Today I read the New York Times obituary of Paul Ickovic, an eccentric photographer. “Grace Glueck, writing in The New York Times, called him “a wonderfully old-style photographer.”
I wanted to understand my photographic eye a little better after reading about his life. I only looked at June’s photographs through the years. This was not an easy editing process, I could’ve posted 100s of images that mark the start of summer.
“When all is said and done, we are here to ask questions, not to find answers.” —Paul Ickovic
That summer heat has got me feeling lazy The air is warm and the sky is hazy People getting down, getting crazy People getting down, getting stupid, betting crazy
I’ve never played a song on repeat as much as Mandolin Orange’s Wildfire—lyrics by Andrew Marlin. This haunting piece weaves in and out of history through our nation’s fight for independence, the civil war, and the lyricist’s own present-day sorrows.
From the ashes grew sweet liberty Like the seeds of the pines when the forest burns They open up to grow and burn again
The harmonies of Andrew Martin and his wife Emily Frantz are truly head & heart-rattling.
This song and these lyrics need to be absorbed…the word my big sister used when she wanted me to lie in the dark and listen to a newly discovered song with her.
Brave men fought with the battle cry Tears filled the eyes of their loved ones and their brothers in arms And so it went, for Joseph Warren It should have been different It could have been easy His rank could have saved him But a country unborn needs bravery And it spread like wildfire
Wildfire starts with the story of Boston physician and Revolutionary War patriot Joseph Warren, who was killed at Bunker Hill after insisting on fighting as a private, rather than serving as Major General, his recently commissioned rank. —Jody Mace, Glide Magazine (interview link below)
Wildfire
From the ashes grew sweet liberty Like the seeds of the pines when the forest burns They open up to grow and burn again It should have been different It could have been easy But too much money rolled in to ever end slavery The cry for war spread like wildfire
Wildfire Wildfire
Civil War came, Civil War went Brother fought the brother, the South was spent But its true demise was hatred passed down through the years It should have been different It could have been easy But pride has a way of holding too firm to history And it burns like wildfire
Wildfire Wildfire
I was a born a southern son In a small southern town where the rebels run wild They beat their chests and they swear we’re going to rise again It should have been different It could have been easy The day that old Warren died hate should have gone with him But here we are caught in the wildfire
Andrew Marlin was born in the small southern town of Warrenton, NC (pop. 862) it was named after Joseph Warren.
It should have been different It could have been easy But too much money rolled in to ever end slavery The cry for war spread like wildfire
Social scientists have long understood race to be a social category invented to justify slavery and evolutionary biologists know the socially constructed racial categories do not align with our biological understanding of genetic variation. The completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 confirmed humans are 99.9% identical at the DNA level and there is no genetic basis for race.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8604262/
NOTE: I created images to represent the way our nation was (or is) stitched together out of vastly different geographies, ideologies, philosophies, and experiences.
