chicago, subway, b&w photography, analog photography

Taking pictures yesterday I realized that, aside from a bit of talent, being a good journalist or photographer requires stepping out of the comfort zone. You don’t shut yourself off with your headphones, you don’t just pass people but you watch them, listen to them, talk to them and, yes, use for your purposes – a picture or a story.

There is something mystical about a traveling on a Greyhound. Maybe it’s the changing landscapes behind the window, the stops in random places or the people you meet on the bus. The magical element disappears roughly around the 10th hour of your trip.

Mine disappeared on the Canada/US border.  Passports and visas seem an old and outdated system to me but, surprisingly, the system doesn’t care. The US border control officers take their job seriously. To a point when you actually reconsider whether you really want to enter the US.  A series of questions awaits everyone traveling on a Greyhound. As if anyone really wanted to illegally get to Detroit, which is a scary place, really. Maybe because of its renowned homicide rate (among the highest in the US) or other stories you read and watch about it (8 mile with Eminem?).  Compared to the Canadian Greyhounds, their American counterparts are rather tattered. The faces on the bus change too. While in Canada, you mostly see students and the middle class, on an American Greyhound you encounter poverty and the smell of potato chips. But after waiting a few hours at the charming Detroit bus terminal and with the sound of Jay-Z’s newest album blazing from your neighbor’s earphones, you continue your journey. Mostly regretting you didn’t take a plane but not regretting you did not get off in Kalamazoo.

Whatever was left of the “Greyhound magic” finally disappears around the 19th hour of your journey, now in rain and grayness.

To me Simon & Garfunkel seemed like the perfect companions on this ride. While leaving Detroit I listened to Paul Simon singing “Detroit, Detroit” and marveled at how someone could write “Michigan seems like a dream to me now”. It did not seem like a dream to me.  Chicago, however – when it appeared from the Skyline highway – did.

It is truly a beautiful city. Downtown, you can feel the charm of the 1920s skyscrapers and you can shop until you drop. Barney’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom – they’re all there. Everything you’ve seen in movies is there too – the overground subway (remember Jennifer Lopez teaching Richard Gere how to dance?), the poverty of the South Side, the pride about “their president” and the famous Grant Park.

I was stunned at the collection at Chicago’s Arts Institute. Just the Impressionist rooms with Monet, Manet and of course Renoir would have sufficed to fill a museum. Particularly Renoir’s soft brush strokes and superbly vivid colors, which at the Arts institute are not hidden behind glass, are so beautiful they leave you at the verge of tears.

In the limited time I had I was forced to make a choice between seeing Caravaggio or modern American art. The kind of choices you would like to make everyday. Also, the late Irving Penn’s photographs which he donated along with his entire archive were inspiring.

And as if this weren’t enough, outside of the Arts institute you see the famous silver “Bean” and a crowd of figures sculpted by Magdalena Abakanowicz. Could you wish for more? You could, you could want to eat something delicious. I settled with the Chicago chain: WOW BAO (wowbao.com) which serves delicious Asian buns and soups.  The salad was crispy, the chicken Teriyaki, beef and coconut buns had the puffiness and doughiness, as well as the unique taste I was craving for that day. I had them while sipping pomegranate ice tea. Simply delicious. Chicago is delicious.

I spent my next day taking Walker Evans – inspired photographs at the corner of State and Randolph (will post them soon) and shopping, although the beautiful experience had a vision of the long journey ahead of me in the background. 20 more hours on various coaches. Fortunately I had films to watch and it was night so I, however uncomfortably, could sleep. The journey home was on rather full buses but it didn’t seem like 20 hours, rather like 12. Coming back to Canada made me realize how peaceful a place it is. There is not extravagant richesse but there is also much less poverty and people seem more relaxed. Or was it just my impression? One that you get from people in a hurry waiting to hold the door for you when you enter a bus terminal. But Toronto is less pretty and take out food in Ottawa is much worse. Altogether a wonderful 100 hours. Go to Chicago!

My favorite songs at this moment:

Michael Bolton “Soul Provider”

Michael Jackson “Man in the Mirror”

Soehne Mannheims “Ich wollte wie Orpheus singen” (Mtv unplugged version)

Pohlmann “Morgen schon”

Dobie Gray “Drift Away”

Simon & Garfunkel “Flowers never bend with the rainfall”

Jay-Z “Song Cry” (MTV Unplugged version)

Cyndi Lauper “Girls just wanna have fun”

Etta James “All I could do was cry”

Michael Bolton “Lean on me”

Pinnawela “Joy in my belly”

Some of these are my all time favorites. I love how much feeling there is in the voice of Etta James and Michael Bolton. When Michael sings “Lean on me”, he is full of passion, confidence and strength. I love this song.

Some (most) of the songs are classics but some are not. Pinnawela for example created a song full of joy and fun that makes you become more enthusiastic about life. I also like her song called

“Several times”. Pinnawela is polish but she sings in english and the whole album called “Soulahili” is just great.

As I am writing this, I am at the library listening to the tracks I mentioned above. Now a few words about “flowers never bend with the rainfall”. This song has a beautiful harmony of voices, as it is always the case with Simon & Garfunkel. It also has daunting, poetic lyrics: “The mirror on my wall caught some image dark and small, but I’m not sure at all it’s my reflection” or “So I continue to continue to pretend that my life will never end and that flowers never bend with the rainfall.

And “Song cry” – I love the entire Jay-Z unplugged album. It is this album that I started to listen to Jay-Z from. It has some amazing guests and Jay-Z shows his absolute mastery.

The last words will be about “Man in the Mirror”. I don’t know, this song just touches my heart and makes me cry from time to time. There is something universal in it, it is simply beautiful.

Anyway, if you are curious just listen to the songs online. CHeers. Hope you enjoyed the post.

Like a tree, the water from my leaves evaporating, I am thirsty.

There is too much sun, it’s too hot and too dry, I am burning.

Life in the middle of a field is lonely.

Don’t say you’ll call if you won’t, don’t say you love if you don’t.

Maybe it was Shanghai that stimulated her mind so well. In Beijing she felt threatened by the guards guarding everything, she felt threatened by the dust which she felt was settling in and destroying her lungs. She felt threatened by the huge, grey buildings and the lifeless streets. But Shanghai, oh, Shanghai was different. She already knew it would be different when she sat on the plane and so it was. It had that wonderful, somewhat humid air. Similar to the one London has. The air that makes your hair all curly.

And so she was, totally alone in Shanghai. She went to the Bund, strolled down the Nanjing Donglu at night and had no one to share her thoughts with. Nevertheless she enjoyed it. Being in and discovering a new city all by herself was like a meditation, like a trip to her inner self.

She went to the Jade Buddha Temple and bought a jade tiger necklace there. She felt this unique, spiritual ambiance only Asian temples have. The thing you don’t feel in European churches.

She went everywhere, explored the entire city. All by herself. Well, not completely by herself. The Shanghainese air was there. No matter where she went, she could feel it. She could feel the old, decadent times. The thick opium air, the ladies all dressed up, the frivolous atmosphere. She started soaking it in.

Everyday she felt more confident, more beautiful, she even dressed nicer, although she did not know whether everyone was looking at her as a sort of curiosum or if it was that they marvelled at her 1920s-like appearance. She wanted to believe in the latter version. And then he came – the one she did not want to live with but had to, since the hotel was so expensive. They barely met for breakfasts and at night when they were going to sleep (in two separate beds).

And it was before one of those breakfasts that she (they) saw him. He came into the elevator on the 8th floor letting an old gentleman enter the lift before him. She looked at him and from that moment on, it could have been anyone getting on the elevator and she wouldn’t have noticed. He was wearing a perfectly cut navy-blue suit and a little pin in the chest pocket. They smiled at eachother and his perfectly white teeth lit up  his dark complexed, handsome face.

And then they arrived on the 3rd floor and she had to get off. She ate her breakfast sitting with the roommate and thinking of the man from the elevator. In the afternoon of the same day, she was coming back from one of the many sites, all dressed up and pretty and she saw him at the reception desk. She hesitantly started going in the direction of the elevators, stopping here and there, pretending she was interested in the shoe-cleaning machine or some panda figurines. And then he came. They entered the elevator together. They were going up. He asked how her stay was, they talked about the bad air-conditioning but it could have been a talk about absolutely anything since they both seemed to enjoy the mere presence of eachother. Once again, it was her who was getting off first, once again it was the 3rd floor. She sat at lunch, alone in the restaurant thinking of him, the Indian prince…

On the last day she, and her stupid roommate were payng for the room at the reception desk. And then he came, once again seeing her with the other guy, probably thinking they were a couple, or not thinking about it at all. He was wearing a white polo shirt and was in a hurry, asking for the fastest way to get to the airport. She saw him, said hi, smiled. He “hied” back and once again the beautiful smile lit up his face. He made sure that everything was ok with her invoice and rushed away. She hoped to see him again in the lobby or anywhere during her last day in Shanghai. She even purposedly stopped on his floor a few times but he was nowhere to be seen.

I just came back from the cinema. The movie I saw was Marley & Me – the story of the lifetime of a certain labrador. The movie is based on a wonderful, funny and touching book by John Grogan and the film is also deeply touching but I am sure a person who has not been a dog owner will have a hard time understanding such emotions. I had read the book at a point in the life of our family when our dog had just passed away and Trop, because that was his name, was no usual dog. In this text I would like to share with you some stories from our life together.

Trop

We found the dog, or rather found eachother in the area around our countryhouse. I was six and we were cross-country skiing with my mother when we saw a dog running along the road in the distance. My mother whistled and he stopped for a second but then he kept on running.

That afternoon, and it was winter with about -15 C, we were coming back from the country when we saw the dog again. My mother said to my father:” Stop, I’m not leaving this dog in here”, and he did. She went out to get him. The dog sat down on her feet. She didn’t have a leash so she took off her scarf and tied it around his neck. They then returned to the car and Trop sat down beside my legs and put his head on my lap and I said: ”So we now have a dog”, and we did. Trop was a german pointer, a skeleton of a dog at the time when we found him.

My parents posted ads in newspapers, that they had found him, but no one replied. It turned out later on that he was a dog that never got lost so someone must have kicked him out.

The Marley & Me movie reminded me of some of the moments we shared with Trop. He was truly a family member, a brother to the little girl I was at the age of six and a true friend until his last days when I was eighteen. The time with Trop was some of the best years in my life.

When I was little, we would play lying or rolling on the grass in the country. I would also often just lie beside Trop and pet him. He was this gentle, wise angel of dog.

When I got older, my mother would drive me to school and he would accompany us, sometimes even taking the elevator ride up, which he really enjoyed because everyone petted him. They would walk around the area after I had started my first class. Mom actually acquainted her now best friend through Trop. Basia asked whether she could walk him with her. My mother agreed.

He was also a freqent visitor at my father’s office where he would often sleep in the corner behind the conference table or cuddle up to the secretary or the accountant.

He, however, wasn’t always an angel, sometimes the demon would switch on in him. He loved swimming, water was his passion and he would bathe in the little river next to our house regardless of the weather, be it frost or not. Back in they days, the Wilanów fields weren’t full of apartment blocks as they are now, they were this huge dog walking area and the place where Trop would fullfil his passion, beacause of course, as his breed would suggest, he had been trained to be a hunting dog. The only problem was that he was scared of shots and it was probably the reason why someone got rid of him. But back to him. On the Wilanów fields, we would let him loose and he would find pheasants, hares or chase after ducks running in the river and my mother would chase him along the bank – to Wilanów and back, which wasn’t that small a distance. He also had a different type of barking for every type of animal he was chasing.

Trop was also a dog gentleman, and sometimes he would fall in love and would regularly escape his collar and run to the lady dog’s door – every evening. In the countryhouse, he would always give his place to any guest ladydogs that were present. His biggest and returned love was the lady dog belonging to the man who later became the President of Poland. When he did, Saba (Trop’s love) had to move to the presidential palace.

I also remember that at our apartment in Warsaw, the entire family would fight for a place on the couch in front of the tv in my father’s study and it was usually Trop who won.

Trop, or Tropcio would also not attack cats, which made him welcome in different cats’ homes. Friends of the family loved having him over, to the point that some of them got their own dogs after his visit. And while tracing game and water were his passions, he was also a family guy. He would know when someone was sad and would try to console you.

He also always knew when someone was opening the fridge and would wake up from his deepest sleep. In his old age, he went deaf, but he still knew when the fridge was being opened. At some point, before we realized he had lost his hearing, we thought that he started being disobedient, but that wasn’t true. Once we recognized his deafness, we learned that we could reach him through sign language and point in which direction he should go, and it really worked. Before a pedestrian crossing, I would lower my hand and he would touch my palm with his nose, then we crossed, and when he was in front of me, he would look back for me to show him in which direction he should go. Truly amazing.

Another scene I remember is from the lake area in the North of Poland. My mother and I would bathe in the lake, and Tropcio was constantly running around, sniffing and only coming back to rest for a few minutes, lie down in the lake and drink some water or… to swim to the center of the lake to chase some ducks. Unfortunately, every time he arrived the ducks were already gone, so he was disappointed and would eat dragonflies (protected under polish law) on his way back issuing sounds of disapointement.

Anyway, these are just a few memories of Trop’s life with us. I believe, in our family, he found his true happiness and with him, we certainly did too. My biggest regret is that, in the midst o f my teenage years, running around after a certain boy I did not spend enough time with Trop during his last moments with us. At the age of around 16 (according to the vets he arrived in our family at around 6), he fell sick but he got out of it- my mother had spend two weeks driving to the animal hospital to sit with him through drip infusions and everyone, including the staff of the hospital was very happy that his health was back. But after further two weeks he fell ill again and his hind legs got paralyzed. In some instances he was ok, but in others, a horrible pain captured his entire body and he would look at you hoping that you would help him. The diagnosis was that it was a failure of the neural system and that his life could only be prolonged for maybe 2 further weeks which would include him suffering. We made a decision to put him to sleep – probably one of the most difficult ones for one to make.

I remember our last moments with him at the hospital and his eyes… And then we were asked to leave for a moment and after a while the staff brought him to our car. I remember every moment of that day and the movie today just brought them back to life. My mother and I could not calm ourselves down and would just cry and cry (this would continue for months). My father, who does not show his feelings easily was also deeply shaken. My boyfriend, or boyfriend candidate at the time could not understand why I was so full of sorrow but the guy is not even worth mentioning and Trop – one of the dearest friends I’ve ever had most certainly is.

My last moment with Trop was him already passed away, on a blanket in the trunk of our car and me sitting beside him, talking to him. He was dead but his body was still warm. This was the end of the life of a dog angel, may he rest in peace. We will never forget him.

I miss you every day.

Miss you in my bed

Miss you in my thoughts

In my dreams we’re together.

J.

To my great surprise I recently noticed that elementary school and junior high school teachers use emails. You may laugh now but it wasn’t so obvious to me. I haven’t been to a non-university level school in quite some time and in my mind I preserved an image with Internet being there but also with teachers not really skilled at using it. And now, some 10 or more years later they are all emailing their schedules, sending emails to students, checking things on the Internet, wow. It is the more impressive that some of them used to be my teachers back in the days when only the students where skilled at using the Net.

Another sign of today. You learn that one of year friends broke up with his/her girlfriend/boyfriend not from him/her but via facebook. Your facebook newsfeed shows you that the person went from “in a relationship” to “single”. And that’s that. And you leave it at that. Sad. But it can also be useful – no need of explaining your current situation to every person separately.

And also, in my times Pumas used to be the “it” sneakers, now it’s Nikes.