Earth Day

lithographic poster by Robert Rauschenberg 1970

In honor of Earth Day I bought a camera bag made of 95% recycled materials. Actually, I bought the bag the day after Earth Day and I got it because I liked it and I kind of needed a midsized camera bag. I did pick up a couple of beer cans off the side of the road yesterday, Earth Day, but I always do that. But the camera pouch really is made of recycled stuff of some sort, maybe old leisure suits from the 1970s, who knows. I especially like the little picture of the polar bears on it. Actually, a portion of my cash for this product is supposed to go to polarbearsinternational.org according to the inside of the label, so I guess I don't feel too guilty about buying it. Whenever I think of Earth Day I think of the poster that Robert Rauschenberg made in 1970 for what would have been the first celebration of that day. Incidentally, that is the same year that Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Catalog was published. Groovy.

History Lesson?

While I was sorting through my pictures to go with "Red" (see next posting below) I came across this somewhat rather typical photo of a red barn which just happens to be up the street from me, well actually, that's kind of the point of this post. It used to be just up the street. It has recently been torn down to make room for yet another cookie cutter designed house. And I thought we were in a housing slump. The rural atmosphere of the neighborhood I live in, like a lot of places is continually diminishing. This barn was a favorite subject of mine. It was a 5 minute walk from my house. The famous photographer Paul Strand used to say that you could take some of the best photographs just outside your back door or in your backyard or something like that! Which is comforting for me because I never really go anywhere! But I'm glad I at least had the chance to take some pictures of that old barn because now it's another part of history.

Red

Usually I look for songs to go along with my posts, to sort of accompany, comment or illustrate an idea. Some work better than others. This time however I simply wanted to add the song “Red” by Daniel Merriweather to my playlist blog basically just because I really love the song a lot. It is one of the best new ballads I’ve heard probably since George Michael did “Careless Whisper”. I’m not saying it’s as good or time worthy as “Careless Whisper” but it’s really good. Once in a while, on Saturday mornings while I’m making breakfast and coffee (mmmmm....home fries!!!) I turn on VH1 to keep in “tune” with current trends in music. It’s not much different from the old days in the 80s when I would watch MTV, especially last week. Instead of the usual Rap and Grunge music there were quite a few, just “normal” pop rock tunes. Is there a return to real music again? Most of the stuff in the Top 20 was actually pretty good, but for me “Red”, even though it was “only” at 13 on the list, was a cut above everything else. Now I just have to find a picture of mine to accompany this song. I hope you enjoy it, the song that is!! I couldn't decide which "red" photograph to use, so here's a bunch, none of which deserve to be used with this song.