A Saturday Post
Here’s a bunch of random stuff.
On our last day in New Orleans we took the trolley out to the Garden District. I was very happy to walk under The Pearl neon sign and see that it was turned on this time.
I have always liked wandering around graveyards and the Lafayette Cemetery was near to the trolley.
There is a great bookstore nearby and I was finally able to find a copy of Maira Kalman’s “And The Pursuit of Happiness”. I have been looking for a while now, and was so happy to find it. She sent me the nicest email about the Willard Suitcases and I was eager to see this book, as I really like her work. I especially like that she mentions the numbered graves at Gettysburg since they are so much like the ones at the Willard cemetery.
We flew back very late into BWI and this is what I saw out the window as we flew over DC.
I had a great shoot on Wednesday with another amazing writer. Poets & Writers asked me to photograph Neil Gaiman and he is the nicest guy. I can not post any shots until the story runs sometime this summer, but I will as soon as I can.
And finally, we drive Peter to DC tomorrow to help him find a place to live and get him settled. The usual melancholy has been creeping in and so I have been listening to a lot of Percy Grainger. I have always been so taken with his music. I seem to recall as a boy listening to a CBC program with my dad that used this piece as a theme. Here’s another that I especially like. The thing for me about Grainger is that there is an element of sadness in his music in spite of the light-hearted feeling of the tunes. He was a pretty out there fellow and the one quote of his that I think of often is him talking about his work. When speaking of his use of harmony, he said “My efforts even in those young days, were to wrench the listener’s heart with my chords. It is the contrast between the sweet and the harsh…that is heart-rending…And the worth of my music will never be guessed, or its value to mankind felt, until the approach to my music is consciously undertaken as a ‘pilgrimage to sorrows.'”
Willard Cemetery
Every time I go to Willard, NY to do some work relating to the Psych Center, I go to the cemetery and walk around. The setting is really beautiful; a huge rolling field with a view of Seneca Lake. It is also a very moving place. For reasons I have never completely understood (or agreed with), the only names on headstones are in the veteran’s section. All other graves are marked with a number. I spent all day Friday photographing the wonderful people who worked at Willard before it was closed, and then Brad Edmondson and I walked across the road to have a look. I was struck by the fact that it was late Friday afternoon on the 10th of September, the last day of Rosh Hashanah.
Memento mori.
I was in Farmington, CT yesterday driving down Main Street when these two words caught my eye. I knew that the phrase had something to do with death, and after doing a little reading, I learned a bit more. The literal translation is “remember you must die” or “remember you will die”. In classical times, it was said to victorious soldiers by their slaves to remind them that their good fortune could change at any moment. In other words, we are all mortal and sooner or later…..pfffft. It still seems like a good idea to think about this from time to time. For me, the only consolation in losing people close to me has been to let the loss reinforce the idea that being alive is amazing and I should feel very grateful for my wonderful life and all of my lovely friends and family.
Jon Crispin's Notebook 
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