Unnecessary Pipe Trench Excavation

One of my favorite photographers shuffled off this mortal coil October 7, and I feel compelled to mark his passage here. He wasn’t an Ansel Adams or an Annie Leibowitz; unless you are into photography and art, or fashion, you would not have heard of Irving Penn.

It is a shame, because there are many lesser artists out there in the public consciousness; many hacks who have enjoyed more fortune and fame. But this in no way diminishes him or his work. He was one of those rare commercial photographers that made art. There are a number of ways that one could interpret that statement; I’ll leave it up to you. He was a photographer’s photographer ; the methods that he developed are still in use by many today, both in the fashion and art worlds — the use of a dark, stark studio backdrop, and the placement of his subjects within a narrow corner created with his backdrop, for example.

But praising a photographer or an artist with words is kind of silly, I suppose, if not downright ironic. I first noticed an image of Penn’s back in the 1990s; it was a nude of Kate Moss, which you will find below. It’s NSFW, so if you click on the “read more” link, consider yourself warned; if you navigated to this page directly, sorry. But his images really moved me, but not because of his subject, but rather what he managed to do with her image. Moss is certainly beautiful in that near anorexic, super-model kind of way; a pixie that almost makes one feel perverted for enjoying her — at least that is how she typically comes across in fashion shoots.

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It’s funny, but not in an amusing way, but rather in an odd, “isn’t-it-strange” kind of way, how sometimes it all comes flooding back, the ghosts and the memories they bear. A month or two can go by, and there are no dreams, even though it comes up in casual conversation, that death of a loved one.

But they are never far away though. They are always there, lurking just below the surface, that frail veneer of normalcy you present to the world. You know this, because you’ve lived with it for some years now. But sometimes, there are stretches of time when the environment around you, the fates, and your own mind all collude to lull you into a false sense of security; perhaps you even foolishly dare to think that you are “over it,” as if you ever can or will be over it – as if you have a choice in this matter — when deep down you know that can never be. That at best, you’ll adapt, like an amputee adjusting to losing a limb: her life goes on and she learns how to do without, but that phantom pain never quite goes away — indeed, it flares up when she least expects it.

In much the same way, you never know when something will whisk you back into those moments to relive yet again for the gods-only-know-how-many times those awful, terrible moments, the dreadful movie playing behind your eyes in all its vivid, mental Technicolor glory. Sometimes you don’t see it coming; the most tenuous reminders – a smell, an uttered phrase, an object on your dresser – they can collude to send you back to those moments unwillingly to live them all again. And sometimes it’s just for the briefest of moments before you can return to your façade; sometimes the ghosts even let you sleep unperturbed.

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What is it about the open road at night, nothing but moon and starlight, the hum of tires on lonely asphalt, and the occasional snippet of summer insect song through an open window as I drive along, that soothes my restless soul?

What is it about the humid, warm wind rushing through my hair and over my face as the soft, silky voice of a British siren whispers in my ear through the windy din that brings peace to my restless heart?

Even with no particular place to go, and the knowledge that I’ll have to turn around and point myself towards “home” eventually, well before the dawn comes — what is it about this suspended, sublime moment of sound and motion that brings solace?

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Okay, so far today (well, it’s still today to me, as in Thursday, but I suppose that technically, it is Friday and has been for nearly six hours … ah, the joys of being marginally employed AND telecommuting) I’ve read and or heard people compare John Hughes to no less than Chekhov and Salinger. I have only one thing to say about that. Several things, actually — more than several. And here they are:

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. And finally, just let me emphasize … no. Not. Even. Close.

Look, I’m sorry he’s dead, okay? Death sucks; I’ve had a ring-side seat for it a few times now, so trust me on this one. Wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Really. But he apparently went quick, no lingering in a hospital being poked and prodded and toyed with like a lab rat, only to have his suffering prolonged. So there’s that. And he made it to 59. Okay, that’s well under par for Western standards, but for much if not a majority of the world, that’s a ripe old age; most people in Asia and Africa are damn lucky to see 59 years.

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Just received this fortune from a fortune cookie:

You will soon find more adventure in life.

Just yesterday I was pricing one-way tickets to Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh city for the end of the year. Coincidence? I rather think not. …