Category - Digest

October 2, 2017: The Day
Facebook Became Insufferable

October 2, 2017

I’ve been trying to avoid the news today. But just a moment ago I took a one-minute scroll through Facebook and learned that Tom Petty is dead, or near enough. “Full cardiac arrest, no brain activity, DNR” etc etc.

He was 66.

For a moment, that news provided a diversion from the day’s dominant story: yet another mass shooting event, this time in Las Vegas. 50+ killed and hundreds injured (mostly probably from the ensuing stampede) when somebody opened fire from a 30th floor hotel window onto an open field filled with a crowd for a country music festival, headliner Jason Aldean running from the stage once he figured out what was going on.

And so once again all the typical responses… the meaningless “thoughts and prayers,” the relentless outrage, the exhortations to talk about gun control -v- the exhortations to not talk about gun control “so soon” after so many people have been senselessly slaughtered by the kinds of weapons that nobody should have access to, at least not legal access, but then you know how that works, if guns are outlawed yada yada yada…

So this morning when I started to do my typical mindless scrolling… I just realized, “today is the day that Facebook became insufferable.”

And then I had to resist the temptation to actually put that thought on Facebook. I’m sure it would have offended a lot of people who felt righteously, grievously offended that so many people they never knew had been killed, because that’s what we’re all conditioned to do now when this happens again and again and again and again etc ad infinitum ad nauseam…

Later in the day, I thought of something that I read or heard about Hugh Hefner after he had his last wank last week at age 91. Somebody pointed out that Hefner had made his fortune largely “on masturbation.”

Now, I would say, that Mark Zuckerberg is the contemporary equivalent, though not strictly in the literal sense.

It is almost ironic that Facebook doesn’t permit anything that is even slightly, obliquely pornographic (i.e. “no female nipples” – regardless of their “artistic” merit), because arguably all of the content on Facebook is some form of mental masturbation.

It is a billion people a month (many several or even dozens of times a day) “getting off” on their own expressions of moral outrage, or gentle metaphysical platitudes, or pictures of their babies, or whatever the fuck floats their boat.

With a user base measured in the billions, Facebook creates the illusion of an audience of thousands when in most cases – i.e. those that are not already celebrities and thus have a large “social media following” (George Takei comes to mind, and remember he got his start being a spaceman on TeeVee 50 years ago) our posts only show up on a few dozen other users feeds. It’s somewhere between an echo chamber and a masturbatorium – a word I had never heard before the actor Brian Cox used it in a scene from the movie “Running With Scissors” : “You can’t go in that room, that’s my masturbatorium”.

Facebook is a masturbatorium that we let everybody in to.

Anyway, when I looked at Facebook this morning, it just seemed like a relentless rerun of years of self indignation. With every post I felt like “where have I seen this before?” Oh yeah, right here on Facebook the last time. And the time before that. And the time…

So… fuck it.

One of the things that got me hooked on Facebook years ago was when web browsers started to offer the “pin tab” feature – where you always had a small tab conveniently situated on the edge of your browser window for websites that your return to often.

Once THAT feature was enabled, I basically had Facebook at my disposal all the time. It was just one click away. It was like when I discovered “one hit pot” back in 1969. I’ve been stoned on Facebook ever since.

And that (I think) was before it all went mobile, and Facebook became the thing that I went to almost impulsively on my phone. Wait, who am I kidding? “Almost impulsively?” No, it was definitely impulsive. Like a rat in a cage, pushing the button for another endorphin pellet. Dozens of times a day. I supply the content, Zuckerberg gets the money. Who are we kidding.

And don’t even start me on the fucking Russians.

Lately I’ve been saying “I feel about Facebook the way I felt about scotch and vodka just before I quit drinking (almost 30 years ago).

And today, I dunno, something just finally snapped.

I closed all “pin tabs” on my browsers.

And I deleted the Facebook app on my phone. I replaced it (in the dock on the bottom of the home screen) with the podcast app. Maybe I’ll listen to more podcasts.

But I did go back to Facebook for a minute, just to confirm my suspicions. But instead of gun-violence induced righteous indignation, I got the news that Tom Petty had a heart attack and died at age 66.

Well, fuck me, I’m 66, too.

Or, wait… maybe he’s not dead?

Oh, fuck it. Ya just can’t believe anything any more.

Update 171005: Yes, I violated my own quarantine and posted a link to this from my Facebook page. Save one comment re: Scott Kozicki needing a haircut, I have not posted anything to the Infinite Random Trivia Generator all week. If you care to comment on what I have written/posted above, please share those sentiments in the comments section here. The boycott now resumes…,

My Homage to ‘Mr. Turner’

September 29, 2017

Paul Schatzkin

Digest, photography, travel

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Here, then, is my “digital homage” to JMW Turner…

Joseph Mallord Willam Turner (1775-1851), for those of you who have never heard of him, was one of Britain’s premier landscape artists in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

I first learned of Turner several years ago after I started photographing medieval ruins in the United Kingdom. Turner traveled Europe extensively during his career, and painted dozens of canvases depicting the ruins that Britain’s aristocracy were just beginning to preserve during that period, often turning them into parks on their estates. When I started researching the sites that I had visited in the spring of 2013, Turner started showing up in my web searches.

I was of course intrigued by the 2014 feature film “Mr. Turner” that portrayed the artist during the peak years of his career.

When I returned to the UK in the spring of 2017, I sought out some of the locations that Turner had painted 200+ years earlier. My itinerary started in Chepstow, Wales (park car, see castle…), near the ruin of Tintern Abbey that Turner painted in 1794. I carried a file of his painting with me on my iPhone so that I could find and attempt to replicate his vantage point.

I did manage to find what I suspect was the spot where Turner stood when he painted the Abbey, though things look very different when viewed through an ultra-wide angle lens compared to a painter’s ability to render things with whatever perspective he can conjure with his brush. 200+ years can also do a lot to how a place looks; Turner’s paintings show ruins like Tintern in a native state, largely overgrown with vegetation. A lot of that growth has been pruned back and manicured in the centuries since preservation has become more of a priority.

Once I got home with the files, I put them through several layers of processing. First I blended 5 frames into a single HDR file. I loaded that into a “digital painting” program from Topaz Labs called “Impression” which can take photographs and overlay then with digital brush strokes. The program features several “Turner” presets, so I started with those and worked them with details that hopefully do Mr. Turner some kind of contemporary, digital justice.

But I didn’t stop there.

When I was in London at the end of the trip, I made a pilgrimage to the Tate Modern museum which houses much of Turner’s work. I spent several hours touring the Tate’s Turner exhibit. And, thankfully, they have no restrictions on (no flash) photography of Turner’s canvases. I took detailed photos of every one, thinking that I might have a use for some of the master’s skies…

Once I was back in Photoshop, I masked the (boring, bright, solid blue) sky out of my Tintern Impression, and made a background layer out of one of Turner’s paintings. So this is a composite of my digitally processed photo and an actual JMW Turner painting.

On the left is Turner’s painting from 1794; on the right, my digital homage from 2017, created with Photoshop, Aurora HDR and Topaz Impression – with a ‘digital assist’ from JMW Turner himself.

Chasing The Light – UK 2017
Opening August 5 at The Arcade

July 27, 2017

Paul Schatzkin

Digest, photography, travel

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Hello, friends…

It’s been a while, I know. But (among other things) I’ve been traveling…

Last month I returned from spending three weeks in England and Wales “chasing the light in the Celtic latitudes” – during that time of year just before the summer solstice, when the light that cinematographers call “Golden Time” lasts for nearly three hours.

I have hundreds of new photos to share with you: photos of ruins as well photos of living, medieval cathedrals and churches. And stories. So many stories about the places I visited and the things I saw.

So my main reason for writing today is to invite you to the first showing of this new work during the Downtown Art Crawl on Saturday, August 5 at the Erabellum Gallery 2nd floor of the Arcade. The Crawl runs from 6:00 – 9:00 PM.

To tempt you to come out and see what’s new, I’m attaching two digital files to this missive you can use as “wall paper” on your smartphone or computer:

The smaller, “vertical” file is from a medieval church in Yorkshire called Beverly Minster. It makes a great lock-screen wallpaper for your smart phone. The larger, “horizontal” file is the fan vaulting in the cloister of Gloucester Cathedral, where several scenes from the Harry Potter movies were filmed. That one makes a great wallpaper for your desk-or-laptop.

Those are not the actual files, those are just thumbnails I’m putting in this message. To download the actual files, click here. That will take you to a .zip in my Dropbox. Download the file and double-click on it, that will open the actual files. Then move them to wherever you keep your wallpapers.

There will be much more to show-and-tell at the Crawl. Please come by and say hello…

—PS

Harvey and the Lionel Trains

March 20, 2017

Paul Schatzkin

commentary, Digest, Harvey & Ellen, personal, Writing

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I think I’m goin’ back
To the things I learned so well in my youth
I think I’m returning to those days
When I was young enough to know the truth
Now there are no games to only pass the time
No more electric trains, no more trees to climb
Thinking young and growing older is no sin
And I can play the game of life to win

–– Carol King

Harvey, Arthur, and the 736 Berkshire

For Christmas in 1954, my father bought, set up and gave to my older brother an elaborate set of Lionel trains, tracks, and accessories.

In our family photo albums, there is just one photo of Harvey operating the trains, my brother Arthur looking on in gleeful fascination as the cast iron 736 Berkshire electric locomotive “steams” by; Just out of the frame, circles of chemical-pellet induced smoke are puffing out of its little smokestack.

In the 1950s, Lionel trains were the quintessential under-the-tree expression of America’s post-war prosperity. The Lionel Corporation had found a way to flourish during the war, by retooling their assembly lines to manufacture servo motors for military equipment instead of electric motors for toy trains. Once the war ended, the company repurposed those servo motors in the first post-war generation of its marquee product.

Our family was sufficiently prosperous (the family business produced ceramic household tile at a plant in Keyport, New Jersey) that our parents could afford to give their kids the very best: that Berkshire locomotive with its smoke puffing stack and whistling coal car was top-of-the-line, but that was just the start of the layout. Arrayed within the circle of tracks were equally high-end accessories:

Farewell, “Alive Now”

February 16, 2017

Paul Schatzkin

Digest, photography, travel

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….and thanks for all the fish?

For the past several years, it has been my unique and singular privilege to have photos from my visits to the UK (and other destinations) featured in “Alive Now,” a bi-monthly journal of prayers and meditations published by the Upper Room Ministries here in Nashville.

Sadly, “Alive Now” has just published the last issue of it’s ‘print edition’ – another victim of the relentless transition to digital media in the 21st Century.

On the other hand, I’m pleased to report that this final issues features not one, but two of my photos from England and Scotland – and this time, one of them (finally!) made the cover.

The cover photo is from Jervaulx Abbey – a Cistercian monastery that lies in ruin on a private estate in Yorkshire England. The interior photo is from St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Scotland, a destination known more for its golf than it’s ecclesiastics. St. Andrew’s Cathedral was once the largest church in all of Scotland, now all that remains is the East Facade, seen here through the arch of the West Gate.

I am forever indebted to Nancy Terzian, Beth Richardson and Gina Manskar for their support and patronage over these past several years. The inclusion of photos like these in their publications has provided some much needed validation of my fascination with these ruins.

It is appropriate, I guess, that the theme of this final edition of “Alive Now” is “Thresholds,” as we all pass through the thresholds of our daily existence to whatever awaits on the other side.

Thank you, Nancy, Beth, and Gina.

Onward…

What I Am Not Going To Say
At My AA Meeting Today

January 28, 2017

Paul Schatzkin

commentary, Digest, Writing

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I’m going to go to my AA “Home Group” this morning. This is what I probably will not “share” with the meeting:

Hi, I’m Paul and I’m an alcoholic.

I feel compelled to say something today that’s going to sound like AA heresy. But I feel like I have to speak my truth here even if it means becoming the first person to ever be excommunicated from AA…

I don’t really know but one or two of you here, so most of you have know way of knowing what a tough time I’ve been having over the past year. My wife decided last – well, it’s been almost a year now – that she needs to live in Portland Oregon, where her two adult sons and her now one-and-a-half year old granddaughter live. And as you can see, I am not in Portland, Oregon. I have been to Portland at least a dozen times since ‘the kids’ moved there in the early ‘aughts, but I’ve never felt like I’ve wanted to live there. After more than two decades, I’m rooted here.

Welcome to Portland!

And as a recovering alcoholic myself, it’s hard to fathom how I am going to live in a city that greets you getting off the plane with a huge sign that says “Give In To Beer.”

Thursday night, I learned that a dear friend had died this week, most likely from complications of alcoholism. He was only a year older than I am. I think that news kinda put me over the edge…

Which brings me to yesterday. Yesterday was a day off from a new job that I got last summer which has absolutely been my salvation over the past 6 months. I like the work, it truly takes me out of myself and makes me a better person than I am when when I’m by myself. But sometimes the days off are challenging because, well, there’s nobody to talk to.

Yesterday, I felt knots in my stomach, that spinning wheel of loneliness and sadness, fear and despair. As I said later to my sponsor, I was having a tough day…

In the middle of the day, I made some calls and sent out some texts, to see if there was somebody in my orbit who could meet me for lunch or coffee. All those overtures came up empty. People are busy.

At one point, I was driving around town and started thinking, “maybe what I need is a meeting…” I had no idea where there was one in the middle of the day on a Friday. I was in town, driving around, and thought about going over to ‘202,’ but… I just couldn’t quite convince myself to do that, either. It wasn’t until later in the day that I fully realized why.

I didn’t go to 202 for the same reason that I don’t go to more AA meetings like this one: because I really dislike the whole format and structure of these gatherings.

A couple of years ago I ran across a TED talk by a Scandinavian counselor named Johann Hari that talked about the antidote to addiction being not just abstinence but connection.

Connection. That is what I was longing for yesterday. And sadly it is not what I get at these meetings. I don’t really get a meaningful level of connection and engagement from sitting through an hour of extemporaneous 3 minute monologues. And I really don’t like the unstated pressure to be witty and profound if and when I take my own turn to ‘“share.”

So mostly I come to these meetings, sit in silence, and hope I get to hold a girl’s hand when when we all stand up to recite the Lord’s Prayer (which I usually don’t actually recite. It’s a Jesus prayer and I’m a Jew.).

I know that the whole “no cross talk” structure of these meetings is essential to their decorum. But jeezus, sometimes what you really need is to actually talk to somebody. The absence of dialog defeats my whole purpose of being here. It actually makes me feel more isolated when what I need is something… not superficial. When I need the give and take of an actual conversation.

In the realm of recovery, I know that I’m one of the very lucky ones. The compulsion to drink or smoke or sniff (my primary drug of choice for nearly 20 years was pot; thank god I never got in to heroin or crack…) completely left me after, I dunno, somewhere between 30 and 60 days. That was back in 1987 – 29+ years ago – so I don’t really remember. I just know that there are a lot of recovering alcoholic types who struggle with the compulsion every day. That’s why the program insists that recovery is “One Day At A Time.” So I know that I am among the most fortunate of recovering ‘polyholics.’

What I’m trying to say here is: when I’m feeling isolated and alone – the very conditions that might spark a round of drinking if my sobriety was not as strong as it is – the last thing I need in the world is to sit in a hard chair feeling like a lame loser because I’m not to going to be as entertaining as the guy who “shared” before me or the woman who will share after me. But that’s the structure. And I sometimes I just fucking hate it.

I come to these meetings because they give me the opportunity to at least experience and be grateful for – if not actually “share” – my sobriety, and the fact that I because I quit sipping, sniffing and puffing nearly 30 years ago, I am still living – even it that presently means struggling with some of the most difficult choices I have ever had to face.

I have an “altar” of sorts in my home on which rest photographs of my ancestors, and also the photographs of several friends whose lives were cut short by their addictions. I have another photo to add to that collection now.

But jeezus, sometimes you just want to talk to somebody. Sometimes you just need a hug.

Don’t get me wrong. I know damn well that I would not be alive today had I not started going to AA meetings back in 1987. And I come to meetings so that I don’t take that gift of sobriety for granted.

But yesterday, I needed something else.

OK, I guess my three minutes are up.

Thanks for listening.

Where’d Paul Go??

January 2, 2017

Paul Schatzkin

commentary, Digest, photography, Writing

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I can’t really know if anybody besides me has been asking that question, but if you’re one of the regulars around here (the numbers may not be legion, but the affection is sincere…) you may have been wondering why the frequency of posts to this site dropped off dramatically in the second half of last year (2016).

At least, I hope somebody noticed, and even if nobody did notice, I’m going to attempt to explain the absence.

So, where did Paul go?

He sorta went into hiding for awhile. His innate tendency to be reclusive and withdrawn when things “go all pear-shaped” got the better of him for several months.

Or, rather, maybe, he just had the wind kicked out of him, and he’s been trying to catch his breath.

Or maybe he’s been thrown into the middle of a lake and is treading water, trying to figure which shore to swim to.

Yeah, that’s it. Treading water.

Chalk it all up to disruption on a personally cosmic scale.

– – – – – – –

I remember exactly when the fabric of my universe started to tear: April 29, 2016.

Ann and I were in Portland, Oregon. She got back in the car and said,

“They want me to start August 1st.”

At that moment, the Big Bang Theory went into full reverse and my Universe started to implode….

Tomorrow

January 2, 2017

Paul Schatzkin

Digest, personal, Writing

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Tomorrow
I will do the things
All the things
that need the doing
the plant watering
the bird-feeder filling
the cat-box cleaning
the dish-washer emptying
the trash taking out
the compost dumping
the laundry washing
the run to the recycle center
the errands
the shopping
the fridge-stocking.

all those tedious chores
that must be done
so that the plants don’t die
and the cats aren’t crapping
in a litter box
already filled with
their own crap.

But today,
Today is my Saturday
Today is the day I get to do
whatever I want
including the nothing
if that’s what I feel like doing
or not doing.

I’ll write a silly poem or two
I’ll surf the Interwebs
and post inane things on The Facebook
so that all my friends will think
that I am witty and profound.

I’ll make a few phone calls
send a few emails.
mess about with
my new computer.

I will try to
put aside
all pretense of “purpose”
long enough to let
“random” prevail
because “random” is where
the creative things happen.

So that’s what I’m going to do today.
But tomorrow
I will do the things,
like go to the store
and stock the fridge
so that the day after tomorrow
I don’t starve.

Exit 2016, Enter 2017, Exit…

January 2, 2017

Paul Schatzkin

Digest, photography

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Well, here’s something good that happened in 2016 that bodes well for 2017…

For the past several years, I have been a regular contributor to the publication Alive Now – a bimonthly publication of the Upper Room Ministries which “speaks to the opportunities and challenges of following Christ in the modern world.”

Anybody who knows me and my lack of (organized) religious conviction will appreciate the irony in that mission statement.

Nevertheless, over the years Alive Now has featured many of my photos from my wanderings amid the medieval ruins of the U.K. I am endlessly grateful for the patronage of the magazine’s art director, Nancy Terzian and its editor, Beth Richardson – who also selected one of my photos from Scotland to serve as the cover of her book, Christ Beside Me, Christ Within Me: Celtic Blessings.

Alive Now has published enough of my photos – and actually paid for them! – that I’ve probably earned enough over the years to reimburse the trips I made to England and Scotland to shoot the photos of medieval ruins that they used (OK, not ALL of the photos were from the UK, but who’s counting?).

click to embiggen

Now, the capstone of that fruitful relationship is in place. After however many years, I finally secured the cover of March/April 2017 edition of Alive Now. I know it’s a sin, but I’ve coveted a cover for as long as I have been submitting photos, and I finally have one.

Unfortunately, in what feels like a hangover from the annus horribilis known as 2016 (trust me, you want to follow that ‘2016’ link…), the cover comes with its own sad tidings: this will be the final print edition of Alive Now. The publication will continue, but as has befallen so many print publications in the past decade, all future editions will be online/digital only. Once again, The Medium Is The Message (#TMITM).

The photo on the cover was taken at a monastic ruin in Yorkshire, England called Jervaulx Abbey. I stumbled on Jervaulx while touring the UK in the fall of 2014 looking for more “Portals of Stone.”

Unlike the neatly manicured ruins that are maintained by well-endowed institutions like English Heritage, Jervaulx sits on a private estate. Its owners have gone to considerable effort and expense over the past decade to rehabilitate the ruin, but it still lingers in a state that is more reflective of how these ruins must have stood before their preservation became pet projects for the British aristocracy starting in the 18^th century. That made spending an afternoon at Jervaulx an exercise in time travel that stopped in at least two different centuries at the same time.

And here is the ‘Portals of Stone’ version:

Playing The Hand We’ve Been Dealt

October 28, 2016

Paul Schatzkin

commentary, Digest

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Friday October 28, 2016

I’ll finish my second cup of coffee
then toast a bagel
so that I’m not hungry
when I fire up
the old red truck
(which rolled off the assembly line
while Harry Truman was President)
and head down
to Pegram City Hall
to vote.

Yes,
I’m going to vote
for Hillary.

Surprised?

Despite all my reservations
despite my concerns
that the a vote for Her
is a vote for Corporate Oligarchy
is a vote for a status quo
that is clearly not serving
some significant portion of the populace
– white, rural (my peeps!)
– urban under-educated (we love the under-educated!)
those “salt of the earth” types
for whom Donald-fucking-Trump
seems like a viable alternative
when what he really represents
is …
(was it Michael Moore who said this?)
… a Molotov Cocktail
that the proles can throw
into the Palace of the Establishment.

As in:
Here, take THIS
you game-rigging
East Coast
Ivy Leaguers.
Suck on this
flaming bottle of rage.
#Her2016?
#Guillotines2020.

But when it comes down to
actually pulling a lever
as much as I would like to
#CrushTheDuopoly
it ain’t gonna happen.
At least, not this year.

This year, we have to
hold our nose
swallow our idealistic pride
just do what we can
to keep (what’s left of?)
a once bold experiment
together.

Or do what Bernie says we should do.
Or as Andrew Sullivan said
just grow-the-fuck-up
and do what has to be done.

It’s unfortunate for Hillary, I guess
that the climate around her ascension
is so toxic.

It’s unfortunate, too,
that her life and career
have unfolded as they have
although had it been any different,

had she not entered the public arena
at the side of her charismatic husband
[compelling human interest story in the NYTimes this morning]
and then she had to pretty much stand by
while he self destructed
and then saddle herself
with all of that wreckage.

So you wonder
what it might have been like
if she’d emerged through some corridor
other than as Bill’s spouse
but that’s pointless speculation.

We’re all here to play
the hand that we’ve been dealt.

Sure, she’s got a lot of baggage
Who has lived on this planet
for nearly seven decades
and not accumulated
their share of shit?

(Certainly not
Donald-fucking-Trump
who has taken every day
of his 70 years to evolve
into a steaming sack
of human excrement)

But underneath it all
one occasionally gets a glimpse
of a genuinely exceptional
if equally flawed
flesh blood and bone
woman.

It’s hard to separate
the actual person
from all the mediated data points.
Who really knows
what she is really like?
I mean, who,
outside of her tight inner circle
if even them?

We’re certainly not going to get
any sense of that
from television, or – especially – the Internet
– that digital echo chamber
that does such a great job
of re-telling us what we already know.

We just have to play
the hand we’ve been dealt
and take some solace
in knowing that voices we respect
like Bernie
like Andrew
like Elizabeth Warren
are all in the same boat.

So I will dip my oar
in the swirling ocean of crazy
pull my solitary stroke
in Her direction,
hope she can steer us
to some shore of (relative) sanity,
and then pray that the polls
are reasonably accurate.

Otherwise….
Kool-Aide, anyone?