Here In Oakland
I post my week's PhotoShop homework on Tuesday nights, so Monday nights I study and Tuesday nights I study harder. Neither night is good for writing journals, although I finished and posted the graphic above Monday ahead of time. I was fun to do and although it doesn't make much sense without knowing the Franz Kafka story behind it (a young woman under duress, a vulture who has broadened his diet to include the living as well as the dead, a suicidal beak thrust deep into the lady's throat, lots of fascinating psychological overtones that make for good classroom discussion).
Those of you with ancient record album collections may recognize the woman from Golden Earring's Moontan album, the cover they pulled after the initial release cause the lady didn't have any clothes on, even though it was sold with a printed plastic protective cover, and Rick Griffith's crow from the Grateful Dead's In the Wake of the Flood label on the record itself, the red sphere clutched in the crow's foot covering the hole at the center. Yes, it's a crow and not a vulture, but what the hell, it works.
Week five of the PhotoShop class is now completed with another seven to go and I seem to be enjoying it. I am also realizing how hard it is to talk myself into sitting down and working on a project. Or was that true years ago when I was in school? These are important questions for a Tuesday (this is being written Tuesday), don't you think? Am I now a dim bulb or was I always a dim bulb and is the very asking of the question giving us the answer?
Still it makes me nervous. I have a hunch this journal, if it is remembered at all, will be remembered as the narrative of a mind sinking into senility. One does not carp in the face of potential fame, but I would rather be remembered for something else.
Wednesday, after a long day at the office rewriting a series of web pages. One of
those things where you've been looking at a project for a long time and don't want to take responsibility for it, but you're the one with your name on the web site (if not the project) and you'll get the blame if it doesn't work out. One of these sit down and open the book. Page one: it's name is. OK. Page two: it works with this thing over here that's called this. OK, that makes sense. Now, page three: how do they work together and how to I explain it so that a regular person not wedded to technology can understand it? In order for the reader to understand it, I really have to understand it and for me to understand it I have to spend hours and days and weeks studying. Did you read the part about how hard I'm dragging my feet over learning more about PhotoShop, a program you'd think I'd rather like to learn about? Now substitute a name like "Microsoft Office" or "Microsoft Outlook" in place of PhotoShop and you begin to understand my problem. So.
Public television is broadcasting La Boheme tonight at eight. I don't listen to much opera anymore, although I can still hum many of the arias from Boheme and badly butcher their first few lines of Italian. "O soava fanciulla..." Ah, yes. I remember. "Oh Mimi, tu piu non torni, O giorni belli, piccole mani, odorosi capelli...." And yes, I remembered that and only went to the score to check the spelling. I've had many "tu piu non torni" moments in my life, which is not a complaint, as I understood even at the time that I was the one who was making them happen, but it's nice to reminisce now in the early spring here in Oakland.
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