Finding the Stallion in the Colt

This is Matt McDonald.

Taking in Water

Tintagel, England; Summer 2009

Ride On

At the 2011 Tour of Utah in SLC

"Was ist die Befindlichkeit des Landes?"

Potsdamer Platz, Berlin; summer 2008

One of those lucky moments. This picture still just charms me and it's probably my favorite picture from Berlin. I don't think we have to be city people to be fascinated by the city and urbanity. Berlin is without a doubt my favorite big city and I'm hoping for the chance to go back.

Cascade

On flickr

Another shot from way back that seemed appropriate after this post. I'm still very fond of this one.

Two from Tennyson

On flickr

On flickr

It takes me a while to get to some things. These two pictures are personal favorites of mine, yet I had done nothing with them until now. Maybe I wanted them to myself for a while. But after two and a half years I think it's time to let them out.

Though I bet you can find them in here somewhere.

Summer Ultramax

I didn't take a picture for four months. When I came back to it in mid-December and finished my roll, I found these. It feels like so long ago, but it was only August.

Kodak Ultramax film delivers.

Street Tough

Kodachrome

You should go here sometime. But beware of the locals.

A Visit to Tiny Telephone

Tiff and I were fortunate enough to attend John Vanderslice's special performance with the Magik*Magik Orchestra at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco. The concert included the entire White Wilderness album, a lovely collaboration between JV and Magik*Magik, just released this year. They also performed orchestral versions of many JV songs from his backcatalogue. It truly was a unique concert experience, and though I seem to say that with every Vanderslice show I see, this concert really did stand apart from those other fine shows. But the memories didn't end with the concert, for near the concert's end Vanderslice invited the audience to a free tour of his recording studio, Tiny Telephone, the following morning. Naturally, Tiff and I wanted to go, and since we had the whole next day available to us, we went. (Luckily, it didn't take much to persuade Mom to come with us.)

  John Vanderslice - Sea Salt by IndieRockReviews 

The tour of Tiny Telephone was a wonderfully memorable experience for a few reasons. First, it further solidified my deep admiration for John Vanderslice as a musician and person. He's a good person with remarkable talent; the genuine article, as they say.

Second, I learned a lot about sound and recording that I hadn't really thought about much before. Sound is cool and recording an album is a really complex process - at least it is when you wanna do it well. Tiny Telephone encourages analog recordings rather than digital, and for good reason: too much of digital recording is crap. New digital technology should be awesome, but most of it isn't. Unfortunately, our new technology has mostly made studio recording lazier, which only encourages lazy listeners - we get used to hearing poor quality recordings and lose our ear for good sound.

Third, I was charmed by Vanderslice's account of the development of Tiny Telephone and the small community of artists neighboring the studio. According to him, the neighborhood used to be a lot more dangerous than it is these days. The change came in part because of the small artist community that filled in the collection of shabby-looking back alley buildings where Tiny Telephone is located, inviting a much safer atmosphere. Additionally, the once-dangerous park next to Tiny Telephone received a skate park from the city, which has helped reduce crime. Maybe other parts of the country have gotten over the stigmas against skaters and the narrow beliefs that artists don't contribute to society, but in my community some of these naive beliefs still prevail. But the neighborhood where Tiny Telephone resides seems to show that artists can do a lot for a community and having skate parks (and other similar community amenities) doesn't increase crime, it reduces it because kids,and adults, have a place where they can gather and engage in constructive activities rather than wander around with nothing to do but get in trouble. This story was a modest example of community action to improve the neighborhood; something we could all benefit from.

There's much more I could say about my visit to Tiny Telephone. But for now I'll just show off some of the pictures I took while there. Vanderslice was kind enough to allow me to snap some photos and I was rather happy with the results.

Note how much the dude in sunglasses looks like T-Bone Burnett.

Thanks to Mom for taking this picture.

 

For more on our visit to Tiny Telephone, check out Tiff's post at The Art of Place.

Remembering London

Next month it'll be two years since I was in London. It would seem rather cliche to say that the time has flown by and I can't believe it has already been that long. I guess cliches are appropriate sometimes.

For college students, summer provides the often much needed opportunity to get away from university and visit various parts of the world, either to study, vacation, live, work, or just disappear. This summer is no exception and many of my friends are vacating Utah County to spend their time elsewhere - Matt, and Lauran & Dustin are studying in Cambridge; Kylie is already doing her study abroad in Senegal; Talia will be working in China; Marshall & Beth have moved to San Francisco; Bentley is back in the English countryside; there are others I'm forgetting at the moment, too. Me, I'm staying here and am happy to be here. There's enough to do right in Utah that I'm happy to stay here and relax, though I'll soon be off for the Washington Peninsula with the family for a week.

Seeing new and/or familiar places is really cool and I really value the opportunities I've had to travel as much as I have. With all that travel I often get nostalgic for the places I've visited and the experiences I had there. It's just that nostalgia that has me writing this post. I went back through my London pictures and was reminded of how great the city was, even if I preferred the English countryside to the big city. After spending several weeks traipsing across the English countryside for my study abroad, the ten days we spent in London was quite a change of pace and tone. London reminded me just how beautiful, even spiritual, the weeks prior to our stay in the city really were. Hiking the stormy and windy mountains of Scotland and northern England, wandering across the haunted and lonely moors, laying on the grass at Tintagel listening to the ocean as the moon reflected off the water, and watching the sun set from Tennyson Downs  are just a few memorable moments of my time in the English countryside.

But London brought its own joys and overall was a very enjoyable experience. Much fun was had playing ultimate frisbee in their parks with really crappy grass; seeing really sweet plays like Death and the King's Horsemen and Arcadia; visiting the very impressive museums (the Soviet propaganda room of the Tate Modern was particularly awesome); and buying cheap CDs from street vendors on Portobello Road, then wandering the streets listening to Parts & Labor's Receivers. London has a charm that is all its own. It really is a unique place to England and to the world. Like Berlin (my favorite big city), it has an intriguing tone that is both modern and ancient. There is history there, but it's a city that has not lost touch with modern society, containing both positive and negative aspects of our day and age. It's a rather frantic city, but, if you're looking, you'll find ample opportunity to slow down and relax. All in all it's a place that I have fond memories of. But when you visit London, be sure to take some time, or a lot of time, and head for the countryside.

I could continue, but I'd rather just show some pictures and be done writing. The pictures are more interesting anyway.

Enjoy your travels.

Night Watch

Tonight Riku was getting really excited about a neighborhood cat who wandered into our yard. He'd scratch the front room window while meowing softly, then rush, bushy-tailed, upstairs to look out Mom's window - this elevated position apparently provides a necessary view of the invader. After confirming from the upstairs window that this other cat is in fact creeping into our yard, Riku would run back down to the front room. Then back upstairs. This continued until Mom went outside and shooed the intruder out of our yard.

Tonight's scene reminded me of this picture, taken last summer. When I shot this, I had Todd Hido's pictures on my mind. My picture isn't remotely as awesome as his stuff, which is fine. I'm still pleased with this picture.

Pictures at Stonehenge

My good friend Heather Walker got me looking at my Stonehenge pictures again. It turns out that I'm quite fond of many of the pictures I took there. So I thought I'd highlight a few here. I don't think that my thin England journal contains any thoughts about Stonehenge, which I think is a shame. Now, almost a year and a half later, I'm still not sure what I'd say if I were to write about visiting Stonehenge. For now, the pictures are my journal entry, and they are probably better than any words I would have, or will write. If anyone who has visited Stonehenge has a thought or two about their experience, feel free to share it, if you like.

Summer Reading 2010

Now that summer has passed and those of us (un)fortunate to be taking classes begin another semester, I thought I'd spotlight a few of my summer reads. It'll be like watching the Emmy's, but a lot less interesting.

I like to think that summer reading is a time to catch up on all those fine things we couldn't read while taking those stuffy university courses where only the serious stuff got read. With summer, we can (perhaps only temporarily) set aside the serious reading, let our hair down, put our feet up and lounge in the bathrobe, enjoying a light read. Leisure reading isn't supposed to be hard, after all. If the point was to think, we'd stay in classes. No, summer is a time for "something I can ignore." But sometimes this weird thing happens where I just can't let the serious stuff go. Basically, I'm often still too uptight and humorless to indulge exclusively in the light and fluffy stuff. And then there are times when words are too hard and I just want pictures - for that there are photography books to look at and admire, though I know nothing about photography. I guess summer allows for anything. Whatever your taste, summer is a time of personal indulgence - at least, it is for me, since I still live at home and avoid any real responsibilities.

Because I'm a geek, I have a list of everything I read this summer, to give a little context to the selections below. There were several nice reads, but only five will receive special recognition here. The winners are:

BEST PICTURES: Ordinary Lives - Rania Matar

Rania Matar's photos of contemporary Lebanon and the people who live there are some of the coolest shots of modern Islamic culture that I've yet seen. These portraits of Muslim women (and some men) living their lives in the bombed out, war-torn cities of Lebanon are hardly the images you find on Fox News - most of Fox's viewers don't know where Lebanon is anyway. Ordinary Lives shows something that, when you think about it, should be quite obvious: the ordinary citizens of Middle Eastern countries like Lebanon are living their lives, in the same general manner that anyone does; you work, have a family, have fun together, go shopping, go to church, listen to iPods, and anything else that the average person might do. But these ordinary lives are living amidst piles of rubble and destroyed, yet still occupied, buildings. Her photos always seem display more than one possible story, which is a helpful reminder to those of us (meaning all of us) who are prone to forget that life and people are complicated. They contain more than one story and deserve to be seen and treated as human beings rather than as just faces in the crowd, or worse, collateral damage.

BEST MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT: The Wilco Book - Wilco & Dan Nadal

What's better than a book with soundtrack included? The Wilco Book is an example to all books about artists and bands in how to really please your audience (or just to get them to buy your book): Include a disc of otherwise unavailable material. This doesn't seem like such a bad move since some musicians (i.e. Elvis Costello) have made claims that there's nothing more useless than writing about music. If the music is the center, then stop talking and just listen. While I appreciate the passion behind such statements, I think there's a place for writings about music. However, I still feel that the disc of outtakes and experimental recordings from the A Ghost is Born sessions really is the best part of The Wilco Book. The pictures, interviews, and essays are also interesting and worthwhile to any Wilco fan. But if turning the pages does seem like too much effort, then just hit 'play' on your cd player and enjoy the reason you wanted to read this book in the first place.

KYLIE AWARD: Then There Were None - Martha H. Noyes

Kylie was responsible for four of this summer's reads, either because she lent me her copy (Goth Girl Rising and The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead), chose it for our monthly reading selection (Howl's Moving Castle), or gave it to me (Then There Were None). All four are very fine reads, but Martha Noyes' short book about the disappearance of native Hawaiians due to American colonialism was the most affecting. It blends photography, historical information, quotes, and poems to give a short, concise, and substantial account of this under-addressed event. The book is more interested in illuminating and expressing the emotions that surround the event, than in presenting a dry historical account that points fingers and demands justice. Its intention is not to stir up anger or controversy, but more to give voice and feeling to a people and culture that have been diminished, overlooked and forgotten, left now to serve only as a tourist attraction. Despite its size, Then There Were None, packs one hefty punch. It contains enough information that I felt completely satisfied, while hoping that someday I could learn even more about Hawaii.

REAGAN AWARD: Don't be Afraid, Gringo - A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart: The Story of Elvia Alvarado - Medea Benjamin & Elvia Alvarado

Elvia Alvarado loves Ronald Reagan. Really. She's a big fan of the man who supported a corrupt government that repeatedly oppressed the peasant population of Honduras by taking away their land, denying them jobs and food, and imprisoning, torturing, and killing numerous lower class citizens who spoke out against this foul abuse of power. Alvarado is an impoverished Honduran woman who, through grassroots education and social activism, became a principle player in the lower class movement to reclaim stolen land and begin empowering women and working class citizens with the tools and know-how to survive in a country where all the wealth went to the upper class landowners. Don't be Afraid, Gringo is her story, in her words. The language is clunky and I guess what you would expect from someone who didn't make it past the fifth grade (there was no money to go on further). But the language also has a simple eloquence and straight-forward honesty that transforms these clunky thoughts into brilliant insights on the struggle for survival, recognition, and dignity. Alvarado is a voice from the working class Honduran - a voice that most Americans, including Ronald Reagan, have never heard. As a result of Alvarado protesting and peacefully fighting for the impoverished masses, she has been branded a Communist, arrested multiple times, and even tortured by her police captors. But still she has survived and continues to work towards establishing her vision of democracy. Some of the book's best moments are Alvarado's  thoughts on what a real democracy is and how she doesn't think Reagan is interested in establishing real democracy in Latin America. Ronald Reagan not interested in spreading democracy? Isn't he supposed to be the All-American President and poster-boy of all things Democracy? Not for Elvia Alvarado, and her observations are great and her use of real life experiences to show the injustice of the American-backed Honduran government are some of the best I've read. The book was first released in 1987, while Reagan was still President, but looking at conditions in Honduras (and all through Latin America) today show that there is still a lot of work to do to improve the conditions of the working class citizens. America's destructive involvement in Latin America is a shameful example of contemporary colonialism, and while I'm sure America has done some good down there, accounts like Elvia's show that, most of the time, America's self-interested intervention into Latin American affairs has hurt most the people who deserve it least.

BEST BOOK NOT ABOUT COLONIALISM: Howl's Moving Castle - Diana Wynne Jones

For whimsical young adult fantasy, Howl's Moving Castle is one of the most charming stories. It often doesn't feel like there's much of a story at all, rather it just ambles along, often sitting back and taking its time, simply enjoying watching Sophie interact with these humorous characters. I liked just watching her interact with Calcifer, Michael, and Howl so much that I didn't really care if the story ever went anywhere. Almost like Sophie herself, I kept forgetting that she actually wasn't supposed to be an ornery, yet endearing old woman, and that there really was an obstacle for her to overcome. Jones' style is light and fun, but never void of substance. She has a point to this novel, but she has a rather round-a-bout, light-hearted way of expressing herself. My only issue is one of taste: she uses too many adverbs, especially in the first half of the book. By the latter half, she reigns in the adverbs pretty well. This is a small complaint, and one that I'm very willing to overlook so as to spend more time thinking about all the great things about this book. I know this is a popular book, and I'm aware that I'm a late-comer to Diana Wynne Jones' work - so how good this book is might only be news to me. But it's a fast read, and a fun read; so, if you have the time, I'd recommend revisiting this lovely world.   

The Carny

Coming to Salt Lake

So, you all remember that the Twilight Concert Series starts this week, right? Right? Well, here's the line-up just in case anyone has forgotten what goodness is Salt Lake bound this season. Hope to see some of you there.

More on the series.

Lost Highway

It was here that the skunk found me.

Explosions in the Sky