the closet

honored in death

shadow of hand reflected in mirror

this is what i seek.

it's what emerges that counts

too etched to ignore

empty mirror in the unempty room

dark night of the soul

sun. hand. shadows.

jt's in the house.

choose your metaphor

"half-heard, in the stillness"

title taken from a line in "little gidding" by t.s. eliot.

so what is the one word that best describes the mood of this photo?

layer upon layer

this guy is about as close to being a renaissance man that i know. he's a man as complicated as he is good.

i like that.

sweet and sentimental

We love because life is so short and love is our consolation for its brevity. We love because life is so very long and would be unbearable without it.

let the eagle sooooooaarr....

just a little wink to any stephen colbert and/or john ashcroft fans out there.

actually i was pretty thrilled to see this bald eagle outside of savannah, ga, a week or so ago. maybe that's because i live in one of the "pro-america" states. i love america, and i love america's official bird. (though i oppose the endangered species act that saved it from extinction because i love american parking lots even more than i love american birds, eagles or otherwise. a bird provides only one meal. a parking lot allows me to park at a publix, which provides for many many meals). birds = good. parking lots = even better. therefore parking lots = more american.

i rest my case. i think we've established i'm decidedly pro-american. in fact, here's my pro-america influence. i've lived in four different states since i cast my first vote in 1984: missouri; texas; michigan; georgia.

i have yet to live in a state that did not vote pro-america at the presidential level when i was living there.

where i go, there goes america.

you're welcome.

i'm also tempted to say that where i go, there goes god. but that would just be wrong. but i will say this. at the church i formerly attended, one of the pastors made a "non-political" sermon in which he reassured us he wouldn't tell us how to vote, but at one point in the sermon he started yelling (or thumping, or whatever it's called) "VOTE GOD!! VOTE GOD!! VOTE GOD!!"

and how does one vote god, you may be asking. (though i hope you're not really asking yourself that because that reveals that you're pretty much lost at many many levels. you probably hate both america and god.) one votes god, according to that pastor (correctly, i must say), by voting america. and we all know which party is pro-america. (hint: not the pro-terrorist party.)

so basically if you want to be with the people who vote god, you shoud be sure to live where i live.

i'm just saying.

blue and red

and the grand prize...

doesn't go to this piece of crap photo.

but i'm pressed for time, and so i just slapped up the first photo i found on my C-drive. fine, that's a lie, but i did i panic a little bit. however, were i to have any time, what i'd be tempted to do is post is political commentary. but i can't do that though my loyal readership burns in yearning for it.

but to post political commentary would violate the integrity, the internal ethic of my blog.

and let me be clear about something, and i'm addressing this directly to a particular someone i "deal with" in my physical world, not just in this superior virtual world. this is a blog. "eyeball central" is not a "phlog," damn it. true, it has right-brain material, but it also has left-brain material, and a lot of it. the perfect amount of left-brain material for a blog.

as evidenced by this very post, thank you very much. because when my left-brain speaks, baby, it shouts.

which takes me to the big lebowski. remember john goodman's character, surely the best character he's ever played and one of the funniest characters ever put on film?

surely you do. tell me that you do. and if haven't seen the movie, i'm going to count to ten slowly and calm myself down. and if you have seen the movie and didn't enjoy it or, worse, you didn't appreciate his character, then i dare you to let me know. because then we're going to have a little chat right here on this blog. and by "chat" i mean i'll speak and you'll get schooled.

but as i was saying, goodman's character says, "I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos."

and one might say the same about this blog. say what you will about it, but it reflects an ethic all right. a complicated and comprehensive and extraordinarily compelling ethic. for example, i don't do (a lot) of political commentary except through snarky polls--and snarkiness has is its own non-political ethic all to its own. i post very few "look straight-forward look at the camera and smile" photos. no, i have my subjects look away and look pained. as well they should. and i also don't use my kids' names. and apparently they don't have a mother if one were to judge by the photos. he or she may exist (i'm not going to give away her gender) but if he does then sadly she's invisible. either that or she's a vampire and i take all my photos using a mirror. and i don't make mention of my town. and don't try to make me! i won't do it, so back down, fool! and i don't freakin' foist zucchini on people who don't want it. or even on those who do, unless it's zucchini i've been given recently by yet another well-meaning amateur gardener who thinks a good garden is one part lettuce, twelve parts overripe wormy tomatoes and eighty-seven freakin' parts zucchini. (listen, yo: just stop planting the stuff and it'll grow back next year on its own. yet another thing it shares in common with poison ivy.) and i own a tv and if i didn't i wouldn't spend half my day bragging about it like the non-tv owning people do. oh, for the love of humanity, get a dang tv or get a hobby, why don't you, instead of wandering the earth like lost banshees in search of people to boast to about how you don't own a tv. and i like photos eyeballs and hands (blue or otherwise). and bees.

and eyeballs.

and if that's not an ethic, then i don't know what is.

oh, and by the way, if you don't like the beatles, you're dead to me. but that's just common sense right there.

like i was saying, i'll get some other photos up there soon.

my lioness cub

self-portrait

look away at me

Eyeballs are interesting.

Admit it.

candle in the corner

on the wall

the razor-thin line of being

i took this shot thinking i saw something special in those lines. turned out to be a pretty ordinary photo. which i was tempted to say is a lot like life. because it is a lot like life, at least as seen from one perspective. the extraordinary in our imagination often deflates into the ordinary when actually experienced. few christmas mornings satisfy the yearnings of christmas eve.

but it also strikes me as ungrateful in the extreme to ever call life itself ordinary.

here's our story. billions of years behind us, nothing. then there you are. life. just somehow, improbably, there you are. a little blip. a translucently-thin slice of time. then nothing again (possibly) forever and ever.

so it seems like there's a whole lot of nothing goin' on in that story. billions of years behind us. eternity ahead of us. and yet that tiny little slice. a single sixteenth note of music in a long symphony of silence. and yet it's pretty special. pretty magical. definitely not ordinary.

and so, you know, not to be either too dramatic or melodramatic here, but life as seen from this perspective puts our neighbors in a special light. this tiny chance of existing. this tiny chance of existing together, you and i. sharing a special razor-thin slice of time together. fellow sojourners on the most statistically improbable journey of all, the journey of being.

definitely not ordinary.

the ball toss

communication at its simplest.

hands

My nephew Aaron's hands. Taken a couple of years ago at my sis-in-law's wedding rehearsal. Weddings always have a lot of waiting around, and Aaron was chatting with me from the the pew ahead of me (in this case a series of interlocking chairs). His hands were between the small gap the chairs, and I took this picture.

"There he goes again. Crazy Uncle Mike taking weird pictures of eyeballs and hands and bees again. " Or so he probably thought.

Crazy Uncle Mike. No joke. That's my name with my nephews and neice. Can you believe it?!?! I would understand it if they called me "Disarmingly Charming Uncle Mike." Now that would make sense. Or...."Profound and Witty Uncle Mike." That, too, is a natural. Or, "Our basketball hero Uncle Mike." Natch. Or why not Rabbi Michael?

But Crazy Uncle Mike....I tell you, it hurts.

Real bad.

But maybe if "you" were to call me Rabbi Mike, well, that could ease the pain a little. Because I have loads of wisdom to offer. Really really. And if you don't believe me, just ask me. (Brises, however, are out of the question. Fainting and circumcision are rarely a good combination.)

rainy sunset on the lake