Wednesday, April 23, 2008

My heart aches...


As a good friend of mine always says... photographers need to keep their "hoppers" full. Meaning... without all that input there would be no output. Lately I've been really diving into a lot of things. Books, music, movies, bike rides, food, lectures, openings, etc.

I know I'm not alone on this. Sometimes a book or an author is so good it's heart breaking to walk away when the last page is turned. You grow close to the characters, you know them and in some cases you perhaps fall in love with them. Michael Ondaatje is one of my favorite authors of all time. His words resonate and mesh with my own thoughts and feelings. Three times in a row I have finished his book and been so torn about walking away that I flip back to the start. His books are poetic, full of wandering, travel, history and emotion. 'Coming Through Slaughter', 'Running In The Family' and now 'In The Skin Of A Lion' . I'm floored.

When interviewed and asked the last thing Michael Ondaatje read that blew the top of his head off, he replied: "I read Coetzee’s The Master of Petersburg… the one about Dostoevsky. Really amazing. I think he’s wonderful … such a personal grief book. Everyone thinks he (Coetzee) is a cold fish, but the emotion in that book is devastating."

I just found a link to many more of his smaller works, poetry, essays, etc. Looks like I'll be on amazon a lot in the near future.


Listening to: Eef Barzelay
Drinking: French Press
Wishing I could have: Slept in
Looking at: Miranda July's "Getting Stronger Everyday"

1 comment:

wrobertangell@gmail.com said...

Hi again, i came back and was reading this post, and really agree with you as far as photographers needing input to produce output. I was reading David Copperfield, but havent picked it up for a couple of weeks, got to get back to it. I think I will look for this title though and see what its like. that shot looks like it was taken in the LA river. reminds me of the LA PD photo archive.
you said "ride bikes" , damn straight! love that too.