Realizing reality

This photo by the famous American photographer Walker Evans was brought to my attention tonight. I have seen many examples of Evans' work but never this particular one. I recognized the location instantly, even though it was shot in 1935.

Digging through my archives, I retrieved a file that I had taken myself in November of 2006. And examining the image very closely I found what I was looking for. These stones look familiar? Click to view a little larger.



And a 100% crop:



It's eerie to me. While I think nothing of going to a place in New York City or a great national park that famous historic photographers have shot and shot again, the graveyard in Bethlehem is somewhat more personal of an experience. It seemed both awesome and ominous to realize that I had walked in this obscure little corner of a tiny little town, right where he had done 100 years before. And sometimes knowing that houses and streets and power lines don't change much over the course of a single lifetime, now it seem a little bit creepier. The reasons why he and I (that sounds weird) were moved to photograph the scene were probably for very different reasons. While the juxtaposition of the humble American town, steel spires and the gravestones tell a story themselves, in 1935 the steel company was doing quite well for itself. By the time I arrived and set up my tripod, all was quiet on the eastern front.

My skin is chilled tonight because now Bethlehem is changing. For decades it grew, swelled, subsisted. And now it is going, going, going.... gone. Life goes on, yes, but the injustices of economy and the moody swing of our society is sometimes realized (too late) to be an unbearably unpredictable ocean. Mr Evans' photo was a smack upside the head to how stark this reality is.

For the first time since took that photo, I feel like just walked over a grave.

Wow.

Deep Impact

My whole life I have been different. Not unique, but different. Children at school or at summer camp would chase me around making funny noises, asking me how I could see through my tiny little squinty eyes, asking why I was "Chinese." It never seemed strange that Asians were so rare, especially where I grew up, within sight of New York City. It was just something I never understood but learned to accept, and I learned to brace myself for it in every new social situation.


As I grew older I was far from "different." Asians were nearly the majority in my classes but I still never felt like I fit in with them. It didn't really matter, however, because I didn't fit in with anyone. As the years passed I just became Myself. It didn't matter that I was a little yellower than the next guy, or that my hair would never curl no matter what anyone did to it, or that none of the makeup tricks my friends taught me ever worked for my lack of eyelids. I was different still, but for once it was OK, because different = desirable.

(It would piss me off, however, when I'd go out for the night in DC and get approached by military guys who told me they love Asians because they spent ___ years stationed in Korea. Whatever, dude. Great opening line.)

I had an identity crisis that I never even knew existed.

Going to Japan was a slow-creeping, subtle, life-changing experience. For the first time in almost 3 decades, no one was looking at me. I fit in! Their hair was the same texture and were styled in awesome ways I had never seen before! Their makeup made sense! I wasn't the shortest person in the room! I was finally the bee girl amongst all the new bee people in the bee world. I loved being truly anonymous, no longer relegated to be "That oriental one." For once, I was normal and common and just a part of the backdrop. I could be anyone and I was anyone.


This revelation had many other effects, too. The homeless, for example, were much more tragic because they looked like me. Little grandmas hunched and pulling heavy bags were my grandmas. Every face with lines and a tired expression seemed an ominous prophecy of my future. I kept thinking I saw my mother, my father, even my sister in the city crowds. My uncle was a cab driver in Shimbashi. I swear.

Even though I am not Japanese and these are not truly my people, this was closer to home than I have ever been. Please excuse the pun.


What does this have to do with our side trip to the temples and bamboo groves of Arashiyama? Very, very little.

Arashiyama, outside of Kyoto.

Shorty

Russians are great. Russians rock.

Some of my weirdest stories come from when The Russians take me under their wings. I don't know if it's bubbles in the cosmos or just these particular folk but their lives are much more interesting than my own, that's for sure.


Today was muddy, rainy, cold and damp. The forecast promised sun, but as dawn broke over the city all we saw was the beam of someone else's flashlight where flashlights weren't supposed to be. We hightailed it underground to wait it out. The very first tinges of pink started to creep and kiss the bellies of the fat gray clouds. It almost promised to be a nice one, but who could say? By that time I'd messed up my 5-minute sunrise exposure and was sniffling in the dust of the water treatment facility.


I don't know how they treated water back in the 19th century and honestly it doesn't really bother me. I have no great love for this facility, even though it's fairly unique as far as abandonments go. It reminded me of Old Fort Point, just with more ghosts, and curious piles of tree branches were centered beneath every manhole cover. Though the smell of human waste was present, no life was present this morning. If the sun shone clear and the day were brighter, perhaps many more wonderful opportunities would have presented themselves between the hundreds of arched pillars. I can think of one thing that I'd chase: godbeams.


All it was today was dust, sand, trash, and darkness. And Russians!

Not really worth a revisit, I'd think, unless I happened to be in that neck o' the woods again.

Bones of the Earth

I have been doing a large amount of historical research on Glacier National Park over the last month. At first I dragged my feet about this, knowing full well that I suck at history and I am very glad that the majority of report-writing experiences are behind me now. It's been at least ten years since I've done this kind of research.

I'm really shocked at what I've found.

On one hand, my eyes have been opened all over again to the beauty that is the park. There is truly nothing quite like it in the world, no matter how many comparisons naturalists and surveyors will draw to Switzerland and the Alps. The people who came through it, lived there, died there and worshiped there are all unique. I wish I'd known this stuff at the time because it would have pushed the experience of breathing in that crisp mountain air to an even sweeter level.


On the other hand, I'm absolutely appalled at some of the corruption and controversy that I am finding between the lines. History has always confused my straightforward scientific brain because history is open to revision and bias. And how! It was silly of me to be surprised that the perfect natural ecosystem of the park is subject to this human pettishness as well.

So now I have all this data and am not sure what to do with it. I've been (smartly) advised not to touch the sour political crap with a 10-foot pole. It still irritates me, however, more than 100 years later: the selfish, short-sighted, inhumane greed and megalomania. It's difficult to respect those that protected the area knowing that there is so much negativity buried - literally - beneath its roots.

I suppose I need to come up with a few more euphemisms about the power of nature or something like that, prevailing over all, blah blah blah.