Overcast grey Sunday, light rain.  Low clouds along the North Shore mountains, jagged snowy gullies between black trees snaking up into the fog.  Did I mention I'm going away soon?  Cactus; billboard; cactus; cactus; federal prison (above).  Front door ajar, swish and hiss of traffic outside; Rick Ross fronting on the stereo.  Photo Know-How: The Art of Large Format Photography (Sinar, rev. ed., 1983) open on the desk in front of me.

Rainy late night return journey back along Marine Drive, the Subaru's heater going like mad. Strings of colored Xmas lights occasionally visible from the road.  Jack's two-part question, the one that has apparently haunted L. and I from childhood.  What do you believe about the world?  What are you currently doing to make it true?  The recognition -- via salmon spawning, "thickly," in Nelson Creek, c. 1945-50, and current Vancouver property values -- that a lower, more reduced standard of life is apparently de rigueur for my generation.  This is not a complaint -- hoping for a completely different set of circumstances is pointless, not to mention nostalgic and dumb -- but more the basis for get-out-and-do-something-about-it.

Walker Evans' concept of documentary style.  His recognition that a visual grammar is a rhetoric, a way of thinking.  Sherrie Levine's reinscription (not degradation, "deconstruction" or ironic dismissal) of photographs that mattered to her.  Sturtevant's repetitions.  That amazing Alex Prager photograph.

Remix: to alter a song for artistic purposes.

"Remixes should not be confused with edits, which usually involve shortening a final stereo master for marketing or broadcasting purposes. Another distinction should be made between a remix and a cover. A remix song recombines audio pieces from a recording to create an altered version of the song. A cover is a recording of a song that was previously recorded by someone else."
- posted by cjb @ 12:18 PM