quote from valerian

“All photographs connote; and without some understanding that photographs connote or imply or suggest, viewers will not get beyond the obvious and will see photographs as reality rather than pictures of reality.”

-Terry Barrett from “Criticizing Photographs“

fiction #4

He’d been asked to fetch a drink from the vending machine outside, and for the life of him he couldn’t understand why. Dinner had been just an hour before, and he remembered at least three iced-teas with her cut of lamb, and half the milkshake they shared for dessert. She rushed their walk to the motel room afterward, “piss like a racehorse” being her only rationale. He remembered her heels clacking like a bad tire on the pavement as he was dragged along , the evening stroll on fast-forward. Now she waited at their motel, probably pacing, probably impatient for that drink. He walked to the corner machines and the streets looked inviting. Empty and cool, moist like in every movie, the streetlamps reflecting off the asphalt like topaz. He contemplated wandering off the sidewalk and onto the street, heading in some senseless direction. But then there he was, in front of the vending machine, fishing his pockets for coins

Rapping his nails on the glowing buttons, he strained to remember what she wanted. The lights inside the machine were blinding. He tried reading all the names of the drinks through squinty eyes. Coke. . .7-Up. . . And felt two hands grasp him. He was spun around, his legs twisting. It was her. Her face was illuminated in a vanity-mirror light, her eyes feral and glowing, her lips slightly apart. She pushed him hard against the vending machine, the plastic face bowing from the force, as she wrenched off his belt buckle and unbuttoned his pants. And down she went, swift and without sound, disappearing like a riverfish. She had her way with him, his skin had losing all feeling save the fire between his legs, the friction, the spit, the teeth, the tongue. Her other hand grasping tightly at his shirt, she eveloped him like hot molasses. The city lights all blended together like watercolors. His knees buckled and he was draped in rapture, his head thrown back in epileptic thrill.

fiction #3

The air around him had gone stale. His breath was hot, the taste was fetid, and he struggled to suck whatever fresh air was left in the room. He couldn't help but imagine that, somehow, death had seeped into his room. No, it was impossible, bodies don’t decay that fast. It couldn’t have been more than eight, ten minutes since he removed the plugs from their sockets and watched the ever-vigilant lights of the life-support system dim and fade. And then maybe another minute or two before her lungs could no longer recycle their oxygen and her brain suffocates, the cells dying one by one like trees in a forest fire. After the brain he didn’t know what would be the next to go. The liver? The outer extremities? Regardless, it must have been no more than six minutes ago that he was sure his grandmother was dead.

Now he sat on the bed of his own room, a sweat breaking across his forehead. When he was three years old she had lost her speech, at five she’d become a vegetable, and when his parents had gone they were marooned together. For the next fifteen years he’d been imprisoned by her mute warden, shackled to her whirring machines and her colostomy bag, commanded by a master who’d never spoken. Now that she’s gone, he’s been granted freedom, his own life. But the ember hatred for her smoldered still, and even after having completed his Kevorkian task he felt no sense of absolution. Maybe it was not death that crept its way from across the hall and choked the air around him. Maybe it was something else.

boy in bedroom, late afternoon/early evening, faint blue-purple lighting coming from window, front lit by dim flourescent bulb (cool). sitting hunched over on the corner of the bed, wearing singlet, expression is inner sadness/guilt outer expression is slightly overwhelmed, exasperated, nervous, -deep breaths-

thomas dozol: "i'll be your mirror"

mixing sunlight with ambient

japanese magazine cover

philip-lorca dicorcia - hustlers

dim ambient sun, strobe from right 3/4, barndoored?

wraparound backlit sun

ambient streetlight in background, strobe from right

ambient signlight, light strobe from left 3/4

strobe or sunlit back, gelled strobe on face

ambient sun, strobe on right?

ambient sun backlighting, reflected sun from right?

ambient streetlight, snooted strobe from left 3/4

ambient sun from window

ambient sun or strobe from right

fiction #2

It wasn’t romance, though he knew better not to expect any. But it wasn’t at all what he had imagined. There was no passion, no buttons torridly unbuttoned, no sheets torn from beds. Everything up to this point had in fact been decidedly banal, for something he’d never done before. With girls it was different, careful and choreographed, like a cat navigating sewer grill, tip-toed. All the moves were planned beforehand, the lines rehearsed so they wouldn’t suspect that he would rather be with a man. Any man. With a man, it would be different.

He found this one on the Internet, a Craigslist booty-call, “no-strings-attached”, with a dirty mouth and bad grammar. The picture in the profile was equally if not more attractive than he was. When the invitation was accepted he was so nervous he wanted to vomit. That morning he had a hard-on for an hour. And now he was on all fours, back arched like a stegosaur, as strange hands gripped and clawed behind him. They didn’t even kiss. It was more like an exercise machine, swaying back and forth on fixed axes. It didn’t even hurt, like he was scared it would. Now he wished it did.

 Older youth, shirtless, on hands and knees, expression is inner sadness/outer indifference or boredom, late afternoon ambient light (cool) + warm tungsten

thumbsucker (2005)

fiction #1

She found out about his accident through the Internet. A circulated e-mail sent to everyone at school, a six-storey fall around 11 o’clock last night. They wanted everyone to know it was an accident, the word was mentioned at least thrice. She had her reservations. Though she had never spoken a word to him, she knew him better than his friends at school. Together they would stay up until sunrise exchanging mobile phone messages and chatting online. His cat’s name was Kafka, his favorite pasta was tuna and olive oil, his shoe size was 9 1/2. She knew he was good on his feet.

After receiving the e-mail she left her house without turning off her computer. She chose a direction and headed toward it, watching her feet move on the pavement. She forgot to wear shoes. She watched the sidewalk turn to dirt and then to grass. At this distance the glint of cars on the highway moved slowly, like shiny insects on a tabletop. The little people in their little cars, speeding always forward. From far away she could see all of them, standing in the middle like the fulcrum between them and their destinations. There she stopped, facing west toward the highway and the late afternoon sun. She watched the cars in the distance and knew none of them could ever feel what she felt. Stuck, immobile, like the mosquito in amber in Jurrasic Park. Nobody else could ever feel what she felt, and the only one who did died on the sidewalk outside his apartment building last night. And now there she stood, unmoving, as clouds whipped across the afternoon sky and a drop of hot blood trickled down her nose.

Light haired, light skinned girl outdoors, late afternoon/angular sunlight, trees and greenery in the distance, bloody nose.

freaks and geeks (1999)