I have been fascinated by the Vivian Maier “discovery” since hearing about it on the CBS Evening News last year.  The short version is that John Maloof, a young realtor working on a book about Chicago, bought a box of undeveloped photo negatives at an estate sale hoping to find some interesting pictures for his book.  When he eventually began scanning the negatives and saw the quality of the photographer’s work, he contacted the auction house and tracked down the other boxes of negatives they’d sold – ending up with tens of thousands of negatives which he is now scanning and curating.  Read more here and here, and on the web site devoted to Maier’s work.

Maier’s photography was a hobby she indulged on her days off work as a nanny.  She took tens of thousands of pictures, and sometimes interviewed her subjects on a tape recorder.  She had a collection of books of other photographers’ works.  But apparently very little is known of her intentions for her own work.  A Chicago PBS affiliate tried to piece together more about Maier’s quiet life, and John Maloof – the realtor who “discovered” her – is working on a documentary about her.  Some of her photos have now been published in a book, Vivian Maier: Street Photographer, and some photos are now on exhibit in NYC and LA (following a maiden exhibition earlier this year at the Chicago Cultural Center).

In these days of digital cameras and digital post-production, when every pixel of a “photograph” can be manipulated, I have a whole new respect for the work of film photographers.  Kind of miss it, in fact.

That Cheeta scene is pretty much how I walk at the end of a workout these days.  And sometimes for a couple days after.

I’ve had a dodgy left knee since I was 13, but I tried to be a distance runner, anyway.  In recent years, I was getting away with some modest trail running and even did a half marathon a year-and-a-half ago.  Then I pulled a hamstring when I tried to leap a surprise hole on a trail.  I mismanaged that recovery and ended up with pes anserinus bursitis.  By then totally unable to run, I worked out on our rowing machine for awhile, but my physical therapist told me that was worsening the bursitis.  So I went for a hike, tripped, and slightly tore the meniscus in the star-crossed knee.  I considered an exorcism to purge the left leg of whatever demons had clearly taken up residence.  I grudgingly climbed aboard a stationary bicycle (so boring!).  Then a friend took me to a spinning class (so cool! where has that been all my life?!).  The revelation allowed me to make a bit of peace with the stationary bike and start working out again.

Slowly, the left leg started to feel a little bit stronger, so recently I crept back out to the trail to see how far I could run without pain… About 25 feet.  Then 50.  Now on level and uphill segments, I can jog almost 100 teeny steps; but I walk the downhills.  Jog, walk, jog, walk, AARGH!

Did I mention that I’m not very patient?

So today I decided to multi-task.  I’ve been trying to improve my birding skills, and my favorite running trail – in the early morning and early evening – is a great place to go bird watching.  Usually I wear my big Nikon binoculars on one of those nifty harnesses that takes the bino strap weight off your neck AND leaves your hands free for catching yourself when you trip over a vine or fall over a cliff.  But they’re a bit cumbersome for what I had in mind.  Instead, I carried my $20 compact Konus 10X25 binoculars.  These things are surprisingly good (although they mess with colors a bit, especially at sunset), and so lightweight and tiny I hardly notice I’m carrying them.  My iPhone probably weighs more.  I clutched the Konus binos in my left hand, and my pepper spray in my right, and trotted off for my first 100 steps.  Then I walked, stopped and scanned the shrubs, and jogged the next 100 steps.  Walked, checked the eucalyptus branches, and jogged again.  Repeat until the sun goes down.  I’m calling this Interval Birding, and I expect to launch the web site, book, and coast-to-coast workshops as soon as I finish my dissertation.

(I jest.)

No, this is not the way to an effective aerobic workout – for now, that’s what my bicycle is for.  This is just to get ambulatory again, while honing my ID skills.  If it weren’t so crass, insensitive and inappropriate, I would say this is like killing briefly and humanely immobilizing two birds with one stone.

Apparently my dreaming mind had a different take on this subject. In a dream I titled “Red Velvet Cake Body Suit,” I went into a clothing store to buy a shirt and ended up trying on, then eventually buying, a cranberry red body suit. It was an odd experience — I had never before worn or owned a body suit. But I loved the color and, apart from being a little roomy in the arms (which I liked), the suit was a perfect fit. It seemed made for me. The dream ended with me walking out of the store wearing the suit.

As I woke up, still partly in the dream, I thought of the red velvet cake I had this past spring at Afterwords Café in Washington, D.C. The café, at the back of Kramerbooks, is in the Dupont, one of the most liberal neighborhoods in our nation’s capitol. I had been drawn to the red velvet cake because of the color, and the slice I was served was beautiful and delicious, perfectly made. It was my first time to try red velvet cake.

The deep red color of the cake reminded me of the color of the body suit in my dream.

I can’t imagine myself ever actually wearing a body suit, or even trying one on. I asked myself what I was trying on in my life that was unfamiliar or odd, never before tried. The link to the red velvet cake brought politics to mind, which reminded me of being impressed by George Clooney’s remarks in a recent interview. In discussing his new political thriller, “The Ides of March,” he said that a scene in the film is based on his father’s experience of running for Congress in 2004.

“I remember my father saying, ‘I’m going to have to go out and shake hands with people I wouldn’t normally shake hands with (to raise funds),’ and it killed him to do that. It’s soul-stealing. So I thought that was an interesting thing to talk about in this film — how nobody gets in without some dealings they wouldn’t normally do. Nobody.”

The statement that nobody reaches high political office without compromising some of their values gave me new insight into politicians I admire. I thought of Obama, and Clinton. I donated time, energy, and money to both their campaigns. Though I have never thought of them as perfect men, I realized I had idealized them as politicians.

This realization caused me to see President Obama in a new way. I think he’s a truly decent man who’s trying his best to do what he believes is right for the country. But he has made some compromises that were suspect. The fact that single payer was never put on the table in the health care reform debate, and that the public option was given up so readily, suggests to me that back room deals were made. I suddenly saw those “soul-stealing” compromises as part of the price of high office — they go with the territory. Understanding this, accepting it, I felt I could still support Obama, and continue to work toward what I believe we both, deep down, value.

This is the new “suit” I’m wearing. I’ve never felt this way before, never taken this political or philosophical stance. But the suit fits perfectly. And it protects me from the body blows I’ve experienced in the past, the recurring disappointments that assail me when politicians I believe in don’t deliver on their promises, or seem to give in to the opposition.

The fact that there’s room in the arms of this body suit means to me that there’s room to grow some muscle, get tougher, stronger, and arm myself for the fight ahead.

Some people might say I’ve been disillusioned. I think that’s true. That word — “Nobody.” — had the effect of a Zen koan. I woke up. I’m no longer governed by my illusions about progressive and liberal politicians. I feel like a realist, and it energizes me, gives me what I need to go forward.

Barack Obama and Joseph Biden are good people. They are intelligent and loving, and I believe both men are working hard all the live long day to do what’s right. To understand this about them is real — as real as knowing that they have and will probably again compromise their values in order to do their jobs. This new and more realistic perception of them enables me to support them and work with them to do what needs doing.

Obama may not be perfect; no one is. He hasn’t always accomplished all of what I want. He may and probably will miss the mark in the future. None of that means that I have to throw the baby out with the bath water. I want this man, along with his wife Michelle and their children, to stay in the White House for another four years.

I know that we need to get our politics out of the money racket. But until that day comes, this money game is the political system we have, and my dreaming mind has shown me a way to work with it. As a citizen I don’t have to raise funds. I can spend my time and energy writing and speaking about progressive values, and I can band with other progressives and liberals to rebuild and strengthen the American left. The American Dream Movement (ADM) is a good group to join forces with; it has already formed a strong coalition, and we need to expand it. It is powered by MoveOn, aligned with many other progressive organizations, and it supports Occupy Wall Street, which has now become Occupy America. If you haven’t already checked out ADM, I urge you to do so at http://rebuildthedream.com.

If we are organized and active in all fifty states, we can show up in numbers, and vote the people we want into our local governing bodies, our state legislatures, and our Congress. The more liberals and progressives we have in office, the less likely it is that they will have to compromise on core issues, and the more likely we are to see those issues resolved in ways that are fair to most Americans. As a united populace, we can keep pushing our representatives toward progressive solutions, keep reminding them where we stand on the issues. That’s our job as citizens in a democracy. It goes with the territory.

The 2012 election is only months away. Put on your best body suit, and put some muscle into it. Set your shoulders, lift your chin. Work that runway. And win.

On August 23rd, there was an earthquake on the East Coast. Although the 5.8 trembler affected people and places from Georgia to Canada, most of the news coverage I saw centered on Washington, D.C. For many people in that city, the quake was a first time experience.

The day before the quake marked another first for our capitol — the first monument on the National Mall dedicated to an African American. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial is a massive granite sculpture inspired by a line from the Reverend’s “Dream” speech: “Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.”

Was there some significance, I wondered, in this conjunction of events? Could an earthquake hard on the heels of this particular memorial mean that the mighty footprint of Reverend King would have an impact on our political representatives? Was it possible that the “stone of hope” would become real progress in Congress toward the common good?

I put the quake and the memorial together and dreamed this dream — that the spirit of Martin Luther King, all he believed in and stood for and worked toward — would shake our capitol and this Congress down to its roots, and the power of his vision would overwhelm the lobbyists and send a tremor through to the Republican soul. And in that shake up, we would actually see Republicans begin to work with Democrats to put people back to work and invest in our schools and in our nation.

That’s what I wanted this conjunction of the quake and the memorial to mean. Then along came Irene, and I found out that Michele Bachmann put the quake and the hurricane together and came up with another meaning: God is telling us to cut spending.

Maybe Bachmann’s conclusion differs from mine so completely because she didn’t figure the King Memorial into her equation. Or maybe it is simply that, as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, significance is in the mind, and political leaning, of the observer.

At the end of the day, I doubt that God is using natural or man-made events to talk to me or Michele Bachmann. The only difference between us is that my ruminations on the meaning of events are conversations I have with myself, while Michele Bachmann actually believes she’s getting messages from God. Just kidding.

Click on “Speedo/From Somewhere” and you’ll be treated to a slideshow of what appears to be Speedo swimsuit/cocktail dresses, like the one over there on the left. Think Sue Sylvester’s track suit wedding dress, only weirder. I clicked through to see if it was a joke and came to this:

Which somehow didn’t improve matters.

The Sensible Sartorialist in me was about to rear its huffy little head and dismiss the whole ridiculous collection, but I decided to go back and read the fine print on the splash page. Ah ha! These creations came about when FINA banned full-body swimming suits such as the one worn by Michael Phelps in the Beijing Olympics. Speedo had already ramped up production on the suits, which now had no place to go, so they paired with From Somewhere (a British fashion label that recycles surplus, scrap and sample textiles) to “upcycle” the suits and materials. Cool! I mean, I still think they’re ridiculous looking, but I like the back story.

I could do short, pithy, more frequent updates. But now that the blog has actual subscribers, I don’t want to chase them away with spammy little bloglets. That’s what Twitter is for, right?

The blog says that’s a lame excuse: subscribers can adjust their subscriptions to receive daily or weekly digests. Good point. I’ll give that some thought. Maybe the blog and I can start seeing each other again.

"Tia" in 2007

Some of you dear readers recall that we adopted a rescued doberman a few years ago, summer of 2007.  I found her  through a favorite bird blog; where else would you expect to find information about adopting dobermans?   The blogger posted a sweet picture of the doberman his family had taken in, and linked to a favorite rescue group, Special Needs Dobermans.  Powerless to resist, I clicked through.  I ended up writing to the group to ask if they had any senior dogs they were trying to place – someone who could be a nice companion for Baxter.

Baxter in 2006

Longtime readers might remember Baxter.  He was a “NYC street dog” who attached himself to me and my other dog, Bear, one evening in 1994 as Bear and I walked to Fort Tryon Park.  He was malnourished, banged up from a fight, and dragging a dislocated leg (yes, his own).  He was about 1 year old, and was gracious enough to hang around with us for another 15 years.  Baxter seemed quite lonely after Bear died in 2005, and eventually we thought it might cheer him up to have another companion.  But since he was getting on in years, we wondered if he would prefer someone close to his age and temperament.  Hence my inquiry about senior rescue dogs.

Special Needs Dobermans put me in touch with another rescue group, Doberman Pinscher SOS here in California.  We didn’t start this process thinking, “we’re going to adopt a doberman.”  Never really crossed our minds.  But the photos I saw, and the profiles I was reading, and the information both rescue groups provided about how hard it is to find homes for adult dobermans, were sucking me in.   I wandered around the Dobie SOS web site, still intending to look for an older dog.  But suddenly I saw “Tia’s” picture and was captivated.  I called the Better Half over to look, and we decided we had

(This is not Tia's adoption profile photo - I took this a year or so later - but it's "the face.")

to meet her.  Eventually, we learned Tia’s story: an LA county shelter called Doberman SOS to alert them that a doberman had been turned in.  That dog was not Tia, but the rescuer took a quick walk through the shelter while she was there, spotted Tia, and decided to take her, too.  Just like that, Tia’s luck changed: she went from almost-certainly-doomed, into the safety of an amazing rescue group that will take care of its charges all their lives if they never find a permanent home.  Would that millions of other dogs a year get this lucky.  We drove 3 hours to meet Tia, fell in love with her, made sure Baxter approved, and adopted her.

Cooper made himself right at home.

She instantly bonded with Baxter.  But when Baxter died in 2009, Tia had to get used to being an only dog.  We fostered a rescued hound for several months last year, but he couldn’t stop chasing the cats.  With the help of Beagles and Buddies, Cooper found a more appropriate home.  And Tia was alone again.

Then last summer, the Better Half read a story about Muttville, a Bay Area-based group that specializes in rescuing and placing senior dogs.  Once again, I scoured the web site reading sad stories and looking for cat-friendly dogs.  I spotted this wonderful guy – a (then) 10-year old miniature poodle, “Sheppy,” who needed a new home.  We met for a play date, Tia seemed to like

"Sheppy"

him, and we adopted him.

Does this look like a "stressbot" to you?

All’s well that ends well… except for one weird complication.  Tia is a worrier by nature – a “stressbot,” as her vet says.  She needs lots of exercise to burn off the energy that she would otherwise devote to worrying.  Before Sheppy moved in, Tia and I had developed a pretty good running routine in McLaren Park.  Sheppy is in great shape, but he has to do a lot of work to keep up with a human and a doberman, so he couldn’t run with us.  But if he’s not coming, Tia won’t go!  I leash her up, take her outside, and as soon as she figures out  that I’m actually thinking of leaving without Sheppy, she sets her parking brake and refuses to budge.  If I get too insistent about it, she will actually collapse to the ground – dead weight.

Lots of it.  As a result of her firm “I won’t go anywhere without Sheppy” stance, Tia has put on at least 5 pounds in the last year.  That’s a lot of poundage for a dog, the equivalent of a nearly 30-pound weight gain for you or me.  I was desperate to figure out a way to get her running again.  “What about a jogging stroller?” I asked the Better Half, who looked at me like maybe I wasn’t quite grasping the connection between running and weight loss:  how would a jogging stroller help Tia lose weight?  “To put Sheppy in!  We could strap him in, and Tia can run alongside!”  We both know it won’t be THAT easy; Tia – who is near-phobic about novel objects – will need to be introduced and then gradually habituated to the stroller before team-running is possible.  But it seemed worth a try.  Now… to find a stroller.

Enter Freecycle.  Last night, a Freecycler posted an offer for an 8-year old, well-loved jogging stroller!  I wrote and told her my plan, and she gave it to me.

(Sheppy has some concerns about this plan.)

Now I just have to fix the brake (although, at 20 pounds, Sheppy won’t exactly turn this buggy into a runaway train) and make certain that Sheppy can be securely strapped in.  Then we begin habituating Tia to her big blue running companion.  THEN we’ll make our maiden voyage.  I’ll keep you posted.

Each of the rescue groups I mentioned here is doing amazing work in very trying economic times, and can really use your support:

Beagles and Buddies

Doberman Pinscher SOS

Muttville

Special Needs Dobermans

P.S. (Update) Just found this photo and had to add it – Bear and Baxter, circa 1994, not long after Baxter found us.