Author Archives: destabrook

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big plans

sunday

There are certain natural systems that can make one really believe in the Divine Plan – opposable thumbs, sex, a damn good apple – but one that keeps coming up here for some reason is the theory that poisonous plants grow quite near their cure, like Stinging Nettle and Dock Leaf, or Poison Ivy and Jewelweed. And so, I thought, it is with England and Elderflower. They have Elderflower cordials and flavors in every shop here, it seems, and it was either champagne or Elderflower at the museum reception on Friday. I remember reading recently that a thorough study of natural cold remedies revealed that most things, like zinc and vitamin C, did little if anything to help, and that only two remedies showed any promise – gargling with salt water, and Elderflower. Both are rather in abundance in gray rainy England, and it must be to cure bloody colds like this one…

Yes, it’s another gray rainy morning, and I’ve shivered through the cold empty rooms of the old apartment and into the kitchen to make my English Elixir – hot water, lemon and Elderflower – and get to class. A good strong coffee would help, but I’m way out of my coffee habit here. It’s usually one cup in the morning to get me going, and maybe, but not always, others in the afternoon as a purely social experience. There is good coffee here, especially at the bakery on Church Street (one of the four lovely streets in the village) but they never seem to be open when I need them to be, especially on a Sunday.

At the darkroom, we have several trays filled with collected rainwater, and the tent has withstood the night’s storm. Neither Addison nor Rachel has slept much through the howling winds, apparently, and everyone is moving a little slowly. If this keeps up it will be hard on our spirits as well as our work. Nevertheless, we have big plans today to shoot at the Abbey itself, and there’s nothing to do but keep at it.

We are prepping paper every day, so that we can always shoot when we want to. It’s a long and boring process, and easily my least favorite part of Calotypy. There’s no reason to complain – it’s simple enough – but I have some Pavlovian response to the safelight on and the Iodide out. The problem is that I usually do it at the end of the day, when I’m already quite tired. The chemistry is easy enough – brushing on the silver, waiting an interminable few minutes while it dries, then bathing it in iodide for three minutes. I do get crabby at even this simple procedure, but the problem comes from the wash. It needs to be in running water for two hours, and you can’t ignore it. Every ten minutes or so, I make sure to shuffle and flip the papers, and watch for a telltale purple stain of iodide (from starch in the paper, perhaps?) that tells me everything is working ok. But at the end of the day, as I usually do it, I am often already tired, and two extra hours of half-vigilance is deadly to a tired mind… Now, even when we idodize in the morning, I become tired and cranky. Especially on a gray day.

The rain is still intermittent when we finally shoot, but not terrible. (I am glad I got some new wellies for this trip, as they are now my Everyday Shoes.) It’s gorgeous at the Abbey though, especially in the cloisters, where Malin and Addison are working. Matt and Richard are in the courtyard shooting the pear tree against the wall. The light is still quite soft but his exposure is only 20 seconds or so, which is great. Malin’s will be more like 5 or 10 minutes, but still, not bad for indoors. I’m trying a twenty-minute exposure of the Sacristy Window. We’re all getting odd stares and polite questions from the tourists coming through, but I bet it’s less from the big cameras than it is from our matching blue rubber gloves.

Things go pretty well today, and I’m mostly just trying to fine-tune the students’ brushing technique. There are a few missed spots in iodizing and/or sensitizing, and I think they’re just not used to overlapping the brushstrokes as much as they need to, but they’re learning. More disturbing, however, is an increase in the amount of what I call “comets” – little streaks of developing silver not unlike what happens with wet collodion. There are a few reasons these could happen, but I must confess I don’t know exactly what causes them every time. The artifacts of a process are sometimes my favorite part, but not if they take over the image or go wildly uncontrolled, and that’s what’s been happening to us.

I do know from past experience that brushing chemistry back-and-forth past the edge of the paper can easily drag in foreign matter or damage the cotton ball in such a way as to leave a spot. The comet seems to be a high spot of dust that collects developer which then drags across in the direction of the brush, sometimes in all four directions (creating a “star”.) Since our developer includes both physically-developing silver and chemically-developing Gallic Acid, it’s just trouble. It is partly to avoid this problem (and partly an aesthetic choice) that I like to brush well within the edges of the paper, giving a distinctive rough edge (which can be trimmed if you don’t like it. I do.) However that’s not the only obvious problem. Often, to get the paper to sit flat in a camera, one would sandwich the wet paper between sheets of clean glass, but I use stiff archival mylar sleeves. Glass is much easier to clean, of course, and the mylar could build up static that draws in the dust… Hmmm.

comets in the sacristy

lots of comets in the Sacristy

By late afternoon I have Matt and Malin being much more careful, cleaning the mylar and trying to stay within the edges, but we’re still getting some comets here and there. In fact, on a couple of shots, I’m getting them worst of all! Malin can’t seem to help herself and is always crossing the paper, and indeed she does end up with more comets, so that still seems to be true, but whatever else is causing them is still a little baffling. At the end of the day, we do manage a few good shots, and sometimes, even the comets look good. Tomorrow, we will go through every step once more, very methodically, and see how we do.

Tonight after class it’s back to the Bell, with just Richard, Rachel and I. The owners, Alan and Heather, really are the loveliest people, and tonight it’s a proper Sunday Roast Dinner, so coming to this pub really feels like home. The river Avon has quite flooded, as it often does, so the walk back to the Abbey is strange and beautiful in the late evening light. There’s even some peeking sun – the first I’ve seen in ages – and everything looks green, washed and gorgeous. I’m restless and inspired now, warmed by Scotch and sunlight, and Richard urges me to take advantage of it. I still need rest, though, and head back to my room.

Standing at my window, I see the most beautiful light hitting the overgrown walls of the old stables below and I just can’t stay in. Wellies back on, I fairly run over to the darkroom to sensitize a sheet and hurry back with my camera. The sun’s almost down, and I may have missed my light, but as the 30-second exposure begins, it peeks back at me once more. Also, I think I may have figured out what’s been giving us so many devilish comets…
a window at the abbey

This is the best I’ve felt in a long time. I’m listening to Smog, the old standby, on my iPod and walking through Lacock Abbey completely alone. I am teased by golden sunlight, inspired by work, challenged by the chemistry, and it is good.

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rain gods

(I’ve returned to London, briefly, and back to the City Interwebs. I’ll back-post the Lacock Adventure from here…)

saturday

Well, um… the Rain Gods have certainly delivered. Maybe I shouldn’t have taunted them… We faced down a full weekend of chill wind and constant rain, and of course I’ve already caught myself a very British cold. Between the storms and the sniffles, I have hardly slept at all, and I fear my brain is working at half-speed.

Nevertheless, the class got off to a pretty good start. At least we’re not doing Photogenic Drawings! Talbot’s Calotype is a wet-paper process, and developed-out (instead of printed-out) so exposure times can be rather quick – relative to the era, that is. Even in this rain we might be able to get away with 20-30 seconds for a decent exposure. The gray light can be rather pretty, in fact, and as long as it’s not actually raining on our heads it’s fine. Of course, it is often raining on our heads, and you should see us traipsing through the puddles with large Black Arts cameras, tripods and umbrellas…

There are just a few of us, thank goodness – Malin and Matt, our star students, and our intern Addison, who’s smart and hilarious and who will say the oddest things just when we need him to. Rachel from the Museum is with us as our guide and host, and Roger Watson stops by from time to time. Fortunately we also have the brilliant Richard Cynan Jones along for the ride, whose knowledge of and passion for the many variants of early photography on paper seem inexhaustible. It’s a tiny fantastic group.

We spend Saturday mostly shooting in the area around the darkroom, which is, of course, full of old stone barns and ivied walls and ancient pear trees. There is no lack of grand old beauty… There’s also some old man’s groovy sportscar parked out front, of which Matt manages to make an excellent first calotype. We have a white tent set up outside for shooting when the rain gets heavy, which Malin uses to shoot a portrait of one of her daughter’s stuffed bunnies. There’s plenty to do, and plenty gets done, despite the weather.

The students have a chance to do the whole process from start to finish, having prepared their own paper before lunch by iodizing with silver and potassium iodide and then washing for two hours. While we wait for that, they can shoot one of the many sheets I iodized the night before (stepping away from the Michael Palin festivities at the Museum from time to time to watch over the paper as it washed.) By the end of the day, though, they’re shooting their own paper, and it looks pretty perfect.

One of the main differences with Talbot’s process versus the later advancements is that we’re brushing on most of the solutions, for the hand-made look that drew me to Talbot in the first place. It is, perhaps, more troublesome than floating or soaking the paper, but it uses much less chemistry, and exposes and develops very quickly. However, that means that there’s a certain dexterity that needs to be learned here, to coat quickly and evenly with a cotton ball dipped in solution. It just takes practice, but so far the students are doing very well.

The rain never lets up, and promises to be worse though the night, so before we’re done for the evening, Rachel sets up trays outside the darkroom to collect rainwater. For some odd reason, distilled water isn’t easy to come by here in Wiltshire (along with many other things) – the best we can usually find is de-ionized water for cars or something. We’re hoping the rain will be pure enough to use for our processes, so we can waste less, too. I am choosing to have some small magical belief in the special power of Lacock water… Also, this is not my first time using rainwater so I’m hopeful.

We’re all pretty tired just from the first day, and I need to get some rest tonight if I can; I don’t think I’d last the weekend with this head cold. I’d been looking forward to another hearty British meal, perhaps with another lovely Scotch (so good and abundant around here!) Rachel, Matt and I end up going to the George – another very old pub that now encompasses rooms that once housed Talbot’s local carpenter, where his first Mousetrap Cameras were made. They have this crazy wheel connected to a spit on which a little dog would run, turning the spit over the flame… No dogs helping cook today, but the lamb rack was delicious anyway. Rachel entertained us with stories from her recent months in Kosovo, and I went for Brandy in place of Scotch, in hopes of a cure. Friendship and good food might be all the medicine I need… and, with luck, a decent night’s sleep.

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the door is open

I woke up this morning with this thought: I am sleeping over The Open Door. Yes, I’m staying at the Abbey, after all, near the old stables (and this picture.) Outside, it doesn’t even really look that much different from Talbot’s day, except for the cars parked out front. In fact the whole town is like that, from another time, but with ease. It’s not strange, just gorgeous.

I got the full tour when I arrived yesterday, including all four streets in the village. There are several nice pubs, and a surprising number of decent-seeming places to eat, I guess to support all the tourists. Not only does Lacock Abbey draw the history buffs and Anglophiles, but a whole new generation of Harry Potter freaks, since many big scenes from the movies were shot here. Apparently, whole tour buses of kids with capes and wands descend on the village from time to time, but probably not during rainy April. It’s busy even now though, enough so that the Museum staff and locals have begun avoiding the Red Lion pub across the street in favor of the Bell up the road, where we had lunch. I’m going to get fat on sausage rolls and battered cod.

I went through the Museum here, too, and saw the inside of the Abbey. Of course, I saw the famous Oriel Window and Talbot’s library and apparati. Once again, I have been bodily thrown into the past… There are too many spots that I recognize from the History, too many obvious ghosts wandering around. What would the man have thought of us now, reviving his old ways in his old house?

I’ll be working out of a converted room in a barn next door, the only 13th-century darkroom I’ve ever been in. It’s perfect, and got me psyched to start right away, iodizing paper for tests tomorrow morning. I saw a tell-tale purple iodine stain on the paper as it washed, and this is a good sign for the chemistry working the way it should. By the time the sheets were out and hanging to dry, I’d had a scotch and dinner at the Red Lion, and was feeling wonderful. Sleep came fast but fitful, perhaps from the distinct sensation of wisps and shadows in the room.

Today was fantastic, despite the chaotic weather. The sun was out early, but everything was wet, and within an hour there’d be sunshowers, heavy downpours, and blue skies. But I had the whole day to work on getting things ready for class, and making sure my new batches of paper would work ok. I could get chunks of clear skies in which to shoot, and plenty of rain to try to work around. I’m sure we’ll be dealing with both extremes all week. I just had to guess wildly on exposures, ready to jump or cover if the weather shifted. It could happen within 30 seconds. Often, it did.

I was pleased to find that my paper worked well, and I shifted from my Troubleshooting Panic Mode to smaller tests and experiments: Would this loose cotton create more spots than do cotton balls during Gallic Acid development? Does a stronger solution of Gallic withstand a stronger Sodium Thiosulfate bath, even without an alkali buffer? Can I reverse the tones of a developed calotype to make an instant direct positive? (Almost…)

With this rainy weather I wanted to see how long I might have before I needed to shoot my wet negative without getting any exposure change, so I sensitized a sheet, packed up my camera and plate back and tripod and umbrella, and walked down to Talbot’s grave, at the end of the Village road. This was a 30-second exposure (at f8) in pouring rain, with a leisurely 15-minute stroll between coating and developing:

Talbot's Grave

At this point, I am just so excited for the next four days of class… Bring it on, Rain Gods!

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origin myths

Inventing The Photographic Artist

(an old essay on the beginning of it all)

Origin myths endure as the keys to our identity. No matter what we use to define oursleves we must simply ask, How did this begin? When did this set itself apart from not this? It is no different for art, and we may imagine an artist’s essential nature by imagining that first creative act. However, we’d be looking too far back in time, with every artist aspiring to reach the purity of the primitive moment under the weight of an immense cumulative history. And yet, while identifying the First Artist would be an almost impossible task, for Photography there is a much more recent birthdate.

The origins of Photography offer fascinating stories, and its beginnings set the tone for all Photographic Artists to come. The two men generally credited as the originators may have as much myth as fact surrounding their respective inventions, but despite the wealth of information to be found about each of them, it is perhaps the myth that is more important. These historical archetypes might have shared much in common with our contemporary selves, and it is no stretch to imagine them feeling just as we do about their burgeoning art, over 150 years ago. We can almost conjure them before us through the stories about them, even more than through their first photographs. Much of the history we carry is oral history anyway, not necessarily the original facts. Rumors and stories are the only way we remember our birth.

And what do I remember of the first photographers?

First in most histories is Daguerre, the businessman and entrepreneur, successful in being the first to officially announce his process. He was successful, too, in getting the first state patronage for his art, enough to set him up for the rest of his life. (Is the First Artist the first Financially Successful Artist?) The story goes that the mercury from a broken thermometer, accidentally left in the cupboard with his silvered plates, allowed the developing breakthrough he needed to perfect the Daguerreotype (as if the Hand of God led him to the discovery!) I imagine it only helps his lasting mythology that all his working notes were lost in a studio fire – we know little of his failures, only his perfect process, born complete.

Second perhaps is Talbot, the polymath – a man of science, leisure and wealth. He has the great distinction of having created the first photographs on paper, the first “positive” and “negative” – terms coined by his good friend Sir John Herschel, who also gave us the first use of the word “photography” in reference to Talbot’s work. With the abundance of notes and letters Talbot left behind, we have a complete narrative from a witness at the birth of the Art. We have his “first original idea” to fix the images in a camera. We have a record of his chemical trials and errors. Maybe more importantly, we also have written down his struggles and missteps, a template for the methods of a working artist.

Third and last place must be reserved for any of a group of early would-be photographers. What about Hippolyte Bayard, the romantic failure, who had developed a process similar to Talbot’s, years before 1839? He was perhaps the first Poor Starving Artist, ignored by the state and its early official history. What about poor Nicephore Niepce, Daguerre’s precursor and partner, but dead before the accepted birthdate of the art, his work like children orphaned and adopted by others? What of Elizabeth Fulhame, one of the first to write a how-to on printing photographically, in silver on white leather…? And what about all the rest (and there were many others)? They are the ancestors of the unknown and unappreciated artists, working in solitude and obscurity. Even these acknowledged first points of origin are in question, since there were who knows how many “First Photographers” in other parts of the civilized world.*

Indeed there may be no one origin for Photography, despite its having an official history. While it may be the privilege of the inventors to define the history as written, it is our privilege now to misrepresent that history for our own interests. Even the recent past becomes willfully distilled in our memory. In turn, our license to misremember the past creates for us a somewhat fluid identity, but rooted in these few known facts about our ancestors. It’s as if we had several parents each with a few distinct traits to inherit, and we may pick and choose among them. It is not an unlimited choice, perhaps, but we may be any or all of these things: Outsider or Insider, Star or Failure, Genius or Gentleman (and Gentlewoman!)

So what are we left with? What, then, is the Photographic Artist, and why is he or she different from any other artist? The distinction persists in the art world even now. Perhaps other artists are freer to separate themselves from an origin myth born so long ago, while we Photographers still take after our young parents. Unmoored from their beginnings, they may be better able to see themselves as originators and inventors – such a prized commodity for any artist today. For now, Photographers come predefined by a relatively recent history.

Our Mothers and Fathers are known by name and reputation. We may have inherited Daguerre’s business-sense or his divine inspiration; Talbot’s wonder at Nature or his methodical obstinacy; or merely Bayard’s self-importance; yet we remain defined by them. Too connected to culture, science and light, all Photographers are tethered to the world. Although we may be slaves to the machine, the mirror and the tyranny of objects, still I will imagine my own First Photographer – the First Magician, the First Narcissist, the First Fetishist ….

*See Geoffrey Batchen’s Burning With Desire for a thorough look at the early years of photography.
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reveries of a solitary walker

“…thinking is generally thought of as doing nothing in a production-oriented culture, and doing nothing is hard to do. It’s best done by disguising it as something, and the something closest to doing nothing is walking.”
– Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust

I have been walking and reading about walking and walking some more. This week I am walking around Paris, but finally posting about the Long Walk I took a few weeks ago in New York. I’m going to date them for the days they originally occurred, but you can find them all here:

A Long Walk I: On a Long Path

A Long Walk II: On The Roads

A Long Walk III: Up Towns and Downs

A Long Walk IV: To the End, My Dear

You can also see some of the snapshots I took on the road here.

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a long walk: to the end, my dear

Hope did die here. I wake up with such anger and evil in me, lapping up from my legs and drowning my chances of feeling ok today. I haven’t felt this dark in a long time.

Stepping out of the cabin, I am hungry and cold. This morning’s dose of ibuprofen won’t seem to kick in, and I have to limp over to the gas station for something to eat. There are a lot of people in and out for their morning coffees (and a couple of six-packs of Miller, I notice…. Lunch?) I have a Bucket of Cereal and a banana with my weak coffee, getting steadily more annoyed at the overly-eager manager guy with his bright banter. He never stops, but after a while I realize, Hey, he never stops. Maybe it’s not morning bullshit at all. He might actually be this cheerful.

Maybe I can be buoyed by his spirit and turn my day around. I mean, I started yesterday in serious pain and ended up having a pretty wonderful day. I have to believe I can do it again today.

But the drugs never do kick in, and I cannot conjure anything that I felt yesterday, just Misery. How did I do it? Was it just blind Optimism? A random manic high before today’s crash? What’s worse, I’m freezing. I may be a bit higher up, but the temperature doesn’t seem much lower, and the sun is out again. There is, however, a biting cold wind, sharp and constant.

I am limping still, and miserable. My day has begun with 4 miles straight uphill, a long stretch of dull road and country highway with an uncomfortably angled shoulder biting my bad heel at every step. I seek out lawns and verges of soft grass, especially if they are angled in the opposite direction, into the road, to give my punished feet a reprieve. Am I really going to limp 30 miles, at an angle?

The uphill climbs do warm my body, but the wind snaps at my ears and hands. It makes my bones ache from the inside, and there is no getting used to the pains of the past three days’ walking.

I’m on a long boring road again, alongside and under Route 17. I just want to make it to Monticello, the next big town, and then I can decide what to do. That’s still a good 8 miles away…

At Rock Hill I find a gas station, and I desperately need to get warm. It’s an ugly and unfriendly place, the two brothers who must own it bickering about something in a language I don’t understand. I wedge myself into the broken Formica booth with hot tea and the New York Times. I am walled in by cases of Diet Snapple Drink, obscuring the window. My tea smells like plastic.

Reading the paper actually helps take my mind off it all, and I realize how powerful it is not to dwell in Misery. (If only it were that easy to ignore…!) I turn my phone on to the gong of several text messages. My best friend is also headed to her house today, driving in from the city. She’s been worried about me in the cold, even more so when I admit how unhappy I am today. She says, “Stay there. I’ll come and get you.” But I am already pressing on, determined to make it to Monticello, at the very least.

My pace is even worse now, but there are no places to stop and stretch on this road – no warm sunny rocks, like every other day. I trudge on, freezing…

Near Lake Marie Louise I find a closed-down restaurant with a few steps in perfect sunshine. I sit and eat half a gas station bagel, watching an old trucker across the road loading large barrels into his truck. I wonder if he’d drive me the rest of the way.

I am not that far from Monticello now, but entering the town from the ass-end, it seems, since everything I pass is broken and abandoned. Eventually I make it to East Broadway, which the town seems to be attempting to spruce up, judging from the construction and new white concrete. I am hurting so much and moving so slow, I have to stop in a bank to rest and warm up before I continue on. I am just looking for a place to sit for a while now. I can’t walk anymore.

I get a booth at the Monticello Diner, and order chicken soup and sweet potato fries. The coffee is so bad I have to switch to tea. I don’t know what to do. I check my little pedometer and see I’ve walked 99.69 miles. It’s an almost perfect number, just shy enough of an even 100 to make me feel that much more a failure.

I have a few options: wait here for a few hours to get picked up; grab a room at the scary place across the street and finish tomorrow; or crawl up the way to the bus station and just go home. None of them seem great to me, but even if I could walk the rest of the way today I wouldn’t make it to the house until long after dark. I imagine it’d be quite a bit colder by then, too…

I sit as long as I can, until I can’t in good conscience ask for another warm up for my teabag. It’s bleeding pale water now. I get my backpack on and get myself out the door. It’s the tiniest rise up to the corner where I turn toward the bus station, but it feels like a giant hill to me. I don’t know that this is the right thing to do, to go home now, and I start to worry that this isn’t even the right way to the bus. I turn around to make sure and I find myself back standing at the intersection with no idea what I’m doing, aside from shivering.

I look at my pedometer and see I’ve managed 100 miles – 100.12 to be exact. That’s it, I’m done. There are two taxis just parked at the road behind me, and with the smallest wave one starts up. I get in and ask the guy to drive my last 17 miles. He’s super talkative as we drive, actually happy to go this way so he can pick up a prescription or something. I’m not really listening but tossing a Yeah and a Huh his way to keep me out of it. I’m just noticing the speed at which I’m moving, and the beauty of this last landscape. This would have made the prettiest walk.

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a long walk: up towns and downs

Despite my luxurious surroundings, this is not a morning of Renewal and Light. I am no more rejuvenated than when I crashed last night, from another ache-ful sleep. Stretching is difficult this morning. I have almost 25 miles to do today.

Maxie makes a beautiful breakfast: egg-in-a-frame with ham and cheese, plus fruit, coffee, orange juice and more. It’s way more than I’m used to eating, but it’s all just so good that I can’t really stop. I need to get going, though, so I say goodbye, grab my bag and head out, trying not to let Maxie see how much I’m limping.

My right heel is killing me, and every step is a knife. It hurt like this a bit yesterday morning, but I walked it off after a while. Today, though, it’s so much worse. I make it just a few hundred yards to the main road out of town when I remember the Non-Aspirin Pain Reliever I’d taken from Tim and Kara’s medicine cabinet for my headache. I’m in pain and freaking out a bit as I struggle to get my backpack off and find the pills. I hear a small ping and discover I’ve just lost the little New York State pin my friend CC had given me. I hope that’s not a bad sign.

Seriously, what is wrong with me? Why don’t I just quit, turn around and admit defeat, spend another relaxing day at Maxie’s and find a way home? This whole thing is ill-considered and poorly planned, and a perfect example of one of my worst traits. I never know when to stop and give up, pushing beyond safety and sanity – and to what end? I make myself sick from work and stress. I lose sleep over useless labor. I fight for dead relationships. I stick to failed ideals. The sign of my failure is not that I stop here, but that I put my backpack on and push ahead. I am too foolish, too stubborn to quit. I wonder what I’d do if I got stuck out here in the farmland…

I will say this: it is beautiful here. I’m on a quiet country road, with rolling fields and solid farmhouses, the light still long through the trees. My feet hurt so much that I have to stop often, usually crossing the road to a sunny rock on which to sit and stretch a little. At one point I find myself in an open field by a frozen stream and a few geese. I’m a man in a suit doing yoga stretches in the middle of nowhere. It’s kinda sweet here…

I'm in a field!

 

My heel starts hurting less but my left hip is really feeling tight and weird. As I approach the town of Chester I decide to hit up the Large Drugstore Chain Store for some ibuprofen and new insoles for my boots, and to see if there’s anything else that will help. (But not Tiger Balm Brand Balm for Not-Tigers… I fucking hate the smell of that stuff.) I’m looking for Arnica or Muscle Miracle Snake Oil™ or something, but just ended up getting a small pack of Epsom Salts for tonight’s bath. Outside I manage to lose my last Farmer’s Market apple in the street while fitting in my new insoles, and I swear I’m ready to cry over it.

The next little town I get to is Goshen, and it’s not one of the depressing developments I’ve been through so many times already, but a lovely village with plenty of historic architecture. I walk down slate sidewalks between two stone churches facing each other like old friends. I’m feeling better but still moving slowly, so I stop at the local library for a while. After convincing them to let me use the Public Computers, I sit and check my email for the first time in two days, and I chat with a couple of friends. I also check out more thoroughly the terrain for today, and it looks pretty steep as I get into Wurtsboro this evening… damn.

I’m worried that sitting for half an hour is going to stiffen up my legs, but I’m surprised to feel fine as I get up to go. I’ve taken some ibuprofen which has probably kicked in by now, but honestly I think getting out of my head and talking to friends has done wonders for my spirits. Actually, I haven’t felt this good since I was in Midtown Manhattan the day I began.

I’m already hungry after that huge breakfast but I don’t pass anywhere to eat on my way out of Goshen, and I don’t really want to turn back, with all the time I’ve wasted this morning. Back on the country road I find a tree stump and cough down some horribly dry banana bread I had bought the day before. (I miss my apple!) A hundred yards up the road, though, there’s a surprise Strip Mall Oasis with a sandwich shop and a dentist and not much else. I get a club sandwich and some green tea and write for a little while, fully aware of how much I’m dawdling today.

I’m back on long stretches of nothing for most of the afternoon, a good 12 miles of emptiness and a lot of it uphill. Once again, there are no people on the streets or sidewalks, and I’m struggling with Sympathy for the Suburbs. What’s it like to live out here? Mostly I discover an irrational hatred for prefab plastic mailboxes.

In some small town I notice an old graveyard and from it an amazing view of the valley and just how high I’ve climbed today. I’m enjoying the day but I’m getting really worn out with these steep roads. I have been thinking about quitting or cheating since this morning’s panic, and when I spy a taxi stopped at an intersection I mentally take down the number.

View from the graveyard

 

Behind the taxi are three school buses full of children coming home from school, each surrounded by an almost tangible buzz of yelling and joking and wailing. As this odd pilgrim marches past, one kid shouts out the window at me, “What’s up, Bill Cosby?!?” What the hell…? It’s so ridiculous – is it my glasses? How do they even know who Bill Cosby is?* I have to laugh, and promptly forget the taxi’s number.

As the day starts winding down I’m climbing up into the woods again. It’s steep here, yes, but the middle of the day was sort of worse to walk, with its long stretches of road counted step by step. These climbs are rather beautiful, and I’m once again smitten with the golden afternoon light. Perhaps this is the point of Beauty, I think. Beauty makes us forget the worries of the past or the future, and makes us marvel at the present. The difficult is suddenly possible, and all seems Good and Right. Suddenly the world is an amazing place, and it is our duty to Create, to reflect beauty back to the beautiful.

My last 4 miles into Wurtsboro seems just as steep as I feared, or at least this first part is. I don’t actually mind the climbs, since they use different muscles than the hard slap walk of the straight road, and they give me focus and intent. Pretty soon I see signs warning trucks of the descent, so it may be easier soon…

However, as I walk the last mile down, the shoulder is broken and rough, and all the late afternoon beauty is gone. I find myself walking an ugly road straight into a dead town. I pass 6 restaurants, all closed, and I’m starving. It’s Monday night in a Ghost Town. All the action is at the one stoplight at the end, just in sight of my inn. “Danny’s Bar” could be a Barnsider Redux, but I’m not in the mood for people.

Instead I check into my weird ugly cabin and try to settle. It’s the opposite of last night’s comfort, though – a linoleum tomb of the cheapest manufacture. Everything from the vinyl blinds to the two-dollar coffee-maker to the petroleum bedspread resonates with an aura of Numbness and Despair. Hope dies here. Also, there’s no tub.

I grab some awful Chinese food from across the street – weirdly I’d been craving Wonton Soup for hours – but it’s mostly inedible… Soon I find myself sitting on the kitchen counter, reading Rousseau and drinking black-tea-infused Moonshine while I soak my feet in a sink full of hot water and Epsom Salt. I end up watching the first half of Goodfellas and the last half of Annie Hall on TV before I pass out for the night.

*2015 edit: Well, they probably do now…
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a long walk: on the roads

I was comfortable in the guest room, but slept badly from the pains in my legs and a brand-new headache, which I hoped wasn’t a symptom of the same cold Ray has had. I had been sweating all night despite the pleasantly cool room, with dreams of achey feet, so sure while I slept that I would go no further today. I give up.

I had set the alarm by the bed but hadn’t checked to see that it worked – it didn’t. Nevertheless, I am awake right at 7 and something in me decides that I might as well give another day a go, pain or no pain. Only Ray was up that early on a Sunday, so I make coffee quietly, do some stretches, and lace on my boots. I feel quite happy despite the doubts of the night.

It’s still before 8 when I say goodbye and head down the driveway and over toward Route 59 heading west. I pass through suburban streets, by Sunday-sleepers locked inside, wondering if anyone would look out and stare at the sight of a suited man with a red backpack sauntering down the street. (O yes, I sauntered!) A couple of dogs bark.

It’s another cold morning – 27º when I left the house – but perfect for the heat of walking all day. Today will be ugly, I’m afraid, since the first half of the day is on busy roads – first 59W for 10 miles, then another 10 on Route 17. That’s what I’m most worried about.

59 is mostly a hideous stretch of malls and chain stores, but at least there are some sidewalks for bits of it. This, sadly, is the Civilization I expected to find out here, barely accommodating walkers and generally unfriendly to individuals of any kind. I see very few other people on foot – maybe a dozen day-laborers looking for work that morning, then a couple of Hasidim, and two other bearded stragglers, all on 59. These turn out to be almost the only people I see on foot for the rest of the trip. It’s Sunday morning, so I can be thankful that there are fewer cars on the road, too.

My feet do hurt some, of course, but I’m trying to be positive. However the culture out here doesn’t exactly offer a nice view for walking, and the Sadness of the Strip Mall is killing my soul. I mean, at least I can get something to eat, since the banana and tangerine I had a couple of hours ago just aren’t enough. I step out of the safety of my path and into the Abyss (ok, a Bagel Shop…) I wolf down an egg-and-cheese sandwich and try to write in my notebook a little. Someone’s toddler is hiding under the table across from me while Spongebob bleats and blares above him. It’s ok, though. I’m hungry.

Most of the day is just as ugly as I feared. I’m either traipsing alongside hideous developments or squeezing down the often-narrow shoulder of the busy road. After a few hours I turn onto Route 17 for another long stretch of Nothingness. There are fewer developments, but some parts of very narrow shoulders. I keep thinking, I just gotta make it through this part, and the rest will be good.

17 feels like just another brand of Emptiness, and I find myself consumed by post-apocalyptic thoughts. (At least I don’t have to worry about cannibals, as far as I know…) Thinking about the time I’ve walked or the miles left to go only makes the journey more difficult, and I do my best to put my mind somewhere else – thinking about Art or my heart – and let my feet do the counting.

I have to work hard not to get too depressed sometimes; I mean real Despair. It’s awful. What is the point of all this? As I get further and further from home, not a part of these towns I pass, indeed walking directly against the traffic, I find myself feeling more and more disconnected from everything. What’s the point of Art? Love? Work? Money? I’m looking at my life and all I come up with is What a mess. I’ve done it all wrong.

Thinking about teaching helps bring me back a bit. I love teaching, and I believe I’m good at it. There I can actually be of use. But if I’m pre-disposed to the kind of Solitude and Melancholy I find myself in so often, I worry that any student who spends real time with me would learn that Despair, too.

As I get close to 20 miles today, I try to distract myself more, but I keep thinking, 31 miles is an ordeal… I try writing in my head a piece I need to finish for a show in the Fall, about my last body of work, but I keep coming back to the mileage. I try music for a little while, turning on my tiny broken Dumbphone™ (which cleverly plays MP3s) but the sound soon starts to annoy me, and time is not moving any faster. I prefer the Silence.

Eventually I turn off onto Orange Turnpike and Bramertown Road, and it’s a relief to be on smaller roads. However, this all seems to be uphill. I had checked out the terrain as best I could before I started this trip, but now the upcoming couple of miles on Sugarloaf Mountain Road are scaring me. I have three hours left, I think – the home stretch – and I need it to be not so difficult. At least as I climb, the light becomes more and more beautiful. The air coming off the snowy woods makes me button up my suit.

The cold, in fact, helps me keep it together. It’s all Willpower now, one foot in front of the other, counting my way to the end. Every now and then I can tap into some reserve of energy, raise my head up to the trees, push my heart forward and find again what I now know to be a solid 3mph pace. The rest of the time, though, my thoughts are clouded by pain and necessity. It’s one thing to stomp the aches in my boots all day, but when my hips and legs start screaming at me I’m done for.

Eventually I find myself hobbling through the little town of Sugar Loaf, making a beeline for the B&B, taking every shortcut I can through church lawns and backyards just to save 40 precious steps. I had reserved this room last week knowing I’d want something luxurious and comfortable after all this walking, but having no idea then just how badly I’d need it now.

Maxie, the proprietor, is very nice, and the place is perfectly cute and just what you’d expect – every surface decorated, lots of apples and sticks and things. (Oddly, it seems bigger inside than out, like Doctor Who’s country house… ) Maxie brings me lemon-ginger tea and introduces me to her friend Kath, and while I sit and tell them my story, my body starts to die into the sofa. I’m afraid I won’t be able to get up off the chintz.

I do have to get up and settle in, though, and go find dinner before it gets too late. There’s really only one place to go – a restaurant I passed called the Barnsider. So I drop my stuff and limp back across the churchyard and into the bar, hoping no one notices my broken walk. I sit at the bar, all lit up with ribbon lights and surrounded by laughing locals, and the bartender actually asks me, “What’s your poison?” I order a scotch and a steak for dinner, and as she leans in to grab me a knife and fork, she says, “Lemme get you some chopsticks.” I’m in a 1961 cliché… Her name, of course, is Suki.

Suki is sweet and the locals are all friendly. Toward the end of the evening one of the waiters asks me what I’m writing in my notebook, and I tell them about my walk, which gets everyone interested – Suki, the other waitress Jen, and the two local couples at the end of the bar. I’m sure they all think I’m crazy. Suki keeps telling me I need to get “juiced” as she pours me another scotch.

Suitably juiced, I make it back to my room and soak away my day in a big bath with juniper oil. I have my hand-washed clothes drying by the fire, and a movie I’m ignoring on the DVD player. I stretch and crawl into bed, passing out with the TV still on, for another fitful night’s sleep haunted by aches, and the ghosts I’ve dragged along for 63 miles.

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a long walk: on a long path

I’m still trying to figure out what I just did, and why. It wasn’t until I had already walked a mile from home and halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge that I ever considered the reality of this walk: almost 120 miles, from my house to my best friend’s house upstate… And yet already on the bridge I start to feel twinges in my knees and a little ache in my foot. I had planned to walk over 30 miles today, and each day until Tuesday, but I had no idea if I could even do it.

This is not your regular hiker’s trip; I’m not even much of a hiker. No, this was intended to be a Gentleman’s Journey, just to see what it was like to walk some distance through our mostly civilized world, to escape the bubble of the city under my own power, for a change. I have no Gore-Tex™ or CamelPack™ or Trekking Poles. I’m wearing black jeans with a shirt and vest and tie, a wool sweater, a scarf. I have some good boots. The compass my sister Annie gave me for Christmas is on a Victorian hair chain in my vest pocket. I brought little else but a change of shirt, socks and underwear, and a notebook, a flask of whiskey and water. It all fit neatly in a small red backpack. It couldn’t have helped that I was only running on about 4 hours of sleep, after the same number of cocktails at Hotel Del Mano the night before. For many reasons, I’m sure I’m a sight…

I feel like a freak even still in the city, walking with purpose but still unsure what that purpose is. Stopping at the Union Square farmer’s market makes the day seem like almost any other. There, I buy my usual pile of apples (well, a smaller pile anyway) and a little bag of pretzels, plus some organic muffin to eat on the way. It’s still quite cold for Spring, so I get a hot cider and stand in the sun for a while, watching the morning shoppers and tourists. I stop again just a dozen blocks away at the Ace hotel to use the bathroom and adjust my backpack, which is already chafing. This isn’t progress; these are all places I already know.

I am not in any clearer mindset from walking either, maybe more crazy than usual. Well before 14th Street I have already obsessed over (in alphabetical order) Art, Basketball Hoops, Boston, Blue Jeans, Dance Parties, Musical Notation, Point-and-Shoot Cameras, Sex, Video Games, and Why I Hate “Street Art”*. I am weirdly nervous about this stupid adventure. I mean, I know it’s ridiculous to think about, but what if I died…?

At least the day is warming and the sky a calming blue. In Times Square I see a beautiful woman who had stopped in a ray of light to raise her head to the sun, eyes closed, face glowing. I want to take a picture, but I can’t budge… and then she sees me and moves on. A hundred blocks later, as the city rolls uphill, I see a handsome young man with his face aimed at the same sun. I have a sudden urge to reach my giant arms through space and time, and to turn the heads of the beautiful sun-lovers toward each other, as they should be.

At 170th Street I am marching to the George Washington Bridge. A guy politely asks me if I’ll help him get something to eat. We’re near a Gyro Truck so I tell him to order whatever he wants… I’m thinking about a time my mother did the same thing for a woman outside a Burger King in Boston when I was a teenager, and how much it impressed me. Over the years I’ve had to learn a lot about the nature of Help. One must choose (or not choose) to help without judgement, I think. If you can give, just give without question. However it is human nature (and also neuroscience and evolution and so on…) to make quick judgements about another person. Here is a nice man – with shoes and clothes certainly in better shape than mine at the moment – asking for help. I do wonder why exactly, but let it go. I figure, if a man is going to ask another man to buy him a sandwich, I’m gonna buy him a goddamn sandwich.

Soon I’m on the George Washington Bridge and it’s kinda scary – long, windy and fast with traffic. I’ll be getting onto the Long Path from its beginning in Fort Lee Park, and hoping to take it almost all the way to my friends’ house in West Nyack. The Long Path is a pretty well-maintained walking path that goes all the way up towards Albany, mostly through woods and parkland. Aqua-colored blazes painted on trees and posts mark the way to go. It’s more level than the Shore Path that goes right along the Hudson, and has me trekking through the trees between the Palisades Parkway and the river. Sometimes I’m way too close to the ugly highway, but sometimes the views across the cliffs to New York are spectacular. So much of it is rocky and muddy, though, and much harder going than I expected. This is not a Gentleman’s Walk anymore. It’s hiking.

I’m in the woods for a long time, trying to enjoy Nature (when I get far enough away from the cars.) I have to stop often, though, and I’m not relaxed or zen-like at all. It has taken me all day to let the busy thoughts go, but at this point I have not found any real peace, even when the woods are quiet. Instead my brain is preoccupied with my body. Simple endurance consumes my thoughts, as does the constant cataloguing of aches and twinges. Can I make it? The first Panic sets in – if I stop and sit for more than five minutes I have a hard time walking for the pain. Soon I start to worry about the time, too. This stretch on the Long Path turns out to be a lot longer than I realized, and has added a good 7 miles to an already long day.

Since I’m losing light I decide to step out of the woods and follow the straight road toward Nyack. This, unfortunately, puts me soon onto Route 9W for a few miles, which seems more dangerous than I expected, especially in the growing dusk. After a while walking uncomfortably here, I notice the Long Path blazes have joined me on the road, and when they veer back off into the woods, I follow. I’d rather be caught in the dark among the trees and coyotes than I would be on the road, wearing black and trudging wearily against the traffic…

The path meanders through Tallman Mountain Park for a while, and suddenly – maybe for the first time all day – I’m in absolute heaven. The sun shoots low through the still bare trees, making the leaf-covered ground shimmer in gold and picking out the dead ghost-white leaves leftover from winter. They tremble wickedly in the wind – the only things that do – like the spirits of condemned men hanged en masse. I take a bunch of snapshots and look around in wonder. I see only squirrels, and a few geese that fly by overhead. It’s quiet as hell. I am totally exhausted, but I am happy.

the sun in the woods

This last hour through the park is physically brutal, though. I can barely walk at this point, after ten hours without much of a break, and I have to climb the stone steps up the hill at the end. I rest at the top and drink some water, wondering how in the hell I can walk another few hours to reach Nyack. All I can aim for right now is to reach Piermont, on the other side of the hill, and rework my plan there. However, the little descent lacks even the structure and stability of the way up. The stairs are just a jumble of angular broken stones, and I picture myself pitching down head first to the bottom at each step. Finally at the bottom, all I can do is hobble a few hundred yards around the corner to the Irish Pub at the edge of town. I just keep walking at a steady pace right on into the bar, pull up a stool, and order a scotch. I am done.

I don’t really know what to do now, since I’ve walked 32 miles and apparently still have another 6 or so to go, and it’s getting late. I don’t particularly want to walk the dark highway, but the parks will be closed at dusk, which includes my last chunk of the Long Path… I mean that’s if I could move. My legs are about to mutiny and eject themselves onto the bar floor.

For the first time all day, I turn on my phone. My friends Tim & Kara had gone to a baby shower in Manhattan today, but have made it home by now, and are about to eat dinner. Kara sweetly insists on coming to get me in Piermont, and I’m not inclined to argue now. I don’t have two hours of walking in me, even if I wanted to… I guess it’s ok to suffer this small defeat. (And O how de feet do suffer!) Instead I’m soon much happier in the bosom of the family, playing games by the fire with their daughter Ray, and eating delicious stew and salad while the Marrieds tease each other cutely. I stretch I shower I sleep. Maybe I should just stay here for the weekend and go home.

*With all the characters, tagging and style wars, it’s just fucking _branding_!
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day zero

Over the years, Penland has offered me safety, solitude and inspiration – along with its fair share of passion, drama and intensity – and though I know this to be true, it’s so strange to begin a two-month period feeling so sure about what will be coming. We can’t help but see the future as uncertain. We think, “Anything can happen,” and although there are certainly variables (from the makeup of the dinner menu to the possibility of Natural Disaster…) for the most part, we know what we can expect.

I expect many familiar faces. I expect a happy reception at the coffee shop. I expect students with difficult questions. I expect Big Ideas and small disasters. I expect to feel a barely containable passion arise when I get talking about Art. I expect bacon. I expect melancholy evenings with melancholy music. I expect to be stopped in my tracks by the sight of the mountain stars. I expect bonfires. I expect bourbon. I expect to feel at home. I expect to feel homesick.

I also expect a fair bit of daily chaos, and this time that began early. First, with a minor housing mix-up, and then this morning, waking up to a whole campus without water. No showers, no coffee, and a very difficult time making cyanotypes … What’s more, it’s raining, so it feels like our whole Human Control of Water thing has been inverted. But no matter – I just put out all the big photo trays and chemical mixers and have already collected 30 gallons of rain water (plus a bit for my coffee!)

This is a class about sun and water, and we seem to have neither today…. but, well, here we go!

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