Tag: looking forward

by jad

Only Connect (Burning Intentions for the New Year)

There’s been a lag this year between the official threshold ritual and the actually lived experience of the settling of accounts, that balance sheet of mental assets and liabilities we call reflecting on our year. It’s a lag that pretty much describes the last three years, give or take. That’s the temporal metaphor I keep coming back to: a slippage out of sync, a running out of breath, the reel of events speedily unspooling while the laugh track awkwardly tries to catch up. There’s a spatial metaphor I keep thinking about too. Transparencies of the self and world like many … Continue reading “Only Connect (Burning Intentions for the New Year)” →

by jad

Janus, Resolutions, and the Rent Gap

There’s a metaphor here somewhere. Art in the interstices of the rent gap. According to Google Street View, this space has been vacant for years – even before the pandemic. The last time a business operated out of this address, it was Zipcar, itself a symptom of a recomposed post-crash economy. Platforms for recirculating value. Prints and misprints. x I’d like to say I read this, but it was a video on my feed. The Romans chose January 1 as the new year because of Janus, the two-faced god of the threshold, at once looking forward and back. But they … Continue reading “Janus, Resolutions, and the Rent Gap” →

by jad

Tonight’s the Night

“Decades where nothing happens and weeks where decades happen kind of feeling…” Completely. In a handful of words, a friend in Seattle sums up the whirlwind I’ve been caught in since Saturday, when I woke up to messages from a friend in Damascus asking me if I’m seeing the news. “Tonight’s the night ya Jad.” I took the first photo just after a gathering with a motley crew of democratic socialists where we argued about Syria among other things, and by the time I took the third photo sometime later, Damascus was surrounded. Once again, my friend and comrade in … Continue reading “Tonight’s the Night” →

by jad

Christine’s Project: Kelsey Creek

We tied up a few strings and put a bow on a couple of things today, and I guess the giddiness of relief put me in the mood for oddball scenography when we found ourselves by the new eastside rapid rail station. I took these shots while seriously needing a nap. Can you tell? Today’s biggest bow was the one we put on @christine.bingham.art‘s photo-documentation project; with Maria Goretti now in the can, we have all 12 saints documented — and that’s a wrap (for me–Christine still has to finish the book). I just love that the very last photo … Continue reading “Christine’s Project: Kelsey Creek” →

by jad

A Place to Linger

I had a conversation with a friend in between taking these photos and chilling on a bench for a popsicle break. We texted back and forth on what it means to be “boxed in” by an interest or a subject or an identity, and how our shared completist urge can get in the way of getting out of comfort zones and trying something new. And it made me think about how we all need containers to make sense of the world, and how “boxes” can be reframed as “neighborhoods,” or places we linger and repeat ourselves and become more and … Continue reading “A Place to Linger” →

by jad

Hello, Madison

This is the first official post from our new place’s Wi-Fi, now lovingly called “LakeStinko,” after the regional lore. It took the Comcast guy a couple of tries to hook us up this morning because the wiring was so shoddy, and the previous tenants were either offline luddites or used something else completely. I took these shots on the same roll that Christine was using in the Nikon Lite-Touch. This was near the second apartment we viewed before we found this one. We were seduced by the amenities and soaring views, but the price they sent us later that day … Continue reading “Hello, Madison” →

by jad

Birthday Breakfast

We’re not quite moved out but we’ve started moving in; the liminal time in between. Empty rooms are beginning to take their form. Boundless time is beginning to clump up and congeal into rhythm and routine. This is our first morning waking up in a new act in this city. This is also the first light of yet another solar return. We’ve made it through. There is symbolism to this space. There’s a moral to our decisiveness and a lesson in our good fortune. It’s too early to find meaning in the day, but I’ll start making some anyway. This … Continue reading “Birthday Breakfast” →

by jad

The Art of Moving

I don’t know what the property people really thought of us, but one did say nothing fazes her anymore after I joked about our quick and dirty photoshoots in every apartment we viewed. “We turn everything into a project,” I laughed. But it’s no joke. Life would be a thousand times more stressful without these tricks I play on myself. Compete with every other lease ending this month? Sure, why not. And let’s be art-farts doing it.

by jad

U-Haul Season on LomoChrome ’92

It felt like spring had only just arrived, but now it’s time for another solstice; the wheel turns and stops for no one. The unrelenting march of time can mean many a thing to many a person, but in a city like ours, there is one certainty that it inevitably brings: U-Haul season is upon us. That’s right. After six years atop our brick tower, the time has come. I’ve walked these streets for about as long, occasionally catching myself playing “beyt byout” in my mind, wondering what it would be like to live behind that window or another, with … Continue reading “U-Haul Season on LomoChrome ’92” →

by jad

Origin Story (Still in Progress)

I took this on my first ever photowalk today, using the digicam I brought back from Lebanon. I’m glad I brought it along, because it was -9 °C out and I could barely operate my other camera for more than a couple minutes at a time. I very quickly learned that I had the wrong gloves and lenses for staying nimble on a day like today. So, what was I thinking going out on one of the coldest days of the year to cosplay as photographer? I was thinking that I need to start getting out of my own way … Continue reading “Origin Story (Still in Progress)” →