Altrove

Up in the air, at umpteen thousand feet, suspended between Elsewhere and somewhere else, would seem like an appropriate time to reflect on the last few weeks, in the hopes of pulling together some loose threads and rendering some insight into what just happened. Things don’t go the way we expect them to, and I’m in no position to come to any conclusions at the moment.

I thought that I was going to be finished with my photography last week. I figured I had plenty of time left over, time to sort through everything, to explore the other installations at Elsewhere, explore Greensboro, relax, pack, visit, write, read, bake a perfect loaf of bread (finally), arrange some scenes from the photographs, say goodbye gracefully.

In the end it always seems the same: it’s a rush, and when all the dust settles I think about all the things I wish I’d done, wish I’d taken care of, wrapped up, explained, said thank you for, delivered. I guess life is like that, and suspect that dying is like that too. A number of times in this last month I had glimmerings of mortality, a sensation that while I am not unfamiliar with, I found curious. I think we all occasionally wonder about dying, trying it on like an imagined tuxedo to see if it fits in our mind. I come from a culture superstitious enough about Death to be afraid of pondering it, let alone discussing it (Was it Octavio Paz who wrote “Duerme con Ella”? I can’t look it up right now). Basically, the end always comes up too soon.

What I found curious essentially came down to my sentiment about my work. If I found myself superstitious about anything lately it was when I noticed autobiographical references cropping up in the work. It made me feel like I was reviewing my life from a point of distance (which is of course always necessary for reviewing by definition) which as a sensation it left me a little vertiginous. For the most part, the idea that I might die soon didn’t bother me (shh- I don’t want it to happen and mentioning it makes me nervous, as if through some sympathetic magic we can bring into being what we think about) because in theory we all die [or at least while the Universal Consciousness part doesn’t the particular does, and since I haven’t realized my inseparable connection to that Universal Consciousness yet (although I play one on stage) this particularized consciousness is understandably reluctant to call it quits] but theoretical understanding only gets you so far. In any event the thought that kept intruding on my speculations was that I would be profoundly disappointed if I died and my work somehow got destroyed. It makes sense that having invested so much of my life into my work, exploring it as a way to make sense of my place in the world, and trying to express that understanding (or in my case lack thereof) I would transfer my attachment to life onto my work. Dying in a plane crash didn’t bother me as an idea so much as the thought of losing my film did. Not that the work is any better than anything else I’ve done, and my feelings are the same with regard to that stuff too. And not that the work would make much sense at this point, since there’s still a lot of editing and presenting to do before it would begin to be accessible (although you could ask Monique to explain it - she knows the work better than anybody else - she’s too smart to do anything more than give you hints). No, if I die I suspect that my work would lay unfinished, although I have my doubts as to whether I can wrangle meaning out of it even while alive - much like how I feel about life I guess.

I stayed up till Sunday morning shooting the rest of the 9 rolls I bought Friday afternoon. My old friend Chris Keenan came to visit and I did what I could to visit with him while I continued shooting. Everyone at Elsewhere was running around too, even pressing Keenan into service in the video they were shooting and in the end it was a lot of fun. Sunday should have been a day of packing and sorting out my affairs, but I got distracted in the afternoon (shooting up all the Polaroid film I’d bought and not used) so I confess things were in a bit of disarray as we raced out the door to return the tripod I bought (it wasn’t very sturdy and was already starting to fray a bit after only a couple weeks). The store closes at 7pm on Sunday, and after several wrong turns, including a stint on some surprise freeway, we got there at 7:10. They hadn’t locked up and were perfectly nice about it, thankfully. I would have preferred to have a relaxed, lingering last meal and some tearful goodbyes, but then things don’t always work out the way you think they will.

I did bake a final loaf. I wanted to use up the starters I’d cultivated, and of course I had hoped that I would finish up this project with a flourish, wrapping the narrative up neatly in a last minute stroke of genius: a perfect loaf wrestled from the firey maw of the oven and displayed victoriously, cue the trumpets. I used about a tablespoon of yeast, and this time it did rise well (and despite the olive oil did stick tenaciously to the Dutch Oven) but I forgot the salt until late in the game and the dough was over-kneaded, and too wet in the final analysis. The loaf might have been ok but I think I didn’t bake it long enough.

I left the Dutch oven at Elsewhere, for when I return, and I gave the bread book and the starters to Monique. I suspect she’ll be a much better baker than I was, anyway. It takes patience, and a certain kind of methodical approach that I’m too distracted to practice.

Jesse, you can have the Genmaicha: it tastes good cold too, although it’s definitely hot tea season. Christopher, you should check out that copy of Tassajara cooking, you’ like it. There’s a knife sharpening block inside the bread box: sharper knives are safer knives. Sorry I forgot to sweep up upstairs. I’ll do (almost) everything I said I would when I get the chance. Meanwhile, be good and stay warm. Thank you all for everything. Oh, and don’t forget to take care of the cast iron pan. Don’t soak it, don’t use soap, and if it starts to rust, scrub it with steel wool and bake it, oiled, at 250 for a couple of hours.

Well, that was it. The first sneeze. Not a surprise really. Given the schedule I have been keeping, and the constant erratic diet and steady reliance on caffeine and alcohol to keep me going (beer does fill you up when it’s late and it’s cold). Last night was a chilly one, and contrary to my stated policy, I did not wear my long underwear to bed, since I did laundry and everything was, while clean, still damp. I’ve been dragging all day and as a result, I am coming down with a cold. An aspirin, a swig of Nyquil, and some French homeopathic stuff under my tongue and it’s bed-time. Best thing to do at the first sign of chill is take a hot shower, bundle up and go to bed to sweat it out. Two out of three, let’s hope they work…

I shot my last two rolls of film last night and took them to the lab before bed. When I picked them up, I was happy with some of the shots in the last roll and lamented to the fellow at the counter that they didn’t stock 120 slide film. They used to apparently, but don’t anymore. He did suggest the Ritz Camera on the other side of town and gave me a phone number. Turns out Ritz did in fact have the very same film I have been using (Velvia 100F, not the Velvia 50 which I started with, nor the plain 100 –no F- but perfectly acceptable). Nine rolls, in fact, and I bought them out. More expensive than New York, but availability counts for a lot in this circumstance. Of course, the Lab is closed, and I leave on Monday, so I guess I’ll have to take these rolls home and process them later. It’s a reprieve and I’m happy to take it.

We had Curtain Call last night.

It doesn't mean that the show is over - there's still some more shooting to do and I've still got a week left and hope to shoot up until the day I leave - but...

I am trying not to unwind just yet, but I am so tired. I took the film to the lab last night, slept for a few hours and picked it up at 3pm. 11 rolls, 180 shots.  I'll total up the previous bit later, but I did get some nice stuff this weekend. A  bunch of that shooting was bracketing one series of shots. It was six frames, left to right of the main cast out front on stage. given the tricky lighting, I shot it four or five times at different exposures, so that's a bunch of stuff right there, for just one scene. In any event, there's plenty of material, enough to keep me busy for the next year, I suspect.

I didn't want to shoot that scene last night, because I was afraid that it would mean that this was over. It's a tricky business, symbolism, because on the one hand you can see alot, learn alot, and even effect some kind of sympathetic transformation, but on the other hand for that to work you do have to surrender some control. It's a collaboration, you and the work, and sometimes the end comes sooner than you'd hoped.

Still, I do have plenty to do between now and next Monday, so I am excited at the prospect of being past the three quarter mark, more or less.

I learned two valuable lessons in film school. The first one, I believe Sandra Davis said this one, was "Film is cheap". Now, anybody who has ever worked with film (and this was a class in 16mm Cinematography) knows full well that film isn't, ain't never been, and never will be, especially if you are broke and living in Tampa going to art school, cheap, but she was right. You never get a second chance to shoot what is in front of you. Not if you are alive and you are staring the world right in the face. You are better off shooting and shooting and shooting until they pull you away (to debtor's prison most likely) than you are regretting the money you've saved. I can attest to this.

The second lesson was from Sonya Maxwell (same class at USF actually) when I was finishing up my semester's film project. It was days before the end of year screening, for which my project was due, and I still wanted to go out and shoot more, before I could finish editing. She yelled at me (figuratively, nicely, well-meaningedly, coming-from-deep-wisdom-and-experience-hoping-I-would-listenedly) and told me that there was a time for gathering and a time for editing and I needed to learn when to do both. I made some fast cuts that I still regret and showed the film [This was back when you could still get the  4X B/W Reversal Stock in 16mm from Kodak. I loved that film. For those  of you listening in from home, reversal film was a motion-picture equivalent to slide film: once processed you could look at the original without having to pay for a copy print from the lab. That's good if you are studying film-making and have no money, bad if you have issues about cutting the original film up in a scramble to finish by some arbitrary deadline.] To this day -19 years later- that remains the only film I've completed, and I still agonize over the cuts I made in my haste and inexperience.

OK, so I didn't learn the lesson about when to stop gathering very well then, but maybe, maybe now it's working its magic. I can feel myself shift gears, making my preparations mentally for leaving. They say that the art of living is essentially learning the art of dying well. Another lesson I hope to learn, but am reluctant to hurry into. Meanwhile, I am exhausted, having spent the last month sleeping late and pushing myself onward with alcohol and caffeine. I wish you could see the work, but that'll have to wait until I get home and can set the scanner set up. Until then you'll have to take my word for it that the work is lovely. Some of it is. Whether it all holds together in the end, well that's another story but maybe Beauty is sufficient for now. Sometimes meaning gets lost when we try to hard to make it show itself. It can be quite shy.

Start with a premise: Your Mind is everything there is.

Or to try it another way: Your Mind is the emptiness, the blank space, within which everything exists, or at least within which everything you experience exists. [Not in the sense that “things happen and your brain processes chemicals which recreate things hologramically in the three pounds of tasty bits inside your skull”, but rather in the “entirety of existence happens within” something that essentially is-not.]

Without getting into the bit where “Your Mind” isn’t even yours but just is “Mind,” pursue this premise to its logical conclusion: which is that everything that you think is “You” and “Yours” and everything else - everything that is “Not You” and “Not Yours” - become one totality. “Mind” is the parentheses that surround every event.

Or, to put it another way, the table is the stage that the Play takes place on, and also represents the space within which the Drama takes place. All the objects on the table are the Actors in the Play, and represent everything that happens within the space within which everything happens.

Having got this far, lose the premise because premises make for pedantic art. Instead, try to make a Drama that is as sincere as possible given the level of craft that the actors posses (this is table-top community theater after all…). Along the way notice how many subtle autobiographical details work themselves into the narrative (if there is such a thing in this world) and try to hide them as best you can because while all art is essentially biographical, it is the universal emerging from the particular that makes for transcendent work.

Repeat as necessary until Curtain Call.