The Great Whale

Hugest of living creatures, in the deep

Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims

And seems a moving land; and at his gills

Draws in, and at his breath spouts out a sea.

Milton's Paradise Lost as cited in Melville's Moby Dick

"The sun was like a weak table lamp."

I thought this was a great line from an otherwise lukewarm book; the line describes Seattle, so if you've ever lived or been there for any extended time, you will understand that the line is perfect.

Photo: Seattle circa 1930. Still a great city.

The book, Zioncheck for President: A True Story of Idealism and Madness in American Politics by Phil Campbell (2005) recounts a Seattle city council race (Campbell was the campaign manger for the candidate, Grant Cogswell). On the side, the book also familiarizes us with a politician from the 1930's named Marion Zioncheck - a wildcard congressman from Washington state back when Seattle could still have been considered the Wild West, just about. That part is really interesting. Sprinkled in, 9-11, Japanese internment camps, Skid Road, WTO. If you want to learn a little bit about the on the ground realities of low budget campaigning (there is also a movie) and also a little bit about the history of the West coast that you won't find in most history books, this is a worthwhile read.

I have noticed when I post anything particularly spiritual to Facebook, people don't give a damn - unless it is cliched and easily understood - not that that can't be useful - or unless it is controversial, which I don't generally do on Facebook. 

One of my favorite poets is Rainer Maria Rilke, but in my way I often go for years without remembering that someone is a favorite. Yesterday, I was reading a series of excerpts from Rilke's writings and fell in love all over again. I think he was a kindred spirit - and don't we somehow find them?

“I am circling around God, around the ancient tower, and I have been circling for a thousand years, and I still don't know if I am a falcon, or a storm, or a great song.” 


~ Rilke, Rainer Maria

"When did I realize I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realized I was talking to myself."

RIP Peter O'Toole 1932-2013

On Sunday the great actor, Peter O'Toole, passed. I still remember the first time I watched "Lawrence of Arabia". I was in high school, already of uncommon tastes, certainly compared to many I knew. When this movie came on, I sat in front of the TV for four hours without moving. It was a movie without a single female character. Without any romance. Try finding that today. It had none of the silly token adds, unnecessary to the plot, and in some cases unrealistic, that cheapen a movie. These things were not what the movie was about. It was a romance of an entirely different sort. It was artistic. David Lean's mastery going so far as to ensure that every take (when applicable) traveled in the same direction - to the movement of the plot.

It was - and is - one of the most astoundingly moving films of all time.

A few years later, I attended the first of the re-releases in theaters. I was in Seattle. It was one of the most important and thrilling fairy-tale evenings of my entire life.

Yes, the superlatives come out in this description. In rare instances such as these they are warranted.

Mr. O'Toole has many other wonderful films that affected me greatly and in some ways so profoundly that I cannot even share it here. But I thank him. Recently, his speech at the end of "Ratatouille" furnished a stunning ending to a so-so film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JPOoFkrh94&feature=share

Dear Peter, you will not be missed entirely because you will always be with us. Your transcendent voice, bright eyes, and quirky smile will be with me always.

There are people who don't even know who he is. Who have never watched one of his movies. Who find him over-done and mawkish. Who don't understand why he is called the "Great Player". Who will never appreciate his magic.

I am not one of those people.

To take a picture is to have an interest in things as they are, in the status quo remaining unchanged...to be in complicity with whatever makes a subject interesting, worth photographing - including...another person's pain or misfortune.

~ Susan Sontag, On Photography

~ Photo of genocide of Serbians during the Kosovo War; interestingly, this also brings up another phenomenon from this period (not over, is it? couldn't tell, could you?), what they are calling 'gendercide', that is the targeting of healthy males (reasonable tactic, I suppose, if you want to win, and are brutal enough to carry it out), and all of the resulting psychological and sociological damage that results, not to mention the desired effect of depleting the targeted population, now and for the future.

Photographing is essentially an act of non-intervention. Part of the horror...of contemporary photojournalism...comes from the awareness of how plausible it has become, in situations where the photographer has the choice between a photograph and a life, to choose the photograph.

The person who intervenes cannot record; the person who is recording cannot intervene.

Even if incompatible with intervention in a physical sense, using a camera is still a form of participation...the act of photographing is more than passive observing...it is a way of tacitly, often explicitly, encouraging whatever is going on to keep happening.

~ Susan Sontag, On Photography

~ Famous Photo of Vietnam War, used to propagandize the brutality of the Vietnamese, in fact an instance of personal vendetta against someone who had already killed the other man's family; interestingly, the blog where I found this also called journalism, 'churnalism'. Example of how photos can be used to angle a story the way the press (and those in power) wants it to be angled.