Hm





My body hums. “Hmmmm.” You know. The way tired bodies do. “Huhmmmm.” A bit more voiced the second time. My foot rings in pain. I wonder the way out by counting the day around me.

I read today about cameras, especially large format cameras, and their ability to render field of view, perspective, detail, tonality, and other technical things. The optics people wrote articles with their hands on fire, minds cold as steel. The artists (the optics people acknowledged this) did not listen. The artists (they said) saw the fire and believe in magic.

So I thought of Gursky and Photoshop, who “brought traditional and new technologies together,” an art book tells me, “using large format cameras for clarity” (which contemporary tiny cameras can do) “and digital manipulation to refine and tile multiple image files into a single photograph.” No more magic camera.

So that’s number one. “Hmmmm” I say.

I read Anne Carson’s book. Not all of it. It would kill you in one sitting. Pilgrimage, desire, foot pain, and complicated lovers. She gets me. I’m working on a photo project. Men I’ve hooked up with next to pictures of a hermitage. She gets me.

For number three, I’m packing up cameras to shoot a dinner tonight. It’s where sustainability people all get together, eat dinner, and talk about what they’re doing to try to help the world. (Many people I know, when I tell them about this, say, “that’s not enough,” but it’s better than nothing. Plus free dinner.) One person, once, asked me, before dinner, if I shot film, and I said, “nope,” and they said, “well it looks like it,” and I said, “the magic is in the appearance of things,” and he said, “Huhhmmm,” and I said, “you understand it.”

Let me tell you (quickly) of desire.

I type slides in at church (slides, like a road, guide worshippers). Archeologists of the digital age will look back and say, “look how faithfully this transcription occurred–there must be some credibility to it, or a strength of faith,” and let me be the first to tell you that I don’t give a damn about God. But I was reading a line, as I was transcribing onto a slideshow, that was naming God: “Refining God; Rescuing God; Renewing God; Ruling God; Reforming God; Reassuring God; Savior of the nations.” A whole lotta God, I thought, because God takes the shape of desire. Who could know these things? I’m no theologian. I only know desire. God of foot pain…I typed out the slides. On Sunday someone will tell me about how lovely this liturgical God is. Who could make this up?

Anne Carson walked a Spanish-road pilgrimage for half of her book. Later in the book, she admits that these were just dreams, supposedly. Captivating dream, a dream I re-read, dream the metaphor for love, dream the hands on fire the ears turned off the eyes blinded in sleep. A dream I read. Hm.

The sustainability group hosted an event last night. This is before the one tonight. And a woman named MJ walked up to me, telling me about recycling in Pasadena. She could not believe it. According to a video that she had seen, given to us by the recycling plant, you do not need (contrary to this woman’s recycling practice in her childhood) to sort your trash. No, the factory does it for you. “That must be really tedious,” she said. “A really bad job,” she continued. “The turnover must be really high,” she said. “Odorous!” she commented. But she saw a video, making the work easier for these hypothetical employees, that she could not believe. Paper gets sorted, on a conveyor belt, by pointing giant fans all around. Whoosh! And the paper, being paper, flies everywhere. It definitely flies out of the trash pile. Sorted! And she did not believe it. “Death by papercuts,” she said, about the workers.

“The camera gives cheap, prompt, and correct facts to the public,” said Naim June Paik in 1957 (I took this from Anne Carson’s book). Correct facts, supposedly, are a magic that MJ does not believe. Who could blame her? Who would believe her?

I’ve stopped counting by now, although you can keep track. There must be some credibility to it. My body singing its hum, my body singing its song of tiredness, longing for a Spanish road pilgrimage in the shape of a dream, not my desire, not my dream. All appearance. Take its shape. Put out the hands of flame.