Month: April 2009
Black Star Revolution
Posted on April 5, 2009 in Hiking Video
It’s no fun yelling at your dog because he is about to stick his nose in a patch of poison oak. We’re not coming here together unless Lynn comes along and helps me manage him.
There are better trails without the moist bottom that poison oak thrives in.
Flowing
Posted on April 3, 2009 in Originality & Creativity Zoos
A cloud ran into our hilltop last night and left a slick of rain that weak sunlight and gravity pulled off the pavement by noon. I opened the front door to a chill pushed by a gentle wind. Fiona stuck her nose out for the briefest of moments, satisfying herself that the outdoors was not for her. I passed a yellow lily growing in a clay bowl on the porch. The stairs invited me to a further exploration of the cool world. I tugged at the hem of my camouflage green pullover and stepped down the flight without-much thought to the individual puttings-of-the-foot-forward. I flowed to the street.
While the drizzle still wet the streets, I complained to my Twitter friends that I felt like there was a numbing hole in the top of my head. I identified this as exhaustion from creation, but in retrospect I think it was exhaustion from the lack of creation — interruption of the flow. At the zoo, I had struggled to capture shadows and colors in my camera for the first hour without much success. Then I found my eye while pursuing the hues of brown on the back of a grizzly bear. The fur ranged from beiges to sincere browns to gold. I snapped several shots until the bear and I connected. A brief climb took me to Elephant Mesa where I interviewed meerkats who stared up the open tube of my camera, still trying to figure out the strange box that hundreds directed toward them every day.
Every day the same thing a novelty — that is a goal for life isn’t it? Without brain damage, though, it can’t be achieved by humans. Zoos excite us, I think, because they proffer a break from cubicles and bucket seats, an opening of new enclosures. I ignore boundaries as I go or I just forget to sense them. When I get to the tedious start-stop process of uploading photos which is rife with borders, despair cages me. I see a drastic end to things. The stairs lead to a blind alley and I break my nose on the wall that greets me there.
Gray Day
Posted on April 2, 2009 in Weather Zoos
The sky is blank. Not the kind of blankness that lets you pull out a pen and write across it “This is my story and I am going to take up calligraphy just to scribe it ever so beautifully across your hearts.” No, this day vibrates with silence. It buzzes into your head and gives you a headache. The little white factories that produce dullness as their principal product soak it up, store it in their worker’s hearts. People in gray and white cars — that spew the stuff of which gray days are made –slow for yellow lights and pick their noses waiting for the green. I see pink flowers but I don’t care about them. There’s a tremble in the back of my mouth that won’t become a voice. The day is full of knots that I can’t untie.
Oh for a blanketing fog — at least there would be comfort in that, chilling and birthing. Yesterday when I went to the zoo the sun came out-and applied a little tan to my arms. The luminosity and the shade annoyed me but that was because I had my camera. Animals chose the places that were both shadow and light. The light meter in my camera could not decide on an exposure in Bear Canyon so I climbed onto the highest mesa and took photos of the rhinos who were sunning themselves. Though the same color as the dust, they stood out clearly. I could disassemble them – head, horn, back, rump. The dirt pretended they were one with them. The breath of one scattered the particles in front of it, letting the sun illuminate its respiration. Gray days resist manipulation of any kind. From this comes their sadness.
Later in the day, it begins to drizzle. My mood picks up. At last the atmosphere is showing some character.
Giraffe Color
Posted on April 1, 2009 in Photos Zoos
Photo from an expedition to the San Diego Zoo, which is to zoo and animal lovers like living in Belgium next to a chocolate factory.
Went with my long-time friend Gareth — who I have known for nearly nine years and yet today was the first time we met. Is there significance to it happening on April Fool’s Day? Only if you mean fun by that.
