gratitudes, inspiring a friend, fascism in the usa, family of lies photo book, sequin garment
yesterday i was grateful for all the energy i had to get things done...
today i am looking forward to a day of focusing on more things that need doing...
the other day i reposted my silver lining's playbook strategy... i shared the post on fb... this morning i found a friend of some years had commented on it... she thanked me for sharing it because she thought it would be useful to her... sometimes... often... you wonder, "what is the point?"... why share your thoughts in a public way?... especially if almost nobody reads them?... and then you find out somebody does read them and you have inspired them, or at least offered a helping hand towards an improved way of dealing with the world...
this is where it is at to me... be the change you want to see... share your thoughts honestly... this is what the world needs... and none of us has any idea how many lives we impact by honestly being who we are and expressing it...
heather cox richardson was both a depressing read and a hopeful one this morning... depressing is the large number of people in this country ready to embrace a fascist ideology and all the trappings of nazi germany that went with it... what makes people hate other people so much?... how does a culture that fought and defeated fascism in europe pivot and become fascist itself?... what is it about human beings that moves us into orgies of hatred?...
Last Monday, October 27, right-wing personality Tucker Carlson interviewed white nationalist Nick Fuentes for more than two hours, mainstreaming the podcaster whose praise for Hitler, vows to kill Jews, denial of the Holocaust, and apparently gleeful embrace of racism and sexism has, in the past, led establishment Republicans to avoid him.
the hopeful part is that there are a lot of echos of the 1920's and 30's in what is happening now... 100 years later... awful things happened in that time period, but we came through it with franklin delano roosevelt and the new deal, which set the stage for defeating fascism in the 40's... there was a strong nazi movement in the country during the 20's and 30's... kkk too... the nazis in this country managed a rally in madison square garden with 20k attending...
But then, the next year, the bottom fell out of the 1920s economy of rich and poor that F. Scott Fitzgerald skewered in The Great Gatsby. By 1930, some Americans were on their way to embracing Nazism. But others turned away. As they dealt with economic ruin, rural white Americans had left the KKK, whose membership fell to about 30,000. And in 1932, voters elected Al Smith’s campaign manager, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in his own landslide as he focused on a new kind of economy, giving him 57.4% of the vote to Hoover’s 39.6%.
lets hope we get a new new deal at the end of this dark, dark tunnel we are in...
a while back i ordered a new photo book by a japanese photographer... i read a review and it seemed interesting... it's been sitting on my desk for a month or so... haven't had time to focus on it... the other day i threw it into my back pack as i was heading out for my photo walk... i started reading it... the author had a difficult relationship with his family... especially his father... but his mother was an authoritarian figure in his life... more so than his father... even so... he was closer to his mother... his parents fought a lot... he was embarrassed to bring friends home... when he told acquaintances about them he made up better parents than he actually had... as he moved into the world of fine art photography he used his art to reconcile with his family... he wound up feeling much better about them and even moved back to his home town where he feels quite comfortable now... the book, family of lies, is a search for the truth of his family... the images are about the memories and as such, they are dark and indistinct for the most part... evocative... without clarity, but at the same time presenting an emotional field within which to think of them, both as an outsider looking in, and as an insider sorting through the memories...
i had a difficult relationship with my own father... we wound up hating, or nearly hating each other right up to his death... that we were family kept a tenuous thread of connection and hope between us... still, we never reconciled... just as hajime kimura barely reconciled with his father before he died... he published a book about him, snowflake dog man... i have been led to think it might be time for me to reconsider my father through my work...
i will leave you with a photo i made yesterday...
the garment is a woman's tank top... it hangs in the window of a local vintage store... it looked a little on the large side and i am hoping it will fit me... some time in next couple of days i will go back and try it on...