Pandemic VII (Why Trump is ill-equipped to get us out of this mess)

Here’s what the majority of anti-Trump voters honestly feel about Trump supporters en masse: The following are not my words, but they echo my feelings exactly. And when you finish, mind you, this is only a partial list.

That when you saw a man who had owned a fraudulent University, intent on scamming poor people, you thought, “Fine.”

That when you heard him proudly brag about his own history of sexual abuse, you said, “no problem.”

That when he made up stories about seeing Muslim-Americans in the thousands cheering the destruction of the World Trade Center, you said, "Not an issue."

That when you saw him brag that he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and you wouldn't care, you exclaimed, "He sure knows me."

That when you heard him relating a story of an elderly guest of his country club, an 80-year old man, who fell off a stage and hit his head, to Trump replied: “‘Oh my God, that’s disgusting,’ and I turned away. I couldn’t—you know, he was right in front of me, and I turned away. I didn’t want to touch him. He was bleeding all over the place. And I felt terrible, because it was a beautiful white marble floor, and now it had changed color. Became very red.” You said, "That's cool!"

That when you saw him mock the disabled, you thought it was the funniest thing you ever saw.

That when the Central Park Five were compensated as innocent men convicted of a crime they didn't commit, and he angrily said that they should still be in prison, you said, "That makes sense."

That you have watched him remove expertise from all layers of government in favor of people who make money off of eliminating protections in the industries they're supposed to be regulating and you have said, "What a genius!"

That you have witnessed all the thousand and one other manifestations of corruption and low moral character and outright animalistic rudeness and contempt for you, the working American voter, and you still show up grinning and wearing your MAGA hats and threatening to beat up anybody who says otherwise.

What you don't get, Trump supporters, is that our succumbing to frustration and shaking our heads, thinking of you as stupid, may very well be wrong and unhelpful, but it's also...hear me...charitable.Because if you're NOT stupid, we must turn to other explanations, and most of them are less flattering.- Adam-Troy Castro

The Pandemic VI (Mourning in America)

In 1984 Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign produced a very successful television ad entitled “Morning in America” featuring happy couples marrying, families buying new homes, cars, and enjoying a life that was nothing short of paradise.

Fast forward to 2020. George Conway, the husband of White house advisor Kellyanne Conway, with a number of disenchanted Republican friends, produced an ad that draws on Reagan’s and is entitled “Mourning in America”, an exposé of all that has gone wrong under the “leadership” of the incompetent Donald Trump. Conway and friends are working to defeat Donald Trump in November under the guise of an organization called “The Lincoln Project.”

Strangely, Donald Trump seemed somewhat disenchanted in the Lincoln Project’s take on his leadership. He responded, “Their so-called Lincoln Project is a disgrace to Honest Abe," Trump added, referring to revered Civil War-era president Abraham Lincoln.

"I don't know what Kellyanne did to her deranged loser of a husband, Moonface, but it must have been really bad."

No, Don, she did nothing to George. George penned an op-ed piece in the Washington Post that read,

“It may strike you as deranged that a sitting president facing a pandemic has busied himself attacking journalists, political opponents, television news hosts and late-night comedians — even deriding a former president who merely called for empathy and unity in response to the virus. It may strike you as nuts that Trump bragged about his supposed Facebook ranking in the middle of a virus task-force briefing, asserted that millions would have died were it not for him, boasted that “the ‘Ratings’ of my News Conferences etc.” were driving “the Lamestream Media . . . CRAZY,” and floated bogus miracle cures, including suggesting that scientists consider injecting humans with household disinfectants such as Clorox.

“Now, it’s more obvious than ever. Trump’s narcissism deadens any ability he might otherwise have had to carry out the duties of a president in the manner the Constitution requires. He’s so self-obsessed, he can only act for himself, not for the nation,.”

The Pandemic is more than a war of words now. We hate each other. The Trumpies want the country back no matter the cost; the rest of us want to preserve our health. The Trumpies are willing to sacrifice lives of the elderly, the infirm, and the poor so that they can return to their shopping malls. The rest of us don’t buy it.

To call this a “troubling time” is to understate the very seriousness the pandemic and Trump’s sociopathy have on the country that we’ve known for three quarters of a century. Thousands have died. Untold thousands more will die. We can possibly hold out another six months before the 2020 election, but if Trump should win again in 2020 it could be the end of America.

Reagan’s ad concludes, “Why would we ever want to return to where we were four short years ago?” Oh, that we could.

The Pandemic V

At 8:00 last night we heard the howlers. In parts of the Bay Area residents howl for a few minutes to honor the first responders—the doctors, nurses, mailmen, “essential” workers (a security guard was shot and killed yesterday because the shoppers he insisted had to wear a mask felt he “disrespected” them). No insanity there. We missed the nightly dancers on Peralta Street. At 7:50 every night residents go out into the street and dance. Strange. We’re all in this together, and since we can’t touch or hug our neighbors we have our own ways of communicating, of sharing the very real, sad, and depressing news that thousands of us are dying every day, and that the “leader of the free world” isn’t leading.

He said, “Supposing you brought the light inside of the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. Sounds interesting. I see the disinfectant — where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?” Within hours the Poison Control Center had fielded thirty calls from people who had ingested bleach. Later, Trump insisted that he was being “sarcastic.” He wasn’t.

Trump’s entire platform for leading is lying. Before the pandemic his lies were probably less onerous because they didn’t cause people to die. Now they do. The lies, the behavior, the blame game, the denial of science, the embrace of authoritarianism and those that support it. The inevitable comparisons between the USA of 2020 and German ninety years ago are accurate and not overstated. Michael Godwin cultivated the popular notion that “whoever is the first to mention Hitler in an argument, loses the argument,” in a 1990s meme that grew in strength over the years, right up until Donald Trump was elected president.” it’s called Godwin’s Law, and it’s no longer valid. Trump is Hitleresque in so many ways that to deny the comparison is to understate its validity.

So, where does that leave us today on Cinco de Mayo? In the good ol’ USA we have 1,213,010 cases, 69,925 deaths, and because many states are reopening the promise of an increase. It was the government’s position, even touted by Trump, that before states could reopen they would show that deaths and new cases had either flattened or reduced over a two week period. But that all ended when Trump’s ignorant base complained. Now, these “very good people”, who won’t wear masks, who endanger the lives of everyone they see, are pressuring governors to reopen states, and the governors, fearing a backlash from the great unwashed, are doing that. “Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed the guidelines even as she pushed for more testing. “The White House’s vague and inconsistent document does nothing to make up for the president’s failure to listen to the scientists and produce and distribute national rapid testing,” she said in a statement.

Meanwhile we’re out of bleach. Drank too much of it a week ago.

The Pandemic IV (Again, in Personal Terms)

Yesterday was Celine’s sixth birthday. Knowing that she couldn’t have a birthday party like other six year olds, her mother Farrah arranged for the party to come to her. The 1 PM parade down Rugby Avenue began with carloads of her friends, wishing her a happy birthday as they went by, each car festooned with banners acknowledging the day in capital letters. Finally, the Kensington Fire Department came down the street, with lights flashing and horns blaring. Neighbors lined the street carrying signs.

Final score. Community 1, Pandemic 0.

Celine, Farrah, and Nigel

Celine taking it all in

Kensington Fire Department…I mean, what have they got to do?

Neighbors lined the street.

The parade begins

Part III The Pandemic in Personal Terms

We’ve been sheltering in place for the last five weeks, and we’ve become adjusted to the changes. Yes, we don’t shop in grocery stores or Costco (as Jennifer and Jason have taken that away from us), we don’t go out to eat, we don’t meet with our friends, when we encounter people out walking either we go out to the street or they do, we wear our masks, we read, we try to manage as best we can. Jadyne assembles jigsaw puzzles; I cut snippets of flowers from my neighbors’ yards to practice “focus stacking” a technique new to me about closeup photography.

Before all this happened Jadyne played Scrabble every week with Diane, a widow living in a nursing home in El Cerrito. Three or four years ago Jadyne, having recognized the many issues that nursing home residents face, volunteered to play games with them. She was assigned Diane, an eighty-plus year old woman who was still sharp, showed no signs of dementia, and found TV and the other residents unable to keep her interest alive. All that changed with Jadyne. More than any of the activities that she faced in the 168 hours that comprised her week, the 90 minutes with Jadyne were unquestionably her favorite. Oh, they played with different rules. No two letter words. No consulting a scrabble dictionary. They had to know the words they used and their definitions. Sometimes Diane won. Sometimes Jadyne did.

After a while they stopped keeping score. They just played. When the pandemic struck and the shelter-at-home rules passed, the caretaker at the nursing home informed Jadyne that she would no longer be able to visit. Jadyne called Diane and explained it to her, but it was a bit puzzling to Diane, who was sheltered not only for her safety, but sheltered, too, from the news. Jadyne would call her from time to time, but after a while no one answered the phone. Jadyne assumed that Diane was talking to someone in her family and wouldn’t have expected another call.

So Jadyne sent her a card, wishing her well. Before the card was returned Jadyne received a call from Diane’s daughter. Diane had died in the hospital. Alone. She had become unresponsive a week or so earlier and was taken to the hospital. No one could visit her. Pandemic regulations. A doctor called the daughter. No the pandemic didn’t kill her, and it’s unlikely that it in any way influenced what happened. But because of the pandemic no one could be with her. She died alone.

When the World Closed (Part II)...and a slight reopening

Since I wrote my previous blog post seventeen days and thousands of deaths have taken place. No, Donald, we’re not reopening for Easter…we’re not reopening at any time. A “stay at home” lockdown has been ordered for everyone. We’re in the third week, and we expect this to continue for at least four more. So, with everyone staying at home we held a Happy Hour Block Party on April 1st at 5:00. And in short, here are the attendees:

John and Renee Ream

John and Renee live at the end of the street with their daughter Amy. John was an Oakland policeman. When he was a boy he was captured by the Japanese and spent time in a prison camp in the Philippines. He had to surrender his POW license plate after his stroke because he can’t drive anymore, and he’s turned his new Honda over to his granddaughter who is not and never has been a POW.

Next…

Charlie Patton and Nancy Rubin

Charlie and Nancy are not an item. Charlie lives up the street with his wife Donna and their daughter Eva. They own a yoga studio in Bali and spend many months of the year there. For exercise Charlie runs up and down the seventy Maryland steps ten times in a row. Nancy is a former teacher at Berkeley High School. She is a skilled photographer who has put on several shows showing her portraits. I’m working with her on Lightroom. Nancy always brings me flowers on my birthday. (She’s four months older; I usually forget hers).

George

George lives next door to Nancy. Never married, George retired a few years ago from UCB where his work revolved around computers. I recruited George to work with me at the Berkeley Food Pantry, and after seeing the primitive way we were counting faces he quickly designed a software program that allows us to keep track of each of our clients. George is a twitcher, and after hearing about a rare bird sighting almost anywhere in the world heads off in hopes to see it, too.

Jim and Carol Patton

Our Happy Hour yesterday was possibly the largest gathering of people that Jim has ever attended. More at home camping for months in Death Valley trapping rodents, Jim has been shipwrecked five times and spends his happiest times in the mountains and deserts. His greatest work is the one thousand page volume “The Rodents of South America”, available everywhere. Carol, patiently, goes with him. They were supposed to be in the desert yesterday, but that’s out. Jim can’t even go to his office at Cal. Carol writes letters to senators and congressmen almost every day, hoping, as we all are, that things will get better. Jim and Carol have no children, but they care for an assortment of pet turtles who have the run of their house.

Maria

Maria lives by herself at the other end of the street from the Reams. Her husband Wallace died a few years ago. Her son Paul has taken care of her, but the lockdown prevents him from visiting. Her grandson Julian ran away recently to Costa Rica, his mother’s home, was found and returned home only to be quarantined for fourteen days. He was fortunate to find a flight at all. Maria has called me a couple of times to fix things I can’t fix. I smile and apologize.

Alvin, Carys, and Jen

The Lumanlans live across the street. Alvin has been trying to make a go of a photography portrait business, and Jen hosts a website called “Your parenting Mojo”. Carys is the subject of about 90% of Alvin’s images, and is a precocious five year old. The Lumanlans are adventurers, having cycled much of the Tour de France course, including the steepest hills. In the rain. Jen backpacked through the Alps with baby Carys. They hike. They cycle. And like everyone else, they struggle in these uncertain times.

Guillermo, Davi, and Nico

Guillermo fled Spain to get away from Franco. He’s an avid runner, and on weekdays he rides his bike to the BART station, then takes it on BART to San Francisco where he works as an economist. He married Davi, and together they brought Nico into the world. Davi makes exquisite jewelry. Nico will attend UC Davis next year with the hope that after graduation he will attend graduate school, eventually becoming a veterinarian. Davi loves cats. Her license plate is QAT. At any given time they have, oh about four or five or six or whatever.

This was our first Six Foot Away Happy Hour. It won’t be the last.

M.I.A. Two families sent apologies. Anthony and Farrah, Amber and Kahlil, each have two little children who wouldn’t be able to keep six feet away from anyone. And so it goes…

When the World Closed

More commonly known as the “Diamond Princess” the cruise ship carrying twenty-one passengers infected with Covid-19, or the coronavirus, is currently docked across from Ted’s office at AmNav in Oakland. Here it is emerging from the fog across San Francisco Bay on a warm winter morning. The thousands of passengers on the Diamond Princess took days to disembark, get tested, then climb into a shuttle to go off to nearby military bases in CA or other bases around the US for a 14 day quarantine. The Diamond Princess meandered off the California cost for nine days while officials tried to figure out what to do with the passengers. Mr. Trump wanted them all to stay shipboard because if they disembarked the number of confirmed cases would have increased, making him look bad. Never mind the health and welfare of the passengers.

And this is really just the beginning. Schools are closed, The NBA has shut down, no March Madness, BART is off 45%, Costco’s lines for toilet paper are out the door, store shelves are empty, the eleven year bull market has ended, stocks are in free fall, the roads are empty, and everyone is asked to stay home. As of March 12th there are over 18,000 cases of Covid-19 and 76 deaths in the USA. And considering the high mortality rate of seniors perhaps this blog entry is being offered by a Dead Man Typing. It’s at a time like this American needs a leader. What do we have? A reality TV star.

In The Atlantic a Republican who did not vote for Trump in 2016 had this to say about him: “Mr. Trump’s virulent combination of ignorance, emotional instability, demagogy, solipsism and vindictiveness would do more than result in a failed presidency; it could very well lead to national catastrophe. The prospect of Donald Trump as commander in chief should send a chill down the spine of every American.” The national catastrophe to which he had referred has come to pass, and true to form Mr. Trump has displayed all of the traits that had been identified four years earlier. Something about a leopard and spots.

“This is worse than 9/11”, my friend Dr. Novotny said, echoing the increasing worry about a disease of an unknown origin that is at least fifty times more deadly than influenza, a disease with no known cure, no vaccine, and no appropriate medications, a disease that kills 8% of people in their seventies.

And once again from our President. The never-ending cascade of ignorant tweets drowns out the warnings of those who know, who understand, and who are responsible enough to recognize the severity of the pandemic. Trump is reassuring only the naive, gullible, and irremediably stupid among us for whom he is the champion.

“We have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”

 “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”

 “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.”

“When you have 15 [cases in the United States], and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”

 Two weeks later, there were 1,000 cases and 28 deaths. A pretty good job you’ve done? South Korea is able to test over 10,000 people a day; the US hasn’t tested that many all winter.

And for those who believe that we are overreacting, this from a school superintendent: He said: “In the end, it will be impossible to know if we overreacted or did too much, but it will be QUITE apparent if we under reacted or did too little.” It is quite apparent to almost everyone in America that the government, despite the lies told by the President, has done far too little, has hidden the truth and severity of the outbreak from the citizens, and is now responsible for many of the deaths that possibly could have been prevented had it been prepared.

*To be continued.

Greg and Sean

Who are these people?

Sean is the lady on the left. Greg is standing next to her. Jadyne has known her brother Greg since he was born sixty-two years ago; I’ve known him for fifty years. We didn’t know Sean before she began dating Greg, sometime after Teeny died. In the last four sentences, I’ve referenced three of the most loving, remarkable people I’ve ever had the pleasure to know.

But Sean is still a little pissed at Greg. Why? Greg was a bit too shy to ask Sean to marry him, that is, until we were in Costa Rica on vacation and we all had a little too much to drink, and I think it was New Year’s Eve, and Greg called her and asked her over the phone. She accepted of course, but she didn’t hide that she would have preferred that he ask her in person. It is perhaps the only time in the last twenty-six years that she’s ever expressed any disappointment or criticism of a person that she loves as completely as a woman has ever loved a man. Greg and Sean were married in 1994 in Glenwood Springs, and the entire Buchholz family was there to celebrate their wedding.

Since then we have seen them both summers and winters, in Colorado and in California, and have shared so much together—from the weddings of our three children, the births of our six grandchildren, and the wedding of Sean’s daughter Shelby. We last saw them in the summer of 2019 in Colorado. And all was well.

Sean and Greg at Greg’s sixtieth birthday party two years ago. And all was well.

And all has been well for the last twenty-six years. One exception. Twenty-two years ago Greg was struck by a mysterious illness that required hospitalization and a couple of months of recovery. Doctors in Denver were able to treat him, and within six weeks back at work. And play. And all was well.

Playing with trains, tractors, and dogs are playtime for Greg.

Both Sean and Greg love dogs, and although the image above doesn’t reflect the current menagerie it accurately reflects the affection and attention that they both pay to their canine companions.

And Greg loves tractors, too.

But it isn’t tractors themselves that Greg loves. It’s that he can use them in the winter to do what he does and loves best—help other people.

But all is not well today. Two and a half weeks ago Greg went to work, came home, and felt sick. The details are available through Sean’s texts on Caringbridge, but Greg is now in Denver, very sick and unable to do the simplest of tasks. Here’s Sean on December 22nd:

“Right now Greg is sedated and intubated. He is stable under these circumstances and has not spiked a fever since arriving in Denver. We are in Medical Intensive Care right now at University. I apologize deeply to those of you who have reached out through all other means to try to make contact without getting a response from me. It has been a runaway train since Thursday night when he came home from work feeling “achy”. Everything has happened so fast. Leaving our “home “ at Valley View was wrenching. Watching Greg leave under the competent and caring protection of the Helicopter crew was wrenching. Leaving our home in No Name a few hours later was wrenching. But I am here now and he is in good hands and we still don’t really know what happened or what damage may have been done by the swelling in his brain, the high fevers and the seizures. I will sleep here in his room tonight and will try to figure out how to be able to make entries.”

I want to turn the rest of this post to Sean. I began by saying that she loves Greg “as completely as a woman loves a man.” Again, here’s Sean:

“A huge heartfelt thank you to every person who is following this whether or not you post any sort of comment. Just being able to journal the journey is helpful for me and that’s about as big as my world is right now. Greg. And me. i know you are alongside and it is the rock upon which I stand. God bless you all.”

“His sister has been delayed in SFO. He’ll be off the vent by the time she arrives. And maybe he’ll say “hello Jay”. Wouldn’t THAT be WONDERFUL!!!! I know I do not need to say this, but if there’s anyone who’s following this who does not believe in the power of love, please have your head examined.”

Brother and sister

Sean again: “We have made a little nest for ourselves here in room 729 at Anschutz and although it is not ‘home’ it is what we have right now. All of you are with us, I know that. I tell Greg, I show him cards and read things to him and I know it matters and makes a difference. I do not feel alone or lonely or isolated; but I long for our home and our community. And until that day comes, that day that he once again crosses the threshold of our No Name home, we will make each day as meaningful and comfortable and empowering for this dear man as we can. I promised in the consult this morning to take better care of myself. I acknowledged the difficulty of having the tables so abruptly turned on our sweet life, like being sucked into an eddy, spinning spinning spinning and then being just as abruptly spit out miles downstream, facing the wrong way and upside down. Just the fact that I was sitting in a Palliative Consult, not as the chaplain on the team, but as the wife of the patient, was enough to take my breath. 
Today the waters are calm. He sleeps because in sleeping will be some healing. In sleep, will be some peace.
He sleeps, and I write. Because all the same things are true for me in writing that are true right now for him in sleep. Healing and peace.
I don’t even know were to begin with expressing the grateful heart that beats within me for the incredible outpouring of love. The food, the cards, the little notes and texts and voice mails. 
I invite anyone who wishes, to take a brief selfie video, saying hello to our sleeping friend. 10 seconds? 15 seconds? We believe it is good for him to see the faces that are familiar to his life before Anschutz but without the exhaustion that can come from a revolving door of visitors in the flesh. I do not mean to deny him that connection or deny any of you access to him and it is my sole purpose right now to protect him as well as I can and to advocate for him with what feels like are the right decisions. Tomorrow we will try a new drug to stimulate his brain a bit and within two days we will know if it is working. And we will ask of him the unimaginable by asking him to make his body and his mind reconnect.
Keep the home fires burning and the candles lit.”

Sean again after a visit from her friend Jo. “I know I will continue to have snippets of time with faces I love and in between those moments I continue to feel inexpressible gratefulness for my life, for Greg’s life and for the life we have had, and continue to have, together.”

Sean on New Year’s Eve.

“On the eve of a new decade may this night find all of you reflecting on your own beautiful lives...taking what you can from what comes that helps you or helps others and feeling excitement and strength about what the new year could bring...
it’s all a mystery right now..
We had a very tender moment today when I was feeling quite overwhelmed with things I don’t understand and he lifted his hand for me to take and I asked if we could practice our hug therapy. He managed to get both his arms around me and I laid my head on his chest and he just held me quietly while I cried. It was incredibly grounding and comforting for me and I think it made him feel useful. Anyone who knows me, knows  I LOVE HUG THERAPY. I just didn’t know it was a real thing. But it is. (His PT said so.)
Our hearts continue to overflow with all the love that comes our way every day.
Blessings to all
sean

Sean, Greg, Jadyne, and Teeny (Greg and Jadyne’s late sister) are four of the strongest, most loving, most giving and most remarkable people I have had the pleasure not only to know but to be a part of my life. For Sean to express that her heart (and Greg’s) “continue to overflow with all the love that comes their way every day” is not just a reflection of the way she feels but a guide to all of us to live our lives as she and Greg do. To repeat Sean’s earlier post, “who does not believe in the power of love, please have your head examined.”

February 5, 2020. Greg has been in a rehab hospital in Carbondale since January 22nd. The catheter is out. He can feed himself. He can climb out of bed, take a few steps, take a shower, walk a few steps, He is aware that so many care and is grateful for their love and support. Sean has gone back to work. Steps are being taken to remodel the bathroom in their house to accommodate his eventual return in two or three weeks. We couldn’t have asked for more.

Telling Stories (What is art?) Part 1

A banana duct-taped to a wall has been sold for a hard-to-stomach $120,000 at Art Basel Miami

Why even try to express what it is that makes art art? If a duct-taped banana can sell in the six figures the following exercise is not worth your time trying to find out. I suggest that you do what one of my friends did when he watched the show “Mission Impossible.” He accepted the premise so he never watched the show. If we can’t figure out what it is that separates a “pic” from a portrait, a snap from a work of art, then you’re wasting your time ingesting my humble words. Miss Manners is still being published. Go read Miss Manners.

It’s not bananas or manners for me, though. It’s images. What it is that elevates an image into something more than, as one of my exasperated photography students said after I gave him a five minute critique, “just a picture” is what I’m trying to do here. Some aren’t just “pictures.”

Hey, here’s a picture:

Blind man’s daughter reads the menu to her father

But that only tells a small part of the story. Here’s the rest.

Blind man’s daughter reads the menu to her father

Now it’s a photograph. Now it tells a story. The daughter reads the menu out loud. The woman in an adjacent booth hears the daughter reading aloud and being curious, turns around to satisfy her curiosity. There’s a story here. It tells the truth about life and about people.

Here’s another.

Young, confident, self-assured, and beautiful

But this is much more than a picture when you see the effect that the young lady has on another.

The caption reads “A New York iPhone photographer”. Now it’s not a photograph of just a young girl, but the effect that she has on another. And on me, too, as I saw their relationship as a photograph telling a story.

One more…

Lost in her own thoughts Isla looks out the window of a BART car.

Isla is still lost in her own thoughts. But the couple behind her are lost in each other, and the contrast between their affectionate relationship and Isla’s solitude makes this a photograph, not just a picture,.

Here’s a cat

You can find cat images everywhere. What makes this cat photo a photograph and not just another cat picture? Lighting? Composition? (Partly). What works here is revealing a truth about cats, in effect, telling a story about what it means to be a cat. The cat wants to climb on the window sill and look out the window. Whatever he has to do he does.

More stories, this time a couple of dogs…

Does this say anything about dogs? Or do his little pink shoes, the trailing leash, and the legs and shoes of his owner standing nearby tell a story?

This one isn’t just a photograph of a dog. It shows a relationship, too, between both the relative sizes of the two dogs and the comfort that the smaller one takes in the larger one.

Most fine art photographs stand on their own. In some cases the narrative that accompanies the Image enhances the experience, the appreciation, and the enjoyment of the image. Understanding that the blind man’s daughter is reading the menu aloud helps in understanding the image. In the following photograph the explanation below the image also enhances the experience for the viewer.

When Andrew’s first child was born in California Andrew was in Kathmandu.. Here he is arriving at the airport and seeing his son for the first time.

Photographers tire of the line from wannabe image makers “If I had your camera.” Having spent more than fifty years trying to create images that tell stories, I am trying to examine what really separates those wannabe photobugs from artists who use the camera as a means to create art. Telling stories is only one part.

China 2019

Jadyne and I saw a post on a town kiosk asking for citizens to volunteer for an English in Action program. Visiting scholars from foreign countries attending UC Berkeley who wish to improve their English signed up for the program, hoping to find a volunteer willing to spend an hour a week with them, just talking and listening. The scholars have at least one Ph.D; my first conversational partner received his second while he was here. Last year I met Zhongbing from Changsha, China; Jadyne met Celia from Xi’an. We spent hours with them, helping them to get CA drivers licenses, sharing dinners and becoming friends.

After giving birth to her second child Celia returned to Xi’an in February; Zhong left in June. We arranged a three week trip to China in October, spending the first few days with Celia, then took an eight day tour before meeting up with Zhongbing.

What we saw wasn’t available to Westerners—a Tibetan wedding in a 12,000’ high cow pasture near Shangri-la, one of the millions of apartments where many of the 1,400,000,000 Chinese call home, seven little girls and their mothers headed to Kunming for ice skating tests, and a shrine where Chinese communists visit to pay homage to Mao. Not your China 1A tour. We had visited in 1992 and were overwhelmed this time by the cleanliness, the efficiency, and the progress. Audis replaced bikes. Exotic housepets (a Vicuna) replace the oxen.

We were also aware of the cameras with face-detection technology. They followed us everywhere. Before we could get a Visa we had to list where we would be staying every night of our visit. We understood that we could be found in this crowd of one and a half billion people within minutes.

Here are our two hosts and their families:

http://www.davidkbuchholz.com/china-friends-2019

And here are two more links, one for the many faces we found, the other for the places we saw.

http://www.davidkbuchholz.com/china-faces-2019

and

http://www.davidkbuchholz.com/new-gallery-17

Why I Take Photos (Part I)

You spend too much time with your nose pressed up against a camera, your eye squinting through a viewfinder, watching life pass you by. You’re an observer, an escapist, not a participant. You miss so much. As a photographer, while you are arresting movement and reducing what’s happening from three dimensions into two you’re just seeing or experiencing a shortcut, an abridged version, the Cliff Notes of life.

I’ve heard it all. How can I explain? I feel incomplete without a camera, an emperor with no clothes. I can still see images in my mind’s eye that demanded to be photographed and weren’t, images on a crashed hard drive that weren’t backed up that now exist only in my mind or some netherworld perhaps where missing photos await a resurrection. It would be harder for me to figure out how not to take a photograph than to consider the merits of whether it should be taken at all. How do I decide what I need to record? I don’t. Things demand to be photographed. It’s a subpoena, and I am required to respond. I’m not choosing to do any of this. I have to do it because, well, because I have to.

The Photographer as Thief

My father, an Episcopal minister, was quick to look at technology and reject it if it “didn’t bring people together.” The camera, then, is the tool that separates the shooter from the shootee. It doesn’t bring the two together at all. It creates a distinction, a difference. Indians have believed that the camera takes away your soul. Moroccans do, too. They’re quick to turn their heads when a camera is pointed in their direction. Taking someone’s photograph is an invasion of space, an aggressive gesture, one that provides the shooter with something taken illicitly, and whether it’s a soul or spirit or in plain terms just an image, he often takes it surreptitiously and sometimes with an ulterior unspoken motive. And even when permission is granted, the reward exists primarily for the photographer. The shootee gives something (himself) to the shooter. The shooter is part thief.

But there are exceptions to the exchange. In smiling, in asking for permission to photograph someone, a connection is being made, an exchange that otherwise wouldn’t have taken place now does. I asked two women in a restaurant in NYC who had unique hairstyles if I could take their photograph because, as I said, “You two have the most fabulous hair.” So yes, I “stole” the photo, but I couldn’t have done it without their kind and generous cooperation. And there wouldn’t have been a connection at all if I hadn’t asked.

Here’s why I do what I do. The reasons are countless, but the first one that comes to mind is just to tell the truth, to show something about the subject that only a photograph can reveal.

There’s no shortage of cat descriptions, about their independence, their indifference, but this image reveals it without words. It tells the truth. It’s not set up or staged. This is what cats do. When you see this you see a truth of cats.

Here is a photograph of a father and his daughter. Doesn’t this say more than could be expressed in text? Does the look of contentment on the little girl’s face need to be interpreted? And in the half-hidden father’s face, eyes narrowed, cheeks filled, how can we mistake the love and affection he feels for his daughter? It’s truth and it speaks for the love between all fathers and their daughters or sons.

The little girl below is curious about what the boy is doing.She doesn’t know him. She’s never seen him before. The unwritten rules of “personal space” don’t appear in her playbook. The fear of rejection, the reluctance to invade his space, neither of these is something she understands. It’s a delightful innocence and naivete that is part of early childhood that is being revealed here. So telling and revealing truths are part of the same equation.

And next is a double revelation.

Comfort and Tears.

The girl on her back was just defeated in a judo match. Whether she was hurt or just disappointed is unknown, but that she’s experiencing grief is clear. The girl who beat her is expressing comfort in a physical gesture that recognizes, sympathizes, and cares for the girl she’s just beaten.

Love and Death

Countless images show the love between couples. This lady (and her six month old daughter) are watching her husband play rugby. What we’re willing to do to show our love for someone can be revealed in new and different ways, and sitting on a plastic tarp under a pounding rain just to watch someone you care about play rugby is one such thing, more revealing and truthful than a box of chocolates or a dozen roses.

I love to take photographs that reflect the gamut of human experience, but until Patrick O’Day was killed in the Gulf War I had never pointed my camera at a person who has just lost someone, or whose sense of grief is so intense. It’s times like that that I put the camera down and change hats, except this one occasion, when Patrick O’ Day was honored and his widow presented with his flag. And the family hired me to record the event.

The other side of that coin. Jennifer and Andrew knew that giving birth in Nepal was an unnecessary risk, so Jennifer flew back to California while Andrew, sitting on a sofa in Kathmandu, watched it all on Skype. Weeks later he was able to fly to SF and meet his son for the first time. Jennifer is handing Andrew his first born child while Jadyne is totally caught up in the moment.

SFO

And the third side of that coin is humor. In a now defunct parade called “How Berkeley Can You Be?” a tree marched up the street to chat with two tie-dyed ladies. This makes me smile, too.

Since everything in the world has been photographed innumerable times by skilled and competent artists why bother? To make a photograph the artist/ photographer needs to see and record everyday things in ways that aren’t everyday, that shed a new truth, a new light when the viewer sees it. And maybe finds a way to do it that has never been done before. We’ve all seen dogwood trees. But lying on the ground beneath the tree and photographing a part of the tree under a foggy sky possibly reveals something new about dogwood.

Seeing as Art

What’s also revealed here in this still life in the translucence of the leaves is the essence of what leaves are all about.

Or looking at it with close-up equipment which reveals textures, lines and forms.

More of the same. In a photograph we are drawn to an interpretation of what is. In this case, the patterns of the fronds, the peculiar curving end to the major frond, the staggered growth of the offshoots on the main frond reveal a truth in nature,

Sometimes conditions give photographers opportunities to see in ways that are closed off to others. Riding in the bow of a tugboat and shooting with a fisheye lens allowed me to see and photograph a container ship my own way.

Asphalt Autumn. We’ve all seen, admired, and photographed the colors of autumn, but the photographer looks elsewhere, tries to interpret the beauty of nature in a whole new way, like on a wet road having been crushed by passing cars.

So far it’s truth, revelation, fresh or new interpretation, and I’m now adding preservation. Photographers take thousands of images of their wives, husbands, parents, and children. And embedded in those photographs are truths of who these people were at one specific time, where they lived, experiences they’ve shared.

Recording for Posterity

My forty-five year old son at age three months.

My sister-in-law Teeny, killed in an avalanche almost thirty-two years ago., preserved both in our memories and in photographs.

6210 Ridge Avenue, the house I lived in until I was seventeen. Now torn down and replaced with an apartment building, my childhood home exists as far as I know in this one 35mm transparency.

The Natural World and Photography.

Some psychologists believe that people bring plants and animals inside their homes to reconnect with the world they (their ancestors) once lived in. Perhaps that explains the fascination photographers have with nature, with landscapes, flowers, sunrises and sunsets. We’re all going home. But once again we have to make our image unique, better or different from the many that have preceded it and the many that will follow. But how do we do that? For Ansel Adams the clarity of his 8 x 10 view camera, his patience, his understanding of all the processes that make up film photography, his understanding and search for perfect light, made him one of the best landscape photographers.

It’s not my strength. I have favorites, but they pale. I walked to the beach as Hurricane Iwa came ashore in Oahu in 1982.

I remember the power of the wind, the darkening skies.

Annapurna, along the Jamsom Trek in the Himalayas in Nepal. (Path in the lower right) A grab shot. We were in the Himalayas when I turned, saw Annapurna, and was struck by all the elements that make this a photograph.

Closer to home. I live about five minutes from a vacant lot that overlooks the San Francisco Bay, San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge, and points beyond. On a late February day in 2016 I watched as a thunderstorm just south of San Francisco was illuminated by the colors of a dramatic winter sunset.

I’m more at home with the smallness of nature—a backlit spider on a rainy day, the colors of strawberry leaves, a passion flower in full bloom., and a hummingbird feeding.

At the end of Part I. Why do I take photos? I look for the truth in all things and I enjoy watching life revealing itself through images. I’m a collector of photos. In preserving the images that make up my collection I am preserving not only what I’m photographing but also pieces of myself. And last, I am grateful for the incredible beauty of nature as it’s revealed to me in shapes, colors, and life, and I photograph such things to make them a part of my collection and to be a part of theirs. That’s not exactly right. I photograph them because they demand to be photographed. I have no choice.

The Trailer for Part II. Sometimes the photographer uses what he photographs to create something altogether different. Softness and blur are in my toolkit. There are infinite possibilities, only a few of which have I explored.

Motorcyclist, Glenwood Springs, Colorado

eBay

A few weeks ago I put up my Panisonic Lumix LX 100 II for sale on eBay. Instead of filling the twelve photo spaces with pictures of the camera I chose images that I had taken with the camera just to show prospective buyers what it could do.

I wrote this to Derek:

“Hi Derek, thank you for your purchase of my Panasonic camera. I will send it out today and will update you with the tracking number. I'm also using this space to give you a little hint about using the camera. As a professional photographer I loved the dial on top of the camera that allowed me to override auto settings when unusual lighting situations required a different setting than the camera indicated. Just be apprised that it's something to check before you do a quick grab shot. I would have preferred a little locking button so the dial couldn't change exposure without me performing a two-step operation. It's not a problem, just something that on occasion requires your attention. I have left you positive feedback and would welcome the same upon receipt and your satisfaction. Thank you, David”

Yesterday I received this note from him:

merriyou70:

I just let you know, the camera you sold to me, has bugs, it does not work well.

I sent him the following and enclosed the December 12th sales invoice from B & H cameras in New York, showing that the camera is still under warranty:

“Derek, I used the camera up until the day you purchased it. It worked fine, and all the photos on the listing were taken with that camera. I'm attaching a sales order from B & H for the camera which was purchased on the 12th of December, 2018. It should still be under factory warranty. If you can tell the nearest service center what the "bugs" are they should be able to take care of them for you.”

And here was his reply:

David, thank you for quick responses, unfortunately it is too late for me to do anything, I'm at stage 4 Cancer, I was going to photograph my last experiences of Cancer. I think time ran out, I'm not not going to ask you do anything about the camera. I'm just going left along. Only thing I asked you is that just do details of product next time. I'm asking this person who love photography. Two photos I added took with my old Lumix, I had good experience with it. The camera you sold, the menu button are very jumpy, and camera is behaving punky, not sure if it is firmware problem or what. But I can't take pictures with it. It is my mistake, I should just bought the brand new camera. Anyway good luck and thank you.
God bless,
Derek

David

The Solano Stroll

On a sunny September Sunday the city of Berkeley closes Solano Avenue, a one mile stretch between the Alameda (on top) and San Pablo Avenue (down below) so that thousands of people can march up and down the street sampling slices of pizza from Zachary’s, sandwiches and fries from food trucks, and quench their thirst with lemonade from the many food and beverage stands that punctuate the road between the two arteries. Every year we go. Every year we say “we’ll never go again”, as it’s always the same.

Weaving in and among the strollers and skateboarders turns the stroll into a slither.

And of course, the opening act is a parade. Hundreds of booths featuring camera clubs, churches, hang-gliding classes, Kung Fu exhibitions, Scottish folk dancing, high school jazz bands, political candidates, and this year, two opposing Jewish groups, one supporting Palestinians’ rights, the other, opposed.

And amid the booths, the food, always the food.

For me the fun is the people. Here’s a kid on a pogo stick.

And a Taiko drummer

It’s Berkeley, remember?

It’s an All-American stroll with All-American dogs…

…and family portraits of two happy sons

Music is the order of business, whether Scottish Folk,

Big Band,

or Mexican, with real Dancing in the Street

Or Rock n’ Roll, and anyone can join in.

Ye Olde School Trail

We chose to move to Kensington because we found a house that had lovely grounds, redwood trees, a place for a vegetable garden, and neighbors whose homes were hidden by large trees, giving us the sense of privacy that we had enjoyed in Santa Rosa. Tilden Park, with its many forested trails, views of the city and even the mountains, was an unknown. We discovered that we were only fifteen minutes away from Tilden’s Selby Trail, one of our favorites. And Selby wasn’t alone. Another hidden gem was the Olde School Trail which begins where Lake Street ends, runs along the ridge that separates Kensington from Tilden, and ends at the playground behind Hilltop School.

The Beginning

Every Wednesday morning I include the trail as part of my mostly urban stroll. The trail takes about twenty minutes to navigate.  The residents have been stockpiling mulch and wheelbarrows so that those who frequent the trail can take a wheelbarrow and dump the mulch in the spots where the winter rains might otherwise make the path muddy and treacherous. 

An open invitation for hikers to help the neighbors whose properties back up to the trail maintain it..

Naked ladies alongside Olde School Trail. The hills of Tilden are off to the right.

I was up early yesterday before the fog had a chance to clear, and except for a couple of dogwalkers, I had the trail to myself.

Even with the wood chips and mulch, the Olde School Trail was no match for last year’s soggy winter. Rivulets during the first heavy rains carved a path through the mulch.

Later in the winter…after the rains have fallen. This gentleman walks the trail with his son, taking him to Hilltop School, while pushing his twin daughters and carrying his dog at a time when the trail isn’t as pleasant a walk as it is the rest of the year.

Not all hikers on Ye Olde School Trail are human

On a prettier day

The Paradise fire preceded the rains by a couple of months. We couldn’t see San Francisco for a week. Everyone wore masks. For several days the air quality was deemed the worst in the world, even worse than Beijing and Delhi. I still walked on Wednesday, mask over my face, camera in hand. Three sunrise images during the fires.

Looking north through Tilden.

The Naked Ladies aren’t the only floral companions on the Olde School Trail.

And since the Olde School Trail has uninterrupted views to the east it was a perfect spot to set up a tripod and await the arrival of one of last year’s two “supermoons.”

Little Hollywood

Because our Grand Canyon accommodations were damaged in the recent harsh winter Jadyne and I were forced to find refuge in tiny, remote Kanab, Utah, (population 4700) ninety minutes away. What a treasure! In the fifties Kanab became known as “Little Hollywood” because of the number of movies that were filmed in this quintessentially Western community.

“Credit for interest in Southern Utah as a Hollywood back lot goes to the Parry Brothers who leveraged their guiding business at Zion National Park into a virtual Hollywood production machine by luring influential filmmakers to the area.”

The Parry Lodge.

“Kanab made its screen debut in 1924 when Tom Mix filmed "Deadwood Coach" along with his co-star, Tony The Wonder Horse. Since then over a hundred Hollywood productions have taken advantage of the diverse and spectacular landscapes that make Southern Utah one of the most stunning places on Earth.”

Movies and TV shows that were filmed in and around Kanab include, Have Gun, Will Travel, The Lone Ranger, Planet of the Apes, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Stagecoach, and Gunsmoke. Virtually all the stars stayed at the Parry Lodge, and the rooms are named for those temporary residents. The lobby is filled with autographed photographs. Here are four:

Roy Rogers, Clayton Moore, Frank Sinatra, Alan Ladd (My favorite was Jay Silverheels, known as “Tonto.”

Located in Paiute Indian country, Kanab’s locals found work as extras. In one western three hundred Indians were hired to charge the soldiers.on horseback. Thirty were selected to fall off their horses and were paid an additional $10. When the favored Indians shared their good fortune with the other 270 they, too, fell off their horses, not at all what the director wanted.

The Parry Lodge provided food and lodging. posting its prices in this document from 1966, which included horses, wagons, teams, extras, (both walking and riding) water trucks, buses, station wagons, and of course, Indians, who were paid $12.50 a day.

Kanab’s streets are lined with photographs and stories about the stars.

Many of the sets, including barns and homes, remain and are in use today. Some are stored in a free museum.

The landscape around Kanab changes from one mile to the next, but is mostly unspoiled by telephone lines, roads, and other signs of twentieth century civilization. Below is a moonset over one of Kanab’s mesas and the dunes of nearby Coral Dunes State Park.

For those who haven’t seen Southern Utah here are two images that reflect the majesty of the countryside, taken through the windshield of our car.

And if that isn’t enough, Zion and Bryce are literally just next door. We missed Zion this time but stopped midday to see Bryce.

Plus Ca Change

Perhaps one of the more revealing emails that I have received over the past few years included this image of a man and a little girl.

I met Gail Anderson fifty-one years ago. She sent me this email recently, saying that for her it represented a relationship that we had in 1968. She was eight; I was twenty-one..

Many years ago Jadyne and I took our kids to Hawaii.  We were sitting around a hotel open-air fireplace one cool evening when we overhead a conversation between a father and his daughter.  They had been snorkeling when he lost sight of her.  “Dad,” she said, “You needn’t worry about me.  I was fine, I’m thirty-five!”  He replied, “You don’t understand.  I’m your father!”  Some things simply don’t change.

When Jennifer was 21 she went to Bangkok and traveled around Asia for about fifteen months, living in virtually every country for a month or so.  We were worried about her so Jadyne and I, after realizing that she wouldn’t be home by Christmas, wanted to confirm for ourselves that she was okay, so we agreed to meet her in April in Hanoi.  When I saw how comfortable she was in dealing with the Vietnamese in the markets and hotels our respective roles reversed.  She was now in charge, as she knew more about bargaining, traveling, and simply getting along in Asia than I did.  I realized subconsciously that this signified not only a growth in her but also a real change in our relationship, and that I could put away my worries and fears about her being able to manage in these circumstances. I could rely on her experience to provide advice.  But, as I began to recognize that she had grown into a capable and independent young woman, and second, that in Vietnam our roles had switched, I was (and am), still her father. C’est la meme chose.

My relationship with my two brothers—Jack in Cincinnati and Bill, who lives just five minutes away, has changed over the years.  I was the youngest of three, and even though Bill was a stepbrother, the age difference when we were growing up was the biggest factor in our relationship. That was especially true with Jack, my “real” brother.  Now that we are all grown up the age difference is irrelevant, and what has determined or affected how we relate to each other has more to do with our understandings of who we are today. And by “who we are” I’m referring to our interests..  I have become closer to my stepbrother while maintaining a closeness with my “real” brother.

Jadyne spent two days with her high school friends in Sonoma, which she does once or twice a year.  These are girls (women) who were close in high school. They still enjoy each other’s company for a night once a year or so.  They can talk, but they have less in common today than when they were little Catholic schoolgirls with common interests and experiences. Relationships are living things, susceptible to change in so many ways, especially when people see each other frequently.

Marriages break up.  The couple has grown (or not), and in either case the relationship changes.  Some remain in those relationships “for the kids” even when the love is gone and the relationship has stagnated or failed to meet the changing needs of one or the other. In more successful marriages the couple embraces, accepts, or adjusts to the inevitable changes, and the changes enhance the relationship.

And that brings me back to the photo. Eight year old Gail will be sixty this year. Twenty-one year old David will be seventy-three. Because we haven’t seen each other for almost a quarter of a century our relationship hasn’t evolved the way others might.  But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  Fifty years ago she needed someone like me.  And fifty years ago I needed someone like her.  I was the youngest of three brothers.  I never had a sister.  She was that little sister.  We still write to each other occasionally, mostly about our kids, our grandchildren, and the everyday comings and goings in our lives. We’re friends, maintaining a friendship and relationship that began fifty-one years ago, and even though we’re both grandparents, the foundation of our relationship is still frozen in the image of the little girl holding onto her doll and the man who soothes and comforts her.

Plus Ca Change Plus La Meme Chose

The Loneliest Road in America

I have driven Hwy 50 several times, passing through Ely, Austin, Eureka, and finally Fallon, Nevada. Recently National Geographic published a photo essay on the route, dubbed in 1986 by Life Magazine as the “Loneliest Road in America.” I’m crediting National Geographic for the following text. The rest of the images are mine.

“Where the state of Nevada folds in half—from the elbow on its western arm at Lake Tahoe across to its Utah border—you’ll find the most direct route across the state. It crosses several communities, a handful of mountain ranges, a national park, and one reservoir, where bobcats, foxes, and wild horses roam free. There’s life, yes, but not a familiar way of life for many. It’s a place where the lines between John Wayne Westerns and everyday life blur, where ghost towns bleed into living ones. This is Route 50, the Loneliest Road in America.”

Ely, (pronounced “Eelee” with the accent on the first syllable) Nevada, the beginning (or the end), depending on which way you’re driving. We’re heading west, so Ely is the beginning.

Ely’s Hotel Nevada, the tallest building along the route. Margaritas are $.99., rooms $35. We stayed there one night. Even though we were on the top floor the noise was deafening.

Across the street from the Hotel Nevada. Our room also included a free drink at the bar across #50.

Ely

Gwen and her husband own a ranch an hour away from Eureka. She brings her kids to town for school before going to work as a court reporter in Eureka, Nevada. Most of the buildings in tiny Eureka were built between 1861 and 1874, including this courtroom which contains the original pot-bellied stove used to heat the room. Cases today mostly center around water rights. The last homicide case was twenty years ago.

The two images on the left are from Ely. The flag is photographed through a window in the courthouse in Eureka.

Continuing National Geographic’s story…”Or so says Life magazine. In July 1986, the publication honored the Statue of Liberty’s 100th birthday and highlighted American superlatives: On one page, the “Cutest” (a toddler actor) appears alongside the “Loneliest Road” below a photo of a seemingly endless highway that reaches across the desert toward the mountains, a lone cowboy on horseback crossing from one side of nothingness to the other. An anonymous AAA counselor is quoted in the article: “We warn all motorists not to drive there, unless they're confident of their survival skills.”

Survival Skills? How do you get by an earthmover that takes up the entire road?

We were fortunate to have found a shoulder wide enough to pull off the road. Hard to imagine meeting this in a canyon when you’re in your RV.

“Rather than keep motorists away, however, the moniker piqued curiosity—thanks in part to the Nevada Commission on Tourism. The public relations director at the time saw an opportunity in the article and released a Highway 50 survival guide the same month the Life article came out, rewarding visitors to the area with a certificate of survival signed by the governor. Highway signs touting the qualifier went up along the route at the same time, and it graduated from opinion to slogan.

 That sort of isolation follows Route 50 for almost the entirety of its 400 miles across Nevada, but it’s particularly pronounced along this stretch, the 287 miles between Ely and Fernley designated by Life as the Loneliest Road. Here, you can’t count on cell service or gas stations, on places to eat or even people to wave at as you pass—anything to replace the eeriness of the hungry red desert around you. Even its small towns seemingly materialize and then fade into the distance like a mirage.”

One of those small towns is Austin.

I saw this before the election, thinking it would be down before we passed through again. It wasn’t. After our last trip, July 2019, the signs were gone. Did the owner die? Become disenchanted? Sell the place?

The General Store in Austin. It was closed. I don’t know if it ever opens. A McCain/Palin sticker in the front window, predating the “Make America Great” signs across the street.

“There's just a mystique about Nevada,” says Helming. She moved to Austin, one of the few towns along the highway, in 1981 and today owns a laundromat, a bed and breakfast, and a cafe with her husband, Kip.

“For us, it’s that freedom of living old school, I guess. It’s a whole different way of life. Your community is more dependent on each other. You have to understand, you’re 112 miles from the nearest Walmart; you're 110 miles from the nearest stoplight. You learn a lot of independence.”

 “Anybody can go there and look around and say, ‘Wow, this is lonely,’ and then leave and go back to where they came from,” says Svold. “But people who live there, it’s a permanent mindset. The difference is in having the solitude inside you, instead of it being a temporary feeling.”

This is where National Geographic leaves off and I come in. I love the highway, the desert, the skies, the solitude, the long vistas and the empty roads. It all feels good to me.

A trailer, station wagon, and 100 miles in between this resident and his “next door neighbor,”

Jadyne was sleeping beside me as I came across this scene. I was afraid that stopping to take this image would wake her up. I stopped. It did.

It isn’t just the skies that make #50 so wonderful. It’s the unexpected.

Just outside of Ely.

But it’s the landscape itself that is the star of the show. Thunderstorms in the distance.

Sadly missing from Route 50 now near Fallon, Nevada, the western outpost of civilization along the highway, is this tree, one of the few between Ely and Fallon. Its branches were shoes, not leaves. Sadly vandals cut it down. For the shoes? Air Jordans?

Totally Useless Photo Information

Unlike most amateur cameras, professional cameras have the ability to shoot photos as jpegs (useful for the internet, Facebook, etc.) or RAW (images that contain all the information that the sensor in the camera can pick up).  RAW images make the best enlargements, although they take up so much space on a card in the camera or on a desktop that they can be unwieldy.

I always shoot RAW just in case I’m fortunate enough to capture an image that is so good that I would either want to sell it, print it, or, simply make it look as good as I can make it.

All images can be adjusted by software, but in the case of RAW images, the photographer’s ability to make the most out of an image is only limited by the software.  As improvements take place in software, RAW images that were processed by inferior or older software enjoy a second life.

And so it is with Adobe’s Lightroom, perhaps the most useful and comprehensive software editing program.  Recently, Adobe introduced a new tool called “enhancement” that can only be applied to RAW images taken with a few cameras, one of which is my Nikon D 850.  Here is an image processed in Lightroom. adding the enhancement feature, which Adobe claims improves the RAW image as much as 30%.

Of course, how good it looks also depends on your computer, phone, or iPad screen.  I currently have 69,173 images stored on my computer, all of which can be enhanced by Lightroom better than they could have been last year, the year before, or 2003 when I first bought a digital camera.

Some photographers pour over old images, knowing that they can be improved. I confess that I occasionally do that, too. But for me, I’m primarily interested in the next image. It’s the shooting itself, the hunting, what photographers call “captures” that I live for. I have a formatted card in my camera. I’m ready.

Antar

Yesterday it rained.  It was also the first of the month.  People have money and they don’t want to get wet, so it was predictably slow at the Berkeley Food Pantry where I’ve been volunteering for the past eight years, providing food once a month to those who are willing to wait an hour or so for some meat, dairy, a few cans of soup or peaches, fresh bread and produce..  We’re open between 2 and 4 MWF, and during one of the quieter moments close to 4:00 yesterday I sat outside where the clients wait for their name to be called.  On busy days it’s a real wait.  Yesterday, by 3:00 there was no one.  Or one.  Antar.  Antar had gotten his food and was chomping on a bagel when I began chatting with him.  We discovered that we had both attended Burlingame HS, although I was a senior when he was a freshman.  Somehow the conversation turned to the guitar, and we both expressed our love for playing. 

He said, “I have about 600 videos on YouTube”, and gave me his nom de guitar, “Antarblue.” I looked him up, and found this version of “Misty.” Rock, jazz, it’s all there. He’s good.

W know next to nothing about our clients. We check to make sure that they live in Berkeley or Albany, but there are no additional requirements. We don’t ask for proof of income (or lack thereof), marital status, or any personal information. We do make exceptions for the homeless. They get food, period.

Sarah Robinson records the clients’ names on a sign-in sheet. One day she wrote down, “Jeff Borowiak.” Here’s Jeff when he was a bit younger.

“Jeff Borowiak (born September 25, 1949) is a former professional tennis player from the United States, who won five singles and three doubles titles during his professional career, reaching a career-high ATP singles ranking of World No. 20 in August 1977.” Wikipedia

Sarah asked, “What happened?” Jeff replied, ‘Sometimes things don’t always work out.” Jeff needed food.

Here’s Charlie Musselwhite, the Grammy-nominated blues harmonica player:

Charlie hasn’t been in, but his steel guitar player lives in Peoples Park in Berkeley, has played with dozens of famous musicians, and used to come in monthly for food for himself and for his friends.

You don’t have to be famous to get food, just hungry.

When a Boy Becomes a Man

This morning I updated my Tesla Model 3 with the software that crossed over my wifi system last night and found this, buried among a handful of bug fixes that make the ventilation system run more smoothly.

I tried it out today, running through the seven different fart sounds that the engineers at Tesla created, then shared with those of us who have plopped down the many thousands of dollars we plopped for the privilege of being green or being cool, or whatever motivated us to do what we do to own a Tesla.

I confess.  I can’t remember laughing out loud.  Ever.  I like to believe that I have a sense of humor, that I love the New Yorker’s cartoons and short articles called “Shouts and Murmurs”, that I find that irony often amuses me.  I laugh inside, but I just don’t guffaw, snort, or make noises.  I love to listen to music, too, but it doesn’t move me to dance.  Perhaps that’s because I’m a really shitty dancer, but I can be moved inwardly, I can dance without actually flailing my arms and legs.  I can still do the Twist and the Stroll

With the update, though, you see a cartoon whoopee cushion on the giant screen in the center of the dashboard, and because it’s a touch screen you can move the cushion to whichever seat in the car you choose.  Once placed you can choose from the seven different fart sounds:

• Not a Fart: A two-part toot.

  1. rts Ripper: As the name implies, an extremely short sound. Good for turn signals.

     • A slam on Tesla stock short sellers, who Musk regularly trolls.

  2. Falcon Heavy: Aptly named and powerful.

     • Named after the SpaceX rocket that launched Elon Musk's personal Tesla Roadster into orbit.

  3. Ludicrous Fart: A long, victorious display of windy harmony.

     • Named after Tesla's high-performance acceleration setting, Ludicrous Mode.

  4. Neurastink: A generic fart sound effect.

     • One of the more indistinguishable companies that Musk fronts, NeuraLink .

  5. Boring: Rumbly.

     • Another play on The Boring Company .

  6. I'm so random: Literally picks one of the above fart sounds at random.

The sound is generated from speakers placed near the seat where the Whoopee cushion is placed on the screen and activated either by the turn signal or by a rotary knob on the steering wheel.  So, just as someone enters the car, the driver has the world at his fingers.

Confession. As I drove down I-80 to pick up the Christmas Honey-Baked Ham I hit the litle knurled knob on the steering wheel, with sound set to “I’m so random.” Over and over again. I disproved my theory. I can, absolutely can, laugh out loud.

In an hour I’m driving to two different elementary schools to pick up three of my grandchildren, ages 9, 8, and 6.  I wish I could record their faces when they sit down.

So, to answer my question, “When Does a Boy Become a Man?” In my case, never.