The Persistent Dilemma

I have for some time, been in a sort of conundrum regarding this blog. I have written about this before so will not elaborate (too much) today. Suffice it to say, that when this began it was exciting to me. Though arguably driven by my own ego (aren’t most artistic endeavors?) I felt it was an interesting medium. And it still is. The fact is though, that I feel much less compelled to write about the minutiae of my daily life here. Which is also interesting to me, because much of my work and especially my work in graduate school, is about “the art of everyday life.” Hell, that is in large part the topic of my thesis…..which actually begins with this quote from Georges Perec: “What’s needed perhaps is finally to found our own anthropology, one that will speak about us, will look in ourselves for what for so long we’ve been pillaging from others. Not the exotic any more, but the endotic.” But enough of that.

So why do I feel bored with the blog? Perhaps it is that there are so many countless other people doing the same. How sad it would be to stop doing something just because it doesn’t feel unique. I believe we are told constantly by our culture, that to be valid as an artist, one must do something that has never been done before. One of the many problems with this mentality in my opinion, is that it forces on culture an ideal of ‘progress,’ which for its own sake is rarely ever ideal.

Or perhaps it is that I have lost most of my readers. I can’t blame them, for there is so little to read. Maybe it’s just that I would rather spend my time playing guitar, which I have been doing much of these days. I’m not sure. It could also be that I feel self-conscious about my writing (which is certainly true) so I’ve grown tired of it. I just don’t know. But then one of my inspirations for beginning this thing in the first place was Sy Safransky’s autobiographical thoughts and musings, and even his writing sucks sometimes. I think there are few people whose work is great nearly all of the time. Those are the genius’ of any generation; though I will confess to greatly disliking that word and its implications as I grow older.

At the same time, it doesn’t make all that much sense to me to take it down. So I am conflicted. What’s the point if it just sits here quietly. Maybe that is the point. Maybe it is waiting for some other time in my life when I feel driven to write again. And maybe that time will come. And i may write here from time to time. As a matter of fact, I'm nearly certain that I will.

Anyway, the other problem you see, is that I have nearly stopped writing in my “actual, real-life journals” since I began here. I still write in them, but only about 1/4 as much. I figured this would be a problem, but as I grow more and more frustrated with the lack of cultural importance placed on ‘artifacts,’ the journal itself, the journal as an object, becomes increasingly important to me. I will not wax intellectual on this here. Not now anyway. Needless to say, with a son emerging from my wife’s belly any day now, writing in an “actual, real-life journal,” has again taken a great importance in my life. At least if the journals were somehow destroyed someday, there would likely be one hell of a story to accompany that. If these writings were gone, they would just POOF and be gone. And you can’t touch these. Or smell them. What about our other senses?

Anyway, I had an idea. Another way in which the importance of artifact has become clear in my life, is with photography. As many of you well know, I have had a concealed love for photography for many years. I have taken many photos. I have no interest or delusions about becoming a professional photographer, but I do adore the medium. So due to economics I switched from film to digital some years back. I still prefer film. Part of the reason that I still prefer film, is that there is an artifact, something tangible at the end of it all. To some degree, that is part of the magic of photography to me. That and the mystery. So now I have thousands of photos on my computer which just sit there, floating in ‘nowhere-land,’ on the magic box. So I decided that perhaps I should start putting them up here, which would in some way give them life. No sequence, no constructed reasoning, no writing to ‘go with’ them, just photos I have taken that I like. How simple.

So I will try this, and see how I feel about it. I’m not promising anything. Who knows? This first photo was taken in Troy, New York at Emma Willard School for Girls. There was an ice storm last week, and it lingered as the sun came out. A strangely magical experience.

Posted by jeff pitcher at February 12, 2008 06:52 PM

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