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!

Hello.......Farewell

Here is the fourth installment of my Book Passages Series. This book excerpt was sent to me by my father in-law, Bill Schulman. Bill is a prolific artist himself who has spent his life creating art and teaching art. So with a bit of hesitation here are the results of my visual interpretation of the passage from Speak Memory by Vladamir Nabokov.

The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our experience is but a brief crack of light between two enormities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour). I know, however, of a young chronophobiac who experienced something like panic when looking for the first time at homemade movies that had been taken a few weeks before his birth. He saw a world that was practically unchanged-the same house, the same people and then realized that he did not exist there at all and that nobody mourned his absence. He caught a glimpse of his mother waving from an upstairs window, and that unfamiliar gesture disturbed him, as if it were some mysterious farewell. But what particularly frightened him was the sight of a brand-new baby carriage standing there on the porch, with the smug, encroaching air of a coffin; even that was empty, as if, in the reverse course of events, his very bones had disintegrated.

As always, I enjoy hearing your critiques and observations. Please feel free to comment.

And Now, a brief intermission

Book Passage visual interpretation will be back soon. This next one required a bit of organizing and planning. An old woman, a pregnant woman and an eight year old girl meet in a cemetery...! No, it isn't the beginning of a joke but it is the list of characters I had to find for my next Book Passage visual. Child, easy. Pregnant woman, not too difficult. Old lady, near impossible. Hint: Wonderful, beautiful, mature women do not want to be photographed? If the weather cooperates (this is WI) I will create this image next Sunday the 15th and hopefully have it posted that evening or the next day.

So far, if I was ready to exhibit this series the images that would accompany the book passages would be:
1) Man in slippers with miniature furniture at his feet
2) The Weather Channel image of man watching TV weather guy
3) Landscape with toilet on the horizon

If you have already contributed a passage, I will provide you with a print of my visual interpretation of your book passage. If you haven't yet contributed this would be a great week to add yours to the comments section of this post. All participants will get a print when I get to your passage. So far I have approximately 15 contributions. I am trying to do them in the order that I received them. So if you are down the list please be patient and I hope that you find it entertaining to come back often to follow the complete visual journey. Below is the current passage that I have been planning and will photograph next Sunday.

Speak Memory by Vladamir Nabokov
The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our experience is but a brief crack of light between two enormities of darkness. Although the two are identical twins, man, as a rule, views the prenatal abyss with more calm than the one he is heading for (at some forty-five hundred heartbeats an hour). I know, however, of a young chronophobiac who experienced something like panic when looking for the first time at homemade movies that had been taken a few weeks before his birth. He saw a world that was practically unchanged-the same house, the same people- and then realized that he did not exist there at all and that nobody mourned his absence. He caught a glimpse of his mother waving from an upstairs window, and that unfamiliar gesture disturbed him, as if it were some mysterious farewell. But what particularly frightened him was the sight of a brand-new baby carriage standing there on the porch, with the smug, encroaching air of a coffin; even that was empty, as if, in the reverse course of events, his very bones had disintegrated.

Porcelain Skin

Book Passages Series #03: Please leave feedback, any and all is appreciated. Please vote on your favorite of the three images, the poll is found in the top right corner of the blog.

Excerpt from Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Toilets in modern water closets rise up from the floor like white water lilies. The architect does all he can to make the body forget how paltry it is, and to make man ignore what happens to his intestinal wastes after the water from the tank flushes them down the drain. Even though the sewer pipelines reach far into our houses with their tentacles, they are carefully hidden from view, and we are happily ignorant of the invisible Venice of shit underlying our bathrooms, bedrooms, dance halls, and parliaments. submitted by Frieda Babbley

If you are new to this blog and are interested in the origins of this Book Passages series please visit my first post "What have you read lately?"

If you are interested in contributing to this visual journey please submit a book passage with title and author in the comment section or email me. Thanks!

The Weather Channel

So here is image number two in the early visual journey of my Book Passages series. For those of you new to this site please refer to the blog entry What Have You Read Lately (Feb 3) for more information on this concept.

The concept for this image came from a contribution from a co-worker. Tea writes,

Hi Bill,

I don't know if this counts or not, but I'm reading "Defining the Wind" by Scott Huler - It's about the Beaufort Scale, so my descriptive passage is the Beaufort Scale itself.

I didn't research the book to find out how it was written or to find out in what context Scott Huler referenced the Beaufort Scale. Since I didn't even know what the Beaufort Scale was I did have to Google it to find out. This is my interpretation of the scale and wind in particular. I'm happy with how it turned out. I think that the interpretation keeps with my style of photography and with my sense of humor. I would love to hear what you have to say. Please leave your comments they make all the difference getting a feel for how the audience is responding to the visuals.

The next passage that I will interpret is from Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being submitted by Frieda Babbley.

Toilets in modern water closets rise up from the floor like white water lilies. The architect does all he can to make the body forget how paltry it is, and to make man ignore what happens to his intestinal wastes after the water from the tank flushes them down the drain. Even though the sewer pipelines reach far into our houses with their tentacles, they are carefully hidden from view, and we are happily ignorant of the invisible Venice of shit underlying our bathrooms, bedrooms, dance halls, and parliaments.

I will be picking up my free toilet that I found on Craigslist on Friday. Then may the shit, I mean creativity flow.

Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster

I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this visual journey. I hope I will continue to receive submissions from you as the journey continues. Here are the images from Travels in the Scriptorium. Please take the time to vote on your favorite image and offer constructive criticism on any of the images. My professors used to rip my prints in half if they didn't like them so I can take it, you won't hurt my feelings.

The old man sits on the edge of the narrow bed, palms spread out on his knees, head down, staring at the floor. He has no idea that a camera is planted in the ceiling directly above him. The shutter clicks silently once every second, producing eighty-six thousand four hundred still photos with each revolution of the earth. Even if he knew he was being watched, it wouldn't make any difference. His mind is elsewhere, stranded among the figments in his head as he searches for an answer to the question that haunts him.

Who is he? What is he doing here? When did he arrive and how long will he remain? With any luck, time will tell us all. For the moment, our only task is to study the pictures as attentively as we can and refrain from drawing any premature conclusions.

There are a number of objects in the room, and on each one a strip of white tape has been affixed to the surface, bearing a single word written out in block letters. On the lamp, the word is LAMP. Even on the wall, which is not strictly speaking an object, there is a strip of tape that reads WALL. The old man looks up for a moment, sees the wall, sees the strip of tape attached to the wall, and pronounces the word wall in a soft voice. What cannot be known at this point is whether he is reading the word on the strip of tape or simply referring to the wall itself. It could be that he has forgotten how to read but still recognizes things for what they are and can call them by their names, or, conversely, that he has lost the ability to recognize things for what they are but still knows how to read.

I will try and do images in the order that the submissions came in. Next up is a contribution from Tea. She wrote "I'm reading Defining the Wind by Scott Huler - it's about the Beaufort Scale, so my descriptive passage is the Beaufort Scale itself: http://www.merriam-webster.com/table/dict/beaufort.htm. I need a model for this idea so I will hopefully find one and be able to still shoot and post by next week. I have a call into Bob Dylan's agent, hopefully he will call back soon?