tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post7248077026756619223..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: At the Fair (I): Pie TownUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-88249437719170071092010-07-26T11:15:41.810-07:002010-07-26T11:15:41.810-07:00"...a period of true hope..."
"We ..."...a period of true hope..."<br /><br />"We are losing the thread of these memories..."<br /><br />It is out of a place between this hope and this sense of loss that this post arises.<br /><br />For it to be noticed would be to honour a great deal of the struggle of an earlier America that has been largely forgotten, and is worth remembering.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-45988804601080870362010-07-26T10:58:27.342-07:002010-07-26T10:58:27.342-07:00For a long time, we lived on East 86th Street in M...For a long time, we lived on East 86th Street in Manhattan near the East River and would jog early in the morning on the esplanade that runs down to Sutton Place. Every morning the lone East River cormorant was our companion. Eventually, someone wrote a small story in the Metro section of New York Times about him. He was a remarkable creature and deserved a longer article.Curtis Robertsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-5782717673694145842010-07-26T04:08:33.392-07:002010-07-26T04:08:33.392-07:00"I say "curiously" because never mo..."I say "curiously" because never more than now has something along those lines been needed. But we're not getting it."<br /><br />I, for one, for a brief little while, thought we might actually get something akin to it, in the limited recent period of true hope ... <br /><br />We are losing the thread of these memories which is one reason that posts like this are so vital. Dare we hope (that word again) that they will be archived and others, from new generations, will understand them for what they were, what they are, and what they imply?<br /><br />"<i>The head of the lowest child here brushes against the sky</i>."Issa's Untidy Huthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07352841590717991698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-17694079527364123992010-07-25T07:59:22.587-07:002010-07-25T07:59:22.587-07:00Tom,
Thanks for addressing those five questions a...Tom,<br /><br />Thanks for addressing those five questions and yes, as the song says, "hard time, hard times, come again no more" (or so we wish). And yes Curtis, the cormorant "really shake[s] things up" ---<br /><br />7.25<br /><br />grey whiteness of fog against invisible<br />ridge, red-tailed hawk calling in right<br />foreground, no sound of wave in channel<br /><br /> physical part of the present,<br /> even when it was called<br /><br /> this point, that coincidence,<br /> flattened color support<br /><br />grey-white of fog reflected in channel,<br />cormorant flapping across toward pointSTEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-84999817594908901542010-07-24T18:54:48.110-07:002010-07-24T18:54:48.110-07:00Some more of the FSA colour work can be found on t...Some more of the FSA colour work can be found on the post <a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/meant-to-be.html" rel="nofollow">"Meant to be..."</a><br /><br />As to the historical period, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVE72Ae82Tw&feature=related" rel="nofollow">this</a> clip is part of the recovered cultural memory; b+w photos from the FSA project, among other sources.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-45214012175269250792010-07-24T18:27:56.233-07:002010-07-24T18:27:56.233-07:00I've always loved those "basic journalism...I've always loved those "basic journalism" questions I was taught when working on the high school newspaper, back during or perhaps just before the Wisconsonian Glaciation.<br /><br />Elmo asks the Who question. The answer is: yours truly.<br /><br />Steve asks the Why question. That one's also pretty simple. The pictures in this post are the assigned work of photographers hired by the Farm Security Administration, to document the "look" of a common America still very much in the grip of the late stages of the Great Depression.<br /> <br />Are not the historical issues of the Great Depression relevant to our times?<br /><br />Then there's the Where. Curtis, these photographers were assigned to cover various parts of the country. Marion Post Wolcott covered the South. Russell Lee covered the Southwest. Jack Delano did New England and parts of the Far West, & c.<br /><br />This comes round to the What: the great photo work done on this project remains a a little known treasure of this failing nation. Some few of the 100,000 or so b+w shots in the FSA archives have been seen, principally the Dust Bowl work of the great Dorothea Lange (which I have featured previously in posts like Problems of Life: Wittgenstein-- see Contents or Favourites list to find that). The color work on the other hand, is pretty much unknown. I love the brilliant look of the Kodachrome and even more I love the genius in the artistic eye of these photographers, who were the very best people of the time working in this medium.<br /><br />And they had a tremendous, tragic subject.<br /><br />The FSA was un-funded and folded in 1942, subsumed into the Office of War Administration, an out and out propaganda service (Charles Olson, among others, worked there).<br /><br />The FSA photo project, like an earlier project that sent writers out to do books on the various parts of the country in the grip of the deepest period of the Depression, remains one of the great legacies of the New Deal.<br /><br />The cultural achievements of that administration, and its role in saving the soul of America, are curiously undervalued. I say "curiously" because never more than now has something along those lines been needed. But we're not getting it.<br /><br />But really, rather than go on further about this, let me just repeat Marylinn's comment. Evidently she understands everything I have just said, without my having to say it again... (Thank you Marylinn!). <br />___ <br /><br /><br />"Hard times, come again no more. Yet they do.<br /><br />"'A timepiece on a chain in a city lawyer's coat pocket...' and then, 'with nothing left to speak of as your own...'<br /><br />"Your words, with the photos and the simple place name, Pie Town, tell such a wrenching story; it is our history, it is us."TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-87734981727945440452010-07-24T15:50:50.230-07:002010-07-24T15:50:50.230-07:00Whose words? Tom Clark's?
The past is prologu...Whose words? Tom Clark's?<br /><br />The past is prologue.<br /><br />Tom if you wrote those lines<br />to accompany the story in <br />the pictures, you're an even<br />greater poet than I thought<br />you were.Elmo St. Rosenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-81757742118376643402010-07-24T13:31:47.109-07:002010-07-24T13:31:47.109-07:00I wonder what prompted these also and marvel at th...I wonder what prompted these also and marvel at the way all of the photos in the three pieces seem to come not just from the same time (which they do), but from the same place (which they don't). Steve's poem today hits me hard also ("equivalence of systems, mass equal to mass"). When we're in Tuxedo, we see a big lake every morning (there are two other smaller lakes here also). We have some "bird regulars" (geese and ducks), but our occasional, unexpected visitors (an egret today, some occasional blue herons, the beloved cormorant and, for a while an American bald eagle) really shake things up.Curtis Robertsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-1201232516745018182010-07-24T11:49:12.755-07:002010-07-24T11:49:12.755-07:00Hard times, come again no more. Yet they do.
&qu...Hard times, come again no more. Yet they do.<br /><br />"A timepiece on a chain in a city lawyer's coat pocket..." and then, "with nothing left to speak of as your own..."<br /><br />Your words, with the photos and the simple place name, Pie Town, tell such a wrenching story; it is our history, it is us.Marylinn Kellyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02759437467691163658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-66629286549666735002010-07-24T07:53:10.081-07:002010-07-24T07:53:10.081-07:00Tom,
Yes, "over the top of the ridge there r...Tom,<br /><br />Yes, "over the top of the ridge there returns the light" (thankfully today here, and even into the world made present in these three looks back at life "At the Fair"). What prompted these, I wonder. . . .<br /><br />7.24<br /><br />grey whiteness of fog against invisible<br />top of ridge, sparrow landing on branch<br />in foreground, sound of wave in channel<br /><br /> field of force, acceleration<br /> of space-time continuum<br /><br /> equivalence of systems, mass<br /> equal to mass, which is<br /><br />grey-white of fog reflected in channel,<br />wingspan of tern flapping across ridgeSTEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-210310088710245582010-07-24T07:31:02.087-07:002010-07-24T07:31:02.087-07:00so well said...!!so well said...!!Sandra.ifhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07861930312460679629noreply@blogger.com