1700 Days.

 

Dear Rolling Skaters & Everyone Else,

Well, here we are!  Day 1700!  Did you imagine it?  I sometimes think back on my second pair of skates; I got them in 2008;  Strawberry Moxi Lollys.  They were a size too big for me, but I skated on them for a year, before getting a better fit in a low boot Riedell skate.  I missed the Lollys like mad, so I then got a pair in Floss- I still have them.  The low boot skate, a 595, is being used by my sister in law.  I also have, and have had, several other pairs.  Right now, I use this skate primarily.  It is the bomb!  It has incredibly stiff ankle support, which suit me and my joints beautifully.  Still, it's worth noting that I never would have tried such a stiff boot in my early days- they are like those wonderful Italian hiking boots; you have to wear them to get them to love you back.  

But what kind of discursive narrative is this?  Who starts with the second pair of skates, and trails off to the second to last pair?  What am I trying to say to you, dear ones?  I bet you can guess!  Skates come and go, but skaters are forever.  So don't fret about the numbers, the frequency, the proficiency, because none of that is where it's at.  Roller skate for one of these reasons:

You never have,

you always loved it when you were younger, or

you love it already.

(See how I have covered the past, present, and future?  Impressive, no?  Also, note that you don't have to love it every time, or every day, or every minute.)

With all of this in mind, you are now ready to borrow, beg, or buy some skates!  Here are the kind I want to try next:  Chuffed Skates.  Let's meet again in one hundred days, as usual!

checking in

 

Dear Winged Ones,

Have you seen this flyway cam?  It's a delight!  Here's another good place you can go; The Birdsong Project.  All these flaps and chirpings remind me of Messiaen, your song for today.

Ground Plane X

 

blue

 

three

 

the shore

 

stormy weather

 

things & days

 

Handbag belonging to Georgia O'Keeffe.

Dear Stuff,

These are the days, and here are the things.  The things are many!  All catalogued, and some  documented photographically.  Have a look at them, and let me know what you think.  There is something funny, odd, about all these things being saved.  I was looking for an image of her pastel box, when I found this startling collection.  I suppose that there is only one Georgia O'Keeffe, but there are many millions of black handbags.  How would one decide what to save in an archive like this?

In my own archive, I continue to winnow and sort.  Here are some things I am not keeping: a tiny chest of drawers, a shell fossil, a Stephen Crane book, a cake server, a wooden ark, a felted owl, a French dictionary.

Good days, and marvelous things, to you!

your song of the day

 

Dear Listeners,

This is your song of the day, and might become your song of the month, or your album of the year, or your DID of the decade.  Consider it, won't you? and check out more from Tomberlin.

debated, doubly

 

Mind Over Matter- Patience, Suzanne Jongmans.

Dear Indecision,

I have been debating whether or not to send you this artist's work.  I have some reticence about the objectification of women, even in this history referencing meta kinda stuff.  But, you know, I want to send you Vera Lehndorff and Holger Trülzsch's photographic work, too, and doubling up on objections/objectifications is, if nothing else, achieving 'more is more.'

Sirius, Vera Lehndorff & Holger Trulzsch.

But enough of my petty grievances!  Suzanne Jongmans has transformed these charmless, noisy, ubiquitous packing materials into ethereal and evanescent stuffs: the plastic and Styrofoam have become a part of "timeless" meditations on light as a symbol of spirituality, and Western ideals of beauty.  If you have time, look at all her work, and notice the wonderful cape of brown clay in the one titled Kindred Spirits- Lightness of Being.  In the image above, I particularly love the needle in the collar, as if the sitter has been sewing herself into the foam sheet garment.

Vera Lehndorff and Holger Trülzsch's work is another thing entirely.  Here, the photograph is still working at fooling the viewer, astonishing us, but also attempting to disappear the figure.  Is invisibility a stopping of time?  I feel it more as a merging with time, which is a pretty soft negation, anyway.  The figure is now melting into the environment.  If Suzanne Jongmans is bending the materials and figure to her meticulous vision, Vera Lehndorff and Holger Trülzsch are bending the figure to the ground.  I hope you will have the time to take a closer look; note the images of Lehndorff being painted by Trülzsch (here).  The zealot might enjoy this bit of fluffily intellectual art writing on fashion model Veruschka, aka Vera Lehndorff.  (Conversely, you know who you are if you can't stand being told what to think and you only like to look at the expensive ads and pretty pictures).

Bonus Track!  One more related photographic project for you, Eyes as Big as Plates.  Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen and their subjects are perhaps in the act of returning the figure to the matter of earthstuff.  Or, perhaps they are nestling them in?  Burdening them down?  To my mind, these photographs are not remotely objectifying, and I unreservedly recommended them!   If you don't look at any of the previous links, please do take a look at these lovely portraits!

Eyes as Big as Plates #Agnes II, Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen.

Winter scene.

 

light

 

Day One

 

Dear Diary,

We found a boa constrictor in a dumpster today.  What kind of omen might a 5 foot long discarded pet be for a year's beginning?

the first

 

Robert Indiana, ONE Through ZERO, 1981 - 2001.

Dear January,

Here it is, 2023, your first song of the day!  May it bring you pleasure all year!