8 Reasons To Steal The Bed Covers

PotD

8 Reasons To Steal The Bed Covers

November 25, 2015

The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late.—Ogden Nash

For the larger part of this year, I assumed I had completely lost this series. The hard drive on which it was originally saved had decided it didn’t want to work with the operating system on the computer. There weren’t a huge number of pictures on there, but there were some that I considered quite lovely, this one among them. Fortunately, after we upgraded systems last month, the drive was magically readable again! Not sure how that happens, but I’m not complaining.

Another thing I lose often is the covers. Someone I know tends to be a cover hog and since one tends to react instinctively when asleep I just let her have them. I am not going to risk upsetting the Marine while she sleeps; somehow, I imagine that ending rather badly for me. When winter hits, beds become the battlefield of relationships and whoever loses either freezes or sleeps on the couch. We don’t want you sleeping on the couch, so that’s why we have today’s list.

8 Reasons To Steal The Bed Covers

You have to get up first in the morning.
Whoever has to get up first deserves to go to sleep first and have the longer uninterrupted sleep, right? The person on the other side of the bed can have the covers during that extra five or ten minutes they stay in bed each morning. You, on the other hand, have to get up and get busy. You deserve to have the covers during the night.

If someone would snuggle more you wouldn’t need the covers.
Let’s face it: body heat is a wonderful thing to share during the winter. Unfortunately, a lot of people have difficulty snuggling; they keep rolling over to the other side of the bed, leaving you alone and cold. Therefore, you deserve the covers to punish them for not being more intimate during a time in your life when what you really need is an all-night hug.

Without the covers, your cold feet go onto your lover’s back.
Our extremities are what lose heat first, even in bed, and that means one’s feet are going to get cold quickly when deprived of the covers. Cold feet instinctively migrate all on their own toward the nearest heat source, which is typically the cover hog’s backside. If they don’t want to be jolted awake by your cold feet, they need to share the covers.

Covers keep you from becoming ill.
Why should you have the covers? Because you’re a delicate flower who is going to become terribly, horribly, and ferociously ill if you get too cold at night. If you’re sick, then that’s definitely going to ruin all those wonderful winter plans you had, including that visit to the in-laws over the holidays. Does your significant other really want you ill over the holidays? Of course not!

You snore louder when you’re cold.
Not that we’re actually admitting that we snore, because you’ve never heard you snore; but, you’re pretty sure that if you were going to snore it would definitely be worse when you are cold. The louder you snore, the less sleep everyone else gets, including the pets. Ask your significant other if they really want to put up with a grumpy Mr. Snickety Lemons in the morning.

You’re grumpy when you don’t get enough sleep.
You need your eight hours of sleep each night or else you’re going to be an unbearable best the next morning. You take going to bed rather seriously and follow a precise routine to make sure you get the optimum amount of rest possible. When your partner steals the covers, though, that upsets the delicate balance you’ve created and you cannot be held responsible if salt somehow winds up in the coffee the next morning.

There are other blankets in the closet, damn it.
You have a big bed and the covers just barely fit over the whole thing even when there is no one under them. So, it just seems logical that your significant other would just grab their own blanket from the closet and let that solve the problem. Well, unless they grab the 115-year-old quilet that your great-great-grandmother handstiched together with her bare hands. That one’s yours; they’d best leave it alone.

No one’s getting sex as long as you are cold.
Science has proven that it is almost impossible to become sexually arounsed when one’s external temperature is below a point of reasonable comfort. If your partner has any plans for being even the least bit fiesty, they’d better let you have those covers. Otherwise, they can just keep those grabby little paws to themselves.

See, you’re totally justified in demanding the covers every night. Now, you just need to make sure that your lover actually sees this list before you go to bed. Maybe if you share it to their Facebook wall and tag their mother that will work. You know the mom-in-law understands.

pop culture / PotD

6 Reasons To Never Give Up

November 24, 2015

The secret of our success is that we never, never give up.—Wilma Mankiller, Principle Chief of the Cherokee, 1985-1995

Today’s picture is rarely posted because we typically go with the more familiar frame that resembles the famous Rosie the Riveter illustration from World War II. In some ways, though, I prefer this to the original because it demonstrates that strong and independent women don’t stop being attractive and sexy. That never give up attitude has its own form of attraction that is accentuated in the full-length pose. Jennifer Baxter did a great job on the body art, too, don’t you think?

This time of year, a lot of people look at what hasn’t been accomplished and give up. Actually, this time of year, a lot of people have difficulty just getting out of bed. When the sun doesn’t even start coming up until you’re already half-way through your morning, it screws with one’s sense of place and time. After fighting the same emotions day in and day out, persevering becomes a tremendous challenge. That’s why we have today’s list.

6 Reasons To Never Give Up

Plenty of people didn’t succeed on their first try; giving up removes the opportunity to win.
Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Julia Child didn’t start cooking until she was in her mid-30s. Dr. Ruth Westheimer survived the Holocaust, immigrated to the US, raised a family, and didn’t even start talking about sex until she was in her 50s. Keep trying. Amazing things are yet to happen.

You can’t see the future; giving up denies you the victory right around the corner.
There are no crystal balls. Horoscopes are ineffective. That line about once a loser always a loser? Absolute bullshit. There’s no giant carrot dangling in front of us, but that doesn’t mean that the reward isn’t waiting for us to get there. Keep going. You’re almost there.

There’s only one you; giving up leaves a void no one else can fill.
What you do, your voice, your presence in the universe is wholly unique and the universe relies on you being here, being you, to make everything complete. No one can take your place. No one else has your perspective. You are the one piece to the puzzle that makes the picture complete.

No one is going to just hand you success; giving up takes you out of contention.
You cannot win the race you haven’t run. While that sounds like a rather simple platitude, the reality is that success doesn’t just show up at the front door after you’ve been sitting on your ass all day. Imagine the futility of planting a garden but never watering it. If you want the food, if you want the car, if you want anything, you have to get up and go get it; life doesn’t have an at-home delivery service.

Darkness doesn’t last forever; giving up makes you blind to the sunrise yet to come.
There are days when life seems to have been going on for so very, very long without any noticeable progress and you just want to go back to bed and sleep all day. Darkness has a way of making us think that it is going to last forever, but it lies. Sunrise is inevitable, but one has to stay awake long enough to see it. Now is not the time for a nap.

You are setting an example; when you give up, you teach others to give up as well.
One doesn’t have to be famous or a parent or in a position of authority to be a role model. No matter who you are, no matter how isolated you may feel, someone is watching you and is patterning their own life after yours. The responsibility we have to persevere is tremendous. Sometimes what ends up making the biggest difference is the legacy we leave for someone else to follow. Your legacy has yet to be written.

It’s Tuesday and this is a short week. You’ve got this. Get up, get dressed and make things happen!

Note: After all that talk I need to make one point very clear: if you even think you may be suffering from any form of depression, please seek professional help. Feeling unmotivated, frustrated with a current situation, or just tired from working too long without a break are situations we can conquer on our own; depression is not. Depression is a disease that kills too many people. Please, get help.

Art / Music / pop culture / PotD

5 Memories From Last Summer

November 23, 2015

charles i. letbetter - 5 Things About Last Summer

We cannot stop the winter or the summer from coming. We cannot stop the spring or the fall or make them other than they are. They are gifts from the universe that we cannot refuse. But we can choose what we will contribute to life when each arrives.—Gary Zukav

Technically, this isn’t the best photo I’ve ever taken, even though it’s one of my favorites. Summer photos are usually brighter and the fact that the whole photo is set on a diagonal slant is a bit unnerving to the eyes. The location had limitations that prevented me from shooting from a better position, though, and working with a diagonal frame was the only way to capture the reflection with the equipment I had available.

I don’t know how things are where you live, but we’re shivering in our shoes this morning with a wind chill of 20° F. I know many of us in the North had our first significant snowfall this weekend and while some find that exciting, most of us are less than thrilled. Where did that extended summer go? Summer is always full of memories, and this one was no exception, so let’s take a look at five things from this summer that we really shouldn’t forget.

US Wins Women’s FIFA World Cup
Did we see that coming? No, not really. We wanted it to happen, but when it comes to FIFA level play, the US just hasn’t had the best luck in the past. Routing Japan 5-2 was totally unexpected unless one happens to be a die-hard supporter of the team. This was one of the best feel-good moments of the summer.

Misty Copeland Promoted to Principal Ballerina at American Ballet Theater
This just doesn’t happen; black women don’t become principals in American ballet. One of the longest-standing bastions of racist tradition in the US fell with a thundering crash when Misty Copeland was promoted to Principal Ballerina this past June. Her promotion not only opens the door of diversity in American ballet but gives hope to millions of little girls in pink tights and toe shoes all across the country. Here’s a sample.

Inside Out Hit Theaters
There were lots of movies that had a bigger box office this summer, but none will have a larger long-term effect than this animated movie from Disney/Pixar that, more than anything, helps kids better understand what emotions are and the importance of feelings. The price of a movie ticket and popcorn is likely the cheapest source of therapy this generation will ever experience.

Shut Up And Dance was the feel-good song of the summer
Again, it wasn’t the biggest seller of the summer, but Walk The Moon’s catching song and its unusual video was the one song that brought multiple generations onto the dance floor to strut their stuff. My youngest son introduced me to the song and it’s been on my playlists ever since. Even now, the song is still charting.

Spending Time With Family
This is why we love summer; those moments in the park, or the pool, or the lake, or hiking, or whatever brings your family together. While school is in session, everyone is going their own direction with a dozen different activities, but summer gives us time to do things together, things we’ll remember the rest of our lives. We went traveled, spent time with extended family, and cooked food outside over fire. There are so many pictures I’m still not done editing them all. This is how summer should be.

I can’t keep the cold from coming any more than I can keep my old bones from hurting, but we can keep the memories of summer alive and maybe, just maybe, that will help keep us warm on the inside a little bit longer.

pop culture / PotD

The Final Countdown(s)

November 22, 2015

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.—Martin Luther King, Jr.

We’re hurtling toward the end of the year and that means we only have ten, count ’em, #POTD posts left before we take our December break. So, we’re going to spend these final few days with pictures that we weren’t able to make fit anywhere else and counting down a number of things we think are fun and important.

There’s no real cohesive point to the images. Some, like today’s, are quite old by digital standards. The Legends Football League’s Cynthing Schmidt was only 19 years old when we took this picture. Now, you’ll find her popping up in places like Sports Illustrated’s Lovely Lady of the Day feature. She seems to have done quite well for herself, but that has absolutely nothing to do with today’s list.

10 Things We Need To Do Before The End Of The Year

Kiss A Baby.
Chances are, unless you live in a cave with absolutely no interaction with anyone, you know someone who has a baby, or at least a toddler. Nothing is as calming and joyful as being slobbered upon by a six-month-old who thinks you taste good.

Spend five minutes doing nothing but petting an animal. Animals are wonderful givers of affection and are surprisingly effective at de-stressing humans. Just be selective about the animal. Lions and fish aren’t so cuddly.

Take an online class. Yep, there’s still time for you to actually accomplish something so that you’re not totally embarrassed while visiting with family over the holidays. Mashable has a good list here.

Donate some time to a charity. This time of year, charities who directly help the poor need more than just money, they need your time. Packing and distributing food take a lot of effort. If you have children, make it a family affair. The lesson in giving is invaluable.

Count your blessings. Seriously. Pen. Paper. Write. Do it the old-fashioned way so that it actually sticks in your head how fortunate you’ve been this year. Then, seal it in an envelope to open next year when you’re feeling blue.

Try the new Oreos® churros. Seriously. They’re real. Check here for details. The holidays are time for special treats, right? J&J Foods just gave us the best present ever. You know you want to try them. Go ahead. Give in. We won’t tell.

Read a book. You’ve been meaning to do that all year, but somehow the time just slips away. There are a lot of lists with great titles from which to choose. We rather like the choices at NPR Books, or just visit a bookstore and browse!

Join a sing-a-long. The world is full of timid singers that would never dare to sing in public on their own, but one of the joys of this time of year is that several groups sponsor community sing-a-longs, usually featuring holiday songs that everyone knows. Look around and find one near you.

Wrap something different in bacon. There is no going wrong with bacon. I’ve put it around food I otherwise detest and it totally changes my ability to down brussel sprouts. I’m thinking bacon wrapped sugar cookies sounds like a good idea.

Thank a service member. Holidays can be especially tough for those who are away from their families. Remember, the US military is comprised totally of volunteers. Show them some appreciation for their sacrifice.

This is your final chance to keep the year from totally sucking and should keep you busy for a moment or two. Should you become bored, don’t worry, we have more lists coming all week!

PotD

Future Thoughts

November 21, 2015

And yet, I suppose you mourn the loss or the death of what you thought your life was, even if you find your life is better after. You mourn the future that you thought you’d planned.—Lynn Redgrave

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Planning for the future is one of those things we are instructed to do from the moment we first begin primary school. Kindergarten prepares us for first grade., then we’re prepped for Middle School which, n turn, prepares us for High School, and at some point, somewhere, we’re supposed to graduate from something being fully prepared for the future, but we never truly are. There are always surprises. Our best plans are laid to waste when the future doesn’t happen exactly the way we anticipate.

We have ten days left in November. Of those, at least two are taken up with Thanksgiving events and, for us, celebrating a seven-year-old’s birthday. Some of you will spend time traveling back and forth, and the more dim-witted among us will waste time standing in line to spend money they don’t really have on things they don’t really need. When all is said and done, there might be four days of half-way decent productivity before December hits. That’s not a lot of time to plan.

Once December hits, this blog shuts down for the rest of the calendar year. Next week we try cramming in all the stuff that didn’t fit elsewhere. I’ll post something snarky on the first just because it’s my 55th birthday and I can’t let that pass without flinging something silly into the cybersphere. Beyond that, though, the rest of this year is given to planning for the next: what we will post, what we won’t, what we’ll change, what we’ll completely eliminate, and whether there’s anything new worth tossing into the mix. There are a lot of things to consider. We’ve already been doing research, looking at the year’s stats, and formulating ideas.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Today’s picture is exactly what one would see if they were looking over my shoulder while I’m in research and planning mode, attempting to divine the future. We play with pictures and try new editing techniques. We do a lot of reading. We check trends. Yet, for all that activity, I almost always end up sitting here, pipe in hand, headphones on my head, and when appropriate a shot of scotch within easy reach, wondering if I’m wasting my time.

What makes planning for the future so difficult and uncertain is that we do so expecting certain things to stay the same. We expect the same people to remain in our lives, fulfilling the same roles, behaving in a predictable fashion. We know some things, such as technology, will change, but we expect the base elements of our lives to stay put and when they are suddenly and unexpectedly altered, everything we had planned for the future suddenly goes out the window. There have been too many years where I counted upon a level of stability that just didn’t happen; the future wasn’t remotely predictable.

December planning may be a sure sign of mental instability on my part, but at this stage of my life it’s as much habit as anything, and I really can use the break from trying to find 600 or so words at 4:00 every morning. Looking into the next year, I know PFC Letbetter will be stationed in Japan, a handful of people are getting married, politicians and terrorists will both be disruptive, and mobile devices will complete their takeover of the internet. Beyond that, though, anything is a guess and if you want to see how it all turns out, you’ll just have to keep watching.[/one_half_last]

PotD

Relationship Status

November 20, 2015

As much as I’m not a journalist, I use journalism. And when you photograph a relationship, it’s quite wonderful to let something unfold in front of you.—Annie Leibovitz

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Relationship can be a dangerous word. Neither Kat nor I have anything listed under “relationship status” on social media, and that isn’t likely to change any time too terribly soon. We both hate mushy, public displays of oh-my-significant-other-is-so-wonderful and we laugh and roll our eyes when we somehow still manage to find ourselves being that couple. We’ve both had relationships before, so this isn’t new. Unexpected might be a better word.

Almost three years have passed since Kat and I first met. Once we started talking to each other, we never stopped. Interestingly enough, the one thing we were both fairly sure did not actually exist was love. Having tried the relationship thing before and failed miserably, we were neither one convinced that this whole love thing was even possible. Mutual attraction? Sure. Long-term tolerance for the sake of companionship? Absolutely. Actual love? Nah, it’s a myth.

Okay, so we might have been wrong. We’re not the first two people in the history of the world to start a relationship without giving in to what we were pretty sure was a myth. Once that opinion changed, we still didn’t want to be all mushy about it. After all, there’s 25 years difference in our ages. We get strange looks just holding hands in public, and that typically has less to do with relationship and more to do with my damn legs not wanting to hold me upright. The expression on people’s faces when we do kiss in public is annoying. Of course, the expression on our faces when we see couples kissing in public is pretty annoying as well. Mush. Blech.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]An interesting thing happened as more acquaintances figured out that Kat and I were actually a couple; the disbelief of those friends on the fringe became anger, or jealousy, or something else not exactly in the category of accepting. For Kat, there was a sudden rush of would-be suitors who suddenly felt the need to declare that they had loved her first, they just hadn’t gotten around to saying anything yet. One guy even hilariously assumed that she only liked me for my money. We still laugh about that one.

On my end, though, the response to our relationship was more silent; the kind of silence that occurs when one witnesses something horrible happening right in front of them. Some just stopped talking. Others unfriended and blocked me on social media. And those who are still emotionally stuck in high school talked behind our backs, but not to our faces. While no one terribly close was involved, the response is still disappointing. We thought we had chosen only intelligent acquaintances.

Three years in, our relationship status isn’t likely to change. I’m more surprised than anyone that this relationship thing has actually happened because I was so very convinced it wasn’t possible. What we’ve learned is that love does exist, that we’re not on some existential list of doom, and that it’s rather entertaining when I tell the doctor Kat’s my fiancé, not my daughter. To those who still have a problem with us, I have but one word for you: Goodbye.[/one_half_last]

Music / PotD

When The Music Dies

November 19, 2015

To be alive, to be able to see, to walk, to have houses, music, paintings – it’s all a miracle. I have adopted the technique of living life miracle to miracle.—Arthur Rubinstein

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]”Do you still play?”

Something in me dies a little every time I’m asked that question. Music was such an overwhelming part of my life for the first 26 years. To no be playing, or conducting, or doing something creative in the field seems like a giant disappointment to myself, my parents, and all the teachers who suffered myriad lessons where I had failed to practice sufficiently. The adult I am now is less than pleased with the child I was then.

I miss making music outside of myself. I miss being part of an organization and having talented individuals with which to work, even amateurs. I miss the feeling of excitement when everything comes together in a performance and sends chills up my spine. Memories of the intensity of those moments make me glad that I had them, but wonder if I could still re-create that feeling now after being away for so long. With continued, every-day immersion in the music comes a sensitivity to the subtleties; one hears things in the 453rd listening that one did not hear before. Certainly, any sense of precision I once had would be gone now.

Questions linger in my mind as to whether I could ever return to a shadow of the musician I once imagined myself to be. For too many years, schedules that created 18- to 22-hour days prevented me from even being able to touch a piano. The day I finally sold the instrument at which I had sat through my entire childhood was painful, but not because I was losing anything that at that point was an integral part of my life. Rather, it was like the passing of a once-dear friend whom I hadn’t seen in twenty years. Mastery of music does not happen in a casual come-and-go relationship; either one is fully committed or one is merely a dabbler.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Kat used the children as an excuse for buying a keyboard a couple of years ago. We immediately set it up right next to my desk so that I could simply turn and play a few bars as the mood struck. Such an arrangement proved impractical for space as small as ours, though, and now it sits in the studio, out of sight. I typically wait until everyone is gone before slipping in there and playing for a few minutes. Each time I do, I am painfully reminded of how much skill and dexterity I’ve lost. My hands hurt as I try to execute a simple two-octave scale. Fingers fumble over keys that they once knew intimately.

Not that music is totally absent from my life, mind you. My playlists stretch on for hours and hours; some of them could fill an entire day without any hint of repetition, but I doubt such a thing is all that unusual. My opinions and criticism of music is still just as strong as ever, also. Some may remember earlier this year when a video went viral of Denver quarterback Peyton Manning “conducting” the Denver Symphony in an incredibly weak and pathetic rendition of the University of Tennessee’s fight song, “Rocky Top.” What ruined the video for me was that Manning was holding the baton backward. How did no one correct such an obvious error?

If, as Rubenstein suggests, music is a miracle, then I have let that miracle quite literally slip through my fingers. I keep telling myself that one of these days I’ll have sufficient time and discipline to bring back the Beethoven and the Debussy, perhaps to even find a small group of which I might be a part, but we know that won’t actually happen. The music that once dominated my life has died. Perhaps it is time to let it rest in peace.[/one_half_last]

PotD

Father, In Absentia

November 18, 2015

My mother and father were both much more remarkable than any story of mine can make them. They seem to me just mythically wonderful.—Orson Welles

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]This is going to hurt.

Even if I were perfect, there is no way I could ever live up to my impression of my own father. He wasn’t perfect himself, either, but even in his humanity and inevitable error, there was never a moment when I felt anything short of total, complete love from him. Were he still alive, Poppa would be 86 years old tomorrow and, regardless of what his physical condition might be. would still be trying to love everyone, including all the grandkids. That’s just who he was.

Unfortunately, he didn’t pass on much of that trait to me. Actually, I think my younger brother caught the gentle side of Poppa’s personality and he wears it extremely well. My brother makes a very good father to his little girl (even though she’s at an age where she may not appreciate that just yet). I picked up more of my grandfather Slover’s traits, the temper, the ability to keep people at a distance, being easily annoyed and slow to display any emotion. Does anyone want to trade?

I’ve been away from the boys now over ten years. I assure you, this wasn’t the plan. I was only going to Indianapolis for eight months, get my head on straight, then move back to Atlanta and start over. From Atlanta, I would have still been able to stay in the boys’ lives, attended concerts, show support, been something more like a dad. But that didn’t happen, did it? I was stuck up here and my boys were stuck with a dad they rarely get to see. Things have improved lately, we were able to spend some time together this summer, but still, the boys don’t have a dad, they have a father, in absentia.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Many years ago, I read an article I didn’t imagine could be true; that children of divorced parents were more likely to be strong leaders, to be tough and shrewd business people, and fare better than children who had both parents. Then, in 2013, Paul Tough’s book How Children Succeed (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), made the argument that children of single parents have more grit and determination, pushing them ahead, giving them the drive to succeed. Both Presidents Clinton and Obama were raised by single parents. So, maybe I’m doing them a favor by not being there.

Does anyone else think that’s nothing more than a copout? Statistics can be twisted to say just about anything we want and these studies seem, in my mind, to be little more than an attempt to cover the guilt of having left. And even if my boys are better in some way for having been without me, I’m certainly not better; I’ve lost.

I’m getting a bit of a second chance now. I’ve been with Kat’s little ones longer than their bio-dad. They’ve even, just recently, started calling me Dad and that feels all warm and fuzzy. But the guilt still plagues me. Can I give to these little ones the father my own children never had?

The picture on my desk reminds me that my boys are not children, but young men, one’s even a Marine, about to deploy to Okinawa in a few weeks. There’s not a day that goes by, though, that I wish I could have been the father for them that mine was for me. The guilt won’t pass. They deserved better. [/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Getting By With A Little Help

November 17, 2015

But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people, and do our best to help them find their own grace. That’s what I strive to do, that’s what I pray to do every day.—Barack Obama

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]The cane sits close to my desk, just in case I need the help. I hate the damn thing. I hate the sight of it, and even more the fact that I should probably use it more than I do. Rain will force me to use it today, I already know. Tomorrow may be another such day as well. With winter beginning to set in, the days when I need the help are going to begin outnumbering the days I don’t. I am somewhat pissed off by the knowledge there are 80-year-old men out running marathons while I can’t get down the hall to the bathroom without assistance.

I never have liked asking for help. Somewhere in my head, for some reason, me asking for help is a sign of weakness. I don’t mind others asking for help when they need it, though I am slightly annoyed when a certain five-year-old asks for help tying her shoes when she’s yet to try for herself. I don’t want to ask anyone for help and I don’t like so often being in a position of needing help that, at times, it feels as though I can’t do anything without some form of assistance. Losing any bit of my independence strikes deep at my soul, leads to depression and questioning my own value in the world. I have quite possibly thrown my cane across the floor in frustration.

Yet, here I am again this morning, needing to lean on something, or someone. I woke up this morning barely able to move. Independence is a myth. I’ve become reliant on Kat and some days when she has to be gone for prolonged periods I often limit my own activities for fear that, should something happen, there’s no one here to help (the cats are absolutely no help at all). When I go for a walk, I have to make sure my phone is well charged in case I should fall, become lost or confused, or need a ride home.

I never expected to have these limitations at this age and it angers me to no end that I can’t keep up with everyone else on the planet. Needing help, even from an inanimate object totally under my control, is emotionally deflating.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]I am one of the lucky ones. Despite my challenges, I have always known that someone has had my back; friends who have made sure I had something to eat, that drove me to doctors appointments, and kept a roof over my head. Not everyone is so fortunate. Nearly four million people in the United States will experience homelessness this year. Of those, almost 60 thousand of those are veterans; 1.3 million are children. They’re just out there, on their own, struggling to exist.

The second stanza of the poem on the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor reads:

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

At this very moment, there are 10,000 Syrian refugees, and more from other war-torn countries, waiting at our shore, looking for help. Yet, because of the cowardly actions of a handful of Daesh morons, there are many of us wanting to hide behind a wall of fear and not let them in. We would rather let them starve or die of hypothermia than accept the risk that comes with being compassionate.

If America has become this country who is afraid too afraid of the shadow of terrorism to keep the refugees of that terrorism alive, then we have lost every last shred of our independence; our fear cripples us just as severely as arthritis in my back and legs. I have a cane on which I can lean, and friends ready to help. The millions homeless and those fleeing terror need help as well. The time has come to step up and be that help.[/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Grumpy Old Man

November 16, 2015

Am I grumpy? I might be. But I think maybe sometimes it’s misinterpreted.—Harrison Ford

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I don’t think of myself as a smoker. I don’t like cigarettes at all; can’t stand the damn things. I light my pipe when the situation around me is frustrating and I need to detach and focus on something that doesn’t involve sending my blood pressure further into the stratosphere. Surprisingly, the need to do so doesn’t occur as often as one might think. And yeah, I know it’s better to use a match than a lighter, but hey, expediency was important, not the quality of the smoke. If you’re going to bitch at me, go away. I’m grumpy.

It was determined long ago, before I was even 30, that I would eventually become a Grumpy Old Man. How that was evident at such a young age, I don’t know. Perhaps I’ve always been fussy. I do know that I’ve always had a short fuse and very little tolerance for stupidity, which seems to have grown dramatically. In fact, I’m willing to bet that the world’s overly abundant ignorance is another contributing factor to my blood pressure issues. The universe should be paying for my medicine. Grumpy Old Man status has been achieved and the morons of the world, all seven billion of them, are to blame.

What I wouldn’t have guessed some 30 years ago is that there would be so very much Grumpy Old Man fodder; it’s everywhere. Let’s start with the idiots in the neighborhood who apparently don’t recognize a stop sign when they see it. The signs for the all-way stop are not hidden behind trees or difficult to see from a distance. No, the people running them are just completely selfish assholes who don’t give a damn about anyone’s safety, including their own. I may have been seen standing out in the street yelling at them more than once, hoping their cars blow up. Why? Because I’m a Grumpy Old Man.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]I was recently complaining about the fools running the stop signs and someone referenced the character of Mr. Wilson from Hank Ketcham’s cartoon, Dennis the Menace. I can support that comparison. Mr. Wilson was someone who just wanted some peace and quiet in his retirement years, and low-and-behold the Mitchells move in next door and give birth to one of the brattiest little kids to ever don a pair of overalls and carry a slingshot. Understand, Dennis wasn’t even old enough for school. Why the hell did the kid have a slingshot? I can totally understand Mr. Wilson’s frequent frustration.

The world needs grumpy old men. If it weren’t for us, the rest of the world would be grabbing another beer and continually shouting, “Hey, watch this!” How do you think terrorist groups are formed? There obviously were no grumpy old men around to slap the insolent jackasses upside the head when they first suggested killing large numbers of people for the attention. What were they thinking, that the collective peoples of the world would just say, “Oh, you poor thing, here, have a cookie?” No, the world responds by blowing the fucking morons to smithereens. Asswipes.

I am quite content to take on the Grumpy Old Man role; I’m settling into it and it feels as comfortable as an old sweater. At some point, I’m going to need a larger front porch on which I can set a rocking chair so that the visual impact of the role is complete. I’m also going to need a dog that growls at anyone smelling of fancy men’s perfume. Being a Grumpy Old Man is my right, my destiny, and I happily embrace this important social position. Now, hand me my pipe and stay the fuck off my lawn! [/one_half_last]

PotD / Social Commentary

Those We Hold Dear

November 14, 2015

Dear sisters and brothers, we realize the importance of light when we see darkness.—Malala Yousafzai

Katherine (2015)

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I was up early this morning, reading through the various news accounts of all that has happened in the past twenty-four hours. Even before I kicked myself out of bed, I wondered if I should abandon our theme and speak directly to the tragedies that have taken place. Without a doubt, this is a very solemn morning and it is not inappropriate that we might gather those we hold dear, hug each one tightly, and be thankful for the breath we breathe.

We have been reminded, once again, that tragedy is a severe part of the human existence. Those who are precious to us, whose lives are most dear, can be taken quickly, and it doesn’t take terrorists for that to happen. As I was scrolling through my newsfeed this morning, there was a taste of sadness much more personal and close to home in the small town of Red Oak, Oklahoma, where a dear soul suffered a heart attack and died as the library she managed was robbed. Red Oak is a small town of about 400 people, from where my brother and I graduated high school. The loss of one there is perhaps even more upsetting to that community that the loss of well over a hundred in Paris.

Faces around the world are filled with sadness, anger, and disbelief this morning. For far too many people, pictures of dear ones are now all they have left, underscoring yet again why photographs are so important. Faces of those we love are not faces we wish to ever forget, no matter what happens in the near or distant future. We want to remember the smiles, the laughter, the silliness, the greatness, the beauty, and the uniqueness of those we love. The relatively small price of portraits is irrelevant compared to the value of the memories these pictures hold.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Kat may throw something at me when she sees the caption under her picture this morning. “Only my dad calls me Katherine,” she’ll likely say. I’ll remind her that I also used the boys’ full names with their pictures earlier in the week and am just being consistent. She will, depending upon the presence of children, toss me a look or a gesture communicating her displeasure, then continue with her reading.

I take many more pictures of Kat than what I post, but of all this year’s portraits this one may be my favorite. I don’t know what anyone else sees, but I look at this photograph and see the face of one who loves to love; not just me, not just her children, but most anyone she meets who isn’t a complete asshole. Here is a face of one who forgives, encourages, sacrifices, and labors for those she holds dear; one who has served her country and values its freedoms. I love this face.

The winds that have plagued Indianapolis the past two days are finally calm. Dear friends in Paris are confirmed safe and well. Children have slept past their typical far-too-early wake-up time. Tragedy and terror and sadness are not going to overwhelm the day here.

Not everyone in the world shares that reality, though, and our heart goes out to those who wake up this morning without the face of that loved one to greet them, whether in Paris, or Red Oak, or anywhere else. Through all that has happened, and whatever might yet come, may we all know Peace, may we all find Hope, and may the faces of those we hold dear bring us Joy.[/one_half_last]

PotD

Always A Smile

November 13, 2015

Get up and dance, get up and smile, get up and drink to the days that are gone in the shortest while.—Simon Fowler

Zachariah (2015)

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I’ve been told that I don’t smile enough. Such comments typically come from people who really don’t know me all that well. Those who are around me the most often know that I actually smile rather often, but my smiles are not the big, toothy smiles that many people associate with happiness. Rather, mine are more subtle: the turning up of one corner of my mouth given away by a certain look in my eyes. Kat catches me smiling even when I don’t think that I am.

As a photographer, a smile isn’t always what I’m wanting to see. Sure, if we’re doing engagement photos or at a birthday party, then by all means, smile away. But for more editorial looks, especially those that involved carefully designed and applied makeup, a big smile can ruin everything. Smiles change the shape of the face, push the cheeks up toward the eyes, and often cause people to appear as though they are squinting. For editorial or fashion work, the wrong kind of smile can be absolutely devastating to the photograph.

A smile is a form of encouragement, an unspoken greeting that is inherently cheerful. Mother used to complain that one of the biggest differences between living in Kansas versus Oklahoma was that people in Kansas didn’t smile as much. Mom had a habit of smiling almost any time she was in public. When she met someone on the street she would smile and say hello. People from Oklahoma were like that once upon a time. When she moved to Kansas in 1958, though, folks up there looked at her as though she were crazy for smiling so much. She found the difference quite disheartening.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Zach inherited his grandmother’s quick smile. Even when he was a small child sitting in the front of the grocery cart, anyone who would make eye contact with him would be greeted with the biggest smile he could find. Baby smiles are contagious, you know, and I don’t recall a single instance where his smile wasn’t returned. Twenty-three years later, he’s a lot bigger and doesn’t come close to fitting in the front of a shopping cart, but make eye contact with him and see if that same smile doesn’t flash across his face, even when he’s busy working.

Smiles aren’t just something that happens at the mouth. Smiles take up the whole face, especially the eyes. The look in a person’s eyes when they smile lets one know whether the apparent cheer is sincere. A smile can be evil, after all. I have met a couple of people whose noses changed shape and flattened when they smile, which was interesting to observe. There are also some people who can’t seem to smile without blushing, no matter what might be the circumstances.

Smiling may be the best thing a face does. I think, at least anecdotally, people who smile more are easier to remember. We respond more positively to people who smile when we meet them for the first time. The absence of a smile on a person’s face tends to make us feel uncomfortable and we worry what might be wrong.

It’s Friday the 13th and a lot of people are likely to be needing a smile. Why not help out their face and give them a smile they remember? You’ll improve the world one face at a time.[/one_half_last]

PotD

Many Faces Of A Mom

November 12, 2015

She had a hit for every syllable: ‘Don’t. You. Ever. Talk. To. Me. Like. That. Ever. Again.’ That was the last time I ever talked back to Mom.—Misty May-Treanor

Brittney Jo (2015)

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Moms come with more facial expressions than anyone else on the planet, and they know exactly when to use each one. There’s no class they have to take, there are no books they have to read, by the time a young woman suffers through nine months of carrying a child who has poked, kicked, and punched every internal organ she has, she has an entire encyclopaedia of facial expressions ready for that child and is just waiting for the opportunity to use each one of them. A mom is not someone with whom one messes around.

Mom faces are unique in that only your mom’s expressions work on you. Your best friend’s mom can give you the same face and you just blow it off like, “Meh, she’s miffed, but what’s she really gonna do about it.” When your mom gives you a look, though, you know what she can do on the follow-up and you know you don’t want her to go there, especially in front of your buddies. By the time you’re nine or ten and starting to think of some really serious trouble, your mom has those looks down so well she hardly even has to speak to you. You just meet her eyes and you know; either she loves you more than anything, or one more slip up and she’s burning your bed on the front lawn.

I don’t think moms, especially young moms, really have much choice than to develop those facial expressions. They have so many other things going on around them, they don’t always have time to give a child the tongue lashing they deserve. I can remember some Sunday mornings when my mother would be singing in the church choir, smiling away until she saw that I wasn’t in my seat, but under the pew playing with the car I’d snuck into m suit pocket. She’d keep smiling until our eyes met. Pow. I was done for, my future was sealed and it wasn’t going to be pleasant. All that in one very brief glance that most people probably never noticed.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Brittney’s made some interesting faces over the few years I’ve known her. Rolling her eyes is a frequent one that adults are likely to get. Then, there’s that frustrated sigh when people who should be listening don’t. Brittney is a retail manager so sometimes she has to treat both employees and customers as though they were misbehaving children, and out come the danger looks; it’s a necessity of the job. Then, when she is around her own two darling and energetic little boys, there is a totally different set of looks ranging from complete adoration to I’m-Going-To-Sell-You-To-The-First-Circus-I-Find.

There is not anyone who can achieve as much with a single glance as can a mom. One look and you sit up straight and stop pinching your sister. One look and you hear yourself confessing to stealing the last cookie. One look and you really wish the whole earth would just open up and swallow you.

One look and you know you are loved and cherished more than anything or anyone in the world.

I’ve seen comedians who could make a lot of different faces, but no one is as effective as is a mom; it’s a talent inherent to the position. You’re not going to beat them, ever, not even after you’re a mom yourself. I’ve watched it happen while I was backing slowly away trying to not make any noise. The older mom won. No contest. I’m pretty sure I felt the earth shake, though. All the more reason to be good to y our mom. You don’t want that disappointed I-gave-birth-to-you look.

Behave. Mom’s watching. [/one_half_last]

PotD

Total Determination

November 11, 2015

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.—Calvin Coolidge

Benjamin (2015)

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]There are times when I am frustrated by the lack of audience here. I look at yesterday’s numbers for example, the lowest all month, and wonder what the hell I have to do to get people’s attention on a regular basis. I question why I bother getting up so damn early in the morning, seven days a week, to make sure the pictures and articles are all here for you first thing. The answer: determination. I’m not willing to accept failure. We’ll re-tool around the first of the year, re-format, and keep trying.

Determination is one of those traits that tends to make itself quickly noticeable on a person’s face. Watch Lionel Messi’s face as he’s taking the ball downfield and you’ll see determination; he’s not going to be satisfied until that ball is in the goal. Watch Jason Heyward’s face when he steps up to bat for the Cardinals, or whomever he ends up playing for next season; the ball is going to be hit. And have you seen Peyton Manning’s face when he’s forced out of the pocket by a defensive lineman? He has no intention of going down with that ball.

Sports are not the only place where one sees such determination on a face, though. Watch the dad trying to change the diaper of a wiggling infant while using the baby changing station in a public facility; that is determination. Look at the face of a young woman as she prepares for her first job interview after college; you’re seeing determination. Better yet, admire the face of a young child as they build they attempt to build that tower of blocks higher and higher; physics be damned, they are going to put the red one on the very top, even if they have to stand on someone else to do so.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Benjamin has always been a determined individual, no matter what he was doing. He hates to lose (you really don’t want to play Monopoly with him). He sets a goal and isn’t satisfied until he reaches it. I still remember those painfully early Saturday mornings on the soccer field when he was six. The coach finally had to take him out of the game because Ben had to score every time, and more often than not, he did, much to the dismay of the other team. He’s a U.S. Marine now, and that same determination shows on his face more than ever.

Determination is what moves the world forward; people who refused to give up even when facing insurmountable odds. The men who signed the Declaration of Independence were determined to form, “a more perfect union.” Lewis and Clark were determined to map out the wilderness West of the Mississippi River. Dr. Jonas Salk was determined to find a way to prevent polio from ruining so many lives. Sure, mistakes, miscalculations, and unexpected changes in condition can at times thwart the best of plans, but those who ultimately win pick themselves up, along with those around them, and keep moving forward.

I have a great number of concerns about the future for a host of reasons I won’t list at the moment; the obstacles we face are significant and the current game plan hasn’t worked as well as we’d hoped. I have been so incredibly tempted to just give up. Don’t worry, we won’t. We move forward, adjusting, changing, re-tooling, and maybe even tearing some things down so we can rebuild. My face is as set as Ben’s. Hmm, I wonder where he get it.[/one_half_last]

PotD

Mischievous Grins

November 9, 2015

If I’m writing something and I’m not feeling mischievous, then I know it’s not going to be great.—Elizabeth Meriwether

Gabriel (2015)

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]One of the most attractive things about faces is their ability to smile. There are as many different kinds of smiles as there are people, but the ones that get my attention the fastest are those who don’t give you those big, toothy smiles, but rather those who just give you a mischievous grin. If you look, you’ll often find a bit of a sparkle in their eye which is indicative of an active mind; one just has to be a bit concerned as to what that activity might entail.

Some faces just have a mischievous look to them. Like any other smile, that grin can stick and people who have worn one for years might as well have, “here comes trouble” painted across their forehead. Not that they are bad people in any way. I think being mischievous is probably a greater sign of intelligence than what one finds on a standardized test form because mischievous people are creative and imaginative first of all. The problem is that their imagination tends to run well outside any box, resulting in actions and behavior than can be surprising.

Mischievous people are important to society because they challenge the boundaries of what we consider normal and conventional. Tell a mischievous child that a given action is unacceptable and watch them perform that action almost immediately. Why? Because they want to see if you were correct or just trying to coerce them into observing a set of rules that, from their perspective, don’t make any sense. So, they do what we would rather they do it, their little faces grinning the entire time.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Gabriel is the youngest of my three sons. I often tell people that he was born mischievous; it is part of his identity. When he was born, the nurses whisked him away to a nearby table to clean him up and check his APGAR scores. Nana, his maternal grandmother, followed along, anxious and excited as nanas tend to be about the arrival of a new grandchild. In her excitement, Nana got a little too close. Pow! Gabriel let’s loose an impressive arc of pee and hits his Nana right in the face. The little guy was less than five minutes old and already showing his personality. Doctors say babies don’t really smile, but I’m pretty sure I saw his first grin that morning.

Mischievous grins can, at times, be difficult to catch. Mischievous people often have a very dry wit and a sense of humor that allows them to deliver sarcasm with a straight face so that one is never really quite sure whether they’re serious or not. The give-away is the quick flash of that grin, the brief sparkle in their eye that lets you know they’re just having fun keeping everyone else on edge.

Society, and parents, tend to be easily frustrated by mischievous people because they are constantly finding uncomfortable ways of showing us our shortcomings. They seem to inherently see behind our façades and then find creative, and often humiliating, ways of calling us out. Yet, whether or not we want to admit it, mischievous challenges are often correct, and that smile is their way of celebrating. Embrace them; they’re smarter than we are.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

Prisoner Of None

November 7, 2015

charles i. letbetter - Prisoner Of Nothing

An artist must never be a prisoner. Prisoner? An artist should never be a prisoner of himself, prisoner of style, prisoner of reputation, prisoner of success, etc.—Henri Matisse

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Here we are at the end of what I hope has been an interesting week. This is one of those times, yet again, when I could easily continue along the theme, but won’t for fear of boring you. In that regard, I am breaking the rule Monsieur Matisse set for not being a prisoner. I fear I am a prisoner of many things, including the hit count for these pages. As we move from week to week, the photos I select are not always the ones I could/should be most excited about sharing, but more often than not are those I think are most likely to have the greatest mass appeal. Sadly, this is a prison of my own making, so only I can destroy it.

We become prisoners easily. We bind ourselves to a specific style, to the rules of that style, to the marketing necessities of a medium, to the limits of what displays well online, to whatever might be commercially appealing, to the opinions of our friends and colleagues, to the demands of family, to the strictures of a specific religion, to the censorship of an art association or publication, to the expectations of a specific genre, to the desires of models, to the demands of publishers and editors, and on and on until we have so thoroughly imprisoned ourselves that we might as well be wearing jail stripes, or at least place them over our work.

Not that we ever intend to become a prisoner. I’ve known of no one with an artistic bent who started out saying they would do nothing that did not follow the rules. I suppose, given the immensity of humanity that such a person exists, but most artists claim they want to become rule breakers, to stretch the boundaries of their chosen medium, or of art in general. Artists desire to be anarchists in some sense, to upset society in such a way as to overturn the present hierarchy. Yet, so few actually accomplish that feat. At the first sign of resistance, we play along and become a prisoner.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]One of the most poignant quotes from Henri Matisse is this:

It has bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everybody else.

Indeed, even from the very beginning, the artist refused to conform to the “rules” of art. He failed the exam for the first art school to which he applied. He was fiercely criticized and derided his entire career. His works were often hung in poor locations where they would be least likely to be noticed, and allegedly were even hung upside down on more than one occasion. When Matisse’s first Fauvist works were exhibited in Paris, people actually laughed while standing in front of the paintings. Not being a prisoner often means not giving in to popularity.

Even one of his closest friends and frequent house guests, Pablo Picasso, was critical of Matisse’s work. Picasso and his friends actually threw suction-cup darts at Matisse’s Portrait of Marguerite (which Picasso had obtained in a trade for his own Pitcher, Bowl and Lemon). When Matisse was contracted for the stained glass windows at Chapelle du Rosaire, Picasso allegedly said that it would have been more appropriate for Matisse to have designed a brothel.

Not being a prisoner sometimes comes at a severe price. If there is a lesson to be learned from this week of discussing Matisse it is that one must be true only to their own artistic vision; everything and everyone else is a sideline spectator who distracts and detracts from the art. As surely as we imprison ourselves, we can also break ourselves free. Do not be a prisoner.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

The Challenge To Create

November 5, 2015

The Challenge To Create (2011)

Why have I never been bored? For more than fifty years I have never ceased to work.—Henri Matisse

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Creativity does not always come easily and throughout one’s life there are moments when it seems one is faced with challenge after challenge; distracting matters that inhibit or sometimes prohibit being able to work. I have known more than one artist who had little choice but to completely give up their life’s work because of one challenge or another. Life is not easy for anyone, but there are times when I wonder if the life of an artists, which is so keenly dependent upon the use of nearly all our faculties, does not somehow invite disaster more than others.

For Matisse, his greatest challenges all seemed to arrive one upon another. First came his divorce from his wife of 41 years, Amélie, due in part to the artist’s continued relationship with Lydia Delectorskaya, a young Serbian refugee who had been Amélie’s companion, but more due to Matisse’s own stubbornness and insistence upon being alone. Personal relationships never were exactly his strong point. Shortly thereafter, Matisse became ill with what was later discovered to be cancer. Surgery and severe treatments challenged not only his creativity, but his ability to work, to stand for long hours, to mix paints, and to hold a brush.

Then, in the midst of all the physical challenge, came World War II. Despite the encouragement of his children and American supporters, Matisse refused to leave France. He did move to a more secluded home on the outskirts of Vence, which at least removed him from the most severe activity. Matisse was intentionally unpolitical and deliberately worked to keep his paintings as removed from politics as well. Yet, he could not avoid the challenge of worrying about the fate of his paintings in occupied France and Russia. Another challenge came as his daughter, Marguerite, and younger son Jean were fiercely involved in the French resistance. Marguerite was captured and tortured by the Gestapo, but managed to escape from a cattle car on its way to an internment camp.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]All this trouble and worry created one challenge after another for the artist. He spent most of the period from 1941 to 1946 in near solitude, often unable to get out of bed, and carefully avoiding any social contacts that might be suspect. Yet, during this most difficult period was when he began work on his cutouts. It was while he was confined to Vence that he completed all the cutouts that would appear in his book, Jazz, in 1947. Where socializing with people held unknown dangers, he turned his attention to nature, his two cats, and caring for an unknown number of doves, all of which influenced his cutouts. Through every challenge that was thrown at him, Matisse never stopped working.

Life is nothing without challenge and one never knows in advance how a challenge might affect an artist’s work. Matisse met challenge with a renewed energy that carried him through his later stages of life. His work in the face of both physical and personal adversity becomes inspirational when one realizes all that the artist had to overcome in creating those latter day works. Illness itself is a significant challenge, even with modern treatments that alone might be enough to sideline someone. Combine that with the complete crumbling of life’s other structures and most of us might just stop.

When I first get up of the morning, while making that first cup of coffee, I look at the weather forecast to see what challenge I may face in the coming day. Dry days are good, wet or cold days not so much. Schedules create a challenge that can be quite distracting. Family needs sometimes conflict with my ability to sit down and edit. Some days, just finding a sense of creative motivation is a challenge. Yet, we must go on. Challenge itself fuels our creativity. This is the reality of art.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

An Expression of Color

November 4, 2015

charles . letbetter - Am Ex[ressopm pf Cp;pr

An Expression of Color (2011)

It is only after years of preparation that the young artist should touch color – not color used descriptively, that is, but as a means of personal expression.—Henri Matisse

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]We are so immersed in color today that black and white imagery of any kind automatically feels old, reminiscent, perhaps even antique. We forget just how recently color has come to dominate our media. At the turn of the 20th century, though, life wasn’t so bright. With the industrial revolution at full tilt, dark, heavy smoke billowed from the factory stacks from the burning of coal and oil. The air was filled with soot, coating the entire world in its greyness. Life was difficult if not downright dreary. Tuberculosis killed millions without them even realizing what it was. The one source of color that remained was art.

Color was always a critical element for Henri Matisse. Influenced by the likes of Gauguin, Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Japanese art, Matisse used color as a means of expression unlike anyone before him. In his earliest paintings, which can sometimes be difficult to find on exhibition, color is the single driving force, having eliminated any sense of shadow or perspective. As he moved toward and gradually overtook Fauvism, it was Matisse’s raw strokes of color combined with Cézanne’s sense of structure that defined the entire movement.

With his cutouts, though, color became everything, the very soul of existence in his work. Because of his limited mobility, having barely survived treatment for cancer and severe depression, he had to leave it to assistants to prepare for him huge sheets of colored paper. There are no greys or even anything too terribly dark or light in anything he did during this period. Colors are strong, vibrant, and demanding. He would cut out the shapes while confined to bed and attach them to his bedroom wall. At one point, the artist remarked that he had so many cutouts he wasn’t sure what he would do with them all.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Today, I fear we take color for granted. We rarely think, especially as photographers, about the emotional value of one shade of red over another, or how a specific tone of blue might alter how a viewer feels about a picture. Too often, I see colors slapped together haphazardly with no thought to how, or whether, they relate to the picture or each other. We pay too little attention to how colors shape our world, to their natural order. Sure, there are times when those rules can be broken, but in doing so we need to understand the effect we are forcing upon the viewer.

Color does not exist for color’s sake. Color is more than just a boundary or a specific bending of light. Color is an expression of emotion, whether casual or demonstrative, that carries an image from the heart of the artist to the soul of the one viewing. When artists complain that no one understands their work, how often is it at least partially because they have failed in their understanding of color, how it breathes, sighs, angers, delights, brings sorrow, or radiates joy? Even subtle variations can totally change the perception of a picture.

Color is to the artist, and the photographer, what words are to the novelist. Even when one does decide to work in black and white, by making that tonal choice one is choosing a vocabulary for their work. If the structure of that vocabulary fails to make sense or stir emotion, viewers inevitably walk away because they are unable to understand what the artist is trying to communicate.

Colors should never be accidental. With every image, be mindful of what you say. Choose your vocabulary carefully.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

A Soothing, Calming Influence

November 3, 2015

chales i. letbetter - a soothing, calming influence

A Soothing,Calming Influence (2013)

What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter – a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.—Henri Matisse

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]There are connections in art defined by all things that influence us. Some influences are significant, others are more subtle, but whether we like to realize it or not, we all have some image in our mind that comes from something else we’ve seen and that image, in turn, becomes the thing that drives our creative endeavors even if they’re not within the same media.Presumably, if one had the time and resources, and could rely upon the authenticity of written testimony, all artwork, across any genre or style, could likely be connected through the artist’s shared influences.

Not everything that influences an artist, or a photographer, is art, or artistic. In the realm of full disclosure, I must admit that I am writing this morning under the heavy influence of a very good night’s sleep. I’m only half-way through my first cup of coffee and the influence of the sleep is that I’m not quite as focused and am having a little more difficulty finding the words I want. Imagine trying to get around without your eyeglasses; that’s what is influencing my writing at this moment. If I were to pick up the camera, to capture a picture of Kat lounging on the couch next to me, that same influence would pour over into my image, probably in terms of a soft focus and a higher key on the lighting.

Henri Matisse was born in a most modest home of a weaver in the very North of France, right along the Belgian border. Winters there were extremely cold and the young Matisse was rather thin and frail. His mother influenced his early vision of women, with a full bust and hips, narrow waist, slender legs and small feet. We can see that influence remaining in his work all the way through to his cut outs. She also provided influence in her work with color, mixing house paints and helping customers decide what combinations would look best in their homes.[/one_half]

[one_half padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]All his early surroundings stayed with Matisse even after he moved away from the region. The stern discipline of his father, the pigeons that roosted in the loft, the sunflowers, and the seeds were all things that would influence his painting. Then, as Henri became more serious about his study of art, his work was influenced by his teachers, William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Gustave Moreau. One can attribute Bonguereau’s training in the classics for that fact that, regardless of what other angles may be present, Matisse kept a true plumb line on all his verticals. Moreau was more progressive and pushed the young Matisse away from traditional styles.

John Peter Russell may have had the greatest art-world influence on Matisse, however, for it was Russell that introduced him to the concepts and works of Impressionism. One can see an almost immediate change in Matisse’s work. He went from dark toned still-life to brighter, more colorful settings. Not that this pleased the established art world. Matisse’s first masterpiece, The Dinner Table, was completed during this period and when first exhibited was given poor placement because of ” what they considered its radical, Impressionist aspects.”

So, the chain of influence goes on and grows long. Could we dare begin to count the number of contemporary artists, photographers, and designers who have in some way been influenced by Matisse’s work? Certainly, unapologetically, the work we are displaying here is a direct derivative of his late-period cut-outs. And, we can hope to assume, what we present here has a soothing, calming influence on someone else, who interprets in yet another fashion And so, the art moves forward.[/one_half]

Art / PotD

Repairing Fences

October 30, 2015

Autumn Illusion – Repairing Fences

There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.—Will Rogers

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]A lot can be said for good fences: they make good neighbors, they keep cattle from roaming into someone’s corn field, they keep out the bad guys if they’re built correctly. Funny thing, fences; some people think we need more of them, like that giant wall built across China so many centuries ago. Yet, as J. R. R. Tolkien wrote:

The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out.

Two of our neighbors have fences. One is a simple chain link that boxes in the back yard, making it perfect for pets, which they don’t have, or children, which are only there every other weekend. The other neighbor has been more definitive about his property, though. He has a tall, eight-foot privacy fence around his backyard. This is because he has a pool around which he enjoys throwing parties throughout the summer. We’re thankful that fence is there not just because it keeps Kat’s little ones from playing in the water but also because we really have no desire to see our neighbor in a Speedo. You just can’t unsee that.

Beyond the privacy fence, though, the neighbor also has a stretch of chain link that stretches to the end of his driveway, establishing a firm boundary. Then, presumably so we wouldn’t have to look at the side of his garage, he has a very tall and full shrubbery. This isn’t the evergreen kind like we have, but is more tree-like with a thick covering of leaves from the ground to the sky; it is very good cover and would likely grow quite tall if he’d let it.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]The shrubbery is thick and there’s not much room between it and the side of the neighbor’s garage. What we’ve liked is that it would also arch over our yard, creating a shaded path alongside our carport, something quite welcome during the summer. We’ve had to prune our side a couple of times, with the neighbor’s permission, to keep the shrub from growing into our carport, but overall it’s a nice, welcome addition to the landscape.

Not everyone in our neighborhood likes the shrubbery, though. We have one neighbor, a fussy little old woman who claims to be close friends with the chief of police, despite the rotating nature of that position. She doesn’t exactly like the privacy fence, either, but there’s nothing she can do about that thanks to the pool. This fall, just as summer was coming to a close, the top-most leaves of the shrubbery began peaking above the gutters of the garage. Our fussy neighbor delighted in calling the city, citing a piece of arcane legislation, and demanded the shrubbery be cut back.

As Tolkien said, fences don’t keep out the world, or even nosey neighbors. We now have a much more boring view along that fenceline. Pruning the shrub caused the leaves to drop sooner than they normally would; they didn’t change color, they just fled the scene. Fences are an illusion, you see. We think we’re protected, that we can create a barrier against the people who bother us. No, while fences protect small children and dogs, all they do for some people is provide a place to pee, figuratively if not literally. Perhaps we should talk about electrifying that fence.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

Falling Leaves

October 29, 2015

Autumn Illusion – Falling Leaves

The falling leaves drift by my window. The falling leaves of red and gold. I see your lips, the summer kisses. The sunburned hands I used to hold.—Johnny Mercer

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Autumn doesn’t mess around once it finally decides to do its thing. Only a week ago, I was able to take pictures of brightly colored trees in the neighborhood, their leaves golden and resplendent in the sunlight. I looked at the giant oak across the street yesterday afternoon and its branches now are nearly bare; a yellow blanket covers the ground around it’s dark trunk.

There are still several hours before sunrise as I write this, so I can only imagine even more leaves are down this morning. Wind howled by my bedroom window all night. Some gusts were strong enough to shake the entire house. Any leaves still on trees this morning are brave souls hanging on to futility; they, too, will fall. A horizon of dark, grey, nothingness is all nature has left us. Those not already prepared for winter had best hurry.

We keep saying we’re going to cover our windows with plastic to help keep out the encroaching cold. We’ve said that the past two winters as well; it hasn’t happened, yet. Like those leaves that still cling desperately to tree branches, we never really want to give in to the fact that winter is coming. We use the excuse of needing to wait for “Indian Summer,” and then find some other reason after that. We really don’t want to cover the windows; we want to be able to see.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Falling leaves are nature’s definitive statement on change. There’s no fudging the line as to whether the season is here or not. Summer’s out the window, winter is knocking at the door, and Autumn is doing its best to give us some kind of buffer so that we’re not still running around half-naked trying to find a way to heat the swimming pool when snow starts flying.

Neither is there any compromise on the plants in our garden. Harvest is done, even if there is one little orange-colored tomato still hanging on for dear life. We’ll leave that for the birds, or perhaps the neighborhood raccoon.

Relationships change, too. We instinctively recognize the need to gather close, to have someone with which to huddle and keep us warm through the winter. Even where there are no drunken Halloween parties to help, couples still manage to find each other lest they freeze alone in their beds. Besides, we need someone to help us rake all those damn leaves in the yard, going from yellow to brown.

There is no putting the leaves back on the trees once they’ve fallen. Brace for impact. Winter is coming.[/one_half_last]

Art / PotD

Thistles, Thorns, and Broken Glass

October 28, 2015

charles i. letbetter - thorns, thistles, and broken glass

charles i. letbetter - thistles, thorns, and broken glass

Autumn Illusion – Thistles, Thorns and Broken Glass

Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.—Voltaire

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]There are thorns around the periphery of our yard. We talk each autumn about cutting them out, cleaning up the edges that we largely ignore the rest of the year, but this autumn we have to actually go ahead and clear them out, along with the thistles and broken glass. Autumn can be as much about cleaning and clearing as is spring; sometimes, it’s even more important to do those chores now.

We don’t employ any yard workers other than ourselves. Our lawn is not one of the trim and neat, well-manicured pieces of property. We do well to keep the lawn mowed and probably wouldn’t do that quite as often if we didn’t have a neighbor who religiously reports us, and everyone else in the neighborhood, to the city should our lawns begin to look a touch unsightly. We wouldn’t give a fuck except for the $200 fine. In the places we can’t mow, there are thorns.

Most the thorns are behind, around, or under shrubbery. Thistles grow along our side of a neighbor’s privacy fence. He has a pool. We’re glad he has a fence. Broken glass can be found alongside the house, where panes from the storm windows didn’t quite get put up on time. None of those things actually bother anyone because we seldom venture into those areas, so they don’t get addressed. Thorns and thistles grow, the broken glass just lies there, a thin layer of roughness.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]This autumn, we may have to address some of that growth. There is an area in one corner where a previous owner attempted to cultivate flowers and decorative shrubbery. We don’t pay much mind to it because we’re not sure exactly what is and isn’t supposed to be growing there, except for the thorns. The thorns grew quite well there this year, to the point they’re no longer hidden. Were it safe to play outside, they might pose a danger.

Playing outside isn’t’ safe, though. There are more human thorns than those of a botanical nature. They run the stop signs, plowing through the neighborhood streets at speeds that would be illegal even on highways. Gunfire peppers the otherwise quiet sounds of the neighborhood, though I find it interesting that no one ever seems to get hit. The human thorns here apparently have really bad aim, for which we are thankful.

Throughout life, thorns are going to happen, whether botanical or otherwise. Some, like those that grow with certain flowers, we can do nothing about. Others, though, need to be cleaned out every once in a while, even if they don’t seem particularly bothersome. Looking across our lawn, or the neighborhood, the thorns aren’t really visible, but we know they’re present, a danger lying in wait. They are yet another of autumn’s illusions and the only remedy is to pull them out by the roots.[/one_half_last]

Music / PotD / Uncategorized

Got My Mojo Working

October 16, 2015

charles i. letbetter - got my mojo working

Portrait in Blue (2011). Model: Rebekkah Perigrin

I think I believe a little bit in the power of people to really cast a bad energy on you if they want to. If the bad mojo wants to come your way, look out.—Dileep Rao

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Maybe it’s just me, but I hear the word mojo and it’s almost impossible to not immediately think of Mike Meyers in the character of Austin Powers. Then I inevitably wonder whatever happened to Meyers and why he didn’t pursue the whole Austin Powers thing more aggressively while it was working for him. The only answer I can find is that he must have lost his mojo, too. That happens, it seems. Mojo has this ability to just get up and walk away whenever it damn well feels like it. Rather sucks when that happens.

Of course, not everyone has mojo to begin with. I can’t say that I’ve ever had a particularly strong mojo of any kind. If I did, it was when I was too young and stupid to recognize it and put it to work for me. Mojo seems to involve just a bit of arrogance on top of a healthy dose of self-confidence and there have been few times that my confidence has been sufficient to tip the scales in that direction. Although, now that I’m sitting here typing this, the times that I’ve been able to pull off large nude shoots almost certainly have required a bit of mojo working. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Mojo is such an elusive thing, though. I think most people don’t have mjo more often than they do have it. Maintaining mojo is hard work; it requires being at the top of your game, not letting your guard down, having everything together no matter what happens. How many people can realistically do that day in and day out? Sure, two or three days a week, maybe, and almost certainly a couple of times a month, but all day every day? I don’t think so. Not unless you’re someone supremely cool like Sir Ian McKellan or Patrick Stewart; they never seem to lose their mojo, at least not in public.

And then, like the song says, there are some people on whom no amount of mojo works. There’s nothing one can do when encountering such a person; they’re just immune to the stuff. And just because the mojo works on someone once doesn’t necessarily mean it will a second time. Perhaps there’s a little bit of deception in mojo, making ourselves out to be more than we are. Rebekkah had her mojo working the night we shot this portrait. Or maybe it was the wine. Maybe wine is mojo. Wait, scotch is mojo! Maybe. Enjoy the song.[/one_half_last]

Music / PotD

Baby Grand

October 15, 2015

Steal The Moment (2013). Model: Loren Hawk

Sometimes I can only groan, and suffer, and pour out my despair at the piano!—Frederic Chopin

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I’ve never owned a baby grand. I’ve played countless numbers of them over the years, but for a variety of reasons I’ve never owned one and that makes me a bit sad. Not all pianos are created equal, you know. Even when they’re in tune there is a significant difference in the tone between a studio piano, which is what I had growing up, and a baby grand. Of course, when I was much, much younger I thought I’d have a twelve-foot Steinway sitting in the middle of my living room floor. Perhaps, had life taken a very different turn 30-plus years ago, that might have happened, but there’ve been many times when, moving logistics aside, twelve feet was longer than any one side of the living room. A baby grand is five-foot to five-feet, four-inches long, which fits in just about any room. I still don’t have one, though.

Still, no matter what size piano or keyboard one has, they make for incredible friends when one has the Blues. A baby grand is the perfect outlet for the widest range of emotion. Sometimes, one is quiet and contemplative, and a gentle touch on the keys produces a soft tone that is reflective and peaceful, full of thought. When one is sad, all it takes is shifting to a minor key and what would be tears fall into beautiful melancholy streams of emotion. Angry? The piano has been the outlet for my anger more times than I care to count; it can not only handle the power of the emotion but sends it back with a musical force that is satisfying.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]The problem with relying on a baby grand as one’s emotional outlet is that often one feels those emotions most deeply and strongly in the middle of the night. Timing tends to be an issue for anyone not actually playing the piano. No matter how skillful the playing or how beautiful the song, people tend to not be too terribly receptive when it jars them from their sleep at 3:00 AM. I’ve even had one neighbor threaten violence over what he considered to be the inappropriate timing of my playing. During the quiet moments of the night, even the softest tones are too much for most people.

Perhaps it is better, from a relationship perspective, to put one’s worries into a good book, divert the energy toward more physical pleasures, or at least some activity that doesn’t wake the entire neighborhood. I can tell you right now, though, even taking pictures of beautiful women, such as today’s photo, as much as I love doing it, is not as emotionally satisfying as sitting down and becoming one with a baby grand. Nothing else responds to the Blues in quite the same way, personally, deeply, as though it were a part of your body, as does a baby grand. There is no better therapy.

Ray understood. Enjoy the music. [/one_half_last]

Music / PotD

Dust My Broom

October 13, 2015

INTENSITY (2012). Model: Cole Prosper

You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I’ll rise.—Maya Angelou

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]There comes a time, or two, or more, when one has to look at their life, their circumstances, and maybe even the people in their lives, and decide to make some changes, or “dust my broom.” An exact etymology of the phrase was difficult to find, but it seems to go back quite ways, which seems to make sense. I can just imagine some poor woman of the 15th or 16th century stepping to the door of her humble little house and shaking out all the dirt the broom had picked up while being dragged across the floor. Dusting the broom was just a natural part of cleaning house. “Cleaning house” is a natural part of our lives as well.

We see people dust their brooms today when they prune their social media friends lists. We collect names because they make our numbers look good, but over time we realize those names and numbers are not only doing us no good, but may even be causing some of our problems. When we hit that realization, often in a fit of frustration, we clean house and dust our broom. I did that very thing back at the beginning of the year, culling over 1,000 names that were little more than numbers. Fewer than ten asked to be re-instated. Those numbers were obviously little more than dead weight.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]If one digs down and examines the phrase, we realize that dusting the broom is the final act of cleaning house. When cleaning house, you need the broom handy to get all the dust and muck and dead spider skeletons out of all the corners and from under all the furniture. You gather everything up in a pile, dump the bulk into the garbage, and then dust the broom. Get rid of the big stuff first, and then shake off the little stuff that wants to cling on and cause more trouble. Who knew there could be such deep, introspective meaning to a Blues song?

Tuesdays seem like they might be a good time to dust the broom. Monday delivers a lot of garbage and we tend to let that mess just accumulate and stack up. Time to get rid of it all. Sweep out the nonsense, tidy things up, and put everything back in order so you can get on with your week. Dusting your broom is an act of empowerment, you taking action to put your life back in balance, being done with yesterday’s dirt, and moving on. So grab that broom, shake the dust out, and then put on some blues. We’ll all feel better for having done so.[/one_half_last]

relationships

The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late.—Ogden Nash

8 Reasons To Steal The Bed Covers

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The secret of our success is that we never, never give up.—Wilma Mankiller, Principle Chief of the Cherokee, 1985-1995

6 Reasons To Never Give Up

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We cannot stop the winter or the summer from coming. We cannot stop the spring or the fall or make them other than they are. They are gifts from the universe that we cannot refuse. But we can choose what we will contribute to life when each arrives.—Gary Zukav

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I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.—Martin Luther King, Jr.

10 Things We Need To Do Before The End Of The Year

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And yet, I suppose you mourn the loss or the death of what you thought your life was, even if you find your life is better after. You mourn the future that you thought you’d planned.—Lynn Redgrave

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As much as I’m not a journalist, I use journalism. And when you photograph a relationship, it’s quite wonderful to let something unfold in front of you.—Annie Leibovitz

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To be alive, to be able to see, to walk, to have houses, music, paintings – it’s all a miracle. I have adopted the technique of living life miracle to miracle.—Arthur Rubinstein

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My mother and father were both much more remarkable than any story of mine can make them. They seem to me just mythically wonderful.—Orson Welles

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But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people, and do our best to help them find their own grace. That’s what I strive to do, that’s what I pray to do every day.—Barack Obama

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Am I grumpy? I might be. But I think maybe sometimes it’s misinterpreted.—Harrison Ford

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Dear sisters and brothers, we realize the importance of light when we see darkness.—Malala Yousafzai

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Get up and dance, get up and smile, get up and drink to the days that are gone in the shortest while.—Simon Fowler

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She had a hit for every syllable: ‘Don’t. You. Ever. Talk. To. Me. Like. That. Ever. Again.’ That was the last time I ever talked back to Mom.—Misty May-Treanor

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If I’m writing something and I’m not feeling mischievous, then I know it’s not going to be great.—Elizabeth Meriwether

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An artist must never be a prisoner. Prisoner? An artist should never be a prisoner of himself, prisoner of style, prisoner of reputation, prisoner of success, etc.—Henri Matisse

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Why have I never been bored? For more than fifty years I have never ceased to work.—Henri Matisse

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It is only after years of preparation that the young artist should touch color – not color used descriptively, that is, but as a means of personal expression.—Henri Matisse

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What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter – a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.—Henri Matisse

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There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.—Will Rogers

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The falling leaves drift by my window. The falling leaves of red and gold. I see your lips, the summer kisses. The sunburned hands I used to hold.—Johnny Mercer

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Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.—Voltaire

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I think I believe a little bit in the power of people to really cast a bad energy on you if they want to. If the bad mojo wants to come your way, look out.—Dileep Rao

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Sometimes I can only groan, and suffer, and pour out my despair at the piano!—Frederic Chopin

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You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I’ll rise.—Maya Angelou

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