There's Still the River

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I posted this almost three years ago and wrote a little about it, but I'm posting it again because Emily gave me the brand new Criterion Collection DVD for Christmas and I finally had the chance to re-watch it:


Charles Laughton: The Night of the Hunter (excerpt), 1955.

This river scene in particular features maybe my favorite cinematography-plus-music of all time. I first saw The Night of the Hunter with one of my best friends, Jen Tadaki, at Film Forum in New York. Awhile after that, she and another friend of ours gave me the soundtrack on vinyl – Charles Laughton reading the story, with bits of audio from the movie interspersed – for my birthday. Laughton's film is as beautiful as it is frightening, and the record and DVD are prized possessions/experiences.

If you haven't seen The Night of the Hunter (or if you have), check it out on Netflix or get the new DVD from Criterion.

America By Car

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And we're back.

Here are some pics from our Labor Day camping trip to the Chewuch River, north of Winthrop, Washington, in the Okanogan National Forest [click to enlarge].

Many more, and some mildly entertaining stories, after the jump.

Image of the Day

. Invitation to poetry reading in La Conner by Charles W. Krafft, Summer 1980 (click to enlarge). This beautiful relic is on display as part of Fishtown and the Skagit River,
an excellent show at the Museum of Northwest Art chronicling the work of a group of artists who lived in a community of formerly abandoned fishing shacks on the Skagit River in the 1960s, '70s, and early-'80s. We stopped through on our way back from Whidbey Island yesterday and it was well worth the detour, to say the least. I'm sure Emily and/or I will have more to say about it, but for now, more info here.

No Matter Who You Are, Everyone's Gonna Say One Sentence About You

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Alec Soth made a name for himself by photographing people and places up and down the banks of the Mississippi. He's now experimenting with different formats and ways of telling stories with his work, which he discusses in this short feature.

See more of Soth's work at his website.

[via the excellent photography blog 1000 Words ]

Super Fun

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Now it's official: the New York Times is reporting this morning that our beloved Gowanus has been designated a Superfund site. The near-term effect on the neighborhood would seem to be a development slow-down, and the long-term effect will be, at least in theory, a cleaner Gowanus. All of which is fine by me. Read the story here.

I Think It Looks Wonderful

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I told Em we need to train Littlejeans and Inez to use powertools and remodel our apartment.

Click here for another one.

[ via SLOG ]

Say Cheese

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Photography explained.
Littlejeans is not amused.

[via SLOG ]

Go East, Young Man, & c.

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This past summer, Robin Stein, a Seattle-based photographer (you may also know him from such bands as Flexions), spent a week on a tree farm outside of Chesterhill, Ohio, as a guest of the Harold Arts Residency. While there, he studied the pages of an obscure guidebook published in Pittsburgh in 1811, The Navigator: "Containing Directions for Navigating the Monongahela, Allegheny, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers; with an Ample Account of These Much Admired Waters, from the Head of the Former to the Mouth of the Latter; and a Concise Description of Their Towns, Villages, Harbours, Settlements, & c."

The week after, Stein journeyed up the Ohio River Valley, and then East through the Alleghenies, using what he had learned from The Navigator to loosely trace a route of early westbound settlers, but in reverse. He ended up in New York City. And then he came back to Seattle, and started posting photographs of the journey on his blog. Here are a few of my favorites:

Bernerd’s Yard, Chesterhill, Ohio

Pt. Pleasant, West Virginia

For me, Stein's photos capture a feeling that is difficult to describe – the feeling of being from the coasts, but finding yourself between them, observing the land as you move through it. A roadtrip is always a good idea, but a roadtrip with a theme becomes more epic – in this case, connecting with the westward migration that is our country's collective internal road movie.

Check out Robin Stein's blog here, or better yet, see more of his work in person at a show opening this Thursday, with painter Matt Lifson, at Ursa Minor Gallery, 3308 East Spring Street (one block South of Union in Madrona, Seattle).

The Sea and the Rhythm

Since August 15th, seven handmade floating sculptures have been making their way down the Hudson, stopping at different ports along the way so their 40 passengers, led by the artist known as Swoon, can step on shore and stage a series of musical and theatrical performances.

The trip will wrap up when the boats dock at Deitch Studios in Long Island City on September 7th. Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea is a sequel to a 2006 project on the Mississippi River by Swoon and the Miss Rockaway Armada. An exhibition at Deitch of Swoon's prints and structures will follow.

I first became aware of Swoon when we lived near the Gowanus Canal and noticed her woodcut-paper paste-ups around the neighborhood. I saw her speak at an AIGA event a few years later, and after that she had a fairly mind-blowing show at Deitch projects.

Her work is very recognizable and you can see it all over, though not quite as much as before, as she is obviously very busy these days.

Click here to see some of my Flickr photos of her paste-ups.
More info on Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea at Deitch and at switchbacksea.org.

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PS - I did a graphic identity project for the Gowanus Canal when I was in school at Parsons. I did a lot of research in the archives of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and this is one of the more interesting photos I found:

The Gowanus had temporarily dried up, and this crowd was having a look from the Carroll Street bridge. A police officer on duty counted something like 38 guns in the mud below.

Blue Turning Gray

Mount St. Helens erupted 28 years ago yesterday. I was nine at the time so I guess I didn't totally understand the magnitude of it, but I remember we got sent home from school early, and I remember hearing from my cousins that Aberdeen was covered in ash. My grandpa's cattle were also dusted over in Ellensburg—the ash blowing everywhere affected the entire Northwest. I saved a little vial of the stuff, I'm sure it's around here somewhere.

These black and white photos are by Frank Gohlke, and are collected in his excellent book Mount St. Helens, published by the Museum of Modern Art on the occasion of his exhibition at the museum in 2005.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Blue Turning Gray MP3

Not long after Mount St. Helens erupted we got two kittens. Our first cat, Mama Kitty, had just died at the age of 19. To this day she still shares the title of Best Cat Ever with Betty Whiskers and Mr. Littlejeans. She was much older than us—my mom had gotten her some time in the sixties—and it always seemed like she was taking care of us. In this picture, taken a few years earlier, my brother returns the favor:

And here are the kittens. My brother and I named the gray one Toutle—after the color of the Toutle River, which they kept showing on the news, filled with ash from Mount St. Helens.

Stuck By This River

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Busy day, so I will make this a quickie.

I was reminded recently of one of the most beautiful pieces of black and white cinematography I know of—the river scene in Charles Laughton's brilliant and chilling "Night of the Hunter." I don't want to ruin the story if you haven't seen the movie, but all you really need to know for a lead-in is that the evil preacher (Robert Mitchum) is relentlessly pursuing the brother and sister, and they escape in a rowboat down the Mississippi River. It's a long clip, but worth watching all the way through so you can catch all the different little animals on the side of the river (not to mention the feeling of utter dread at the appearance of the evil preacher's silhouette).

The weird thing is, this movie flopped at the box office and Laughton never directed again.