Assuming I actually finish it and figure out how to publish it, my last memoir will be around 80,000 words, with 400 or so photo images. It will be big and heavy, like Kramer’s coffee table book that has legs and is a coffee table. I dunno about the built in doilies, though. (Hah. Joking.)
Except for the formatting (a major deal) and a bit more text about photography, I’m done, or close to it. I’ve written some 40,000 words and have an equal number as excepts from my other three books…
The last thing you usually write in a nonfiction book are the first words the reader will come across, no matter what you call it (Introduction, Foreword, Preface, whatever). I guess you’re supposed to have perspective or something by then, about the book and what it means, since you’re finally done with the fucking thing.
I wrote this yesterday. See if it makes sense.
First Words
I hope as you read these words I’m gone. Deceased. Dead. The longer dead the better, actually.
Sounds nuts, does it?
In order to explain let’s do a thought experiment involving time travel: I’m 75 years old as I write, okay? Let’s say I live five more years (my parents both passed at about eighty). On my 80th birthday, poof, I’m gone. This is a given.
Also, I’m able right now to randomly pick one reader/viewer out of all those who will ever read/view this book. Remember, it’s a random pick, made in the distant future.
Can you see why I would want to have passed away before a random person reads these words? Think about it…
Still don’t get it?
Okay, let’s think. Let’s say I get to pick ten random readers/viewers and as it turns out I’ve croaked before all of them read these words. Ten out of ten. I’m not just happy, I’m ecstatic!
Surely you get it now.
Good.
Slightly different subject. I don’t have a great memory of my early childhood — I was a reasonably happy kid but the specifics are hazy — although I do vividly recall an incident that I think may at least indirectly pertain to what’s going on with this book.
I recall I was in kindergarten so that would have made me five, possibly six years old. I was in my school library with the rest of my class and found myself thumbing through an old book of photographs. I turned a page and looked down at an image, a black & white, two-pager, across the gutter. It was a crowded beach on a summer day. Really crowded, hundreds of people, maybe thousands, in their ridiculous full-length bathing suits. It was a wide angle shot; you could see forever up the beach, where the people were barely more than little black dots. I don’t recall the caption exactly but it was something about ‘Coney Island’ and ‘a summer day’ and the date was 1898. I remember this because I asked my teacher, Missus Gasparino, where the picture was taken and she pointed out the caption and read it to me.
‘Are all those people dead now?’ I asked her. This was what I really wanted to know.
I don’t recall what Missus Gasparino said or how it went after that, but I got this question stuck in my mind to the point where to this day I will often consciously ask it upon seeing certain photographs, especially — but by no means always — old ones. Lately, this has started to happen with my own photographs, most often the older ones, some of which were made going on half a century ago.
Another thing I hope for: When someone looks at one of my self-portraits in this book they will assume I’m deceased but in some cases not be sure of it.
Right. What I’m talking about here is producing something that lives on and continues to affect people far into the future.
This is what I’m trying to do with this book.
Here’s more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RrqCfKBJ0c
Yes, Maui sure is looking like a DEW. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9L9WvlCli0
Great up close shots – Wow
Dustification and melting of metal components like the towers and many other fires. Hawaii Real Estate channel was the guy I send a video about on one of your previous posts. He’s a real estate person asking questions. driving around. Good for him sharing this stuff. We need that.
FAA won’t allow them to fly drones – what nonsense! Corruption all the way around.
Yes, but why the hell do those guys grovel to the cops like that!?!? – “thank you for your service” he says. What service??, they do not serve the people – period!.
Note that cops body language when they arrived.
And we saw what the police did through the plandemic/ scamdemic (which is still threatening btw) of the last 3 1/2 years – thuggery & assault all the way, and they are STILL chasing fine money for no masks and being outdoors etc etc.
I will never ever forget what they have done, and their appalling conduct, and who they really serve. Disgusting.
Brett, my take is they are playing the game intelligently we all know we must due to avoid arrest. Fight the battle in another way by exposing this via sharing the vids.
The big guy with them referred to maritime law, corruption of the courts, etc.. They are getting the word out. That’s important.
The Hawaiian Real Estate guy’s video is what I refer to as a targeted video. It’s when YT deliberately pushes out a specific video and usually to people who think about things the same way, I. e., not like the controllers think.
The video got 557,000 views in its first 24 hours and 16,000 of those views came during a one hour period yesterday. Yes, I’ve been checking because I don’t trust it at all and despite YT messing with numbers, I’ve seen these kinds of “targeted to certain types of people” video before. I’ve received them before!
Also, the guy made a suggestion on the first video. He said that people should try to get Joe Rogan (the gatekeeper) and Elon Musk (the strawman) “interested in” the project or fundraiser or whatever it is that he’s pushing.
Frankly, I was listening to the whole thing even though I was fully aware of what I was listening to, just to see what this guy would come up with, or maybe I should say “what would come out of his mouth.”
It wasn’t easy to listen to, but when the “Convince Joe and Elon to get involved” parts arrived, it became too much of a joke and I turned it off.
Obviously, this is just what I saw. Everyone else can choose to think what they want to, but please do ask yourselves why YT is pushing this video to you and others with such determination. Thanks, Allan! Ciao!! 🙂
Your choice to turn if off. was your choice. My choice (after hearing the Rogan blurt) was to continue watching to see what the evidence shows.
Like panning for nuggets of gold and diamonds.
What are you implying regarding the video evidence showing automotive metal do strange things in open areas (areas with little to no vegetation)?
Thank You!! – Exactly. The only redeeming feature was the burnt remains evidence on film (a petty they weren’t engineers tho).
Here is a more satisfying film, where shock horror – the police actually did their job for once.
Crazy ‘climate change/anti oil’ Nut Cases, try to block a road with their protest, just yesterday >https://youtu.be/6-D3cPzIMXc?si=fuANwdZZu7HVqyb5
Looks stagged to me Brett. The behavior of the people are not normal and the ‘police/sheriff’ truck is missing the real emblems and looks fake.
I agree with you, I’m glad someone else picked up on that. YT has been promoting this real estate guy heavily and I find several things in that video suspicious not the least amongst them mentioning Rogan and Musk. The way that car has burnt up looks amazingly similar to a car I came across in a mall close to where I live. It was the strangest thing to see….very very odd. And about 2 weeks later I saw another car just like it as I was exiting the interstate. And I have seen drones in that specific area before, four at one time,…almost couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I haven’t seen one drone since then (I’ve seen them on two separate occasions) but I am not naive enough to think they are not still around.
This reply was for the Opinionist don’t know why it was inserted here.
Hawaii Real Estate channel part 2 – missing brake calipers!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg2WV-B26pA
Allan, have you seen Tuckers apprentice yet? – Jackson Hinkle, only 22 y.o, and so on the ball, he is incredible > https://youtu.be/1jq2w0cNp5U?si=4tVLI344wEUCaVsh
Smart guy, yes. Trust? Not yet.
We’re constantly in a state of expiration from the moment we’re fully formed inside the womb. There may be some essence within us that is constant, some kernel of that which is immutable, even indestructible, e.g. a soul, but, even if so, we nevertheless spend our entire lives in a state of something like bewilderment as we and our surround alters constantly and, mostly, unpredictably.
Some of us may be more bewildered than others. Some may be more capable of admitting to ourselves our condition of bewilderment. and others are simply less aware and ess visibly effected by it.
My thoughts may strike you as banal, even insipid. They may be so, which is fair enough. I can’t, in words, do justice to the full expression of this idea I have about our state of being. Sometime, in my mid to late thirties I became keenly aware that my perception of the passage of time had changed. I was experiencing life at a more rapid pace. The days, weeks, months and years,,moved more quickly and it didn’t much matter what sorf of a day, week, month or year it was.
I’m younger than you, Allan, but I, too, am in the midst of a legacy project, though it is not one whose platform involves written communication.
I have changed towards the project over all these years of pouring myself into it, though I’m still committef to it nevertheless. So, here’s to us, altered, yet (mostly) undaunted, most of the time.
Yes, the years suddenly fly by. Think of it this way: When you are 10 years old, one year is one-tenth of your life lived. When you’re my age, one year is…. see what I mean?
Yes, I came to that realization about twenty to twenty five years ago. A month in the life of the five year old is going to be percieved very differently than a month in the life of the twenty give year old. C’est la vie.
Truth to tell, I had to read it twice to really follow your logic. But that doesn’t surprise me; I’m not the brightest button in the box and you are often writing about complex issues.
Without seeing the content of your book I’m going to have to make some assumptions. One, the content covers some or all the issues currently
affecting our world. Two, you’re hoping to help people of the future progress our world to a better place.
I guess my next thought is if the world has moved on to a better place the need to read your work is reduced except as a historical document. So, how pleasing to you to discover people still reading your book far into the future is surely a mixture of feelings….
Would it be clearer if paragraph 4 were to read :
Let’s also say I’m able right now to randomly pick one reader/viewer out of all those who will ever read/view this book. Remember, it’s a random pick, of a person living in the near or possibly distant future.
Two changes.
Yes, that is a bit clearer without giving it away. I think i will make the changes.
Legacy. Everyone gets one. But by the time you understand what it is its often to late to form it. Dont worry Allan, you have done well.
But it’s always the next project that is on your mind. not the past ones.
That’s it Allan…very well said.
Everything you have done will live on no doubt about it. As far as I am concerned it would be impossible to forget about someone like you and your work.
LEGENDARY
Hey Allan, – you are such a character! :-D, one of the main driving reasons why I have always loved your blog (not just the awesome writing &photography). Yes I also VERY OFTEN, wonder if people are dead in photographs – death of their body that is…. Took me a minute to click what you were meaning by ‘hoping to be dead’, but you are right – all the famous artists (like yourself) gained most of their fame , after they had left this earth….like the dearly departed Vincent Van Gogh – bless his soul too, I was looking closely at his original paintings in Paris, just a few weeks ago. I want/need 2 of your great books Allan.
2 of your great books *Please* 🙂
Thanks, but sometimes I don’t know if I will actually finish it. the tech stuff is driving me crazy.
Thanks, but sometimes I don’t know if I will actually finish it. the tech stuff is driving me crazy.
I reckon you have at least another 10 years+ easy, to get it ironed out Mr 🙂
I *suspected* your line of reasoning in the first paragraph.
I was pretty certain on it by the second paragraph.
I “got it” by the third paragraph.
I also can completely relate to the “i wonder if these people are dead” thoughts, when viewing photos…especially old photos.
Catching a person, or people in a moment via photography, is very powerful and moving.
You can empathize with native cultures being frightened of photography and fearing it would capture their soul.
Thats kind of what’s happening….capturing a moment of the soul.
yes, maybe they are thinking along the lines of someone looking at them after they are dead.