i like to tell stories : 2010 : October

15 People Not Touching Each Other

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July 5, 2010 | 11 Minutes, 2 Seconds

For Your Friends

Today there was a man building a line in the place in which I live. Also today, Saturday, October 16, 2010, I received the last of these four gifts. This man gave me this cross. I went inside and placed it around my neck and onto my bare chest as I excitedly re-listened to the story that he just told me. It was important to him to tell me and it was important to me to listen. He told me of a story that changed his life forever told to him by a man named Nelson.

My Middle Name Is Nelson

Listen above or listen here.

I came across this interview in a way I randomly come across things. It is of a man I know, who is the man in the photograph on that page and who once made an effort to get to know me when he didn’t have to. He looked at all my photographs of men in suits the first day we met, he then looked directly at me and said, “You are only allowed to shoot naked girls this week.” He knew what I needed and he made that happen. I took his portrait later that week and many years later, I mailed it to him. Now, just the other day, even more years later, I got to see that it meant enough to be where it is there. Also, another man I know just met him and I was passed along a story that I really needed that day too.

I was about to go away for many many days. Before I left I ordered something a friend made from the other side of the planet in a land I desperately want to visit. During those many days away, I was randomly told to spend all my nights in the same room, #214. Upon my return, this item was waiting for me all the way from that land so far away.

There are only 300 and mine is #214.

A friend asked me to photograph something really important to him. All I asked for was a way to get there, a way to get around once there and a place to stay. He agreed. Then I made him the best photographs I could. When his mother saw what I had made with all my might, she was moved and told me to choose one of her late husband’s photographs to have printed just for me. I didn’t have to think much, I knew which photograph by this man I wish I had met that I wanted. How it was made is a good story.

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Sometimes, no one but me can see just what I can, just how I do, just like you.

I Will Press That Button

Today I was X-Rayed, I was cleaned and I was drilled. This took several hours, all today, in two different visits.

The technician asked me why I had the camera in my hand and I told her why.

Then I told her every time she hurts me, I will press that button.

July 7, 2010

How I Failed My Grandfather

19 Sugar Cookies I Failed To Eat All Of | 10/10/10

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I had never stayed by myself with my grandfather before. He was baby-sitting me. My brother, my parents and my grandmother were all out. There was a small kitchen that had a bank teller like opening to the living room where I was watching TV. My grandfather called me into the kitchen where he was sitting as he did at the black kitchen table wearing just his white undershirt and black pants. He always sat in the chair that let him look through that opening at the TV. We were watching game shows, one show had a wheel.

He told me to get the chips from the cupboard. I did. Then he told me to get the pretzels. I did. Then the bread, the lunch meat, the soda and on it went, item after item. I got them all then sat down. He made me a sandwich and we ate together sitting there at the black kitchen table watching the wheel on TV through our window.

All the sudden as I was finishing my sandwich, he froze and then I heard it too. There was a car in the driveway outside. He started handing me item by item and telling me to rush, getting each back in its place as fast as I could. He saw the confused look in my face and told me that everyone had returned to pick us up and take us out to dinner. They cannot know we just ate. Just as I got the last item back, everyone walked in. My grandfather really liked to eat.

At dinner my dad kept asking me why I wasn’t eating. I didn’t tell him why until right now and this was likely one of my best kept secrets.

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I was at a store whose logo looks like a wheel, I found a tray of cookies that looked like a wheel and I had found a portrait of my grandfather from the food store he managed packed away in a lonely place a short time before. Once I had the idea, the desire, I had to try. I returned, I bought the cookies, I waited 24 hours without eating anything at all, I sat down and I tried to eat each and every one. I did this in the home of my grandfather’s widow. I failed this test and my ability to keep his secret. It feels different then I thought it would. When I ate my last orange cookie, I walked to my green couch and pretended to sleep in the orange light. I could not do that either but knew it needed to be done.

My Mirror With A Reflection In It

“.taerg oot si enola tfel eb ot erised eht nehW” | “When the desire to be left alone is too great.”

A Place That Is Not My Home, But Is A Place In Which I Stay

Sometime Or Other The Night Of March 26 Or The Morning Of March 27 | March 27, 2010 – 10:35:41 AM

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There is a wall in the place I stay that has two sides. These two photographs are on either side of this same wall. In one photograph, I can now see closed eyes in the reflection and in the reflected words, I can now see what was being thought. Both in a way I then could not have known, both I first saw on the internet and both for that moment and today, were a surprise even if I thought one was only once a theoretical possibility.

In the other photograph, I can now see open eyes where mine were once closed. This happen on the other side of this same wall in this place that is not my home but is a place in which I stay.

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There was once a line buried deep on both sides of this wall, fortunately & un-fortunately, it’s been removed for me.

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A pink flower wallpaper, a red towel that waited 277 days to be where it is, a blue nightlight that helps me see when I can otherwise not, that I keep moving around this place, a medicine cabinet I don’t use, a towel rack I never use, a towel rack I always use, a reflection that is not mine, two plastic clips that need tightening, a plastic shield that needs cleaning, a wood frame that holds it, a light switch I can never find, an orange glow, one large mirror I never photograph myself in because of that once theoretical possibility and not one wall, but three walls, one actual and two actual, reflected.

My Desire To Know

My Blue Green Eye

The Pink Dot I Learned To Make Out Of The Sun

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My desire to know was still true this morning. So I looked again exactly where I had been told. I stared at the map, now that clearly wasn’t right. So I looked where I had once been a farmer not so far away. Then I just looked at a better map. There it was, plain as looking at a photograph like one or several I’d once seen before.

My map’s North just hadn’t been a true one.

The Sun Without Any Color Through Glass

4 Photographs The Seconds After I Learned | August 6, 2010 | 8:44:50 AM – 8:58:26 AM

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This place I made these photographs is not my home, but is a place in which I stay. This is the second time maps made me instantly walk away from them so I could instantly make my own. This day it was three from the bedroom I won’t use where I could see the sun from inside. The last standing next to the steps in the hallway that leads there where I could not. The first time, I walked outside and let that sun hurt my eyes from a single place, spot and point.

Once

The Pink Dot The Moon Made

One Full Moon & The Pink Flare It Made | One Brother & Another | 4 Photographs | July 25, 2010

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I was in love, so I told her so. She told me that my love was like the kind of love one dreams of as a child, that it was like a fairytale. Then she told me, “I only got back together with him to get over you.”

When I was really young, my parents took me to see a performance of Peter Pan. I remember red theater seats all arranged at a vertical angle, so that every one seat could see the stage. I remember being confused that a woman was performing the part of a boy. I remember the uniqueness of this woman’s eyes. I remember seeing this woman and her unique eyes falsely fly around on wires and wishing that I really could. Years after this, I saw an entirely different version of a NeverNeverLand done on a stage. The creator, she called me only minutes before it debuted, but I knew I was not what was on her mind so I didn’t answer that call for the very first time. This Land I will not forget details of either, just as it was known I couldn’t and I’d want to, even when I dream like a child.

I don’t remember any part of these two Lands I experienced, or any other fairytale, making me feel like I do today.

Today I never wanted to be only a memory, accurate or manufactured or occasionally and frequently forgotten.

I never wanted so many of my fragments visible in a way that blinds me.

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What Can You Do, What Will You

Plant & Harvest

38d, 15h, 57m & 33s | June 30, 2010 | That Other Day & Today I Was A Reluctant Farmer

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There is a place, that if you go, you will see, there is no more trace of me.

It is even like I was never really there at all any more, the after now is the same as what was before.

A True Story, Only Different

Four Men Maybe Named Michael

September 9, 2010

Two Men Waiting Alone, Two Men Walking Together

Made From The Driver’s Seat Of My Car As I Drove Alone | Once As I Drove & Once As You Drove

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Years ago I was at a small gathering after a screening. I was standing in a circle of three men, only one of which I knew. A fourth man walked up and joined our little awkward social circle the way it seems grownups do. I saw him immediately to my left but didn’t really see him as he was too close. The conversation broke and he turned and introduced himself to me, looking me right in the eyes as he shook my hand, “Michael.” “Jonathan,” I responded. I looked across the circle of us at the one man I knew. That man acknowledged with his eyes that yes, this Michael was exactly who I thought it was. It got quiet, I wanted to have a conversation with this Michael but all that could come to my mind this unexpected moment was to tell him thank you.

But I Didn’t & He Deserved One

We all stood there in this quiet little awkward social circle moment. A few more awkward moments passed and then we all walked away from one another, each one of us a different direction alone.

I Want To Go Skinny Dipping, I Have Never Been

Sitting here tonight when this song shuffled up, I tried to remember the year I stood in this quiet little awkward social circle, but I cannot. I can remember the first time I heard this song however, just like you probably can. The math of unrelated events tells me what is linked above was made within a month or two (or year) of this quiet little awkward social circle. He was wearing a different shirt the day we introduced ourselves to one another than the one he is wearing linked above. Tonight, I understand his shirt in a way I would not have then.