We were visited by the fabulous Bea Hoffman (and her family) this weekend. This was her first photobooth portrait.
Our son, of course, is already an old pro.

1. Although I hate sites that have pop up windows, I do enjoy a bit of surrealism now and then.

2. Photoblogger's 4 is happening on June 17 @ 7:00pm at the Apple Store. Stop by and watch me choke (I'm one of the speakers and anyone who has known me long enough knows I'm famously shy about this stuff). Otherwise these things are like big slide shows. Is anyone in blogworld ancient enough to remember the family slideshow? Or even better the neighbor's slideshow of his vacation ("The Sullivans go to Vegas!"). Anyway it will sort of be like that. As a random aside, if you don't know the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, you probably should.

3. Check out this nice bit of photojournalism on land and identity from Magnum. I found this link via Martin Fuchs who is interning at Magnum this summer.

This Newsweek corespondent Rod Nordland on leaving his assignment in Iraq sums up the grim mess. If you care about such things, it is hard not to feel despair at the utter failure of leadership and imagination that is consuming our nation's prestige like a cancer and turning the world against us.

I don't know anything about her, but any artist with a yeti fixation is cool with me. Enjoy the art of Megan Whitmarsh. She also makes short films.

I know. I know. This blog is filled with typographical errors. I often write at night or with a baby sleeping on my knee. Sometimes hours pass between halves of sentences. An Ivy League education can't hide my lifelong dyslexia or a childhood in a rural Texas school system. Sometimes I write sentences that look correct to me, but are in fact inverted. I am prone to grammatical train wrecks. If you find these errors and they bug you, please let me know about them. I edit myself as best I can, but I make plenty of embarrassing mistakes. Please just leave a note in the comments. I will thank you and you will feel better about making the web ever so slightly more pleasant.

... and I'm still clicking away trying to finish up a project that never seems to end. I am weary...

Earlier tonight Jenn read to me--various passages from a book she is into. Jenn is a reader in the way I used to be and would like to be again. We had been lying down together on a twin bed staring at the ceiling and talking about how sometimes we miss our baby when he is asleep when she said, "Oh I have to read you something..." and so she did. It is hot in our apartment and we don't have enough fans. We were lying a few inches away from each other so as to not generate too much heat and stick together but there was a hint of breeze through the window and I had just finished a popsicle which cooled my insides so the temperature was bearable. So Jenn read and I closed my eyes and enjoyed the sounds of her voice and the nice words she was reading. Outside the sounds of Brooklyn.

I have many friends who are wary of benefits of marriage (which is of course their prerogative), but if I could just find the words to color all the ineffable emotions of that small moment and so many others like it, I feel sure their ambivalence would dissolve into want with a capital W for the things they do not yet know.

Post Secret has been all over the media lately including stories in the NY Times and on NPR, but then again, the site is genius. It deserves the attention. If you haven't found it yet check it out.

Sorry to keep posting these old journal fragments, but it is always curious to find something in your own hand that you do not recognize:

1993, Beijing

Letter to my future wife wherever you are:

Forget the ocean... forget last night and try to remember that long afternoon near the end of summer when we spoke for the first time. We talked of the color ultramarine and of the ideal day. A day in which every moment is polished and perfect and even our breath overlaps. I tried to imagine this but found my mind wandering... round river stones tumbling, the word s o m n a m b u l a n c e kicking around my head... But too much thinking is pushing away this future memory so I turn off that part of my brain and just let your words flow over me. Listening to you I knew you could make me forget and perhaps for a while, even now when you are just an illusion, you did. Do you remember all this because I do? and I know that that perfect ideal day will be the first day, the beginning of something.

...and other observations on life in LA can be found at my new favorite blog. Also associated with this blog (urbanhonking is a meta site) is this intriguing photo/art blog. I've been checking it daily and am regularly blow away/inspired.

From an old journal:

June 1rst, 1993
Stung Treng, Cambodia

Last night we awoke to the sound of a woman screaming nearby. There was no electricity, no light but starlight. It sounded as if she was being assaulted or worse.

The racket if I had to describe it would be of a woman being sawed in half. Soon her screams were joined by the voices of other women. I was awash in the chill of pure terror. Despite every instinct to run in the opposite direction we (myself and the other men on bus garroted in a cheap guesthouse) made our way outside towards the noise up the steps of the other platformed guesthouse where the women were sleeping. A snake, an enormous one of at least 60 pounds, had fallen from the rafters onto the women's mosquito net and began writhing to free itself. The woman had been trapped and paralyzed with fear. None of this was apparent before a match was lit... upon entering the room we just saw two dark shapes struggling with manic energy. Finally a match was struck, the scene revealed & much shouting.

An old man deftly and with practiced precision did away with the beast with a quick sharp jab of a knife through the eye. The woman bruised, and almost mad with fear had been bitten several times, though the bites weren't poisonous she was hysterical. When the blood was cleaned she was left with just a few puncture wounds. By the time the excitement was over the sun was breaking, the snake had been skinned & gutted, and put into a pot where it boiled for two hours.

I was just served a bowl of the oily dark flesh. I think I will pass.

Almost 6 months and still not crawling, but he's working on it.

Longtime readers will know I have a bit of a North Korea obsession.

A few links of interest I've discovered recently:

The unofficial guide to the Pyongyang Metro System

The Tower of Juche Idea

North Korean Propaganda Posters

Official North Korean News Agency (which oddly always includes a few items in Spanish).

Downloadable North Korean Magazine (pdf format).

more here...

odd fact: The Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang represents the US as consular protecting power),

and on an unrelated note, I just downed an entire box of melba toast.

I like spending holidays in New York. The city is deserted and you feel like you have the place for yourself. Still it's hard not to be just a little bit jealous of my friends who are all heading for the hills (and beyond).

My wanderlust is in high gear right now. I can't wait to escape the keyboard and get "out there" somewhere beyond the familiar.

About once a year Ted swings into town from Hong Kong and throws an awfully nice dinner. Although most of the invitees are friends and we all live in NY, often the only time we see each other are at these semi-annual dinners. Sad really.

Virtually everyone who meets Raul Andres comments about his good natured smileyness. People tell us we have been spoiled by such a mellow kid. I'm sure it will all even out. We predict he's going to be a terror as a 2 year old.

At 5 1/2 months the baby has more than doubled his weight and is 2 1/2 feet tall... & still criminally cute.

Maybe I spent too much time growing up around my dad's pathology lab, but I find this virtual human site utterly fascinating.