I made a joke to a young neighbor “Monday, I’ll swallow a Live Toad and do laundry”. Which I did today! It is a riff on a story my father told. My paternal Grandfather was a Locomotive Engineer. He drove a big, coal fired, steam locomotive. Mondays, laundry day, my grandmother would go into a basement, tie a sweat rag around her head and fire up gas burners under a big tub to boil his coal soot covered overalls.
My Dad said on Mondays, NOBODY messed with my Grandmother.
Me, after 3 full afternoons of self teaching open source software LibreOffice (Open Office support stopped years ago) and Scribus. I’m too cheap to use MS Word or InDesign and I don’t want to be locked into Blurb. I’ve no need for Ingram Sparks. No more LLC, Biz Bank account, Sales or Income Tax Returns – ain’t looking for money or Barnes & Nobles sales. And want nothing to do with anything even remotely related to Jeff Bezos. So maybe a few family gifts and a vanity ISBN number or two!
No day of the next 7 has a “9” as the left most temperature digit! Cooling rain on the way tonight! First open screen afternoon in six weeks!
Raleigh 7 Day Forecast
Me, discovering that to write and publish some books I have in mind, stuff I may need to learn: Atticus, BookWright, LibreOffice. Maybe InDesign!
Working on a book today, having time to think about and savor the good fortune I had and my very favorite folks to work with as a photographer.
Click images for full size
Halfway done reading reading “George Hurrells Hollywood” by Mark Viera. My lighting epiphany from “The Muse” led me to the work of George Hurrell. And within a year, I had found Mole-Richardson Tungsten Fresnel Lights on eBay. Made this in August of 2014.
Senior Portrait Session at Cary Ballet Conservatory – August 2014
Studio Setup Below
A rare Roku streaming evening from PBS tonight, watched a 40 year old documentary, benefit of my modest monthly contribution. And I thought about my maternal Grand Parents who saw her on their way to Ellis Island. And it triggered thoughts of the sonnet by Emma Lazurus inscribed in it’s New York harbor pedestal:
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
I wish it were still so. And am ashamed of our nations current immigration policy. My hunch is, our nation will course correct next November. We are still free to do so. Liberty.
1/16th scale version by Auguste Bartholdi at Musée d’Orsay- Sept 2016
She showed up today, to shake me out of my summer ennui. Finished a project I started last Spring, for a Dancer I’ve photographed and admired for a decade. And she helped me anew, re-start the draft of a book (s). And hiding out in the A/C from this ugly summer heat and humidity, even motivated me to get back to my Rowing Machine. Back in the groove!
Getting ready to be, in my mind, old. And relieved. My plan for time left.
Photograph For Cary Citizen – 2018 “Lazy Daze”
The second of three DVD’s that arrived by USPS this week. All from GoodwillBooks.com. As Gust Avrakotos of the CIA said, “We’ll see”.
