Weblog Archive, Jan-Mar 2004

Weblog (Really a combination diary and commentary) Nov-Dec 2003 Archive July-Oct 2003 Archive

* Begins with the newest post first and works its way back in time. Done manually, so don't get too excited if it doesn't look like the usual formats you may have seen on weblog sites. At some point, I'll probably add real blog software.   Mar. 28, 2004- A Visit from the Capitol Trench Coat Gang Sunday afternoon I’m working on a project that’s two months behind and someone’s rapping at the door. I hadn’t done any heavy noise-making Saturday night or that day, making it remote one of the neighbors is at the door. I live in a secure building so there shouldn’t be unannounced visitors. No, it’s not that kind of secure building. Unlike too-few convicted Fortune 500 executives, I come and go as I please. Approaching cautiously, I edge to the peephole for a look. I can’t see the face but the wide-brimmed fedora and 70s-era, deep green London Fog trench coat with classic epaulet straps were a dead giveaway. After more than 20 years, I immediately recognized my unannounced visitor — and never-failing aggravation — Gerald R. Forbes. You see, Forbes had been a deep-inside-the-beltway information source for me two or three careers ago. "Fromme! I know you’re standing on the other side of the door!" came the strident hiss. "Anyone could have heard you walking to the door." I don’t know why Forbes always insisted I play along with his cloak and dagger routine. (As though I had been to spook summer camp between 1971-1976.) His outrageous getup would be enough to shoot down any chance to remain unobtrusive. Nevertheless, he was outside my door and I had no idea what he would do if I walked away, let alone why he was at my door. Forbes brushed by as I opened the door, quickly eyeing the artwork in the foyer and glancing around for suitable alternative exits should the need arise. I suspect one could easily go through the walls into the hallway or neighboring unit, judging by the ease with which sound travels through them. As I recount Forbes’ visit, a neighbor is practicing the clarinet and I’m not enthused about listening to his finger exercises, squeaks and all. "You know, Fromme, you’re not that hard to locate, and it certainly wasn’t hard getting into the building," Forbes barked in his ‘lecturing professor’ voice. "But that isn’t why I’m here…" "Yes, just why are you are here?" I interrupted. "If you’d return my calls, this visit would have been unnecessary." "Calls?" What calls! The only calls I don’t return are from minimum wage telemarketers trying to get me to accept an invitation from a lame-ass Republican Congressman from who-knows-where wanting me to join him and the President for dinner!" "You don’t expect me to call ‘in the clear’ do you?" came the exasperated reply. "I had to think of a ruse so Echelon wouldn’t intercept my call." "Forbes, almost everything you’ve ever told me is so whacko it doesn’t merit any attention. Now what are you here for, I have work to do." He paced to the window, realized where he was and quickly scurried back out of sight. "Fromme, I know how skeptical you are about politicians, and for good reason. I mean, reading or hearing a new ‘black is white’ pronouncement nearly every day would do that to anyone. But you have to help me." This was a side to Forbes I’d never seen. "What’s the problem?" "I need you to buy and read former, anti-terrorism czar Richard A. Clarke’s book," he replied. "I need you to tell me if it’s what the Republicans say and just a cynical ploy to make money off the misfortune of 9/11. I trust your opinion, you’ve never steered me wrong before." "Hell, Forbes, I don’t need to read the book for an answer," I snorted. "If you choose to forget that the Republican leadership told its membership to milk 9/11 for all it’s worth, while ignoring issues like adequately funding education mandates, energy conservation, environmental protection, anti-trade protectionism, minority and worker rights, health care access, and accountability on Wall Street, then Clarke’s book was clearly meant to capitalize on the misfortune of 9/11. But since the Bush regime… er, administration, has already so blatantly seized that ground, Clarke’s off the hook. Though I certainly wouldn’t discourage you from buying the book. Even reading it, too." "Really? It’s that simple…" "It’s that obvious. Now get out of here, I still have work to do." gnf Mar. 4, 2004- A Broken Social Contract, Public Service and Self Interest "After more than two centuries of American jurisprudence…a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization." George W. Bush I don’t care who marries whom, unless it will result in more marginal idiots like the person being quoted above. True, he likes to be "misunderestimated." Once you analyze this malapropism you understand that it is more sinister than first appears. And this disingenuous pose is what makes the politics behind the push to incite our patriotic, god-fearing, morally-upright and steadfast American fundamentalists to support the party of most extreme avarice so distasteful to me. You can’t access a news source without hearing Bush or one of his henchmen decry how "the most fundamental institution of civilization" is being destroyed, undermined or otherwise bent, folded and spindled because anyone who disagrees with them is unpatriotic, a terrorist, or worst of all, a "homo." I’m not sure when it happened, but somewhere along the way our political system became so corrupted with self interest that the true basis of civilization — the social contract — has been pounded into dust, swept up and dumped into the rubbish bin. Enunciation of the social contract, for those of us who long ago forgot what we were expected to retain from history, civics or philosophy class, can be traced to Plato and the Socratic dialogs. According to Socrates, societies are formed for the purpose of fulfilling our human needs. We have many needs and thus many kinds of people and activities are required to fulfill all those needs. We then form partnerships by which we exchange goods and services. The mutual fulfilling of the various tasks is the basis of justice in society. A later philosopher, Rousseau, posited the earliest form of social contract took shape as the family, and thus one might find the current misrepresentations of the Bush cabal to be truthful. However, the family was not defined as a husband and wife, married in the eyes of God or another deity. The family was defined as a father and children. And the children gained their independence as soon as they were capable of reasoned self-interest. The family as basis of civilization was anecdotal, not absolute as today’s administration claims as it whips the unhappy masses into a change-resistant frenzy merely for the purposes of preserving its grasp on the very political power it abuses. Not to say Bush’s undeniably corrupt administration is doing anything beyond what any other political entity would do to preserve its power. The social contract has been replaced by the self-interest compact. What seems to matter most today, for those interested in seeking and maintaining power, is not the general will of the people, but how to maximize alliances to defeat the general will of the people in order to maintain power. And if you’ll study the social contract, you’ll find, in Rousseau’s words: "The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before… "This is the fundamental problem of which the Social Contract provides the solution. The passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a very remarkable change in man, by substituting justice for instinct in his conduct, and giving his actions the morality they had formerly lacked. Then only, when the voice of duty takes the place of physical impulses and right of appetite, does man, who so far had considered only himself, find that he is forced to act on different principles, and to consult his reason before listening to his inclinations. "Although, in this state, he deprives himself of some advantages which he got from nature, he gains in return others so great, his faculties are so stimulated and developed, his ideas so extended, his feelings so ennobled, and his whole soul so uplifted, that, did not the abuses of this new condition often degrade him below that which he left, he would be bound to bless continually the happy moment which took him from it for ever, and, instead of a stupid and unimaginative animal, made him an intelligent being and a man." (Emphasis mine.) We are reminded daily of what it means to be "a stupid and unimaginative animal" in the actions of the Bush administration, those who cynically support it, and the abuses which degrade us as a result. gnf Jan. 1, 2004- At last, a more coherent definition— Pictorial Photography For many, first exposure to my work brings bafflement. I frequently observe the phases of discovery flash across their faces as they work through the process of figuring out what it is they are viewing. Not the material presented in my images, but the processes. The more sophisticated viewers — even those who use the same tools as I — pause to confirm their suspicions. Often with a knowing nod, equally as often with a quietly mouthed "fantastic," "awesome" or "incredible." I’m sure many artists have to develop ways to cope with this discovery process, just as each wonders if it will ever turn into a paying proposition. As a self-taught "arriviste" to the art scene, I’m more likely to explain my work with the timeworn "I don’t know if it’s art, but I know what I like" than a rounded discourse on my influences, technique and rationale. The more I have been exposed to the honest, innocent question: "What is it?" the more I have felt uncomfortable about not having a more developed answer than "It’s photography, actually." Finally, help arrived in the form of a special number of The Photo Review devoted to celebrating "Camera Work," the quarterly publication initiated by Alfred Stieglitz at the turn of the 20th century. An essay by Peter Bunnell explained what made the work of Stieglitz and his contemporaries different. Just as the Impressionists had moved away from strict representational painting, Pictorial Photographers worked to "dissociate their work from the look of applied photographs … and to make photographs that mimic works of art in other media." According to Bunnell, the Pictorial movement "reflected deeper social concerns and aesthetic values and these should be seen as their linkage to the world of art." This would also seem to mirror the Impressionists. And therewith, I feel comfortable my chosen method of visual expression is, legitimately, art. Of course, I don’t hold myself in the same company as Stieglitz. But I do feel the same need as he to educate the public about the validity of my form of artistic expression. Today, more than a century after Stieglitz began his quest, it is not unusual for the more "traditional" artists to deride or scoff at an artist who uses a shutter release, mouse and monitor rather than a brush, pencil and easel. But my skin is too thick to allow their frustrations to take me down. And with this historical basis for my aesthetic choices, it will be much easier to have ready that important discourse on influences, technique and rationale — at least for those who wish to discuss it more deeply.

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