music: Nick Drake- Pink Moon
I’va always had a propensity to organize, document, and catalog things in my life. I think about my binders of baseball cards meticulously organized by team alphebetically, and players within each team alphabetically, the books I just won’t get rid of, my box of college work…the list (a well-organized list, to be sure) goes on. I think I get it from mom, who has made a career out of doing just that. There’s something genetic at work: collect and save.
It’s not stuff that I’m after. That was a big hump to get over, but I’ve been in the process of shedding extraneous material possessions over the past couple of years. It’s a good practice, but something rubs me the wrong way every time I discard that pencil box I’ve been carrying around for all these years. I’ve learned to do it anyway. This past December saw a purging of epic proportions back in Milwaukee. But what remained was carefully orgainzed and cataloged. Old work, old pictures, items that capture a very specific place and time. I’m glad that I have them around still-they trigger memories that otherwise would have gotten lost in the cognitive shuffle.
I think the goal in all this organizing and cataloging of artifacts from my past is the attempt to capture my thoughts and position in the world at that very moment. There have been several ways in which I documented my thoughts over the years, some more successful than others. I have kept various notebooks of various sizes, some reserved for late night broodings and others pocket sized for quick and regular access. I have shoeboxes full of old pictures. Here in Boston, the pictures date back to about 1983. I carried a dictophone for the better part of two years and have cassette tapes full of sound clips: ambient noise, street performers, confesstion-style testimonials, snippets of conversations. And I suppose that the final link in this chain of documenting my thoughts is this here weblog.
One thing I’ve never been too good at is taking pictures. Mom does it with religious fervor when the kids are in town; Grandma D. also is quite a shutterbug. It’s always been such a hassle, though. And expensive. As a result, I don’t have many pictures that I have taken myself, and those pictures I do have leave gaping holes in the fossil record of my past. Yet, I enjoy looking at old pictures and using photography as a medium of documentation. It is accessible, distributable, and the like. I take pictures of funny things, though: I think I have a picture of every room I have lived in since sophomore year of college (they all look surprisingly similar).
I’m not entirely sure why, but I spent my birthday money on a digital camera. It arrived today, and now, for the first time in years, I have a camera again. I got it because I knew that I would have to do some documenation for teaching in the near future, as well as some press work for the recently revived Live Live website, but other than that, I’m not sure how I will go about documenting my life with the thing. Taking pictures feels almost unnatural to me, like writing with my right hand. I don’t like how cameras intrude into the natural flow of an activity. Given my genetic inheritance, I’ll probably get over that at some point. Especially now that I have this tool of documentation.
I’m still not quite adept at handling the thing and getting quality results. Again I am reminded: I may know a thing or two, but I’m no 1ey The genius of digital is that I don’t have to worry about wasting film and can experiment as much as I please.
I think that the process of organizing and cataloging, and even collecting, has become that much easier now that we can use computers to do it. Not only does it make things like alphebetizing by hand completely obsolete, it is also makes tangible objects obsolete. That I can fit hundreds of thousands of pictures and sound clips onto this computer without sacrificing physical space is a feat, something that might just make the process of documenting my thoughts that much more viable.
Some pictures from inside my room: January 21, 2004
Guitar and Books
Flower
Whiteboard
Buttpack
Dammit, I just typed this and somehow it didn’t post or I’m a retard. I’ll take another shot at it and read the error message this time…
I see the Bonhomme is still on your buttpack, almost a year now. Matt would approve. I think I took mine off a few months while I was in a purging mood. Pobably stoned. I tend to take off bumper stickers and clothes tags and other expressions of individuality when I’m stoned. And I like to take pictures then as well…
It took me a while to learn. I’m still not the greatest at it. Shooting from the hip. People don’t notice nearly as much and it’s not as intrusive when the camera isn’t up on your eye. Usually it’s just the look of concentration on my face that gives me away, juts moments away from getting a great candid shot. It’s just like carrying the dictaphone around in your shirt pocket instead of holding it in everyone’s face — Which works great for drunk people, cameras and dictaphones.
It’s easy to be reactionary to Grandma forcing you to pose for the camera. Just use it to your own comfort level. Mind the flash. Noone likes a flash.
LIVE LIVE IS UP
I hope to send in some photo reports from the field soon :)
Posted by: 1e at January 22, 2004 05:18 AM