I know that I don't say much about my real life on this blog -- even the pictures of my intimate space lack meaning, or context. I photograph as if the thing photographed is floating a void of visual looking. (although, maybe that too is a shortsighted description; my pictures float, not in a purely visual world, but in a highly romanticized mode of picture planes, victorian structures and self-flatulation.(boy, sometimes I pontificate when I try to write.(oh,and yes, I meant flatulation, not flagellation, I thought it'd be funny.)))
- What's your point?
- No, I don't got a point, I went in thinking about writing about disappointment, opportunity, thoughtful progress, but it's coming out all wrong.
- Well, say what you want to say and then put a couple pictures up. You took that picture of a door; make a metaphor where your missed opportunity is the closed door and you can then, uh, move away from the door.
- Yeah, but now that you say it like that it doesn't make sense.
- So what? You never think symbols out very far, just stick it in there and count on the viewer to assume it means something profound.
- I will, I will, but I wanted to talk about the process a little before we leap into the symbolic world.
- Ok, you shot the picture, you talk about the process. I assume that's what you mean, you're very vague sometimes.
- You don't need to be so, whatever. So, I took a picture of the white closet door, it was open a crack and I liked the dark line created by that crack. Then I took a picture of the bathroom door, it's is also white and I've tried to photograph it before, but it always comes out, ergh, bad. Then I thought to myself,
- to me
- Yeah, to you, "the only door I like in the house is the front door." So then I went to the hallway, and took three photographs of the door. I was worried about camera shake and wanted to get the framing, just so.
- OK, so what, you took five pictures.
- Well, I guess I wanted to figure out why I didn't just stick with the first picture.
- It was boring.
- But so is the last picture, it's uninteresting, but it's uninteresting in a way... I dunno.
- Listen, there's more contrast in the last picture. It's a dark door against a white wall. There's nothing much to it. I feel comfortable saying this because we're so intimate, but I think your an asshole for spending this much time on the freaking door picture. You deleted the other pictures anyway, so we can't even look back at them.
- I'm afraid to talk about what I wanted to talk about.
- Yeah, I know.
- It's not even the subject matter, it's the manner that I speak that I fear renders things banal. Like, I am grasping at meaning then, when I write it down, something that seemed profound in my head becomes flat, obvious and leads nowhere.
- Did you smoke a lot of pot in high school?
- and college.
- And did you have these mind-blowing day-glow curlycue images that saturated your head with light, then, when you looked at yourself the next day it was drab, gray and obvious?
- Yeah, sure, you know that. And your sounding like a therapist making explanations for feelings.
- I'm just trying to be kind to you. I'm usually critical and mean.
- OK.
- Well, you know where I'm going, but let's let the readers in on the thought process, okay?
- yeah, yeah, go.
- Well, if you spent you intellectually formative years going into these wild curving mind trips, only to find, each time, that the result was a flat and sort of stupid idea, well, then of course you still shy away from exploring anything very deeply. And since your mode of expression was writing, then hear you are struggling with your inner voice avoiding saying what you want to say.
- Holy shit,
sigh, you figured it out.
- Okay, you don't need to pull a fancy role reversal, asshole.
- Okay, but I want people to read this and find it interesting, engaging. This pseudo-therapeutic jawing doesn't attract readers, and it will probably turn a bunch of them off.
- Right, but I'm the one who likes the void. I don't care what other people think.
- Well, I wish I were as brave as you, because I'm imaging people reading this and what they're thinking to themselves about me, about us.
- Yeah, well, if your imaging it why not use some quotes or parentheses or italics. I'm letting you use that stuff.
- To much effort, I don't really know who reads this, certainly don't know who gets this far in this masturbatory dialogue.
- You've been wanting to use that word all morning.
- Yeah, seemed appropriate there.
- Well, are we done now?
