Numinous Rainbow

I originally posted this photo (which I took in 1997), with its enigmatic ghost light, or, perhaps, artifact of photo processing,  here.

Room 218

                                                         Room 218

I went back to Eugene, Oregon – a college town – only after twenty-four years dissected, passed.
Stood outside the room wherein I once dwelt, time rich as skunks, lodestone sounding Honshu or Arendal,
Fit four quarter centuries back, to propellers and graves,
Forward, to Queen Marie, naves whistling in Columbian hills, by then they ride gravity waves.
I trailed toward room 218, next to the incense of mouldered room 217, a populous choice,
Angels of plywood tattling, left a fecund stone slammed in the security gate,
Could ascend the staircase to where I could wait.
Clove cigarettes, dead professors, seething chains of oaks,
Sticky rice on spectral plates.

Jonathan Falk 10-25-14

 

    

Collage/ photo by me. Photos from 1988.

Liege 19 November 1909

 

Liege

Red Hook and Coney Island

The Horror at Red Hook? 

Coney Island Circus Sideshow

Photos by me

1994

The Permanent Delegation of Iraq to the United Nations, New York City, 1994

A photo I took taking a picture of myself in New York in 1994, in the entrance to Saddam's US-based diplomatic outpost to the UN. What Bolesław Bierut-type agent, or agents, operated on the far side of the one-way (or two-way) mirror? The time frame was not that of the first Gulf War (which signaled the onset of what one might call the lengthy Persian Gulf War Period -- which one could say we are still in). Nor was this the period of the "mission accomplished" banner, or "shock and awe," or anything synchronized with the current air war. This was also a few years before the "Desert Fox" operation. I snapped this photo during the long years of the Bush 41/Clintonian no-fly zones, a time of sanctions and sporadic warfare of varying intensity.

Breslau the Wrocław

H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival October 2014 (Best of)

Best of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival

4 October 2014 I queued up for the Best of the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival at the Hollywood Theater in Portland. The festival occurred on a hot October evening. In due time I absorbed the nearly five hours of short films. The Falstaffian gent seated to my left obliquely involved me in a type of conversation. Through the darkened auditorium I viewed movies both old and new to me. Dirt Dauber I had seen, and it held up mightily with its surreal stream of humor and darkness. The Raven dramatized Poe's lines with littoral scenery and much emotion. The organizers included some good stop-action cinema, including an atmospheric Japanese version of The Festival. I also viewed not one but two versions of From Beyond, the intensely funny Doctor Glamour, a pleasantly understated version of W.F. Harvey's August Heat, and more besides.

The choices tilted heavily toward shorts from the last 5-10 years of the HPL Festival-- a few older selections would have been nice. But the event was mostly outstanding. The absence of the usual merchandise vendors made it a purely filmic night.

The evening proceeded without a thought of Lovecraft's racialism. This is because his legacy and influence result from his role as a writer. His racialist views have had little or no impact, as far as influencing others to take up similar beliefs.

Photos of me in Providence, Rhode Island, August 1986