WatersGetDeep

Folks, it’s been a while…..

Meet L. Deakins,

While I have not personally met Lucy I did get a tiny glimpse into her life as a result of finding two trunks with some of her personal effects in them.  

I was taking a shortcut through the dormatory housing courtyard at NYU when I saw a dumpster full of old trunks and suitcases.  I noted them and returned two days later to fish-out some of the items.  Two of the trunks were to heavy to lift from the dumpster so I began rooting through them. I paid no attention to the items, only skimming them for envelopes and film-boxes that would reveal a bit about the person who previously owned them. 

Upon returning home I read some of the letters, looked at the pictures and the paintings in the trunk. The trunk contained family photographs.  My favorites include shots taken of her mother preparing food in a sun-lit Parisian apartment. Coincidentally there are photos of her father holding a child, who I assume to be Lucy in front of the statue where I found her trunk.

 From what I gather Lucy was a television star possibly employed by CBS. There was a script from “As the World Turns,” some per diem vouchers, a chess board, Hebrew language cards, two paintings and quite a bit of fan-mail.  

There is even a photograph of Lucy and Fred Savage as a young boy.

I think I just found my version of One Eyed Willies loot. 

Folks meet Local Artist Jeremy Kennedy,    

Folks send more mail to your friends Folks, 

This post serves dual purposes.  The first is to call attention to the value of mail or packages sent via USPS.  I’m not talking about bills or junk mail, rather a thoughtful hand-crafted package that causes you to run from the mail-box to your house in order to tear an envelope open…wondering what treasures await.

The second is to brag about Jeremy Kennedy’s hand-made book titled “Cheerleaderisms.”  Jeremy and I have started a Publication company that goes by the name Rebel Hands Press. I don’t mean for this to be shameless self-promotion but having the pleasure of actually touching this book for the first time last night I cannot resist a description. Number nine layouts of text and photographs, it is short and sweet, however it comes off as vast with it’s sense of humor, sincerity and craftsmanship (bound via heat treated plastic.) This book is pure pleasure to touch.

Jeremy and I met in Bloominton, Indiana. I had seen him around town but we never spoke. One night I went to an art show that he was featured in.  I wanted to buy one of his paintings….One showing a shirtless Mel Gibson outside of a burning house from part 1 of the the Lethal Weapon franchise.  The conversation ended with Jeremy threatening to stab my friend in the neck with a Bic Pen.  Needless to say both me and my friend bought paintings.  Eventually I commissioned J. Kennedy to make a painting of him threatening to stab my friend with a Bic Pen while simultaneously selling us two paintings of Patrick Swayzee going-shirtless outside of a burning house.  The commissioned painting was titled as such….” J. Kennedy threatens to stab Micah LeMasters with a Bic Pen while simultaneously selling two paintings of Patrick Swayzee going-shirtless outside of a burning house.”…….Thus a friendship was formed and an ongoing artistic collaboration born.

What I’m trying to say is….Send more mail to your friends Folks.

Jeremy Kennedy Website:  http://www.table-blue.com/ 

Rebel Hands Press Website:  http://www.rebelhandspress.com

Some photographs of Jonas in action…

Folks meet Jonas,

2012 is going to be an interesting year for this fella. With eight days down and 357 to go Jonas has undertaken the task of taking 1 roll of film every-single-day using a Pentax 67ii medium format camera. (in photo speak that is 10 frames per day)

Jonas has decided not to look at the pictures until the year is complete. His photographic style is straightforward with an emphasis on beautiful light.  He is a maticulous taker of notes therefore he records every name, location and story that he encounters. Having known Jonas for the past decade I can attest to his patience and will with regards to a project with this longitude. 

Keep in mind that this is not a matter of simply snapping 10 photographs and then calling it a day.  The intention of this project is to connect with people and places, to collect an view of society, to document all facets of life. I was recently with a group of friends and we were all explaining how we had come to know each other. Through some investigation we realized that Jonas had been the thread to connect our fabrics.  

This project is in the begining stages so there are varius ways YOU can get involved.  Write Jonas and tell him about something interesting, commision/sponsor a roll of film, gift a roll of film….This project, in my opinion, has so much potential…and beyond involving a charity the end result is limitless and unknown. 

Above you will see Jonas in action snapping a portrait of Larry in New York’s Washington Square Park. Larry lives in the park and watches the hawks that have nests in the buildings surrounding the park. If you have a chance to speak with Larry he will explain in great detail the flight and behavior patterns of his winged friends.  He is the eyes on the park and most recently saw a hawk swoop down and prey on a black squirell.

To write Jonas use: jblakemason@yahoo.com

Folks meet Blake,

Blake is my oldest friend on this dang earth.  We met when we were 5 years old. The first time I went to his house I brought fruit rollups and we got caught up in a doorway both person moving in the same side-to-side motion, trying to get thru.. Blake had a bad ass blue and white bicycle, so he always got to be a police officer in the games we played.

Eventually we both moved to Syracuse from North Webster and lived a sling-shots distance from each other.  We hung out every day and played a lot of ping-pong. At some point we started listening to Jay-Z, Masta-P and Biggie at which point we would sit in his parents hot tub smoking cigars after school.  It’s strange to think that Blake has been related either directly or indirectly to every formative part of my life and visa versa.

Blake moved to Colorado 8 years ago…runnin down a dream he studied the rivers, fish and bugs and has become an accomplished fly-fisherman. He is becoming an outdoorsman and has recently taken up Elk hunting.  He shot his first Bull last hunting season. Blake has more fun than any individual I have ever met. He is constantly on the move, going to concerts, making friends, exploring… Blake currently lives in Minutrn, Colorado. (The locals leave out some letters in the pronunciation so it sounds like Minern.)  

I was in Vail a few days ago for a visit and Blake had a day off work so we decided to drive to Steamboat Springs and visit Strawberry Park Hot Springs which is a series of outdoor stone pools that you lounge around in… shifting between the hot, lukewarm and cold river water. I guess the Yiddish call this shvitzing. Although I cannot confirm this final comment I hear that the pools get pretty interesting after dark.

Folks meet Chris,

Chris is my brothers wife’s sisters kid, so that makes me his uncle in law, but really Chris is my brother in that cool urban sense. In addition to working at The Economist as a senior project manager of digital strategy and innovation, he performs stand-up comedy under the moniker Buster LaRue.

Chris confuses my senses. He dresses extremely well; vintage tweed sport coats, Brooks Brothers mini-houndstooth button down shirts, Polo flat-front pants bottomed off with leather soled Alden shoes.

One would expect a more serious personality to follow this garb and while Chris is serious when need be there is a breadth to his personality and he shifts easily between his multiple facets.

Last night he asked me, very seriously, if I though it would be considered incest if a customer at Olive Garden had relations with an employee seeing as how their slogan was “When you are here, you are family”  Chris is continuously unfolding  into a new and more complex person the more I am around him. I love it when my impressions gain complexity. 

I have been staying with Chris and his wife Morgan in the Financial District and after years of avoiding this area for being either touristy or boring I have to admit that I was wrong. The Financial District  is soaked in history, stone and marble. At times you feel that you have stepped into a scene from Atlas Shrugged with overwhelming structures closing in on cramped streets.  We passed a Methodist church built in 1766 between two skyscrapers then saw the site where George Washington was inaugurated into office. We talked about how those founding Americans shaped an entire country, how their feet and our feet have touched the same cobblestones, how their present is our history and how this is still unfolding.

Check out Chris and Buster

http://twitter.com/#!/chrisreitz

http://twitter.com/#!/busterlarue

Folks, Today will be a little different.

I’m in in Los Angeles, California for some work and I had some time to kill so I decided to walk the streets.  I encountered a group of costumed people waiting in line for the taping of the game show “who wants to make a deal.”  If you have never walked Sunset Boulevard, you should. It feels cavernous, depressing and sign filled.  It gave me anxiety trying to keep up with all of the advertisements and weird action.

I stopped at the intersection of Hollywood and Vine then looked across the street and saw a Chase bank. I had recently taken a cab and the driver seemed miffed when I tried to pay with a credit card. The need for cash along with the fact that there was a woman perched on the fountain looking delicate yet homeless made me cross the street.  I entered the bank and withdrew some funds. On my way out I got pushed back into the bank by a group of frantic people.  They were saying  ”gun shots” and one woman was crying.  It happened fast… mayhem.  I thought the bank was being robbed.

We realized that a man wearing a white-wife-beater was in the middle of the intersection shooting a gun into the air and then, randomly, at cars as they passed. He was approximately 200 yards away.  It’s hazy in my mind but I remember a police officer slowing creeping towards the man until he was within range to shoot.  The Police officer shot the man dead. I don’t know if others were injured or dead.

After we were allowed to leave the bank I walked around and felt sick to my stomach.  We go thru life and trust that random catastrophe won’t happen to us as an anti-paranoia mechanism, but in this moment it felt like anything was possible, that, now, everyone was now a threat. I started to think about all of my movements prior to this incident and that if I had waited two more minutes to do something I might have been in the crossfire. (If I had brushed my teeth for a few more moments, if I had not stopped to see the defunct camera shop, if I had not seen the woman sitting by the fountain and been intrigued.) The lives of others and mine had been leading up to this seemingly random moment. The world felt chaotic.  

We all destined for something… and sometimes this “something” is unfair and unexplainable.

Afterwards I was talking to a friend who told me about a biker getting hit by car directly in front of her. (He was uninjured.)  I believe that something larger in the universe allowed her to to be there at that moment.  The thought occurred to me that they could have traded places if moments had been arranged differently… she being hit by the car and him being the one to see it happen. I realized that for some unexplainable reason it was her task, in that moment, to be there for him. That within the imperfection it was perfect.

In addition to numerous things; I still don’t fully understand the shooting in terms of motives, but I know that we need to show respect and love towards others, that our actions and fate are delicate and that we need to “take care take care take care” (jdv)