snow day thoughts

today was my first snow day of the year. yesterday, i was feeling pretty sick. so today was spent mostly inside. around 5:00, the apartment turned blue, as the sun was almost completely down and the outside turned from daylight to twilight. i looked out of my living room window and the courtyard below reminded me of movies i've watched about the holocaust. something about the brick buildings, the lack of trees, the emptiness, the snow falling, the depressing blue color - it's like what i imagine auschwitz to have felt like. i saw birds flying in the sky above this courtyard - and i started wondering what people who are imprisoned think about birds. jealousy? or hopefulness? i'm not sure - probably a range of emotions. i watched a documentary on micheal jackson fans once who stand outside of neverland daily. they wait by the gates in hopes that they might be let in, or they might see micheal jackson. one of the women said, "those of us who wait here, we're jealous of those birds. they have the freedom to fly in and out of neverland. we wish we were birds." it made me think of this. my dad gave me this book a year ago. i read it sometime last summer.

it's from wallace stenger's book, "the sound of mountain water." the section of this book is called the coda - it's a letter. you should read the book if you can. the part i pulled out is just from the first few paragraphs.

dear mr. pesonen:
i believe that you are working on the wilderness portion of the outdoor recreation resources review commission's report. if i may, i should like to urge some arguments for wilderness preservation that involve recreation, as it is ordinarily conceived, hardly at all. hunting, fishing, hiking, mountain-climbing, camping, photography, and the enjoyment of natural scenery will all, surely, figure in your report. so will the wilderness as a genetic reserve, a scientific yardstick by which we may measure the world in its natural balance against the world in its man-made imbalance. what i want to speak for is not so much the wilderness uses, valuable as those are, but the wilderness idea, which is a resource in itself. being an intangible and spiritual resource, it will seem mystical to the practical-minded - but then anything that cannot be moved by a bulldozer is likely to seem mystical to them . . .

something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clear air and dirty the last of the silence, so that never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste. and so that never again can we have the chance to see ourselves single, separate, vertical and individual in the word, part of the environment of trees and rocks and soil, brother to the other animals, part of the natural world and competent to belong in it. without any remaining wilderness we are committed wholly, without chance for even momentary reflection and rest, to a headlong drive into our technological termite-life, the brave new world of a completely man-controlled environment. we need wilderness preserved-as much of it is still left, and as many kind-because it was the challenge against which our character as a people was formed. the reminder and the reassurance that it is still there is good for our spiritual health even if we never once in ten years set foot in it. it is good for us when we are young, because of the incomparable sanity it can bring briefly, as vacation and rest, into our insane lives. it is important to us when we are old simply because it is there - important, that is, simply as an idea.

have to explode

miss laura, do you know where birds fly in the winter? they fly to the southside.

we're going to rise from these ashes like a bird of flame, take my hand, we're going to go where we can shine

sunday morning. sometimes i'm too lazy to edit my pictures. they sure look so much better when i do.


sometimes you have to watch to be watched. or be watched to watch. both sort of work. both worked this time.

the usual: birds, sky, sun.

it's been some time since i've uploaded things here. but that's okay. it's been hard since it got so cold outside.

the children of the wind are flying again

i finally saw the birds. birds fly in circles, a lot, which gives you time to get your camera out. i hope you like the pictures. not always sure about what it means to play around with the contrast and colors of photographs. i'm not always sure how i feel about it. either way, i did it this time to varying degrees with the birds.
taking pictures of birds has sort of been a spiritual undertaking for me. there have been huge lessons in waiting and patience and trust. also makes me question the point in taking pictures: sometimes i become so obsessed with getting a picture of something beautiful, i forget that the thing i'm taking a picture of is beautiful. i don't like that. maybe that's why these pictures worked: i was walking down the street with two friends who i love, the sun was shining, i looked up and there were birds circling, i got my camera out and took the pictures. usually, this process looks more like me sitting outside, waiting for the birds, getting impatient and then going back in my room, seeing the birds from my window, running outside to miss the picture and repeating the process at least 5 times until i stop looking out the window and focus on watching six feet under. like i can't enjoy the birds, unless i can have the birds. keep them in a photograph. which is so human of me. taking pictures exposes this deep humanistic quality of wanting to have, consume, hold, eat and capture beauty, instead of just enjoying it without owning it.

birds with wings

here are a few pictures. i took them today. if you've been friends with me in any degree of closeness over the last few months, then you know that i've been nearly obsessed with getting a good picture of birds flying. thanks to brian werner, who took a series of the best pictures of birds flying, i might die if i don't accomplish this goal. unfortunately, all of the large black birds have already flown south (to the southside) by now. maybe i'm more aware this year, but it seems as if pittsburgh is the center of all bird migration. everyone flies through pittsburgh to go south.

i would not call any of these photos successes. but i like this one. the birds aren't really in focus, and you can't really see their shape. but i like the wavey line that they create. it breaks the photo up into interesting parts. i also like the sunsetting on the houses. so even though the birds don't look great individually, i like what they're doing as a whole.

um. the sun is awesome. and i think that you sort of get an idea of the birds as individuals in this picture. you can sort of see their shapes.


the sunset was nice. the birds look okay. what i don't like is when the birds just look like flakes of black lint on your computer screen. that's what's happened in this photograph and that's why i don't like it.


sun is great. birds look pretty good in this one. it's hard to upload photos onto this thing because the thumbnail is so small, i can't quite tell which ones are which :)


okay. so, i like the above picture. the bird isn't really that clear. the below picture is perfect to me. my problem is this: in above picture, all you see is the road. in below picture, there's a lame green car that's messing it up. so i feel frustrated because the below picture is almost the best thing that's happened to me in like 4 days, but the stupid green car is in the way. clouds look awesome either way.