Communique #16

Frederick Douglass Speech 1857

“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will.”

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Communique #12

I wake up in the night, feeling warm with a dry throat and wonder if I have the virus. I dismiss it and go back to sleep. But, there are more cases now than ever. The normal that one might want to achieve seems farther and farther away. We are at an extended existential moment. The future is unknown. I suppose this is more realistic-- thinking one knows the future is an illusion, and yet culture, our culture plants the seeds and creates the markers for this illusion that the future is secure, corollary, one is safe and immortal, this against all evidence. I suppose my surprise at how strong ideology is, some who are able to deny the science of the virus, is not that different then this culturally propagated belief, the future is known and secure. The pandemic brings this belief into question and we can call it existentialism. No, the future is not known, so get over it. Life is a fragile gift, we don’t know what happens tomorrow....

Communique #10

I am at the stage of the “shelter in place” where I am beginning to wonder what is next? Just a feeling, a question, isn’t there something else I should be doing or considering? What is on the horizon that I am not seeing or considering? What should I be seeing? I have the feeling that something is missing, but what is it? I wonder if others have this feeling, or is this the unsettling feeling that we call “cabin fever”. At this point it seems obvious to me that it is a changed world. But, the questions emerge, I’m looking for something that we can know about the future. Following the news it seems obvious to me, but not to some “policy makers” that this is an uncompromising virus/plague, it’s biology. What has become clear is that this world created by our culture is usually mediated by compromise; political considerations, market forces. That is now a fiction. It is the old reality created by those with power. ...

Communique #13

Close to Home Since sheltering in place, I have done two slideshows of my neighborhood walks, each in four different Portland neighborhoods, photos and sound. In thinking about the next slideshow, the next neighborhood walks I realized that due to the pandemic and staying close to home I have collected a lot of photos in a photo file simply called “Home”. Here is the slideshow: Close to Home These are the walks close to home I have taken again and again for fresh air and exercise. In this new time I have come to appreciate these close to home encounters. I’m seeing more now, close to home, small changes. I have seen in ways not seen before over these last few months. Repeatedly walking past things I have seen “NEW” and in some cases photographed, documenting what I saw. Besides the changes in plant life, I discovered and photographed a 1897 house that recently went on the market in the neighborhood. So I share that here...

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