The Evolution of Artificial Light.

"To reach the farthest chamber of Lascaux, it's likely a man had to snuff out his light, lower himself down a shaft with a rope made of twisted fibers, and then rekindle his lamp in the dark so as to draw the wooly rhinoceros, the half horse, and the raging bison there. A long spear transfixes that bison, and entrails pour from it's side. Beneath its front hooves lie the one painted man in all of Lascaux: prone, spindly, wounded, disguised behind a bird mask. And below him, until its discovery in 1960, lay a spoon-shaped lamp carved of red sandstone...Hold it again as it once was held, and the animals will emerge out of darkness as you pass. Nothing stays still. Shadows nestle in the cavities: a flicker of light across pale protruding rock turns a hoof or raises a head. One shape recedes as another emerges, and everything lingers in the imagination.

Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light. Jane Brox. 2010.

02/25/12

....My disappointment was alleviated when she thanked me ever so slightly for showing her "another world ". We talked then about how we think of ourselves as Americans but there are many worlds in the United States if you stray very far from freeways and stay away from television.

True North, Jim Harrison. 2004.

Twin Peaks

Watching David Lynch's more than twenty year old T.V. series Twin Peaks for the first time got me looking at some images from some recent trips in a new light. Maybe it's the comforting and familiar nature of certain objects and scenes that let's us let them transcend into being truly alarming and frightening.

January Road-Trip

11/18/11

11/04/11

Aberdeen, WA, 09/03/11

Getting out of town is not the same as traveling.

A long-weekend trip seems to be a chance to eyeball the scenery and that is about it, especially when you're going somewhere familiar.

The place seems to get reduced down to whatever happens to be running though your mind at the time.

It's like traveling though a coloring book, for the most part the outlines are already there while the colors you can use are determined by your state of mind.

Welcome to Aberdeen, "Come As You Are"…. thats what the sign says anyway.

Having just watched "About A Son" it's difficult to do much here without imagining a young Kurt Cobain drifting around these streets, biding his time, waiting for his chance to get out.

I'm currently reading my way through an account of a Kayaker exploring the Yukon River in Alaska.

It is filled with anecdotes of frontier bravado and self-reliant fortitude.

So my own suburban existence has been called into question as my mind leads some kind of moral interrogation of my essentially suburban character.

A fist got slammed down in that interview as I found myself in Aberdeen's Walmart at 11pm shopping for the can opener and other essentials I had forgotten to pack.

And as I searched the aisles I couldn't help but think that every straggly haired kid I saw was just biding their time, waiting to get out of here, too.