Incorrigible Curmudgeon

The King's Speech

2011-01-04T12:14:00.000-05:00

I've always said that I love movies too much to be a critic so these film snippets are merely my observations and opinions.

I saw "The King's Speech" recently and it is indeed one of the top 5 films of the year, a sure Oscar contender for best picture, Best Director (Tom Hooper, best known for his superb HBO mini-series John Adams ), Best actor (Colin Firth as King George VI.), Supporting Actor (Geoffrey Rush as the King's speech therapist) and probably Best Supporting Actor, female (Helena Bonham Carter as the King's wife). [as I said earlier, I tend to avoid the diminutive term 'actress,' as all are actors]

I'm not an Anglophile or a fan of the British royals nor do I care much about them either way. That said, two of my favorite recent movies, The Queen (about QE2) and The King's Speech (about QE2's father), have been about the royals. This is one of the things I love about movies, the way they open a window onto worlds outside our immediate experience and in the best of them make us care.

Geoffrey Rush, the great Australian actor (who first came to my attention in Quills and whom I also enjoyed in Elizabeth, Frida, and the Pirates of the Caribbean) is great as the Australian speech therapist to the man untimely thrust onto the throne. Colin Firth (best known for Bridget Jone's Diary, Love Actually, and the Single Man) is also stellar as the younger son of the dying King George V. He's the brother of the Duke of Windsor, the heir to the throne, who famously abdicated the throne to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, thrusting Colin Firth's Duke of York onto the throne despite a debilitating speech impediment, a stammer.

The drama comes out of the importance of the newly crowned King George VI., with his stammer and his paralyzing fear of public speaking (I can relate) rallying his subjects in a single nationally broadcast speech as Britain declares war against Hitler's Germany. Helena Bonham Carter ( I first remember her in Lady Jane, as the Queen who served for 19 days before her beheading) is moving as the wife of the Duke turned King, the one who contacts Geoffrey Rush after countless failed attempts to find a cure for the Duke's stammer.

Ultimately, this is a love story: the love of wife & husband, the love of King for commoner (the speech therapist, his first non-royal friend), and the love of King for Country.

As a historian I am struck by the extraordinary resemblance of the actors to their characters. The Duke of Windsor (Guy Pearce) and Wallis Simpson (Eve Best) looked like they stepped out of the famous Avedon portrait. Timothy Spall (Wormtail in the Harry Potter movies) is almost as good as Sir Winston Churchill.

Ultimately, a very satisfying, deeply moving movie. Four stars out of Four.

Now I am torn, Oscar-wise. Do I stay with Christian Bale from The Fighter for best supporting actor or Geoffrey Rush for the King's Speech? Actually Firth and Rush should go head to head in the category of Best Actor as both are lead performances. Helena Bonham Carter will have to compete with Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) and Melissa Leo (the Fighter) for Best Actor, female. Of course this may all change after I see 127 hours and the Black Swan in the next few days. Stay tuned.

"True Grit" (2010)

2010-12-31T22:27:00.001-05:00

I saw another Oscar contending movie last night: "True Grit," the latest from the Coen Brothers, I'm a big fan of the Coen Brothers' movies, most particularly "Fargo" but "The Big Lebowski," "No Country for Old Men," and "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" are high among my favorites. I also liked "Blood Simple," "Barton Fink," "Miller's Crossing" and "A Serious Man." The only one I didn't like was "The Ladykillers." I also enjoyed the original "True Grit" (1969) the film in which John Wayne earned his only Oscar.

"True Grit" is the story of a 14 year old girl (13 year old newcomer Hailee Steinfeld) out to avenge the murder of her father by hiring drunken over-the-hill U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn, the John Wayne role now ably inhabited by Jeff Bridges (2009 Oscar winner for "Crazy Heart") to hunt him down and bring him to justice. The killer is played by Josh Brolin ("No Country for Old Men") who has linked up with Lucky Ned Pepper and his gang. Pepper (the underrated Barry Pepper) stands out among a stellar cast of actors which includes Matt Damon as a Texas Ranger also on the trail of the killer for another offense. Damon is great as the self-absorbed dandy. There are three stand outs in the movie: the Coen Brothers' meticulous casting, their adherence to the formalist prose of Charles Portis' original novel, and the wonderful Hailee Steinfeld as the plucky daughter on a mission Mattie Ross. She is worth the price of admission and worthy of her inevitable consideration for an Oscar for best actor, female (I try to avoid the diminutive 'actress').

The movie is a marvel throughout, for Roger Deakins' expressive and beautiful cinematography, Carter Burwell's moving score (both are Coen Brothers regulars) and for Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn. This is not just a wonderful western but a wonderful movie, and a worthy addition to the Coen Brothers canon. I was unprepared for the elegiac coda to the film in which the story is resolved far beyond the end of the original film. Poignant and hauntingly moving.

The original "True Grit" had two major faults (three if you count the casting of singer Glen Campbell): The first was John Wayne, simply because any movie starring John Wayne becomes a work of John Wayne iconography. Unavoidably. The second was casting a 22 year old (Kim Darby) to play 13 year old Mattie. Darby was good but Steinfeld is a revelation. four stars out of four.

"The Fighter"

2010-12-31T20:56:00.000-05:00

This time of year I try to catch as many prospective Oscar contending movies as I can. I like to watch the Oscars having seen most of them.

I recently caught "The Fighter" on a friends recommendation. Good 3.5 out of 4 star movie. Manages to avoid most of the hoary "Rocky"-style fighter movie tropes. Christian Bale is definitely due supporting actor consideration as the big brother/former fighter/crack addict/sometime trainer of Mark Wahlberg's aspiring welterweight champion character.

Wahlberg's good, as is Melissa Leo, downright scary as the mom, a harridan harpy from hell. Both are good but Bale is great.

If I were a resident of Lowell, Mass. where the true events depicted take place, I would be offended by the casting of the townspeople, the most grotesque cast of characters since Richard Avedon's "American West" portraits.

Russell is best remembered for his superb "Three Kings," first and arguably best of the Gulf War movies.

On Thanksgiving, some Native American rock resistance music: Blackfire - It Aint Over!

2010-11-25T15:37:00.000-05:00

I heard this Navajo rock group today on Michele Martin's "Tell Me More" on NPR. Before Black Fire I was only aware of two: Redbone and Clan Dyken. Redbone had a monster dance hit at Howard University in the early 70s called "Maggie."

Rock music has been appropriated by White musicians for so long that it has come to be perceived as the exclusive province of White people. Certainly the commercial rock stations hold fast to this perception. Rock stations seem to acknowledge only one Black rocker: Jimi Hendrix, discounting the solid Black rock of jam bands like Mandrill, War, Parliament-Funkadelic, and more contemporary Black rockers like Vernon Reid, Eric Gales (son of the great jazz guitarist of the same name) and even Prince (live, not recorded) and countless unnamed others.

That is why I always like to learn about and shed some light upon the non-traditional, non-White rockers.

"For Colored Girls"

2010-11-17T19:44:00.007-05:00

I saw "For Colored Girls" last night and my impressions were somewhat more positive than negative, powerful performances by & large despite Tyler Perry’s ham-fisted, clunky direction and moralizing, message-changing screenplay.

Whereas Ntozake Shange’s play celebrated Black womanhood and sexual liberation, Perry’s template focuses on the pathology of victimhood. The young girl played by Tessa Thompson (Veronica Mars, etc.) couldn’t just lose her virginity in high school (which the play & book celebrated as a happy moment of sexual awakening) but had to get a back-alley abortion from Macy Gray and wind up almost dying because of it. The character played by Thandie Newton was an unabashedly sexual being in the book, unapologetic about liking sex without attachment. Perry couldn’t resist writing in a scene where she she did in fact lament the type of woman she had chosen to become along with some clumsy back-story explaining why she came to this.

Which brings up the other glaring disconnect. Was this supposed to be a period piece set in the 1970s of the play? The mise- en-scene is decidedly modern and contemporary. And if modern, then why didn’t she just go to Planned Parenthood to get a safe abortion? Even in the late ‘60s (I was there and I know) abortions had become legal, available , and affordable and thus this TP melodramatic contrivance becomes anachronistic and pointless.

As good as much of the acting was, some of it was so over-wrought and emotionally over-the-top that it reminded me of one of those ‘Last Mama on the couch’ plays that George C.Wolfe’s “The Colored Museum” made such fun of (TP, cue the mournful strings and the treacly soundtrack).

I found myself diverting myself playing 6 degrees of separation: (Loretta Devine starred in the original Dreamgirls on Broadway. Phyllicia Rashad was an understudy in the original Dreamgirls on Broadway. Anika Noni Rose won a Tony on Broadway (Caroline, or Change) and also starred in the movie Dreamgirls. Ntozake Shange brought the theater piece that would become “For Colored Girls…” to New York from Oakland, fine-tuning her play in a performance space provided by Gylan Kain (original member of the Last Poets) whose son Khalil Kain debuted in the1992 movie “Juice” and also plays a rapist in the film “For Colored Girls.” Kimberly Elise starred in the Jonathan Demme film “Beloved” with Thandie Newton. Kimberly Elise also starred in Tyler Perry’s first Film “Diary of a Mad Black Woman.” But I digress…

The good: I thought Phyllicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose, Loretta Devine and Thandie Newton were particularly good. Tessa Thompson was pretty good too (I was a fan of “Veronica Mars” in Which she played one of the students).

The not-so-good: I have long been a fan of Kimberly Elise but Perry had her so over-the-top in her degradation and grief (the murder of your children will do that to you) that she became mopey, ineffectual, annoying. I’ve long been a fan of Whoopi Goldberg’s too (going back to her stand-up and one-woman show on HBO) and as much as I loved her in “The Color Purple,” Perry had her channeling Celie through some ambiguous type of religious fanatic cult member that just didn’t work for me. And I’ve long been a fan of Kerry Washington (“Our Song,” “Last King of Scotland,” etc.) but Perry has given her little to do but stand around looking pretty and helpless, the good woman who wants children and can’t have them due to a pre-existing STD (TP and his sex out of marriage morality again). Which brings us to Janet Jackson, who displayed some decent acting chops though I was constantly distracted by the way her short-cropped hair made her a dead ringer (sorry) for Michael Jackson in drag.

Enough has been made of Tyler Perry’s characterization of the Black men in this film, that while the play had none, the film has five: a crazed war veteran child murderer (Michael Ealy), a charming pretty boy who just happens to be a rapist (Khalil Kain), a closeted bisexual who infects his woman with HIV (Omari Hardwick), a trifling middle-aged commitment-phobic philanderer (Richard Lawson) and a caring cop with a heart of gold (Hill Harper). Courtland Milloy (whom I often find irritating)made a big deal about this in the Washington Post but I’m inclined to give this a pass. They were not Ntozake Shange’s characterizations but Tyler Perry’s. Her play was not about the men. It was a womanist work in which the women reacted to the negativity in their lives (including the men at times) by asserting agency and moving on. Perry felt he had to go for the stereotypes, the familiar tropes, in short for the melodrama he continues to be powerless to resist.

That said, Shange’s words maintain their wonderful power despite Perry’s distractions and embellishment.The weakest moment’s in the film are when the women are forced to voice his words, which stick out because they lack her gift for language.

Now, I had reservations going in to this Tyler Perryization of a beloved work, but I was determined not to be like those friends and students of mine who refused to even see Darnell Martin’s wonderful film “Cadillac Records” just because Beyonce was in it playing blues legend Etta James. As a result, they missed a very good, very under-rated film by an under-rated Black woman director (“I Like it Like That.,” “Their Eyes Were Watching God”).

I am happy I saw this film and can even find something positive that Tyler Perry brought to “For Colored Girls”: his built-in audience of slavishly devoted fans. Truth is how many people today are even aware that a Black woman named Ntozake Shange existed or that in 1975 she had written and performed a choreopoem called “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf” that spoke to a generation of Black people (and not just Women or for that matter, not just Black women), or that she had taken her play from coffee houses in the San Francisco Bay area all the way to Broadway where it was nominated for a Tony Award for best play (it won best actress for Trazana Beverley as the lady in red)? I hope this film leads to productions of the original play in college and regional theater, perhaps even once again to Broadway.

I forgot one other positive from "For Colored Girls": The closing credits featured the Nina Simone classic "4 Women" with Nina singing the first verse and Ledisi singing the other 3. Very moving homage to a classic. Have to get that on my iPod.

Anyway, that’s my take on the film, my own humble opinion, for what it’s worth.

The London Souls - She's So Mad (Official Music Video)

2010-11-05T15:08:00.001-04:00

Dupont Circle Metro, North escalator

2010-10-28T17:00:00.001-04:00

"Obama, We've Got Your Back" signs popping up around Prince Georges County, Maryland

2010-10-27T17:00:00.003-04:00

21st Annual James A. Porter Colloquium

2010-04-09T13:47:00.012-04:00

I'm looking forward to the 21st Annual

James A. Porter Colloquium ,
www.jamesaportercolloquium.org
the premiere conference on African-American
Art and Art History, sponsored by and at
Howard University on April 16th and 17th,
2010 in the Blackburn Center.

The theme this year is "Fearless: Risk Takers,
Rule Breakers, and Innovators in
African-American Art and Art of the
African Diaspora."

The first 20 colloquia were the product and vision
and year-around effort and hard work of
Dr. Floyd W. Coleman, who has since retired
and is one of the honorees this year, along with
Jeff Donaldson (posthumously), Elizabeth Catlett,
and Peggy Cooper Cafritz.

The keynote address will be given by photographer/

media artist/activist/provocateur

Renee Cox http://reneecox.org.

"Chillin' with Liberty",1998, (c) Renee Cox

The JAPC is free and open to the public
(registration required) with the exception
of the fund-raising gala (fee) after Saturday's
programs.

Driving to work, 1st day after week off for the blizzard of 2010

2010-02-15T17:14:00.000-05:00

Blizzard of 2010 photos

2010-02-10T20:49:00.001-05:00

Rock Creek Park after the Blizzard of 2009

2010-01-04T22:53:00.003-05:00

Incorrigible Puppy after blizzard of 2009

2010-01-04T22:49:00.004-05:00

Aftermath of Blizzard of 2009

2010-01-04T22:36:00.004-05:00

blizzard of 2009 aftermath, LeDroit Park DC

2010-01-04T18:00:00.004-05:00

Okay, not LeDroit Park but Parview

Baltimore urban landscapes

2010-01-04T17:26:00.003-05:00

Incorrigible Puppy turns one-year old today

2009-10-16T11:31:00.001-04:00

From here, at one-day old...

To this, at one-year old, and, appearances to the contrary...

He is not a drunk...

But he does have good taste in beer!

Dogfish Head Raison D'Etre,
brewed locally in Delaware (I dig the locals)

Never Forget You

2009-07-26T16:36:00.003-04:00

I heard this song last night on WTMD, found it on YouTube, and am posting it here.

The group is Noisettes, a UK indie rock band and their lead singer (and bass player)is a stunning Afro-British (English-Zimbabwean says Wikipedia) sister named Shingai Shoniwa.

I dig the whole 60s girl-group sound of the song and she can really sing (kinda like Amy Winehouse without the pathology). I also like the way it pays homage melodically to one of my favorite songs, Joan Armitrading's great anthem to individuality "Me, Myself, I."

When I first heard it I thought it must be some kind of 60s tribute song, maybe something from the "Hairspray" soundtrack for example, but they wrote it and produced it themselves.

Noisettes and particularly Shingai Shoniwa definitely bear watching. I wish them well.

DC Mural Art, part II.

2009-07-16T13:33:00.023-04:00

Days after my post about Garin Baker's LeDroit Park mural, Prince of Petsworth blogged about a mural I had photographed last Summer behind Morgan's Seafood restaurant, not knowing the name of the artist or how to find it.

Morgan's Seafood. DC Landmark at Georgia Avenue and Irving, NW.
photo (c)Incorrigible Curmudgeon

Mural behind Morgan's Seafood restaurant.
Mural: (c) Joel Bergner
Photo: (c) Incorrigible Curmudgeon

Turns out his name is Joel Bergner and he has created several other murals in DC. I like that he makes it his mission to involve the communities in which his art is being created. In the course of creating his murals, he hires and trains local talent in the art of mural painting.

To me he has a 'primitivist,' almost 'fauvist' quality about his work. It is impossible to look at his Morgan's seafood mural without thinking about Paul Gaugin's Tahiti paintings.

Check out his interview and some more of his murals at Prince of Petworth.

In the meantime, another DC mural painter has emerged (courtesy of one of the commentors on Prince of Petworth), named Lisa Marie Thalhammer. Check out her images and insights on her website. Her work is more edgy, more confrontational. Here is her Boxer Girl mural

Boxer Girl mural, 73 'W' St. NW
Mural: (c)Lisa Marie Thalhammer
Photo: (c) Incorrigible Curmudgeon

Boxer Girl Mural, side of 73 "W" St.NW
Mural: (c) Lisa Marie Thalhammer
Photo: (c) Incorrigible Curmudgeon

on the side of a rowhouse in Bloomingdale (neighborhood just to the East of LeDroit Park). Her work has a comic book quality (in a 'Beavis and Butthead' sort of way) with an in-your-face grotesqueness not unlike Avedon's American West photo portraits or even the paintings of Francis Bacon.

I love this mural

2009-07-11T22:52:00.025-04:00

Actual LeDroit Park Gate,
looking East down 'T' Street, NW,
5th St. crossing in foreground,
Florida Avenue to my back.
Photo (c) Incorrigible Curmudgeon

"This is How We Live" Mural detail
(c) Garin Baker

"This is How We Live" mural looking East on Elm Street, NW
Mural (c) Garin Baker, Photo (c) Incorrigible Curmudgeon

"This is How We Live" mural, a little closer.
Mural (c) Garin Baker. Photo (c) Incorrigible Curmudgeon

Mural as seen from Howard University Hospital
(thanks, Cecelia).
Mural: (c)Garin Baker
Photo: (c) Incorrigible Curmudgeon

I dig mural art. Always have. Howard University was briefly graced by some impressive mural art in the late 60s-early 70s: Eugene Edaw's epic Frederick Douglass piece on Cramton Auditorium, James Padgett's muscular red, white, and black pieces at either side of the Fine Arts bldg. and a piece on the side of Ira Aldridge Theater by an artist unknown to me. I think James Phillips may have had an Africobra mural on Cramton too for a time. And of course there was Ron Anderson's mural on the wall of the original Howard University Punch Out restaurant (from his student days before he evolved into Akili Ron Anderson).

Ron Anderson's mural in the original Punch Out restaurant, ca. 1971
Mural (c) Ron Anderson. Photo (c) Incorrigible Curmudgeon

In DC, the best murals (at least the photo-realistic ones I tend to like) all seem to be the work of G.Byron Peck, particularly his 'U' Street Ellington mural

Duke Ellington Mural on 'U'St. NW across from Lincoln Theater and Ben's Chili Bowl.
Mural (c) G. Byron Peck. Photo (c)Incorrigible Curmudgeon

and his Connecticut Avenue Dupont Circle Fountain Trompe l'oeil mural

Dupont Circle Mural on Connecticutt Avenue just south of Florida Avenue, NW.
Mural (c) G.Byron Peck. Photo (c) Incorrigible Curmudgeon

above the place where the old lefty-hippie-veggie restaurant 'Food for Thought' used to reside.

The late and lamented Food For Thought Restaurant beneath
G.byron Peck's Dupont Circle Mural.
Mural (c) G. Byron Peck. Photo (c)Incorrigible Curmudgeon

Now I've found a new favorite mural in LeDroit Park at the corner of 3rd and Elm, NW, right up the street from Slowe Hall, the Howard University dormitory where I once lived.

It's the work of artist Garin Baker, a New York artist with a studio called Carriage Art which (according to its website) executes mural art on commission. He works in the tradition of the New York Realists and the depression-era WPA muralists.

This one is called "This Is How We Live," an idyllic photo-realistic scene behind the fairly recently erected LeDroit Park arch at 5th and Florida Avenue, NW, across from the Howard Theatre. His is an idealized vision of the newly gentrified LeDroit Park area just south of Howard University with the U.S. Capitol building in the top center, Howard University's Founders Library imbedded above to the left, and four beautiful Black children smiling beatifically from the upper right, all tied together with the banner imprinted with the title "This Is How We Live."

I like the way Baker breaks up the realism of his work by incorporating squares of intentional simulated pixelization , acknowledging the artifice inherent in any work of photo-realism. This is the only mural of the many displayed on his website in which he does so. Interesting. The piece is copyrighted 2008 but I first happened upon it and photographed it in January 2009. Baker was born in 1961 which makes him a relatively young 48. He's a former illustrator (like Norman Rockwell and Andrew Wyeth) and it shows, which is not a knock on him (or them).

He has created other murals in DC, as well as in New York, Atlanta, and elsewhere throughout the U.S. I also really love the piece he created for the Turkey Thicket Aquatic Center in Brookland Northeast DC. This piece is so kinetic it exudes an almost comic-book sensibility though it fiercely maintains Baker's penchant for hyper photo-realism.

Turkey Thicket pool mural
(c)Garin Baker

Michael Jackson's demise

2009-07-07T12:59:00.010-04:00

Like everyone in America, I became a fan of the Jackson 5 when they first hit the scene. Who didn't like the idea of a group of kids from one family (except maybe the Osmonds) performing with such professional aplomb, led by their cute and charismatic little pixie, Michael.

Of course I was finishing up college when J5 was at their peak and we at Howard were probably more into the Five Stairsteps (World of Fantasy, You Waited Too Long, Oo Oo Child, etc.). They were the same deal basically although one of the five was a sister. Don't know why they didn't go on to enjoy similar success to the Jackson 5, although not having the support of a Berry Gordy and the Motown machine is probably the biggest reason.

That said, I've been trying to figure out why I'm not as bummed out about Michael's death as so many people world-wide seem to be. I suppose the main reason is the inescapable conclusion that Michael led such an unhappy life that his death gives him some respite from the suffering.

Still, I made a list off the top of my head of the entertainers I was most bummed out about after their premature deaths and Michael comes in at, I don't know, somewhere in the lower half. After Hendrix, the list is in no particular order and is not exhaustive in any case:

The List:
[1] Jimi Hendrix
[2] Otis Redding
[3] John Belushi
[4] Natalie Wood
[5] Curtis Mayfield
[6] Richard Pryor
[7] Gilda Radner
[8] Phyllis Hyman
[9] Isaac Hayes
[10] Bernie Mac
[11] Minnie Riperton
[12] John Lennon
[13] Marvin Gaye
[14] Michael Jackson
[15] Luther Vandross
[Honorable Mention] Barry White, Eddie Kendrick, Levi Stubbs, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin.

Don't get me wrong: Michael Jackson was a supremely talented man who tried to make the world a better place through his music and humanitarian efforts. He meant a lot to a majority of people whose lives he touched and he will justifiably be missed (even by me) and mourned. I am saddened by his death. I'm just trying to understand why I'm not more moved by it.

For the record, my favorite Michael Jackson song is "The Lady In My Life," which saw a lot of air time on WHUR's Quiet Storm back in the Melvin Lindsay days, although there are many more that I liked as well. I remain more drawn to Michael Jackson's ballads than his dance music.

I'm sure others (entertainers I will miss) will pop into my head but R.I.P. all of them including Michael. And Steve McNair, too.

Dutch Country Farmers Market, Burtonsville, closes

2009-07-03T18:11:00.013-04:00

The so-called Amish Market has been a Burtonsville, MD staple for over 20 years. Now the strip mall where it sat has been bought and the tenants all booted out so they can build (drum roll) another strip mall. Only now the anchor will be Giant Foods, the Supermarket currently resident in a similar strip mall right across the street. That mall, Burtonsville Crossing, is apparently being allowed to die, having already lost almost a third of its tenants.

I won't miss the Amish Market as much as most. I have shopped there maybe 5 times in the last 10 years, though I have elderly residents in DC who make regular pilgrimages 15 miles out to Burtonsville to shop here. They swear by it, particularly its rotisserrie chicken. Definitely an AARP kinda vibe to the place.

As a veggie, I always found the store heavy on the meats, and the air was always thick with the smell of meat, like a butcher store. The produce was okay, but the prepared foods were all heavy on the fats (usually cooked in lard), with lots of doughnuts, cakes, pies, home-made junk food, candies, potato salad, and ice cream. Think fried, sweet, salty, creamy. Gag.

Then there's the subtle but undeniable creepiness factor: most of the workers are dressed in nineteenth-Century attire (women in black an white floor-length dresses with white bonnets, men in black trousers with suspenders with white long sleeve collared shirts, the ones old enough sporting Abe Lincoln-style beards with no mustaches, some also wear the standard black and brimmed 'preacher' hats). Its like a casting call for Peter Weir's 1985 movie "Witness" (Harrison Ford as a cop who falls in love with an Amish woman, Kelly McGillis, while solving a murder) which for most of us is the only exposure we've had to the Pennsylvania Dutch culture. Nice people, just kinda cult-like.

Still I swept through one last time today on its closing day in Burtonsville, though it will be re-opening in 6-8 weeks in Laurel, MD, about 5 miles East of here.

I bought a pretzel and a half-dozen onion bagels (Amish bagels: now thats an oxymoron).

Aw hell naw!!!

2009-07-03T00:57:00.007-04:00

photo by Kiichiro Sato/AP

photo by Frank Polich/Reuters Photos

photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

Today the Sears Tower in Chicago, tallest remaining bldg. in the U.S., opened four glass enclosed balconies extending four feet out from the edge of their observation deck on the 103rd floor.

Visitors can walk out and look straight down through the glass floor to the street 1,353 feet below or they can look straight ahead and see 50 miles on a clear day. Of course they can do that without walking on glass.

The glass has variously been reported as being somewhere between 1/2 inch and 1-1/2 inches thick and the balconies are supposedly engineered to support 8 people or 5-10,000 pounds. The Washington Post indicates that the floor is a laminate of three 1/2-inch layers of glass bonded together by the same polymer as windshields on cars.

While Incorrigible Curmudgeon has a pilot's license and has been known to go sky diving, it is safe to say you will not be seeing any photos by Incorrigible Curmudgeon taken from any of these balconies. I'll leave the photos to my Chicago friends: Joyce and Danielle :).

Rainbow photo

2009-06-30T22:28:00.004-04:00

Whew! I finally received my new Canon A590IS PowerShot point-and-shoot camera from eBay and like I said before, I felt right naked without it.

One of the first things I got to photograph with it was this rainbow.

A good sign, I think.

Sobering video

2009-06-29T12:47:00.002-04:00

This is a sobering video.

That said, I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information, nor do I know who compiled it or what their agenda may be or even if they have an agenda.

I'm posting because it made me stop and think.

Why I love Trader Joe's

2009-06-27T11:32:00.008-04:00

(c)Incorrigible Curmudgeon

My California cousin (a veggie, like me) always raved about Trader Joe's whenever I'd visit LA.

And so when one opened up fairly near me in MD I hurried over to check it out. Unfortunately, after all the hype I was underwhelmed: smallish size store, somewhat meager selection, not all that veggie, etc.

I just didn't get it and it wasn't until I saw this unofficial Trader Joe's commercial on YouTube that I finally understood the appeal.

Now I get it. The staff is laid back and very service-oriented. I just dig the whole funky, proto-counter-culture vibe. Green but not pedantic. Prices are competitive too (thought they would be 'Whole Paycheck' high). Certain friends of mine like it because of all the attractive middle-aged women which shop there (they have rather un-gallantly taken to calling Trader Joe's 'MILF Mart').

The video was apparently created by some guy named Carl Willat using the video camera on his Palm Treo. It is exceedingly clever in its writing and editing and the tune is relentlessly catchy.

Intrepid researcher that I am, I determined that the tune is called Aguas de Marco, or the Waters of March. Written by Antonio Carlos Jobim, who did the music for Black Orpheus (my favorite movie). I downloaded the Jobim original recorded in 1974 with vocalist Elis Regina, though I haven't figured out how to (legally) link to it here.

Stormscapes, June 2009

2009-06-22T20:04:00.004-04:00

One of the reasons I've grown addicted to having a point-and-shoot camera on me at all times is so that when I come upon a storm brewing like this one as I left my job, right before the skies opened up, I can document it in my photographs.

Like today there was a horrific Metro train crash on the Red Line in DC. The only thing worse than being in the crash (aside from death or injury) would be being in it without your camera.

I'd rather not take that chance. I guess I'm just going to have to lug around my 3 lb. Nikon D200 DSLR until my new point-and-shoot arrives.

My point-and-shoot died

2009-06-22T13:16:00.000-04:00

Landscape while walking the dog

Incorrigible Puppy, smiling

Incorrigible Puppy chillin' from sidewalk level

Fogscape while walking the dog

Artomatic: "Catharsis and Karma" by Deb Jansen (purported screed by the artist against the woman who slept with her husband. Note the so-called 'skank' dolls on side). I had to focus by hand because the motor that moves lens in and out to focus had started to die.

I primarily use two cameras these days: my workhorse digital SLR Nikon D200 and my point-and-shoot Canon A570IS PowerShot point-and-shoot camera which I keep parked on my belt and have with me everywhere I go, ever ready to capture anything I see--until now. Like most of the photos on this blog, and like these last few above (all photos by Incorrigible Curmudgeon (c) 2009) on my now-defunct Canon A570IS PowerShot point-and-shoot camera,
taken shortly before my camera crashed).

I know digital cameras are ubiquitous and cheap these days but I'm a professional and I'm picky about my cameras--even my point-and-shoots. I got the A570IS because it had an optical viewfinder (I need reading glasses to see the LCD screen on the back. Plus I don't feel all amateur-dorky looking through a viewfinder).

And the A570IS has manual override. I NEED to be able to set my own shutter speeds and f-stops. And I like having a camera powered by 2-AA batteries. I use re-chargeables and they last a long time. I keep a spare pair on me at all times so I'm never without a working camera

I think I paid about $130 for this puppy new a year-and-a half ago but now that it has died I find that Canon no longer makes anything comparable for under $500. Ditto Nikon and all the rest. All the Canon PowerShot cameras under $500 have dropped the Manual setting from their shooting choices, a colossal deal-breaker for me

That's why I'm left with two choices (in order to get a comparable and comparably-priced replacement): pay $135 to get it fixed at the go-to DC camera repair place, or take my chances on eBay. I've been trying to do the latter for a week now and I keep losing the cameras I bid on.

I know, there's always Amazon, and I usually swear by them, but the Canon A590IS is the only thing comparable to mine and Canon no longer makes it either (they used to list it for $129.99). It is going for $239.99 new on Amazon. All the other web venues are out of stock. My own Canon A570IS is now going for $299.99 new on Amazon! This is crazy.

Addendum: I finally won a bid on eBay for the Canon A590IS Powershot. Cost me $148.50 plus S&H. Whew!! Now all I have to do is wait. Damn, I feel naked without my camera.

R.I.P., my brother

2009-06-10T13:30:00.012-04:00

Some of you (okay, one of you) wanted to know what's up with me not posting since February 1st?

Well, this has been a very stressful Spring, beginning with my brother's illness. Then the college where I have spent my entire career and where I continue to toil began offering buy-outs and instituting mandatory unpaid furlough days, all in an effort to forestall RIFs and Layoffs (aren't they the same thing?). Those of us who opted to stay and take our chances so we could hold on to our health insurance are on pins and needles. It used to be like working for your family but now everyone's looking over their shoulders.

Thirdly, I turned 60 this Spring. Actually that part hasn't been that bad. My health is still sound (knock on wood) and my weight has been down and stayed down for the better part of a year (walking my puppy a mile first thing each morning rain or shine has certainly helped).

My friends and I have lost so many contemporaries these past few years that one friend postulated "if you can just make it through your 50s, you are home free." So it was actually with a sense of relief that I turned 60. So how did I celebrate? Ate some Whole Foods carrot cake with candles on it with my daughter and my dog.

Which brings me back to my brother. He was my baby brother and my only sibling. As army brats, we grew up traveling the world together (Japan, Germany, Ohio, Kentucky, Georgia, DC, MD, Virginia, and Texas), moving every three years or so, so that when we both made it to college we sprouted roots, me in DC and he in Texas. He loved Texas as much as I love DC (I've loved DC ever since second grade, my first stint here).

My brother and I grew up fighting like cats and dogs, yet as grownups we were always there for each other. Fiercely competitive, my brother prided himself on outdoing me in everything: athletics (he played football, baseball, basketball, and golf. I rowed crew), Boy Scouts (I made it to First Class, he went all the way to Life Scout, one rank shy of Eagle Scout), grad school (he earned his Masters in Business and Public Administration 10 years before I even entered graduate school), salary (he had a string of well-paying jobs. I've stayed in the same low-paying one my whole career). Hell, he even got laid first (not something I'm proud about). He got married first too, and then did it twice more. I quit after my first and only try. You name it, he took pride in doing it first or better, and I in turn prided myself on not letting on that I cared (and I didn't. No really I didn't). I did beat him at children though, I have one (and he doted on his niece), he had none.

By the time I was in 8th grade, he was taller and bigger than me so our whole lives people naturally assumed that he was the oldest. In all honesty it was probably more due to the (ironically) sober and purposeful way he carried himself.

My brother lived hard, played hard, and partied hard. He was one of the last of the 'Good-time Charlies,' a sobriquet he embraced with relish and tried to live up to for as long as he could. He used to joke that what was the point in giving up drinking, smoking, and fatty foods, since he wasn't going to live past 50 anyway? He started smoking at 11, drinking not long after, and he scoffed at his non-drinking, non-smoking, vegetarian older brother, particularly since I had my stroke first (a mild one, thank God).

Ultimately, all his challenges, health, personal, marital, and job-related, were related directly or indirectly to his depression, which, for most of his life went undiagnosed and untreated. Sadly, the Black community in general is squeamish about acknowledging, let alone seeking and getting help for, depression and other mental problems.

Still he was healthier than me about some things. He never let worry get to him the way I do. And he had a temper and was quick to vent instead of keeping it all inside the way I do. And most important he went to sleep when he was sleepy. I fight sleep with every fiber of my being and then want to sleep as late as possible, fully awakening only after drinking one of my prodigious mugs of coffee. My brother was famous for throwing parties in his house and then once the party was jumping disappearing to go to bed. To sleep. My brother was a morning person and loved to rise with the birds.

Among the things I admired about my brother I most admired his fearless freedom from vanity. I mean he could have cared less about what people thought of him, what he did, what he said. He could be vain about grooming (particularly his hair which he managed to hold onto for life) but he never lost a moment's sleep fretting over what people might think or say about him. While I was the one fearlessly jumping out of airplanes, getting my pilots license, driving motorcycles and skiing (okay not exactly fearlessly but I did it), he was the one who was fearless in life, particularly socially. He was the one winning a twist contest in his teens, and I'm the one still reluctant to get on the dance floor at all.

In February, I took my brother (who had just finished aggressive treatment for an advanced case of prostate cancer) to the emergency room with stroke symptoms. The first stroke was mild, milder than mine had been in fact. Then a day later he suffered a second stroke accompanied by seizures. This one left him barely conscious, unable to communicate other than through nods and shakes of the head in response to yes-no questions, and through squeezing my hand with his right hand (his only still-functioning hand).

A physician friend of mine said it was "locked-in syndrome" which I had only recently learned about after seeing Julian Schnabel's great film "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" at Talk Cinema at the AFI. The character in the film, a true story, suffered a massive stroke and was left with his mind intact yet unable to move any of his body except for the eyelid of one eye. A therapist was astute enough to devise a way for him to to communicate with her by blinking this one eye every time she said the letter he intended as she painstakingly repeated the alphabet over and over awaiting his blink. In time he was able to dictate his memoirs (He had been a famous magazine editor, for French Elle, I believe). His memoir, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" was published shortly before he died from complications related to the stroke. Definitely add it to your NetFlix queue if you haven't seen it, but I digress...

After 8 weeks of hospitalization, my brother's condition essentially unchanged, he suffered a third and final stroke leaving him completely comatose and he died two days later. He was 58 years old.

Looking back, I am not as sad as I would be had I not visited him all but two days out of that 8 weeks in the hospital.

Also, in recent years, as his challenges mounted, personal and health-related, I am happy that we always managed to get together for his birthdays, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. I've learned the hard way not to leave oneself open to regrets about things left unsaid or issues left unresolved, so even though we spent much of those dinners together in awkward silences and small talk, at least we gave ourselves the opportunity to express ourselves. Neither of us was given to navel-gazing or talking about our 'feelings' (ew!) so we expressed ourselves in the only way we knew how, talking about family and sports and trivia. We both had a mind for trivia and when we were on the same team at Trivial Pursuit we were unbeatable!

We did not grow up in a touchy-feely family environment, though we were never in doubt about our parents' love or their pride in our accomplishments. One time a well-meaning friend guilted me into giving my father a hug. She was incredulous at the thought that I never had. My retired military father was so surprised he responded in the only way he could: with a perplexed "what's wrong, son?"

My brother would have been severely discomfited too had I tried to hug him. Once in the hospital, after my having complained about some aspect of his care, the hospital responded by sending him a music and massage therapist. I had to smile watching my brother getting his feet massaged as new-age music wafted through the air. While I am sure he enjoyed it (he likely hadn't ever had one or even considered getting one before) I could imagine him telling me "when I get well, I'm going to get you for this!" He disdained what he would have referred to as "all that new age hippie shit."

Same thing with the beard. While I have always been a liberal/progressive, tree-hugging, latter-day hippie kind of guy, my brother always played the conservative (I'm convinced it was just an attention-getting act). I think under all that bluster, he was actually a card-carrying contrarian. His brother was a hippie so he played the Alex Keaton of the family. His brother sported an afro and a life-long beard, so he affected the clean-shaven Black man look (what's more contrarian than a Black man with no facial hair?). His brother loved the R-words so he loudly proclaimed his love for the hated Dallas Cowboys, particularly during his years spent in and around DC.

I suppose I should feel guilty that, when he was essentially paralyzed those last several weeks, the nurse's aides would groom and trim his hair and the beard he had involuntarily begun to manifest. I always told him the beard was a good look for him whenever he'd take furtive steps toward growing one (which, contrarian that he was, was the surest way to guarantee that he'd quickly cut it all off).

On the morning when they called me to tell me he had passed away in the night, I went to see his body, say some things to him I couldn't/wouldn't say in life, and collect his things and I have to say, he looked down-right dapper in that salt-and-pepper goatee he was sporting. Naturally, I took some photos 'cause I'm a photographer and that's how I roll (actually that's how I distance myself from trauma).

In keeping with his wishes, he was cremated and I plan to spread his ashes in places that meant a lot to him: favorite golf courses, various places in Texas and New Mexico (he really dug the Southwest) and others I recall as time goes by. I have already spread some on our father's grave in Arlington National Cemetery.

Bottom line is I miss my brother a lot. He was always the charming, engaging, outgoing one and I was the shy quiet one. He had a gift for the witty put-down and a droll, cynical, world-weary sense of humor. He made friends easily, and everyone who took the time to know him loved him.

Though he once majored in religion ('pre-God' he called it) he was not much for church-going so we all thought the appropriate way to memorialize him was to throw him an 'Irish wake' at which friends and relatives would gather to toast to his memory. In May we did just that and the love and friendship and warmth we all shared through our remembrances of my brother made for an uplifting send-off.

My brother was a character and he lives on through the memories of those whose lives he enriched by his presence in them. Rest in peace.

Art-O-Matic 2009 is upon us

2009-06-04T17:00:00.002-04:00

Just a reminder that Art-O-Matic 2009 is upon us, running from May 29-July 5th.

Each year they take over several floors of an empty office bldg. in or near DC (under construction or renovation) and provide space for a wide-ranging and diverse collection of artists to show their work.

Much of the art is quite good, some not so much, other work is tacky and many works are provocative for the sake of being provocative. You'll experience the whole range: from edgy and cutting edge to safe and boring, from work you would like to buy (some are available for sale) to work they couldn't pay you to take. The proverbial sacred and the profane.

In any case, its an art happening, pulsing with energy and live music, and its all free (donations are accepted).

Last year it was in one of those 'NOMA' bldgs. (real estate speak for 'North of Massachusetts Avenue') near the NY Avenue Metro stop.

This year it will be at 55 'M' Street, SE, a bldg. called Capitol Riverfront, near the new Nationals baseball stadium and directly above the Green line Navy Yard Metro station.

Closed Mondays and Tuesdays, it runs:

Fri + Sat: noon - 1am
Wed, Thurs + Sun: noon - 10pm

As the website proclaims, it is "the wildest Free arts extravaganza on the East coast--275,000 square feet of unfiltered art on 9 floors. Five weeks of days and nights filled with amazing visual, music, dance, performance, film, workshops, and collaborative creative expression of every kind."

Who says you gotta go to New York to experience an art scene?

Dawoud Bey in Baltimore

2009-02-01T20:05:00.010-05:00

Before watching the SuperBowl 43 (XLIII?), I waded through a month’s worth of unread Washington Posts so I could finally recycle them and found an article that reminded me that a significant African American photographic artist, Dawoud Bey, has a show up in Baltimore at the Walters Art Museum, which will soon be coming to a close.

One of the great things about living in the DC area is having a city like Baltimore, so utterly different in every way from DC, a mere half hour up the road (at least from my MD suburb). Baltimore has it all, Old World European architecture strewn about in pockets throughout the city, modern contemporary architecture (like the Walters itself), the storied front-yard-less rowhouses with the steps that empty onto the sidewalks, and of course the neighborhoods popularized (maybe even romanticized) in my favorite TV shows “The Wire” and “Homicide: Life on the Streets.” There's the tourist crap like the Baltimore Harbor and the National Aquarium, but there's also a gem like the museum of outsider art known as the American Visionary Art Museum.

But I digress. Bey, a Chicago artist/educator, was in town last Summer doing an artist-in-residence at the Walters in which he collaborated with Baltimore High School students from throughout the city on a project called “Portraits Re/examined: A Dawoud Bey Project.” In the course of the program, Bey shot some of his patented large format photographic portraits of a number of young people, most of them in color. These portraits are now displayed in his show of the same name at the Walters, each juxtaposed with a classic painted portrait from the Walters collection from the 19^th and 18^th Century. The portraits themselves have been critiqued by the students in accompanying placards and orally on museum iPods using the vocabulary and knowledge they have acquired as part of this program, displaying a remarkable depth of insight.

Bey has a knack for shooting portraits that appear to have been casual snapshots but which, because of the old-school nature of large-format photography, involve scrupulously posing his subjects before his tripod-mounted 4x5 camera. This is a remarkable illusion in part due to the fact that once the subject is focused and in place, the shutter is closed and the film pack put in place and the subject has to remain absolutely in place when the shutter is released or risk falling out of focus. Bey’s photographs are all clinically sharp, revealing every hair, pore, and blemish. The photos themselves were all enlarged to about 3 ft. x 4 ft. and framed without mattes.

As compelling as the photographs and the show itself were, the companion show in the next block at the Contemporary Museum (actually a one-floor art gallery), called “Class Pictures,” was even more so. Bey had done a portrait project in which he photographed selected Chicago High School kids in their schools, all but one posed in a single classroom set up for the portrait session. Some are seated, some not, some rest their heads on their hands , others effect different gestures, all but one un-smiling, all manifesting the body language, clothes and hair styles unique to that age, wary, often self-conscious, a visual time capsule of this pivotal time in the lives of these young people.

Everyone has gone through having to put up with yearly school portraits throughout their matriculation from K-12. Bey’s work is so much more. He photographs his subjects with his large-format camera using a single umbrella (judging by the catch-light in their eyes), match-lighting in a way that allows us to view the background ambience, informed but not distracted by it. Bey’s technique is old-school 19^th Century portraiture but unlike his predecessors, Bey’s subjects make a point of staring directly into the lens, locking the viewer in an unflinching gaze that forces us to engage with the subject.

Bey’s portraits are hauntingly, heart-breakingly beautiful in the enforced relationship he imposes between the viewer and subject. As an oral historian, I was particularly drawn to the captions by which the subject addresses the viewer, some are brief, some flippant, most talk at some length in prose at once poetic and hauntingly revealing. Portrait photography can be as intimate as a dance between the subject and the photographer, and Bey’s camera with its unflinching sharp focus studies the faces of these students in discomfittingly intimate, clinical, acne-and-all detail, and their eyes bore back into the viewer just as uncompromisingly.

The Walters show prominently features three quotes that speak to the art of portraiture and the complicity that occurs between the subject and the photographer/viewer when it its done well:

Nothing in a portrait is a matter of indifference—Dawoud Bey

The Meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances. If there is any reaction, both are transformed.—Carl Jung

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made me, certainly, but I am also much more than that. So are we all.—James Baldwin

Two videos accompany the show, one in which Bey lets four individual subjects talk to us as candidly as the captions do, Bey’s video camera zoomed in so close that only one eye at a time is visible, the camera tracking leisurely from eye to eye, down to the the lips and back. The other video appeared to speak to the project itself, with Bey and the students recounting their impressions. Didn’t get to stay for this one though since it was getting close to SuperBowl time. Oh well.

Portraits Re/Examined: a Dawoud Bey Project ends February 16, 2009

Class Pictures ends February 21, 2009

Dawoud Bey's blog

Talk Cinema, 1-25-2009, Wendy and Lucy

2009-01-25T20:07:00.009-05:00

After 6 weeks, Talk Cinema has resumed at the AFI for the start of the Spring session. Today’s film was “Wendy and Lucy,” an unabashed indie film in every way (and the third movie I have seen this month featuring a yellow Labrador Retriever, same breed as my incorrigible puppy.

The 4^th feature from director Kelly Reichardt, Wendy and Lucy follows a brief slice of life for young Wendy, a barely out of her teens waif and her beloved dog Lucy, enroute from Indiana to Alaska to find work. We find them as they sojourn briefly in Oregon. Down on her luck and her money, Wendy foolhardily shoplifts some dog food for Lucy, leaving Lucy tied up outside of the store. Wendy is apprehended and arrested and spends several hours in jail before being allowed to pay a fine and get set free. By the time she returns to the store to retrieve Lucy, Lucy is gone. Much of the movie involves her efforts to find Lucy despite increasingly daunting odds.

This turns out to be a much bleaker movie than I was prepared for, though, like all good films, it has managed to linger in my mind for days after viewing it. The only star is Michelle Williams as Wendy, Lucy played by the director’s own dog, Lucy (why bother to contrive fictional names?). Most people remember Williams as Heath Ledger’s wife in “Brokeback Mountain” (and his 'baby mama' in real life) but she remains that indie film staple: the relatively unknown actor. Her portrayal is low-key, almost invisible, yet she displays enormous depth without the usual actorly histrionics. Her Wendy, like the movie itself, lingers. Talk Cinema moderator Bob Mondello referred to Wendy and Lucy as the first recession era movie, likely the first of many.

The movie is scoreless, save for the tune Wendy hums throughout the film (to the annoyance of many in the audience). The photography is competent but unremarkable. The acting throughout is good in that indie way, with none of the disquiet we feel watching non-actors in low-budget films. All of the actors have acted before in something or somewhere.

The movie is bleak, but not slit-your-wrists bleak, more of an Edward Hopper/Andrew Wyeth/Hughie Lee-Smith bleak. Sure won’t do much for Oregon tourism, though. Never been and based solely on this film, feel no desire to go. Ultimately a difficult film to recommend to all but the most die-hard film nerds (like myself).

"Gran Torino," the other yellow lab movie

2009-01-18T12:23:00.010-05:00

I caught the other yellow lab movie last night, AKA "Gran Torino." Clint Eastwood plays a crusty but ultimately lovable curmudgeon, Korean War veteran, retired Ford auto worker, spewer of politically incorrect ethnic rhetoric, and last European American White guy left on the block (he's Polish American). Oh, and he owns an aging yellow lab named Daisy.

Much of the film plays like an after-school special version of racial healing, but I give it kudos for introducing us to the Hmong culture ("a people, not a country" as spunky Hmong teenager/next door neighbor Sue Lor corrects Clint, a people who sided with the Americans in Viet Nam and who had to flee with the Americans with the fall of Saigon, these particular Hmongs winding up in Detroit courtesy of Lutheran charity).

With the exception of Sue Lor ( Ahney Her) the acting is spotty (Clint's direction or inexperienced actors?). The subplot with the earnest and naive local Catholic parish priest goes nowhere and compared with a powerhouse film like "Doubt" suffers immensely in comparison.

Some critics have complained that Eastwood's character is profligate with the ethnic slurs yet he assiduously avoids using the 'N' word. I am not among them. Eastwood's real-life son Scott plays a hip-hop loving dilettante loser whom Clint's character takes apparent delight in excoriating in their scene together.

Don't get me wrong: its a good movie and worth watching on a number of levels. Still its a flawed film which is being hyped as though it were Eastwood's swan song. As an Eastwood fan since his Rowdy Yates days on TVs "Rawhide," I prefer to hope that he has many more films in him.

The film's theme song BTW was co-written by Eastwood's son Kyle. The song was nominated for a Golden Globe and Clint manages to croak out the first verse over the closing credits (shades of his "Paint Your Wagon" warbling). Not a bad song when song by the pros.

"Marley and Me"

2009-01-12T07:26:00.002-05:00

Though Daughter Curmudgeon and I recently brought home our new Puppy Curmudgeon (the Incorrigible puppy), and though he happens to be a yellow lab, we only recently got around to seeing the movie about the yellow lab, "Marley & Me." Apparently yellow labs are the new 'in' dog. Even crusty Clint Eastwood's character in "Gran Torino" has a yellow lab.

As to the movie, it is being publicized as a none-stop laugh fest as stars Owen Wilson and Jennifer Anniston bring home their wreck-happy 'clearance puppy' Marley (as in Bob Marley).

Instead what we get is a wistful mediation on the impermanence of life and the fragility of marriage and love. A funny movie, to be sure, but mercifully largely free of the proverbial madcap mayhem and contrived hilarity we've come to expect from Gollywood.

By the end of the movie when Marley's brief life has run its course there is a protracted death scene which approaches maudlin but stops short (like a dog in response to an invisible fence) and in the final analysis the filmmakers earns every one of those sniffles and sobs and moist eyes throughout the audience.

Producers seem to have caught on because as I sit here typing this a re-packaged "Marley and Me" TV commercial just aired which actually said "You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll fall in love." (Gak! Please tell me they were being ironic, or even meta-ironic.)

Go see it anyway.

"Cadillac Records" is not a hoopty

2009-01-03T23:34:00.011-05:00

I caught "Cadillac Records" tonight, which curiously is only showing at a couple of suburban MD theaters, one of which was the Magic Johnson theater (which I avoid like the plague because people still don't know how to turn off their cell phones there. Plus they've managed to turn the place from a jewel into a dump in record time, but that's another blog post).

Anyway, I caught the movie at Muvico Arundel Mills, on a Saturday evening and the place was packed. I LOVED this movie, flawed though it was.

They keep trying to push "Cadillac Records" as a starring vehicle for Beyoncé Knowles who plays Etta James. Truth is, Etta doesn't show up till one hour into the film. Beyonce acquits herself well enough, particularly with her acting. As the great blues singer though she manages merely to suggest Etta James' singing more than embody it. James' trademark growl is reduced to more of a purr, too polished and refined to 'feel' the pain in James' vocals. Or put another way, Etta James sings like a beat-up '54 Ford rusting in the yard and Beyonce Knowles sounds about as rough as a new Lexus in need of a tune-up. This not a knock on Beyonce, who has worked her entire career to sound as smooth and polished as she could. She certainly doesn't embarrass herself in this role (for embarrassingly bad think Diana Ross as Billie Holiday in "Lady Sings the Blues").

I spend entirely too much time defending Beyonce to my co-workers (the DC Curmudgeon and the Jamaican Curmudgeon) who insist that she is just a talentless beauty with a body. I don't get the hate and the resentment. Anyone who has heard Beyonce's duets with Luther Vandross (try "The Closer I Get To You") can tell she can sing, and most of her songs are not badly sung, merely mindless pap, today's version of bubble gum music. Like the old commercial used to say "don't hate her because she's beautiful." She's also been blessed with talent and good fortune, none of which should take away from her trying to stretch and embody women who weren't.

The revelation in "Cadillac Records" is DC's own Jeffrey Wright (who's been great in all his roles, but most notably in "Basquiat," John Singleton's "Shaft," "Angels in America," and "Syriana") as Muddy Waters. His is a portrayal worthy of strong consideration come acting award season. And not far behind is Columbus Short as harmonica player Little Walter. This brother seems to have come out of nowhere to almost steal the movie. Close behind (but not by much) are Mos Def ("Something the Lord Made") as Chuck Berry and British actor Eamonn Walker ("Oz") who is downright scary as Howlin' Wolf.

Adrien Brody ("The Pianist ," "The Darjeeling Limited ," "Summer of Sam") was reliably good as Chess records owner Leonard Chess (although I overheard a White lady grousing as she exited that they should have chosen someone not so pretty to play Chess).

The film's African American director is Darnell Martin, a woman whose only other movie was 1994's "I Like It Like That ", a Hispanic love story set in NYC, and a very good movie in its own right. I like the way Martin embodied the time periods in "Cadillac Records" both in cotton-picking Mississippi and Northern migration Chicago, much more believable an evocation of the time period than one normally sees in most biopics, including "Ray." As with all biopics the film is necessarily episodic. Still I'm glad she included such seminal figures as Alan Lomax who travelled the deep south in the 30s and 40s recording blues singers and other rural folk artists for the Library of Congress.

"Cadillac Records" is a wonderful addition to the pantheon of historical cinema and an invaluable history lesson to those to whom this period and the blues are foreign.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T11:21:00.003-05:00

Last night, my daughter (AKA the kid curmudgeon) and I brought in the new year by christening the fireplace in our new house and roasting marshmallows and making 'smores just like she used to do in the Girl Scouts. Doesn't get any better than that.

2008 turned out to be a good year for the IC. I became a home-owner at long last (one man's downturn is another man's opportunity) and we became dog-owners finally (a yellow lab, AKA the puppy curmudgeon). And of course Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential sweepstakes to see who would get the opportunity to clean up George W. Bush's 8 years of pooping on the US and the world's carpet and peeing on our constitution and our rights.

Here's to Barack Obama getting us back on track in 2009 and for a happy and healthy and safe New Year for us all!

"Slumdog Millionaire": one of the years best films

2008-12-30T23:59:00.007-05:00

Tonight I convinced my daughter, Kid Curmudgeon, to go see "Slumdog Millionaire," a film I had already seen at "Talk Cinema" at the AFI and had loved.

The film, filmed entirely on location in Mumbai, was co-directed by British filmmaker Danny Boyle (Trainspotting , Millions, Sunshine, 28 Days Later...) and Indian female director Loveleen Tandan (casting director on Mira Nair's "Vanity Fair" and "Monsoon Wedding," as well as 2nd assistant director on "Monsoon Wedding").

"Slumdog Millionaire" tells the story of Jamal Malik, a kid from the Mumbai slums who improbably becomes a contestant on the Indian version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire." The story is told through flashbacks explaining just how Jamal came to know all the answers to the questions he is asked on the show, which he knows as it turns out, by virtue of his life experiences surviving in the slums with his brother Salim and the little girl he rescued and came to love, Latika.

The film covers the lives of the 3 principals at ages 7, 14, and 21, played of course by three sets of actors, the youngest being actual non-actor Mumbai street kids.

The adults are played by Dev Patel (Jamal Malik) a British Actor of Indian parentage known in the US primarily for starring in the BBC series "Skins," Madhur Mittal (Salim Malik) a novice Indian actor, and Freida Pinto (Latika) a beautiful Mumbai model and TV host acting in her first movie.

The film is mostly told in English (which should help its US box office) with English subtitles for the Hindi parts.

Filmed in a frenetic, semi-documentary style by Anthony Dod Mantle ("The Last King of Scotland"), I would describe Slumdog Millionaire as "City of God" meets "Oliver Twist" meets "Monsoon Wedding" and "The Darjeeling Limited ," but that would be selling it short. The film is a wonderfully inventive evocation of a milieu foreign to most of us, told in a completely novel way (based on the novel "Q&A" by Vikas Swarup and screenwritten by Simon Beaufoy ("The Full Monty")).

Ultimately, Kid Curmudgeon puts "Slumdog Millionaire" in the top 5 movies of her life (she's a teenager) and I put it as one of my top two movies of 2008 (along with Jonathan Demme's "Rachel Getting Married"). Highly recommended in any case.

No Doubt about "Doubt"

2008-12-30T23:36:00.003-05:00

Christmas time is my time to catch up on the serious movies released around this time for Oscar consideration. Today I went to see "Doubt," the new Philip Seymour Hoffman-Meryl Streep vehicle written and directed by John Patrick Shanley, based on his award-winning play of the same name. The play won the 2005 Tony award for Best Play. The film should enjoy similar success come award season.

The movie is about a parish priest in NYC (Hoffman) who is persecuted by the principal of the Catholic school associated with the parish by the school's principal who was also a nun and mother superior (Streep) based purely on her suspicion that the priest might be getting a little too 'familiar' with the lone Black kid in the school, a loner ostracized by the other students. Still, despite the seriousness of the subject matter, the writing is witty rather than dour, at times even laugh-out-loud funny (God I love good writing)!

The story takes place in the year after the Kennedy assasination (IC was in high school in Texas that year) although the students seem to be about middle school age (what we would have called 'junior high' back then--why the change?!).

Fans of good acting and good writing will find a lot to love in this movie. Still as good as Hoffman and Streep are, and they indeed give the proverbial Oscar-worthy performances, the actor who steals the show is Viola Davis as the mother of the putative victim. She's only on the screen for 15 minutes but, if there is any justice, she will be nominated and win for "Best Supporting Actress" at the 2009 Oscars. She will be familiar to most for her roles on "Law and Order" and "Grey's Anatomy," but I certainly look for her star to rise after this. Worth the price of admission.

"Doubt" was further graced by the wonderful cinematography of the Great Roger Deakins ("No Country for Old Men" and most of the other films by the Coen Brothers).

Why hasTGI Fridays become anti-vegetarian?

2008-12-29T22:41:00.008-05:00

For Christmas 2008, I went out to dinner with my meatatarian brother again. Last year we went to my favorite Chinese restaurant, Hunan Manor, which features a whole section of meatless entrees for a vegetarian like me (personal favorite: vegetarian honey sesame chicken).

This year we found out that the local TGI Fridays was open so we went there. The good news is that they were open for Christmas. The bad news was that they had eliminated the last remaining vegetarian option on the menu, some kind of lame cold pasta salad concoction so spiked with sulfiting agents as to be virtually inedible, yet still it was marginally better than nothing.

This is perplexing in that when I became a vegetarian 30 years ago, TGI Fridays was the first chain restaurant to offer a veggie burger (at least in the DC area). They had an excellent Garden Burger on the menu, served with a black-eyed peas salad on the side. Inexplicably, this disappeared from the menu about 3 years ago, along with the veggie wrap (served cold, but delicious) and assorted other veggie alternatives, as they began touting their red meat and Jack Daniels entrees (who oversaw this change, Karl Rove? Rush Limbaugh?). Apparently management has made a decision to stop catering to the white collar yuppie vaguely health-conscious demographic of years past to reach out to the red meat craving blue collar NASCAR demographic (much like Monday Night Football did when they brought in Hank Williams Jr. to annoy us with his "Ready for some football" braying).

I mean, its not just that Fridays has made it impossible for vegetarians like me to enjoy meals there with their non-veggie friends. It is that TGI Fridays has decided to become militantly anti-vegetarian, and that is indeed a troubling trend. It may be TGI Fridays but its not the Fridays I used to love to patronize.

For the record, my brother went with the ribs and I had to go with either the house salad or the Tuscan spinach dip with tortilla chips. I went with the dip since vegetarians need and deserve our veggies hot, not raw (we ain't frickin' rabbits, for God's sake!), even though in retrospect it was probably made with chicken soup since thats the way most restaurants insist on making it.

Therefore, unless and until Fridays gets its act together, I'm sticking with Ruby Tuesdays (great veggie burger, very good salad bar, and lots of veggie alternatives on the menu. Plus they are not afraid to cater to the more health conscious diners).

Sorry About That!

2008-12-23T16:17:00.008-05:00

When I first started this blog, I resolved to post new stuff at least once a week, once a month at worst.

Now, bogged down in moving my home and my office and getting a dog and myriad other distractions, I find myself seven weeks past my last post.

This is unacceptable and I promise to do better (for both of you out there actually reading this thing).

In the meantime, be sure to check out the links to my friends' blogs at right, like David Mills who writes "Undercover Black Man." The most prolific blogger I know, he routinely posts several times daily about music, media, politics, about anything on his mind. He augments his posts with terrific audio and video clips, which I would like to do some day too. He used to write for the Washington Post before heading west to the left coast to write for TV. He has written episodes for "The Wire" on HBO and "Homicide: Life on the Streets" for NBC, two of my all-time favorite shows.

Also check out my former student's blog "This Better Not Be Lame." She is a wonderful writer, witty, urbane, sarcastic, profane, with a delightfully snarky tone. She blogs anonymously under the name 'Sexy HU Journalist.'

Another former student, Danielle Scruggs, blogs under her own name at "Danielle Scruggs/Photography." A recent MFA Photography grad from MICA in Baltimore, she blogs about all things photography, championing photographers and their work and occasionally displaying examples of her own work. She too is a terrific writer (part of that Howard U. tradition of writers going back through Toni Morrison to Zora Neale Hurston).

Keeping it in the Howard U. family, check out my friend and former fellow Howard art dept. alum Joyce Owens, whose blog is "Joyce Owens: Artist on Art". Joyce is a celebrated artist and professor of art living and teaching in Chicago whose blog poses intriguing questions about art, about the profession of art, and about the viability of art with particular emphasis on African American art and artists.

Posting more soon, I remain the incorrigible Curmudgeon.

Election Day, November 4, 2008

2008-11-04T15:32:00.005-05:00

I got to the polls at 6:30 AM, they opened at 7 AM and I was out of there by 8AM. This photo was at about 6:45 AM when dawn was just breaking to the East. The couple at the very front of the line said they arrived at 5 AM.

This was at a nearby poll where the lines were far longer than at my poll. A friend stood out there for hours in drizzle to vote.

The front of the line at my poll.

This sister had the right idea!

A lot of smiles this morning.

The line wrapping around the building at my poll.

The line stretching off behind me this morning.

Adams Morgan Clown Mural, creepy...

2008-10-09T13:57:00.004-04:00

What's up with this mural in Adams Morgan (seen from 'U' Street & Florida Avenue, NW)? Clowns are pretty creepy in general but this one is particularly so.

Car-cam photo of the day: LeDroit Park house.

2008-10-08T17:00:00.000-04:00

Cool-looking LeDroit Park house. Looks like the house on the right is available for anyone into fixer-uppers .

First Obama-McCain debate

2008-09-27T09:22:00.004-04:00

I watched the debate last night and while I was not surprised at how well Barack Obama did, I was surprised by just how well John McCain held his own.

I suddenly realized that the vote John McCain has locked up and which Barack Obama has yet to reach is the voter who asks themselves the question: "Which candidate would you most like to go out and have a beer with?"

Of course for me the answer would be Barack Obama but for that demographic of young-to-middle-aged White males, the voters George W. Bush was always so successful with, I'm afraid McCain comes off as 'more fun.'

Of course this begs the question of whether we would prefer a fun president or a competent, principled one, yet in American politics getting elected is still very much a popularity contest.

Black portrait project airs on HBO

2008-08-23T11:10:00.013-04:00

American portrait photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders (b.1952) is collaborating on a portrait photography/oral history project called Blacklist, Vol 1, with Black film critic Elvis Mitchell interviewing the subjects. The subjects are a wide-ranging variety of Black celebrities (including Toni Morrison, Serena Williams, Sean Coombs, Richard Parsons, Chris Rock, etc.). It airs on HBO on Monday, August 25th.

Interesting that White photographers find themselves drawn to photographing Black portraits. Reminds me of Brian Lanker's project "I Dream a World: portraits of Black Women who Changed America," which I both envied and admired. I envied both the sheer beauty of Lanker's portraits and his audacity for having conceived the project in the first place. Green-field Sanders has produced some awesome results as well.

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders seems to favor the unflinching, staring-straight-into-the-camera style of Richard Avedon in his non-commercial non-fashion work in his later years. He also favors Avedon's penchant for very large-format view cameras (11x14). Makes a militantly anachronistic statement in this digital photography age.

Dutch Country Market

2008-08-09T15:01:00.004-04:00

The Dutch Country Farmer's Market in Burtonsville, MD has been a landmark for decades. Run by the Pennsylvania Dutch Amish who ply their wares here every Thursday through Saturday, it has been forced to move because a shopping center developer has bought the strip mall with the intention to raze it and build another strip mall in its place (go figure).

It was supposed to close at the end of August 2008 and move to an abandoned furniture store in Laurel, about 5 miles to the east in Prince Georges county.

However, the website (who knew the Amish had websites?) seems to indicate that the move is off indefinitely. I hope so. I like the idea of the market and that people come from all over DC/Maryland/Virginia to shop here, even though, as a veggie, the market is a little too meat-heavy for my tastes. In fact, their is precious little for a veggie, but I'm glad they're staying a while longer anyway.

What do you get when you cross a tire with a pigeon?

2008-08-09T14:54:00.002-04:00

This unfortunate bird was too slow to avoid catastrophe in my parking garage at work (no I didn't hit it).

I thought it might be too morbid to post, but everyone I showed it to said I should post it anyway ( there is a certain geometric beauty to the splatter pattern).

(c)2008, Incorrigible Curmudgeon

George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic

2008-07-26T19:48:00.006-04:00

George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic at the 9:30 Club, July 19, 2008

Garry Shider (in diaper) comparing physiques with Sir Nose (right) and George Clinton.

George Clinton rocking his Chocolate City shirt in Chocolate City

Michael Hampton, worthy heir to the late great Eddie Hazel, is still making grown men cry with his heart-breakingly plaintive guitar wailing on "Maggot Brain." George Harrison once famously made his guitar 'gently weep.' Well Eddie Hazel and Michael Hampton have made their guitars both scream with passion and writhe in anguish.

All photos (c) 2008 Incorrigible Curmudgeon

Like I said, my favorite jam bands are Mandrill, Parliament Funkadelic, and War.

Well this has been a great Summer because I've been able to see the first two and they both kicked ass!

Seeing George Clinton again was like seeing an old friend or your crazy old uncle again after a long hiatus.

I've been watching George and Parliament since 1968 when they had solid radio hits like "I Just Wanna Testify," "Let Hurt Put You Behind the Wheel," and "Get Up On the Down Stroke," great party songs but up to this point they were pretty much just another R&B group in matching tuxedos ala the Temptations.

The next year they re-invented themselves, busting out in costumes (the diaper, the union suit, the hair and make-up) as the Funk/Rock hybrid Parliament Funkadelic we all know and love. Forty years later they are still getting it done, George is still the impish gnome in chief, the screaming guitars (led by Michael Hampton) are still putting a lie to the perception that Black people don't dig rock, and Garry Shider is still rockin' that diaper, well into his 60's.

The show was at the 9:30 Club near Howard University and started 2 hours late so we only stayed for 3 of the usual 4 hours they are still renowned for jamming, even at their age.

Unfortunately, they don't let you bring real cameras to concerts like back in the day, but the 9:30 Club only prohibits "professional cameras and video" so I had the frustrating experience of capturing the show on my point-and-shoot digital from the balcony (my leg was injured and I wasn't about to fight the teeming hoards on the dance floor to get up close to the stage). Still it was better than nothing (barely) but you be the judge.

Check out the Washington Post article about George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, a feature piece in the Weekend section the day before the show.

Shark week returns

2008-07-25T17:38:00.004-04:00

Discovery Communications bldg. 2006, Shark week
(c)2006 Incorrigible Curmudgeon

It's Shark Week again starting Sunday on the Discovery Channel, July 27 to Aug. 2, 2008.

Too bad they no longer inflate the giant shark on the Discovery bldg.

Really got me pumped for all that week-long shark-gore.

Cluck-U Chicken

2008-07-25T17:13:00.003-04:00

Another restaurant bites the dust. This venue is just north of Howard University in DC. Love the name, juvenilishly catchy. As a veggie, I can't vouch for the chicken, though I heard good things.

Lake Elkhorn, Columbia, MD

2008-07-25T17:10:00.001-04:00

Lake Elkhorn, Columbia, MD, from north bridge
(c)2008 Incorrigible Curmudgeon

Wall murals, Silver Spring, MD

2008-07-25T17:05:00.002-04:00

New Hampshire Avenue at Piney Branch
(c)2008 Incorrigible Curmudgeon

Discovery Communications bldg., Georgia Avenue
(c)2008 Incorrigible Curmudgeon

Birds on my balcony

2008-07-15T21:42:00.002-04:00

When I first moved into this apartment years ago, I tried to grow tomatoes and flowers on my balcony. The tomatoes failed big time and while the flowers worked fine, one flower box soon attracted a mourning dove in search of a safe nesting spot. I gladly ceded the spot to her so we could watch her nest.

Over the years she, or another mourning dove (perhaps even her grown child), has nested 2 or 3 times each season. This was her first brood of 2008.

Coulda been worse

2008-07-11T17:30:00.003-04:00

Mandrill Rules!!!!

2008-06-25T21:38:00.009-04:00

I have three favorite jam bands: Mandrill, War, and Parliament-Funkadelic. The first two were in the DC area last week, though War at the Carter Barron sold out before I could cop tickets. And George Clinton is on tour again with Parliament-Funkadelic and will be at the 9:30 club in July. Life is good.

Mandrill was at the Birchmere while I was away on vacation, but fortunately they were also in nearby Annapolis this Monday at the Rams Head Tavern, and they jammed like they had never left the scene! Still gettin' it done! Mandrill stands ten strong, and with the four Wilson Brothers and some others from the original iteration and an outstanding selection of newer talent (notably on drum kit, lead guitar, and violin) they rocked all their hits in a breathless 90-minute set. Highlights included "Mandrill," "Fencewalk," "Children of the Sun," "Mango Meat," "House of Wood," "Get it All," and of course "Ape is High." Carlos Wilson's voice and flute were in fine form, as were Lou Wilson on trumpet and vocals, Ricardo "Doc" Wilson on Trombone and vocals, and Wilfredo Wilson on congas and vocals. Admonitions by the venue that the audience refrain from dancing went appropriately unheeded (as if the audience had any choice once Mandrill started jamming).

Mandrill has always been horn-strong, with trombone and trumpet, soprano and baritone saxes, all mic-ed, so the sound was deafeningly loud. My ears rang for hours after the show since I was sitting next to the stage. Back in the day, I used to shoot concerts with my ear next to the loudspeakers with no problem. Not any more.

Still, it was all worth it, and I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a concert so much.

World's greatest rock band: the Rolling Who?! The Grateful Duds?! They better reco'nize! Mandrill Rules!

Bicentennial Blunder

2008-06-12T17:55:00.004-04:00

Of all the miss-steps taken in celebration of the Bicentennial 32 years ago, among the worst (at least in DC) has to be the bright idea to make planters out of discarded car wheels and tires. The tires were cut away from the wheel hub on one side of the wheel and flipped inside-out, still attached to the other side. The result was a bowl shape which was then trimmed in a scallop pattern in an effort to make these hideous things as appealing as possible. Filled with soil, they became crude planters of sorts. When painted, you could almost forget their origins save for the tell-tale tire pattern clearly visible. These 'planters' once proliferated throughout DC, though most have mercifully disappeared. These photos were recently taken on Ingraham Street, NW, near Kennedy.

The only thing worse was the brainstorm to paint DC fire hydrants to look like little steadfast tin soldiers, attired in uniforms the likes of which even Michael Jackson would avoid. The color palette on these atrocities was straight out of the local house paint store (where it no doubt came from) and contributed to the garishly grotesque appearance of these stunted humanoids with the phocomelic paddles for arms and their 'we are Devo' helmets. Thankfully, they all seem to have been replaced or repainted in dark green, though a few have been spotted well into the 21st Century. If I ever spot one that slipped through the cracks I'll be sure to post the photo.

Watermelon House, DC

2008-05-28T17:23:00.001-04:00

1100 block of 'Q' Street, NW, Washington, DC

Taking Inventory

2008-05-16T13:00:00.002-04:00

Ever since 9-11, I have endeavored to make a point of not taking things for granted. And as a photo documentarian I have always strived to be a vernacular iconographer, an artist capturing, celebrating, and immortalizing in my photos the everyday things and places we too often take for granted, things we will look back on in 30 years saying "whatever happened to?" Like gas stations with signs advertising gas at 29.9. Or the original McDonalds or Little Tavern restaurants. Or storefronts plastered with signs for products that no longer exist.
One could argue that there is nothing 'vernacular' about the U.S. Capitol bldg. or the Washington Monument, but they are certainly among the things we Washingtonians take for granted, barely giving them a glance when we spy them while walking down the street or looking out of our workplace windows. During my commute there is one place at the corner of North Capitol St. and Michigan Avenue where I can see them both. I haven't had much success photographing the monument from my moving car as the monument ducks in and out of the filtration silos for the MacMillan Reservoir at that corner, but here is a shot of the Capitol dome, looking down North Capitol from my car. I shot the monument from the roof of my garage at work. And every day I'm in DC, I continue to take inventory.
What are the things you take for granted in your towns? Whatever they might be, New York has taught us to never do so again.

Pink Snow

2008-05-01T13:09:00.002-04:00

Say what you will about the DC metropolitan area, but it can be drop-dead beautiful in the Spring with all the flowering trees that proliferate apart from the more famous Tidal Basin Cherry Blossoms trees. In my neck of the woods, we are blessed with 'Pink Snow" for a brief window of time each Spring. Here are a few examples.

WTF?! moment #3

2008-04-28T18:11:00.003-04:00

I found these hanging under the Florida license plates of a car parked on Howard University's campus recently. NPR says now a Florida legislator is trying to have them banned. Sez they're called "Truck Nutz" and they're proliferating like crazy on Florida cars, particularly pick-ups and SUVs. Not sure what to say about them. An interesting cultural phenomenon, sadly not just for the George Bush demographic anymore.

The Last Little Tavern, Laurel, MD

2008-04-25T17:24:00.003-04:00

This is the last restaurant in the Little Tavern chain left in Metropolitan Washington, DC. This one is on Route 1 Southbound, just south of Main Street in Laurel, MD. It closed shortly after I shot this photo over the Christmas holidays, supposedly to re-open soon. Not sure if it ever did. Downtown Silver Spring used to have two of these, one's now a red-roofed paper company, the other a yellow-roofed Chinese carryout. Another dying piece of Americana.

Silver Spring, MD, Downtown

2008-04-23T13:36:00.003-04:00

I lived in downtown Silver Spring for 10 years in the '90s, back when it was a dump, okay, actually just seedy, tawdry, and run-down.

These days, its been re-invented as a destination, and has become one of my my favorite places to hang-out, with cool places like the AFI Silver theater, the Austin Grill, Borders books, Whole Foods, and free garage parking on evenings and weekends. Also decent Ethiopian food (Lagano) and bland but decent Caribbean food (Negril's) nearby, along with Panera's, Macaroni Grill, Asian Bistro, Starbucks, Great Eggspectations, the Majestic Twenty stadium seating movie theater, and the incomparable Roadhouse Oldies. Supposed to be free wi-fi throughout downtown, but I haven't vetted it yet.

Silver Spring backroad

2008-04-22T13:50:00.000-04:00

Omegas on the long-walk

2008-04-18T13:30:00.000-04:00

Omegas on the long-walk. Howard University

Lake Artemesia, College Park, MD

2008-04-15T17:30:00.000-04:00

Lake Artemesia is a man-made lake formed from the land excavated to elevate the tracks of the Metro Green line which run parallel to it. The lake is about a half a mile North of the College Park Metro station.

It has become a beautiful wildlife refuge with paved paths around and across it. The only downer is that boating is prohibited. This lake would be perfect for kayaking.

Talk Cinema/"Elsa Y Fred"

2008-04-13T14:36:00.004-04:00

"Elsa Y Fred" (Spain/Argentina 2005) is a wonderful gem of a movie, and yet another Talk Cinema reminder of why I love the movies so much.

Ostensibly a love story between a free-spirited 78 year-old widow and a repressed 79 year-old widower she woos, attempting to free him from his practiced torpor.

It is a love story to film (in particular to fellini's "La Dolce Vita" with elements of "Harold and Maude" and "Cinema Paradiso" and even "Harry & Tonto"), a love story to falling in love despite age or infirmity, and a love story to living life free from fear.

It posits that while many elderly sufffer from the fear of dying, far too many suffer from a fear of living. That worse than the inevitability of death is dying having not lived as fully as one could have/should have.

Fred (Alfredo) is played by Spanish actor Manuel Alexandre, Elsa by Uruguyan actor China Zorilla, both somewhat older than the characters they embody so fully and well. I cannot recommend this movie highly enough.

Kathy & Zamaniya

2008-04-11T10:32:00.002-04:00

Kathy & Zamaniya at a Bob Evans restaurant in West Vrginia.

Chuck Brown at Howard University

2008-04-10T17:30:00.004-04:00

Chuck Brown playing for the Howard University Christmas Party for staff and faculty, thrown by President H. Patrick Swygert, Christmas 2006. Photographed with Nikon D200 with 28-200mm lens, using built-in flash.

Photo (c) 2006 by the Incorrigible Curmudgeon

Kay and Morgan

2008-04-09T17:07:00.001-04:00

A couple of great faces.

This is What 92 Looks Like

2008-04-08T11:56:00.005-04:00

This is my cousin Reba, age 92, from Ohio.

We should all look so good.

Still sharp as a tack and still driving.

A wonderful, warm, and witty woman.

Photographed with Nikon D200 with 18-200mm lens.

Talk Cinema/"the Life Before Her Eyes"

2008-04-06T14:20:00.006-04:00

Talk Cinema hits another homerun with"The Life before Her Eyes," a brilliant, memorable new film that stays on your mind long after the movie has faded from the screen

Essentially a lyrically beautiful meditation on the ways in which a Colombine-type school massacre affects those impacted for generatons to come.

Told in flashback from the POV of two students who confront the gunman, 17 year-old girls from the low rent side of the tracks, who remain best friends despite polar opposite backgrounds, one a risk-taking rebel who's parents are divorced, the other a God-fearing church goer from a large, pious family.

The acting is superb, particularly Evan Rachel Wood as one of the young girls and Uma Thurman as the girl grown up with a daughter of her own.

Film is directed by Ukrainian director Vadim Perelman and this is his second film, after House of Sand and Fog.

Had I heard going in that a movie was dealing with a school massacre, I would never have been inclined to go see it. I am so glad I was able to experience this movie afterall.

I highly recommend this film.

Chicago Urban Landscapes

2008-04-04T13:30:00.000-04:00

In March 2007, I made my first visit to Chicago and was captivated by the imagery I encountered (like finding that Lake Michigan was as turquoise as the Caribbean). These are a few of my favorite images.

Rehoboth Beach, DE, October 2007

2008-04-03T17:22:00.002-04:00

Rehoboth Beach, DE, October 2007

40th Anniversary of Howard 'A' building takeover

2008-03-20T13:13:00.000-04:00

I was a freshman at Howard University when 1,200 of us entered the Administration building on March 20, 1968, sitting-in in protest over the threatened expulsion of 38 of our classmates who had been accused of disrupting Charter Day.

Four days later we marched back out, having shut down the University and having saved those students from expulsion, successful in having prevailed in all our demands save one: the removal of President James M. Nabrit, which would come to pass two years later when Dr. James Cheek took office.

While we were the first United States university closed down by student activism, Columbia University (which had supported our efforts) followed our protest with one of their own and because of better media coverage is generally assumed to have been first. I am happy to set the record straight.

Among the protest leaders, Michael Harris, the Freshmen class president would later become a lawyer in the Howard University Office of General Counsel. Howard University Student Association (H.U.S.A) president Ewart Brown, M.D. is currently Premier of Bermuda, and Tony Gittens, Ph.D. is executive director of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

For further information, reference the 1968 NET (Public Television) documentary on the protest “Color Us Black.”
Also read Tom Myles’ 1969 book “Centennial Plus 1: A Photographic and Narrative Account of the Black Student Revolution: Howard University 1965-1968.”

Wintry Mix

2008-03-06T14:54:00.006-05:00

Early morning Ice in the street
The dreaded freezing rain aftermath
our pitiful 1" one and only DC snowfall this winter
our pitiful 1" one and only DC snowfall this winter

Winter's trending down here in DC and we have yet to have more than an inch of snow. All we seem to have earned is the dreaded 'wintry mix,' freezing rain & sleet, the lavender expanses on the TV weather maps, while everyone else gets the 'white stuff.'

We've had the usually hystrionics by the local meteorologists warning of impending apocalyptic snowfalls headed our way but they have all brushed past us to the North, some even to the South. North Carolina has received more snowfall than DC this winter. Hell, even Hotlanta got snow.

I feel cheated, and with only 3 more weeks until April I am not optimistic that we will make up for lost time this winter. The Cherry Blossoms will be in bloom this year starting March 27th.

Street Memorial

2008-02-13T15:40:00.005-05:00

The street memorial is a whimsically sad form of art which, if not unique to DC is certainly ubiquitous in DC.

Assembled in tribute to a recently deceased child who is just as likely to have been a hit-and-run victim as a victim of random street violence, these memorials usually consist of a photo, sometimes flowers, and stuffed animals tied or gaffer-taped to a lamp post. This one is on the corner of Sherman Avenue and Columbia Road, NW.

One of my students once did a photo essay on these types of memorials. I'm sure there's a coffee-table book in there somewhere for a photographer with the time and talent to more formally document this phenomenon.

While Driving to work...

2008-02-12T15:59:00.004-05:00

My friend Dr. Leffall likes to talk about 'grace notes.' It's a concept he learned from his friend and classmate Cannonball Adderley, who defined a grace note as those extra notes or flourishes that take a piece of music from the significant to the sublime.

To me, a grace note is what I experience when I go walking out the door, lost in thought or pre-occupied with the tasks that await me. And then I look up and suddenly become aware of how extraoridinarily beautiful the morning is: perhaps the sun streaming through the trees or the sound of a bird's song or the colors of the foliage or the quietness of the falling snow. The things that take me away from the mundane, the quotidian, and remind me how wonderful life is and how beautiful our world can be, these are grace notes to me on a profound level.

To me one of the most rare and ephemeral grace notes has to be the rainbow. It was right after sunrise when this rare morning rainbow materialized. I drove quickly to a roadside park where I could stop my car and snap a few shots before the rainbow dissapated. The blues and greens had already begun to disappear but I managed to snap a few shots, including this one.

Leonard Cohen wrote a song called "Bird on a Wire." I shot these birds on a wire while stuck in traffic at a light by pointing my camera up through my moon roof, finding a little bit of beauty in an otherwise cloudy, dreary day.

Driving to work on a rainy day it is often dark enough for some lights to still be on on street lights and businesses along the way. I always tell my students not to be 'fair-weather photographers' advice I take to heart. Besides, I find a car makes an ideal platform from which to shoot landscapes and cityscapes in inclement weather. I was mesmerized by the cloud formations on this particular day. Still waiting for to get the elusive shot of lightning or of a tornado.

Back in the day, Washington, DC, 1969

2008-01-29T09:56:00.005-05:00

Mustang & Mini-skirt, 4th Street, front of the Quad, Howard University, 1969

Gulf Gas Station, Michigan Avenue, 29.9 a gallon, Photo

Lincoln Theater, U Street, where I ushered in 1969 (which is why I never made it to Woodstock). The film showing is "The Lost Man" with Sidney Poitier and Al Freeman, Jr. which I ended up seeing 125 times in the course of my job. Photo

My friends at the Popcorn stand, Lincoln Theater, 1969 Photo

Dodge Charger and Mercury Cougar XR7,

Venice, California

2008-01-17T14:42:00.000-05:00

Street performer, Venice, CA

Bicycle acrobat, Venice, CA, as seen from Sidewalk Cafe

World's Greatest Wino, Venice, CA

Human statue, Venice, CA

Famous designer house, Venice, CA

Sidewalk Cafe, my favorite Venice eatery, Venice, CA

(see my Sept. 14, 2007 post below to see why).

Another Venice cyclist, Venice, CA

Purple flowers, Venice, CA

Seagull, Venice Pier, Venice, CA

I think this flower is a Bird of Paradise, Venice, CA

Venice (Venice Beach), California is one of my favorite places in one of my favorite cities, Los Angeles. It used to be a wildly independent frontier where eccentrics of all stripes peddled their peculiar talents for adoring tourists (and eager photographers like me). Now, I hear, you need a permit to be eccentric so the whole experience is sanitized compared to the way it was before the conservatives got a hold of it.

Nonetheless, a fiercely independent spirit maintains and I continue to be drawn back to it every time I'm in Los Angeles.

Obama, New Hampshire, my take

2008-01-09T14:57:00.000-05:00

The main difference between a caucus like Iowa and a primary like New Hampshire is that caucuses are open and primaries consist of votes in private (my thanks to NPR for that insight).

While people may advocate for Obama in an open caucus, there is no disincentive to voting against him in a private vote like New Hampshire's. This is something the pundits all missed in their predictions of a double-digit Obama win after his 'surprise' win in Iowa. At the same time, Hillary, for all the strengths and experience to which she lays claim, is simply too divisive and polarizing to engender wide popular support.

In this election, you can throw exit polls out the window and pundits under the bus because ultimately it will boil down to people voting their hearts, and that's just beyond all precognition.

Assateague in winter

2008-01-04T12:48:00.001-05:00

Sinepuxent Bay, which separates Assateague Island from the mainland

Traditionally for as long as I can remember, I have made the pilgrimage to Assateague National Seashore at least once a year. It is an Atlantic coast barrier island just south of Ocean City, MD. I like it because it is just sand and water (and wild ponies) without any boardwalks or concession stands. I always go to the National park section to swim, chill, take photos, and relax to the sound of the waves at one of my favorite spots on Earth. It is 150 miles and 2-1/2 hours from DC (on a good day).

In 2006, I was running out of time to make my yearly trek, so my daughter and I drove out here on December 23rd, arriving just before sundown. I brought my Nikon D200 with me and took these photos. In 2007, we never made it to Assateague, but we did get to Venice Beach, CA and to Rehoboth Beach, DE so I don't feel too bad.

Gresham Street NW rowhouses

2008-01-02T17:13:00.000-05:00

About twenty years ago, I was in San Francisco and my friend/frat brother/architect Gary "Snoopy" McIntyre was giving me an architectural tour of the bay area (where he has lived since Howard) and he made a point of taking me to see a row of houses which had come to be known as the 'Painted Ladies.'

Anyway, one day I was out exercise walking around the MacMillan Reservoir next to Howard and noticed that this row of houses adjacent to Drew Hall, when viewed from one certain vantage point, reminded me of the 'Painted Ladies.'

I came back with my Nikon D200 with the 18-200mm VR lens and got this shot, which brought the gothic architecture of the Washington Cathedral into play as well, though it is 3 miles away on the other side of Rock Creek park on Wisconsin Avenue, perched on the highest spot in Washington, DC.

I love this POV but I need to go back and re-shoot it with a longer lens and a tripod to do it up right.

Farewell to Tom Terrell

2007-11-30T21:55:00.001-05:00

I am saddened to report that my long-time friend Tom Terrell passed away early Thursday morning, November 29, 2007, after battling prostate cancer for a year and a half.

Tom and I got our starts in photography as Howard University Hilltop and Bison photographers. Tom went on to enjoy a distinguished career (mostly in NYC) as a music journalist, and had recently returned to live in DC.

Tom was an amazing photographer, a gifted writer, and a wonderful and cherished friend.

Photos of Tom can be seen at the Tom Terrell tribute blog at the Tom Terrell Photo Blog and links to his two blogs containing brief samples of his writing can be found on the right of his blog. A link to the Tom Terrell Photo Blog is to the right of this blog.

Also, please go to NPR Radio and enter “Tom Terrell” into the search bar at top to see links to his 17 NPR commentaries.

Feel free to post comments and remembrances on his tribute blog. If anyone has photos of or by Tom that they would like me to post to his blog, please contact me.

Funeral Arrangements are as follows:

Please note the following: "Celebration Of Life For Tom Terrell"

Friday, December 7, 2007
"Wake" - 6:00 P.M. - 8:00 P.M.
Stewart Funeral Home, Inc.
4001 Benning Road, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20019
(202) 399-3600

Saturday, December 8, 2007
"Celebration of Life"
9:00 A.M. Viewing
11:00 A.M. Funeral Service
Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel at Howard University
6th Street and Howard Place, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20059
(202) 806-7280

Internment and Repast - TBA

R.I.P. Washington Post Radio (We hardly knew ye’)

2007-09-20T12:54:00.000-04:00

Today the brief experiment known as Washington Post Radio (WTWP AM1500) came to an unceremonious end when The Washington Post severed its relationship with station owner Bonneville communications and the call letters were changed to WWWT (3WT as they like to call it).

The original intent was to have a commercial version of NPR ( NPR on caffeine, someone at the station once called it) using the talent and resources of the Washington Post.

Unfortunately it quickly became apparent that they lacked the resources and reporters to do the kind of long-form reporting for which NPR is celebrated. Hosts would instead have the reporters on who had written whichever story they were discussing at the time and inevitably they would regurgitate (often read outright) the newspaper story itself, leading to the most leaden and stultifying radio imaginable.

Not that I wasn’t a fan and, as a life-long subscriber to the Washington Post, I really wanted it to work. Nonetheless, talented writers did not always make for scintillating radio personalities, Tony Kornheiser being the one exception and the sole bright spot for the radio station.

What Washington Post radio did evolve into during its brief 6 months of life was a station on which reasoned, moderate, and intelligent conversation took place about the issues of the day, entertainment, and technology, often with engaging good humor). What it is being replaced with is the rabid mad-dog right-wing ideologs of the likes of Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck, with a liberal bone thrown in in the persons of Stephanie Miller and Randi Rhodes.

What it becomes is a station of all-White talkers, largely from the right. In other words, just another version of everyone else’s talk radio. Where is the diversity? At least Tony Kornheiser’s show and the version replacing him with David Burd while he’s off on his Monday Night Football sabbatical, feature casts of regulars including Black males (Joe Barber, Kevin Stanfield, along with regular contributors David Aldridge and Eugene Robinson, to name a few). These shows will remain on 3WT though there has been no apparent effort for ethnic diversity throughout the rest of the day, and that is a true shame. Like I once noted, the 3WT moniker might as well stand for White talkers cubed.

Anti-Iraq War March, 9-15-2007

2007-09-18T15:29:00.002-04:00

While I tried to be even-handed in posting these photos, the truth is that the Anti-war protestors outnumbered the Pro-war protestors 50:1.

Can a Brother get a Veggie Burger?!

2007-09-14T15:46:00.001-04:00

When I became a vegetarian in 1980, the only restaurant where I could find a veggie burger was T.G.I.Friday. Sadly, T.G.I.Friday stopped carrying veggie burgers on their menu about a year ago.

Fortunately, it is now possible to find veggie burgers at several chain restaurants, national and local (to D.C.): Ruby Tuesday’s is quite good, Houston’s is exceptional, the Hard Times Café’s is very good, and so is Chee’ Burger-Chee’ Burger’s. On the other hand, 5 Guys, Bennigan’s and Applebee’s have no veggie burgers or sandwiches. Note to restaurants: salad on bread does not a veggie sandwich make!

Still, only one national fast food chain has stepped up to the plate in all these years and put a veggie burger on their menu nationally: Burger King with their BK-Veggie, and yes it is a good veggie burger. I’m told McDonalds test-marketed a veggie burger in California and Canada only but it never caught on and it has been discontinued, at least in California.

Actually there is one more national chain with a veggie patty: Subway, although I hesitate to call it fast food. It’s actually quite good, which begs the question: why hasn’t chief competitor Quiznos followed suit? Their veggie sub is just handsful of mushrooms and black-olives, lettuce, onions and tomatoes (with or without cheese) with guacamole slathered on. A salad sub. Blechh!

The best idea I have found is the one encountered at the Sidewalk Café in Venice Beach, California. They have a menu with a variety of sandwiches and burgers named after noted writers. Best of all, each burger is made with the customer’s choice of a beef, turkey, or veggie patty! Why doesn’t every restaurant do this? It should be a no-brainer (for reaching the greatest variety of customers).

This way, the vegetarian doesn’t have to search for some tiny vegetarian ghetto on the menu. They can eat burgers with all the fixings just like everybody else. Only with a veggie patty instead of meat. Genius!

The other thing that blew this veggie away at the Sidewalk cafe was being able to get veggie sausage on my pizza. My spinach pizza with veggie sausage was off the hook! No wonder I love LA!

Sidewalk Cafe, Venice Beach, CA, June 2007

Howard (the real HU) vs. Hampton (the new HU)

2007-09-12T17:58:00.001-04:00

Jr. Arlandus Hood, #81, scores Howard touchdown

Omega in the endzone

HU Showtime Marching Band in the stands after half-time

Chuck Brown jams with the Howard University Showtime Marching Band

Howard University Showtime Marching Band

the Omega section in the stands

Sr. Howard QB Brian Johnson #13 rolls out

Chuck Brown jams with the Howard University Showtime Marching Band

Howard U. halftime WTF?! moment #1

Howard half-time WTF?! moment #2

Chuck Brown jams with the Howard University Showtime Marching Band

Howard Jr. running back Karlos Whittaker #25 (transfer from the US Naval Academy)

How hot was it? About 95 in the shade!

A Howard band member and the Howard Bison mascot passed out from the heat.

Hampton defender takes sure touchdown away from Howard's Arlandus Hood, #81

Chuck Brown jams with the Howard University Showtime Marching Band

Hampton Institute (okay, University) Marching Band

Bottom line, while Howard looked good and played hard and displayed an impressive air-game, final score: Howard: 24, Hampton: 31

Keep Austin Weird, pt. 2

2007-09-12T13:00:00.000-04:00

The other day, my daughter and I went to the Austin Grill restaurant in re-vitalized downtown Silver Spring, MD. I was sporting this T-shirt (but with my Obama ’08 button affixed). I had picked it up in Austin, Texas in June during 'Weirdfest.'

Anyway, the greeter person complimented me on the shirt and then our wait-person came over to tell us that the manager had seen it and liked it, too, and that he was offering us a free appetizer because of it. This worked great because my daughter usually only eats the appetizers anyway.

Anyway, just a shout-out of gratitude for our favorite Silver Spring eatery. Great food, great service, the occasional live music, plus a nice, laid-back place to enjoy a beer watching a football game.

Personally, as a lacto-ovo veggie, I like to get their Spinach Quesadillas or their Spinach Enchiladas. Their Vegetable Fajitas are probably a notch above Don Pablo's though all of these type places tend to err on the side of under-cooked veggies in their fajitas (as though vegetarians by definition prefer their veggies 'Bugs Bunny-style': raw and crispy). NOT!

Memo to all restaurants that try to make a token gesture to their vegetarian customers: Vegetarians like HOT food, just like everybody else!

(Anyway, this is my first blog rant. Yes, I do actually feel better, thanks.)

Oprah Winfrey at Howard's Commencement

2007-09-06T12:22:00.002-04:00

Oprah getting weepy, 2007 Howard University Commencement

Oprah orating, 2007 Howard University Commencement
Photo (c) 2007 by the Incorrigible Curmudgeon

Now that Oprah has come out and endorsed her senator Barack Obama for president, I thought it would be a good time to share two of the photos I took May 12, 2007 when Oprah was the keynote speaker for Howard University's commencement, and of course was honored with an honorary doctorate.

Coincidentally (I think) Sen. Obama will be the keynote speaker for the Howard University Convocation September 28, 2007. Barring any glitches, I plan to be there photographing the good senator (glitches like the over-zealous Howard security guard who threatened to have me arrested while I photographed Oprah--for refusing to kneel down!)

Pre-Presidential Election madness

2007-08-29T12:18:00.000-04:00

When I drove down to North Carolina last weekend from DC, I was sporting my "Obama '08" bumpersticker, which I had just ordered. I wasn't sure what to expect, reaction-wise, but as it turned out, the only negative reaction I received was in Northern Virginia on I-95, when a blonde White woman passed me giving me the thumbs down.

I wondered at the time whether she was hating on Obama (I assumed it wasn't me or my car she was dissing) because [A] he was Black, [B] he was Democrat, or [C] she was a Hillary Clinton supporter? I ultimately concluded it was [c] because he, Obama, poses such a threat to Hillary winning the presidency. In retrospect, she may even have been Hillary Clinton, for all I know.

When I got back, my daugher pointed out this wacko in the parking lot of Staples in Columbia, MD. He or she had festooned their van with American flags and had plastered it all-over with crude hand-written signs afixed with duct-tape saying "Stop Hilary" and "Preserve America: Stop Hilary" and "Safe-Secure-Sovereign." All signs miss-spelled Hillary with one 'L.' And I thought "Wow! Hillary has really got somebody spooked." Go figure.

the Greensboro Four

2007-08-29T09:45:00.001-04:00

I drove down to North Carolina over the weekend to visit some very dear friends, one of whom is a wildlife biologist at North Carolina A&T University.

During my tour of the A&T campus, I was introduced to this magnificent statuary tribute entitled "February One," in tribute to the "Greensboro Four" who were the four civil rights activist described in the carving on the base of the statue:

"These four A&T Freshmen envisioned and carried out the lunch counter sit-in of February 1, 1960 in downtown Greensboro. Their courageous act against social injustice inspired similar progress across the nation and is remembered as a defining moment in the struggle for civil rights."

Left to right they are: David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr. (Jibreel Khazan), and Joseph McNeil.

The statue was carved by James Barnhill out of 6,000 lbs. of clay and cast in bronze. It was dedicated on February 1, 2001 on the 42nd anniversary of the sit-in. Of the four, three remain with us today. The one deceased member is David Richmond who died in 1990 at the age of 49. The lunch counter where they sat-in was secured by the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of American History.

Tin Roofs, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, 1980

2007-08-24T11:05:00.000-04:00

(Tin Roofs, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
(c)1980 Jeffrey John Fearing)

I took this during my marathon 1980 vacation back in the day when you could buy a $500 ticket on Eastern Airlines and fly anywhere they flew during a two-week period. I was able to make stops in Greenville SC, Jamaica, San Juan PR, St. Thomas U.S.V.I., Los Angeles, Atlanta, and San Francisco.

While in St. Thomas, I was able to take a flight on a seaplane (a dream of mine) to St. Croix and back, getting to visit with an old friend from Howard who had recently moved there. This is one of the photos I took there.

I'm still a little bothered by the spatulate expanse of asphalt in the lower right of the composition. I was traveling light, with just my Olympus OM-1 with a normal (50mm) lens so I couldn't get a wide enough shot to frame the composition with some foreground detail on the right. Still I managed to effectively capture the steepness of the street (and of course the rusty tin of the roofs) so it works for me over all.

Girl on Beach, Ocho Rios, Jamaica, 1980

2007-08-23T15:44:00.000-04:00

Girl on Beach, Ocho Rios, Jamaica, 1980

I took this picture during a trip to Jamaica in 1980. This was near the famed tourist area called Dunns River Falls. I was vacationing solo so didn't have anyone to watch my camera (and thus wasn't able to walk in the falls as the tourists were doing) so I photographed the falls and then found this beach nearby which appeared to be an area free from tourists, an area where Jamaicans could swim in peace.

This girl stood on the shore fully-clothed watching the people swimming and having fun. She had such a compellingly sad look, wistful and forlorn, that I was moved to capture the moment. I'm pretty sure I was shooting Kodachrome back then. I was using my Olympus OM-1 35mm camera in those days.

Flood, Arlandria, 1972

2007-08-23T14:19:00.000-04:00

"Flood, Arlandria, 1972"

This photo is sort of my homage to FSA photographer Dorothea Lange. I took this and a series of images on Mt. Vernon Avenue in an area bordering Alexandria and Arlington, known as 'Arlandria.' Today it is more commonly know as 'Delray.' This is in Northern Virginia, directly across the Potomac River from Washington, DC.

This was June 1972 and Hurricane Agnes had taken a path up the Chesapeake Bay, bringing it closer to DC than any hurricanes before or since. Most of the resultant damage was in the form of flooding. Four-Mile Run creek overflowed its banks and the water-line in this part of town reached the 2nd floor of some of the apartment buildings.

Today, the Army Corps of Engineers (can you say "Katrina"?) has taken steps to prevent such flooding again and so far so good. Mt. Vernon Avenue is now known for the Americana music club The Birchmere, which is a couple of blocks up the road on the left, just beyond the Esso station (At the time, gas was selling for about 29.9/gallon).

This was 35 years ago so I'm guessing the little girl in the rain coat is in her 40's now. I think I was still using my Mamiya-Sekor 1000-DTL 35mm camera then, using Tri-X film.

On being Vegetarian

2007-08-22T20:44:00.000-04:00

I've been a vegetarian (Lacto-Ovo: I eat dairy products and eggs) half my life and this Michael Vick thing has just served to underscore why I made this choice.

I've never been strident or dogmatic about it, never tried to convert anyone, though countless crabs-in-the-omnivorous-barrel have tried to pull me back into the meat-eating fold. For me it's a personal choice, not for my health but for the animal's.

I just came to realize that for me to eat meat when I have so many healthy alternatives to choose from would be recreational consumption, eating meat because it tastes good (and it can, if memory serves).

This is not by way of indicting anyone who eats meat. Everyone has their reasons, makes their choices. Arctic peoples have no choice and neither do people who live in other places that do not support sustainable agriculture. We in this country have alternatives, though admittedly, vegetarianism is a life style that to some extent is a luxury available only for those of us who can afford to choose it. Or who are knowledgeable enough to find and prepare healthy alternatives to meat consumption.

I guess my point is: I don't see much of a difference between Michael Vick having animals fight to the death for his amusement, or the millions who enjoy the spectacle of bull-fighting the way I enjoy football, and raising animals to die for our pleasure at the dinner table.

Keep Austin Weird

2007-08-20T15:47:00.000-04:00

Sunday I was wearing my "Keep Austin Weird" tie-die T-shirt (with my Obama 2008 button) knowing that I would be asked to explain my shirt to at least a few people, and of course I was.

I attended High School in Austin, Texas and when I went back this June for my high school reunion, the city was in the middle of 'Weird-Fest.'

I bought the shirt and the coffee mug and the bumper sticker because I identify with the concept and this is how I have come to articulate it as I see it:

Austin is one of the only places in Texas where people of open minds can feel at home. Keep Austin Weird is a movement in favor of keeping it that way.

I started to say 'where Liberals can feel at home,' but I've come to realize that although I identify as a proud and unabashed Liberal, liberals can be just as strident and dogmatic and intransigent as the conservatives, and just as big a pain in the ass.

The Washington 'R' Words

2007-08-20T15:14:00.000-04:00

I live for football season. Every February when the Superbowl ends, I go into a funk (not a Hunter S. Thompson, shotgun in the mouth funk but a funk nonetheless) knowing that I have to wait till August to catch the real deal football again.

Now football is back and I'm reminded why my favorite team, the Washington 'R' words is such a guilty pleasure (I use 'pleasure' ironically). I have too many friends and connections in the Indigenous American community to be able to sing hail to any team that persists in calling itself 'Redskin.'The reasons why the term 'Redskin' is as offensive as the 'N' word or the 'B' word are too obvious to recount here. Beside which I firmly believe that the people who should have final say over whether a term is or isn't offensive, are the people taking offense, not the offenders.

Even the fight song makes me cringe: "Hail to the Redskins" to the tune of "Yes, Jesus Loves Me" with some Hollywood Indian stereotype tom-toms thrown in for some ethnic 'flavor.'

Then there's the issue that Black people who like myself claim some Cherokee ancestry have been disavowed by the new Cherokee leadership, all of which conspires to take the wind out of my football-loving sails.

Still, I'll be there each Sunday glued to my HDTV watching every R-words game, enjoying the games, win or lose, because its football and I'm a fan and I'm loyal to my team and to the game.