Packing Heat

Found in Forest Park at the edge of downtown Portland. Someone had spray-painted it silver and taped the handle. Might have been mildly convincing before the elements got to it. Click for a larger view.

Documentation

"Do the duty which lieth nearest to thee! Thy second duty will already have become clearer."
- Carlyle

Not working at full steam on important projects, I've taken to just documenting...myself? My apologies. Only temporary. Click for larger views.

In Which a Treasure is Perceived

I first came across the volume entitled Natural History Sketches Among the Carnivora (1885) several months ago in the wildlife section of Powell's Books. I had come there looking for a book on the Platypus and picked it up out of mild curiosity. Moments later I swore out loud as it caused a new route in my complex and criss-crossing network of fetishes to form: a lust for accounts from the romantic era of science. When sometimes, in the course of your studies, you were compelled to chase down a specimen and shoot it in order to completely understand its nature.

Actually, the full title:

Natural History Sketches Among the Carnivora:

Wild and Domesticated.

With Observations on their Habits and Mental Faculties.

Netting lions. Hiring natives. Writing a straight-faced account about how dogs love the taste of beer.

Listen:

"Riding home one moonlit night, my horse hesitated at a bit of soft ground, and, knowing his habit - perhaps he had badly been bogged at one time - I struck the spurs hard into him, being well aware the place was only felock deep. At that instant a dark object started from under his feet, and I was overwhelmed by that once "felt," never-to-be-forgotten stench! The horse, no doubt, had perceived the brute, and would have avoided it, but my unfortunate irritation had driven him on, and we got the whole benefit of the skunk's discharge. What the horse thought of it I do not know, though he did not appear disconcerted. For myself, it was misery to ride another half hour with that reeking stench under my nostrils. On arriving home, I turned out the horse, shuffled off my trousers and boots (which certainly had received some of it), left them on the grass, and appeared to my astonished friends, who had just sat down to a game of "cut throat euchre," totally denuded to clothing as to my nether man. The laughter having subsided, the case was considered one worthy of some commiseration. No one else of the party had ever suffered equal misfortune, or, I might say, incurred the indignity inflicted on me by that contemptible beast. I had given one of the peons a dollar to burn the trousers the next day - they were past saving - and scrub the boots for a couple of hours with soap and soda. However, I could not make up my mind to wear them again, and it is doubtful whether anyone ever rode that horse again. Whenever a mount was wanted, and the peopn asked which he should saddle up, the answer always contained the caution, "but mind, not that dark grey."

Untitled

Mexico Part 2

under a palm tree
i like them best at night
i first realized this in southern California, the green glow of the city lights sharply
cutting out the lone shapes in the sky, nothing else competing with their elevation.
made me think of the doctor who explained bipolar disorder to me
"It's not exactly depression," I explained.
"Shut up, you're depressed..."

i told him my concerns about taking psychiatric medication

"Doesn't it make your behavior kind of...bubbly?"

he leaned back, amused.

"What's wrong with bubbly? You could use a few bubbles."

"Will I have to take them my whole life?"

"Who knows? Win the lottery, move to Hawaii, live on the beach - you may not need them."

Bigger images: http://flickr.com/photos/david_a_berens/

Ode to Turbulence (Mexico)

everywhere there's a dog standing in the street
they always look a little wet
people without destinies
reminds you
achievement is definitely
a point of view-
some people would be happy to just be able hang.
pretty much allowing myself to bask
in the ridiculous-ness of this place
in the taxi cab after we went downtown, shopping for
pharmaceuticals and mezcal (same store)
getting harassed by people trying to sell things:
"You need pipes? You need something to put in them? Some powder?"
no, officer
overheated to the point of physical illness,
"Comfortably Numb" begins playing on the car stereo
my wife reaches for the volume knob. "Can we turn this up?"

A short while back I spent a weekend at a family's beach house on an island in Puget Sound. It's a great place for me because it's very quiet, unpopulated, and the house hasn't been redecorated since the original owners (the grandparents) moved out.






























It's actually quite cheerful. For larger viewing, visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/david_a_berens/

Special News Update

I've been gone/busy for a couple weeks now, and have a backlog of things I'll be putting up in the next day or so. Also, I managed to sell five prints, which officially upgrades my threat level to "mildly less pathetic" and, I believe (by airport security standards), "green".

I have healthy retinas

Found in a notebook, from last fall, in my handwriting

(mildly edited to soothe a tic)

...for the ghost of old trouble to creep up on me. the gravity of your home town. a couple more days and things might have gotten a little awkward. still, i got some good work done...honest work...

...somewhere over america i become devastatingly depressed. self loathing. the whole deal. feeling like i deserve to be ruined. in salt lake the people stand on the moving walkway like they're display models. pardon me. i only got on because my knee is injured, but still here i am limping through a salmon ladder of the obese. i put my headphones on, decide to drown my depression in fast food. printed on my receipt: "Jesus!"

homogenized faces. white bellies. i want to (edited) their way of life. i say a word out loud - "mormons". yeah, that's right, everybody look at the crazy guy.

(next page)

hey there,

found this in a box of old film and got a little sappy.

take care,

-D.

Hades

(Found in a hotel garbage can)

This is the beginning of a series of photographs about my sexuality

Yes, I'm joking. It's actually a custom white balance test (it did work, but then I warmed it up). The hat? I'm going to Mexico in a couple weeks, and am going to use it to "blend in with the inhabitants". Apparently we're staying at some kind of tourist Death Star (for a wedding) that has liquor taps in the rooms, so I've opted to look as sleazy and obvious as possible. Hm. I need a monocle.

We're almost out of nitric acid

Regarding Ryan

A couple years ago I started receiving postcards from the hard-working artist Ryan Wilson Paulsen - it was a mail-based project he was (Is? I still get things from time to time.) doing and I somehow got on the list. I was really depressed at the time - my Grandmother was dying at our house, so I spent Christmas break watching her go in and out of consciousness and then finally pass away. I was taking pictures on fairly desolate section of Lake Erie coast the moment she died.


When I began getting the postcards I tried to make thoughtful responses out of them but ended up generating little rectangles of bipolar communication instead; some of them are "remixes" of his cards and some of them are whatever was currently on my mind. Anyway, I just came across the "Ryan" folder and thought I'd put my side (well, some of them) of the exchange for humanity's amusement:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26251501@N08/sets/72157604955409248/

Oh, and this letter.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26251501@N08/2476524913/sizes/o/in/set-72157604955409248/

I am still using the keyboard missing the CAPSLOCK key.

Digital Land

First vaguely okay shot from the D300 (yeah it's the dog shut up) - I've had it about four hours and am still fumbling my way through its menu, trying to get its bra off. Still, I'm looking forward to adding it to my toolbox and am glad to stop shopping for digital cameras and actually use one.

work in progress

I'm working on a series based on "gathered paper" - in this case, a caption on the back of a photograph of a woman being executed (found in a thrift store with about eight other ones). Other potential items are things found on the ground, in garbage cans, and from other people's collections. I'm not sure if this is the final presentation for this image (currently a 40-inch carbon ink print). I'm still in the early stages of deciding what to do.

Alan's Chair

Dog Worship

Telephotography

From the rainy season

More Backlog

http://mindlessdocumentation.com/ds.html

Unwelcome

Backlog

Robot Days

i awake with a purpose.

----------
ok i need help

"What can I do for you?"

i need fine instruments for penciling and inking

"You want to draw in pencil and ink over them."

yes

are mechanical ones the best

"They'll give you a fine and consistent point."

ok what are these designations

"This is the hardness, and this is the diameter of the lead."

ok thank you
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i get home and examine the contents of the bag. though the pencil has an intensely satisfying feel to it, i can't escape the thought that i have once again purchased tools that surpass necessity, my actual abilities.

Good Morning