My Mad Men Obsession Continues...

I just caught up to the rest of the world and I saw this Vanity Fair article on Mad Men.

Honestly, I've not read the article yet because I'm loving the photographs. I mean, seriously, just look at them:







Annie Liebovitz's photos are stunning. Sort of a Norman Rockwell throwback quality to them. These images are a little genteel by comparison. However, if you can dig back into your memory, or perhaps you might have missed W Magazine's photo essay with Brad and Angelina.






Both sets are extremely narrative. However, Steven Klein's photos show a menace in marriage that lies beneath the surface. There's a softer hint of tension with the images of Mad Men protagonists, Betty and Don. I love both sets. I think by default, my generation is still captured by the imagination of life in 1960s America.

I don't know. I've been thinking about marriage a lot lately, particularly because I'm revising a short story of my own that has a character looking side-eyed at it.

Maybe it's time to read more Yates.

Flatbush and Ocean Avenues

© syreeta mcfadden 2009

Writing on The Wall 2.0

DSC_4298, originally uploaded by indigo_belle.

© syreeta mcfadden 2009

Grand Street and Lexington Avenue

Gates Avenue and Downing Street

© syreeta mcfadden 2009

Greene Avenue between Washington and St. James

© syreeta mcfadden 2009

Memorial Day

Remembering those who have served and sacrificed. Below are photographs from the Veterans Hospital campus in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.





Siempre Fidelis.

NOLA Diary - Fragments

It was too brief a trip. It was my first trip to the Crescent City and I only got a small taste. NOLA was in good spirits when I arrived. Jazzfest was in full swing, along with some ill-advised consumption of deep fried foodstuffs and crawdads. Yeah, I said it. Crawdads.

Some fragments of my impressions:

1. Time is measured by BS and AS. Before the Storm. After the Storm. The Storm holds weight. It is matter of fact. It is reality. It is not imagination. It is lived and it is real.

2. The fleur de lis has three points. It is symbol and totem. It is ubiquitous. It is an act of defiance. The phoenix that rises from the ashes. NOLA is rising.

3. Gentrification presents paradox. Rebuild, renewal and rebirth challenges the traditional neighborhood fabric and urban design. The communities of the 9th Ward, Mid City, Esplanade are in transition.

4. There's nothing French about the French quarter. Jackson Square is Plaza Mayor, Madrid.

You come to really know a place through the passage of time. Sure, I'd seen films about 'Nawlins' as well as the documentaries about Katrina. But it provides a limited point of view. It frames the narrative of communities and the people who live in them. You can see a picture and connect to place and feeling, but you're only looking at the object through a narrow prism of the photographer/filmmaker. You hope it evokes an awareness of space, sound and feeling that you may have felt when you took the shot. And in the sequencing of those images and sound, the filmmaker hopes to construct a larger narrative for her audience. It's still two dimensional. Memory works like that sometimes. It's spotty, fragmented, fractured and magic all at once.

Nonetheless, I've included some images from my travels.













I don't presume that my photos tell the whole story. I don't think that was the point in my taking them. It really says more about me as photographer. And all of this is a really long way of saying that I plan to go back as soon as I get the chance.

Happy Earth Day

County of Kings

After an unpredictable slew of transitional weather, Brooklyn found herself basking in the warm glow of the sun. Here are some scenes from yesterday's life in the sunshine.













Under a big bright yellow sun. It's going to be a good summer.

NaPoWriMo - Photo of the Day, Day 10

Poetry! Your verses and your metaphors, you stump me! Curses! (she says shaking fist angrily in the air). Alas, I leave you with an image. Maybe this will prompt a poem for others.



It's Passover and Holy Week this week; the lovely overlap between Judaism and Christianity, just after the equinox, the birth of a new season and new life. Easter for those of you in the know, replaced the pagan holiday that celebrated the Babylonian goddess, Astarte. It was the moment when life returned to the earth after the fall and winter, which was her descent into the underworld for her love, Tammuz. She traveled through seven gates in the underworld to bring him back to life. It was the Babylonians' way to explain the change of seasons. And it's not an accident that Astarte and Easter appear to have a relationship in their spelling. You may recognize this story in other myths and you would be right. Ancient peoples dreamed in a common language.

Today is Good Friday and at sundown, Shabbat. Holidays (Holy Days) are important; we mark time and we stop in our busy lives to celebrate. Another poet friend noted that in her NaPoWriMo post earlier this week,'Jews have so many/holidays is because they know that the world/will always come up with occasions for sorrow.'

My Passover miracle this week: there was a fire in the hallway outside of my apartment when i wasn't home. The hallway was completely destroyed, but my door and apartment was untouched. True fact.

Happy Easter and Chag Sameach. Live your life and love it.

photo: © syreeta mcfadden 2009

NaPoWriMo - Photo of the Day

Poems, poems. Why do you elude me? As promised, a meager photo substitute.

The quote: 'The Wanderer is overcome by the joy of existence, so that he can only laugh.' - Buddha

From my travel journal on August 18, 2002.

How's that for a writing prompt?

photo: © syreeta mcfadden 2009

NaPoWriMo

Is not a car. Is not a pair of jeans, or a new band. It is the acronym for National Poetry Month. Beginning every April and for the remainder of 29 days, NaPoWriMo encourages all of us, rock star poets to the general population to write poems. One poem every day.

And don't you think there is no better time than now to write poems? The writing and reading of poems, at least for me, has always proven instructive. It compels me to give pause to a hurried lifestyle, where I miss things like silence, grace, beauty, and reflection. When I was growing up, my grandmother gave me poems to read as shorthand to unravel my conflicting emotions. I don't think I would've survived my teens without the quiet, defiant confidence I got from Invictus. Or hold the contradictions of being an individual and a world citizen without If. And if she hadn't primed me, I don't think I would've felt exhilarated when I read Canonization, and ultimately realizing that those metaphysical poets I studied my senior year were really masters at seduction. Ah, John Donne, you had me at 'let me love.'

I'm going to try to meet this challenge and post a poem a day. We'll see how I do. And if the words don't come, I'll substitute with a photograph. Because sometimes, a picture is worth a thousand words.

photo: © syreeta mcfadden 2009

Populist Outrage

Looks like AIG isn't the only one who's gonna get it. This was the scene today around Bowling Green in Lower Manhattan.

We need a hero for the people in these times...



But alas, we're in a bear market. And all we can hope for is to find someone special and to cuddle with while we weather the storm.



Seriously. I cannot make this stuff up.


photos: © syreeta mcfadden

Around the Neighborhood

St. James between Fulton and Gates, Brooklyn (aka Biggie Small's block).


photos: © syreeta mcfadden

Fifty Nifty, United States...

Do you know that song? Composed by none other than Ray Charles. The other Ray Charles. It goes like this: "Fifty, Nifty, United States from Thirteen Original Colonies..." Imagine singing it to the key of C. Or something. Anyway, a new project has been launched. It seems to only highlight a trend out there in ether.

And I thought it was just me. It seems that photographers, journalists and writers, television networks are all asking the question: What is the character of America?

Vanity Fair in 2004 had an essay contest soliciting a similar query. It challenged entrants to "explain the character of the American people to the world." I entered that contest, and sadly, I did not win. The exercise did, however, help me. I'm still asking myself that question. I'm not sure I'll ever settle on answer. Here's a clip of my essay response:

"We are paradox. Let us begin with that as meditation.
We are hopeful. We are heartbreaking. We defend. We punish. We are arrogant and humble. We are naïve and wise.
Then, there are the photographs.
We are barbarians and humanitarians. We destroy. We rebuild. We hate. We love. We supported and objected the war.
We were born under the sign of Cancer. It is a patriotic sign. Home. Family. Nation. We are collection of people searching for place to call home. Some came by boat, plane, train, car, bus. Some even walked. Home fabricated, stolen, and replaced.
To be an American means to constantly discover and rediscover whom you really are..."

2004 was an interesting time to ask the question, as it was in 2003, when the Whitney Museum exhibited work from international artists for the American Effect show. And it still is an interesting time to ask the question. Our nation is maturing and I'm not just talking about the general population. The meaning of being American is maturing. And America isn't all one color. And we can't pat ourselves on the back and say we're post-racial, post-gay, post-feminist. We're still trying to figure out what that looks like and how to live it.

So I hope we all continue to search for answers about who we are now and who we hope to become. I'll be bringing this track along, a perfectly crafted short story and anthem, for our long journey ahead.

photo: "Girl with dollar bill" © Larry Schwarm

Snow Day!

Scenes from Fort Greene Park Brooklyn, County of Kings!

photos by Syreeta McFadden

Winter Wonderland

The scene from my walk back from the supermarket.

Malia Obama, Photographer

The first daughter isn't about to let the job get to her head.

I hope she keeps this up during the entire presidency of her father. I think her pictures once released to the world, will be amazing. Her point of view in the eye of this historic storm will be revealing.

In the Valley of the Dolls

Dolls are a little freaky to me. A mini version of a real person. As a child we mimicked conversations and conflicts through dolls. Or for boys "action figures". It's the original self created third person narrative. The ancestor to Second Life. The virtual world to be a better you was in your imagination.

Then our love for celebrities. Their vapid stare in space, all statuesque and perfect. Us Weekly, People, feed us those images. I'm not immune. I buy Elle every 2 months to divine from the style gods what look I want to slip into for the upcoming season. Dress the part for a saucier version of me.

So in my digression again from working on the short story for my fiction group, I came across these pics.

I can feel myself getting into character now.