le contempt

le contempt

she sat perfectly cross-legged, her head positioned just so...  her face was seemingly expressionless but the music danced across her eyes, its rhythms butchering a kind of fandango in a macabre psychoesque manner.  she held an affinity with villa lobos, or so she felt;  all those exotic latin phrases couched in european harmonies—bach sambas, astrid gilberto on the beach with a duport stradivarius.  she loved his works for cello, the Bachianas Brasileiras etc, but it was his guitar etudes that she loved the most.  she even went as far as attempting a transcription for cello but gave it up after a while.  all latin composers are guitarists at heart.

it was a marathon session:  all seventeen string quartets by hector villa lobos, played straight through with only two ten minute breaks.  a kind of exclusive rave for grownups and ultra hipsters;  no invintations, just word of mouth and the ability to sit for hours on end like some greco-roman tombstone frieze.  it was held outdoors in a huge backyard gazebo like structures, a natural amphitheater on private grounds forty minuets outside la.  dress, like all these affairs, was hyper formal— diana vreeland on crack, alice de janze after a bender, holly golightly on those rare evenings when she couldn't fanagle the powder room...    no supper, just hors d' oeuvres all freakishly designed and white wines from the russian river valley, so as not to corrupt the palate.

she shunned the after-parties, clambakes and assorted opium-den-like soirees unless perhaps in the company of a client whose taste borders on the hieronymousboschian, or when courting a particularly illusive contract.  no, it was more than enough to be seen at these events, to be gleaned tapping ones toes, preferably in-time and hanging out after the festivities with the performers, trading jibes on the last few years of arnold schoenberg and exclaiming in wonder at the prevailing trend to favor the second viennese school at leading american musical institutions.

oh my god…the poco andantino

this declaration was immediately echoed by all

…and that tempo!

perfect, they exclaimed to a man, perfect!

she held the ear of the cellist steadfast.  rapid quips regarding resin, humidity and that (choice of edits fixit ).  

did you hear about (relevant cellist teacher/repair etc fixit )  

no, she had not.  the chatter rose and fell intermittantly, pockets rising up; the violinist and his usual cadre of lackeys hanger's-on fixit, the violist and his anarchists and of course, true to any serious gathering of musicians, one player has usually bolted before the last harmonic dissolves into the stratosphere…  in this case, the second violinist, on retainer from some odd pool of usual suspects.  

she stayed though, just at the breaking point of congeniallity, to admire and console, to smile and nod, to give this occassion its proper due, knowing as she did, with perhaps only a mere handful of others, that this was a once in a lifetime happening, a convergence of constellations and appropriate prophecies the like of which will not be seen again in her lifetime, perhaps no other's.  

--------

she awoke each morning to a selection of dialoques from various plays and film; bogart's asides to captain rainey fixit, bernstein's girl in the white parosal, a collection of monologues from the great george sanders, gielgud's fixit rant afore the bat of malmsey fixit, butley and that bit about the seminal fuck and of course burton and his roadhouse confessions, "when i was sixteen and going to prep school during the punic wars…,"  these alarums would manifest in her a myriad of dreams and situations; would emerce her in fantastical scenarios, sometimes troubling but mostly divine and revelatory.

she entered the underground structure through a dedicated lane whizzing at just under seventyfive, this parking garage, this maze of architecture and turned an immediate right into the reserved spaces.  she carried nothing but a sleek leather shoulder case and made her way pavlovian toward the etched steel elevators lovingly programmed to return to garage level during the first few hours of the business day.

parker posey stood all parkyposeyesque, as is parker posey's wont, in the middle of the foyer munching an non-descript something or other waiting with the patience of ten thousand suns on que for the ladies room.  

come with me...

she led parker posey through a set of inconspicuous double doors, down halls turning here and there and into a anti-chamber like room with shocking glass walls floor to ceiling and deceptively simple formica-like tables bereft of drawers or cabinets or any discernable artifacts save sculpted black high grade plastic pencil holders.  there were low lying leather chairs and couches and space...loads and loads of space.

parker posey sat upon an impossible porcelan structure contemplating a scene out of what she thought must be some (relevant renaissance painting/scene etc) with her impossible bangs and peed with the insciounces of ten thousand suns.

they each sat upon one of the low lying leather chairs and couches, she and parker posey.  she looked like rahda mitchell.  she was rahda mitchell, for all intents and purposes, so we shall call her rahda henceforth.  she had that slim heatlhy amazon look and those full heroin chic features.  her eyes were a constant exhausted green, as though she were perpetually tired of seeing, as though burdoned with intensely keen insights into the psyche and soul of the world.

they did not talk business.  that would have been rude.  the subjects were music, film and fine dining.

you know that scene i mean?

i think so...

you know, the one towards the end, the one where the theme builds and rises...  and there they are, just the two of them and that theme...

oh my god, that theme...

i know, i love it.  it's my favorite piece of music!

mine too!

...and then scorsese uses it.  but he gives it its proper due, as though restoring it to its rightful sainted place...

i don't remember that.

you know, in casino...that scene at the end.  although, i think he used it in a couple of places.

hmmmm, i'll have to look for that.

yeah, it's right at the end.

oh my god, i love film.

...and music!

...and music...oh my god!

but what i mean is... i want to use that... the juxtaposition.  opposing ideas;  that of the grandiose paired with the seemingly mundane...  but of course it's not mundane, is it?  it's all grandiose though we arn't at first aware of it.  it's that final realization, when it all sinks in...that's what i want to go for!

that's amazing!  you're just amazing!

---------

at doobies the owner suanterd up towards the podium and like moses, parted the twentysomethings darlings who had gathered to gossip about the nights list.  

anything respectable?

that guy, you know, on that show…you know the one i mean…with that girl and that other guy…

the one with the…and his hair that looks all…he's in that movie…you know…with that other guy…

that's  the one!

who else?

kadaffi's wife hannibal…

oh, did she make it out?

THANK GOD!

is she bringing her maid?

are they getting along?

i thought there had been a reconciliation…

we could puree the steak tartar and she could suck it through a straw!

that's using yer noggin!

that's why i make the big bucks!

ahhh…miss mitchell.

yep.  she'll be here in twenty.  would you care to do the honors?

well, i don't wanna seem pushy…

no, not in this town.

well, maybe just this once.  i'll wear a reagan mask.

she'll love you for it!

like stretch limos and red carpets, valet parking had become anathema, the stuff of american idol finalists and the real housewives of tunis, samy's camera on fairfax.  no self-respecting restuaranteur would set up shop within a 10 mile radius of la but they don't tell you that in the guide to celebrity mailboxes of the rich and famous.  doobies was a converted case study house reject on the outskirts of malibu; a double X-layout, open beams and faux dooryards, floor to ceiling glass and unadorned walls, free of dogs playing poker or reproductions of eisenstaedt's kiss.  like cumulus clouds or popcorn ceilings, you were free to make up your own artwork.  

like the best ski resorts, you don't see a hint of their presence until you are upon them.  golf carts took you up an impossibly steep driveway lined with local fauna; desert chaparral and palos verdes stone walls in loving states of disrepair.  you sat in the back, always, near the infinity pool whose almost imperceptible movements washed the atmosphere with patterns of light and dark.  there was no bar but drinks were served in the expansive foyer and outside around the pool and if one were smart, one could schmooze for hours just waiting for a table or negotiating trips to the restroom.  

doobie had a mahleresque walk; every fourth of fifth step he took a little step, a kind of neurotic hop, no doubt a hazzard of being a genius, a moniker he deserves for managing to keep a restuarant open in southern california for more than five years.  he greeted radha with a modicum of wit and whisked her away along with parker posey down the odd configurations of X halls, neurotically but charmingly pausing here and there, producing a succession of disturbances with his funny walk, as though perhaps in the midst of recognizing a patron, monty hall or the mayor of the city.  

again this sly aversion to talking trade.  segues into metaphors and conumdrums, innuendo and conjecture…ceo gossip and rumours of ipos.  radha had one vice, an annoying habit of working ayn rand into every conversation.  not so much due to her philosophy, but that one photo taken off the boat, the one with the pre-veronica lake hairstyle and langorius mouth, all loretta young and knocked up.  she likens rand's excursions into objectivism to youthful exhuberance and a penchant for wagner, nothing to kick her out of bed for…  a detour on the path to enlightenment.  …and as to her steadfast philosophical tenets and embarrassing fiction; well, we all have bills to pay.  

what a fucking little nazi bitch!

yeah, well…they weren't all bad.  they banned smoking in public.

i'd rather die of cancer.  have you ever tried to read atlas shrugged?

of course!  it just needs to be editied but the institute won't allow it.

the institute..!  THE INSTITUTE!!!

okay, look… all philosophies go full circle and come right back to the same thing.  i mean, how many times can you rewrite dale carnegie's how to win friends and influence people?

what the fuck are you talking about?

she didn't know.  she just liked frank lloyd wright.  comtemplating fallingwater in public has lost her more contracts than ordering jug wine at maxim's.  

ya know, fine wine is really a late twentieth century invention…the romans watered down their wine!

you're an idiot!

...public drunkeness was frowned upon.

i want to fuck you.

they skipped the port.

--------  Kieślowski's

(aisles on wheels like some indonessian bazaar, merchants peddling their wares; their rice bowls, sixteen hour days peddling cardboard two stories high; the waste capitiol of the universe, a landlocked great pacific garbage patch in and about la's garment district.  syballine like structures, monuments and reliquries to billy wilder, obelisks to kubrick, gravestones of the wit and wisdom of george s. kaufman  all gnome guarded, these keepers of the gates of interchangeable culture, transformer pastiche, these would-be anarchists and future vagabonds(…) a wailing wall of douglas sirk, an oracle of roger corman, indistinguishable from their brothers post modernists, surrealists, 70s realism, the gung-hoism of james cameron, the stop-motion of ray harryhausen so as not to tax the minds of our newly landed gentry, (add much more) all on display sans judgment, a pure crystalline democracy of consumerism for the asking.  

at veni vidi vici (curb side dvd sellers like new york, sidewalk sellers and partial condemed store fronts) the aisles were ridicuously close.  you couldn't walk past another person unless you were prepared to get close.  thankfully, the place was virtually empty at this time of night.  the employees were indistinguishable from the clientele, or vice versa.  you could just as easily get as much help from a customer as you could from the owner and just because somebody was filing through the bins, organizing and alphbetizing, didn't mean they actually worked there.  the store occupied the bottom floor of a partially condemed building in a row of dilapidated structues, a once fashionable artist colony back in the forties.  endless aisles of dvds, vhs, laserdisc, even betamax.  the selction was daunting, (foreign, indian, bollywood etc) there was a basement for the privaleged, the 400, an E-ticket for the algonguin set fixit,  a wrought iron spiral staircase (pages of shirley jackson) led you to a sub-structure, a hoarder's wet dream, with a blatant and comfy disregard for wheel-chair access and local fire codes.  it was here that she learned all about paul thomas anderson from some phantom kid customer.  he gave her a series of dissertations on each of his films, textbook stuff, stuff out of columbia university, pte and philosophy, crackhead jargon…  "magnolia is the citizen kane of our time..!"  she was hooked.  he repeated his performance in the following weeks with bergman, antonioni, buenel, cocteau, herzog, kieslowski…it never stopped.  she tried once to praise him to the front desk but they had never heard of him.  just some random kid pulling his tour of duty at veni vidi vici, a future quentin tarantino or wes anderson. 

it's society out of control…

you're reaching.

the decay of morals, a godless universe!

they're just mimes, not german beatniks…

don't you see…the rules no longer apply!

no, i disagree.  he's never that deep.  it's more on the surface…more like; we make up the rules as we go along! why do you think he throws the ball back?  

it's in the script…

fuck you!

he's just doing what we all do.  we make it up as we go along..!

my point exactly; a godless universe!

ANNA

So, there you are... I've been upstairs looking 

all over for you...

 

There is a moment of silence during which Anna's father deliberately ignores 

her presence. She stares at him intently, trying to determine his mood and 

wondering how she is going to tell him what she has to say before she leaves. 

Finally, he turns around and faces her.

 

FATHER 

Oh, I thought you were already on the high 

seas.

 

Anna is barely able to control her temper, but realizing that the discussion 

is about to take the usual sarcastic turn, she immediately checks herself.

 

ANNA

No, not yet, Dad.

 

Her father fixes her with a long ironic look. Conscious of his daughter's 

haste, he is apparently trying his best to detain her.

 

FATHER 

Isn't it fashionable any more to put on a 

sailor's cap with the name of the yacht? 

ANNA 

No, Dad, it isn't.

she liked the reflection of the film on her windows.  a solid striking black patch against the backdrop of the city lights, all reds and yellows, and blues and greens.  she kept each film on for days, just let them repeat over and over, as if some random scene might strike an insight or revelation at her most vulnerable.  she didn't look for clues in any conventional sense.  she just let it happen in its own time, like cumulus clouds or popcorn ceilings. 

--------

die kunst der fuge rang bell-like and bounced itself off the open beamed ceiling and sank in tulmult in what could only be mistaken for lush seventies shag carpet, albeit twice removed.  a piano transcription, vladimir fetzman, which keeps things nice and tidy, unmuddled.  she could take most bach in small doses but she could listen to art of the fugue all day; no overly clever melodies calling to mind mid 80s mustard commercials or east coast investment broker ads, just pure contrapuntal love.  her kitchen was something out of kubrick; pure light, over exposed and glistening.  a klimt-like reproduction lined the wall of the foyer to the streets.  the figures, all viennese bourgeosie, olympianesque poses and come hither eyes, floated up towards the ceiling, scandalous.

all things celestial, the conjunction of jupiter and venus, the comings of the march equinox, and the the lady of the lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that She, jenny snyder, was to carry Excalibur…and become General Store Manager of Starbucks #6153, an albertson's franchise whose steadfast refusal to accept starbuck's giftcards garnered a degree of snobbery second to none, save perhaps a cobbler within a 20 mile radius of the presidential mansion of ferdinand marcos.  the que was something out of dachau; durer's witches, half-naked, half supine, half prone, world weary stares, fatalistic smart phone gestures…  this was the main entrance to the port of the city and not radha's usual watering hole and to cement this point, the two baristas working the back bar were debating the finer issues of graphic novel illustration; the expository role of non-functional harmony in the early works of alan moore.  like two turkish aqaba gunners on the eve of the attack, they waxed, they wanned, they posited with exhorbitant glee and new found revelation.  

the  rain in sp in main in the pl

NOTES:

you can tell the homeless in libraries and at starbucks.  they all have huge laptops and dangling wall warts and they suck up bandwidth like twelve years olds; youtube,dailymotion, hulu, vimeo.  even youporn.  you'd think they would have the courtesey to wipe the toilet seat and tip the baristas a nickel.  

(note: this might be better for confessions)

.....

assholes: a theory

book review: assholes, a theory by aaron james


a recent book called On Bullshit by philosopher Harry Frankfurt, originally published as an essay in the 80s  but released in book form in 2005, has been the impetus for a whole slew of philosophically snarky titles, not the least of which is "snark," by david denby:  "...It's Mean, It's Personal, and It's Ruining Our Conversation."  among others are

a more recent edition to the corpus is "assholes," a theory by aaron james.  what annoys me most about these books, least of which is their inclusion in the philosophy section of most book stores, is their unabashedly liberal (leftist) bent (or should i say their democrat(ic) bent).  besides "men" who cross three lanes of traffic at a time and "men" at parties who "don't let you get a word in edgewise," (yes, men are mostly assholes—comes with the gonads) are the stellar examples of bill o'relilly, ann coulter (i'm sure the author considers her to be a man), donald trump, brazilian surfers (don't go there— well, it has something to do with brazilian surfers traveling in packs which tend to foster the "aggressive manliness of the brazilian culture" on  the whole...), assorted bankers (especially investment bankers), CEOs, venture capitalists (mitt romney anyone...) and last but not least—general douglas macarthur whose reputation has suffered immeasurably after a gibe by harry s. truman—"i fired him because he wouldn't respect the authority of the president.  i didn't fire him because he was a dumb son-of-a-bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals..."

the publishing industry has for the last ten years been a dumping ground for campaign rhetoric and political party cool-aid, in part due to the revolutions of digital presses and in part due to the internet which fosters a ungodly sense of "intellectual" entitlement.  not surprisingly, these books have the shelf life roughly equivalent to any book written by richard nixon or henry kissinger (yes, the publishing industry is rife with liberals—so too is the general book buying public, though you didn't hear that from me...).  most of the so-called political books published during the 04 election would have been better served (and more deservedly ignored) in some obscure online archive (preferably twitter, though i have nothing against twitter, when properly used)  unread, unconsidered, culturally and socially irrelevant and not cluttering up the shelves of super bookstores, which by the way, never had any business being any bigger than your local used bookstore and it's little wonder why behemoths like borders and barnes and noble are now dinosaurs (or in the case of b&n, forced to sell figurines, toys, ipad accessories, ipads...—let's face it, the ebook reader nook is nothing less than a poor mans ipad...)

now the philosophy section is being watered down by books like "the philosophy of quentin tarantino," "seinfeld and philosophy," "manga and philosophy," "aristotle and an aardvark go to washington," "bullshit," and now finally "assholes..."  ironically, i would rather the philosophy section loosen their membership requirements rather than say, "self improvement," or "personal growth"—they've been reprinting the same book for over two thousand years; can you say "the golden rule..?" i knew you could.   i happen to count "the philosophy of stanley kubrick" to be among my favorite books.

i never did get to any proposed "theory."  i stopped about halfway when i encountered the rant about brazilian surfers...  i am somewhat thankful that these books make no attempt to hide their politics or their half-wittedness.  it's difficult enough weeding through the daily scourge of reading material available, so anything that makes my job easier is well appreciated (like i've always said, i don't always finish what i'm reading, but i'm always reading).  i will leave you with one of the more revealing quotes from the book—a quote more suited out of the mouth of ariana huffington rather than a writer of philosophy... "this attitude among the new bankers (those fucking bastards!!!) stands in marked contrast with bankers of an earlier era.  consider the former goldman ceo john whitehead, a member of the civic-minded "greatest generation" (his quotes, not mine) that ably steered the "dynastic wealth" (my quotes, not his) of rockefeller and "the like" (my quotes again...) toward the social good.

hannibal's bag:

it might be a good idea for you to familiarize yourself with these cameras.   the term "camera bag" refers to a phenomenon on youtube where photographers reveal the equipment they carry in their "camera bag."  it also refers to all of your gear, all your cameras and equipment etc.  

you will do a "youtube like" film segment and these are some of the main cameras you will be talking about... we will do this video with you in my apartment (70s style apartment), well dressed, the dapper hannibal... "your camera bag" (most of the important cameras):

note:  these are not all of your cameras.  these are the main cameras that your character would have used as a photojournalist.

these first four cameras are film cameras.  digital cameras start in 97 with the nikon d1.



nikon f (1959)

first great slr (single lens reflex) camera that eclipsed the leica m3 as the photojournalist's camera of choice.  it dominated for 10 years and stayed in production for 15 years.   kathy hale shoots with a nikon f and a nikkor 50mm 1.2 lens.  so did (david hemmings in blow up)

canon f1 (1971)

canon's first competitive slr camera.  it eclipsed the nikon f, and though kathy shot in the 70s, she was still faithful to the original nikon f.  

nikon f3 (1983?)

nikon takes back the reins again with this excellent slr camera that stayed in production for over ten years.

canon eos 650 (1989)

(more research needed) canon fights back with the first successful auto focus camera and your character's last photojournalist camera.

nikon d1 (1997)

nikons first professional digital camera sporting a whopping 2.7 megapixels (im kidding of course...that is nothing).  this camera changed the game overnight.  almost overnight photojournalists put away their film cameras once and for all...

 nikon  d200 (2006)

excellent features, excellent price.  amateurs jumped aboard the professional dslr wagaon with this camera.  the nikon d200 was your characters first digital camera.

canon eos 5d mark ii (2008)

your characters first and only full frame digital camera, in other words, this camera's digital "sensor" is roughly the same size as a 35mm film camera and it has roughly the same resolution...of course, this is a huge over-simplification.  this camera and other full-frame digital cameras are significant to your character because they are the first cameras that completely eclipsed the use of 35mm film cameras. this is the camera you currently use.  

Confession of a Stevedore VII (unedited text)

i first got the idea to shoot evangelina (roberta pedon) after hearing mazursky's testimony.  i remember that scene from gimme shelter and at the time it seemed gratuitious, an attempt to remind a woodstock audience that this was still the 60s.  this was anything but the 60s.  the shot is a long telephoto shot and you can't really see her face.  it wasn't until i entered her name into google images and found page after page of jugs layouts, fling, big 'ins, whoopers magazine, gem, nymphet, gent, peaches and the aptly named "girls with enormous breasts.";  i knew this was my long lost black dahlia,   this from wikipedia:

Evangelina Cisneros (born 2 May 1954 – 30 July 1982^[citation needed^]) was the stage name of a big-bust Latvian Jewish American glamour model who appeared in men's magazines in the 1970s.

(Born in Ohio to Latvian-Jewish parents, Cisneros relocated first to San Francisco and then to Venice, California to start a modeling career.[1] By the winter of 1972-73 she was 18 and living with a college student in San Francisco. ... She separated from her lover and in March, 1973, moved to Venice, California, not far from Hollywood. Bob Ellison and John Kirk, both well-known glamour photographers in Los Angeles, have been credited with discovering her.^[citation needed^] She was known by many pseudonyms (Evangelina Cisneros, Melody O'Hare, Roberta Baird and Roberta Weaver.) "Evangelina Cisneros" was the name she had fully adopted by 1973. The "Melody O'Hare" moniker supposedly came from the name of one of her best friends in junior high. Cisneros' nickname was "Mooschi", an Americanized spelling of the German slang term for the pudenda - "Muschi".[2] She modelled/acted under the names Robin, Robbie, Roberta, Sam, Melody O'Hare, and Roberta Weaver.^[citation needed^]

Because she was young, pretty, with a spectacular large-breasted figure, Cisneros' photographs frequently appeared in men's magazines catering to breast fetishists.^[citation needed^] The earliest verifiable publication of her photos was in the February 1974 edition of "The Swinger", a men's magazine.^[citation needed^] In Nymphet, February 1975, she appeared under another name and with text referring to her Jewish background. Cisneros dressed (and then undressed) as a hippie in most of her photo shoots.^[citation needed^]

Cisneros appeared in the sexploitation film Carnal Madness aka Delinquent Schoolgirls.[3] Her casting was the result of her contacts at American Art Enterprises (AAE), a Los Angeles company that specialized in pornographic shoots and loops.^[citation needed^] AAE's modeling roster provided the producer of Delinquent Schoolgirls with busty female talent like Cisneros and Nika Movenka for the film.^[citation needed^] After appearing in Delinquent Schoolgirls, Cisneros auditioned for the lead female role in the Jan-Michael Vincent film Buster and Billie.^[citation needed^]

Little is known for certain about her troubled personal life, though Charles Smith wrote a biography based on a mixture of fact and hearsay.[4] What is certain is that she had serious drug addiction problems, which led to her being hospitalized at least once, and to losing her modeling contract with American Art Enterprises. She turned to prostitution during her contract, possibly to feed her drug habit, and was arrested for this at least once, in San Francisco, in 1975.

[edit] Legacy

In Dian Hanson's book, The History of Men's Magazines Vol. 5, Evagelina Cisneros is listed as one of the top five American covergirls from 1968-1980.

Delinquent Schoolgirls was released on DVD in February 2008.

[edit] Selected magazine appearances

• Fling (May 1973)
• Big 'ins (August 1973)
• Whoppers Magazine (October 1973)
• Girls With Enormous Breasts (October 1973)
• Jugs, Hiney Holes, and More! (February 1974)
• Gem (May 1974)
• Nymphet (February, 1975)
• Gent (Vol.16, No.3 June 1975)
• Peaches (No.8, 1975, UK)

latvia!  what the fuck.  i always wondered what their claim to fame was.  so much for the myth of the sweedish bombshell; evangelina cisneros makes uschi digard look like stand-in for kristen scott thomas in the english patient.

Confessions of a Stevedore (insert)

there are several defining moments in my life, instances where a set of random circumstances conspire together to from an indellible impression, one that wreaks its havoc upon every decision i've ever made, upon each thought that shoots across my synapses. they form together an albatross,  a giant monkey on my back, dumb and dumber taunting me, goading fixit me into submission, doubt and recalcitrance fixit.  they are the following:

the cover of an abridged edition of ambrose bierce's devil's dictionary.  i can't think for the life of me why this particular edition was bequethed upon us as children.  i was young enough to still believe in the devil and this, combined with weekly sojourns to sunday school, was an exercise in contradiction i could never quite fathom.  i blame the artwork.  there is an evilness inherant in early illustrations, eugene delacroix, aubrey beadsley, edward gorey—there is something incarnate about their work, a world weariness, an indefinable horror that seeks to damage rather than entertain...not so with the current crop of tim burtons with their childlike insouciance and uncanny ability to tap into the popular malaise.

the contents of the book were a complete mystery to me at the time.  i don't think i ever breached the cover for fear of retribution but if i had, the snarkyness, the topical 19th century witticisms would have been beyond me,  but oddly, i've garnered a general distaste for cynicism and satire, at least for the soul sake of being cynical and satirical.  it smacks of poor sportmanship and bellyaching fixit.

okay.  number two:  the sneetches by dr. seus.  talk about indocrination fixit.  i never bought the ending.  the notion that success in life is predicated soley upon self-aggrandizement seemed even then, at the tender age of five, a diabolical plot, "the most monstrously concieved and dangerous communist plot we've ever had to face!"

number three:  walter the lazy mouse.  okay, i get that it was a kick in the pants to little kids who spend too much time in the tub...but there was something prophetic about it, something fatalistic about it that seemed wholly fixit addressed to me.  this fucking mouse is always late.  he wakes up late in the morning only to join his fellow siblings at the breakfast table just as they are finishing...he misses the bus to school and when he finally does arrive he finds his siblings and classmates have decamped homeward.  and so on and so forth ad infinitum...

notes:

work in ethan frome, variation on a theme of ethan frome etc, fantasy on a thene

lost in a roman wilderness of pain.  i've always liked that line, not for the juvenile rhyme scheme that follows, but the truth of it.  morrison was most likely in some survey class, post european debt relief through the fine prism of etruscan antiquities, sitting next to some chick, second cousin to sharon tate, reminicing about some sudanese exchange student that weaned her forever off suburban white boys.  it's sad how passion and truth is wasted on young poets.  they try in earnest in later years to recapture the glory but they wind up writing about the new england autoban fixit society..."the intricate patters of the spider's web

tug on heart strings, fill emotional pot holes, cock and seal old wounds, the sounds of (migrating birds, their soujourn calls the empty promises of an indian summer—

news years resolutions on bar napkins' the drunken philisophical ramblings spilled to a bartender named joe (for those taking notes: there is always a bartender named joe, soaking up drunken philisophical ramblings and re-stocking the peanuts. fixit)

notice to matilda, the offspring of (new england fouding family, etc) the paintings of andrew wyeth (first name?) contain the stuff of odysseus, the longigns of christina, her fallen gate (collapsed gate etc) and forlorn expression; the labors of athena and elektra's (passion, angst, madness etc)

i could tell old poets a thing or two—the lines (quatrains, verses-poetical term) of robert frost have long since been (outlawed) and emily dickenson, so gauche, so obvious...though whitman still rears his ugly head in immaculate proclamations and ringing affirmations (self-aggrandizements)

notes:  with the loss of primagenture fixit comes the loss our great musical heritage.  teenagers used to crowd the aisles of the (benny goodman hall in new york) and later, after they wised up, the taverns and speak-easys on 52nd street...i know, i've seen the pictures!  Clint Eastwood—forget about it.  where do ya think he learned to play the piano..?  hanging backstage at a sex pistols gig?  i don't think so.  finally these assholes figured out they could just pick up a guitar and make music themselves.  with the advent of radio, now cow-towing to a newly landed gentry, the boomers, marketers had a new audience, a younger, greener audience who didn't need the chops of an arturo toscannini to get off and, due to decades of pop music, couldn't comprehend the modulations of bach's first prelude if their lives depended on it.  so, three chord ditties, 1 4 5 changes so as not to tax the ears of our precious little angels, the wisdom and keep political insights of a bob dylan.  all these miraculous conceptions and mingus winds up wandering central park with a fixit nikon 35mm camera.

notes:  not quite bostonian, quarter tainted with mariland stock (marylander) from eduction of henry adams

i've read 20 pages of education of henry adams today and i feel like shit for not having read 40.  i've read the book before, when i was in my twenties, but that didn't count.  i've re-read it since and i've referenced it a few times in the past few years but i'm a firm believer in reading classics more than once, continually in fact.  who was that british critic that re-read dickens every year, not just great expectations, but all of dickens?  i've got to get to root of the brahmin question.  were they just sneetches or did they merit their stars? "and this is good old boston, the home of the bean and the cod, where the lowells talk only to cabots and the cabots talk only to god."  shippers, loomers and philanthropists—those two crew jackasses in the social network who by the way, were, at least in the beginning, true to their brahmin roots.  harvard men don't sue one another.  that's all brahmin shite.  though, of course, zuckerberg was a jew.

an interesting section in the book, well, the whole book is interesting, but this one particular section about adams and his introduction to beethoven and to classical music in general — i think it would be interesting to know exactly when and how much exposure so-called cultured americans received  say, between the years 1776 and 1881, the year the boston symphony orchestra was founded, one of the first and principle orchestras in this country.  we've all but abandoned classical music these days, along with the rest of the world, but america is a little different, in the sense that we have always had a vibrant folk music tradition, a popular music tradition made up of a myriad of different cultures that immigrated to this country (i'm completely discounting any influence that native americans may or may not have had—which, by the way, i believe is zilch.  any influence at all is retro and of a decidedly scholarly nature—in the sense that musical scholars have made an effort to quantify and record as much music as possible.  the majority of so-called native american music that springs readily to the minds of most americans is a product of the motion picture industry manufactured by the likes of aaron copeland and alex north)  so-called classical music is a western phenomenon and arguably a manufactured phenomenon at that if you take into account that our musical scale is a tempered scale, a non-natural scale that has been adopted due to its economy and practicality.  many eastern countries use the natural scales in their own so-called classical or indigenous music.  america's own native music utilizes many intervals that are quite similiar to the natural scale: melodic minor scales, pentatonic scales etc—these scales have a greater sense of resolution in both rhythm and note.  the blues utilizes the aptly named "blue note," a interval between the fixit and fixit notes that comes very close to emulating the natural scales.  the average american in the early to mid 19th century would find classical music rather boring, in the sense that his ears would be seeking a more rigid and fixed sense of pitch and resolution.  suffice to say that most popular music heard in america at that time would condition the listerner to a more restricted set of chords, in both rhythm and notes.  most classical music utilizes an almost infinite number of chords and the notion of resolution, especially to the ears of an early american, would be almost non-existant.  it's not surprising that henry adams had no taste for beethoven when he was first expsosed.  of course he later became a huge fan of beethoven's music and the music of many other classical musicians—notably wagner, who could rightly be called the non-resolution king (though not by your humble narrator) would not ingratiate himself to henry adams until the very twilight of his life—godderdamerung fixit  being one of the very last of his musical conquests...

my point is that you can indeed lead a horse to water and make him drink—the horse in this case being henry adams, the oh so uncouth american steadfast in his morals and character yet flexible in his almost insatiable drive to better himself.  drive here is the key.  one must have a sense of the better.  one must entertain the notion that something better exists and that to strive towards this betterment is a worthy act.  i think that is what we've lost in this country.  i can't quite put my finger on it but i think it stems from the onslaught of popular radio, which in turn lead to the death of amateur music making (at least of a classical nature) and the onslaught of the internet.  the invention of the radio and the internet—two of the biggest levelers this country has ever faced. (i'll address the invention of the combustion engine and the interstate highway system for another chapter, perhaps another book..!)

notes:

lartique (add william klein, avedon, more eugene smith

re-reading vonnegut qgain, reading joyce, balzaq etc

dead english girls.  add winehouse

mazursky and his groucho quotes, obessession with film noir, kubricks killing more.

second raters club, also rans

lartique, airborne feats of magic, makes small work of conceptualists, rips asunder...etc.  despite his flirtation with stereoscopy (obsession with sports whpich borders on illustrative, though thety are amoung his best ohotos.  idea that hsi photos were not discovered until decades later, had littoe or no influnce, as did not many other so-called gentleman photographers...play again to the notion of the hobbies and pastimes of the rich, how making a living at craft is the job of the middle classes, the artisan class.  this plays to the idea of whether the high arts are truly worth since they are aboive and beyind what any reasonoable oerson would attempt.  bring up mozart ane beethoven and the resistance they faced, kn both musical acceptance  and social caste.

notes:  at one point, make reference to ron gallela and his obsession with jackie, the fact that jackie has done nothing to warrant it, the non-accomplishments of her children, thier resemblance to old europe aristocarcy and the notion of the non-accomplishment,

also bring up the poor little rich girl syndrome etc.

man rays toilet inspores little confidense though it shows up on punk albums, covers etc.

whitmans democracy

there is nothing quite so pathectic in this world to see as an old man wax poetic about a 50 years dead fixit english alto.  mazursky weeps in fits etc...  like grandpa out of the waltons, like...  walter brennan in tammy, like.... (quote line from apocalypse now...i wepts, like some grandmother iwanted to tear my teeth out...i didnt know what i wanted to do.)

in my dotage, ive become a joycean scholar, a walking encyclopedia etc...

barthes:  camera lucida...

a photograph is never anything but an antiphon of look, a child gesturing "that, there it is, lo!

pg.  45

the punctum has, more or less potentially, the power of expansion.  this oower is often metonymic.

there is another less (proustian) expansion of the punctum...

robert wilson holds barthe, though he cannot say why (with philip galss)

(great word—equerry...horseman/servant

queen victoria on the horse...  the horse rearing?  no, the ingongruity of the scene.  victoria fat, uhealthy, the stagedness of the photograph.  is she led around like some child on a pony, with a drewl cup and (tops), has she ever been on a horse before, why does she need it stayed. the picture reeks of revolution, the reason the romanovs were distinguished.  i see (romanovs on lonely railroad cars on vacated tracks...   what does this picture signify, a link to the past, english roots, their connectiin with nature, why do we need to see queen vic on a  horse and what dors it signify.

***** a labyrinthine man never seeks the truth, but only his ariadne (from nietzche)

(for mazursky:  collected books on kilroy photos)

for lartigue:        From this, there was a photo spread in Life magazine in 1963, coincidentally in the issue which commemorated the death of John Kennedy, ensuring the widest possible audience for his pictures.

"assyriology'

montage on photograohitechniques....  "collodion-on-glass"  etc

lewis carrol and the trials and tribulTions of alice liddell

julia margaret cameron's portrait of sir john herschel

key!  the patient at the surrey county lunatic asylum (compare and contrast our fascinatiin with the insane, their detached"ness", separateability

the plight of mathew brady (civil war photographer and portraitist)  like electricity and the many fraudulent uses , attemots to make money, work in gilded age etc.

was thinking about the lack of any decipherable hegemony in our society.  the inability to look at any one thing and say "this is good...this is great" and generate at least some semblance of recognition from your mates.  i don't mean to suggest that this is a new phenomenon, unique to my generation.  there are legions of dead critics, dead purveyors of culture: ezra pound, edmund wilson, malcom crowley

we followed mazursky from the start.  it was his idea, of course, the panopticon…f'ing brilliant!  too brilliant in fact.  it died beneath the wait of its own genius.  it started as one of a series of schubertiads at dupairs at farmer's market in la, right off the top of his head, as if he was reading the special off the chalk board.  

"take some b-celebrity, some poor slob from some 70s sitcom, willie aames from eight is enough…christ, what an asshole!  you take this guy and you follow him, day and night.  he goes to the john and you light up that restroom like it's saigon, new years eve, 1968.  you follow him everywhere, mcdonalds, starbucks, the dmv for christs sake…everywhere!  but it's gotta be some asshole hasbeen, some jackass that would give his left kidney to be back in the limelight and has exhausted everything from daytime variety shows and reality tv to hocking the clapper on late night cable…i mean you find that biggest jerk on the planet…christopher knight, danny bonaducci, scott baio…now there's a moron!  leif garret!!!…naw, leave him alone, he's suffered enough, but you get my drift."

here's the panopticon in a nutshell.  you follow some b-celebrity asshole like he's chaz bono at a sturgis rally and you photograph him until he snaps like cher, like piers brosnan fixit in his boxers, like matthew mccoughnahey on the beach at malibu, you photograph him until he coldcocks you with your camera (leave your leica home on this shoot.  time to whip out that trusty nikon d200 or canon d40 gathering dust mites in your closet).  actually, getting coldcocked with your camera is not such a bad way to pay your cable bill, but i digress…  suddenly the rags are innundated with shots of this poor bastard, tons of shots and by every decent pap in los angeles.  out of focus shots, half in a doorway shots, telephoto shots from 500 yards away, shots in the past worthy of only perhaps thomas pynchon or j.d. salinger, maybe even greta garbo if journalists had any balls back then.  this pandemonium lasts for three days and on the third day you camp out on his lawn hoping he'll call the cops.  finally the rags get wise and they start publishing all these shots with crazy headlines and suddently, every magazine in town is paying top dollar for any shot of this poor unsuspecting loser.  it's briliant! diabolical!  but that's mazursky for ya…

i coined it the panopticon though you won't read about that any where.  the media called it, aptly enough, the bang bang club and that's what stuck (sorry mates, no hard feelings…cheers!)  regardless, the panopticon lasted a few years back in the mid to late oughts.  it bought me few polorizing filters i can tell you and it bailed not a few paps out of the slammer.  

it all started when nikon announced the D1 back in the late 90s, the first reputable digital camera and suddenly, the game changed.  

[insert pap history, nikon history here]

Confessions of a Stevedore VI (unedited text)

notes on steichen;  the effects of seeing garbo, so striking, sitting there with the weight of the world outside her doorstep, peeking through the blinds, welles fucking hayworth in the ass all the while dreaming of garbo swiming naked in a cement pond, seeing garbo after a furlong of staid imagery, contrivances, so bellicose fixit, so trite…all those goddammed incongruous milk bottles, then the effect of seeing garbo, really put the hooks in me.

i mention that i've been working on my book called the plight of mathew brady (civil war photographer and portraitist) and this prompts mazursky to  remind us of his obsession with dead english girls to which he tacks on a kind of spoken-word epitaph for amy winehouse.  we listen with reverence, not for winehouse but for mazursky and after a moment of silence i continue;  "so brady took this so-called daguerretype and ran with it, does what any self-respecting capitalist does; he channels it into a business and simultaneously launches what could rightly be called the greatest photographic invention in history, the snapshot!…i'm talking the first 2 x 3.5 photograph  i wrongly think that my revelations are riveting, that i will captivate my audience with my brilliant insights into this almost two century obsession with the photographic image but i have lost them, to the real estate holdings of groucho marx, the alarming suicide rate of b-actors and the current whereabouts of brooke bundy, possibly the tastiest piece of b-celebrity ass to grace the screen since angie dickenson.  (for those keeping score, she presently resides in new york city at the B.I.H. actor's studio, 6 E 46th St #402 New York, NY 10017).  i can't compete with this hollywood lore shit, i mean, i'm from lubbock texas and only two things come from lubbock texas…  brady peddled these cartes de visite to cival war soldiers like money from home, then he got the bright idea to document the war with his camera. 

the albumen process of printing allowed for mass production and the photojournalist and so-called professional photographer was born. but, he wrongly supposed that the u.s. government would finance his operations; what no historian, philosopher or budding entrepeneur could predict is the short attention span of the american public.  the majority of brady's negatives were lost or forgotten and he died a pauper in a charity ward hospital in new york city, an honorred member the second-rater's club, a sainted alumni of the also-rans and wily second sons of newly landed gentry; a victim of the gilded age, those starry-eyed dreamers and railroad speculators; the mark twainification of art and fiction, peddling rot to the little people in order to finance his wacky typesetters, "You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter…" fuck you, you shyster lawyer…not on my watch!  

when i get mazursky alone i press him for info on roberta.  he's a wiz at diagnosing mental disorders and keeps the dsm iv in his backpack, not that he needs it, but he claims it has gotten him layed more often amoung the 20 something set than any casual mention of bob & carol & ted & alice (who are we kidding here; the only twenty somethings that have heard of bob & carol & ted & alice are the olson twins and jennifer connelly and she's 41 years old!).  "roberta's fits and tantrums on hollywood blvd can only be attributed to bulimia nervosa," claims mazursky.  "that paired with a heavy dose of PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder) and, obviously, dissociative identity disorder."  mazursky launches into a diatribe on how he came to this conclusion.  mazursky spent years trolling for roberta on the streets of los angeles, following her through the alleyways and through the mazes of dingbats between hollywood and sunset, east of gower, west of van ness, trying despartely to coax her into his car, tempting her with offers of chai tea lattes, even waiving 20 dollar bills from his car window.  her reluctance to acknowledge the almighty greenback is how mazursky figures she is need of medication, that and the fact that she hasn't bathed since 1971.  the only vestige of sanity she has managed to salvage is an unruly degree of fashion sense.  she is optimally robed no matter the season; thriftstore chic, a regular vagabond diana vreeland towing her wares in discarded billabong glides; never over burdened, never over packed, always in the guise of a frantic flight attendant, half-kempt, makeup courteosy of the bathroom at gower dennys and hair all sally jesse raphael; alarming combinations, not to mention her ginormouse double d's screaming braless in some filthy matte silk blouse, pendulous, hypnotic, sending mazursky into eplileptic shock and causing irreputable dammage to his front and rear bumpers. he has mastered the art of jacking off, following her all taxi-cab slow, steering with his knees and shifting with his right hand (mazursky's a lefty, thank the gods) waiting for her to reach the corner of carlton and gordon where she stoops and bends, whences and heaves, much like his precious 50 somethings, the retired ladies playing doubles tennis at agincourt, another of mazursky's hangouts.  mazursky sees her posing, her figure, all moddish twiggy or peggy lipton, silhoutted against the setting sun, the brim of her corduroy oliver twist newsboy cap cutting a striking figure, all noir ficiton cover, something frazetta might paint in the midst of some opium induced bender only to awaken, cold and sweating, beads collecting on his brow like moisture on the brow or jeremy bentham's leather skull.  

mazursky pants whenever he describes her form.  he has every precious sighting logged in his memory and can recal them at will.  he has been tempted to buy a van with huge sliding doors, hire some dayworkers at the local uhaul and do a pick-up, alight her gently but firmly on a bed of pillows and sequest her all james patterson in some dive inland empire lean-to.  i mean, why not?  it's obvious no one else wants her, no one cares.  he would feed her regularly, like a snake if necessary, to counter her bouts of bulimia, administer herbal remedies and vitamin c injections to regulate her mental deficiencies and he would give her douches and enemas and a summer of turkish baths; anything less he figures would leave minute trails of city smut buried deep in her tissues…and then, what next..? well, what would be… the story of o, contraptions and machinations that would curl the lips of the marquis de sade..! but, alas news would leak of his acquisition and his reputation, what little of it exists, would suffer.  "you can't keep anything a secret in this town," mazursky weeps.  

confessions of a stevedore v (unedited text)

the fourth and last defining moment in my life:  horton hears a who, and i don't think i'm alone on this.  if i only had a nickel for all those boiled dustspecks…  horton is a sad bloated pachaderm fixit forever extolling the virtures of an alternate universe within the confines of an insignificant dustspeck.  (notice to vendors: some dustspecks are better off boiled)

i saw kathy hale at the starbucks on the corner of (prominent midtown new york locale, near biz center or journalistic center etc) hocking her photos online to some (relevant news organziation), gesticulating like elektra on the patio with white apple earbuds strangling down her neck.  it was the plight of this or that underprivileged minority, these or those recent immigrants, political exiles or just plain migrant workers or some 70s famous plight du jour.  by her fits and hysterical (hand waving) i could tell the rag was having none of it.  i know the feeling, sadly, from both ends.  one man's (cross to bear, spanish inquisition, trial of sisyphus, irrelevant fixit political exiles dujour…another man's yesterday's news, unclicked links sequestered in an online news archive awaiting some home schooled fourth grader doing a report on (unrelevant geological event that affects some remote and unimportant land mass).  she is chicken little shaking her little crab claw, ratso rizzo caught in the middle of the crosswalk, that lunatic at the junction of the santa monica freeway and pch, proselytizing on 2012 and the evils of hydrogenated soybean…

you should hear the eggheads debating the relevance of ron galella, his sometimes inclusion in famed art galleries throughout the world.  i tell you pictures are either good or bad, they either work or they don't.  i don't care what they're about or who's in them.  i know this conjures up a host of incongruities fixit that would make susan sontag turn in her grave (no disrespect)…behold:  queen victoria on a horse...  the horse rearing?  no, the incongruity fixit of the scene, the contrast; this curdmugeon fixit roosting over the world's largest empire, victoria fat, uhealthy, the stagedness of the photograph.  is she led around like some child on a pony, with a drewl cup and dunce hat, has she ever been on a horse before, why does she need it stayed. the picture reeks of revolution, romanovs on lonely railroad cars on vacated tracks, trotsky sipping tea with frida kahlo fixit, louis the XVI and his collection of locks.   what does this picture signify, a link to the past, her english roots, their connection with nature, why do we need to see queen vic on a  horse and what does it signify.

i want you to consider two famous photographs.  hugh diamond's picture of a patient at the surrey county lunatic asylum, the picture generally associated with him.  diamond thought he could document a patient's disorder through photography.  he thought that a person's condition would be manifested through the objectivity of the camera lens.  a direct quote:  a photograph "catches in a moment the permanent cloud, or the passing storm or sunshine of the soul, and thus enables the metaphysician to witness and trace out the connexion between the visible and the invisible." we know this going in.  the photograph contains a caption.  the woman's cloud or passing storm is indeed visible in the caption but not necessarily in the photograph itself, which could be a depiction of any typical commoner working in any textile factory of any suburb of london…  but the caption reminds us that she is not just any worker in a factory; she is in fact a mentally ill person.  this fact alters our perception of the photograph immensely.  at once she becomes the very eptiome of the dispossed fixit, this "passing storm."  her seemingly calm demeanor shadows a myriad of psychosomatic conditions, her unkempt hair, not just the  result of a days hard work but her inabilty to sit still, her likely violent and insidious outbursts, her sound and fury…

the second photo (name photo) shows a girl with an obviously retarded child.  no caption is required.  yet, like the previous photograph of the asulym patient, there is nothing particularly artistic about either of these photos, not in the lighting or compostion.  both photographs entice us along a kind of photographic sixth sense, a condition or an element known to us, the viewer, but not included in the photographs themselves.  of course, the child's condition is visible in the photo but his retardation is not significant in any kind of "photographic" sense.  unless we were apprised fixit of the notion of retardation and its visible attributes, this photograph would be quite meanglingless, possibly a family photo, nicely shot but insignificant.  yet we have been apprised the visible signs of mental retardation so this photo becomes significant, to more or less a certain degree, along this so-called sixth sense.  diane arbus does this to us.  it's not that pictures of freaks are in and of themselves significant or visually interesting, it's that they become interesting within the context of the photo, within the juxtopostion of their compostion; a freak family unit, a decidedly unnatractive transvestite in curlers (as if curled hair will aide in his appearance), the waifish child with an impish grin and handgrenade etc etc…  i give arbus credit for knowing how to take reasonably well-photographed images but above all, for knowing how to manipulate our photographic sixth sense, or more specifically, our sense of personnal comfort.  none of these photographs would be interesting in any kind of photographic sense unless we were possessed of this so-called photographic sixth sense, that of knowing that these people are in fact freaks and are not normally photographed in such dispossessing conditions.

the question regarding galella is whether or not his photographs are interesting beyond the fact they are of well-known celebrities.  do these photographs contain interest beyond the photographic sixth sense.  i would say yes, most emphatically they do.  of course there are exections, as there are to any photographers ouvre fixit (jackie o being a decided exception, in fact, i can barely think of one photograph of her that merits any attention at all(-)perhaps possibly the one of her in the limo with arie fixit).  but galella's photograph of travolta on the streets, presley in a car, mcqueen drinking coffee, sophia loren, robert redford, andy wharhol or edward the VII and wallace simpson(-)all these shots would exist outside the confines of the photographic sixth sense.  

 i shudder to think what kind of pictures galella would have taken if he had shot on the streets.  gary winogrand can place his mouth precariously close to ron galella's crotch any day!  i usually stear clear of arguments about what art is or isn't.  they usually degenerate into a reading of bartlett's quotations, napoleon bonaparte; "a picture is worth a thousdand words…" etc.  but for the record; most self-respecting photographers want beautiful subjects, well lit and candid.  at the very least, you have to give galella credit for getting close to these celebrities and still manage to catch them off guard, though of course he was shooting in a day when journalists/photojournalists still had something of a code of ethics.  to be fair, celebrities back then didn't have radar in the back of their heads like sean penn or lindsay lohan.

okay, if you want a quote i'll give you one:  "barthes:  camera lucida...a photograph is never anything but an antiphon of look, a child gesturing "that, there it is, lo!

you won't find this in bartlett's and you won't find this carved as an ephitaph on the gravestone of ron galella (if he ever dies, the old buzzard).  of course, the image or scene must merit your attention or it's not worth looking at let alone photographing.  now, to sit around and debate the criteria required to make an image worth looking at is an excersize in futility i'm not willing to undertake.  suffice to say that given the current state of affairs in photojournalism and photography in general, beauty is is in the eye of the beholder.