Shutterbug Mama

alrighty...so friday i actually did end up staying home from work because i felt so frickin' miserable from my cold...i seriously thought i had like bronchitis or pneumonia or something. i went to the doctor that afternoon, but of course he wouldn't prescribe anything for me until he was sure it wasn't something viral. i wasn't really expecting antibiotics as i'm personally opposed to over-antibioticizing myself, but i have to admit i was hoping he'd give me a prescription for that cough medicine with codeine. so i could sleep, ya know...no such luck. gave me a bunch of sample allegra-d's which i didn't need because i had just refilled my prescription, but i took them anyway. i pretty much took it easy on friday...skipped the matt pond pa show...no biggie for me...i was much more interested in being healthy enough to go see superdrag on saturday.

...so i did get to do a photoshoot this weekend downtown, and i have to say that i really like doing urban photography. i mean, i love the whole national park out in nature forest preserve thing, and there's a side of me that totally resonates w/ that stuff, but there's this whole other side of me that loves the landscape of a big city. i was telling my friend caleb when i was shooting photos in manhattan with him that i love seeing the beauty in things that most people would consider ugly. take for example this subway sign to the left. there was just something about this sign, that it gets to be in the same landscape as the picasso sculpture and the first united methodist church and the daley center, that fascinated me. and i love that color blue...

...i love living in chicago...i love the neighbourhoods, especially the nongentrified ones that still have 4 generations living there, a century of history coexisting in a subculture unique to the surrounding 64 square blocks or so...that's the chicago flag to the right for y'all who don't live in the windy city...that's the first united methodist church downtown right behind it...i took that photo for my friend caleb who i will always consider chicagoan at heart even though he's in connecticut right now. here's a bit of info that maybe three of you out there will be interested in, but there is a meaning behind the 4 red stars, each point in each star, and the 3 white stripes and the 2 blue stripes on that flag. if you want to know what it all means, go check out this site. i just really like that blue on the flag, no?

...so when i was by the daley center, i noticed that there were all these cops around with their bicycles. i didn't know what was going on, but they were just standing there with their bikes lined up. i swear i thought they were having a bike sale or something. so i asked one of them what was up, and he said they were expecting some protestors later on, and so they were there to keep the peace.

...and then i noticed that there were also a bunch of cook county officers (the daley center is technically a cook county building--they've got like a county court there and stuff). these guys were dressed up in gear, with helmets and stuff tied to their legs and i heard a bunch of k-9 units in the vicinity. i didn't see anyone gathered to protest yet, so i figured it was too early in the day. i went about my business and then came back about an hour later, and i noticed some folks gathered beneath the picasso (y'all who don't know what i mean by picasso, it's that behemoth of a sculpture that folks think looks like a bird or a plane or superman. refer to the photo of the subway sign above and you'll see the picasso on the right side of the photo.). they looked like folks gathered for lunch or something. nothing too heavy going on.

...so i walked on by them to get a closer look because by this time that place was surrounded by not only the cops but by media paraphernalia as well. when i got to the middle of the plaza near the picasso, i could see that yes, these seemingly lunching loiterers were actually protestors, but they didn't seem all that dangerous to me. mainly, they were kids (and older folks) protesting capitalism and factory farming and racism and what not. i was rather impressed though with one dude's mohawk. you don't see a lot of good mohawks these days, which is sad. i rather like the mohawk. their signs reminded me of a song by the internat'l noise conspiracy called 'capitalism stole my virginity.' there was one lone elderly lady carrying a sign protesting factory farming, but that was the only person i saw actively seeming to be in protest against anything out there. and there were all these cops around everywhere.

...i suppose in this day and age, you hear of a planned protest and the officers of the peace have to get all armed for bear. and yeah, this "protest" seemed more like a picnic, and i do commend those exercising their first amendment rights because "the city swallows trees and i am responsible because i am indifferent to these things" [TGR] and i just stand on the side lines and take photos. i wanna change the world as much as the next idealist, but i guess my approach is more of practicing kindness towards those who don't seem to deserve it and finding beauty in the midst of mayhem and monstrocities.

...i am convinced that beauty and love and kindness are forces to be reckoned with...if it weren't for the beauty i discover again and again in the music of folks like the gloria record, ian moore, magnetic fields, denison witmer, pedro, rosie thomas, idlewild, and so many others, and for the beauty i find in whatever place i may be from behind the camera lens, and if it weren't for the love poured into my life from various and unexpected sources, and the kindness shown to me by almost strangers, i would have surely unraveled this past year which was the hardest year of my entire life.

...i know that i have personally been changed by these things--beauty, love, kindness--and i have determined that for me, i will not make my mark in this world with loud exclamation points and bold capital letters; no, my mark in this world will be made up of ellipses and parantheses and lower case and photos. although i have to admit i get a little exclamatory when there's a rockin' band involved...and yeah, i'm totally passionate about that stuff ya know, but what i'm finding about who i am internally is that my inner world is very quiet. often silent. perceived and processed in pictures. is that weird?

anyways, friday night i took the train from my apartment to glenview to pick up my car which was at my mom's house (long story...). i think it's totally cool that you can take the blue line from my pad, get off @ montrose and walk a couple blocks to the metra train that goes into the burbs, all the way to fox lake. that means that folks who live in the boondocks like fox lake can take a train to see shows at the double door, which is like steps away from the blue line stop @ north & damen. that's totally cool! i love public transportation. i think it's important for the city to be as accessible as possible to the suburbiacs because it's good for them.

i have to admit that i totally love doing night photography in the city. oh, gosh, let's face it...if i didn't have to worry about paying bills or anything silly like that all i'd do is ride the trains and buses and planes and boats and rickshaws of the world and capture it all on compact flashcard. i am realizing more and more that i somehow need to find a way to do photography fulltime. maybe i'm not good enough to hack it in the professional arena, but there's nothing i love more than capturing a moment of beauty, truth, pain, reality, anything for posterity...i don't know how to describe it...it's kinda like i know there's poetry in my heart but the only way i know how to express it is in the photos i take. and life is about the poetry, right? that's the important stuff.

... my boss knows i'm not happy at work. i deal with friggin' databases for crimeny's sake...like ok, i realize my brain works like a relational database in many ways, but it's getting harder and harder to approach my job like the game that it used to be...new puzzles to solve...nope, no new ones here...i love the folks i work with, but really...the commute is killing me too...i wanna be free from it all...i need a vacation...well, i'm going to seattle on tuesday, but there's a possibility my work will follow me. downside of being the only person in your company who knows how to do what you do...

yeah...i need something else for making bread...

p.s. if you own the serene cd, listent to track 11 'internationals.' is that not the most beautiful song in the world at this moment?? it is for me...i'm listening to it right now, and i'm wanting to cry...ryan uses the words "photograph" and "fireflies" in the same song...that's beautiful, man...ryan better do that song when i come out to seattle...no, seriously, i'm gonna go cry now...it's so frickin' beautiful...

stuff i listened to--
memories of love-future bible heroes (stephin & claudia of magnetic fields plus their friend chris) this cd made me cry.
i'm lonely (and i love it)--future bible heroes
get lost--magnetic fields
harmacy--sebadoh (ok, i know i'm WAY behind, but this is my into to lou barlow, and all i can say is where the hell have i been???)
start here--the gloria record
a lull in traffic--the gloria record
s/t--the gloria record
s/t--the swords project (saw them w/ TGR thursday...they were awesome...beautiful...no joke...)
last call for vitriol--superdrag
s/t--holiday runner
s/t--serene
american english ep--idlewild
100 broken windows--idlewild
disintegration--the cure (one of the most beautiful albums EVER...i never get sick of this one)
demolition--ryan adams
a rush of blood to the head--coldplay