only managed one complete book this month, real world busy has closed in around me.
turn by anne truitt
I did do quite a lot of article reading, here are some of the most interesting:
fashion has abandoned human taste
the case against the supreme court of the united states
disrespecting laws that disrespect women
the buffalo shooter isn’t a ‘lone wolf’ he’s a mainstream republican
how period tracking apps and data privacy fit into a post-roe v. wade climate
in 2011 I took an early bus from port authority bus terminal in new york city for a day trip to washington dc with my friend & my film camera. I recently found these images from the excursion.
the past few weeks I’ve found myself re-interested in digital collage. figuring out how all the layers are going to work together is relaxing to me & also serves as a way to think through current events.
a sweet morning at the flower fields, in carlsbad california.
the little book of string theory - steven s gubser
seven brief lessons on physics - carlo rovelli
the tradition - jericho brown
the onslaught attacking the civil rights of anyone not a cisgender heterosexual white man has been a lot to process. I have been thinking through things with collage.
off route 66 outside of victorville you’ll find an incredible art installation called elmer’s bottle tree ranch. elmer long built this unique forest using recycled & found materials, constructing trees out of everything from rebar & glass to old typewriters & even a missile. one of my favourite things about the desert are these types of places, the spots where someone’s creativity shows up in unexpected ways. wandering through the trees under the bright blue spring desert sky was a perfect way to spend a route 66 pit stop.
elmer passed away in 2019, so the ranch is no longer expanding, but the existing structures are well worth a visit.
the ranch is open daily sunrise to sunset, it’s free to enter but donations are gladly accepted.
shot on a vintage lubitel 2 with kodak porta 400
while living in brooklyn I experienced my first blizzard. recently I found some of the photos I took walking around the silent streets the day after the snowfall.
indelicacy - amina cain
borderland apocrypha - anthony cody
only managed to finish two books in april, as I’m currently reading a 600 page tome. that aside I did watch a few very fascinating documentaries this month, so I thought I’d include those as well.
grace jones: bloodlight & bambi
jonestown: terror in the jungle
the way down
I went to vasquez rocks a few weeks ago specifically to shoot my first ever roll of medium format film on a vintage lubitel 2 twin lens camera. using a camera without any electrical parts (or a light meter!) was a totally new experience for me, & I wasn’t sure if the images were even going to turn out.
but the lubitel is a sturdy camera which was made for the masses. even after all these years it still works! looking down into a viewfinder forced me to slow down & not snap haphazardly. it made the process almost meditative. excited to shoot more with this camera & see what turns up.
shot on a lubitel 2 with porta 400. see more medium format photos.
driving home from a day hike I noticed some abandoned buildings off the side of highway 14 in santa clarita. after stopping for some lunch I decided to backtrack & look for a way to access this area. as luck would have it, it was part of an open space off sierra highway. it seemed a perfect place to test out black & white film in my lubitel 2 medium format camera.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
a morning walking amongst the rocks & the high winds at red rock canyon state park, ricardo campground.
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).
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
