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You’ve probably never heard of him. Unless you’re a serious photographer.

from the Wynn Bullock website
I went to the Wynn Bullock retrospective at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, expecting 100 photographs that mimicked Ansel Adams, his more famous contemporary.

Instead, I found myself alone. Wandering three galleries of otherworldly photographs. Unlike anything. Unique.

Would it be weird to admit some of the images called to me?Continue Reading

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Eclectic reader? Adventurous reader? Snobbish reader?

I’ve been called all those things by people who aren’t readers. Because to me, a person is either a reader or they’re not.

I classify books as “great books” and “dreck.” Period. I don’t even pay attention to the genre, because I don’t care. A good book deserves to be read, especially when we are served up so many not-good-books and told to love them. (The Goldfinch, anyone?)Continue Reading

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If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. – Haruki Murakami

Maybe Murakami’s quote applies to everything. Perhaps I’ll out myself as a hopeless snob. If I lose a few readers or start a debate, GREAT. I’m typing what I have to say, because I can’t sit on it any longer.

I am sick of the simpering sameness that permeates all creative forms today. From the same few music acts whose auto-tuned voices are beamed at me everywhere I turn/click/read to our dismal summer movie offerings to ‘must read’ book lists that are all composed of the same PR’d-to-death tomes, I am an isolated, dejected weirdo who must not like anything popular or socially accepted.

What bothers me about this isn’t that social media seems to have turned our entire society into a herd of sheep, or that I feel like I have been sent on an endless trip back to high school where nobody ever graduates, grows up or evolves. No. I can deal with those things.
It bothers me to see myself becoming what I despise. Continue Reading