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9.18.2001
leaving for santa fe today. made some japanese food for the folks here in oklahoma last night. then we all had the pleasure of eating home made ice cream. not sure really what is going on in the world. internet access is slow and limited and the tv never changes from FOX. heard all sorts of crazy things about satan seen in the smoke billowing from the towers and that its our "patriotic duty" to spend just as much or more than before the hijackings so the economy will not collapse. which i guess is the american dream. consumption, god, and rightousness. anyway. oklahoma has been great. the people are very nice. trees and water and lots of growing things. cows and horses. trucks. barbecue. but i'll be in santa fe tomarrow and will be able to swich channels. maybe even a new york times. and the lovely lovely colors of new mexico. 9.17.2001
watching way too much Fox news here in Pryor, and the Tulsa news paper is deeply heartfelt. so as you can imagine, i'm lacking any persective on this whole 9-11 business. worried that the mr. bush lacks depth. particularly when he says things like, "rid the world of evil." which i always thought was more of a philosophical and literary device to help us get our heads around life, rather than an entity to eradicate. check out Michael Moore's letter to hipmama.com - and lots and lots of good thoughtful coverage on Follow me here.
I've been in Pryor, Oklahoma for a few days now, staying with the Fells, maki's host family when she was an exchange student in high school. its a meat eaters paradise; yesterday i ate sausage, turkey, roast beef, hamburger, elk steaks, and beef jerky. this morning bacon and eggs. the dog loves to run around the farm with larry the sheep herding dog, and bark at the horses and chase the cats. leaving tomarrow to visit some friends in santa fe. then off to phoenix. 9.11.2001
oh my gosh. i'm a little freaked out right now. my wife, maki, has trouble waking up, so i will turn on good morning america in hopes of annoying her into getting up to turn it off. this morning i turn it on, and there is a live shot of one of the world trade center towers on fire. and the hosts aren't quite sure what to say about it. and right then, live, the second jumbo jet flies in and crashes into the second tower. i couldn't believe what i was seeing. the announcers couldn't believe it. and now both buildings have collapsed. freaked out. downtown chicago is evacuating. its kind of a lot to take in. just terrible. 9.9.2001
9.8.2001
big moving sale today. so far nearly $600. mostly in super 8 movie equipment and cheap priced to move photographic prints. still have so much stuff here . . . dishes, books, cd's - the entire national geographic on cd-rom. tables and chairs. plants. weber barbecue grill. tv and vcr. and of course that vintage computer. oh, and the universe threw me another nicety: a cashier at starbooks actually GAVE me a half pound of coffee beans after i said it cost too much. 9.7.2001
last day as a professional book mover at the university of chicago regenstein library - i have "layed hands," on over 500,000 books (12% of the collection) - effectively and safely moved from one part of the stacks to another part. its a great job. mind numbingly meditative and physical. largely unsupervised. but its time to get out - stay at a job like this for too long and you'll eventually find yourself moving books you moved last year to yet another place. starts get a little too sisaphyan (sp?) on the mental health. and sadly this job has left me with no transferable skills. "hey, i could move those books for you. fast." where else am i going to find a place that has millions of books that need rearranging? at any rate much much much better than printing photos of dead people. what this means for consumptive.org in the long run is many less links here on the weblog. no more half hour breaks surfing the library's T-1 line. i'll still try and post regularly, but not sure how much net exploring i'll be able to do. hopefully in tokyo i'll have a cable modem or something. 9.6.2001
nice things that the universe has thrown my way: found $100 bill in the gas station parking lot, right after learning that some criminal has been lifting money from my checking account which was minus $500! the library i work at has switched to new digital copy machines, and during the transition copying is free. which has helped me get some free books i am unable to afford. 9.5.2001
starting to feel the weight of moving crushing my head into my shoulders. finishing up with work at the library this week. big garage sale on saturday. get the truck on next thursday. still trying to find someone to rent out our house september 15, so we can get half a month's rent back. also hoping that whoever wants the place, also is happy to buy our couch, which we would rather not move. nights are filled with dinners and drinks too, as everyone says goodbye. URGENT: i have to somehow unload my computer. its a a vintage powermac 6100/66 (yes, from 1995) with 40mb of ram (that burned back then), 500mb hardrive, 16 bit graphics acceleration card, 2xcdrom, 17 inch apple monitor, zip drive, 56k modem, and polaroid sprintscan 35mm film scanner. works great for text manipulation, web site creation, and e-mail. goes to whomever has an offer that won't make me cry too much. or most likely to someone that makes any cash offer and lives in chicago.
spent the last few days reading the Film Developing Cookbook. tells you about everything there is to know about different developer formulas and effects. so many different films and developers out there, that make a zillion combinations of grain, sharpness, tonality, speed. once you steer away from using D-76, it gets really crazy out there. this book goes a long way to explaining the esoteric elements of film control. 9.3.2001
Graflex.org has everything you need to know about speed and crown graphic cameras. these things are great. i'm checking one out now to see how well it might work. in Japan i'll need 4x5 negatives to print on printing out paper. and these speed graphics are light, sturdy, and cheap. very cool. 9.2.2001
Cassandra Wilson tonight at the Chicago Jazz Festival. she is fabulous. hypnotic. her version of neil young's "harvest moon," gets me every time. 9.1.2001
wow. i imagine this has been around for awhile, but i never noticed until today. and its really too much fun. its google's image search. you can type anything in there and get pictures. strikes me as very strange.
the art show opening was great. lots of people came to see. many nice things were said all around. people seemed to like the new photographs from portland a lot. and afterwards i went out to a diner and ate a hot roast beef sandwich with gravy all over and mashed potatoes. very nice evening. 8.31.2001
8.29.2001
Jim Dine has been making photographic still lifes for several years that seem straight out of the unconscious. he works with an 8x10 camera and a digital film back, allowing him to see his results instantly and refine and restructure his images in real time. when he gets an image he likes, its printed out as a lush large photogravure for black and white, and as an ink jet on canvas for color. if you get a chance to see his photographs in person you will be rewarded with stunning reproduction. the more i look at this stuff the more i like it. 8.27.2001
hung up lots of photographs, including some new ones from my portland trip, in a gallery this weekend. big opening next friday, August 31 at OPEN-END ART, 2130 W. Division, Chicago - photographs by James Luckett and Mike Weis. music by Western Automatic. starts at 7. if you are in chicago, you should come and check it out. there will be beer. lots of beer. looks like we may get that great house in tokyo. but have to wait a few weeks to see if it all works out. other than that its packing and organizing and packing and selling selling selling. home is slowly dissolving into cardbard cubes. 8.25.2001
Barry Thornton makes his own home brew of film developer called DiXactol which promises to do everything good possible to your negatives. also, check out how his left side menu bar scrolls with the page. 8.21.2001
8.20.2001
Chronophotographical Projections - a history of the photographed movement. includes many many animations and details about the cameras and early flashes used to create the images. a nice place to spend a while looking around. 8.17.2001
8.16.2001
8.15.2001
i was just looking through the current issue of European Photography and came across the amazing photographs of Michael Wesely. he mounted five pinhole photographs overlooking the reconstruction of Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, and then let them expose for 26 months! the resultant photographs are specatacular. the first five photographs in this gallery are these time exposures.
in just a few months i'll be able to enjoy the tastes of Mos Burger - fast food with rich flavors - burgers made with special sauces and croquttes and all other sorts of yummy bits inside. even a special rice burger. just click on a burger to get a closer look. 8.13.2001
we are trying to figure out where we want to live in Tokyo, and have narrowed it down to a few locations based on price, closeness to the city center, and atmosphere. one place we like the sound of is Nezu, an older area, where we maybe able to afford a small house. i'm not sure what these pictures are supposed to be, but you can see a little of what Nezu looks like.
Third View: a rephotographic survey of the American West offers two comparison photographs of locations in the western United States originally photographed in the 19th century. amazing and sometimes startling the differences in the landscape from then to now. project directed by Mark Klett.
unpublished photographs from the great photographer Masahisa Fukase. he photographed crows a lot, which, if you don't already know, are considered by some to be as smart as chimpanzees. 8.11.2001
spent the day at the zoo and the conservatory with Jessica from new york. for some reason i love to take photographs at these sorts of places. many many shots of the seals from the underwater viewing areas - the blue of the sky refracting through the surface water swirl. also got into the fake dense habitats of the primates. noone ever really likes these pictures i make of foilage and animals. its fun though. also first ever martini tonight. i like those. more please. thankyou. 8.8.2001
big mess all around today. a truck filled with toxic chemicals overturned right next to the freeway exit i take to get to work. so all the highways and streets are jammed up . . . maybe even until this afternoons commute. so stayed home. which is alright - packing and cleaning up the house - its just that its the hottest day of the year. yuck. and maki is spending her day getting the car window fixed that someone busted out last night. a big bill we don't need right now. only good news is jess is visiting tomarrow from new york city! 8.7.2001
photographs and commentary by Gilles Peress, in my opinion the word's best photojournalist. his book Telex Iran is a must - a totally radical aesthetic for journalism: no decisive moment, no totalizing vision, no myth making. instead we get confusion, uncertainty, ambiguity, and visual facts. entropy. 8.6.2001
8.5.2001
as i search around looking for esoteric information on photographic techniques i continunally find myself at The Unblinking Eye operated by Ed Buffaloe. here you will find articles on sabatier effect, inspection development, latent image bleaching, rodinal, william mortenson's ideas on compensation developement and several very active and informed message boards. 8.4.2001
as i search around tyring to figure out esoteric photographic techniques i continually find myself at posted by James Luckett at 22:44 -link-
spent last night surfing the world wide web trying to figure out how to read and understand a characteristic curve for black and white film. still not sure what it all means, but did come across Alfred Robinson's Wide-Range Zone System, a supposedly better and simpler reworking of the old exposure control scheme set out by Mr. Adams. 8.3.2001
8.2.2001
Paul Meuller teaches Chemistry 103: Chemistry and Art - check out his class notes on ceramics, papermaking, paint, metals, and photography.
i've been spending my saturdays the last few months printing photographs from my trip to portland in january/february. expect a major addition to consumptive.org mid october. until then, not sure what's happening exactly. sorting and packing mostly.
Philipe Moroux has a short but good philosophy of photography - and uses a pinhole camera and kallitype to allow him to conduct all his processing in the field. beautiful photographs and rich site.
the plan worked out great. we were able to layout on the grass just after the back gate to the Radiohead show. music sounded pretty good, and we could watch the guys dance around on the giant tv monitors. they started to play around 8. it was the hottest day of the year, but a perfect breeze was blowing off the lake and during the show the moon rose up orange behind us, the sun set, and the city lights lit up - the entire chicago skyline rising up behind the stage. they played long time, two hours+ and three encores. after the second ended, the security pulled away the gates and so we were able to struggle up to the front. great night. and when it was over, i got to stand in the middle as 25,000 people made their way to the exits. best song was an extended 'everything in its right place,' and then 'paranoid android.' this morning is a massive thunderstorm that has the highways stopped up (npr reports that sewer caps are floating down the pavement) - so sitting at home playing old Radiohead records and getting down to reading, Why Art Cannot be Taught: A Handbook for Art Students by James Elkins. so far its a quick overview of art education and current dilemnas and predicaments. next chapter up looks like some harsh observations about a critique based education. very good so far. 8.1.2001
Radiohead is playing downtown Chicago today, in a great big park by the lake. 26,000 people have tickets. I figure, though, that it should be possible to enjoy a lovely early evening stroll and that there isn't much anyone can do if i should happen to occupy the same aural space as Radiohead. at least thats the plan. |
art, photography, and the uncanny splash photographs documents minutiae links write to me archives: september august july june may april march february january december also see: jouke alamut ebbflux nutz'so hypogee cardigan astronomy restaurant synthetic zero follow me here life of parents mors.ante.servitium zeitgeist 
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