Foolish things to Confound the wise

I go to dinner last night and talk about how much I miss God and how this is like the longest breakup ever and maybe once you love something with all your heart it takes the rest of your life to let it go. As I walk back to my car, I see a woman kneeling at the alter of a Hispanic storefront church. She’s weeping and praying. I think this is so beautiful. She is squeezing her hands, praying really hard, as if the harder she squeezes, the harder God might listen. The harder he might save her. The harder he might forgive her. The harder he might make things better for her family. A man opens the door and I say "no thank you," three times before I go in and sit down. Plastic chairs, plastic flowers, weird everything, and speakers taller than me. It was like being inside a really loud life size Hispanic Jesus diorama.

A middle aged, pregnant woman walks in after me and asks me what verse we are on. I don’t know because the whole thing is in Spanish. Plus it’s hard to hear her because the music is so loud and people are playing tambourines and maracas. Her bible is in English so she says we can share. She has very big hoop earrings and smells good, like lotion. She hands me her bible and says “I Corrinthians 1:26.” I flip to it instantly and hand it back to her. She traces the words for me with her very long pinky nail. There is another woman in the crowd who keeps shouting “Santos.” It reminds me of a teenage boy I met in the Dominican Republic filming in a Haitian batey on the edge of an abandoned sugar can field. There are emerald mine landslides on the horizon and it’s pouring rain. He calls himself Johnny b. Goode. The village idolizes him. He is from this slum but learned to speak English and 6 other languages. He now works at a resort as a translator and sends money home to his Mother and brothers. He goes into a 10 x 12 cinder block house, where his family lives, and gets an electric guitar. He starts to play “hurt” by Johnny Cash but can’t remember the words so he sings a hymn that repeats the word "Santos...," but I don't know what it means. I tapped the woman on the shoulder who was sitting beside me at this church and ask"what is Santos?” “Saint," she said.

Johnny b Goode's song:

Pre Pro Ohio

This weekend was a recon mission in Ohio for a personal doc project that's in the uh, pre-production phase. It was also my birthday weekend which I spent doing what I love. So, I couldn't ask for more. My buddy Tony just so happened to move back out to his Grandma's farm in Williston, Ohio, which is about an hour from where some of the shooting for this doc will take place. Go figure. The farm house is in the middle of nowhere and half gutted but has electricity and running water, a perfect HQ. Plus so many things that a Miriam likes. Barns and bats and honey bees and old wallpaper and weird old things to wonder about.

Uncle Jay fed and bathed us. Thanks Uncle Jay.

If you're looking at this, you're smiling.

David ordains himself at Goodwill off Route 20, much like the main character of this documentary. He buys a golden jacket to authenticate the ordination. We took the back roads home which took an extra 4 hours but I love to do this. I also love to thrift shop xept I don't like to do it in the city. I like St. Augustine's trash n' treasure and places that don't know what they've got yet unlike Chicago trying to sell a fur coat at Salvation Army for $300. This was David's bday prez to me. I get to stop wherever and whenever I want - no complainin'. David, you are the best.
All of these frames were stills shot in live mode with the 5D MII. I can't show most of the video I shot in Ohio yet, but here's a clip from the breakfast joint we frequented that was also a bar.

Delayed Reaction

South Haven, Michigan circa 2002

I bought some old camera at an estate sale to see if it would work and it did. I've since sold this camera at a garage sale for 3 dollars. I processed the film from these photos years after I took them. This must be 6 years ago at least?

Tish and Chris outside O'duffy's. Kalamazoo.

Lady in the park across from 4th coast but also if you turn the screen and look at it upways there is another picture I can't make out of a man with his arm around a woman.

Ruth and me. Location unknown.

Corrine writing in her journal. We shared this bed while we were trying to save money living with Ruth on Merrill. Just a big fort house that place was.

Maybe it'll Love you Back

Photograph what you love.

I vaguely remember the day my brother was was born but my Dad recorded it on cassette. He mailed it to me recently. Hearing the seven year old me, standing at the end of the bed my brother was born in, was something. I was anxious but sweet. I couldn't wait. So little and big too.

I want her to have something too. Hannah worked at the stables everyday during the summer to get to ride Wolf twice a week and take him to fair. She and my Mom would spend hours braiding his mane and hers to match. All of us took vacation days to come home and see her place 28th in freestyle. There is a box called "Hannah." Someday, I'll send it to her.

Autumn Under Water

I shot these at a street corner, where I waited for a friend, thinking about how much I m.f. love the midwest. A lot of my friends have moved to more temperate climates. They "can't do these winters anymore." It's worth it to me. Here, it does on the outside what I do on the inside. I like when leaves fall like tiny pieces of paper from a tall building or when I see someone scraping a ice off their windshield with a CD case. Sometimes it's so cold, it's rude but it makes spring sweeter. And, our trees. They change in that way I can't say because it's too good that you know what I mean and I don't have to. I'd miss it.