REALLY IMPORTANT THING

hi Jukka.. it’s something like a diary ;)
I’m unfortunatly not drunk… I will go sleep becouse is almost 1 a.m…. and I don’t have enought sleep
I just came back from movie theatre, I have seen 22 grams – great film!
I feel like doing nothing good in my life right now.. I should do something with it!
It’s bether than it was, but there are some “buts”

Well you did something ‘cos you added 1g on to the weight that a person loses when they die! ( The movie title 21 grams is based on that) hey Jukka , afer making this useless statement I’m going to bed too before i do anymore damage. Have a drink for me and keep on shooting that boring stuff! (and just think that people fly to where you are to do what for you is just daily life!!)

Tony – my mistake – you have right

Cool. Who cares anyway. Good Night and Good Luck. ( !!! )

:)

You should retitle this A day in the Life of LS members.

Up at 6:30. Stumble around. Coffee. waking up. Correspondence, LS, etc. walk into my daughter’s room and I am dismayed and astonished at the wreck it presents: toys, food, dolls. Not good. I leave in disgust. Shower just in time as the lights go out, and without lights the water pump doesnt work. Quick breakfast, rush to the Academy of Sciences in the Colonial City because I have to take down my exhibition there. Arrive in plenty of time, everything goes smoothly, driver meets me there, we load the pickup truck and move the whole thing to The Carol Morgan School, the leading private secondary school in the country. It is the kind of place where the children arrive with their bodyguards (ever see Man on Fire?). I put up the pix in their library (on Friday I am to meet with the students, Jr and High school, to explain the project to them). This place is unreal, or surreal at any rate. All white people speaking English or Spanglish, on a 15 acre campus that outdoes the universities here. Everything is orderly and quiet, very un-Dominican. The teachers all come from the states, speak almost no Spanish, and I am standing in the middle of a Caribbean Choat. The people have absolutely no clue what goes on in this country. The upper classes are entirely cut off. The photos are a revelation to them: all this suffering to produce the sugar on my wheaties? They had no idea.

Head back home, lunch is waiting: chicken and rice and salad. Coffee after. My wife is working the phones for the dreadful PRD party, helping their campaign, but they pay so everyone does it. Politics here is all about patronage and money. I have the afternoon free so I can concentrate on some writing, but there is still no electricity. I translate an essay about sugar from Spanish into English, answer more correspondence which I will send off when my dsl connection becomes live again, hide in my little office while my wife and daughter nap. I try fixing one of the light sockets in the building outside, where for three years no one has bothered to see if they are live so that we can adequately light the front court of the Apt complex and thus discourage the muggings and teenage sex in the dark that take place there. I succeed and I am happy because where there is light there is no “tigueraje.”

Head into the Colonial City for an old fashioned hair cut (two and a half dollars) and pick up some corn bread and pan de agua from my favorite bakery. Mangoes are in season, so I buy four (every day). You have no idea what a mango is if you dont eat one here. The imported stuff is a joke. A mango is a distillation of tropical sun and sensuality in one golden tear shaped globe of juicy flesh. The small ones are best.

back home, the lights are on: “llegó la luz!” Wash the piled up dishes, do some laundry. Check in with LS where I am writing this now. pack my camera bag, check all the batteries etc, flush the CF cards, prepare for the upcoming elections, which I will be covering in the North for four days. Pack my bag too. Emily wakes up and plays with the santos on our altar. She is teaching them the alphabet but she is a bit stern with their mistakes and throws a couple of them. I admonish her, “Emily, con los santos no se juegan” but she ignores me.

Tomorrow I have a class to teach, but as usual I will wing it. I also have a TV interview at 9:30am on some morning talk program (yep, just like what you see in NY but in Spanish) They have a segment sponsored by Nikon, so I can talk about my old Nikon cameras and show my work. No fotos taken today, and no work done on my current colonial city story. No news from the magazines that are considering my sugar story for publication. A supportive email from the wonderful people at the Open Society. Dinner, a telenovela or (if I get my hands on the remote) a film, lock up and retire. No beer today, though the heat has returned so my wife and I will be drinking a quart a day soon enough. You have no idea how refreshing a good pilsner is on a really hot day. With spicy food. Hmmm!

All in all a typical day at home. Jukka, the really important things are the little things. Fixing on them helps to avoid the blues. And in the process you get some stuff done.

Tony. or actually Everybody
you just have to post more because i love the boring stuff that people are posting. and i have to say that what happened today wasn’t boring if i think about the people who
participated, but the photography that i was making in there was boring, because quite often we can see this from bbc and cnn. it was dramatic and in a way sad but. i don’t know. it wasn’t a rush like i thought it would be. it was sad and boring.
peace

jukka,
if you get really bored you can send me very long extracts from “the thiefs journal”.i read it a very long time ago and cant really remember much about it,except the way he used language in such a stunning way.
theres a beautiful moon over belgrade tonight,so i guess there must be one over jerusalem as well.go and call it down,or howl at it,that’ll make you feel better.

Jon!
what can I say. i’ve seen man on fire so i can imagine a little bit (isn’t it really really sad?) don’t know about those mangos, but you should try the 100 different flavours of peanuts that they sell here. they’re amazing and quite addictive and the sweets and the croisants (i know that they are french) and all the other sweet stuff plus the falafels and shawarmas etc.
thanks for your post. (again) really.
jukka.
ps. are you writing a journal about the time in there? or do you consider combining the text with the photos?
enjoy life .

peace.

michael
i guess i don’t have the energy to post from the thiefs journal but it was great because i’ve read only
Querelle de Brest by Genet
so i didn’t expect to find this book from here. i also bought Rebel by Camus allthough i have it in finnish,
but it’s in finland,
so i bought some good books from here. life’s good.
peace.
jukka

I’m learning to surf…
I surf most mornings at dawn and watch as the sun rises over the horizon.
Each time I paddle “out the back” beyond the breaking waves, I learn
something about myself as well as the oceanic world. I face my fears and
lose myself in the liquid cathedral. I am laughing, playing, holding on
for dear life and challenging the gods of the ocean. Each time I fall off
the board it feels like I’m falling off the planet as I tumble through the
water. I was describing this sensation to a friend recently and she compared
it to the 9 months we spend in the womb before we are born. Each time I surface
it’s like being reborn.
I missed the ocean this morning… was at the police station instead claiming my gear.
Perhaps I should buy a lottery ticket as I must be really lucky that there are
honest people out there in the world. Other than that I’m scanning madly from an assignment
on the western coast in Australia where the earth looks like the moon. It’s like travelling
to different worlds in a parallel universe between the desert and the ocean.

Tamara sounds like a fulfilling day. The Oculi site is great btw. So many interesting themes, The Horses, Nightchasing, Almost Home, and on and on . You people are full of great ideas. That is my new favorite site.

The small mangos are the best. In Ecuador there is a variety ( not for export) that can not be eaten but you make a little hole and suck the juice out of it. VERY SWEET.
“A day in the Life of LS members.”......

Took an airplane to Quito ( Ecuador’s capital) to get my European Visa. Ipod all the way Chopin, Satie, and Piazzolla non-stop.
Outside the Spanish embassy 3 policemen detaining a woman thief and arguing with her boyfriend and the victim , all surrounded by 20 “mirones” ( spectators). I had no camera and there was no arrest …....and no visa at least for a while. But I had the chance to visit my cousin from the mountains whom I havent seen for some years. Met his children for the first time . “Uncle Alex , uncle Alex !” Those 2 words together makes my feel older. We spoke about , Life, photography, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and my ex wife.
I had a WONDERFUL lunch. I consider myself a good cook, but his wife is a miracle in the kitchen. Hot apple pie with home made vanilla ice cream for desert . I can still taste it. I had to rush to the airport to catch the last flight back to the Coast, get an oxigen tank from my firefighters friends, pick up mountain clothing, get my gear and drive 4 hours to another part of the country at 3800 meters. At least that was the plan.
As usual plans fail. The oxigen tank is empty, there is an emergency at the family biz, I have to rush to the office. It is 10 PM by now, to dangerous to drive for 4 hours in a third world country, road with fog. I postponed my climbing to the Chimborazo at 5000 meters for one more week. I still remember that apple pie and Piazzola’s bandoneon. Now I need a fat cigar

Jukka..M. Manson music is not what I would call life affirming..and Arbus, well, you know how it turned out for her. If you are feeling that really tired feeling too often, you might consider turning your focus to something more life infused and joyful. Don’t fall into a depression if you can avoid it, it doesn’t feel good and makes one very unproductive. Hold a baby in your arms while the sun is shining..or something like that.
But I hear you. I feel like I have to struggle sometimes to find the life in this life. I did cartwheels in the park the other day to see if I still could. The photo adreneline thing is not enough for me, because it is an addiction, it will never be enough. The little things that are simple and pure and true, this is what sustains me.

And this is “really important”?

Sheeesh!

I’ve really enjoyed this post so far. I think that’s what keeps me coming back to this site,
even though I’m not the most dedicated/ambitious photographer. It’s so interesting to see
what other people are up to around the world.

My day… it’s winter here now, and I woke up under a thick pile of blankets and my
sleeping bag. Opening my eyes a crack, I saw sunlight peeking throug the window; good, it’s
not going to be AS cold today. I wandered over to the office, where we’re preparing for tommorrow’s
“feria de canto y poesia,” wherein about 60 little kids from rural communities around my town will
assemble to sing about hygiene, water, the environment, etc.

I’ll be leaving Bolivia in about a month – finishing my two years
in the peace corps and returning to the US, which is both exciting and frightening.

My impending departure makes those mundane details feel more special, more
bittersweet – joking with co-workers, greetings in Quechua and Spanish from the women at the
market, the morning sun highlighting the mountains that surround Aiquile. Having empanadas with my
adopted mother, who runs the principal bakery in town, and chides me for not having worn a
thicker chompa. I’m trying to etch all these details in my memory.

breath: does the breathing body good :))))

breath: does the breathing body good :))))

Lee and everybody
i just put the REALLY IMPORTANT THING because i wanted
to know what people are doing and now i definetely want to know
what you are doing and what you think is important. sheesh indeed and actually i posted the SORRY message
after i read about 1100 killings every month in iraq.
like i told to bob i slept 22 hours and life
is just motherfucking fine and getting stranger everyday but i like
when it gets weird.
peace and have a drink or do something that you haven’t decided to do like
everybody should go out with their cameras and take photos of humanbeings who
smoke weed or just cigarettes or cigars or whatever.
have fun and get lost because getting lost is FUN!

Jukka

Sounds like your suffering too much. I do know the feeling though. I spent 6 weeks on my own in Gaza a few years ago & it really did me in. During the day it’s fine as you can do stuff but after a while it does become boring…it was @ night that really got to me. Do you live by yourself in Jerusalem? Shit I do know that feeling..I used to eat loads of Falafel to make me feel better….Theres even a 24hr Falafel joint near the Damascus gate taxi rank. I used to go there at 2am sometimes because I was bored.

I had a good/bad day…...the highlight was watching my son play football at a football academy after school…the low point was I just paid a garage $500 to fix the brakes on my car & I still have a problem, turns out it was not even the brakes it was the bearings in the wheel hub….which would off cost me less than $200 to get fixed…so you know what part of my day consists of tomorrow already..fighting a mechanic to get some money back! At least I won’t be bored. If it’s getting to you Jukka get out & freshen the mind!

I’m going to eat something & watch a movie.

Mark

Mark!
damn. they’re getting fed up with me at the damascus gate falafel joint. i mean it’s open 24 hours
and i just have to eat and that’s the place where i go. at first they were friendly
but now they’re just fed up, but it’s a really cheap place and the food is just full of
vitamin C.
have a nice meal and movie ( at the moment i would like to see a romantic comedy made in hollywood
far away from rainer werner fassbinder or tarkovski.)
jukka

No worries Jukka,

Forgive me. I’m just feeling a bit jaded these days, as is evident in the majority of my posts.
I guess it’s all down to having been back from Uganda for 2 months already, and seeing how quickly the rat-race takes hold again.

Once my next trip is planned (soon, hopefully), I’ll have something to look forward to and will instantly become a more friendly
and helpful Lightstalker.

Keep up the good work.

Cheers,

Lee.

oh Jukka stand up…. head always in top
shalom brother

I’m in Mexico City, late afternoon and I can see people running in the park across
the street from where I am sitting now. I’m getting ready for my next assignment, next week in sunny Costa Rica. And I just finished reading this beautiful poem from the great Argentine master Jorge Luís Borges. I think it is actually one of the most beautiful things anyone has ever written.
Cheers,Adriana

The Causes

The sunsets and the generations.
The days and none was the first.
The freshness of the water in Adam’s
throat. The orderly Paradise.
The eye deciphering the darkness.
The wolf’s love at dawn.
The word. The hexameter. The mirror.
The Babel Tower and the arrogance.
The moon the Chaldeans looked at.
The Ganges innumerable sand.
Chuang-Tzu and the butterfly that dreamed of him.
The islands golden apples.
The steps in the errant labyrinth.
Penelope’s infinite canvases.
The circular time of the stoics.
The coin in the mouth of the one who died.
The weight of the sword on the scale.
Each drop of water in the hourglass.
The eagles, the fortunate, the legions.
Ceasar in the morning of Farsalia.
The shadow of the crosses on the ground.
The chess and the algebra of the Persian.
The trails of the great migrations.
The conquest of kingdoms by the sword.
The incessant compass. The open sea.
The echo of the clock in the memory.
The king justified by the ax.
The incalculable dust that were armies.
The voice of the nightingale in Denmark.
The scrupulous line of the calligrapher.
The face of the suicidal in the mirror.
The gambler’s cards. The avid gold.
The shapes of the cloud in the desert.
Each arabesque in the kaleidoscope.
Every remorse and every tear.
All these things were needed
So our hands could meet.

-Jorge Luís Borges

Alice, I can’t even begin to imagine how hard it must be to leave after two years and move back to the states. Maybe you should move to my hood, it will make the transition a little easier. Nowadays I get depressed when I have to spend too much time in a generic town and am very happy to get back to Queens. Unless I get an offer to go to the Caribbean of course.

Hey
Are you still in Jerusalem in June? I’ll be there then too. We can go for falafel together!
I’m starting my day, now, with a run! Sun is shining and I’ll be sniffing morning dew…World is great! Sometimes…anyway.
I hope you have a nice day!

My day…hee hee. Woke up and started counting the hours til i can go back to sleep again. Most days are like this now.

Oh, and i have good memories of that 24hr falafel shop too. I stayed at the Faisal hostel next door a few times and occasionally missed the 1am curfew and got locked out. Usually i’d just climb up a tree or a drainpipe and lever myself in through a window. Once though i’d had too many beers and kept falling out of the tree. The guys who work in the falafel shop were laughing at me for weeks. Everytime i went there they’d mime me falling backwards onto the ground…