by joshua heineman                        (blog theory)

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"deeply into whatever"

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c u r s i v e
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flickr as a game you cannot win


angelic melancholic


reclaiming


ta beauté
me secoue


context is
excess


camera death

[ archives ]

January 22
Mr. Eastwood has us lit up like a football game… serious floodlights directly in the window.

Mr. Eastwood has us lit up like a football game… serious floodlights directly in the window.

January 21
Under This UmbrellaIt’s a persistently stormy January out there. I’ve been sick for almost two weeks, shrugging off one cough syrup-soaked day for another. This morning my neighborhood was suddenly thick w/movie trailers - equipment trailers, food trailers, wardrobe trailers, star trailers, la lala la la. This shit is bananas… feels very cinéma vérité to exist w/in! The flick is called Hereafter, directed by Clint Eastwood & starring Matt Damon. I play the spaced-out, under-dressed kid w/the coughing fit.

Under This Umbrella
It’s a persistently stormy January out there. I’ve been sick for almost two weeks, shrugging off one cough syrup-soaked day for another. This morning my neighborhood was suddenly thick w/movie trailers - equipment trailers, food trailers, wardrobe trailers, star trailers, la lala la la. This shit is bananas… feels very cinéma vérité to exist w/in! The flick is called Hereafter, directed by Clint Eastwood & starring Matt Damon. I play the spaced-out, under-dressed kid w/the coughing fit.

January 18
“ This weather is so post-communist.
OVERHEARD in SF
January 16
1982 - Quality time w/my father.

1982 - Quality time w/my father.

January 13

Eating An Orange Incorrectly

If time reversed, sunsets would sunrise & sunrise would set,
& we’d wake up so tired, we’d fall asleep full of rest.

But still there’d be dark, there’d be light. Thunder, then lightning.
& room after room of such waiting…

+

Parable For The Bored

I recall the child… the way he ripped open wrapping paper to get at a present,
while I ripped the rind off a Clementine to get at a fruit. & you said,
”time is a death sentence for such wonder… I am proof,”
the way we hold out a pretense to get past the truth.

January 8
Playing DeadWhen the Earth finally enfolds you, pull the white blanket over & sleep. [ + ]

Playing Dead
When the Earth finally enfolds you, pull the white blanket over & sleep. [ + ]

January 7
A world away from California for Christmas. [ + ]

A world away from California for Christmas. [ + ]

+

EARTHQUAKE, CALIFORNIA (1.7.2010)

The small or far-off earthquakes come on like windwaves at a dock on the lake… the shake is more of a numb drumming at the heel, a vibration felt first in the cobweb wheels of awareness & noted only in the melodies of reflection.

January 3
Go Anyway I’d already survived the arc of the large jetliner we took from San Francisco to Minneapolis for the holidays when my father offered to take Matea & me up into the dreamclouds above my hometown in the small propeller plane he pilots for a living. It’s no secret that I hate flying. No, that’s not quite right. I enjoy flying, but I suffer… my brain explodes in cascading thoughts of flimsy air pressure, vast spaces of sky & the complete loss of control. Furthermore, a distaste for cannonballing through the day in a mechanical cigar w/pasted butterfly wings seems utterly rational to me. But! I went anyway. “Go anyway” - that’s my advice on this life. So while mother earth batted her breath at us some thousand feet above the frozen lakes & forests of Minnesota, my father handed the controls over to Matea (I was stuffed into the backseat, by the way, like a dirty handkerchief in the pocket). Lucky for us, Matea is a natural-born pilot. She has only an expired drivers license back on the ground, but she can push a small plane through a turn while my father (a natural-born professional pilot) points out tree plantations & flood zones. I was shaking in my shoes when taking this photograph.

Go Anyway

I’d already survived the arc of the large jetliner we took from San Francisco to Minneapolis for the holidays when my father offered to take Matea & me up into the dreamclouds above my hometown in the small propeller plane he pilots for a living. It’s no secret that I hate flying. No, that’s not quite right. I enjoy flying, but I suffer… my brain explodes in cascading thoughts of flimsy air pressure, vast spaces of sky & the complete loss of control. Furthermore, a distaste for cannonballing through the day in a mechanical cigar w/pasted butterfly wings seems utterly rational to me. But! I went anyway. “Go anyway” - that’s my advice on this life.

So while mother earth batted her breath at us some thousand feet above the frozen lakes & forests of Minnesota, my father handed the controls over to Matea (I was stuffed into the backseat, by the way, like a dirty handkerchief in the pocket). Lucky for us, Matea is a natural-born pilot. She has only an expired drivers license back on the ground, but she can push a small plane through a turn while my father (a natural-born professional pilot) points out tree plantations & flood zones. I was shaking in my shoes when taking this photograph.

December 21
El Poeta Saturday I had the good fortune to find myself in a cozy Victorian w/the great Cuban poet & novelist Pablo Armando Fernández. He was giving a private reading in a beautiful home in the hills above Haight-Ashbury at the behest of filmmaker Saul Landau, to which I was very lucky to be invited. The party gathered around a table of hors d’oeuvres & wine, w/the dozen or so guests mingling about in conversation… everyone seemed to know everyone else, except for me. This was a wonderful fact because it meant I got to meet many accomplished & amazing people - an artist, a doctor, a journalist, a filmmaker &, of course, El Poeta. Even the children (largely my age or younger) of these people seemed to be doing notable things. It was humbling. The centerpiece of the evening was a reading by the 80-year-old Cuban writer. Though he could speak English fairly well, he read his work in Spanish &, after the music of his voice subsided, Saul would stand & read the English translations. El Poeta told many beautiful stories, mostly about love & family, & won over the hearts of the gathered. What a remarkable man he was, all white-haired & lion-faced. This man, who was exiled from Cuba before the Revolution & counts Castro among his friends. This man, who knew Neruda & hosted Ginsberg & Ferlinghetti in Havana. This man, who asked about my wife & advised about my life &, when evening came, took my hand & said “Good luck, my child.”

El Poeta

Saturday I had the good fortune to find myself in a cozy Victorian w/the great Cuban poet & novelist Pablo Armando Fernández. He was giving a private reading in a beautiful home in the hills above Haight-Ashbury at the behest of filmmaker Saul Landau, to which I was very lucky to be invited.

The party gathered around a table of hors d’oeuvres & wine, w/the dozen or so guests mingling about in conversation… everyone seemed to know everyone else, except for me. This was a wonderful fact because it meant I got to meet many accomplished & amazing people - an artist, a doctor, a journalist, a filmmaker &, of course, El Poeta. Even the children (largely my age or younger) of these people seemed to be doing notable things. It was humbling.

The centerpiece of the evening was a reading by the 80-year-old Cuban writer. Though he could speak English fairly well, he read his work in Spanish &, after the music of his voice subsided, Saul would stand & read the English translations. El Poeta told many beautiful stories, mostly about love & family, & won over the hearts of the gathered.

What a remarkable man he was, all white-haired & lion-faced. This man, who was exiled from Cuba before the Revolution & counts Castro among his friends. This man, who knew Neruda & hosted Ginsberg & Ferlinghetti in Havana. This man, who asked about my wife & advised about my life &, when evening came, took my hand & said “Good luck, my child.”

December 17

New Morning Ritual:

Slip out of bed & into clothes at 8:15 am
Slam 4 cups Graffeo coffee
Wander through Nob Hill/Chinatown/Financial District in euphoric daze
Report to NEW office, NEW building at 9 am

ps. crash

December 15
A few hours into married life. photo by THE J.Lo

A few hours into married life.

photo by THE J.Lo

December 14
“ Ugh. Me & my psychic have been playing phone tag all weekend.
OVERHEARD in SF
December 13

12.12.09 - notes

When I hear the evening church bells, I slip into a pea coat & nice shoes, twist an umbrella around my wrist. Outside there are yellow-green leaves on the sidewalk.

In Chinatown the trinkets reflect headlights from the rain. Buses pass w/nondescript faces, libraries of graffiti & other advertisements. I try to read them all, walking.

Later, as my train leaves the station, this California reminds me of Italy for a moment. But only because I let a memory run over the world. These two are not so much alike.

A young woman behind me makes ambitious plans for Valentine’s Day 2010 - a hotel room in Pacifica, ocean view. The peninsula is off-black & spotted w/porch lights.

My station is covered in raindrops. The restaurant is top-shelf, small & inviting. My wife is there, w/her coworkers. I order wine. We eat like royalty on another’s dime.

Southern food. Layers of courses, tiny portions. Interludes of rosemary cornbread, lemon sorbet & Bananas Foster. I trade off taking sips of 11 pm coffee & cabernet.