There is nothing that dies so hard and rallies so often as intolerance. The vices and passions which it summons to its support are the most ruthless and the most persistent harbored in the human breast. They sometimes sleep but they never seem to die. Anything, any extraordinary situation [i.e. 911], any unnecessary controversy [i.e. sex education, abortion] may light those fires again and plant in our republic that which has destroyed every republic which undertook to nurse it. William E. Borah [editor's additions in box brackets]

1978

Remember, that the original state of the minds of uneducated men is vulgar, you now know why vulgar and commonplace works please the majority. Therefore, educate your mind, and fight the hydra-headed monster-- vulgarity... Vulgarity astonishes, produces a sensation; refinement atracts by delicacy and charm and must be sought out. Vulgarity obtrudes itself, refinement is unobtrusive and requires the introduction of education. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

ob·trude v. ob·trud·ed, ob·trud·ing, ob·trudes v.tr.
1. To impose (oneself or one's ideas) on others with undue insistence or without invitation.

Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real. Somewhere in their upbringing they were shielded against the total facts of our experience. They were only taught to look one way when many ways exist.
Charles Bukowski

The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.
Oscar Wilde

The danger of censorship in cultural media increases in proportion to the degree to which one approaches the winning of a mass audience.
James Farrell

In America - as elsewhere - free speech is confined to the dead. Mark Twain

I love the Ward. I am absolutely certain that I am not expressing a particularly original position. Lots of people love the Ward. Many more who grew up there love it in ways that we, the outsiders, cannot possibly understand. Doesn't matter. I love it too. Every time I go down expressly to make pictures I see something new. Perhaps because I do not live in the Ward I bring new eyes to the experience whenever I go visiting. Who knows? What I do know is that I love trolling around down there and making pictures, anytime of year.

Younger Torso

"Yeah, we're with the band."

I believe every face, on the earth is beautiful. Every last one of them. What happens? And why? What happens when I hold a camera between myself and a subject? Why does the subject recoil? Is it me? Is it the camera? Is it them? Why are adults self-conscious about themselves? Children are not self-conscious. We think we understand why a camera in public is such a weapon; we grant it that power. More's the pity. Think, and I mean really think, about all the wonderful beautiful faces which would be recorded. Then make no mistake. Every face in the whole of creation has beauty therein. It is the viewer, the one with all the baggage and stereotypes (gaze) who has much to overcome before the beauty can be seen . . . .

If ANYONE is interested in making a portrait with me please contact me:
dsage@execulink.com

I regard portrait work as a collaborative effort, believe me you will come away with a distinctive looking image.


Dave

The King is Dead, Long Live the King.

Celebrity week here in Dave World.
TVO ran another great photography documentary last night.

I readily admit to knowing nothing about Sally Mann going in. It would seem that her public and published persona arose in the early 90s during which time I was not involved in photography.

I know a little wee bit more about her after watching this bio-pic centred mainly around her life in the late 90s and early 2000s, and of course her work as a photographer.

I find her work utterly fascinating. I find her sense of curiousity to be much like my own, which means Sally Mann allows her curiousity to take her where it will. She pays attention when she arrives.

What a monster.

http://media.photobucket.com/image/sally%20mann/dianapicturepost/1-8.jpg?o=66

http://photobucket.com/images/sally%20mann/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Mann

I recently posted a couple of links above to the work of the legendary Frank Lloyd Wright.

Frank Lloyd Wright was as important an artist as he was an architect. He was also among the first designers to recognise the socio-cultural significance and impact of his buildings. Many of his famous structures have in fact shaped some aspect of our culture.

Most people know about Falling Water, the house that was designed and built over and surrounding a small creek. There are many many other really fine houses, and commercial structures.

Do a simple google search on 'Frank Lloyd Wright' and scroll down the to picture results for your search. This is not a complete list, but you will gain a fair idea of the incredible architecture FLW designed over the course of 50-60 years.

FLW was the man.

I like le Corbusier, Van der Rohe, and Gropius. They were all very important figures in setting the agenda for most of the large-scale architecture that surrounded me as I grew up in Don Mills and the GTA. Modernism as it was defined by these gentlemen was a simple design aesthetic, some would say too simple. Many of the modernist apartment buildings and commercial towers from this era appear to value function over form. The design philosophy behind modernists buildings dictated that they be simple and clean.

Wright managed to insert his structures into the surrounding landscape in an organic and meaningful way without sacrificing function. His designs were stellar and often quite complex without appearing garish or overdetermined, IMO, that is what really set FLW apart.

I've fallen into a pit of mediocrity again. I need to make some meaningful images of people, even just one person would be terrific. Anyone out there willing to futz around for a couple of hours after a coffee at TimHo's?

I have an obligation to myself to continue my studio work here in my tiny space, but the weather has turned nice. It's time to get out there and do some environmentals or whatever using outdoor settings.

I saw a great shot up on Julia B.'s Flickr site (Ravengirl) a few days back that kind of reminded me of the manner in which Leibowitz approached outdoor portraits for a while. A few of those would be fun but I think narrative work of some vague description might be better. That is what I am envisioning in any case.

Come have some fun. At the very least you will receive a few reasonably interesting shots with which to do what you will.

***

A gentle reminder to all and sundry that a few pieces of my work are showing this very minute at The Red Brick Café at 77 Westmount Rd. raught heayah in River City, meaning Guelph the Glorious of course.

Do drop in and have a tea or coffee while you consider the vast and wondrous talent there before you on the walls of this fine establishment (I don't think I've thanked Shelley yet today for cutting me a break--I try to remember to do this every day. Everything regarding my images aside, Shelley is a neat person. Her café sells wicked good coffee too, so Shelley is aces in my books, go check it out).

The shot below is a waste of time.

This one has some vague potential but it's been done before.

I got into an early 80s tune pitching contest with one of my buddies earlier this week. This would be her prime time for rawk at the memory motel as it seems nowadays; it was my 2nd go-round because I had some time on my hands during those years; I was 'between personal engagements' is how that circumstance in life is blithely defined by some.

The result of the little contest we were having was that I stuck a youtube of 'Love My Way' by the Furs up on my email as a sig with an Aphra Behn quotation "love ceases to be a pleasure when it ceases to be a secret."

According to yon wiki listing Behn lived from 1640-1689. There was a time when I would have that info at my fingertips. Coincidentally it was very much around the time when I picked up the Furs for another go 'round, having plugged in when they first broke big many years earlier. The quotation and many Furs songs are kind of neat, kind of oblique and open-ended the way I like things. Christ as a woman with "pathetic tits?" in 'Imitation of Christ,' what is that? Heh heh, I have my ideas, do you?

Me living out on the marbles all the time with regards to 'life, the universe and everything' used to make my stepson Davey question my sanity I think. Davey and his sisters came into my life soon after most of the events I am describing. Perhaps Davey had a point. I have my own ideas about that issue too as anyone who has read this blog from from its beginnings earlier this year will know.

[Insert signpost paragraph/s here:]
How did I get to living out on the marbles and more importantly understanding that this is what I was doing? What? Yes, Virginia I am using a metaphor.
Basically I was re-wired to live, love, and grok the world, and me in it, by a crew of bleeding edge, hardcore, 2nd wave feminists and post-moderns at Guelph in the early- to mid-90s when I returned to university to take a degree in English. Would that I had known at that time how deeply this move would impact my life years later on so many levels.

[Back to the story line here:]
I loved the Furs during the self-imposed 5-year hiatus ('between personal engagements' remember?). I grew to like a lot of the new wave because I listened to CFNY 102.1 which was still a pretty cool Toronto FM station at that point. The Clash, Elvis, Pretenders, OMD, Joy Division and New Order, UB40, a lot of reggae, especially Marley of course. Tons of new exciting sounds were around then, maybe the last time it was like that, I dunno.

I learned about British reggae bands because of UB40's success I suppose, Aswad, Third World, stuff like that. They were also getting airplay on 102.1. I saw Third World. Never sat down for two hours, What a great show that was. I listened to a lot of that stuff.

This tune, 'Love My Way,' came up in the tune pitching contest Sue and I were having so I put up the link for a while.

More importantly in the context of this wee story, I glommed onto 'Imitation of Christ' pretty seriously during my first or second set of finals at Guelph over ten years later when exams were a new and fearsome threat to my sanity and well being.

Examinations were not meant for 40-somethings who did not handle stress particularly well. That song became my lifeline for a week or two during every set of finals through first and second year. I am snickering as I write this but I was not snickering back then I'll you.

Spousal unit 2 (of 3 to date) announced that she wanted a divorce a few days before I started writing those first finals so I would imagine the song was a also reflection of my fragile personal emotions at that moment in time. I still love it, love Butler's open, ambiguous lyrics in that one.

Nice eh? #2 couldn't even wait till I got through finals. Gave me the news a 1/2 mile out from her parents place on her birthday weekend when we were going down to celebrate with them. I almost put the car in the ditch. I was soooo pre-occupied with school by then that I didn't even notice she was sleeping around. Now that was a fun weekend.

This item also seems a little humourous now, she was quite the little drama queen; it did not seem any funnier than writing a final exam when the event itself occurred.

My ongoing fascination with Christendom and iconography as occasionally reflected in my current visual art work didn't just kick in when I picked up my camera again 4 years ago. At one point in 2nd year I seriously considered swapping my major to some form of comparative religious studies.

I was quite prepared to move to another school if I had to. The someone introduced me to the woman who would become my 3rd wife and her three children, two of whom I raised for twelve years with #3 (Davey and Julia, the other daughter left to live with her bio-dad). I fell totally and completely in love with those children and their mother. I swapped the pipedream about comparative religion for another. On anon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSyJkqmd5xI

Another christ is on the cross
The nails are words, the nails are lies
To make it crawl, and make it scream
And make it real, and make it bleed
And make it bleed
And make it bleed
And make it dream
Imitation of christ
Imitation of christ

This you who lie and scream
You fall to dust, you fall to dust
In walls of words, your words are blind
You speak and you are dumb and blind
The word that is your god is you
Who fall so low and fall so far
Imitation of christ
Imitation of christ

Fly to the moon dear sew it on a stool
Tie on the carpet all the cowboys fall
See the cowboys fat and reeling
Dancing underneath the ceiling
Leave the bar the theatre's closing
Make a wall of your religion
Imitation of christ
Imitation of christ

Mary mary, mother mother
You and me and god the father
Jesus is a woman too
He looks like all of me and you
Your money talks and all your friends
Will laugh at her pathetic tits
Imitation of christ
Imitation of christ
Imitation of christ
Imitation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl6yilkU1LI

Another on bites the dust.


WHAT IS IT WITH GUELPH AND CULTURE??

Graduating Class - March 4th Marvel Hairdressing Schools - Toronto Ont. - 1944

A friend of mine at Bullfrog Mall Tim Horton's brought in this photo of her graduating class. Sabel was all of 16 at the time. She is 4th in from the left in the top row.

When I was a little boy I thought all big trucks were orange.