Photography-Related Notes

"Eight years ago, the blogosphere felt like a handful of individual cranks fighting with one another. Today, it feels like a universe of cranks, with vast, pulsating readerships, fighting with one another."

—Andrew Sullivan,
-  "Why I Blog," The Atlantic Monthly

I get the strangest sensation from time to time—I get to wishing that I had a blog. Of course, I do have a blog—this one. But TOP started out life as a newsletter (it was called "The 37th Frame"), and of my three duties hereat (writer, editor, host), I often consider that "writer" is the least of the three. It would be nice to maunder on about the weather, what animals I've seen lately, the peccadilloes of the locals, politics, remarkable bits from my reading, what the dog did at the park, etc.; but I feel constrained to at least pretend to confine my blather to legitimately photo-related topics.

I have to warn you, though, that I probably won't be a very good editor, host, and writer over the next couple of weeks, until this damned interminable election is over. I am consumed by the election. I'm basically useless until it's done. I can hardly think of anything else. Photography? What's that?

Here's an interesting, if quirky and ultimately useless photo-related tidbit: I ran across this the other day whilst filling my quota on eMusic. It's the song list for a record called "Beat Reader" by reedist Ken Vandermark's Vandermark 5:

1. Friction (For Gyorgy Ligeti)
2. New Acrylic (For Andreas Gursky)
3. Any Given Number (For Bernd And Hilla Becher)
4. Signposts (For Lee Friedlander)
5. Speedplay (For Max Roach)
6. Compass Shatters Magnet (For Paul Rutherford)
7. Further From the Truth (For Walker Evans)
8. Desireless (For Daido Moriyama)

That's pretty cool, to name a handful of photographers as inspirations alongside a hatful of musicians and composers. I hate to say it, but I can't say I care for the music, so don't take this mention as a recommendation, necessarily. (I really do hate to say it, too—I hate to diss any working artist's work without knowing enough about it to diss it; but there's that "appearance of endorsement" to worry about when you're an editor-host-writer type guy. Sigh.)

If you want a solid recommendation, try Erik Friedlander's Broken Arm Trio (Erik Friedlander, 'cello; Trevor Dunn, bass; Michael Sarin, drums). Why broken arm?

"Accident Leads To Invention: In 1949 Oscar Pettiford broke his arm playing baseball. He could still move his fingers even though his arm was in a sling, so he began experimenting with a cello a friend had lent to him. He tuned the cello like a bass only an octave higher and later made history recording a series of cello-led projects including the great, under-recognized 1964 Fantasy release, 'My Little Cello' featuring a photo of his newborn son whom he named Cello.

"Erik Friedlander tosses away his bow for this new band, playing only pizzicato in a world steeped in the influences of Oscar Pettiford and the small group feel of Herbie Nichols." (From the website.)

Also cool, to name a band for Oscar Pettiford's broken arm because it made him switch to 'cello.

It's a terrific record, I think, one of Friedlander's best, and if you dare to admit that you care about geeky things like sound quality, it's a terrific-sounding record, too, very rich and immediate. (The audio equivalent of a full-frame sensor?)

So what does this record have to do with photography? Not much, but as you probably already know, and as I'm sure he's tired of hearing said, Erik is Lee Friedlander's son. Note that Lee and Maria show up in a photograph early on in the following video. The video is from Erik's previous project. It does feature a good dose of his pizzicato playing, though.

You have to admit it's cool that lots of Erik Friedlander's old family snapshots also happen to be original Lee Friedlanders.

Broken Arm Trio—that one I recommend. It's available on iTunes, eMusic, and of course CD.

__________________

Mike

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Featured comment by erik f: "Many thanks for the kind remarks. Since you mentioned the quality of the recording I thought I would point out some more nerdy details: I work with an exceptional engineer and producer named Scott Solter who prefers to work with 2" tape (analogue). For those who don't know, this is the way things used to be done and many feel it is still the best method to capture sound. However, just like in photography, using a particular camera means very little when compared with what you actually do with it—the format is secondary to one's vision. Scott likes to get as much sonic information as possible and so the character of the individual instruments shine brightly. I think his recordings would sound good using a boom box....

"The tracks were mixed to 1" tape and then mastered (the final process before manufacturing) digitally.

"Thanks again for checking out the recording. Much appreciated!"
 

Comments

[David]

Hey, that kid has a tree growing out of his head..what a lousy photographer!

I'd bet a fin that Lee did that on porpoise.

I know what you mean about this presidential campaign, I'm being devoured by it. It's an exhausting cultural mess.

My buddy regularly uses his Cello as a bass in pizzicato. I love it. Actually, the first time he did it, I was playing guitar and he whipped out the Cello..we came up with a nifty piece that we could never successfully recreate..a 6/8 number called "pizzicato in D".

If you've ever been in a small room with someone doing this, playing or plucking a cello...it's amazing to hear how much sheer volume these things produce, very powerful. Cool diddy on the viddy.

[Malcolm]

Mike: I can't imagine your obsession with the election now. With the endorsement of Obama by Colin Powell yesterday, the race is over. Even the bookies in the UK stopped taking bets.

[Mike J.]

Malcolm,
See, you just gave me a bad pang in ulcer #3. We've seen elections swing ten points in eight days, much less 18 days. George W. Bush was 7 points ahead of Al Gore in 2000 with 7 days to go and Gore won the popular vote by half a million. People lie to pollsters; people get confident their man is going to win and don't turn out; all kinds of things can happen. It ain't over till the votes are counted, the challenges are over, the underdog's conceded, and Michelle or Cindy (as the case may be) are busy picking out the new White House china pattern.

Mike J.

[charlie d]

The election is all bad blood and soap opera at this point. Having grown up the son of a politician, I share your pain and enthusiasm.

I voted early and have attempted to stay away from TV and Radio media regarding the election as much as possible these past 3- 4 weeks. It's the finish line of American presidential elections that make me scratch my head and wonder how we have come to be the *richest* and most powerful nation in history.

I never know if I should be laughing or crying.

[Hoainam]

Mike, I would like to think that I speak for the majority of your readership when I say that I have absolutely no problem with your off-topic posts and that I actually enjoy reading them. If you're looking for a green light to post election-related thoughts, then I say go for it!

What the hell, it's only two more weeks, right? I think TOP readers would rather have OT posts than radio silence.

[Steve Rosenbach]

Mike,

I agree with Hoainam - I enjoy reading your posts, and I appreciate them no matter what the topic.

Best regards,
SteveR

[Ben Rosengart]

It's a small world. I hired a fantastic group of jazz musicians to play at my wedding this past August. On drums: Mike Sarin.

[Dennis Allshouse]

"Mike, I would like to think that I speak for the majority of your readership when I say that I have absolutely no problem with your off-topic posts and that I actually enjoy reading them. If you're looking for a green light to post election-related thoughts, then I say go for it!"

So true. After all it's your blog.

You could even mention when you put up music posts elsewhere.

[Robin P]

Please feel free to "maunder on about the weather, what animals I've seen lately, the peccadilloes of the locals, remarkable bits from my reading, what the dog did at the park, etc" but spare us from that bloody election! - we get far too much about it here (UK) already and it's not even in our country.

Cheers, Robin

[Stephen M.]

As a longtime fan of both Erik Friedlander *and* Ken Vandermark, I approve of this post.

Thanks for the reminder to go listen to more music instead of obsessing about the election.

[Eolake Stobblehouse]

Why don't you just make a personal blog on the side to talk about your garden and dog.

[Jason]

Mike, I must confess I don't like when you go OT on the site but it's your hut, your rules. However, there's thousands of other places I can watch/read/hear the mudslinging by both camps. I come here to get away from that - my psyche is worn so raw that just the site of anything ObaMcCain makes my blood boil. I need to remember the quote by Robert A. Heinlein: "Don't ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events."