The Day I Took Seven Pictures And Thought About Greta Garbo

For reasons that are unclear to me, I'm shaking like a leaf, whatever that means. Earlier this morning I awoke in a fine mood and endeavored to take a modest step in the right direction. It may not look it, but the soft pink joy bomb of mental health is always in my crosshairs. I'm never going to be well, though, but the brief moments of emotional stability and related joie de vivre really mean a lot to me.

With my ancient 35mm camera in hand, I headed out to snap some early morning fall pictures. Photography helps create the illusion that the present matters at all, at least so much that it is worth capturing on film. The reality is that it is all a big, fat lie. Everything is in transit from one form to another, and no one form speaks to a higher truth than any other form. Why look to a photograph to find beauty (or anything else) when all it is is a record of what is happening around you all the time? Naturally, it has to be about the "artist" taking the photograph. So in that sense, a photo is like a mirror image of the artists' mind and aesthetic disposition. Or soul, if you believe in that sort of thing.

Most photographs are terrible. The subject matter is maudlin, the composition is cluttered, and the artist is pretentious and unworthy of my valuable attention. That's why I stash my photos away, like my poetry and short stories. Most of them anyway. Incidentally, my photographs are trash, too. They are all in black and white, and I justify that by insisting on a connection between the beginning of photography and modern times. The predominance of colour photography, even in family photos, creates an ugly borderline between the world of our ancestors and the world today. I despise that disconnect. Aesthetically, I'm also fond of black and white. It makes the familiar look a little alien to me, provides me with useful distance.

What a ton of magniloquent ego debris, right? That's why, as Greta Garbo said in the 1932 classic film Grand Hotel, "I want to be alone." By being alone, I eliminate the risk of making a fool out of myself. But this 'blog provides that service nicely. By the way, Garbo actually said, "I want to be let alone" in that movie, but everyone remembers it the other way. A picture of her then lively and attractive form is on my wall next to me, along with Edith Piaf and Eugene V. Debs. None of them look very good now.

I stopped for something to drink at Boyle's Spa, which is right down the street. I got a Diet Coke, but also picked up a chocolate drink called, Godiva Belgian Blends dark chocolate mocha beverage. It cost nearly $2 for 9.5 ounces of the stuff, which is supposed to be, "a revitalizing taste inspired by Godiva's Belgian heritage." How could I say no to something like that? Unfortunately, it tasted like a $2 bottle of Yoo-Hoo. Yuck.

Some fellows were busy doing some construction on Mass. Ave., so I took a picture or two. I made my way to the cemetery across from the medical building and Teamster's Credit Union. For some reason, I have some nice memories of that cemetery. The leaves were brilliant, and most of the people around were dead and buried so they didn't bother me. Even if they were alive, it would be hard to hear them through the concrete shell and coffin and six feet of rocks and dirt. So it was enjoyable.

Eventually, I found myself getting angry at the condominium developers who built six new $550,000 units right next to the cemetery. I don't know why, but I wanted to slap them. It's such a cowardly investment....oooh, let's build yet another set of condos! Fuck you. But my little trip close to my flat ended with my dropping in to say hello to the secretery at my doctor's clinic. She likes me, and my father thinks I should ask her out, but I think that she is just happy to have someone under 65 to talk to sometimes. She is cute as all hell. For those of you in the know, I'm going to take a very long breather from relationships. Like, a LIFE-LONG breather. Frienships only, methinks. What a loss to everyone, I know.

And now I'm home. I took 7 pictures. Yay.