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Archive | August, 2011

On the road again…

By on August 29, 2011 in Paros

How often must I sit by the side of the road and wait for the donkey cart to take me over the next hill?   I think sometimes that this is one of the best parts of the trip: the waiting.  The times in-between waiting and arriving at the destination are mostly downtime–I chat with my seat mates, sleep if I can, watch some movies, listen to music and then I am getting off the plane and walking into the bright sun of the new world.

The Air France lounge is filling up with fellow passengers, many going back to France, but I will be connecting and continuing on to Florence where the Aegean Center waits for me with open arms and the hope of more knowledge, experience and a bright future.  I have entered a new phase, I feel it, one of growth and letting go of much of my past.  I am grateful for this chance to add something meaningful to the world and what that is I am not sure, but there will be something.  I have no illusions that it will be big or even memorable.  It will be a small legacy.  I am laying the foundations for this future.  As I write these words.

On another note I used to write these thoughts in a small spiral notebook for my eye only.  Today I am using my laptop and posting for the world to see and read.  This makes a difference because it allows me to still be as free as I was before but try for some more substantive content.

I’ll try to post more often and, as the days progress, with more actual comings-and-goings and a rundown of the day’s events.

JDCM

Coming down to the wire…

By on August 20, 2011 in Paros

It’s a misty and cloudy day this morning with nine short days before I head back to the Aegean Center, Europe and the future of my life.  Today I was supposed to go on a hike with some of the ‘Page’ editors, but we have postponed and will meet for lunch instead.  They wish to monopolize as much of my time as possible, but I must maintain balance in all things today.  There are the usual tasks that comes with every Saturday morning and there are those I wish to accomplish before I attend an arts opening this evening.  There is darkroom work today, that’s for sure.  I have 5 rolls of Ilford PanF 50 120 that I need to develop and hang this afternoon and tonight I need to print at least one, if not two, pieces for some people who allowed me to photograph on their property. If I get a chance, I’ll scan and add to the website before I scoot out next Monday.  I’ll need to tone those before I deliver them, that’s for sure.

I have run a ‘test pack’ and am fairly secure on what I am bringing and what I am leaving behind.  Since I will be in Italy for the first month I need to bring some nicer clothes with me.  Long pants, shoes, shirts, etc…One cannot dress down in Florence and Rome like one does on Paros.  The Italians frown on shirts and t-shirts in their churches and restaurants, and with good reason: it’s smacks of laziness, poverty and disrespect.

The American culture, or the ‘Culture of Death’ as I like to call it, raises this attitude to the level of acceptance.  What we consider mainstream here in the USA, i.e. fashion, music, food and general knowledge derives itself from abject poverty and ignorance.  The other day I was driving behind a large Ford pick-up with the proud emblem ‘Redneck’ on the back; the television is rife with political religious crazies espousing a dangerously medievalist and venomous doctrine geared towards the poor, the paranoid and the poorly educated; the radio airwaves are saturated with violence, misogyny and anger; I look around at the sullen faces of today’s youth and wonder who these people are that could be our future?  This can be a daunting vision, all of this.  I find light and growth in isolated pockets of humanism and spirit.  Arts communities are more important than ever these days, and of course they are the first programs to lose any outside funding front the powers that be.  That money must go elsewhere.  I am convince we are either on the brink, or already within, a New Dark Ages.  The Enlightenment is over, as is the Renaissance that preceded it.  But this is a natural cycle.  It is just our luck to be at the low end of the bell curve.

In any case I am out of here soon enough.  I’ll leave the bucolic Hudson Valley behind for a few months  while I engage in a lengthy peripatetic lecture through Italy and Greece.  I’ll try to update this as I go along, I hope more than I usually do.  Next post: Florence, Italy.

Caio,

JDCM