didn't know anything.

Stumble It!

This is about dreaming.

Stumble It!

Stumble It!

Toward the end, he found it difficult to communicate. The words that he found in his head were not easily understandable to the people who came to see him. When talking about what he had eaten that day, he would be slightly surprise by the fact that the words “loquacious contagion” were among those he heard himself say. “Elemental evidence” was a phrase he spoke to describe the weather; “unfathomable quixotic disturbances” was how he felt about he long life as an artist. Somehow it all made perfect sense to him before he said what he said. But, when he heard himself say these things, and this may be partially the result of the expressions taking place on the faces of his listeners, he knew that these words were not quite what he wanted. “Unctuous collections of bad sense”, however, seemed to be an accurate statement of his current state of affairs. For this day, for this conversation, these were the perfect words to use.

Stumble It!

The persistence of vision: tiny flowers

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Stumble It!

Silver Spring, MD

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Stumble It!

I think that it's a combination of things: it's what you see, obviously, but also about the light. Sometimes what it's about is really the light; just the beautiful, soft, light.

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I guess that you could think of graffiti artists as a subset of plein aire artists. I guess. Why not? They both work outside. One paints what nature has provided him/her to look at on the earth that we all share. The other paints whatever jazz is coursing through his/her veins; whatever hiphop soundtrack is being imagined or listened to, relating it to the moment, right now, right here on this concrete wall. But they both do it outside, or whatever.

Stumble It!

The best parts of the day, for me, are the beginning, when the sun, even before you can see it, begins to lighten the horizon and then the sky, and the end, when the day gets a little cooler as the sun sets, the last few minutes a molten glow of gold across the horizon.

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