spent a saturday driving route 66 from victorville to daggett with my handheld camcorder & my vintage lubitel 2 medium format film camera. I am fascinated by places like daggett, an almost ghost town with a rich california mining history.
vasquez rocks
just off highway 14 less than 45 mins from los angeles are vasquez rocks. you may recognise this formation from the movies, they have starred in everything from star trek to blazing saddles to the flintstones. the striking shapes were created by rapid erosion during uplift some 25 million years ago & later revealed by further uplift on the san andreas fault.
what’s uplift? known to geologists as orogeny, this is the primary way mountains are formed on earth. an orogeny occurs where two or more (lithospheric) plates converge when the plate’s motion compresses the margin between them. this pressure forces the earth’s crust to crumble & uplift into the formations you see here. these will eventually (millions of years from now) become mountains.
ongoing tectonic activity on the nearby san andreas fault and its offshoot, the elkhorn fault which runs through the vasquez rocks natural area park, continues to shape, uplift, & expose the buried sandstone.
the rocks were named for famous mexican california outlaw tiburcio vasquez who used them to evade law enforcement in 1874. tiburcio was & is a controversial figure, with some believing him a ruthless bandit & others seeing him as a revolutionary opposing the american expansion into present day california.
vasquez entered outlaw life in 1852 when he was witness to the killing of monterey constable william hardmount. though he denied any involvement in the death vasquez fled law enforcement, going on to become a star figure in the infamous decades long roach-belcher feud. after being caught horse rustling in 1856 he spent five years in san quentin before organizing a prison break. in 1866 he was imprisoned again, this time for three years after a burglary in petaluma.
after he was arrested for murder in may 1874 vasquez, who was a charming & handsome figure with many fans throughout the west, sold photographs with & of himself to support his legal defense. he was tried for a murder that occurred four years prior during a robbery in tres pinos (now called paicines) where $2,200 (more that $47,000 in today’s money) was stolen from a store & three were killed. vasquez maintained throughout his trial that though he was an outlaw, he was not the killer. despite his adoring public & a written confession from another member of the gang, he was convicted of the crime & executed by hanging on 19 march 1875 at just 39 years old.
there are numerous geologic formations throughout southern california named for vasquez, including these rocks & robbers roost in kern county. he is buried in the mission cemetery in santa clara where fans still leave him flowers.
because of his affluent background, good looks, education, & sense of style, vasquez is believed to be one of the inspirations for the bandit-hero character zorro.
march books
in books
voyage of the sable venus - robin coste lewis
sanctuary - zenju earthlyn manuel
secrets from the center of the world - joy harjo & stephen strom
the viscount who loved me - julia quinn
video diary: santa monica sunday
a sunday afternoon at the beach with my lowfi handheld camcorder. I wanted to shoot a test roll on my recently acquired vintage pentax auto 110 super, which was billed as the worlds smallest SLR when it was released in the mid 1980s. here’s hoping the shots turn out.
swimming with the fishes
in BADWATER, weird world
researching for my latest poetry project, which focuses on death valley & its ecology (among other things). I put together an instagram story about one of the fascinating creatures that call the hottest & driest place on earth home: the devil’s hole pupfish. if you don’t want to read the fine print, you can also listen to me talk a bit about the pupfish below.
wind & rocks
in explore, hiking, photography
a morning walking amongst the rocks & the high winds at red rock canyon state park, ricardo campground.
15 things
in 15 things
A list of 15 things I’ve found interesting recently.
1: an AI bot which takes two user provided concepts & creates the first paragraph of a story.
2: aubrey hirsch on giving her son her last name.
3: this video of tina turner & cher performing together in 1975.
4: single women are losing in today’s economy.
6: interesting people reading poetry podcast.
7: george takei on reparations and japanese internment.
9: learning about edna brush perkins.
11: harry styles covers the chain.
13: joan mitchell.
14: lola flash. (especially the series salt).
february books
in books
slouching toward bethlehem- joan didion
the sunflower cast a spell to save us from the void - jackie wang
blue territory - robin lippincott
arbitrary stupid goal - tamara shopsin
death valley national park: a history - hal k. rothman & char miller
one day in san francisco
in photography, travel
in january I spent a single day in san francisco. I arrived on an early morning flight & wandered the city streets until I made my way to the san francisco museum of modern art for their collection of agnes martin pairings & their exhibition of joan mitchell.
this is some of what I saw.
on wheat, by agnes martin, 1957
in diary, visual art
sitting in front of “wheat”
it’s mesmerizing. like a golden field stretched out for a thousand miles on a clear warm day—but not too hot. the kind of day when there’s a breeze that prickles your skin but you don’t go inside to get your jacket.
at first the grey border looks like one shade as you’re drawn into the fields of wheat, but after a moment you realise its two types of grey fringing the field like vaseline on a camera lens. it pushes you in.
wheat whispers to you so quietly that at first you’re not sure if its a voice or a gust through the tree branches. but it is a voice & you can barely make out what it’s saying. maybe the words don’t matter? maybe they don’t have any meaning anyway.
a woman comes into the gallery & stands in front of wheat. perfectly centered. the center column rises from her like steam.
she’s enveloped in yellows like a goddess or the painting of one, with a delicate shimmering halo.
is this what agnes wanted us to do? daydream into her paintings?
six paintings by agnes martin at sf moma
in diary, visual art
sitting in a seven sided room at the san francisco museum of modern art.
you can’t photograph these, your picture looks like a solid canvas with nothing special about it.
it’s easy to walk by quickly & not really look. I see several people do that, from older couples to teens with dyed hair. they’re missing it & they don’t even know it because they don’t take the time to look. there’s a cultural comment in that, it’s a sign of the times maybe.
so many people don’t get it. the order found in chaos. it’s comforting if you let it be. it’s soothing. & when you get close to it you start to see the chaos creeping out… trickling out… a faucet that’s started to drip.
the grids are bursting at the seams but if you’re not close enough you’d never even know.
it kind of makes me sad the number of people who won’t even come into the gallery to look. I think they’re afraid of the silence… or maybe I’m being pretentious. but these are paintings you have to look at, right now, & you can’t take their picture & bring them with you. they aren’t bite sized.
there's texture to the paint too… the whisper of agnes’ voice.
the edges aren’t sharp—but dreamlike—it all starts to roll together.
january books
in books
one of my resolutions for 2022 (& one of my resolutions pretty much every year) is to read more. to that end I decided to start making a monthly list of books I read, starting with this month & some poetry.
urban tumbleweed - harryette mullen
whereas - layli long soldier
poetry as insurgent art - lawrence ferlinghetti
play it as it lays - joan didion
goldenrod - maggie smith
c.c. - tyrone williams
north of normal - cea sunrise person
notes on joan mitchell
in diary, visual art
some notes taken at the joan mitchell exhibition at san francisco museum of modern art
“this is a tree. I mean, it’s my idea of a tree which has nothing to do with a real tree.”
evenings on 73rd street
the orange is funny. 73rd street always felt brown to me. or a kind of grey brown like the fur on a real world-hardened squirrel.
maybe the gestures are hints at the people crowding the streets? the colours of their clothing flashing between buildings.
the red fits, but the orange I can’t quite make sense of. especially the one jagged hook in the center…like the men catching fish off the pier where I was walking this morning.
mud time
the violet pushes out here, like a secret being revealed or the first hours of dawn when the sun hasn’t made it quite over the horizon.
mud time like the stuff that caked my shoes as I trudged around le mont saint michel, the tide sliding in, claywet.
the clay is there too—that slick french clay that holds you like glue. your shoes almost pull off as you yank your foot free. the sound it makes… something like a slit throat.
that’s what the greens here are. the earth trying to swallow you back up.
untitled, 1961
“she risked the painting collapsing into unsightly chaos”
vétheuil
two people, one devouring the other.
OR
leaning down to kiss.
incredible how often those things overlap… or are even the same.
salut tom (for tom hess)
the yellow is almost warm but in a reserved kind of way. like when spring has sprouted but winter chill hangs on.
memory
nostalgia
sadness
la vie en rose
when you try to be relaxed but there’s that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach.
on night sea, by agnes martin, 1963
in diary, visual art
sitting in front of “night sea”
it is completely different in person. it doesn’t even look like the pictures on the internet.
the gold leaf literally sparkles, but the line is so fine you have to lean in close to see it. it has to catch the light.
& it’s not blue! it’s more turquoise, but not a steady shade. each individual rectangle has a gradient from deep turquoise to deep ocean blue. the lines start to shift as you look at it. they start to trick you. & this is how you’re pulled in, like quicksand in slow motion.
& you can see her. where the lines don’t quite match up or reach the edges of the canvas. that’s where agnes lives.
it stands out for its depth. the way I feel sometimes when I cross a bridge & a voice says “jump”.
night sea undulates the way the ocean does when there’s not a shoreline in sight. it feels like floating on your back & you just dip your ears below the water. sound becomes just a suggestion. you’re in a different world now. do you have a body? does it matter? maybe you & your body are the same thing as the water. maybe there’s no grid where your body ends & the water begins.
three los angeles poems
in poetry
starstruck
ventured to red rock canyon state park—one of my favourite parks in californa— to make an attempt at astrophotography. this was my first attempt at photographing the stars & it was mostly a big failure, but now I have a better idea of what to do for my next trip!
first & foremost I need to find a buddy to go out with me, because it is very dark out there at night & it’s a little disconcerting!
on joan
in diary
23 december 2021 - journal
rain.
joan didion died today.
I ordered two of her books.
the cats work up at 3 am running & jumping through the apartment.
it's the kind of grey morning that hangs in the air. everything is dim — its foreign to LA. the city wears it awkwardly. like an ill-fitting coat.
it’s quiet. almost feels like a town. the cars hum at a lower decibel — more space between them — like when molecules slow down & spread out. maybe you can find something in the spaces. like she did.
I turn my little heater on & the rush of its fan soothes me. the sun is up but you can’t see it. it’s hidden. a lot of things are that way.
let there be lights
in photography
growing somewhere
in photography
hollywood california, 2021
big valley
in explore, photography
big morongo canyon preserve is one of the 10 largest cottonwood & willow riparian habitats in california. managed by the bureau of land management, the reserve is a 31,000 acres. it is located in the transition zone between the mojave desert & the colorado desert.
