Throw Another Barbie on the _______

Skylar got to pick out a $5 Barbie for being good. There weren't that many options, but she seems more than satisfied with her Cali Girl. "What does SPF mean, dad?" She likes that sort of concept. So far we've considered possible SPFs from zero to a million. This is the second time in a row that I've had the pleasure of freeing the maiden from her imprisoning package. Kim had no sympathy. "Do you know how many Barbies I've opened?" Maybe it should be an Olympic sport. Maybe there should be sexual fetish magazines purely for people who get off on Barbie bindings. Maybe there are.

Sutures and Futures

I've been meaning to write something about the theoretical concept of "suture" for a long time. It's one of those terms that I know a good deal about but still want to explore more fully, the way I did with "fetish" when I wrote that grad-school paper -- subsequently turned into an article available here as a pdf -- on Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." In terms of film, the idea of suture seems particularly important for the documentaries I'm teaching, particularly since documentary tends to be an under-theorized genre. Right now, I'm just tripping on Skylar's statement of yesterday about how the person who knows how to undo stitches "can go back in time." Mentally reviewing the film theory readings on suture I'm familiar with, I recall that they foreground the synchronic over the diachronic. Or perhaps I just didn't read them right. I'll have to go over them in depth, because factoring the passage of time into the workings of suture seems absolutely critical. And so does factoring the passage of time into theorizing those workings. After all, the person who "can go back in time" by reconstructing the process of stitching together is also going into the future at the same time. The theorist's "then" lies on both sides of the "now."

Speaking of the Future. . .

While driving down Campbell this afternoon, Kim spotted a puppy in a car adjoining ours: "It's going to be ugly when it gets older, but it's fuzzy now."

All Souls Procession

We walked in the All Souls Procession for the second year this evening. I'm sure we'll walk in many more. It's the sort of event that makes the annoyances of life in Tucson -- the summer heat, the winter heedless -- seem inconsequential. My partner has collected some of the best snapshots -- I was behind the camera for most of them -- into a photo album you can visit to get a sense of the event. I have to share one of the photos with you here, even though she has already posted it, because it features many of my favorite aspects of life in Tucson:

There's the wonderful late afternoon light, the western end of the Catalina Range, the knowledge that we're heading down the hill on Oracle to do something fun, the feeling of sitting in "New Silver," and, of course, the skeleton riding in the back to give things that touch of Southwestern Surrealism that provides the antidote to all the subdivisions and strip malls.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

There was a section in our wedding ceremony where Kim and I were supposed to give flowers to our respective mothers. Mine was not in her seat. We looked for her. And there she was, in the corner of the room, standing behind a tripod.

I understood. I wanted to be behind the camera too. Tonight I spent a long time looking for a good recent photo of you, mom, but either you're framing a shot in your mind, rangefinder squint at full force, or you're actually snapping one. For your another-year-older tribute, then, I'll content myself with showing you the way I recall most vividly. Happy birthday!