Feels like dye-inn?, hardly, Benborn

Only thank God men have learned to forget quick
what they ain’t brave enough to cure.

The Hamlet William Faulkner

The front cover of my 2021 New Years Card mostly images of Alameda Creek. My sister and my son during Facebook Messenger video chat in the bottom row.

Alameda Creek

When you look at a photograph mostly you are intending to get information from the image and the image may or may not communicate to you.

Sometimes it may seem the information is not contained or expressed in the photograph. Red appears behind green being pulled by white. Who. where when is not important. Just a pausing moment while taking an afternoon walk. Its more interesting to wonder where they are going.

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Once a customer of a client used their software (database for chemical discovery)to develop chemistry to remove barnacles and the corporate magazine did an article on it which I designed and found an interesting high-res photograph like this hedge below of barnacles massing together which had download instructions with an email. with the specific implication that others could use the image. I tried to get in contact multiple times over a period of about 6 weeks before printing but to no response so I used it in the article.

Originally I put a slug credit for the image to the stated photographer. One person involved in lower level decision making did not want to give the credit because they did see any reason why it should be there. Just before it went to the printer, with the approval of the marketing director, we put it back in.

Do these people know or care that this image was made from across the other side of the Creek?

Is it sneaking around and spying on people? If you think photographs are supposed to be something more than just color, shapes, textures, human gestures. then wil lexpect more than is here.

black & white—red —all over

Older images have their own interest. when I was growing up in the 1950s, 1940s cars seemed “prehistory.”and pre 1949 automobile styles looked ancient.Cars lasted about 3-4 years and 100,000 miles was a lot of mileage ready for the junk yard. Still I lived near the city limits and some farmers had much older vehicles.

Big Mama Thornton outdoors at Lenox , 1970, I enjoyed her harmonica music.

Now cars will go 200,000 males, tires are a little better but their price has been pretty constant for decades.
Young man with dog, Connecticut, about 1971

Old West End, Toledo, about 1969, in this and the previous image, the men are smoking cigarettes.

Somewhere on the road early 1970s

Through the van window waiting at a red light in Allston-Brighten, about 1971, He may be in his 60s now, maybe he had a good life,That is why when I look at these image I reflect on where the lives of people I “knew ” for 1/125 second went. To me they have always been the same.

Once Morris had a thriving tire store along the northern artery coming into Boston from the north east—Busy Busy!
Some Urban Renewal project removed him and he was “re-located” to some nowhere street in Arlington, it was not convenient, but some old customers still used to make the effort.

Tom & Nancy , Salem Maine. 1969, along Route 42 between Phllips and Kingfield.

Man marching in Chicago during Days of Rage, fall 1969. Does he look like a “typical protester?” Does he look lonely? wold you recognize him if he is still alive now? Sometimes, because of his expression, I wonder if he was an “undercover” Chicago policeman. He is not wearing a helmet and his face seems unconcerned about having a confrontation.

Everything SOP Downtown Chicago during Days of Rage 1969

Demonstrations may fill the news images, but generally they do not disrupt other areas. Until digital publication, media had a finite capability of how much information they cold publish before the next story arrived.
Digital media qualitatively alters communication and while there may still be a finite capability, it is no-where-in-sight. Think of all the different media which can be used to print a word or hanzi, most are ink or light.

“Things” including things that existed before humans, make up the universe and people make more things from these some things of the earth. So many things to have words for and we can never catch up , we ca nnever name them all because they just pop out!

I often saw this house on the way to school taking the local roads from Scituate to Braintree.

1968 David was also a Sociology graduate assistant, neither one of us knew the other, or anyone else and for the first month we took a cheap one bedroom apartment where the living room couch was also a Castro convertible. David was bigger than me, the couch was smaller than the bed, and so ended up on the couch.

We have spoken words for things and symbols we use to express them in writing and our ability to express in different forms—media— is rapidly and uncontrollably expanding, the cost is going down and the ability to use the tool requires less and less skill—more and more people are expressing somelhing.

Krishna

But tell me
Madhava beloved
who are you
who are you really?

Vidyapati says they are one another.

Madhuban 20th Century from A Festival Krishna Harsha V. Dehejia

Oribe is often recognized by its freedom of expression, its very shape may appear distorted and bizarre with no regard for “basic skills” and yet when you get to know the bowl

Narumni Oribe chawan Oribe

Pottery is a basic creation for the solidarity of society. there needs to be containers to hold liquid as well as seeds and grains saved pottery containers.Often you hear someone says –I am an Artist , I make nonfunctional pottery yet it was being functional that is the DNA of pottery.

Kuro Oribe (black oribe) guinomi with ki-seto tokkuri

Oribe may have drips of green like you see on both sides
In Japan there is a class of inexpensive pottery and one group you will see what approaches oribe with decorating mass produced inexpensive products often found in a restaurant or for daily use in the home. It does not pretend to be “oribe,” you can feel the difference and its also fun to use. The light-brownish glaze may become crackled over time.
Oribe tokkuri .

In this oribe chawan you can see drips used as design elements The shape feels submissive as if its asking hands to hold it. Those potters who, by making beautiful and interesting pottery made and make the everyday experience of eating into a special experience —they have earned the greatest pottery merit.

End

The my feet on the sidewalk outside the entrance to the Sales Force Building in SanFrancisco. Used to take BART to San Francisco and walk around, some fun huh? A few times I wandered over to where they were constructing the Sales Force building. Before Covad it was a place like a park, or is park— I guess thats what i is—where people come to enjoy themselves in open space, The lights may change color and the intensity will varies.

From the Heart Sutra, hanzi calligraphy by Janney