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Thursday, February 28, 2013

DAY SIXTEEN

DAY SIXTEEN


Yesterday, February 27, 2013 was really interesting in so many ways!

 After just posting something on Facebook that came from Ram Dass and Be Here Now, I still have a goal. Goals. After this post, I'll have 84 more entries that I hope to accomplish. Free form writing can be liberating for the writer but unless you are James Joyce, it might be a bit difficult for some readers.  In her book The Book of Seeing With One's Own Eyes, Sharon Doubiago takes a cue from Joyce with one descriptive sentence that goes on for pages. If you have not read her poetry or her memoir My Father's Love, (it's in two big, big volumes) I highly recommend it. It's revealing and very intimate. Highly recommended. Poetic. I'm a fan.
  
The top photo was shot with my little Canon SD10 digital camera.  I seem to be into sky, angles and shadows now.  Making these photos on the long walk from Cosmo Auto Parts to my house yesterday gave me many opportunities to see my neighborhood in a more personal way.  Having my camera in hand and actively looking for opportnities to shoot the clear blue sky (though at first i was inspired by some terrific clouds last October. See my Day One posting), I have to take what I get.  The limitations of this tiny camera make the challenge fun.  Framing is a really tough  in the teeny little frame with the sun in your eyes.  

This other photo shows a cement angel that's similar to Jill D'Agnenica's angels that she arranged in every square mile of Los Angeles in 1993.  I so admire that woman.  The simplicity of conceptual art that makes us deal with it really appeals to me.

Other very good stuff that emerged today is still percolating. 

Wouldn't it be great if good stuff percolated every day?   

Sheehan 2/28/13 

 



Saturday, February 23, 2013

DAY FIFTEEN

Day Fifteen

There was a party in Montrose today to celebrate the Centennial of this Glendale adjacent community that features the meandering Honolulu Avenue filled with carnival games and a few local artists.  My friend, Cowgirl Karen Quest, came down from San Francisco to perform.  She holds a crowd so well, it's magic.  Faced with outdoor interruptions, screaming kids and selecting at random a Santa Barbara cop out of the audience whom she made us all love by turning him into a cow, roping him, tying him up and then branding him on the left cheek!

Karen's patter, her rope work and double handed whip routine all climaxed by spinning a fifty foot loop successfully were all just lots of fun.  It will happen again tomorrow, February 24th and later in the year, I think.  Yahoo!

This photo of Bronson Photography Studios is sans clouds.  Maybe one of these days I'll get Photoshop on this computer and can sneak some in.   Meanwhile, I like the angles and the colors in this shot.

Eighty-five more entries to go! 

Friday, February 15, 2013

DAY Fourteen

Day Fourteen

It was my original plan last October when the clouds inspired me to take a hundred photos and write about them. I intended to move a pace with images all over the place and simple descriptions of what I'd seen.  Whether I can actually get a hundred ideas here is still a challenge.  I took a short detour yesterday with my thoughts on the terrible situation with the deaths of five people over the past few days. 

Luckily, it was a gorgeous day today

The Gurdwara Temple on Vermont rises pristine in the February sunshine.  I've always admired the Sikhs for their devotion to basic Eastern Thought.  Today I admired the great contrast of the sharp corners / the dark and light / the cupolas contrasted against the Los Angeles sky. 

 

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Day Thirteen

Day Thirteen:  February 13, 2013

After days of searching, Christopher Dorner, a former LAPD officer and Navy reservist, may have been killed. 

Sheriffs say that it was a tear gas canister that started the fire that eventually consumed the cabin near Big Bear.  The loss of four lives and the life of the alleged murderer touches us on many levels. 

The discussion regarding firearms and the Second Amendment will not be resolved any time soon.  I still advocate the regulation and registration of ammunition.  After all, it's the bullets that do the damage. 

That said.  If, indeed, Dorner is identified as the dead body in the burned down cabin, we will never know what truly drove this man to the lengths he was driven to seek revenge for being dismissed from the LAPD.  I have often wondered why authorities are in such a rush to bring holed up criminals into custody.  The use of a 'Bear Cat' demolition device to literally tear the cabin apart was evidently employed.  The man was surrounded.  Escape was impossible.  Could he have been taken without the destruction of the cabin?

Could the value of bringing criminals to justice bring insights into mental health and other social issues.  

There is no excuse for murder, of course.  I just wonder about the military mentality and why 'extreme prejudice' trumps trying to bring a fugitive to justice by waiting the fugitive out.  We may never know how Dorner died.  "Death before dishonor" may have been bywords for him. Certainly, he must have been deranged.     

The funeral for fallen Riverside Police Officer Michael Crain was carried from beginning to end on at least one local Los Angeles television station. The heavy military tone of the ceremonies was a bit troubling for me.  This is not to diminish condolences for Officer Crain's family, but I wonder why the entire funeral was televised for hours and hours.  

Will the same coverage and honors be also televised for San Bernardino Sheriff Jeremiah MacKay?  Or, for the slain couple: Monica Kwan and Keith Lawrence? 

These are just questions.  I know they may never be answered, but as we face tens of deaths by fire arms daily, I think a better question might address the ease of acquiring ammunition for the millions of guns already in the hands of Americans who think they deserve to keep them because of their limited interpretation of the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Michael Sheehan