Eulogy

[ NB: Though this is my research blog, I sometimes write posts that are more personal in nature. This is one of those times. ]

In early 2008, my Dad died.

He was a tough, tough man; a smart man, and a man of few words that were often heavy with meaning.

I watched him die. Held him as he breathed his last breath. This was a hard thing. Seeing a man tough as nails reduced to bones by cancer.

My Dad and I weren't close, but we weren't distant.

I think about the last 10 days of his life a lot. I think about seeing him die. You can't forget something like that.

I don't want to.

My brother and I eulogized my Dad at his memorial service. I'm reproducing my part of the eulogy here because when I think of my Dad, I think of what ran through my head during the final days and hours of his life, and immediately afterward.

Small things.

Small things make a life, and small things comprise love and interpersonal relationships and family.

Small things matter.

---

I’ve had time to think, these last few days of my father’s life, about my most meaningful memories of our relationship. The first thing that comes to mind is that I wish I had the opportunity to hear how he would approach the same question, his perspective on the most meaningful memories of our relationship as father and son. So, before I talk a little about what repeatedly occurred to me as we spent our final hours together, I think it’s worth speculating that we might find some important solace in approaching those we love, while we still have ample opportunity, and pose the same question of each other.

As I sat next to my dad the last few days, it was profoundly interesting to consider the memories that were most vivid. It seems that the most important events for me, as I thought about him while he prepared to face death, were not such important events in the grand scheme of things. At least not on the surface, anyway.

Right now, the most vivid and recurrent memory, where just my dad and I were spending time together, won’t seem like much of an event at all. When I was around ten or so, I had some kind of day trip, maybe with school or some other group, at Mt. Diablo, forty minutes or so from our home in Dublin, CA. I can’t even remember why I was there, or in what context. I don’t even remember who took me up the mountain that day, just that my dad picked me up in his red, two-tone Ford F-150 around dusk.

Darkness fell as we drove the winding road down the mountain, my dad and I not saying much to each other, but happy in each other’s company. More important than whatever I had done that day—climbing rocks, hiking, etc.—was my hunger for dinner, and my dad’s suggestion that we find a Foster’s Freeze instead of waiting until we got home. I won’t say that Foster’s was my favorite restaurant, but I loved the prospect of having a chocolate dipped soft-serve cone after dinner. As we neared the bottom of the mountain in the increasing darkness, my hunger and anticipation built as my dad took a few unfamiliar streets in search of a Foster’s Freeze.

I recall some frustration, some detours, but eventual, ultimate success: a booth with my dad, a hamburger and fries in an unfamiliar city after dark, and a cone of soft-serve vanilla ice-cream, dipped in crunchy chocolate.

We drove home together, full and happy, listening to whatever was on the radio, a Giants game perhaps, on KNBR 680.

Why should such a thing be so vivid a memory for me, at this stage, just before and after my dad’s death? It’s difficult to make clear meaning out of the complex and convoluted memories and nuances of consciousness that we all wade through in times of stress and struggle. Who can say, for example, what my dad was thinking about as he neared death…

For me, the trip to Foster’s Freeze stands out, I believe, because it’s such a pleasant and simple reflection of a time when it was just dad and me. It didn’t involve much money, or an extravagant trip, or a significant milestone, though those things are surely important. Instead, it was a simple moment in a complex and lifelong relationship, one of literally hundreds of thousands of similar moments that make up the incredible fabric of meaningful human relationships, relationships between parents and kids, husbands and wives, and lifelong friends.

My dad did lots of nice things for me, things that had much larger implications in the scheme of things; he bought me a car, for example, and drove a couch and other household items 600 miles in a U-haul to Oregon to help me settle in for college. But far more important to me: he did little things really well. Like teaching me to fish, helping me to break in my baseball glove, improving my vocabulary, and taking me for a burger and an ice-cream cone.

I know that my dad loved my brother and I, and I know that he was happy we were with him these last few days. More importantly, I know my dad loved Les. Sure, they took some fantastic trips together, and did some significant things as a couple in the last 20 years. But I will be perpetually thankful that my dad had Les to do those things, those hundreds of thousands of little, simple things for him and with him as my brother and I moved away and began to take our own kids out for ice-cream…

The Sartorialist

If you've been reading this blog for any reasonable length of time, you're already no doubt aware that when it comes to certain things I can be slow on the uptake.

For example, only recently have I discovered The Sartorialist, certainly not a secret to the blogosphere. In fact, my discovery engine for such things being what it is, the find was purely serendipitous; apparently The Sartorialist is fond of shooting photos of stylish everyday cyclists, and my introduction to the blog was via Cyclelicious.

One day a couple of months ago I finally wandered over to the site, gave it a quick look, and added it to Reader. Since then, my jaw has dropped no less than 10 or 12 times. It's not as if I'm someone versed in the nuances of personal style or the vicissitudes of elegance and fashion. I'm clearly not. Nor am I even all that interested in the clothing and presentation which are integral to each post, yet I acknowledge their collective import.

What makes this blog stunning is it's (apparent) virtuoso simplicity:

On the Street....Left Bank, Paris

On the Street....Cheap & Chic, Milano

On the Street....Rue du Marche St. Honore, Paris

On the Street....One More Time, Milano

On the Street....Milan Now, Milan

Instead of fashion photography, I see expertly composed images of interesting people in interesting places. I see broader publics, architecture, city life. And I see post after post of perfect light. In my limited experience as a photographer, nothing could be more important. In nearly every post, the most important details are surfaced. As I noted above, it's only an apparent simplicity.

This is an amazing blog, one that I wish I had been following long ago.

Considering Charles Mudede

My feed reader is mostly all business. I read items in the order they arrive--not by topic, not by blog--oldest to newest, in a great big tangled mess of interestingness.

The usual suspects are there: every major tech blog you can think of (and some you probably can't), stuff on ubicomp and mobile computing, academic blogs from colleagues in my field and someday colleagues in other fields, and feeds from architecture, urban planning, design, and computer science. There are, however, a few feeds pointed in other directions, mostly toward popular culture.

Of these "other" feeds, one of my favorites is The Stranger's SLOG (and its musical accomplice, Line Out). I read The Stranger for a variety of reasons, but mainly because I find the writing entertaining and because I love Seattle.

Charles Mudede is an associate editor at The Stranger, and a faculty member at Pacific Lutheran University. He's also a key reason why I read SLOG with interest.

Mudede's posts are anomalies to a certain extent; they stand out by virtue of their juxtaposition to the mass of posts published each day on SLOG. This is not to say that the other posts aren't entertaining, informative, and even heady; they often are--perhaps just as often as they are not--and I am often inclined to celebrate both eventualities.

But Mudede's posts are something different, and they always stand out within the feed. In this sense, his posts benefit from the juxtaposition.

Take Marxism and Insects for example. In between posts on Seattle politics or sex advice from Dan Savage, Mudede surfaces with a post that cobbles together Capital, the machinations of queen bees, Iranian politics, and Althusser's notion of the Ideological State Apparatus.

His posts are often pithily thought-provoking. Ideology Today contends that the national fuss over identity theft keeps us stridently and earnestly focused "on the least of [our] worries."

And then there's one of my favorite posts in recent memory, The Difference. A brief meditation on philosophy and representation through the forgotten Foucault and the remembered Foucault.

To consider Mudede in the midst of the madness is to consider a sharp arithmetic of cogitative concision: 2 fragments + 2 photos + 2 sentences = Foucauldian heuristic.

That commenters often seem befuddled, frustrated, and pissed off cements my admiration.

Long live Mudede, and long live SLOG.

St. Bjork

PJ

Randoms

In lieu of a more robust post tomorrow, here are a few random shots from Eugene, Oregon, El Paso, New Orleans, and Springfield, Oregon.

Harsh Light

On the Oregon Coast

Continuing the portrait theme, this shot contends with both harsh light and a moving subject. I very much prefer to take photos in muted and ambient light, with stable subjects, and a tripod. But every so often particularly harsh light can actually lend a unique softness to the image, as in these fantastic shots recently featured on Burstoid.

I think more than anything this shot works for me because of the compositional contrasts, in particular the sharpness of eyelash, nose, and teeth framed by the soft blur of forearm, whitewater, and wicked blonde hair. I like it; I hope you like it too.

Stoop, 831 Bourbon Street

Stoop 831 Bourbon St., New Orleans

Here's yet another New Orleans portrait--this one perhaps not as good as the last, but interesting in a different way. This is a fairly long exposure shot: the streaks near the top of the image are actually from a passing white delivery truck. Given the long exposure, it's all the more interesting to me how relatively sharp the image is--from the gentelman's stare to the house number and wrought iron.

I'm certain he has stories to tell, stories that can only be hinted at in this image.

Bourbon Street

Bourbon St., New Orleans

Here's another portrait where I've taken advantage of muted light, in this instance at dusk as opposed to the early morning light of the Pike Street photo. I saw this kid with a couple of girls his age, hanging around outside one the many clubs on Bourbon Street. I'm fairly sure he was neither a local, nor of legal drinking age, but who am I to judge?

What I like about this picture is the general tone, texture, and contrasting colors. I love to shoot at dawn and dusk, and I mustered a few decent shots during my near-nightfall sojourn through New Orleans. It's not my favorite town, but there are lots of interesting photographic subjects.

Pike Street

Pike Street Market, Seattle.

It's a bit of a cliché to shoot Pike St., but I don't really care. One of the beauties of shooting in the Northwest is the frequently muted light of overcast skies on early mornings. I don't always like my photos, but on balance, I like those that I've taken in Seattle more than any other city.