Category: Poiesis

by jad

Beauty in Banal Things (True Self, False Self)

I mentioned yesterday how my anti-car scruples have gone more lax in the past few years, with making a living in this urban fabric being the primary impetus. But there’s also the influence of the photographic eye. I don’t remember ever taking photos of cars in Lebanon; in fact, I spent a long time taking photos of buses. Over here, though, it sometimes feels like cars are the only finely-crafted aesthetic objects around. That says a lot about a place. As the closest thing to public art in deserts of the the capitalist real, cars are synecdoches of time and … Continue reading “Beauty in Banal Things (True Self, False Self)” →

by jad

A710 vs. LX10 (and a Mural That Says Slow Down)

I’m back with another ridiculous camera comparison: the 2006 Canon Powershot A710 IS versus the 2016 LUMIX LX10, which technically still counts as a digicam, I think. What difference could ten years and a jump from 7.1 MP to 20 MP possible make? I took these photos near the spot that Liliana Moreno was murdered by automobile on February 16. I’d heard of this awful tragedy but didn’t realize how close it was to the bus stop I’d be getting off of yesterday—a sobering thought when I get around mostly by foot and public transport. I’m less militantly anti-car than … Continue reading “A710 vs. LX10 (and a Mural That Says Slow Down)” →

by jad

SX260 vs. ELPH 340: A Digicam Comparison

Today I’m comparing the SX260 HS to the ELPH 340 HS, a PowerShot that came out two years later with 16 megapixels crammed into the same sized sensor. This was Christine’s old camera that we found hiding at the bottom of a box when we moved apartments two years. It ended up becoming my only travel cam in Costa Rica, after my Ricoh MySport went kaput very early in the trip. It’s also called “Pete.” That’s what you see when you pair it with Canon’s Camera Connect software. I don’t know why. x I didn’t have anywhere special to be … Continue reading “SX260 vs. ELPH 340: A Digicam Comparison” →

by jad

With All That’s Going On in the World (More Camera Comparisons)

“With all that’s going on in the world.” I was thinking about this turn of phrase, with all that’s going on in the world, and all that’s going on in my part of the world in particular. So I did what I often do when a thought gets lodged inside my brain: I looked it up. I know that in this house we love to hate it, but I liked how off-putting yet accurate it sounded, so here is what Google’s AI overview had to say: “ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴀʟʟ ᴛʜᴀᴛ’ꜱ ɢᴏɪɴɢ ᴏɴ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ” ɪꜱ ᴀ ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴏɴʟʏ ᴜꜱᴇᴅ, ᴛɪᴍᴇʟʏ ᴘʜʀᴀꜱᴇ … Continue reading “With All That’s Going On in the World (More Camera Comparisons)” →

by jad

Camera Curios: A720 IS vs. SX260 HS

Photography’s been slapping me across the face and telling me he loves me lately, so I decided to spend a bit of time with my camera curios to get back into my groove. I started with two Canon PowerShot digicams: the A710 IS I got from Virgin Megastore in Downtown Beirut all the way back in 2007, making it my first camera, and the SX260 HS from 2012 that my father-in-law gave me during his last visit. He said that if I could figure out how to charge it, I could have it (it needed a replacement battery pack). Both … Continue reading “Camera Curios: A720 IS vs. SX260 HS” →

by jad

A Faltering Body and a Lonely City

I think about this whenever my attention’s brought back to my faltering body, usually “when it’s screaming,” as the upper cervical chiropractor put it this morning: I wonder to what degree what I know as my “self” is just a pinched nerve or a blocked flow or a chemical out of place. Can a personality really be (mis)shaped by spinal health? Did you know that chronic pain from spinal issues triggers the body’s stress responses, increasing cortisol and reducing motivation, often leading to a “short fuse” or high anxiety? Or that persistent discomfort and reduced mobility can lead to social … Continue reading “A Faltering Body and a Lonely City” →

by jad

Permission to Read a Different Script

A friend’s been going through a profound transformation that’s been a privilege to witness and be invited behind the scenes for, and it’s been making me think about my own threshold experiences, past, present, and future. Another friend has been calling this year a time of blooming. As the perennial late bloomer, I’m thinking about that too. What seeds are sprouting, I wonder? A subterranean connection I think these two friends have in common is a love of being alive, as a meme one of them shared with me this morning put it. And the more I think about it, … Continue reading “Permission to Read a Different Script” →

by jad

Dada, and Art as a Creature of Its Epoch

“Art, in its production and direction, depends on the time in which it lives, and artists are creatures of their epoch. The highest art will be one in which the thousandfold issues of the day are revealed in its consciousness, an art which allows itself to be noticeably shattered by last week’s explosions, which is forever trying to collect itself after the shock of recent days. The best and most challenging artists will be those who every hour snatch the tatters of their bodies out of the turbulent whirl of life, who, with bleeding hands and hearts, hold fast to … Continue reading “Dada, and Art as a Creature of Its Epoch” →