Untitled (When No Means Saying Yes To Narration)*

Fig. 1. Lenin (Vilnius, Lithuania), 1991


Photography implies that we know about the world if we accept it as the camera records it. But this is the opposite of understanding, which starts from not accepting the world as it looks. All possibility of understanding is rooted in the ability to say no.

Susan Sontag

* Only that which narrates can make us understand. (Susan Sontag)

Relatively Recent: Leo And His Sky Of Many Colours

Fig. 1. Leo Villareal - Sky, 2009


The sacred has no face, only masks.

It Is Happening A Day At A Time ... And Not At All ...

Fig. 1. Damien Hirst - For The Love Of God, 2007


Every death is a miniature extinction.

To Those Few Friendships That Should Have Lasted

Fig. 1. Caspar David Friedrich - Evening Landscape With Two Men, c. 1830-35


To be unexpectedly (and suddenly) abandoned by a long-standing friend is not only the pinnacle of cruelty, it is also the ultimate act of kindness: one for which so few of us, in our abject, self-pitying grief, are capable of giving thanks - as we should.

Voltaire's Monkey Learns To Plant His Own Garden

Fig. 1. Georges Seurat - Casseur de pierres à la brouette, Le Raincy, 1882


We are always happier when cultivating a life of our own choosing.

The Irreplaceable Charm Of Homemade Menageries

Fig. 1. Alexander Calder - Calder's Circus (Lion and Cage), 1926-31


She told me the best of stories about the worst of things. Not from a book, but from memory. Sometimes I would ask to hear a story again, simply to see of she could tell it exactly the same way twice. Well, she could - and not just twice! ... Now that she is gone, just once would do. I wouldn't be listening to catch her out, but, rather, to catch myself in the act of listening to a tale only my grandmother could tell.

Once Upon A Time There Was An Artist Who Wasn't

Fig. 1. Marina Abramović - Performing Joseph Beuys’ How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965) at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on Nov. 13, 2005


All great impersonators strive for a degree of imperfection. This is how they sign their work.