Hiroshima Mon Amour: Downpour, tiny mushrooms, treasure

Tuesday, October 27

After a solid month of hot sun that felt like surreal summer, it is finally chilly and the sky has opened up - rain, rain rain..... After picking myself up - literally and emotionally - after my nasty drunken spill on my face, I realize many things and nothing new at all, a see saw of overwhelming observation and trying to keep the ugliness at bay.... As Bo Jacobs says, we are already living in a "slow motion nuclear war".... Sometimes I think photography saves my life every day. It is the thing I like most to do: walk around taking / making photographs - with my iPhone, nikon digital or mamiya 6x7 b+w film camera...... and now to be "making" them again in the darkroom, playing in there, like I did in college, feels so right and productive, organic, a full circle..... Here is an abstraction made by using my Aesthetics of Capital Pain collage as a paper negative:

I love walking, taking different roads, trying to get lost but I never really do because I know this city and I have great sense of direction. Walking every day is a gift of surprises, like this anmal covered tram stopped beside me as I walk past the Peace Park A-Bomb Dome:

This behemoth of a building is the Art Building at Hiroshima City University. See that little window on top that is whiter than the other? That's my darkroom!

The deflated ball I found at the base of an A-Bombed Camphor Tree. I will print through it in the darkroom with some of the branches/leaves that I collected too:

Carol, Bo's wife, lent me Bo's bike today! It was fun following her around and getting the hang of biking in the city. No one wears helmets here and there are a lot of bikes - they bike on the sidewalks.

I walked a few miles today to meet Carol at Yokogawa station and saw new memorials and beautiful views of the rivers and city ----

Stopped into Andersson Bakery - housed in one of the few A-Bombed buildings - and saw this HIROSHIMA bread that made me think of Chicken Bridge Bakery back home in NC:

photogram of a broom in my one room space

out of nowhere this goddess appeared

photosynthed silver building downtown

all bunnies make me think of Harper and Amy Ruth

I don't lnow Caitlin Hettel that well but I see many things here that remind me of her - maybe she runs a hair salon called Moshi Moshi and loves all things Japanese, but this one's for her:

Since the last time I was here - 2010? 2012? 2013? - the city has replaced the bright yellow etched signs with these informative placards on all the A-Bombed trees. This one is very close to the World Friendship Center and is a Camphor tree. It's the one where I found the deflated ball....

the ball and bark and leaves - now in the darkroom waiting for me

student work in progress:

Here is Carol looking like a character out of Annie Hall

WACTH OUT! If a cat runs out in the road, you may fall out of the bus seat!

Restaurant sign on the sidewalk:

You probably would not think rice wine chocolate tastes very good but it is divine - especially when you are hungry and have been in the darkroom for hours and there is a milky white center in each piece!

Scattering radiation......atoms...bursts of light.....flares of sun of heat of cancer

chestnuts without their hearts....prickery shells that protect nothing now....

a grid of collected pods from Fukushima, for Fukushima, after Fukushima....scattering radiation....atoms.....cells, molecules, genetics, random, eyes, cataracts....

near Yokogawa station, along Oto River....

When your cat messes up your computer by sleeping on your keyboard, you take your computer here and they make everything alright, and your cat happy!

How will I get the sets of these 2 sake / tea cups home?

a lonely dead tree

feels like me

Disappearing Energy, Teeth and Chestnut shell from Fukushima in a series.....When the World Goes Dark, slow motion nuclear war.......a tower of suns rising.... bone, calcium, organic

Probably the most photographed place in Hiroshima = the A-Bomb Peace Dome at dusk.

Hair salon wall, exterior - I want to do little installations on those shelves, just waiting...

Double / Impossible Broom - photogram

Because Carol's favorite Tempura spot was closed today, we went across the street for a sushi set lunch: hot egg custard with tiny mushrooms and delicious fish cakes (which I usually dislike) and chicken broth, miso with big seaweed, tempura shrimp, shisito pepper, pumpkin and fish; 6 pieces of sushi, tea and a light fruity jelly square......we noticed the pawn shop across the street : 2 floors! I found this dress for 7yen = 7dollars and it fits like a glove..

Carol found this knockout groovy dresser - all wood - for 3,000yen = 30 dollars!

moody girl but her face is almost healed 100%

art elevator

forlorn feather

the neighborhood around Yokogawa station has funky shops and cool manhole covers like this:

at the top of some grungy stairs that Carol and I took trying to find the pawn shop, we discovered this Margitte still life: umbrella and dead fish head

Flame until there are no nuclear weapons in this world and the cenotaph at the Peace Museum

found drawing

page from Barefoot Gen volume 4 - please read this book, they are fast fast reads and very very good, especially if you have never read anything on/about Hiroshima. It is written by an A-Bomb survivor...

magic in the dark

A-Bombed roof tile fragments

I like to capture the morning light in my hallway each morning on my way to breakfast....

random window that beckoned me

kirin beer sign detail

amazing LADDER poster

bizarre light shadow at the university that often feels deserted

LINE = photograms of bamboo broom handle and shovel handle....Amy White wrote to me about the force of these "collages making sense" and it hit me, that yes, these are also collages:

impossible situations rendered as impossible juxtapositions

tricks riddles magic impossibilities

the absurd

the beauty in the beast

the simple in the chaos

forgotten bag of leaves

a sweatshirt at BOOK OFF, my favorite thrift shop for clothes - if it had been a t-shirt I would have bought it for Darien Brahms....Community Life musterious space...Lets walk to that towm by yourself.....MAINE....we look forward to spending the present happily more than what 32...NEW DISCOVERED - that about covers it....

SOGO window in progress

A memorial I stumbled upon today, meandering....at site of old military hospital....

another morning shadow - since I was up extra early to catch the 8am bus (after a taxi to SOGO/bus center) I saw this new/different morning light. So far, it is my favorite. It is holy.

I have seen these parking barriers everywhere but never until today did I see the gash as a mouth.

Nagasaki Tree - a xerox of a famous Japanese photographer's image, photogrammed with chestnuts and teeth, solarized and bleached - maybe too much but everything is too much sometimes

Nest of Garbage

A tree is not a tree

One of the nicest Obis I have ever found - for 500 yen/5 dollars, hanging at the entrance to my room retreat....

old sign on a window at a hop stacked to the rafters with clothes

Cim Pom and Jason Waite and Charlie Worthen and many others at the infamous ORGAN MEAT restaurant where I spit out my first bite into my damp washcloth...