There is no birth of consciousness without pain.
– C. G. Jung


source: my photography: the twisted pine

More music I am loving. I am especially inspired by their story.
UPDATE: I found an article in the NYTIMES how they sold all their music equipment and saved for 6 years to go on a sailing trip that ultimately inspired this 7". Their sailing trip had been a dream of Patrick Riley's, the male half of Tennis.
I find this the most heartening part of their music...
One goal. Following a dream. The tenacity. Accomplishing what one sets out to do.
It's fearless. It's adventurous. And as a result... added inspiration for their creativity.

Tennis is Patrick Riley and Alaina Moore, a husband/wife duo. The idea for the project began one day a couple of years ago when Alaina made fun of Patrick for playing Tennis in college, which is an elitist rich man’s sport. A year later the two fled their hometown Denver to spend eight months sailing and exploring the North Atlantic coast. During their adventures they began writing music together documenting their experiences.

I'm in Colorado.
How fortuitous.

Listen to MARATHON off their 7"


excerpt via: Last.fm
Tennis on MySpace
NYTIMES article

Listening to Summer Camp... lots of warped hazy tones.
Looking forward to the rest of their sounds off their Young EP

SUMMER CAMP - Round the Moon from Paddy Power on Vimeo.

Summer Camp - Ghost Train (viral) from Paddy Power on Vimeo.

Yesterday
Woke early. Adventures through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
Discovered Crestone, a remote town of angry hippies.
Revisited Sand Dunes.
Warmth from the sun on my face, dry air keeping my back cool, and the buzzing of bugs on trails.
I continually reaffirm that the west is my home.

Today
Early morning, the cats tackled each other and occasionally jumped around my head.
I woke several times but knew I wasn't ready.
Each time my eyes opened, I would watch as the sun filled and brightened the bedroom.
By 8am I was ready.
By 9am, simple pleasures: chocolate milk.
By noon, happy discovery: root beer milk.
By 1pm, 85 degrees F, getting ready to go to Spruce Mountain.

Thinking about…
Polaroids, wanting to shoot more,
buying and shooting super-8 film,
trip to NYC at end of October to see Sean,
buying new non-plastic frames for my face,
how tasty this root beer milk is…


source: my polaroids

source: my flickr

I love this song.

16mm color film, extremely overexposed with lots of blur.
Footage is my own. Shot with an Eclair. Subject is my sister.
I never found a sound I wanted to pair if with until now.

and what the hell do you think you can decide upon, act upon, or base your personal philosophy upon if at the sight of a tall reticent poetic genius you feel sick, tense, excited, overthrown, eager, wanting to redeem horrible infirmary impression, hot and cold, and desperately near tears.

where, where, to find that quality I long for that will grow goodly and green for fifty years – is it mind??
God, how I ricochet between certainties and doubts. The doubts of past convictions only cast aspersions present assurances and maliciously suggest that those, too, shall pass into the realm of the null and void.

–and then tonight the sight of the poetic one, the wanting . . . what? to conquer? to talk? this first . . . after the "don't kill me when you make love to me" . . . echoing in my ears.

oh a love growing sharing would be so good, so uncomplex. and in these rapid most complex days of speed, mood, and psychology, it is relatively impossible to "know" anyone, as it is impossible to "know" oneself.

one relies so on single symbols which supposedly presage large assumptions. he goes to ballets ergo, he must be sensitive & artistic. he quotes poetry, ergo he must be a kindred spirit. he reads joyce, ergo he must be a genius.

I am in danger of wanting my personal absolute to be a demigod of a man, and as there aren't many around, I often unconsciously manufacture my own. and then, I retreat and revel in poetry and literature where the reward value is tangible and accepted. I really do not think deeply. really deeply. I want a romantic nonexistent hero.

If only I knew what I wanted I could try to see about getting it. I want to live hard and good with a hard, good man. clean brilliant and strong is how and with whom I want to live. and tonight, oh god, I think that I am mortal, unthinking, unworthy – and that men on the fringe are too far off in time and space and too like unloved and faithless, and though love be a day, I am afraid it will be only that; and though love be a day, I am afraid also that it will be more.

– Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath











source: Contemporary Photography: Emmet Gowin

My hero.
For the longest time I did not have a hero.
Not until I read and became inspired by John Muir.

“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”

“Most people are on the world, not in it - having no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them - undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate."

“The mountains are calling and I must go.”
-John Muir

I love the Everly Brothers.
Even though their songs are largely about heartache, they still put a smile on my face.
It's their melodies and harmonies.
Or maybe it's the nostalgia from my childhood...

I Wonder if I Care as Much
Love Hurts
Cryin' in the Rain

All I Have to do is Dream and Cathy's Clown are my favorites.