year 2017, week 33.
Some other things going on besides the moon and the sun.
Monday
All of this hype about the solar eclipse has people leaving the cities for rural America en masse. With their new found love for nature they gather in parking lots with their Amazon Prime “Solar Eclipse 2017" throw away glasses and stare up at the spectacle in the sky. A few hours later, with the oddity over and retinas burning, they head back home. Antelopes watch as the Wyoming highways turn into LA gridlock.
Ahh nature.
Tuesday
Inside his book Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey has a discussion with a tourist visiting the Canyon lands in Utah. It basically goes like this.
Tourist: there isn’t enough water and stuff out here to sustain life.
Abbey: there is just enough to support what needs to be here.
The way I think that is meant is that out here in “The West” there is just enough resources to sustain a certain amount of people. We are part of the circle out here. Of course there are a few places that are forcing the scale but for the vast majority of the land can handle only a few people per section.
There needs to be a change in societies approach to this land. Let the masses live in the cities and let the rural few live on the land. No more of this one size fits all approach. New Mexico desert dwellers should live different than Iowa farmers. And both should not live like NYC urbanists. But if you go to small town New Mexico or Iowa there is a Walmart and McDonald’s just like in the urban centers.
To me this is the biggest problem we as a human race face as we hurtle through space. That and that orange faced fuck brain.
Wednesday
Weekly photo review.
Photography for me has become more than ‘making a great image’ or ‘capturing the decisive moment’. Instead is has become about editing my images into a story. Building and modifing that story then packaging it for future generations. This photo is about that. It isn’t a special scene to me. I don’t have a connection to the car, the house, that tree in the front yard. But this photo in sequence with others and words make up part of that story.
Thursday
Tuesday’s post can come off like I am on sided. And although that might be slightly true I also wrote it in a Starbucks. On free wifi. On my iPhone. While drinking a vanilla latte. While having the Subaru dealer change the oil in my wife’s car when I am more than capable to do it myself for $80 less. So there is that.
But I am really not a hater of the urban enviroment here in Albuquerque. In fact I am partly to blame for it. But I do wish it was differnt. And I do wish I was able to help make it so. Not just in a “I’m doing my part” kind of way, but rather in a “Let’s rebuild this shit” kind of way. And I’ve said that before.
That is what my “art” is all about now. Making the way forward better. I want it to be part of something bigger. Will it get there? Will I succeed? Eh. Some days I might argue that I am already ‘there’ or ‘succeeding’ and others I might be willing to donate my cameras and wipe my hard drives.
Friday
With one more week before September I am meeting goals I had planned for January and February on my collaboration projects. Not that I am ahead of the game really, I know that I will probably lose a lot of momentum when I go back to work. So for now I am carrying the progress forward on my end.
