8.27.11

I give you... Buddy. This dog lives across the street from my Old Lady's house in Vermont. Buddy is a Blue Tick Hound, which is a breed of dog developed especially for barking. Buddy barks at everything, all day long, soulfully, with his entire being. Look closely at this photo of Buddy- he's barking so hard his front paws are coming off the ground. This happens every time he barks, which is about five- hundred times a day, at everyone, for any reason. He's been barking at me for five years, every time I show up at the house, every time I walk to my car to go to the store, every time I get out of my car and walk back to the house with my candy bar. When I go biking and head out up the hill, he barks as if I were wearing a grizzly bear costume. When I arrive home a few hours later, he barks like he's never seen me, or any other human being, before. He's so cute, though and I really want him to like me. I went over there with a piece of steak once and he barked like I was going to slit his throat, then ran behind the house, where he continued barking... so I waited... about three minutes later, the barking stopped and Buddy came trotting back around as if nothing had ever happened, saw me again, freaked out even more and ran back behind the house. I will pet Buddy.

New York/Sao Paulo, August '11

    New York, Fall '10

8.15.11

From Chernobyl, Ukraine/surrounding region from April '10. I recorded the sound outside of the Chernobyl Orthodox church as the Easter service was getting out at around 4:30 A.M. The sound at the end was recorded outside my cabin in the woods in a village called Orane. I recommend using headphones when you look at this slideshow.
The resolution of the slideshow is crappy- you can see the higher-res version at: http://youtu.be/YMc4jer-suE

8.7.11

 Sao Paulo, Brazil August '11

Colorado, Summer '10  Jen

New York, March '11  I got to act in an opera at Lincoln Center over the winter. The man in the photo is the conductor, George. I marveled at how seemingly effortlessly he made sense of the (to me) impenetrable  score, conducted three sopranos and an orchestra, maintained a relaxed and positive vibe for the three months of rehearsal and still somehow found the time to impersonate a vampire. The person reflected in that thing on the right is Amanda, one of the other cast members. That thing is a mirrored cube hanging from the ceiling. For this piece there were 50 or so of these cubes hanging on the stage. They rose and fell in various patterns. Each cube was operated by one stage hand holding a string. The first few dress rehearsals were basically a game of whack-a-mole, only more avant garde. Cubes flew in and out at random times and velocities. We cast members ducked and shuffled. A soprano got bonked on the head. I kept imagining the crew back there smoking joints and looking confusedly at their cue sheets, all standing around the rigging station holding their strings in the dark like slave boat rowers just kind of winging it, pulling and releasing, shrugging at each other, unaware of the carnage just a few yards away.

8.1.11

 New York, March '11  I was walking to the bakery on the corner in a tank top and sandals earlier today thinking "I love summer... I love my neighborhood... I love this bakery... look at that nice tree..." I remember late March, just a few months ago. Everyone wanted spring so badly but every day was like this one- wet, cold, crappy...with people lining up in quiet solidarity and mutual disgust to step around slushy puddles with scrunched up faces, hunched over, trying to pull themselves deeper into their coats. I think it was this same day where, a few blocks up the street, there were chunks of ice falling off a skyscraper and landing on the sidewalk. I looked at a bagel cart vendor standing a few yards from where some ice hit and we smiled at each other and shrugged.

 Under the F train elevated tracks near Smith/9th streets in Brooklyn, Winter '10

Rajasthan, Feb. '11  Who here doesn't like goats?  How can anyone not like goats? I walk about 200 yards into this desert and am about to take a shot of the herder sitting quietly with the high voltage towers in the distance. It's mid-day- very still, very hot...  then this goat sneaks up and sticks his head into the frame like a hand puppet. Hilarious. Don't talk to me about how their eyes look satanic with little rectangles for pupils and how that scares you- baloney. I love goats.