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Stress Kills Creativity
I’ve never been a fan of nihilism.
(Other than when it was parodied in The Big Lebowski.)
Image courtesy of Redtree Times As a life-long positive energy guy, believing in nothing, no meaning, no value, just a cold void…
…Not my thing.
But 2024, (really the last four years,) has started to sap me of my hope.
The say stress kills, and often creativity is the first thing to go.
Lately, beyond cooking and writing this blog, my creative production has been non-existent.
I haven’t made anything remotely artistic since last summer, when I shot the Mike Bone concert here in Taos.
Which is concerning.
Lil Mike and Funnybone in Kit Carson Park, Taos, 2023
I remember the last time I felt this way.
Pickled in stress.
I was the interim Chair of the Fine Arts Department at UNM-Taos, back in 2015-16.
Honestly, I fell backwards into the job, because there was no one else on campus who was qualified, so I gave it a go.
As interim, I was a success, as I recruited, hired, and promoted the woman who went on to take my job.
(Once I realized I didn’t want it.)
Part of why I quit was that I felt that level of constant misery was sapping my will to be an artist.
Not long after I left the job, I had the idea for “Party City is the Devil,” which was my last major conceptual photo series.
“Red Mask, blue gumballs, and blue plastic tablecloth” It became my first solo exhibition at the Harwood Museum of Art, here in Taos in the fall of 2019, and was featured twice on the TV News.
School groups came by.
The show had buzz.
Then the pandemic came along, and disrupted all my momentum.
These days, as a 50 year old, straight white Jewish man, we all know opportunities are few and far between.
But it’s not something that’s openly discussed.
Rather, it’s constantly implied that it’s our turn to be on the outside, looking in, as people like me had it good for so long.
Except that’s not really true.
It’s always been hard to be an artist.
Only now, it’s gone from being hard to being nearly impossible.
And the life stress that’s come with losing my income, and my career, has begun to take a toll on my soul.
Not gonna lie, life has been extremely hard lately.
The worst part has been knowing how much good I did for my photography community in all the years I had a big audience and platform.
The NY Giants (mostly disgraced) former General Manager, Dave Gettleman, recently said that when you leave the field, it feels like you died.
No one calls, or sends emails.
The world pressures you, quietly, into thinking you don’t matter anymore.
The Giants great QB, Phil Simms, was recently let go by the CBS NFL broadcast team, at 68, because he was too old.
He was open in admitting he didn’t want to go, and wouldn’t likely get another job in TV.
That’s what it’s felt like for me lately.
It doesn’t matter anymore what my talent level is, or my work ethic.
It doesn’t matter how many people I helped or supported along the way.
Instead, there has been this silent, but unmissable message: it’s not my time anymore.
The millennials who run things like to work with their own.
I get it.
But without being an artist, I’ve having some serious questions about my identity.
(Mid-life crisis much?)
Why am I writing this?
Because day by day, I find out this is happening to a lot of creative people.
The lack of resources, and opportunities.
The sad feeling that it doesn’t matter anymore.
That I have to just accept it, and move on with my life.
Become a Realtor.
Get a regular job.
Give up.
But I don’t want to give up.
I want help, support, and kindness.
I want to receive what I have offered others for so many years.
Life, however, is not fair.
So that’s where I’ll end it today.
I’m no fan of despair, and my family and I are considering making some radical changes, to find more happiness.
Because I know we deserve it.
That’s the trickiest part of contemporary mental health culture.
We’re all talking about how we deserve to be treated, or what we want to manifest, but so many people die cold and alone these days.
Trump, and the pandemic, broke something fundamental.
And if we don’t get it back, things will only get worse.
So while this is not a cry for help, it is my attempt to give voice to the things people have begun to tell me in private.
Musical chairs is the most stressful children’s game out there, and that’s what the creative industries have become.
Each looking out for him/her/themselves, because there is no longer enough to go around.
People know if they lose their job, they’ll have to leave a declining industry.
Nasty business.
Thankfully, I haven’t embraced nihilism just yet.
But if things don’t get any easier, if I don’t catch a break, the world will soon have one more bored, disinterested, checked out, middle-aged white guy.
C’est la vie.
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What Does Settler Colonialist Mean?
Life was strange in the pandemic.
(It’s not a time upon which I like to dwell.)
One cool part, though, was History Club.
Once in a while, the kids and I would play a game in which they’d choose a random year, then we’d dig into what was going on in the world at the time.
I’d pull out my Art History books from grad school, we’d fire up the internet, and off we went.
Given that I got my BA in History from Duke, (with a double-major in Economics,) was an Art History TA at Pratt, and taught Art History at UNM-Taos for a year, the subject is well within my wheel house.
No matter the year, though, History always returns to the quest for power, wealth, and territory, all of which are often bundled together.
No matter where in the world you look, human history has been a tale of social groups competing.
When one power overthrows another, they often enact vengeance, or come to display the types of bad behavior they railed against in the first place.
(The French Revolution being a good example of that.)
The one part of History I’d always come back to, though, both with the kids, and at UNM-Taos, was the epochal change that began when sailors from the Iberian peninsula began the process of European colonization of Earth.
In the late 1400s.
(Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 14 hundred 92.)
It explains everything.
How those handful of societies in Europe conquered everywhere else.
Took their resources.
Exploited their people.
Or sometimes, as in the case of the African slave trade, actually took their people.
South America was mostly carved up by the Spaniards and Portuguese.
North America saw the English, Dutch, French, Spanish, and at one point Russians take turf.
Africa had French, English, Italian, German, Dutch, and Belgian invaders, and I’m sure I’m forgetting some.
Asia, more of the same.
Australia to the English.
And so on.
Like I said, it explains everything.
Graphic courtesy of Vox.com. Big Ups to Japan, Korea and Thailand.
Over history, though, some groups never ended up with a place of their own.
Like the Roma. (Gypsies.)
Others, like the Kurds, still fight for statehood.
The Kosovars were the subject of a 90’s war, and then got their own territory.
As to the Jews, as everyone knows, we rebelled against the Roman Empire when they had colonized Israel, and were expelled from our home turf.
About 2000 years ago.
Most Jews ended up in Europe, (though not all,) and lived in segregated communities, always the minority where they settled.
Never absorbed into the main culture, except for in Germany, and we know how well that worked out.
That said, the result of the Holocaust was the colonial powers at the time, (mainly England,) allowed for the re-creation of a Jewish state in Israel.
As they’d partitioned India and Pakistan, (at a deathly cost,) they tried to partition Palestine, but a succession of wars put that idea to the sword.
(Pardon the violent metaphor.)
There are alternate versions of history in which Israel and Palestine exist concurrently, though it hasn’t happened so far in our reality.
But it needs to.
ASAP.
Because I’m so fucking sick of hearing the term settler-colonialist.
Please, make it stop.
If you want to come for the Jews for accepting a State in Israel, after 6 million of them were slaughtered by Hitler in the 1930’s and 40’s, then say what you must.
It happened.
They got their country.
They’re Israelis now.
And like the French peasants, (after their revolution,) the Israelis have not been kind, once they took power.
Israelis and Palestinians have fought for decades, and as I have written here, both sides have been awful on so many issues.
It’s not that hard to say.
Hamas sucks, and the Israeli Right wing government sucks.
The settler-colonialist shit sticks because the Right Wing Jews are actively colonizing the West Bank, and some openly covet re-colonizing Gaza. Displacing people and taking turf in 2024 is what Putin does.
It’s not OK.
(Prior Israeli settlements were abandoned when Ariel Sharon pulled Israel out of Gaza in 2005.)
The world is watching, and no one approves of this active colonizing.
Doing it, while starving the Gazans, is morally reprehensible.
As Hamas’s Oct 7th pogrom was morally reprehensible.
But Israel’s actions are provoking all these college kids, because it lines up with what they’ve been taught.
The (again) French theorists that have driven left-wing thought since the 70’s laid all this out, and the Israelis are making reality fit the mold.
So here goes the truth part:
Give up The West Bank.
Give up Gaza.
Let this coalition of wealthy Arab states rebuild, with a Pan-Arab guarantee of Israel’s border security.
Let these two societies live next to each other.
Israel and Palestine.
Each determining its own fate.
If they stay at war, it’s no different than what they have.
But the only path to true peace is for EACH historically disenfranchised people to have the right to self-determination.
Really, this shit is not so hard.
Tweet courtesy of Super 70’s Sports and X.com -
Being Jewish in 2024
I don’t get along great with my family.
The one that raised me.
(Mom, Dad and Brother.)
Back in the weekly column days at APE, I definitely shared details, (perhaps overshared,) but haven’t written on the subject lately.
Frankly, I don’t want to get too deeply into it here, but there is one connecting point to land.
In our family unit at present, I’m on the outside looking in.
My younger brother has acted like an older brother our entire lives, and has never expressed the slightest interest in me.
But we have a civil level of communication at present.
(While I was the favorite growing up, he usurped the position years ago, and my parents moved to his town in 2022 after nearly 30 years in Taos.)
With my folks, we’re essentially estranged, as we cannot have contact without conflict.
In their eyes, because I’m at fault for the drama, they’re justified in treating me in ways I deem cruel.
That’s the key concept here: because they think I’m “bad,” they believe I deserve to be treated poorly.
It’s my fault they can’t be generous or kind to me.
Because I get what I deserve.
Sound familiar?
Yes, I’m back to teaching in parable.
What I really want you to consider is what it feels like to be a Jew in 2024.
Self-portrait, this morning. The cancer surgery scab has almost healed up. Pretty much everybody hates us.
The right and left wings have converged, united in the common opinion that Jews deserve to be harassed and vilified.
We’re the worst.
All of us are Zionists, and no matter how long we go back in America, our allegiance is to that apartheid state across the world.
On the left, unless you believe that Israel should be disbanded, returned to the Palestinians, and all Jews should go back to whatever Diaspora country their ancestors fled 100 years ago, you’re out.
That is their legitimate position.
On the far right, where Jews will not replace us, anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Evangelical Christianity will know that what Jews get is a choice, in the End Times:
Convert or Die.
So there you have it.
Personally, where I live, being Jewish doesn’t impact my daily life.
In Taos, everyone’s always been on edge, as this is a Frontier culture, so being a Jew here is fine.
However, most of us also live online in 2024.
And it’s pretty shitty to be Jewish on the internet.
Always being told you suck.
You’re wrong.
Being conflated with Netanyahu.
Here on the blog, I’ve called that fucker out twice already.
As I believe both sides in this conflict have behaved abominably.
There is no glory here.
For anyone.
The only step that makes any sense at all is to find peace.
That’s it.
Let’s figure out how to find a peaceful solution, how to de-escalate, how to return to a world with less prejudice.
And let’s have two separate countries: Israel and Palestine.
Please and Thank you.
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China Has Weaponized the War on Drugs
I finally watched Narcos on Netflix.
Then I watched the follow-up, Narcos: Mexico, as well.
Both are entertaining, and well-constructed.
(Definitely made me wistful for the years when streamers would drop mad cash on high-end talent & production values.)
And anyone who doesn’t love Pedro Pascal is kidding themselves.
Image courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter It’s fascinating history, too, at least the part that wasn’t dramatized.
How cartel behavior in Colombia, and then Mexico, allowed organized crime to flourish, hollowing out a bunch of Latin American countries in the process.
(A cartel being an economic instrument in which competitors collude to fix prices and control the market.)
Though the show is set in the 80’s and 90’s, the reality is still current.
In fact, it’s worse.
These days, you can add countries like Ecuador and Argentina to the many that are wracked with violence, infiltrated by criminal networks, due to the realities of supply and demand.
Americans demand narcotics to numb the pain of a nearly impossible set of expectations for contemporary existence.
If tens of millions of people here didn’t need help getting through the day, (or the night, in the case of cocaine,) it is certain Latin America would be in better shape.
We’ve always been the bully big brother, impeding their opportunities to advance.
But now there’s an even bigger bully on the block, trying to take us down:
China.
You saw that coming because of the headline.
Sure.
And maybe you know that Chinese companies provide the industrial chemicals that Mexican cartels use to create fentanyl in Mexican labs?
Maybe you also knew that HSBC, the bank, has been implicated in money laundering for the cartels too?
But even I didn’t know, until this week, that the Chinese triads are the leading producers of illegal marijuana in the United States.
Apparently, they moved from partnering on money laundering, to raising capital for their own enterprises by funding illegal grow houses, to sell in states where weed is still illegal.
You can’t make this shit up.
First, I caught news that the Feds were stopping LEGAL shipments of weed in Southern New Mexico, at border checks 60 miles inside the US.
Odd, for sure.
Our Governor and Senator complained, as it’s an interruption of a billion dollar business in a poor state.
I assumed they were just straw men for the Mexican Cartels, but this morning, ProPublica blew the lid off with an amazing story of the Triads taking over Oklahoma.
Oklahoma?
If you know anything about authoritarianism, and Chinese history, you’ll know their power structure is top down.
It’s why Tik Tok is in so much trouble here, or why Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai defended China instead of Hong Kong a few years back.
Nobody over there does any business without the bosses knowing what’s up, and approving.
Just like Putin.
Then party gets a cut, and works with the mafia, as he does.
This is some reverse Opium Wars shit, going on at the same time Tik Tok has convinced American youth in the righteous cause of… Hamas?
The first image that pops up in a Google search for The Opium Wars, courtesy of Wikipedia Pay attention, folks.
You’ve been warned.
The 21st great power wars are just getting started.
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Photo Feature Friday: MIKE TYSON
Thanks, everyone!
I was pretty honest yesterday, and asked for what I wanted.
I hoped for digital connection, and you delivered.
Lots of love came my way.
Truly, I appreciate it.
Among the most powerful messages to arrive, via multiple digital platforms, were people sharing their own cancer experiences.
All of which were more serious than mine.
As I wrote yesterday, what I had is supposed to be mild, and treatable. (A carcinoma.)
My particular misery came from misdiagnosis.
So many people out there are dealing with life-changing, super-scary, cancer shit.
It’s an honor to use this platform to give more exposure to the issue, because it opens opportunities to offer empathy and kindness to others in our community.
A big win all around.
So let’s hope all of you facing major surgeries, or bouts of radiation or chemo, come through swiftly and well.
We at Sunshine and Olly are here for you.
That said, I ended yesterday’s post by (mostly) promising a photography column today.
So let’s get to it.
About a year ago, I conducted a live email interview with Lori Grinker, a photographer in New York.
I’d recently tried out the process with Dana Stirling, and it worked perfectly.
I’d ask Dana something, she’d write back, I’d ask again, and so on.
The whole thing probably took 20 minutes.
With Lori, though, it just didn’t come together.
Call it Mercury in Retrograde, but while I ended up with passable text, (it wasn’t a complete fail,) at the time, it just didn’t read well enough to me.
Probably it was burnout, as that was more or less the end of writing about photography for a year.
Sorry, Lori, you didn’t do anything wrong, I just didn’t vibe with the material we created.
But I promised you when Sunshine and Olly began that I’d review your book, and here we are.
It’s perfect for today, as it features a trove of terrific images of one of the most famous men in the world:
Mike Tyson.
The book is called “MIKE TYSON,” and there was a show at Clamp in NYC as well.
Still, had I run with this last April, it would have been cool.
Mike Tyson.
But in the year since, he’s back to being MIKE TYSON.
Why, you ask?
Money.
First, from the Saudis, and then from Netflix.
To begin with, Mike was paid by the Saudis to promote the major crossover fight between former UFC heavyweight champ Francis Ngannou, and Superstar boxing champ Tyson Fury.
It was held in Riyadh last year.
Tyson was seemingly an important Ngannou trainer, and everywhere on IG and TikTok, but then it came out he was doing high-level spon-con as much as anything.
(They say he was also a mentor.)
Mike looked great, and is as charismatic as ever, but in this new age of supplements and growth hormones, he also seemed like a dangerous tank of a man, even at 57.
Like he could still take off a head with a patented power hook.
Somewhere, the idea planted a seed.
And that seed became the new Netflix summer mega fight with Jake Paul.
(Netflix’s first foray into live exhibition sports, after they also bought the rights to broadcast WWE.)
Image courtesy of Tudum by Netflix Because make no mistake.
It will be an exhibition.
No way the Paul money machine takes a risk.
And all fight-game people know there’s no getting over the 30 year age gap.
But Tyson’s so strong, and skilled, he won’t take any damage.
We’ll see lots of clinches, a Philly shells. (Defense.)
Like what Floyd Mayweather did against the other Paul brother.
And everyone, everywhere, will watch.
Because he’s MIKE TYSON again. Like he was when Lori Grinker made these photographs for 10 years, capturing his rise and fall.
It began in 1981 when Mike was 14, living in the Catskills with Cus D’Amato and his partner Camille.
Mike had been a local tough in Brownsville, but up there, they helped get him on track.
He was so big and strong, no one believed he was his actual age.
According to Cus, and as history has since proven, Mike is also very smart.
Especially about boxing.
A savant, like LeBron James is in basketball.
And seeing it all play out in so many photographs, an inside seat on the private jet?
It makes for an incredible book.
I was a boxing fan at the time, and saw Mike Tyson live in Atlantic City.
He was a phenomenon of and about the 80’s, back then, and the book gives it to us.
(That he’s now a 2024 version of a super-star is to his credit.)
But the book goes beyond style, and breadth.
We see a lot of Tyson, but the most personal shots in the book are just amazing.
Anyone will have favorites, but to me, seeing him miserable in the dentist chair, and then in the HBO green room holding cake, after getting his ass kicked by Buster Douglas…
…just the perfect connection between photographer, subject, and a moment in time.
Great job, Lori!
Sorry the interview didn’t work out, but thank you so much for sending the book along.
It’s a piece of American cultural history, for sure.
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Get Yourself Checked
Sunshine and Olly is in a weird place.
I’m hoping to find the balance between using this as my own creative outlet, and trying to benefit others by promoting their work, or sharing vital information.
Furthermore, as much as I get a thrill in seeing we’ve hit all Continents this month, (save Antarctica,) it’s also weird to share like this, but so rarely receive feedback.
As a longtime blogger, I know it’s par for the course, but still, it’s always nice when digital reality can lead to connection.
So let that be an invitation to any and all readers to please drop me a line some time, and let me know if S&O offers value to your day.
With respect to this post, my intentions are muddled.
I’ve had a bit of a shit week, (shit month, really,) and part of the fun was being diagnosed with skin cancer on my face.
The biopsy happened in March, so that month wasn’t so great either, and all of April thus far was spent waiting for surgery, then having it last Friday.
(Sad face emoji.)
Lots of people get cancer, and I’m not looking for sympathy.
(Well, maybe a little.)
Rather, I’m writing because I had this cancer on my face for 3 years, and saw multiple doctors about it.
Self-portrait, this morning, with skin-cancer scab Repeatedly, it was misdiagnosed, and/or I was told to live with it.
But always, it hurt.
Always, it was there in my consciousness: something is wrong with me.
I knew I couldn’t live with it forever, (despite being told to the contrary,) and on this round of dealing with the medical system, we got it sorted.
At least I hope so.
It could always come back.
But once you’ve had your face cut, scraped and burned, multiple times, with needles jammed in at the start, you get that message reinforced.
Listen to your body.
Trust your instincts.
If you think something is wrong, it probably is.
Get yourself checked, and don’t stop until you talk to the right doctor.
OK, I’m out.
I’ll (probably) be back tomorrow with a photography post.
Do you like them? Does it matter that I’m doing it again?
Please let me know, if you have a moment.
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Photo Feature Friday: Erin Krall
The body has all sorts of wisdom.
It remembers.
(They call it muscle memory for a reason.)
Here I am, and it’s been 15 months since my last book review column.
At that time, it was a job.
Now I’m back, and it’s essentially a hobby, as no one is paying me to do Sunshine and Olly.
It’s a labor of love, because blogging is a creative outlet.
(And given the lack of platforms covering photography, I feel a duty to help out.)
Since you’re reading this, I’m proud to say that you, our audience, represent all parts of the globe.
We’re pulling in readers from North and South America, the UK, Europe, Central, South and Southeast Asia, and even Africa these days.
(Not bad, for a small readership.)
So this is the moment where I welcome you all (from parts far and near,) to this, my first book review column at Sunshine and Olly.
And wouldn’t you know it, but the photo-book gods were kind.
Let’s get to it.
Because I’d promised a Friday photo column, (but hadn’t set anything up this week,) I remembered Jessie had tucked away some late 2022/ early 2023 submissions in a stack in the back of the pantry.
I reached over the back-up toilet paper, and pulled out the first package I could get my hands on.
Wouldn’t you know it, but I found the OG submission that came in, after I’d transitioned to the new blog.
It was from Erin Krall, in Austin, and I really didn’t know anything beyond that.
Open up the packaging, and the book was wrapped in some cool, coffee sack burlap, which said Guatemala.
A lovely detail to set the experience.
Inside, the opening quote page was a bit confusing, if I’m being honest, and I could have lived without it.
Mostly because Erin’s writing throughout is terrific, and she quotes from Joan Didion, whose book, “A Book of Common Prayer” inspired this one, called “Live from Boca Grande.”
Erin’s opening text tells us the following images are “little poems,” and “like scraps of paper- a reporter’s notes from a decade on the Caribbean desk.”
End-book essays take us to Austin, Miami, and Sonora, Mexico.
So it’s a jaunt through nameless ports of call, essentially.
And a lovely one at that.
Frankly, this was the picture perfect book to get me interested in reviewing again.
It’s about the joy of seeing.
Two images, one with a blue cloth blocking part of a fishmonger, and the other, with various shades and textures of gold, on a car, and a tarp, stopped me in my tracks.
All the photographs are good, or very good, and some are just great.
The touch of a talented editor is evident too, (props to Cengiz Yar,) because the repeating motifs are there, and appreciated.
Shoes on the ground, certain angles coming back, exquisite color combinations, and the variation of verticals and horizontals.
All in all, this book, which Erin Krall self-published as Palomino Journal, is a breath of fresh, moist, tropical air.
She writes that the Tropics are known for Hurricanes, and tragedy, but this book focuses on joy.
As someone who’s lived in the severe, raw, high desert of the American West for 19 years straight, I could do with a little humidity.
Thanks, Erin!
Kudos to you and your team.
As to the rest of you… catch you next week.
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Secret Recipe: Superfood Smoothies
My health journey went exponential when I signed up for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu at the beginning of February, 2023.
(Having taken my free class at the dojo in late January.)
As I’ve written before, the cardio portion of the exercise is so intense, (frankly, it’s all intense,) that I lost about 40 lbs over the course of 8 months.
Looking back, it left me feeling weak, as I was also not eating a lot, to try to burn off my fat.
All that excess, dead weight.
By January 2024, I was living on Mr Goodbars, with their peanuts and crappy Hershey’s chocolate.
It wasn’t sustainable, and once I read the ingredients and saw they were using artificial flavor, I knew I had to move on.
Candy bars, intermittent fasting, and overtraining left me looking gray, and wan. (According to Jessie.)
What to do?
I couldn’t keep my weight on, much less add muscle to deal with the rigors of regular 3-4 days a week BJJ.
A little research, and it was clear: time for protein powders.
My sprained knee led me to the gym, where I’m now lifting seriously, 3x a week.
These morning smoothies, (which I began making 6 or 7 weeks ago,) have been the perfect tonic, in addition to 2x daily muscle milks I make.
As to the secret recipe we’re here to discuss…
Admittedly, it will take an outlay of about $100 to get started with these ingredients, and you need a Nutribullet, or decent blender.
But once you’ve bought everything, ingredient-wise, the smoothies are actually very affordable, given how little of each item is included.
Here we go:
With respect to portion, I make each batch for Jessie and me. (The kids get their own modified version now before school too.)
So it’s a 2-person recipe.
I start with 1-2 oz of water, and then add 5-6 oz of unflavored, no-sugar added Silk soy milk
Then
1/2- 1 whole banana, depending on size
10-15 peanuts
1 T whey protein isolate
1 T pea protein
1 t collagen peptide
1/2 t flax seed
1/2 t chia seed
A few flakes of coconut
Several T frozen fruit mix (organic strawberries, blueberries and mango)
Then a last splash of water, and blend it up.
The whole process takes a couple of minutes, and sets us up for the day with lots of healthy protein, (of various sources,) omega 3s, vitamins, minerals, and even a little healthy fat in the coconut.
The collagen is meant to help with skin, but joints in particular, which aids with the lifting and BJJ. (It’s not vegetarian, though, so feel free to skip if it doesn’t appeal to you.)
They’re super-tasty, and very clean.
For the kids, I leave out the powders, substitute cow milk for flavor, and use almonds instead of peanuts, b/c of allergies.
The new routine has made a dramatic difference in our lives, as it stabilizes blood sugar, and sets us up for the day with great nutrition.
(The kids leave for school more relaxed now too.)
As for me, I’m up to a healthier weight, with more muscle, as the lifting and creatine I’m also taking have helped me put on about 10 healthy lbs since I bottomed out. (146 to 156.)
You might consider starting your day off with one of these as well.
Highly recommended!
See you Friday.
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Photo Feature Friday: Daniel Gordon
A long time ago, I went to Madrid.
Alone.
It was 1997, and my first trip to Europe.
Each thing I saw was new, and mind-bending, but I was far from the suave, capable traveler I am today.
If there was a way to get it wrong, (without crashing and burning entirely,) I was likely to land on it.
So during my visit to the Reina Sofia Museum, I cocked up the entrance to Picasso’s masterpiece, “Guernica,” and got the exhibition backwards.
Geurnica, Pablo Picasso, courtesy of Museo Reina Sofia The curators arranged it so you saw his studies, all the work that went into the final piece, and then the finished article.
I came in the back door, (before I was an artist or a critic,) saw “Guernica,” and then marveled at all the effort that went into creating it.
The methodical, workman-like practice of a mad genius.
It stuck with me.
I’m reminded today, because I’m doing a photography article, (as you surmised from the title,) but there will be no interview.
Rather, this all came together quickly, and I’m glad it did.
Just the other day, I opened a PR email from Nazarian/Curcio, a gallery in LA, but not one I’d interacted with before.
It got my attention, as Daniel Gordon is one of the photographers who achieved proper art world success this Millennium, but I must confess I remember him for the wrong reasons.
Sometime 20 years ago, I saw work of him swan diving off of cliffs or bluffs in California.
(Like a latter-day Yves Klein.)
No Title #`13, 2004, partial image courtesy of danielgordonprojects.com At least I assume he was the subject, but I guess someone was photographed in mid-air.
It stuck with me.
(Looking now, I see digital, but must not have paid enough attention back then.)
That said, regardless of why I opened the email, once I did, I totally loved the picture they shared.
Colorful, vivid, trippy, engaging, off-putting, well-constructed, obviously constructed…
… I was impressed, for sure.
Medusa Plant With Artichokes and Root Vegetables, 2024. All images courtesy of Nazarian/Curcio There were no other pictures on the gallery website, so I took a chance, and requested a set to share with you today.
(In particular, because the gallery is opening an exhibition of the work next weekend.)
Fortunately for us, they said yes, and here we are.
I loved the group even more than I thought I would.
They just feel so damn 2024.
What’s real, what’s fake, does it matter, how do we know, of course we have to know, what happens if we can’t tell, oh my god the colors are nice and I want to look at this, but something in the back of my mind is telling me that I should be able to tell what’s real and what’s not, but it’s so hard, it’s just so so hard to know, and should I care what I know and don’t know, you know?
That’s what I got looking at the work.
I thought, this is quite a leap from the guy I heard of because he leaped off of things. (Or someone did digitally, anyway.)
Turns out, if you go directly to Daniel Gordon’s website, and click on photographs, you’ll see he’s been working like this, with constructions and manipulations, the entire Millennium.
This is his thing.
As I mistakenly got Picasso backwards, seems I did with Daniel Gordon as well.
Admittedly I scrolled, but still, looking at his evolution, I think this new stuff gets his ideas just right.
The formalism, color palette, symbol choice, it’s all snug.
(Gestalt effect for sure.)
So big props to Daniel Gordon for showing me photography in 2024 that feels like 2024.
If you’re around SoCal, Orange Sunrise with Flowers and Fruit opens on Saturday, April 20th at Nazarian/Curcio from 6-8 pm, and will be on view through May 25th.
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I’m With Chuck: Bibi Out
Another Snowy Morning in Taos First things first.
All of my grandparents, and one of my great-grandparents, were born in America.
My family line has been here for more than 110 years.
That makes me pretty American, by any consideration.
I’m also Jewish, on both sides, and was raised in the culture and religion.
(Though begrudgingly on the Hebrew School part, like every other smart Jewish kid in America.)
When it comes to my identity, being Jewish-American doesn’t hit the day to day that much, with respect to religion or culture, as I don’t attend synagogue, pray in Hebrew, or make Jewish food on a regular basis.
So make of that what you will.
Being 50, the Holocaust was not-yet-30 years behind us when I was born, but my family was mostly insulated, as there were no bonds with the Old Country, and all the extended family lived in the US.
It was the defining event of Jewish life, though, having 6 million people exterminated.
But that was then.
Now, as I said, I’m 50, and the defining event of Jewish life has been the aftermath of October 7th.
Holy Shit, has this been bad for Jews everywhere.
Chuck Schumer came out against Netanyahu a couple of weeks ago.
He said common sense things, and it’s clear Joe Biden agrees.
Regime Change.
I last wrote about the Israel Hamas War a couple of months ago, and said Bibi should stand down.
But Chuck was far more forceful than I was.
Time for everyone to get some more skin in the game, I say.
So I will.
Israel: man the fuck up and oust your War Criminal President.
Enough is enough.
No matter what Hamas did, and it was beyond terrible, starving a powerless population to the point that aid groups are necessary is not acceptable human behavior.
(Not to mention starving them after bombing them.)
José Andrés and his World Central Kitchen are like the best people in the world.
They don’t only feed Gaza.
They go around feeding all crisis zones, and have done for years.
They had to organize food aid only because Israel is not doing it.
That crosses a red line of moral decency.
It’s not that the international lives are worth more than Gazan ones.
But when you start killing people who are trying to help the people you’re intentionally starving…
… it’s time to re-think the strategy.
Jews in the Diaspora are, and will be targeted because Israel is no longer acting rationally.
This may be just a blog post, but it’s also my voice.
My public vote.
I do not support Israel’s War in Gaza, as it is currently being fought.
If a cease-fire means that Hamas retains capability to harm, then Israel still has one more enemy.
No one, bar Putin and Xi, gets to decide when and where an enemy goes down.
(And if Trump comes back, we may have to add him to the list.)
Anyway, job done here.
Bibi out.
Israel, please stand up and do the right thing before the rest of the world hates Jews so much they start killing us again.
See you Friday.
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Sunshine and Olly 