Postcards from Hell

The Wood Brothers are one of my favorite bands. They have a wonderful organic sound and very creative lyrics. One song that I can't get enough of is called Postcards from Hell. I have been thinking of another way to give back to the wonderful people that have enjoyed following along with my Book Passages visual journey and here is my solution. Postcards from hell, OK - maybe not hell but possibly purgatory. You know that place, neither here nor there but somewhere in-between that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Well that is just what my postcards will be.

This is not a new idea in fact part of my inspiration comes from my friend Frieda's hub in which she explains how to create personal postcards for yourself, family and friends (http://hubpages.com/hub/Picture-Perfect-Postcards). The other part comes from this cool Wood Brothers song, i got a soul that i won't sell, i got a soul that i won't sell, i got a soul that i won't sell and i don't read postcards from hell.

Depending on the response I may have to limit the postcards to a manageable amount for both time and money. These postcards will have one of my Book Passage images and a little note that may not make a whole lot of sense if you know what I mean. So how do you get your very own postcards from hell? You need to send me your mailing address by emailing it to limit2hours@yahoo.com. Please be patient and I will create my list on a first come first serve basis so get your address to me early and if the list gets too long and you don't get your very own postcard from hell, well then you can just tell me to GTH.

What the?

Wow! This becomes the fun part of not knowing or researching the book before creating the visual interpretation from the excerpt provided. When I read the passage I certainly began to go on my own visual journey based on the words. The end of my visual journey is what you see below. After looking on-line to find some information and links to the author and to the book I am surprised to find what the book is about. That is the true joy of doing this project. ENJOY!

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer:
He said, "We exist because we exist." "What the?" "We could imagine all sorts of universes unlike this one, but this is the one that happened."
I understand what he meant, and I didn't disagree with him, but I didn't agree with him either. Just because you're an atheist, that doesn't mean you wouldn't love for things to have reasons for why they are.

Come In? Come In!

If you are following the progress of this Book Passages series, this is chapter eleven. Welcome to the visual interpretation of Shel Silverstein's "Where the Sidewalk Ends".

Here is the passage:

If you are a dreamer, come in.
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer...
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!

The Syntax of Objects

I just finished reading this small book by Tim McCreight called The Syntax of Objects. He writes about the importance of objects in our lives. It's an OK book in it's entirety but it does offer some interesting vignettes and words that are truly thought provoking. Here is one of my favorite vignettes from his book:

The world is carved out by light, created each dawn from the greasy clay of twilight, hewn as an angle of incidence grows, lending solidness to the forms of the world. To a blind person, solid is a single sense, the proven press of flesh against matter. To those with sight, objects float in a shifting current, pulled into the crisp contours of graspable form for an hour, only to drift into a murky semi-solid as the light fades.

Photographers are the choreographers of this dance; they learn the moves and practice alternate arrangements. You think it is a brick, they say, and think it would shatter that window, but see how little you know. At the moment of illumination, there is no window and the brick is a bird. It is a function of light, like dreams and sometimes, like love.

If you were told you had ten minutes to take what ever possessions you could out of your house before it was gone, what would you take? I could be wrong but I doubt that most would grab their flat screen TV off the wall and run. It probably would be objects that perhaps have monetary value but most likely offer sentimental riches instead.

As a person who makes a living photographing objects I find the subject matter fascinating. With my dad's death almost five years ago and my mom preparing to move I have been dealing with many sentimental objects recently. My mind would spin if I had only ten minutes to grab what was important to me but I can guaranty that what I'd grab would not be important to most.

Recently I found a pair of very old sunglasses of my fathers while helping out my mom. I am 44 and almost never wear sunglasses. I can't take these things off my face if I'm driving. It's not the cool factor because of their retro look. Can't beat my dad's cool factor in his day with the side burns, glasses and cigarette. He looked like a movie star. It's the energy I get from these simple plastic frames that motivates me to put them on. Objects perform for us every day. They function as invented, they offer insight into the past and sometimes they can heal.