one banal thing a day #1: through the streaky glass

There are streaks on my mirror that I can see because the sun is shining beautifully today. You should not care about the streaks on my bedroom mirror but maybe you would enjoy this:





Have you thought about this before? (For those who didn't listen to the song: museums as public mausoleums, "masterpieces are serving maximum sentences.") My sister had a sculpture colleague who created an installation you were supposed to walk through and touch but people were hesitant. Where was the mark on the floor signaling do not get close? Where was the museum guard ready at hand to say, "Ma'am. Ma'am. Ma'am, you need to step back."


Preservation is important. Maybe I'm even interested in it as a career? (Don't count on that, don't count on anything I say until I turn 35.) This is perhaps why I am drawn to documentary/documenting. How amazing it is to see young faces after they have grown up, to see old faces after they have gone, to hear voices–––I found a tape the other day of an interview my dad had done with my grandfather. Now there was a voice I haven't heard in almost 20 years. Have you had an experience like that? We say people will never be gone because they'll always be in our hearts but what about in our ears, our eyes?


Sometimes preservation is difficult or scary. Have you heard murmurs over Google's new privacy policies or Facebook's never deleting? You can read a piece by Robert Krulwich here about how some countries have a 'Right to be forgotten' law. I kind of hate this blog because it's preserved some things I've thought and done that now embarrass me and, if nothing else, it reminds me that anyone can read and know. Or, really, I am what I am and people preserve their memories and impressions of me. I can't take that back.


But what about the things that have never been preserved, that are there, not noticed, and then are gone. Streaks on glass, scuff of dirt on a hem, wrinkled page in a book, one pebble among many, lichen on a broken off branch. Quiet, anonymous irregularities going on always, everywhere, that we'll never see and if we do, what do we do with it?


Maybe it's ok to let some rowboats get away?  






ADDENDUM: I take it back. I love this blog. I'm really glad I've kept it for almost four years. I just indulged in some time reading these archives. And, well. This blog has been good for me.