In a perfect world, everything is WYSIWYG.

Alec Soth in the NY Times

I almost missed this profile in the NY Times of Alec Soth, one of my favorite photographers. In talking about many things, such as how he broke out with his Sleeping By The Mississippi body of work, his working methods, and his new exhibition, Black Line Of Woods, wherein he surveys the people and places at the fringe of society, Alec Soth is, as usual, candid.

He takes his exhibition title from Flannery O'Connor. He says, "She’s talking about where culture ends, I wanted this work to be about the longing to escape."

Regarding his photo of a parking lot where Olympic Park bomber, Eric Rudolph, was apprehended after five years of hiding, "Even though he was a bad guy, it was this boy fantasy about hiding, and there’s something really romantic about that."

On his knack for photographing people, "My own awkwardness comforts people, I think. It’s part of the exchange."

Anyway, so that's inspiring. I'm in sort of a creative rut. I miss photography. I shoot pictures almost every day for work but I miss taking my own. And when I do take my own pictures, I seem to be horrible at it. So the idea of escape and working on my own is quite appealing to me right now.

Get an NY Times free acount and read the article, Alec Soth, Trolling For Strangers To Befriend.

Waking The Dead

I met Yvette during the fun days of hanging out on the set a TV series of which she was a writer. Except that Yvette reminded me that I met her more than 10 years ago because we had the same Math/Chinese tutor.

Yesterday, Yvette, one half of the literary powerhouse that is Luis and Yvette, launched her book, Waking The Dead. It's an anthology of weird, heartfelt and powerful stories. I went to Powerbooks to attend the launch, got in early, got a copy, and had her sign it. I sat down and was four paragraphs into the first story about Quiapo, elementals and the Black Nazarene before the program started. I was hooked. I wanted to stand up, get out, go home, find a nice spot to finish the book. I also wanted to write my own stories, be a conjurer of all the arcana my mind could muster.

In her acknowledgments, Yvette thanked Neil Gaiman for the inspiration. Yvette is my Gaiman.

Read Inquirer review here.

Have had a bad run at the movies lately. Last one I really liked was Adventureland. Though I was banking on Ryan Reynolds, The Proposal truly sucked. I'm really surprised that a lot of people liked it though. Which is why I guess there is an us and there is a them.

GI Joe also sucked. I mean it wasn't boring, but it could have been better in many ways. As a kid, I used to collect GI Joes. I used to buy them from Nova Fontana in Shoppesville for, I think, 70 bucks a figurine. I collected the vehicles and bases too. I thank my parents for indulging me and rue the day I decided to open my Joes and Cobras up and mix body parts. Youth is wasted on the young.

Also, after going through a bunch of interesting books, I am stuck at a very mediocre one.

That's all!

I realized that I can blog in spurts.

Finished two easy books since the mind-numbing Cryptonomicon. First, I finished Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It was all right. I mean it was well-crafted and smart, and I liked the whole Oriental fighting techniques bit. But you know, how far can a pastiche go?

Then I finished reading Black Hawk Down. I didn't realize that reading historical accounts of war, campaigns, and soldiering was an age thing (think dads and their shelves full of WWII books), but I'm willing to accept it. It's a genre that I enjoy. I liked Band of Brothers and Generation Kill. So so far, I'm in the 20th and latter era, modern warfare. But I have a Civil War book and a Battle of Thermopylae book pending. We'll see how that turns out.

When you think about it, Lord Of The Rings was a war book too, except that it was, well, fantastic.