PERCEIVING PATTERNS IN PROXIMITY

Michael was working on a photo project.  He wanted to recreate Avedon's Chicago Seven.

But in Salt Lake. And with us.  I haven't seen the finished photos yet.

But the photo studio was like our private clubhouse.

I may have gotten a little carried away, having a new camera and all.

And because even the trash was interesting 'round there.

Barbara and Raphael got married! They hadn't quite tied the knot yet at this point, so Michael took a couple of engagement shots for them.

And then I discovered the loupe.

WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS, QUARKS WITHIN ATOMS

And then, probably because I went to a baseball game and ate a hotdog, it was summer. One day I came home from the library and found a package waiting for me. It was a loaner camera, from TaraShea, Jerritt, and Ellie. This photo was on the memory card:

Also on my porch that day were two other packages. One, from my parents, was a set of jumper cables for the car I have been the lucky caretaker for this summer. The other was a book I had ordered. And then, while I was eating dinner, two handsome men with accents wandered onto my porch and stopped to chat before going to visit my neighbor. It was like Christmas.

So, a camera! I had lost the habit. I pointed it at a few things around my apartment, just to see how it saw...

And then, a couple of days later, another package arrived! It was another camera! From my parents!  And so it seemed that people were suggesting I resume my old habit. (Thank you, TS, Jerritt, and Ellie. Thank you, Mom and Dad.)

I went for brunch with Esther and Rachel and Matt.

I went to my favorite new bar, where one can eat fried funeral potato nuggets and look out at the beautiful oil refinery. It's like having a beer on the moon.

Robert and I went hiking and discovered that the creeks were very, very full, and that the snow might never melt.

Catie sold things at the Salty Streets Flea Market, and I helped her.

And Raphael and Barbara have been sighted all over town on their motorcycle. 

THE SUN IS A BRILLIANT ERROR

Mom and Dad came for a visit. It was such a rainy (and snowy) May, but during a break in the rain we went to Red Butte Gardens and posed with the moose sculpture.



With the added incentive of visitors and rain, I finally made it to the UMFA Robert Smithson exhibit, where, besides seeing all kinds of interesting and less interesting Smithson inspired work, I read this:

The camera is an entropic machine for recording the gradual loss of light. No matter how dazzling the sun, there is always something to hide it, therefore to cause it to be desired. One tends to forget this, when firing the flashbulb in the shadows. As Paul Valéry pointed out, "the sun is a brilliant error.” And I should like to add that the camera records the results of that “error.” (Robert Smithson)

And then the rain stopped for a day. We went to the Bingham Canyon Mine, which is the deepest open pit mine in the world, as deep as four Sears' Towers stacked on top of each other, and they are still digging.







And then, after a lunch stop, during which my folks ate their first Funeral Potatoes (an absolutely delicious Utah culinary specialty--I'm not being sarcastic here), we drove across the causeway to Antelope Island, which sits in the middle of the Great Salty Lake and is infested with brine shrimp, bison, and biting gnats.




The gnats bit us. And bit us and bit us.

And then (yes, such a full day) we went to see the Bees play. There were a lot of babies and kids at the game. A lot. And the Bees lost, but we had fun anyway.


The next day it rained again, but the rain seemed to make the flowers in the square even prettier. Everything looked suspiciously Northwestern, although we're missing all those giant, dark green conifers.






(Thanks for visiting, Mom and Dad. Come back soon!)