Good evening

Foxygen are a badly named bad band with a really good single called No Destruction. The rest of the album is a stinker. I wanted to text timtam and tell her that the album gave me an aural stomachache because for 16 hours my tummy hurt. It was my ears this time that were hurting. I had downloaded it and went on a bike ride that was cut short from the peppering of wind and rain that I got peppered with. I expected the album to be better , it is awful and then I went and sold it back from where I bought it for half of what I paid and bought another record, Nite Jewel's debut album, which compared to Foxygen is literally the greatest album of all-time and I mean that Nite Jewel's Good Evening is that amazing, in so many ways. 

Those are her shoes on the right and her getting sandwiched by Alex and me above. She didn't love the idea of getting her picture taken with us back in Austin in 2012, but who would? It was nice. We were cool.

I gambled and I lost today on music which almost never or rarely happens, but it sure feels like a win in how Nite Jewel redeemed my faith in music again. The reason it took me so long to get this album is because her last album was good, but I kind of need things to be remarkable these days. Did I mention that on my bike ride I have never seen so many prairie dogs running their little asses off to get to their hole? 

I am appreciating the new Eat Skull as I know Lindsey Buckingham would

Naked Lunch, to these brains, is the great American novel of the modern era. H threw it across the room as a reaction to how queezey it made him. It's not for the faint of stomach, but the humor is immortal. Here's a description of him in the Paris Review by whom sadly I shant recall:

William Burroughs, met in Paris,

is an absolutely astonishing personage, with the grim mad face of Savonarola and a hideously tailored 1925 shit-colored overcoat and scarf to match and a gray fedora pulled down tight around his ears. He reminded me of nothing so much as a mean old Lesbian and is a fantastic reactionary, very prim and tight-lipped and proper who spoke of our present Republican administration as that “dirty group of Reds.”

The Beats live on. James Franco's impersonation of Ginsberg in the Howl film is terrific. What a well-made film! The language of Howl and Naked Lunch are outstandingly well-suited to each other.

McGuane salutes Kerouauc in his essay Roping, From A to B.

There has been a great effort to discredit Kerouac, but i won't hear a word against him. He trained us in the epic idea that the region was America, and that you don't necessarily have to take it in Penciltucky forever just because you were there when your hour had come round at last. It was called On the Road. Kerouac set me out there with my own key to the highway...

My time in Australia told me that there was a lot I didn't know about the U.S. I talk to the nifty Navajo about sunrise puberty ceremonies and appreciable tears of wonder flood my eyes. I've been at the Holiday Inn for a few weeks now. Once again, I am contentedly surrounded by kooks. You meet interesting people coming and going, but the staff themselves are hilarious. This just in: the lone sausage fixed my high school basketball coach's oven today and l.s. reports back coach says I was too slow and still owe him laps.

LB and friends' Tusk is the album I have listened to with the greatest scrutiny in 2013. A candied ear thing of prismatic wonder.

Margarita party tonight. Guests are instructed to bring anything but Jimmy Buffett records. There is enough Jimmy Buffett in me to spare us his muzik. Thank you.

Book notes

• Get Cortez at region 6 and the Saga 
• Maybe Peabody mentions the cat at Region 6 
• Tic Tacs need to be identified

Latest acquisitions: Waking on a pretty daze

Sold some LPs in town and earned some credit, which I used to acquire the new Kurt Vile. Found the second and third side a drag on first listen, the second more so than the third, but on second listen of the second, the second sounds way better than the first time I heard the third. Side four I was in love with on first listen and side one of course has the title track which is the reason I bought the stupid thing in the first place. nine minutes of what don henley should have been recording when he was making animal whoopie with Stevie Nicks (above). After losing twenty dollars yesterday, all I can think of is finally I'm making some terrific economical decisions and tomorrow I will go out for Mexican food and then begin work on the financial prospectis for the year ending 2007!

Fictionalizing Tucson

Did a lot in Tucson, but we didn't see Dick Dale (he played Sat night at Hotel Congress shown backwards here). 

Good light is important when you are driving without headlights on on a dark night, everyone knows that, and also for moments as this, which was probably 5-ish.  

Devilishly attractive Goodwill building.

I  forced Roberto to watch sports at a bar in the afternoon. They served Pabst for a buck. A basketball game was being played that was so intense I ordered a tequila shot with ten minutes to go (pictured). We had a real good time otherwise. Wichita State Shockers lost to Louisville and deservedly so, otherwise I would have been accepted me into their fine arts program probably. Shocking!

This canyon was worth seeing Sunday. I forget its name, but Robert said Paul McCartney had a house nearby for some time. We saw the canyon after a breakfast Robert's mother made of delicious baked eggs in a casserole dish with ham and various other chunks of superb flavor of frittata-like yum for she is Spanish by birth. 

She sunbathes next to the rubbish bins, having many excellent chats with her sister

Went to Bullhead City and took a bunch of pictures that my mom didn't approve of. We were in a trailer park for the most part. My room was leopard themed with Serengeti accents. The bookshop in town sold me a Kurt Vonnegut for two bucks - exorbitant considering the dog ears on the paperback. I did like it for about fifty pages. And the end. The end is good too. Smarter than what I am writing, but I would suggest that being smart can be a deterrent as one's head gets lost up one's hiney. My parents and I thrive - we could be eating mexican food, or shopping for socks. Add one more person to the mix and it throws off our entire dynamic. I simply cannot hang because I don't interest them in many ways and I am not insistent about being appreciated! We're relaxed and good together my parents and me but no one else. Please don't introduce anyone else into the mix!

New Tina Fey film is godawful, literally soporific

Waste of money (two movie tickets, two Pepsis, two candy bars). Tina looks rested in one scene. Paul Rudd looks like he wants out.

Three events in my bed on three consecutive nights

1. Awoken by a leg cramp Saturday night.
2. There was a bat in me bed! Awoken by the flapping wings of a flapping bat. Then it landed in my bed! Finally I flipped on my lamp and put my knees down and thankfully there was no bat.
3. Startled awake to discover, after some consternation, that the sorority girl serial killer was just a dream and as far as I could tell I was no longer hiding in the bushes.

The Spirit of the Beehive is so Goddamn Great

Soderbergh's Behind the Candelabra

I'm excited about this new liberace biopic. Matt Damon stars alongside Michael Douglas, who plays the flamboyant pianist, and the pair are seen getting intimate in several scenes.

Side effects

Went to Steven Soderbergh's latest film, his last, called Side Effects. It's about anti-depressants and it is fairly wild. People get in trouble for different reasons. I didn't know what was going on, but I liked it. Jude Law was mortally flabbergasted, Rooney Mara's hair was Eleanor Friedberger-esque. I wrote in my journal afterwards in the parking lot that that was one creepy ass flick! I never really had side effects. I went on anti-depressants and those made me constipated I remember. I would always complain to the guys at Strategy Publishing about my constipation. I was drinking really strong coffee and my stomach was not coping. This was in 1998-1999 near Multnomah Village. No feeling in my doodle, but that was fine by me. The reason I was on anti-depressants was because the woman I loved was in Tasmania. I stopped taking them after I moved. I wore a funny, but comfortable outfit on the plane.

 

...But back to the busy kitchen with dad and his drawers down getting busy with mom. Funny what the hills can do to a man talking to no one but squirrels for a week.* I will spare you most of the gory details, only to add that dad showed an alarming inability to reacclimate himself to civilisation, namely the house in Portland, Oregon and the polish-tinged love nest mom had created. Take the charts, for an example. Atop Billboard at the time was Al Green’s Let's Stay Together, a top quality tune and ideal for taking that special someone to that next- level place. However in dad's attempt to serenade mom with Reverend Al, he sounded like a grey digger squirrel. Nevertheless I am proof that it worked — most dismal conception ever. Their long marriage is proof also. Fifty two years is nothing to squirrel at.

- from a reading last Saturday at NAU

*as the story goes dad was hunting prior to my conception. He came home and Mom seduced him with beer-battered polish sausages in the kitchen. 

List of credits: speech bubbles by toby dutton, all other instruments boy moritz

Serving the residents of Sedona since 2013

I'm in Sedona driving John's truck around because he had shoulder surgery and vicoden and needed a laxative and parquet courts just came on satellite radio in the parking lot of walgreens.

John had too many death-defying ultimate frisbee altercations. He lives in a trailer park. His landlord is Orson Welles's daughter. 

Got home and fought my cold by ordering Jim Harrison's Letters to Yesenin, a poetry collection, which he describes as a triumphant suicide note. At first, I thought this meant that he achieved death by hand, but I suppose that would be a successful suicide note – triumph is beating death.

Been playing those ass-kicking synthesiser albums Stevie wonder cut in the 70s. Amazing!

Hadn't mentioned this to anyone, including myself, in other words I had forgotten, but now I remember that on the shuttle back from Sedona, I saw what at first glance was a wolf, tramping through the deep snow, but more slender, yet larger than a coyote with a long tail and can only reach the conclusion that what I saw was a mountain lion.  

Year in reading (2012)

Jeff in Venice by Geoff Dyer (25)

His essays are better. Mentions James Turrell. Sent to Annabel with the caveat there are descriptive scenes in India of having diarrhea.

The Loser by Thomas Bernhard (23)

Pale remake of Correction — suicidal postmortem focus is music instead of architecture. Still worthy. 

Out of Sheer Rage by Geoff Dyer (18)

Dyer finding his cantankerous voice brilliantly. Contrary, self-deprecating, good thinking on the page. 

The Bushwhacked Piano by Thomas McGuane (3)

Reread every year in an attempt to write better. I quote myself: “My inability to emulate his style is hardly testament to its genius. I suppose the thing that I take away from it more than any other is Mcguane's steadfast refusal to communicate anything in a conventional fashion. It reads fresh, alien even, every time.”

Yoga for people who can't be bothered to do it by Geoff Dyer (7)

Dyer's masterpiece. 

Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence (17)

Unnervingly erotic. Took one of my NAU's professor's breath away back in her prime.

Gringos by Charles Portis (12)

His diction is sui generis. Prose almost haunting in its comedic tone and execution. 

The Last Gentleman by Walker Percy (28)

The first 50 pages I howled, the rest of it should be literally flushed. Shocking piece of excrement.

Preparations for the Ascent by Gilbert Rogin (8)

Gem of rarefied high comedy. Does not suffer from gag fatigue.

Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West (9)

Can hardly remember reading this as I was learning a hotel job at the time, as a night custodian — what West was doing when he wrote it. Did Nathanael West preheat waffle makers for strangers? Seems unlikely.

Things I Didn't Know by Robert Hughes (27)

Ambivalent about this one. Hughes did way better things. Fatal Shore is awesome and I love what he says about art.

The Emigrants by WG Sebald (19)

A very strange, haunting treatise on what we remember.

Killing Time by Thomas Berger (13)

Phenomenal treatment of the psychopath in this fiction desecrates Capote's big effort. A depth of understanding perhaps only rivaled by Dosteoyefski.

Let me Count the Ways by Peter DeVries (22)

High comedy. Succeeds where Last Gentleman fails.

On the Road by Jack Kerouauc (15)

Moriarity's self-absorbed hipster stinks up the page and Sal is covered in the residual stench of it all, but it's a great american novel even without the brotherhood (which is ultimately moving, despite a lot of the doucheyness).

Thanatos syndrome by Walker Percy (11)

Sequel to one of the great novels of the 20^th century: Love in the Ruins. Brilliant, mate.

Correction by Thomas Bernhard (1)

Punk rocker Richard Katz in Freedom exclusively reads Bernard. Doris, my old housemate, grew up in his neighborhood. Her Dad tells me that the notoriously reclusive Bernhard used to get lunch at the cafeteria of the factory that he worked.

The Collected Stories of Leonard Michaels (2)

This man has strange powers. Find him, use those powers for your idle literary intercourse.

63: Dream Palace by James Purdy (4)

Darker than Nathanael West, less comic, but overall, just as gigantic.

Julip by Jim Harrison (5)

Three novellas, three of his best.

Sylvia by Leonard Michaels (14)

A loan from H with the caveat: proceed with caution, this reminds me of one of your old relationships.

Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway (24)

Indispensable source on craft.

Masters of Atlantis by Charles Portis (6)

I turned to this first, post-breakup. Emotionally, the tone was spot-on. Dad loved it: “What a bunch of derelicts.” Funny.

Panama by Thomas McGuane (10)

A text, I realize, I borrow heavily from in my novella. So good. Rather weird.

The Houseguest by Thomas Berger (29)

Avoid this ugly novel. So misanthropic.

Memoirs by Tennessee Williams (20)

Full of gems like these: “The kitchen door banged open and past me sailed a meatloaf, missing my head by inches. Then came a bowl of succotash, once again missing its target, then the salad, even a silex of coffee. I was so drunk that these missiles did not alarm me. And when the kitchen door banged shut and Frankie charged off in the car, I picked the meat loaf up off the tiles and ate it with as much gusto as if it had been served me on a golden platter.”

Rediscovery of North America by Barry Lopez (16)

What Columbus did in the Americas is too incomprehensible even for terrible fictions.

The Great Leader by Jim Harrison (21)

Hell, it's Jim, read it.

Turn of the Screw by Henry James (26)

Meh.

Mile Marker Zero by Jim Harrison (30)

An interesting history clouded by the author's titillations of sleaze and frankly sucky voice.

Furiously bedridden from too much whisky and dancing!

Fran Gibson was right! Johnny Franzen's Freedom is a masterful achievement, page after page I read it for the sheer pleasure of sumptuous storytelling. Not only did I not make the bed, I currently don't lie in it. Ate a party pizza, which I haven't bought since college. Had a craving to enjoy a ridiculously overmatched red wine with it, but alas, this never came to fruition. We're in the middle of a big snow.  Was partying rather aggressively the morning of my sister's 50th birthday. I'm still unemployed, for the most part, but I'm finishing my novella and my life is undergoing a reversal of magnificent personal splendor unheard of in this modern age.

Museum Club

Timtam was a bit irked that I didn't word her up on a recent potentially frightening excursion to see a guy whose big hit was 'Up against the wall, redneck mother' at Flagstaff's legendary Museum Club. She thought it would be fairly amusing to see me in this heavy dude culture environment. Kitchens promised to pay for half my ticket because I was letting him park his motorcycle in my driveway overnight. He made me wear my trucker cap, as he was generally concerned for my welfare amongst a bar full of badasses and thought the cap would conceal my wussiness. Well everything was fine and a fear of being mistaken for Ned Beatty in Deliverance only came over me once and that is when Kitchens suggested the possibility.

I flashed my horseshoe leather cuff at Timtam subsequently and said of course I looked tremendously gay, but I assimilated myself well amongst the high desert cowboy angel riffraff. She nodded campily. Below is a not-staged assemblage of Kitchens' trinkets in his office where we were before the show that i thought might be worthwhile from a genealogical perspective (note the gopher paw reaching for the toothbrush).


Meanwhile at the show (which was fairly average, great venue though and we had fun) Kitchens and I argue over the significance of Frank Zappa, for whatever reason. Argument ends as the lyrics he quotes from Zappa are pure juvenilia, but I resign myself to the fact that in the context of a good art rock band, provided the Mothers are good (I am guessing they sort of are), silly lyrics are fine. I don't love all of Beefheart's arrangements, but the goofy lyrics are mostly brilliant. After that, we argued over what is a jamband. I was being a little shirty and I threw out the Talking Heads (we were pretty trashed). Kitchens said no way. But then I said James Brown and he still argued. I have yet to look for any Talking Heads jams, but they went Afrikkan at one point.

Girl that was out with Kitchens and I turned to me at one point and said, "you look like a NASCAR driver!" I was like huh? And she said okay, how about a will ferrell movie about NASCAR.

Sparks Fan Club: Flagstaff Chapter

I sent Stewart a text at 8.29pm because I am always listening to Sparks on Saturday nights. I wrote, "I like listening to Sparks" with a smiley face emoticon. He replies, "Weird coincidence. I'm just looking at Sparks website!"

Didn't tell Stewart this, but this is what I was thinking: word up my brother!

Part Company

Never part company at a party in the middle of the Go-between's Part company. That's what I did last night, but my cab was waiting. Get-together at Stew and Jen's. Annah, Jen's pal from Bryn Mawr and her boyfriend, were over. They had been tootling around Moab and Arches in a rental. I suggested Desert Solitaire and I saw Matt's eyes lit up and ears prick up from under his jazz hat. Sounds like they had a great trip filled with many visual marvels and vistas. Stew made Shepherd's Pie and he must have thought I hadn't been eating because I kept going back time and time again for more. It was beefy and apparently easy to make, but he would have performed some trick to get those mashed potatoes as fluffy as they were.

We had a youtube marathon and watched an endless succession of life-affirming clips of Antipodean bands and the like (cannanes, lighthouse keeper, go-bees, marc hunter, david kilgour, the chills, et al). Oh and also the Monks, those godly ex-serviceman who sing I Hate You and many other banging tunes.

Annah and I had Christmas together two years ago. She left her post in LA and moved back to Philly. I told Annah I would do my MFA at Temple and come live with her and she said sure! She owns a big awesome house within walking distance of the university. It's feasible after I go to Prague, Istanbul or Budapest that I could end up in Philly only a fifteen minute bus ride from NYC. Another dear friend, Deedee, wondrous woman of Hollywood yore, is moving in with Annah next month. Maybe we could all live happily in Annah's Queen Anne-style mansion. 

Such a great Go-betweens' song, thankfully chase's handwriting is hardly the stuff of innate beauty or elegance or else the song might sting more than it does. I'm less brokenhearted than I was.

Fraternizing with knockneed sorority girls

Moritzmas

2:49pm and I’m facing the sun on Christmas Eve drinking beer and picking my nose. I blame the dry air for that. The sun is exciting on my face. Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire is a choice choice out here in the desert. Behind me two exciting girls traverse boulder problems.

Josh Treee is brilliant and warm. Sometimes disruptively windy. I am in a tee shirt for some part. Coyotes come onto our site following a covey of quail who have waddled up. Me and kitchens take a long walk with his coonhound Waylon — who bolts into the scrubby wash after a hare. Alas, he comes back and we are able to enjoy some vintage wine Kitchens brought. If the coyotes had gotten his dog I doubt that we would have maintained the jovial mood.

I am eager for contrasting climes. Australia beckons.

Good flight, still airborne. Virgin flight hostesses show the kind of professionalism and courtesy necessary in these times. The food on Virgin is among the worst I ever tast and the movie selection is horrible, but I sleep a lot and I have a very good seat. In lieu of The Fatal Shore, which I leave in Chase's van, I watch Kath and Kim movie on the flight. Unwatchable. Meanwhile, the book I am reading is horribly yoked together by the prurient mind of what seems to me a 16 year-old dickhead fool. He teaches at Boston University. Shame because he’s documenting a fruitful time in Key West’s history, but utterly tainting it with crude anecdotes of McGuane’s sexual exploits. The book is written by a man who plainly can’t right (sic) and mistakes a tumbler for a pint glass.

After having arrived in Melbs.. 

Hope David and Mia don’t mind that I ate the almonds that were sitting next to the guest bed, they will be unable to retaliate once I am back in Flagstaff. It’s a race against time essentially. Lay in bed thinking of a variation on the band Crime and the City Solution after I see they have reformed and are playing shows according to the local street press. Clams and the solution to crime. Not too bad I fell asleep thinking but now I am not too sure. Take a walk in the park with David and Mia. Take my jacket off and sit in an abandoned blue chair. Drape the jacket over the armrest and David takes my photo. Getting up I see a used condom on the ground by my foot and notify him. David says it must have fell out of my pocket. I laugh. The end.

Leave my St John’s at Mia and Dave’s, so I'm hoping that Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire will keep my mind from being infiltrated by the hounds of bad juju. Abbey is an amazing philosopher of life in the red desert country. A calm influence.

Day after Toby and suze’s bbq I am journaling out in the sunny courtyard when a man named Toby comes up behind me and dictates. “The sun was beating down on my neck as I wrote. A gentleman with a hangover walked in and sat down beside me.”

Consume bloody marys and then go and have pancakes with paul Phillipson before he goes to shoot a wedding in country Victoria. Paul’s good. He’s moving to England in April. I told him about my latest idea regarding teaching in Prague and he tells me about the level of hospitality there.

Two days in Loch sport is grand. Beach, good company, dance tunes and tequila and kangaroo visitations. Here's a bottle of vodka I left at Kyle and James' 4 years ago. We had to drink it.

One more trip to the city to see the Jeff Walls exhibition and drink pitchers of cocktails on astro turf, served by barmaids in exquisite Seventies tennis whites who play sparks records, or at least they should. Discuss one of my favorite photos and how I got a new reading from it. Two girls in front of a window in an apartment overlooking the Vancouver harbor on a bleak day. The woman standing has something on her mind but she won’t be able to have it out with the woman on the couch reading a magazine because the magazine is clearly more important.We have all been in this position. It's a great photo with good tension, but really my fav photo is the one of the guy trying to polish his shoes.

Wow, the good times move so fast that I often feel that I don’t have a moment to reflect on the good times that I am having, but times are indeed good, I can confidently say. I have been away long enough that the numbers on a calendar have no meaning for me. I know it is 2013, but I keep forgetting that new year has passed, which is a shame because it was actually one of the more memorable ones.    

Lay in bed on my last day in Melbourne. As the temperature rises, so does my page count of Desert Solitaire. It’s one of the great books. I feel a greater connectedness to the world reading E Abbey. Less likely to internalize my feelings – he is all about externalizing, we should complement the earth, use it, harmonize, the reverse is unease, anxiety. I bike in to see Cat who opened a new shop on High Street across town. I actually pass by Jesse and carla’s and make a mental note to pop back in if I have more time. Cat’s such a sweetie, she doesn’t mind that I am all sweaty, or at least she says she didn’t. May have stunk too. Chaser’s lavender deodorant is not as effective as I would like it to be.

Cat tells me craigie follicles moved to Thailand. I miss him. Cat’s well, engaged and literally has a bird on her shoulder named Milton.

Even though I don’t have time (ha!), I pop into see Jesse because I love him. He was in his underwear babysitting his daughter. We listened to Italian prog in the dark with the cricket on mute.

Francesca and Tom’s party is the dreamy stuff of legend. Rousing renditions, what I hope my funeral might one day be like. New Estate play unplugged it is excellent. Toby sings a Tom Petty song — Shane Falling (“he’s a good boy loves his momma, loves America and coburg too. I grin widely the whole time. It is a hot day (42 celsius). Stay up all night to catch a 6am flight.

A stroll up buzzing Enmore Rd is a good two hour buzz and culminates in a pad thai lunch. The asian food selection here is remarkable and the pad thai I have truly rocks. I return to the flat and snooze and wake up hot and make an iced coffee, the fuel I need to compose these words. Bel arrives eager to see me. She says things that I can relate to such as “It was how I always imagined my life as a woman.” We eat a delicious mango salad at the Vietnamese restaurant from next door.


   Gee, art museums are so pretty

Bel and I have a glorious time in the heat imagining ourselves getting up to no good in Mexico with kris Kristofferson and Dennis Hopper and seeing Francis Bacon at the museum. Sydney has never felt more exotic and well, hot. The entire continent at one point reaches the hottest temperature ever.

Bel discusses whether I will be able to take the delectation of Rocky Road that she will make because she has leftover ingredients to make it however she just wants to be sure that Virgin Air will allow it. She’s a good egg, that bel. Postscript she never did make it. Hahaha.

Mixed nuts and other delights

Ate a snackbar my parents sent me for Christmas.

If only they knew that the nuts would get in my teeth where my tooth used to be they might reconsider what they send me (although in their defense the packaging did say from Santa).  Probably shouldn’t have opened it before Christmas anyway.  Damn I need to get my tooth fix. Why won’t someone publish my novel? What’s with all these gray hairs suddenly? On the right is a photo of Chaser biking home to get books on Thanksgiving. What I did was watch football and drink beer and when she arrived (our house is not far from the diner) I read books with her and waited for the Himalayan grill to open up at 5pm.

What happened after we ate the  lamb mixed grill I can tell you because it is in my notes:

“Passed out in the handicapped toilet of Liberal Arts. It’s our nearest loo and we don’t like to mingle (my officemate and I) with the plebes. The cause of the unconsciousness was some kind of gastronomical disorder.” 

To give you some context my officemate was not in there with me and this episode occurred the day after Thanksgiving. Perhaps this will be the extent of my holiday blogging this year. Would you look at this cabin? It is a fire lookout. It takes about two hours to climb to the top. Chase ran it and I had to go it alone. I thought the many ravens near the summit were circling her body. She thought I had been trampled by elk. We were glad when neither of these were true. The Grand Canyon was observed from the top.

Walking alone is tiring at first - the mind if full of junk and cougar attack paranoia, but after an hour or so and some mixed nuts you start to zone into the landscape and get rather philosophical about your place in the world. Below is the kind of shots you would often see in a John Ford movie. Do you have a favorite John Ford shot? Post them here and I'll pick a winner. Winners get a postcard with a short message.