'Nomads' - some travel links...and a good bit more.

We are all nomads, of one sort or another.
The image above was taken on X-mas day, at 4600 ft elevation, in Red Rock Canyon, outside Las Vegas, NV.
I guess none of these people cared about a turkey dinner, or a football game - I didn't either.
I heard many languages (besides english) being spoken: french, spanish, german, japanese, chinese, and a few others I couldn't figure out/recognize - suffice it to say, it was a 'very international crowd' who braved this very fierce weather.

One of my favorite books of all time is "The Songlines" by Bruce Chatwin. It is constructed in two (or maybe three?) parts, the first a narrative, of his travels in Australia. The second part is titled 'From the notebooks' - it is a collection of various thoughts that he seems to have been intending to turn into something else, something larger... but the topic was just too large, even for his great talents.
Eventually, part two merges w/ part one, and becomes Part three, about the end of his Australian travel.
Two great quotes from 'The Notebooks':

"Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death"
- Pascal, Pensées
(in French, 'penser' means 'to think', so 'pensées' means: 'thoughts')

"Life is a bridge. Cross over it, but build no house on it"
- Indian proverb


If you haven't already done so, you really should bookmark the L.A. Times and the N.Y. Times, & their Travel sections - Here's some recent offerings:

Oregon to Washington road trip completes a West Coast journey:
http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-trw-orwa9-2009aug09

ULTIMATE GUIDE TO CALIFORNIA
Driving California's coast in 10 days
http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-tr-ultimatecoast1-2009feb01


67 beauty spots along the Pacific
Land meets water -- now there's an irresistible story.
http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-westcoastspots,0,2354917.htmlstory


Road trips from SoCal: The West
To help you tap the region's cache of getaways, we've compiled this list of out-of-state road trip spots.
http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-trw-outofstateroadtrips-pg,0,510944.photogallery

Three different US road trips:
http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-trw-roadtrip2,0,7836642.htmlstory

36 Hours at the Grand Canyon:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/travel/31hours.html?8dpc


America’s Outback: Southern Utah:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/travel/12outback.html?8dpc


On Rock Walls, Painted Prayers to Rain Gods:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/09/19/travel/escapes/19Pict.html

Devil's slide
( I know this place myself, rather well, since i lived in SF for 10 years, this is just a few miles south)
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/travel/04explorer.html?ref=travel


Know the rules of the road trip - It's pretty basic: Vehicle. Road. Go:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/02/CMA519LI3L.DTL&type=travel

Some photo & digital links/thoughts/ discussions??.......

Leica Tour: Inside a Camera Company at a Crossroads
By Matthew Shechmeister
October 12, 2009
http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2009/10/leica-gallery/

Does the Brain Like E-Books?
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/does-the-brain-like-e-books/

http://joyharjo.blogspot.com/
"Through the Dark"
'When I attempt to over reach with human reason, I cannot hear.
When I remember that I am a spirit then I have access to eternity.'


The Moral of the Story - The Ethicist's take on the news
October 20, 2009 , 12:01 am
Should Photos Come With Warning Labels?
By Randy Cohen
http://ethicist.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/should-photos-come-with-warning-labels/


Photo manipulation (of one sort or another) is nothing new:

October 19, 2009 , 9:30 pm
The Case of the Inappropriate Alarm Clock (Part 2)
By Errol Morris

"James Curtis, a professor emeritus at the University of Delaware, in 1991 published a revisionist history of F.S.A. photography, “Mind’s Eye, Mind’s Truth: F.S.A. Photography Reconsidered.” Curtis’s thesis was simple. “The bitter reality” of the Farm Security Administration (F.S.A.) photographs was not the result of clinical, photographic field work: “The realism was deliberate, calculated, and highly stylized.”

http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/the-case-of-the-inappropriate-alarm-clock-part-2/
Check out this entire series: "the-case-of-the-inappropriate-alarm-clock..."

'The Restless Medium'
Jed Perl - 'Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before'
By Michael Fried (Yale University Press, 409 pp., $55)
A very good review and discussion....
http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/the-restless-medium


And, if you will permit, one last thought about the transitory, and ever-changing, nature of all our lives:
The Eagles - 'In a New York minute'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA_gIhCcYVk&feature=related

Oh, make that *two* thoughts about the transitory, and ever-changing, nature of all our lives:
"Enjoy every sandwich" - Warren Zevon

'When Johnny (or maybe 'Jose'?) strikes up the band'

(Yes, I've borrowed a Warren Zevon song title - Thanks so much for your work, Warren - RIP.)

Here I am, banging the 'improvisation' drum, once again.
(Don't hope I will stop anytime soon, forget about that one, it just won't happen.)

I've had 4 negatives of these crazy 'mariachi monkeys', for over a decade.
They were shot at the 'Musee Mechanique' at Cliff House in S.F., and at certain times of year, the light coming thru the west-facing windows did lots of interesting things to the MM's contents.

I did this one at the end of a darkroom session when I had a few hours left, and the developer wasn't 'coffee brown', yet.
The proof sheets of monkeys, and the landscape/clouds, landed on my work table next to each other... and.. well, that was all the license I needed, it just popped into my head.
I didn't know how it would turn out, I just knew I had to do it - what could I lose (or waste) but a few sheets of paper, and an hour or so?
I did four prints of this image, exposing the landscape/clouds the same, on four sheets... & then adding the mariachi monkeys, differently for each of them.

I recently saw a video clip of the Grateful Dead, playing live, circa 1971 or '72 - it was all improvisation... working 'without a net', of any kind - Garcia, Weir, Lesh, Kreutzman - that was it, all *blowin* at the same time.
And I read an interview w/ Francis Ford Coppolla, who said that 'asking a question you don't know the answer to...' is at the heart of creativity.
As I was working my way through writing this, wouldn't ya just know it, something popped up in the media that took all the words outta my mouth:

http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/david_shenk/2009/09/a_visit_with_keith_jarrett_and_a_musical_treat.php

This is impossible to capsulize in any way, I'd be an idiot to try - click on the link, and play the music file.
If you don't already know Keith Jarrett's work, you should get to know it,
he is a master of improvisation on the piano, & has been so for decades.

Several quotes that struck me?

'Jarrett emphasizes, paradoxically, how critical it is to clear his mind and set himself free from his own knowledge and habit's...

"Risk-taking is central"

"How do you get past your own [understanding]? Those are barriers."

'This is an astonishing notion: that, in order to tap into your most provocative creative possibilities, you need to not do what comes natural, not do what is most instinctive and habitual.'
'I just move my hand [away] and say: "Do something." '

Yeah, exactly, ... "just do something" :-)

Let it rip!!

Amen!!

As always, larger images of all four prints at my web page:

http://www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2009/MariachiMonkeys/index.html