Photography

Solvitur Ambulando y Dr. Dale Williams Barrigar

(All images taken by DWB)

Solvitur ambulando: it is solved by walking.

Kierkegaard, the great Danish philosopher, Christian Existentialist before there was such a thing, and wild-hearted comedian bachelor, said: “Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts; and I do not know of any thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.”

The fact that he also, quite literally, collapsed into the gutter and died while walking at the age of 42 in 1855 has nothing to do with it. He died while he was out doing what he loved. What better way can there be to expire!?

He was writing to his sick sister-in-law who was having trouble getting out of bed because of clinical depression. He was throwing down the gauntlet in an effort to try and get her to do something to save herself.

His most famous quote comes from a private letter.

Because that’s the kind of writer he was.

All dogs in all times and all places and of all sizes and all kinds, obviously agree very heartily with these sentiments, at all levels.

Dogs literally possess the wisdom of philosophers (maybe without knowing it but don’t be so sure).

It is said (and I have seen it) that they can also accept their own bodily deaths with perfect equanimity; because they know that this too is only part of the world; and they love the world – but not too much.

End Note: Thanks to the great Michigan poet Jim Harrison from whom I first heard this quote some time in the 1990s.

And, of course, co-starring, the one and only Boo!

Dr. Dale Barrigar Williams

F ICE by Dr. Dale Williams Barrigar

I deeply respect law enforcement because I deeply know that when the shit really hits the fan, it’s them who you have to call for assistance.

But when it’s them you have to start barring and blockading your door against, worrying that they’re going to barge in for no real reason in the middle of the night, times have changed around here for some of us.

Such things have happened in my neighborhood too recently – and there are many who say such things will start happening again soon, in earnest.

The world has never been a safe place for anyone – just ask all those folks who used to have to spend so much of their time keeping their eyes peeled for saber-toothed tigers around every bush, tree, rock, and boulder.

It was so hard to spend time scrolling on your phone when the big cats were out to get ya.

No wonder we find cats’ eyes to be so weird and eerie (as well as cute and cuddly).

Even now, too much comfort and complacency is a great killer in the good ol’ USA.

FUCK ICE indeed – especially if you have a heart of ice – no matter which side you’re on.

END NOTE/S:

I was born in Dearborn, Michigan, USA, which is the town where Henry Ford invented that thing we now call “the car.” In my birth town currently, over fifty percent of the population reports Middle Eastern or North African ancestry, which means it has one of the highest percentages of that type of population in the entire country. I very much embrace such diversity, even though I also know it can cause problems, especially for the ones who get kicked out of the place/s they used to live, which happens here in the USA, just like anywhere.

Regarding ICE barging into my apartment in the middle of the night, mostly I’m worried that if they did so, my Siberian would attack them and they’d shoot him dead.

That is why I bar and blockade the door/s in the middle of the night, so I can hear ’em coming, if they want to come, even though I’m very much an American citizen, born and bred, and hardly ever left to go anywhere else but here.

Because my Sibe and I would die for each other without thinking twice, if that’s what it took.

Dr. Dale Williams Barrigar

Mona Lisa Street Scene by Dr. Dale Williams Barrigar

“Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues, you can tell by the way she smiles.” – Dylan

The Mona Lisa Street Scene series arose on the West Side of Chicago, along Madison Street.

Sketchy people were wafting about there and here, buses were pulling in and out of the hulking garages, the El tracks were shaking with trains, cars going by, seagulls soaring above all in from the lake looking for chicken bones in the gutters, grass blowing in the vacant lots, garbage rotting in the alleyways, food smells floating from nearby hot dog stands (Chicago has more hot dog stands than McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King combined, even though McDonald’s was invented here and has its world headquarters here), leaves fluttering on the trees, weeds coming up from the cracks in the sidewalks, cats climbing on stairways, buildings groaning with ghosts, rats baring their fangs and claws, doves cooing and gently moving their wings without flying, but dreaming of flying, which is, after all, only – another kind of flying.

Because I’m feeling silly and I like to celebrate my city, these are the names of eleven comedians who are from Chicagoland, i.e., Chicago and environs: John Belushi, Jim Belushi, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Betty White, Steve Allen, Jack Benny, Chris Farley, Robin Williams, Redd Foxx, Bob Newhart.

Blue or Blue Bucket by Dale Williams Barrigar

(Note–We begin a new week of fresh looks at life by our own DWB with a study in blue–LA)

This little photo series attempts to illustrate William Blake’s justly famous phrase “to see a world in a grand of sand.”

It is like when Horton hears a Who!

Inside a clover.

Thank you Dr. Seuss!

With Picasso and Dali, you make a third as the greatest artist of the Western World in the twentieth century (say I, or says me).

It takes decades of patient and periodic study (including years away) in order to tell who’s better and one still doesn’t know: and will never know; but will never stop returning to the question (for a million different reasons)…

I do not have a favorite color because I heart all colors, but whenever someone has forced me to choose (yes, these are the things we used to discuss) my immediate answer has always been BLUE.

That answer has sprang (or sprung) so often to my lips that I think it must be coming from the depths of my being, a place so mysterious to me that I consider it more mysterious than the rest of the universe.

By far.

I don’t have much (including my pride) any more but that is mine.

I associate Blue with water, the sky, baptism, the word dale and all it implies, Dali, Picasso, Van Gogh, Rimbaud, Easter (the crucifixion), melancholy, sex (blue movies), and my (if forced to choose) favorite music: The Blues.

(Weirdly, some of us avoid sex for a decade or more because the aftereffects are always a drained melancholy; and we are too busy putting our energy into something else, like art; God knows why!)

I live not far away from the graves of both Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf.

McKinley Morganfield and Chester Arthur Burnett.

RIP.

And: in my mind, you are still alive.

I do not know all the reasons why that fact is so comforting (quite) to me.

This picture series has three (3) titles, which is key: Blue; Blue Bucket; and Blue or Blue Bucket.

Signed,

The Photographer Because Everyone Does

DWB

Cat Woman by Dale Williams Barrigar

(All images by DWB)

Loving lady at the end

of the block, you were once an

urban cougar with a single silky black

feline.

But time passed, as it must.

It is a lot of them that haunt you now, I see.

The lizard-eyed landlord tried

to evict you many times.

Then they came, and did evict

you eventually, for this.

The cats were scattered, or rounded up

and taken away, somewhere, some when.

Shakespearian Cat Woman you fought them,

and tried to escape them,

you died for them, you plied them with

fine liquor, wine, and gold eye shadow, and you

heavily sighed.

But when they took the cats away,

did you know,

did you know then that this

was only the ethereal end

of one more love?

And do you now, do you ever remember

me, at all?

And how?

Dale Williams Barrigar

Nine Things Boo Be Do that Freak Me Out

(All images by the Drifter)

“Number nine, number nine, number nine, number nine…” – The Beatles

When I say “freak me out,” I mean in a good way.

(To the elite few of you who want to review who Boo is, see photos.)

ONE: Sometimes constantly watches me from across the room of the book-strewn apartment as if to make sure I’m all right (until he dozes off, which happens just as frequently).

TWO: Catches wild squirrels in his mouth between his fangs, doesn’t chomp down upon them, drops them down onto the ground and sets them free, then watches them flee (run away) without going after them.

THREE: Leaps into my lap when he gets scared.

FOUR: Hides behind me when he gets scared if I’m standing up.

FIVE: Puts himself between me and whoever it is when someone is approaching us at night along the sidewalks or in the alleyways of the Chicagoland area we roam through (or wherever we roam through). If it’s more than one person approaching, becomes even more fearlessly vigilant.

SIX: Follow verbal commands when they, paradoxically, are not even spoken aloud by me. (In other words: READ MY MIND.)

SEVEN: Refuse to follow commands just as often, and act like he thinks it’s funny, and in his own way, I do believe he thinks it’s funny.

EIGHT: Run so fast that he literally morphs into a black-and-white blur that looks like it’s flying across the ground. Fastest dog I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen many.

NINE: Stare into the distance while intuiting the Spirit World.

(Leading one to the astonishing conclusion that if dogs could talk, we wouldn’t even be able to believe what they would tell us…)

(Bonus point: can climb fences and trees when he wants to bad enough…)

The Drifter and Boo

A New Photo Gallery by Christopher J Ananias

Editors’ note: Christopher (or as I like to call him “CJA”) has provided us with another fine collection of pictures. We believe that the beholders will agree to the excellence in and of CJA’s eye.

(On some services the header image is not included–for those of you who are unfortunate that way, I include the train a second time because it should not be missed–Leila)