Are You Married or Single?

September 24, 2010

“You are married or single?” the grizzled man says in Russian. He does not speak anything but Russian, serving as pastor of the Russian Baptist church in Dushanbe,  a historically large community near the grand bazaar. Maya, his beautiful translator, speaks just about everything you need to speak in Tajikistan. “You are married or single?” [...]

There’s Good and Bad Everywhere

September 16, 2010

When you arrive to a place for the first time, there is a reckoning. The magic wears off and beneath the discarded wonder is a place as real as any other. There is a violence to the way your imagination can be suddenly stripped away, and some places survive it better than others. Today, I [...]

Cow?

September 15, 2010

Not ten yards from the Pyanj River, Afghanistan in plain sight, the taxi driver, speeding down a dusty road in Tajikistan, suddenly slammed on the brakes. Everyone in the car threw open their doors and sprinted up the mountain, away from the river. My heart skipped as I fumbled for the door handle. Christ, I thought, what’s [...]

Stand Still, It Burns Less (09/04/10)

September 5, 2010

The water was halfway to boiling point, and I put my feet in first. Then I withdrew them immediately and watched the skin turn pink and swell before my eyes. Sergei laughed. The late afternoon light filtered in through broken windows and the cracked blue tiles underwater danced with a mocking vibe. This hot spring [...]

If I never go to Outer Space (09/02/10)

September 3, 2010

I flew into Dushanbe on a black cloudless night. Fissures of light hovered in tight clusters throughout the empty dark, the incandescent striae spinning and weaving webs of gold and blue. I gazed out and felt the vacancy: I forgot the window, the plane, the city. I almost forgot the earth itself. This small galaxy, [...]

The Aya Sofia, The Face of God (08/31/10)

August 31, 2010

I almost wept when I walked into the Aya Sofia. I almost wept and then I wondered if the men, whose strained shoulders chipped the stone and hauled the cinder there, ever considered that some century in the nebulous future, other men from other hemispheres would walk into the cavernous world they whittled by hand and shed [...]

08/29/10 from Istanbul

August 31, 2010

It has been an unexpected several days, but I am finally, yet again, without any anticipation of being turned back or turning back, on the way to Afghanistan. I have 60 rolls of film, an old M6, two Russian Oktava microphones, a field recording device, two passports with three visas, a couple journals, several base [...]

There’s No Fish in This Lake

August 26, 2010

I heard a car slow to a stop behind me and an old man got out. He ambled to the water, that musty water, and stared at it – sunlight  danced on his dark face and slow ripples drifted toward the shore.

Published Clips

August 1, 2010

A few published words and photographs. Songs in the Wilderness Transcend Tourism: The Roaring Hooves Music Festival. Between Two Worlds: A Time at Camp Catawba.

Today, I dive back into the World (revisited)

June 1, 2010
Thumbnail image for Today, I dive back into the World (revisited)

About six months ago, things started falling out from under me. Not that they were ever all that sturdy to begin with, but it has been a steady slope toward the exit door for a while. For the past three years, I have lived intermittently in my parents house, driven three POS cars into the ground (the fourth one now spews white smoke after every oil change) and skipped meals whenever I could stand not to eat.

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