Update

One of the downsides (and there are several) of having more than one blog is there is a danger of accidentally co-mingling posts, which is what I did on Monday of this week. I intended to enter the post you see below this one on this blog but mistakenly entered it onto The WWIG Blog. It's here now.

I haven't been posted for quite a while but haven't been wasting my time either. I have spent almost entire days working on getting my web gallery ready for introduction to my totally indifferent public (ed., in case you don't recognize it, this is attempted sardonic humor). Getting the images prepared properly has been a long and tedious process, but entering them has been very daunting indeed. Using  WordPress software is entirely Terra Incognita for me and at this point I have to memorize the steps rather than understanding the process. The problem with this approach is that my memory often fails and to get back on track I have to resort to unappealing solutions like calling someone for help-- about as appealing as asking for directions from strangers or at a gas station when I'm  lost while travelling. My other time-killing project is that I have been trying to learn and use ProShow Gold to make a slide show. The slide show part isn't too hard but syncing the music has been a very difficult task. I initially had some help from my friend Ben Stern, but one  can only lean on others so much. I'm floundering but should be able to make it work eventually. I snowed here yesterday and the garden is completely covered. Good! This means I don't have to look at the mess and start thinking with dread of spring cleanup.

Tomorrow Susann and I will be going to New York to attend the wedding of her nephew Rick Ordower. Allison, Dave and Damian will be there, but neither Brad nor Charlie will-- one is being exposed to radiation in Japan --albeit low grade-- and the other is being exposed to Hamas rockets in Israel.   I'll be there for 4 days and hope to resume blogging when I return.
Byron

Thinking About The Mythic American West

There isn't going to be anything original posted today. I need to work on getting images ready for my website gallery which was started but has sat dormant for several weeks. I hope to have it running this week. It won't be anywhere near final form but the main structural elements will be in place. However, I have some things written by others which may be pertinent to things that I have or will be posting about here. One cannot look into the vast historical literature of the Great Plains much less the American West and not encounter the Turner Hypothesis:

Frederick Jackson Turner's 1893 essay "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," presented in Chicago before the American Historical Association, is one of the most important pieces of nineteenth century writing about the west. Turner's "frontier hypothesis"--that American development could be explained by the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward--had widespread implications for historiography, sociology, literary criticism, and politics. Turner argued that the West--rather than the proslavery South or the antislavery North--was the most influential among American regions and that the frontier--rather than an imported European heritage--was responsible for the novelty of American attitudes and institutions. Significantly, his hypothesis emphasized geographical determinism, agricultural settlement, and the affirmation of democracy, all of which can be traced back to the myth of the garden of the world. Turner shared this myth's erroneous judgments about the economic forces that had come to dominate 19th-century life. His essay expressed the aspirations of a people rather than their actual situation. From Virgin Land  By Eric Gislason

John Steinbeck posited much the same idea, but in touching and lyrical way in the 1933 short story The Leader of the People.

"... I tell those old stories, but they're not what I want to tell. I only know how I want people to fell when I tell them. It wasn't the Indians that were important, nor adventures, nor even getting out here. It was a whole bunch of people made into one big crawling beast. And I was the head. It was westering and westering... When we saw the mountains at last, we cried-- all of us. But it wasn't getting here that mattered, it was movement and westering... The westering was as big as God, and the slow steps that made the movement pile up and piled up until the Continent was crossed. The we came down to the sea, and it was done..."
When Jody spoke, Grandfather stared and looked down at him. "Maybe I could lead the people some day," Jody said.
The old man smiled. "There's no place to go. There's the ocean to stop you. There's a line of old men along the shore hating the ocean because it stopped them."
"In boats I might, sir".
"No place to go, Jody. Every place is taken. But that's not the worst-- no, not the worst. Westering has died out of the people... It's all done. Your father is right. It is finished."

We'll come back to this poignant passage in subsequent posts. In the meantime I want to let you know about some of the books read as I've begun to try to understand what I have seen and experience on the Southern Great Plains.





I read Grassland by Richard Manning 10 or 12 years ago and remember it as being very informative about a subject I knew little about. I need to reread it.

Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town is shocking and, I think essential reading for anyone wanting to comprehend little known changes occurring in small towns in the heartland. It is set in Olwein Iowa which is quite close to La Crosse.

Where the Buffalo Roam: Restoring America's Great Plains describes the activities and ideas of a Rutgers University couple who have been relentless proponents of The Buffalo Commons.

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived The Great American Dust Bowl.  Reads as smoothly as fiction. Essential reading for anyone who wants to better understand 20th century American History, environmental
movement, social trends, and this blog.













Byron

More About Detroit Photography

For anyone seeking more photodocumentary information about Detroit this book may be of interest:

There is on page 49 a very interesting photo taken from a roof top showing perhaps 30 or 40 blocks of urban landscape where one can see large patches denuded of any buildings. No wonder that there have been proposals to clear large swathes of what was once a thriving city and encourage that the land be used for agriculture.

My favorite photoblog about Detroit is dETROITFUNK. Highly reccommended.
Byron

The Detroitification of Small Town America: Part 1

DETROITIFICATION: A work coined by the author especially for this thread.

Many photographers have been drawn to Detroit in recent years. One blogger who isn't shy about posting images of what has transpired in this once great American city has perhaps had second thoughts and has (hypocritically) used the term Detroit Porn. I've taken some pictures of the abandoned or burned out wrecks of residential and commercial structures that occupy much of this forlorn blight-ridden city, but probably won't do more because this vein has been fairly well mined by others, among them George Bower. George is a retired physician and inveterate photographer of the urban disaster that is Detroit; and I have been fortunate to be on his e-mail distribution list for about 3 years. As I went through my files to select some of his images for this post, I was struck by his fantastic eye for color and for graphic detail. On the other hand, I experienced an actual wave of nausea on being confronted by these images of what has happened to the city that I knew and for which I had so much affection 6o years ago--not such a long time in terms of urban history-- which, in itself, is a lesson about the vulnerability of our urban environments. Here is a sample of some of Georges images which effectively depict what I have chosen to call Detroitification. I suspect that Detroit is only the harbinger-- the first and best known of American cities where the decay and ruin is so wide-spread that it is beyond reclamation.

These images have been posted with the kind permission of the creator and  copyright holder George Bower. Please direct any questions about them to bannis4@centurtely.net.

Byron

*Thinking: Too Much of a Good Thing?

Please note that the the title of this entry is preceded by an *. From now on I am going to give fair warning by using an asterisk prior to the title when the posts consist of personal  musings which may not be of interest to many, if not most, of my readers. Proceed  with caution. Why am I getting up close and personal? No really good reason except that I feel a need to do so, and, well ...what the hell, it's my blog... I can do what I want.

One of the aspects of my the long car trips that I have taken in recent years that have been a major plus is the ample opportunity to do lots of thinking. Parenthetically, this raises the question of why it seems that I don't have time to do serious pondering during my day to day life at home; to which there is no answer.Some of the things I thought about were important to me, weighty, and pertinent to this blog; some are vexing and often understandable, at least for me; some are trivial and really beneath serious contemplation; and some, particularly those topics related to politics and social issues, are, as in the well-known quote from Macbeth "...a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

My ambivalent feelings about thinking, perhaps the more appropriate word is rumination, came to mind today because of the difficulty I am having blogging about some of the complex topics I wrestled with during my trip and am still having difficulty giving form and substance to, especially in writing in a public space. All of this came to the fore this morning when I read a review of a recent Broadway revival of Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia, by Terry Teachout and encountered this: "it is an entrancingly clever whodunit for eggheads whose underlying purpose is to dramatize the central problem of modernity: How are we to live our lives if it turns out that they have no ultimate meaning?" Indeed!

If you, dear Reader, are at this moment scratching your head and uttering something like "what the hell is he going on about, it's just an insignificant travel blog" or words to that effect, I want you to know that I am not in the midst of some existential crisis. This is, I think, mostly an old man's pastime. At a certain age, many of us really begin to understand something we have always known about not really experienced: the realization that time is truly running out and that there is unfinished business to be contemplated and dealt with.

Probably few of you are old enough to remember the days when PBS was actually filled with good content, before the Yanni Concerts, or the dusting off yet another tired musical act from the '60s (don't you just get a tingly feeling when you watch video of some post middle aged dweebs at a Peter, Paul, and Mary Reunion Concert waving Bic lighters- cells phones these days, of course) or yet another documentary retelling of some aspect of America's horrible sordid past. Anyhow, back in those early days of public television, I chanced to see a performance of a Medieval Morality Play. The details elude me, but, if memory serves,
the main character was Everyman, the theme was redemption from sin and the elements, or was it the characters, were I believe Confession, Absolution, Penance, and Grace (Susann says that grace would not have been included because it's a Protestant thing). During my trip I attempted to remember the details of the play and, more important, the essence while contemplating my wish to make some amends. Frankly, revisiting the past, much less remaking it, is not easy. Whether or not doing so is rewarding remains to determined.

Theme Music for the Tour

Hila wanted to know the theme music for my recent trip out seeing America. Before starting I thought it would be Graceland, as in this YouTube video:


However as I approached the Mississippi Delta, I hoped that it would be something like this:


Or, better,when I arrived at the legendary crossroads, this:
.
Didn't happen. Now that I'm home I'll have to think of something. Stay tuned.
Byron

Japan II

I arrived home during the early morning hours on Monday after approximately a 16 hour marathon drive across the length of  Illinois-- and it is a very long State-- as well as portions of Missouri, Iowa and Wisconsin. I've been preoccupied with getting my life reordered since. One happy note is that I've discovered that I didn't damage or lose a single piece of photo gear, which is, I think, a first for trips like this one. I've already ordered a new pair of glasses to replace the ones I lost in Louisiana.

As you know, the news from Japan becomes more distressing every day. Charlie, Kaori and Hannah and our concerns about the uncertainty for those in Japan preoccupies us. Like the Japanese people themselves we can only wait and cope. We realize that our worries, while very legitimate to us, are minor compared to those whose live have been so tragically effected by the disaster.

We again want everyone who has expressed concern and extended wishes for the well being of  our family to know how grateful we are for your kindness and good will.
Byron

Japan

After posting the prior message I opened the NYTimes site just to get an early morning update and to see if there had been any further developments in Japan. As you may know the situation is in flux and there is mounting concern about 2 nuclear reactors. I haven't talked to Charlie directly-- the 15 hour time difference especially with me on the road makes it difficult-- but Susann has kept in daily contact and Charlie has been considerate about keeping us updated. One complicating factor is that baby Hannah (7 months old) was or still is in the hospital for several days with what turned out to be a viral disease. The concern that required hospitalization was high fever and dehydration. Discharge yesterday was anticipated but I don't know if it occurred.

Susann and I are very deeply moved by the many phone calls and e-mails received expressing concern for Charles and his family. I will try to learn more as the day progresses and update this blog when I do.
Byron

Homeward Bound

Yesterday I drove through Mississippi from Natchez to the outskirts of Memphis, first on the Natchez Trace-- which seemed like a low-rent version of The Blue Ridge Parkway-- and then on Highway 61, the so-called Blues Highway, through the Mississippi Delta. I found Mississippi (the State, not the River) to be boring, shabby, although it certainly didn't seem to reflect the mythical poverty I had expected. The really unpleasant surprise was that the people I encountered were, for the most part, sullen and vaguely disagreeable. The famed legendary Southern hospitality and courtesy, you ask ... probably gone with all of the other accouterments of a South. that may or may not have existed in the cultural consciousness of people of a certain age. Parenthetically, I don't recall speaking to anyone here in this region who spoke in anything other than completely unaccented standard American (TV) dialect. Well... one minor exception. When I told a housekeeper at a motel that I was checking out suggested that she have a good day, she replied "you'all take care now, Baby", which I thought was a nice touch (by the way, this occurred in Louisiana not Mississippi).

 Wending my way through the Cradle of the Confederacy, as Paul Simon put it in Graceland, was a big part of my plan for this trip. Excluding the unusually charming and interesting little town of Port Gibson, MS there was very little of note to photograph yesterday. I've decided, therefore, to make a dash for home. No more secondary highways and country roads-- it's Interstate all the way for here on. Once again, some song lyrics come to mind:

"If that train runs right, I'll be home by Saturday 900 miles from my home... and I hate to hear that lonesome whistle blow." 

Well, actually  it's a Toyota minivan, not a train, and closer to 500 miles, and it will be Sunday night... and train whistles, lonesome or otherwise, are just fine by me; but, what the hell, we have to make allowances for Art's sake.

I intend to work hard at making blog entries (ie, deliver on the promises I've been made in the candor department) once I get settled at home. I hope that you'll come back.
Byron

Experiences in Santa Fe

In large part this trip concerns my continuing evolution as a photographer or, as someone suggested, a digital artists, since I'm really not all that interested in conventional photography but rather extending my efforts into making images that fall somewhere outside of the boundaries of traditional photography. It has been easy to turn this blog into a travelogue and avoid dealing with issues that are complex and, more disturbing, revealing. Yet, as I posited previously, my hope for this trip is that there will be some elements of self-discovery (please excuse any unintended pretentiousness). At any rate, if this blog is to serve a serious purpose, I must start delving into my experiences in Santa Fe. I am going to do so but because I want to include images in the relevant posts, it may be necessary to defer doing so until I get back to La Crosse. I'm not really able to do what I want with images on a laptop and it will work much better when I have my imaging paraphernalia available.

Nevertheless, I do want to briefly discuss the 2 day tutorial I had with Leslie Alsheimer at The Santa Fe Digital Darkroom the first part of last week.  I will write more extensively about this remarkable experience, but for now will simply copy and paste in some comments I made to Leslie in response to her request for an evaluation:

"Be assured that I take your request for an evaluation very seriously and promise to deal with it as soon as I get home. Briefly, after my 3rd tutorial [May,2010] I wrote you that it was the best yet. Now, following the 4th one, the same comment is appropriate. In fact, I have been telling family and friends that this  may have been the best educational experience that I have ever had. As you may know, I am intrigued by the process of teaching and have spent time reading and thinking about why is so often doesn’t work and why in some situations it is so very effective. It would,  in my opinion be a good thing for an Education researcher to study your remarkable talent for teaching. I have some thoughts about it, and may (or may not) share with you."

I think that this is all I am going to say on this blog about the qualitative aspects of the experience, but will go over in some detail the things we worked on and what I learned.
Byron

Cajun Country

I stayed in Lafayette, Louisiana for 2 days. Most of my preconceptions about South West Louisiana were incredibly misinformed. I expected to find a somewhat backward, laconic, run down patch of francophone weirdness. Well, hardly. The area is bustling and seems to be doing very well indeed, much more that the parts of  the Midwest with which I am familiar. Baton Rouge appeared to be almost bursting with economic activity. I wasn't there long enough to make more discerning observations, but what I did experience makes me want to return. The weather was very much like Wisconsin in late April/ early May. To a May or June visitor to Wisconsin I always explain that the special days we have during this, our very best time of the year, is the payback we get for our suffering from November through March. Apparently in this part of the country the current gorgeous weather is the reward for the misery of the summer months-- the impression I get is that "summer" extends from May to the end of September.

A Tale of Two Cities:  Well... actually smallish towns. So called Cajun Country is fairly densely developed and except for some bilingual signage and other concessions to tourists, there isn't much that distinguishes it from anywhere else. I started in New Iberia, well known to readers of  the mystery writerJames Lee Burke who apparently is a very big deal there if the bookstore I visited is any indication. New Iberia is also the place that Tabasco Sauce comes from. In my estimation Tabasco and Burke's Dave Robicheaux novels have a lot in common-- a good thing dialed up a couple of clicks too far. Along the main street of New Iberia many of the store fronts had been nicely refurbished in what looked to me like faux French Quarter. Just what we tourists expect and thus feel like we have had the "real" Cajun small town experience. While there I didn't give it a second thought. It just seemed to be the way things should.

My route to the next place on the Cajun tour, Breaux Bridge, took me through St. Martinville, a place that I found to be unabashedly unpretentious and authentic. While New Iberia is all tarted up for the tourists this town has been left alone. Sure, it's kind of seedy and worn down, but it looks to me that like a comfortable place where people live and get on with their lives and are not on the make. Kind of like old faded worn and slightly ragged bluejeans. By the way, don't mistake my intentions when I allude to the tourists or those who create environments in order to meet their expectations. I am a tourist and I certainly don't begrudge anyone who does what is necessary to make a buck. The tourism industry: :it is what it is.
Byron

Houston

I reviewed my previous posts to see what I had covered and what I hadn't-- which represents a hell of a lot more-- and discovered that I'd talked about arriving in Houston but had not completed the story. As you could tell I was underwhelmed by the initial impression made by this megalopolis, even though, admittedly,  the sample was very limited. Deciding that I didn't want my prejudices disturbed by actual observation of real facts (ed. note: for new readers, in case you don't recognize it, this is an example of Byron's sardonic and/or self-deprecating humor), I elected  to get out of town before sunrise. Even though I started in the exurbs, it seemed like more than 50 miles of driving on traffic clogged, strip mall lined roads before encountering anything resembling open country.

What I saw of Houston brought to mind the great SciFi novel by William Gibson, Neuromancer. Gibson describes what he calls "The Sprawl", the name he gives to the Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis, an endless urban strip along the Eastern Seaboard. Incidental, the book is more remembered for his creation of the word cyberspace, and, more important, the concept.

Houston has lots of devotees but I am not among them.
Byron

Earthquake in Japan

For any reader who may be wondering here is a copy  of an e-mail from Charles Annis received at 1:15am:

Mom, don’t worry about the earthquake. It looks terrible. But not in Kyoto or Osaka. I can’t reach anyone in Tokyo because the phone lines are down. But it doesn’t look too bad there either. Kaori’s mom said she felt in in the hospital, but I didn’t. We are fine. ca

Byron

Interesting Travel Factoid

I have several posts simmering on the stove-- in other words composed in my mind but needing to actually be written-- but (to continue the overdone metaphor) not ready to plate and serve. Time is running out and I have to get going if I am going to achieve today's tour goal which is to visit the towns and bayous of South Louisiana so that I may get in touch with my Cajun roots (the Jewish branch of Acadia, of course). In case it hasn't been mentioned, I'm currently in Lafayette LA which seems to be a very nice city.

Here is the interesting fact for tourists. In Santa Fe I stayed in a B&B-- a nice place with a very friendly and accommodating family at an attractive price. I found the B&B through a website recommended by Mel Annis called Airbnb. Anyone who uses the Internet for buying goods and services is familiar with the customer option of rating or reviewing the vendor. Today I encountered a first: I was sent email notification that the homeowner had rated ME of all things and was sent a link to her comments. Fortunately, I did pass muster as a guest, but I must say that this is a bit eeire. Will my children be making contributions to my political dossier-- the US version of my Stassi files any time soon?
More later, preferably about more pertinent topics.
Byron

Houston

I made my way into the far northwestern suburbs of Houston well after dark last evening and with benefit of my GPS readily found lodging that meets my special need: very cheap. Entering the room was a shock; to say that it is sparse is understatement. Yet on further inspection, I found the room to be a marvel of utilitarianism. Kudos to the designer and to the Motel 6 executives who approved  and implemented the design. One brilliant decision is that there is no carpet. The carpeting in low end hotels is, in my experience, invariably filthy-- it's one of those things that I avoid thinking about as I walk about the room barefooted.

As I drove into Houston, I thought "Gee, Toto, we sure aren't in Minnesota any more". I think that I prefer the Minnesota version of Houston and plan to get out of here early this am.

As I drove west from San Antonio I encountered an abrupt change. Suddenly the ground was covered with green vegetation. A short time later I noticed a faint but definite-- and pleasing--odor of the sea in the air; and, finally, the welcome feeling of heat and humidity. All in all, I prefer the dry and dessicated ambience of West Texas however.

Recently, my friend Dr. Richard Fink compared my current travel adventure to John Steinbeck's Travels With Charlie. I read the book sometime in the early '60s and remember it as being a charming travelogue. I decided that it would make good motel reading material for my current enterprise and bought a copy yesterday. I did read the forward written by a Steinbeck scholar before passing out and it is obvious that there is a lot more to this book than I recall. Furthermore, there is probably as lot more to me now than there was almost 50 years ago. With a lifetime of experience and pondering I may be better able to mine this vein of wise thoughtful observation. I've also read abouty half of the short stories in John Updike's last book (published posthumously) My Father's Tears. So far, all of the stories that I've read feature protagonists who are approaching the end of life. The tone of the book is elegic,kind, and thoughtful.

A final note. Generally, I thoroughly edit blog entries-- probably way more that necessary, if the truth be known. It's quite time consuming and provokes some anxiety because I am so self-conscious about my writing. It is probably the main reason that I am erratic and undependable about maintianing a steady flow messages. So a new policy is herewith in effect. No editing other than spellcheck. Live with it.
Byron

Another Attempt at Blog Resuscitation

Although my Seeing America One Back Road at a Time Tour continues with some success, this blog has been an unmitigated failure. For anyone who has taken the trouble to check in and been disappointed, my apologies. And, for those who wonder, here is the brief version of what I've done since the prior entry: I drove to Glenwood Springs Co to visit with my daughter Allison and her family for a couple of days then moved on to Santa Fe NM. After a couple of days getting settled and driving around northern New Mexico I spent a week doing a workshop with Jay Maisel at the Santa Fe Photo Workshops. More driving, exploring and photographing for another weekend, followed by 2 extremely productive and entirely wonderful days with my friend and tutor Leslie Alsheimer at the Santa Fe Digital Darkroom. Since then I have been driving south through New Mexico and West Texas with a sojourn in Big Bend National Park followed by a left turn taking me east to San Antonio where I have spent the last couple of days getting organized, well fed, and cleaned up. Checkout time at my hotel is looming so I have to conclude blogging for the time being.

I am really committed to making this blog viable, at least for the during of this trip. I have actually given some thought to what I do and don't want it to be. I'm know that you will join me in hoping that this will not be a travelogue-- way to boring. OK... what I see and do can be mentioned in passing, but the main thing I would prefer to accomplish is to describe what I am thinking as I continue in my quest to see and, more important, try to gain some understanding of our vast, infinitely varied, and, in my opinion, troubled nation. And, as is always the case in solitary and prolonged trips like this, self-discovery, whether intended or not, is an important part of the quest. I'll be contemplating these things as I drive and musing about them if and when I blog. One promise: No Political Commentary.  I learned my lesson when I did the now defunct But Then Again What Do I Know blog and won't be making that mistake again. The political opinions were, for the most part fine, the abuse garnered wasn't. I hope that you won't mind that the entries are not going to be chronological. I'd rather write about what is currently on my mind and it shouldn't matter in any significant way. Finally, about photos. I am always reluctant to post images that haven't been refined in Photoshop, yet I don't have the time or inclination to do so while travelling. I'll post pictures when the text really calls for visual enhancement, but not just to show off. How will that be?

To anyone who reads this rambling collection: Thank you for your fortitude and for being patient.  With every good wish to you all,
Byron