Different?

Tonight on the news Charles Gibson interviewed Sarah Palin. She continues to present herself as a change candidate, a Washington outsider, but when asked questions with a request for a yes or no answer she repeatedly answered in 273 word sentences that avoided answering either yes or no. Even when the question was repeated and the request for a yes or no response was repeated she continued to evade giving a direct answer. Different? She sounds exactly like the current president and VP to me.

Art is Art

In this morning's paper there was an article about a robotic chair that autonomously falls to pieces and then reassembles itself. It is being exhibited around the country in galleries and after the tour will be sold to a collector.

This is an example of what bothers me about the state of the art world today. "Art" is a broad term that covers many areas of creative endeavor but it seems me that its meaning is being broadened too far. Communication through language depends on words having meaning. They tell the listener or reader what something is and, by default, all else that it is not. In recent years I have heard almost everything including politics, sports and cooking described as "art". There are books on the Art of War and the Art of The {business} Deal. An Amazon search for books on "The Art of..." returns 1,293,083 matches.

Then there are those galleries, museums & grant foundations that exhibit and/or present awards to "installations" such as a folding table with overflowing ash trays and empty beer cans. Think Damien Hirst in a London Gallery. If a thing contains any one element, even peripherally, of the definition of art then it is deemed "Art". Worse, the distinctions between the various forms of art are being demolished. The dark scribblings of a drug addict trying to work through his/her addiction via art therapy are held on a par with the work of a trained professional painter, indeed in some venues they are valued higher because they are untrained and the "Art" they produce is therefore not derivative, a bad thing to be in the art world but inevitable to some degree for those artists who made the error of actually studying art.

With the robotic chair we have an engineering project hailed and exhibited as a work of Fine Art, worthy of exhibit in galleries and collection by an art collector. It is novel, creative in a mechanical sense and probably fascinating to watch it do its thing, but is it really "Art"? It seems to me that when the meaning of the word art stretches to include anything and everything we choose to apply it to, it no longer has any meaning. If it can be applied to anything, it describes nothing. A word that describes nothing is useless for communicating what something is. OTOH using the same rational by which the article concludes that the robotic chair is art, "It has no utilitarian value," D'Andrea said. "It is an art piece", one could argue that the word "art" itself is art. The ultimate self-referential work.

Two Viewpoints on "The Wall"

One of my e-friends is Darrell Bohlsen, a retired art historian. We correspond about art and recently discussed a NY Times article about an economist who claims to have determined the "Top Ten" works of modern art based on how many times works appeared in art history books published between 1990 and 2005. We both agreed that was pretty silly for reasons I won't go into here but my friend decided to make his personal Top Ten list just for fun.

Today Darrell sent an email with his #1, The Vietnam Veterans Memorial by Maya Lin 1982. He wrote "Although the AIA (American Institute of Architects) has honored it as Architecture I consider it a memorial sculpture qualifying for my list."

"Ms Lin has come up with a concept (at age nineteen) of a war memorial that rejects the traditional Manneristic, larger than life, solutions of dictatorships. Think, Moscow-Soviet Union, China, Cuba, or Saddam Hussain's Irag. Indeed, think Washington DC with Frederick Hart's Korean Veterans War Memorial, adjacent to Ms Lin's work."

"Ms Lin's work with its delta shaped granite rising out of a depression in the earth sets the tone for meditation on war and its dark polished granite surfaces reflect the observer and his/her involvement. I have been to the monument four times and have always been moved. Moreover the people I observed there have been also. Most I assume have no formal association with Art."

He went on to detail the history of its "improvement" (not in his opinion) by the addition of two additional features both in the historical style and concluded by recommending "Should you visit the monument in the future I strongly suggest you follow the wishes of Ms Lin and first walk to the wooded knoll that faces the monument on the opposite side of the site and walk over it to the other side. Then turn around and experience what the designer intended by going back up and over and through the trees you will encounter this powerful sight of mother earth opening up and accepting her sons and daughters home."

I responded that his choice for #1 is interesting and thought provoking. Memorial, architecture or art? All three? I have not seen the original but I have seen the "Traveling Wall". As a Vietnam Era Vet with friends who went to Vietnam (I was notified I was going to go but the orders never came and I never asked where they were) "The Wall" has associations to me that overwhelm the mere form of the work. When I went to see the traveling version, art was not on my mind and I'm sure Darrell is correct in assuming that most who visit it have no formal association with art. They don't go to see art. They go because of what it represents in terms of personal loss, a friend, a child, a brother/sister, a father or mother, a wound on their soul.

I agree that a traditional "heroic" memorial would not have been appropriate. Those things are propaganda designed to make us feel good about the sacrifice of young lives to settle political disputes. It is refreshing that we finally rose above that tradition with "The Wall", putting the price of war ahead of the false glory, but pathetic that so many had to die to do it.

As an Army photographer I used to photograph the ceremonies in which they awarded medals, photos to be sent to hometown newspapers. It didn't take long for me to note that if the soldier was still living the Commanding General always awarded the medal. If the award was posthumous it got relegated to the Deputy Commander, a Colonel. The General never did those ones, the spineless (expletive deleted). Burned in my memory is one ceremony where the young widow and a small child of 2 or 3 got dragged out to the ranges for a ceremony in the field because someone thought it was an appropriate location for a posthumous award to an infantryman. As the 20 something widow balanced on her toes to keep her high heels from sinking into the sand and the Colonel was handing the widow a folded flag with medals pinned on it, the child was pulling on her skirt and asking "Where's Daddy?".

My friend Darrell explained that he feels that "The Wall" has aesthetic merit that will continue to attract many visitors even in future when those directly affected are gone. I'm sure he is right. Maybe someday I will be able to step back emotionally and examine The Wall objectively as a work of art, but not yet.

Shifting The Ground

I'm not talking about earthquakes. It's time to post some opinion again. This is about the "quaky" stats that the media keeps feeding us. This morning on one of the news broadcasts the commentator said that fatalities in Iraq were "way down" in July. Only 11 US troops died compared to 80 military & civilian deaths a year ago.

Did you notice the statistical shift in that statment? 11 US military deaths vs 80 total (combined US, coalition military, Iraqi forces plus civilian) deaths from a year ago. Talk about comparing apples and oranges. Maybe they should have thrown in how many expatriate Iraqis died of cancer while outside the country a year ago to inflate the comparison further.

Those figures are bogus anyway. The devil is in the details, the details in this case being which deaths get counted. The iCasualties website lists 13 US military dead in July 2008 and I distinctly recall reading only a week or two ago about bombings that killed at least 80 civilians. And then there is the practice of not counting as war deaths those US soldiers who are air lifted out of the country for treatment and then die in a military hospital in Germany or the US.

Is violence down in Iraq? Are the number of deaths from insurgent attacks down? When we can't trust the numbers we are being fed and there is limited to no reporting on such events as the Iraqi Christians being driven out of the country or into hiding, it is hard to agree that the surge has really "improved" the situation and stability of Iraq unless you consider an ethnically purged society a stable society. I fear that all we have done in Iraq is changed one bad situation into a different bad situation.

15th Anniversary - ADK 46er

On the 17th of July I observed the 15th anniversary of completing the Adirondack 46 High Peaks by driving up the Memorial Highway to the summit of Whiteface Mt. For the original ascent of course, I climbed on foot including an ascent of Esther on the way and I considered repeating the climb for the anniversary but I really wanted to take my cameras and large tripod. I couldn't see carrying 25+ pounds of gear in a backpack so I postponed the re-climb until the 20th anniversary at which time I hope to have a party of sorts on top. I'll have some of the invited guests drive the photo gear up and meet me at the summit for that trip. :-)

Meantime I did shoot a lot of photos including a panorama of the summit (above) that I just got around to stitching together from 6 frames. I had planned to spend only about an hour on top but it was a nice day and I met some neat people including a fellow who was doing an insect survey. We had quite a chat and he pointed out a Luna Moth that was on the window sash of the summit building. I ended up spending considerable time photographing that moth. It was a very patient subject. You'd like to see the moth too? Here it is...

A Piece of Adirondack History

I finally got around to scanning my Grandfather's glass plate negatives (the few that survived and got passed down to me) and among them are images of an Adirondack trip he took with my Grandmother. The surprise was finding a photo of the Nehasane steamboat which was named for the private camp of William Seward Webb who built the first Adirondack railroad.

A Stroke of Luck

I subscribe to Ancestry.com's on-line services and I received an e-mail yesterday about updates to their site. One of the updates was a change to the user profile section so I decided to update my profile. Then, since I hadn't visited the site in several months, I ran a search on GGGrandpa Stephen, the major dead-end in my genealogical research. I do that as a matter of routine when I visit genealogy sites in the hope that someone, anyone, has posted something new that would give me another clue to where he was born and who his parents were. I got a whole list of stuff, the first being what I already knew and had posted myself and most being about other Stephen Bullards all over the country. The second was the 1850 census (been there, seen that) but the third item was an Army enlistment record. Awesome. I knew he was in the VT Militia during the War of 1812 but the enlistment record tells me when he enlisted, where, who recruited him, that he was 5' 10"" tall with blue eyes and brown hair, a fair complexion and the bit that I have been frustrated by for about two decades, where he was born, Jeffrey, NH. It was like reading the LOTTO numbers in the paper and finding that they matched the ones I played.

Hazards of Garden Photography

Today while I was bending over to shoot this photo of some iris blooms in our garden I felt something land on the back of my neck. It felt sort of hard and bigger than the usual bug.

"A big beetle?" I thought brushing it off with my hand.

As I looked up a house finch flew away.

Why a bird would land on my back, I don't know. I've never been a landing strip for a bird before.

What's in a Name?

I'm in Canada visiting my wife's parents. Yesterday I took a walk along the river in town and met another photographer. His name is Jim as is my friend from Vermontville who is a photographer and my grandfather who was a photographer also. I still have some of grandpa's negatives including a few glass plate negatives. Is there some sort of connection between the name and an interest in photography? Probably not but it is an odd coincidence.

This most recent Jim and I had a long conversation about cameras and the changes that have occurred with the introduction of digital photography. It is always enjoyable to spend some time with people who like the same things you do.

New Phone Numbers Travel Fast?

Two days ago I got a new cell phone. I immediately sent the phone number to family & friends via email. The first call I received was from my brother in Mexico. He has a Skype account and was calling me in Northern NY via his computer for .021¢/minute. That's cool. Since then I have gotten three more phone calls on my new phone, all computer generated tele-marketing calls. You know, the ones that start out "there's nothing wrong with your account but it is very important that you call us back at..." or "please hold the line for an important message". If it is so important why didn't a human being place the call? I occasionally get those same calls on our land line too even though that number is on the NYS and national 'Do-Not-Call' lists. I used to wait to get a human then give them a hard time "Don't you know you can be fined for calling a number on the Do-Not-Call list?" but Diane thought I was being excessively rude so now I just hang up before the human takes over from the computer. If it rings again immediately I just ignore it.

So what's the story here? Is Verison feeding new phone #s to tele-marketers as fast as they issue them? If so, that sucks. Somebody must be since there is no directory of cell numbers. We're paying for this service so I can be in touch with family and friends, not so that there will be a new channel for shoving advertising at me. I guess I'd better get this number listed on the Do-Not-Call list as well. I don't want to spend my day hanging up on computers.

P.S. If you are a friend I neglected to send the number to, email me. I'm not posting the number on a public blog for obvious reasons.

10 minutes later: My new phone is now on the Do Not Call Registry. The registry website (www.donotcall.gov) says it takes about 31 days to take effect. Too bad they can't do it as fast as those who are feeding phone numbers to the tele-marketers.

P.P.S. I tried a reverse phone number lookup on the web to see who it was that was calling. It was an 800# and the reverse lookup wants $14.95 to tell me who it is. Pretty cagey. If you answer the call they get a chance to pitch to you and try to sell you something. If you don't and want to know who it is so you can complain they charge you to find out who is harassing you. I think that is called a win-win situation in business circles except that both wins are for them.

Signs of Spring

Spring has really arrived. How do I know? It isn't because the temperature is rising, or because the snow is melting, or even because the sap is running, although all those things are happening. The problem with those signs is that some or all of them happen even during mid-winter thaws if it gets warm enough for long enough.

The reason I know spring is really here is because when we came home yesterday afternoon there was a bird in the chimney. We have metal chimney that is very tall (20+ feet starting at the 1st floor ceiling) and 8 inches across on the inside. Every spring a young Starling (for some reason it is always a Starling) lands on top, sticks his/her head under the rain cap and wonders "what's down there?". It then proceeds to fall down the chimney. Since it's wing spread is wider than the diameter of the chimney it can't fly back up and out so we hear it scratching around inside the chimney.

If we're lucky we can open up the lower end (which is inside the house) with plastic bag over it and catch the bird which we then deliver to the great outdoors. Yesterday we weren't lucky. The Starling managed to escape the bag inside the house after which a game of 'chase the bird out of the house' ensued. We opened both front doors (can't open windows yet, the storms are still on) and repeatedly prodded the bird from a series of hiding places behind furniture until it spotted an open door and flew out.

Most years that gets repeated 2, 3, 4 or more times before the juvenile Starlings get old enough and smart enough not to fall down the chimney. If we are fortunate however that may be the sole occurrence for this year. We did have one spring when it happened only once. We bought a new pellet stove last December which does not use that chimney so I plan to take it out this summer but then I'll need a new way to tell for sure when spring is really here.

Spring at Last?

Three weeks with no post to the blog. Tsk, tsk. By way of excuse I have been busy though. I've been remodeling, tearing out walls, building new ones and wiring. Wiring is tedious work, figuring out what outlets/switches/etc. you want where and the path the wire needs to take in order to do it.

Friday I was hanging sheetrock. Why do they call it "hanging" sheetrock? It doesn't hang. It's nailed in place. Clothes hang on a line, pictures hang on a wall, both can move. Wallboard can't go anywhere. It is part of the wall. Anyway, I came to an inside corner that needed only 9" to complete that wall and I thought to myself 'If I measure very carefully, I wonder if I could score the sheet from the backside fold it forward and just have it go around the corner with the front paper still in place so I wouldn't have to tape the corner?' I allowed for the thickness of the wallboard plus a 16th of an inch for safety and voila', it worked! I have a perfect corner without taping. Too bad I can't do that with all the corners.

The weather is finally showing signs of breaking here. We had 2 days in the mid-40s this week and there are more coming up next week. The sap is running and the maple syrup producers are all boiling away. I thought this evening that I would see how much snow we had left and I took my aluminum yardstick out to check an average spot in the yard. Unfortunately the snow is like rock (temperatures in the 20s today). It not only holds me up anywhere I walk, the aluminum stick couldn't break through it. I bent it trying. After checking along where I had shoveled I'm guessing about a foot is left. I had thought it was less but now I think a foot is probably about right. There is a pile across the road where it was plowed up from in front of the church that is still about 8' tall.

Is Jack Frost's Wife a Fat Lady?

If so she hasn't sung yet and winter isn't over here. After a relatively mild day yesterday (45ºF) we got 3 or more inches of wet heavy snow last night which I spent about 90 minutes snowblowing/shoveling this morning. It has continued to snow off and on today. It is snowing again as I type and the forecast for tonight is more snow than we got last night. It is projected to end tomorrow morning but snow is forecast for Tuesday & Wednesday of next week as well as Friday & Saturday.

Last night's snow stuck to the trees so that was a good opportunity for snow photos and I took a drive this morning after cleaning up the driveway and walk. The photo at the right is the best of this morning's shoot. I have modified it in Photoshop using various filters.

Addendum at 6:30PM.
We are now having thunder and lightning with our snow and sleet. March is such a lovely month.

Catching Up...

It has been a whole month since I last posted. I've been tearing out the walls of the middle bedroom and am now in the construction phase of turning that floor space into 2 walk-in closets and more floor space for the remaining bedrooms. The 3 bedroom arrangement I had built 30 years ago was functional for us at the time but we'd like to sell the place in the next few years and it was a little too funky for the average home buyer. This change will fit our current needs better and be more sale able down the road.

I began a new blog dedicated to photography where I will post photo tips, reviews of software/books and the like. I'll still post photos with reports of my wanderings here. The other site is more an instructional site for those interested in learning new photography skills.

March 3rd edit: I forgot to give the URL for the new blog. It is http://jimbullardsphotoblog.blogspot.com/