I’m just back from an overnight trip to Saratoga Springs with M. I took her to see her favorite band, Glass Animals, at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, which is located in the middle of this huge state park just outside of Saratoga Springs. Absolutely beautiful and a wonderful place to see a show. I’m totally exhausted from 6 hours of driving in two days–half of which was in a torrential downpour–and barely getting any sleep last night, so I should be comatose on the sofa. But why not write a brain-addled, semi-coherent post instead?
1. You get so few chances to make lasting memories with your kids before they’re too old to want to do anything with you – it’s important to manufacture them when you can. M. says she discovered Glass Animals before I did, and she introduced me to them, which is total bullshit. No clue where she got that from. In actuality, she ‘discovered’ them by me playing Heat Waves and the album Dreamland over and over again during COVID, when I was trying to keep my mentals above water in any way possible. Dreamland had just come out, and per the title, it had this dreamy, funky, ethereal quality to it that I took to right away, after hearing Heat Waves on Alt Nation and some other Sirius channels. On occasion, I’d play some of their older stuff, Gooey, Youth, Pork Soda. M. heard it, liked it, and eventually started to explore their music on her own. She’s like a Spotify groundhog when it comes to music, and she has a photographic memory when it comes to song lyrics. When I Love You So F***ing Much came out last year, she learned all the songs–she actually knows more of the lyrics to their music than I do now–and really got into the band. I went to see them last August at MSG and thought about bringing her with me, but I wasn’t sure what the crowd would be like, so I demurred. I felt like shit when the crowd was totally mellow and cool, then when I got home and told her about it and saw her disappointed face, as if she’d missed a visit from Santa Claus. I promised her I’d take her next time. (I did get her a Glass Animals t-shirt that she loves and proudly wears to school. Her math teacher even asked her about it.)
Next time came sooner than I expected when she told me they were touring again a few months ago. I looked it up, and sure enough, they were coming to New York again, but upstate New York, not NYC, a three-hour drive from here. Bit the bullet and got us a pair of great orchestra seats at SPAC, which is a pretty small venue compared to MSG. Way better seats than I had before, even though the stage set was really scaled down from MSG. It was also lead singer Dave Bayley’s birthday last night, and the whole crowd sang Happy Birthday to him, which was really special. Glass Animals is such a fun, funny, and quirky band–it suits both of our personalities perfectly. She had a fantastic time, and seeing that smile on her face–the special one, the unusual one–is one of the things I live for now. She got to see the band live like a real fan and became more immersed into her future life as a teenager. For example, she reported with surprising disgust that she saw some girls totally trashed in the bathroom. Then I got the opportunity to explain to her that the pungent stink in the air was that of second-hand marijuana.
All of it was beautiful and another life memory marker for both of us. I want to do more things like this with her.
2. Birthday trips are my new tradition, and I just booked another one. Should I tell you where Waldo is going this year? I don’t know. I’ll think about it.
3. I take one night off from the news and social media and Mango Mussolini sends troops to Los Angeles, moving us one step closer to martial law, as yours truly predicted last November. Seriously, dude, just rip the Band-Aid off already. And he has the gall to call these protestors “insurrectionists” and threaten to arrest them for hitting cops after PARDONING hundreds of ACTUAL INSURRECTIONISTS en masse the day he took office. The hypocrisy is utterly comical, but it’s the playbook of every tinpot dictator in history. When are those Big Macs gonna start working their magic on the asshole’s arteries? This shit is taking way too long.
4. I think I’m quite pleased with my new photo gallery. It looks clean and streamlined, just the way I imagined it, and I’m really enjoying curating photos for it, as tedious and time consuming as the process is. It’s also nice to have one place to direct people to instead of just sending them individual photos. I’m excited to build on it. One idea I have is to do a few “Photo Essays,” where I can combine my writing with my photography on a focused subject or theme. I already have an idea for one. I also think I want to do some write-ups to orient the collections.
But it’s not all strawberries and whipped cream. I’ve also run into some issues.
5. Linking this blog with my photography site is great for convenience and efficiency, but bad for anonymity. I sort of outsmarted myself on this. By using the name ‘DIDOMENT’ for both, it makes it way too easy for people to find both sites. What’s the big deal, you may ask? Who cares? Here’s the problem. I don’t care who finds my photography site – sharing it is the entire point of having it. Sharing it with friends, family, co-workers, and ahem, prospective romantic targets to enhance my mojo and, you know, make myself look all creative and cultured and shit. More interesting and fuckable. Isn’t this why men do anything? To attract women and get laid? I’m kidding! I didn’t create a photography site to get laid more. I’m doing it for the love of the art and for reasons I’ve previously stated. But if it leads to me becoming more attractive in any capacity and improving my desert of a sex life, I will not complain, no sir, I will not!
But herein lies the problem. I can’t send a link to my photography site without someone finding this site–which is way too open, raw, and potentially humiliating for the Tim Exploration Experience. There’s way too much information about my internal self here, much of which is comprised of temporary in-the-moment thoughts and feelings that someone who doesn’t know me well could take out of context and judge me on before getting to know me. That is no bueno. So I need to figure this out. I may need to change one of the names, delink them, or just not share either one until someone likes me so much they just can’t quit me, like those gay cowboys in Brokeback Mountain.
That last notion is so unrealistic it makes me laugh. I think I might need to change one of the names. Fuck’s sake.
6. Looking through 20 years’ worth of old photos is not conducive to living in the present. When I conceived of creating a photo site, I don’t think I fully processed how many photos I’d have to go through and how semi-triggering they’d be upon first re-opening and working on them. For example, I took so many of these photos on trips with Ex., trips I’d forgotten about or buried deep in my memory hole. I got seriously into photography only a year or two before we met, so I was all over it whenever we traveled somewhere. Looking through all the old photos of our trips together, two things primarily came to mind: (1) She was really patient with my stops, starts, pauses and running to specific spots to get a shot I wanted; and (2) She really encouraged this hobby I love in a way that I’d long forgotten. She not only did (1), but she took photos of me being (acting like) a photographer, photos that I wouldn’t have otherwise. And I didn’t even ask her to do it. She just did it without me knowing. I’m really grateful for those photos now. I also found photos I took where I remember her being far less patient with my starts and stops. Unsurprisingly, this was after our marriage. Everyone’s a real trooper when you’re dating, amiright? Shit changes a few years later, once you’re locked in and start taking each other for granted. Kind of sad, isn’t it? Human nature though. So in our post-marriage years, there are way more photos I took right before or right after we’d had a disagreement or argument, and far fewer photos she took of me doing my thing. Her patience was waning, as was mine.
Same thing with photos of my time in Williamsburg, which predate her and generate their own sense of wistfulness and ‘What Ifs’, even if they only last a few seconds. I took so many photos there and am proud of many of them. A lot of that fucking bridge, but I lived right next to it, and I love that bridge.
I hadn’t looked at these images in years, but they’re all markers of moments in time in my life, which is one of my favorite things about photography, the way it freezes time and captures and records an emotion, a feeling, a place, an experience, in a way nothing else does. These photos take me back to those times, places, and emotions, and now I’m able to view them from the vantage point of knowing everything that followed. Obviously, a lot of time has passed so everything is faded and numb, but when I’m processing these photos in Lightroom, there’s like a two or three minute span where I’m able to once again feel the emotion of the moment I took the photo, not in a sad or bittersweet way necessarily, but just a life experience, chapter in my life kind of way. It’s cathartic, honestly, the way these memories all settle into their proper place after the initial trigger. Fortunately, this part of the site is almost done, so I’ll be moving on to more present-day images and can reclaim my zen.
7. My visit to Auschwitz transformed me more than I realize. Reprocessing old photos of my visit to Auschwitz 17 years ago really took me back there and not in a good way. I remember feeling nauseous the entire time and for days afterwards. This is hard to explain, but I felt this despondent, dark presence in Auschwitz. I visited on this beautiful sunny day, but the entire time I was there, I felt this sensation of all of the lives that were extinguished, as if they were ghosts walking next to me. It was not hard to imagine the fear and utter dread that the prisoners of Auschwitz must have felt every single day, sometimes for years, if they were fortunate enough to keep living. The way loved ones were ripped from them, never to be seen again. The dehumanization and unimaginable brutality they experienced at the hands of the Nazis, which are well-documented in the museum there. The way antisemitism and genocide was tolerated by German society, how victims of the Nazis–men, women, and children–were treated like animals while they were alive, and then like garbage when they were killed, systematically and with a cavalier efficiency that is horrific to witness up close. They were murdered with Zyklon B in showers and gas chambers, then their bodies burned in ovens, then their ashes rose up through grotesque smokestacks that litter the Auschwitz landscape, a reminder to all who remained alive of their potential fate at any moment, as if the ashes falling on their heads like snowflakes weren’t enough.
Through my camera lens, I tried to capture the emotions I felt looking at the macabre railroad tracks, the thick concrete execution wall adorned with flowers and wreaths, the horrific crematorium, the bare, minimalist barracks that weren’t fit for animals, and the dozens of thin, brick chimneys that looked like a bunch of middle fingers being raised to humanity.
I also tried to capture some of the people I saw around me. I remember appreciating, respecting, and even loving all the Israelis I saw visiting Auschwitz that day. It happened to be May 1st, Israel Independence Day. I remember thinking how beautiful and incredible it was that millions of Jews survived and thrived after the horror of the Holocaust, how they now had their own country and how fantastic and just this was, both for them and for the world. How their descendants’ survival and the creation of Israel gave hope to the world. To me, Israelis were living breathing hope for humanity. The small signs they made and left on the ground said “Never Again.”
Never Again, indeed.
How much has changed. My present-day feelings about Israel and Israelis are well-documented here, so I won’t repeat all of them. The history of Israel’s creation is far more colonialist, inhumane, and bloodthirsty to the people they killed and displaced than I understood (or remembered) when I was visiting Auschwitz. I was foolishly naive in my thoughts about Israel when I was there. In too many ways to count, the victims have become the victimizers. The descendants of people who were viewed as animals by the Nazis, people who were exterminated like they were nothing, now view Palestinians as animals and are exterminating them like they are nothing. In fact, they have been doing so for decades now, since before Israel’s formation. To most Israelis “Never Again,” means “Never Again for US, not for YOU.” To me, the Irgun, Haganah, Lehi, and the IDF are cut from the same cloth as Nazis. My eyes are open now. There is no religious or ethnic immunity from being a mass murderer, ethnic cleanser, or committer of genocide. Israel qualifies in every way, and now I despise it, as much as it pains me to say this.
It is profoundly ironic that my current feelings about Israel, my fury and utter disgust at what it is doing to Palestinians–what it has been doing to Palestinians for 80 years–is rooted in my visit to Auschwitz almost two decades ago. Viewing and reprocessing my old photos from that horrible place reminded me of this. The entire time I was there, I couldn’t believe that ANYONE could allow this to happen. I couldn’t believe that human beings could act this depraved towards other human beings. One surprising thing I learned in Auschwitz was that while they were the clear majority of victims, Jews were not the only category of victims who were imprisoned and mass murdered in Auschwitz and other German concentration camps. Romas, Soviets, Poles of every category, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others were too. In particular, I was utterly stunned by how many Polish people the Nazis killed, and it didn’t matter if they were Jewish or not. They killed anyone who didn’t accept the erasure of Polish society and replacement with Nazism. How much time did we give to Poland in my AP History class in high school? An hour to talk about the Blitzkreig? Polish people suffered immeasurably at the hands of the Nazis, and you never hear about this in American history books. I learned it in Auschwitz.
I was absolutely horrified by all of this and felt it in my soul. To me, “Never Again”–all those Never Again signs that were placed on the railroad tracks–meant “Never Again For ANYONE,” not just Jewish people. Given all that they suffered, all that their ancestors suffered at the hands of Nazis, it infuriates me to no end that it’s Israelis who are committing their own holocaust against another group of people, just so they can steal more of their land and live out a Biblical fantasy akin to an American Evangelical fairytale. More than anyone, Israelis should know better. More than anyone, Israelis should emphasize with the plight of Palestinians instead of trying to wipe them off the map. More than anyone, Israelis should be held to a higher standard than everyone else in the world. But this isn’t how things go, is it? No, the way things go is that due to the world’s misplaced guilt about the Holocaust, Israel gets a free pass to kill whomever it wants, whenever it wants, wherever it wants, while the world looks the other way or worse, actively helps Israel mass murder people. Israel is held to a lower standard than everyone else. It gets to do things that no other country (except maybe the United States) gets away with. This sickens me, and if you dare to call it out, you’re called ‘antisemitic.’ I’m not anti-semitic. I’m anti-Zionist. I’m anti-Israel. I love Jewish people. I despise the apartheid ethnostate that was created 77 years ago–more specifically, what it has done and continues to do to the indigenous people it killed and displaced in order to exist. If it wants to deserve to exist, it needs to change fundamentally. It needs to do a 180. It needs to dismantle all of the illegal settlements, recognize a Palestinian State in the West Bank and Gaza, and allow Palestinians the full rights of a free and independent state, including free trade with whomever it wants, and a military with which to defend itself. It also needs to grant full civil rights to Arabs who live in Israel. It needs to fully reconcile with its violent creation, just like the United States needs to reconcile with slavery and its own genocide of Native Americans. Until then, Israel can go fuck itself.
Sadly, the lasting lesson from Auschwitz is that mass murder, ethnic cleansing, and genocide are alive and well in the world. The only thing that changes are the putrid and delusional rationalizations for them.
Don’t like my opinions on this subject? Blame Auschwitz.
8. Last year I put down my Kindle and got into reading books again. I don’t know what made me do it. I went into a Barnes & Noble, felt some books in my hands, and I guess I missed the tactile experience of holding a book instead of another fucking screen. Since then I’ve been reading a lot more. You might say it re-Kindled my love of reading. Heh. The books in the left stack are books I’ve read over the past 8 months or so. The books on the right are books I still need to read, including several I bought earlier today. I really need to pump the brakes on buying more books until I get through what I already have. I went though a serious run of fiction, and now it’s time to balance it out a bit I think.
Of the books I read, my favorites were The Heart in Winter (I enjoyed this one a lot – love the way Barry writes), Lincoln in the Bardo, and This is How You Lose the Time War, which a B&N sales clerk recommended. I hadn’t read SciFi in a while, and I really enjoyed it. James is a re-telling of Huck Finn from Jim’s perspective, and I think it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction this year. Liked it, didn’t love it. Blue Ruin is pretty good — I’ve written about it before. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine is excellent and a must-read to understand the conflict.
9. Ex. and I are at a comfortable stasis, may it continue. We go through phases where we see each other more than I’d like and then there are times like now when I don’t see her for weeks. She’s dating someone new–another state trooper, lmfao–which I think has her fully occupied. That six months to a year honeymoon phase can be really intense, I get it. We crossed paths for the first time in weeks at M.’s school chorus concert the other night. She was dressed all in black with this blood-red fingernail polish I’d never seen her wear before, and her hair was done up all nice. She was coming from a funeral–her boyfriend’s mother just passed away–and it’s important to look good at these things.
She told me that she met his ex-wife there for the first time.
EX.: She was exactly like he described her: big boobs, dark red lipstick, tight dress, walking around like she owned the place. I got the hell out of there just at the right time.
ME: So he has a type then.
Laughter ensued.
10. Prague. I’m going to Prague. A place I’ve never been to that’s been on my travel list for a long time. Cannot wait!
