8500 shooting diary



		Prior to Filming Notes toward 8500 Photographer walks down the street, cameras swinging wildly she is slightly stooped she has dark glasses and pulls her hair partly around her face she pulls up a camera and snaps it at the sky as if she were shooing it. Reporter walks, opposite direction: birds, cars, the rumble of a street how many rings of years does that tree have? Do all these things in the background know me, or do I become their background. Photographer walks with her hand on her head she is obviously in pain. the sun is too bright for her the sounds are much too highpitched and much too low Photographer The world is too heavy To put in my camera Especially to put in my eyes Light in around over And through A camera in my face Advance and focus and click Advance The world won't turn Into images All just scattered Colors and blurs Light above around within The light can't be trusted The sun flickers Like a bad lightbulb Coifed with dust And insect corpses I can't see pictures I can't put pictures In the camera Only chaos will go in Only confusion I can't snap a single moment, not a tick Even the tiniest time Takes forever, blurs I can't focus On one detail Even a flat wall Is made out of Too many planes, such advanced geometry If I have a picture If I see an image If I so much as breathe If I so much as twitch It is gone, long gone I can' shape pictures Out of my head If can't fit anything Inside of it My head is too full Too full of nonsense Too full of pain Too full of unpleasant Unpleasant Unpleasant whatever There's a person There's a face But it won't register I can't put it into a picture It won't form a face In my brain Or on my film It's just a jungle of skin And curves It might as well be a wall Can a picture penetrate Can a picture get inside Even an x-ray can't show The pain of my headache The queasiness of the sun on My hair How can a picture Be more than a bad excuse Be more than a lie The first eye The first creature that could see Couldn't, really It was just a feeling A depression to focus light To feel the difference between Light and dark All the eye does Is feel the variations Between light and dark We have to make the pictures In our heads Picture this Picture a picture Picture me Making a picture Something I make by looking One direction more than another By hugging a rectangle Around this rather than that Snapping that this moment Is more important than that one Turning a simple now Into a forever Praising it into eternity Trivializing and enshrining it In variations of light and dark Rocks and bark And green and brown And rough and smooth And red and blue The sky the ground The up the down The painter the sculptor The potter the buyer The looker the glancer The sitter the stander The atom the mountain The concrete the phantom Up down Side to side The ripples that break The calm of the lake Picture the summer The tranquil the angry Picture the daylight The tingle the peace Picture the haze The birds and the noise Picture the morning The noon and the growing Picture what happens Before you can snap it Picture what happens Long after you've left Reporter Temperature, 85 degrees, wind light 8:15 a.m. the coffee smells strong strong enough to get me past my dream "I do not know whether I shall succumb to that, to all those acts which at the end of a life come together to make up one's destiny. Some succumb and some dont. Perhaps changing one's identity one commits an error, one succumbs to life." I smell movement. The day is electric. artists and sellers have stabbed the ground to hold up their tents to shelter their tables. I don't know what to expect, or do I. "A journalist sees reality with a certain consistency: the ambiguous consistency of a viewpoint, which to him, and only to him, seems objective." How do I turn what I see and hear into a story that my editor will want. Where do I start, with the tent setting up, with the end of the day and the receipts totaled, with a quiz, with a small detail taken wildly out of context, with something that I expect but that hasn't happened yet? "Pretending to be objective, you annul yourself. Others talk through you but you remain extraneous. What sense would life have then?" How do I ask these questions How do I walk up to a stranger Someone standing there Walking by Possessing all their own thoughts All their own ideas Songs sung along silently All in their heads In charge of their own World of words And brain and memory And I must reach out And I must stop them And I must pose to them a question My question, far too simple for ideas Far too complex for words A question that halts dead on Their own thoughts, ideas, Their own interior world And I force with my question A specific point of view It wasn't a dream So much as a vision Something I was meant to receive A gift, a meaning Something I was privileged To get But not to understand Initial questions: For artists; Does your work help you find meaning in your life? Do you put yourself into your work, and if so, how? Why do you do this? What is the relation of art to life? Does your work have spiritual power, like cave paintings did? For public: What is most special to you? What makes a day extraordinary? Is there power in simplicity? What makes you smile the most? Are you happy? Why are you unique? A word in an incantation A string of them makes magic Transference, transubstantiation I made this thought This tingle, vibration Into something that can last forever If I carve it into a rock If I say it loud enough I can pin my conviction With a word I can tell my life With a well-thought out sentence I can bottle up a day Or more molecules than I can fathom With a simple paragraph Or a few lines of poetry In the beginning was the word But which word was it Do words really say it Do words really mean it Can I really turn a blade of grass Or a glass of water Into a word I can't drink the word I can't rub it on my knees And make a green stain Does a bird chirp To tell us what it sees and feels Words came from warning Words came from curse From incantation If they rhyme you can remember If you say them right The stone can move The genie grant The rain fall down Magic words Like please and thank you Ask and you shall receive But what do you get With a 15 ton word Can you get rich Can you get wisdo Words are for groping Words are for lying Words are deceiving Words are concealing Words stand for something They stand for themselves Words are not helpful Words are no friend of mine The words have lost their magic "presto" no longer sparks or even toasts a slice of bread "open sesame" won't move a rock or even a genie from his fat couch spells have lost their power nobody has turned into a toad lately "mirror mirror on the wall" won't tell me squat first goes the magic the meaning goes next one two buckle my shoe neither words nor numbers will tie the laces maybe I should add up the words instead and read stories in the numbers can anybody tell me something I don't already know they know something different they have different meanings they shoot out their words words that have something to give me words I can learn from but when the words get to me either I know them or I don't if I know them I get nothing new If I don't know them I get nothing at all Later questions: Are you certain of anything? How do you know that you are really alive?