I saw a coyote trotting up the sidewalk on Mar Vista about 6:30 pm today, walking the dogs. I don’t think they even saw him. Remarkable, as they are acutely aware of other dogs, cats, skunks, squirrels. Wildlife of all sorts. They didn’t even look up. He saw us though, and crossed the street, without altering his pace at all. Then he was gone into the night before I could get the iPhone out.
About two miles from downtown Pas, and four or five miles down from the north edge of the wilderness. Tough winter in the mountains, with the cold, and no rain? Not many mice, I suppose.
[edit] I said “newspapers”, but after listening to NPR this morning, I realized what meant was “old school media”. And yes, NPR is included in that – they have to suck up to their political, if not corporate, masters. Newspapers, radio, television, magazines (less so? – the New Yorker seems to write some hard looks at the establishment [1]); what others call the “mainstream media” (which I hesitate to use as it has become code for something else).
But the inability to ask the hard question, to make the liars uncomfortable, to jeopardize access, to educate themselves on difficult subjects, mind-boggling innumeracy, the complete failure to ask the follow-up, the hard question, “views on the shape of the earth differ” so-called objective reporting – they have made themselves obsolete. The OSM still has the cash to send reporters and cameras to far away places, but that’s about all they’ve got left. And that increasingly less, and not for long.
Good riddance.
[1] A sixties word which I think is coming back into relevance. It isn’t the corporations, it isn’t the government, it isn’t the media. It’s all of them combined, the oligarchy, all owned and operated by the same few people. The Establishment.
2012 01 12BrentComment RantComments Off on If you want to know why newspapers are not just dying, but dead, dead, dead…Permalink
Some years ago- never mind how long precisely- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off– then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
There are two red tail hawks circling at the height of my window about 50 m away. It’s another perfect 72 F So Cal day, visibility absolutely crystal.
The iPhone 4S not good enough to capture this, unfortunately. And the D700, lovely though it is, is too big, and too expensive, to bicycle in with. Which is why a NEX-7 is in my future. Though the Fuji X-Pro1 looks very sweet. Big, expensive, and no IS. And the Olympus OM-D… It’s the best of times, and the worst of time to be a photographer. Lots of good affordable gear, but no way to make a living doing it anymore.
Song: Bloodbuzz Ohio, The National, High Violet. Driving deserted freeways across Ohio at 4 AM in a big American sports car, on cold dark wet shining October roads, after 10 days of climbing at the RRG, with the drum beat from this song going over and over…
Concert: The National, Hollywood Bowl, Sunday, September 11. I didn’t go to a lot of concerts, but this was one of the best I’ve been to in years. I went for Neko Case and walked away a National fan.
Exhibit: Tie: Venice Biennale, and William Eggleston: Democratic Camera—Photographs and Video, 1961–2008, Broad Contemporary Art Museum, LACMA, October 31, 2010–January 16, 2011. Where it dawned on me, 25 years later, that I very likely met Mr. Eggleston in a former life in Dallas, Texas. tl;dr involving an actress ex, David Byrne, True Stories, and an early Spalding Gray spoken word performance in Deep Ellum. Ain’t life strange. Cool story, bro.
Picture: TBD. I took 3756 digital images in 2011. I don’t know which I liked best. 10/day average, though there were many days when I didn’t take any. I’m not disciplined enough to do the 1/day, 365 days project, and lots of days there just aren’t things I’m interested in taking pictures of.
Movie: The Clock, by Christian Marclay, at the Venice Biennial. Absolutely mesmerizing. Unfortunately due to the state of copyright law, like Los Angeles Plays Itself, I can’t see how this work of genius will ever be released for general consumption.
The Onion nails it again:
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