The Mayans Were Chumps Compared To Clee When It Comes To Prophecy (A Poem Photo)

     I rarely take photographs. I'm not good at it and I tend to to see the world in terms of language. The written word is my logos. However, a couple of summers ago I had a brief spell where I was incredibly in tune with the way images and language were used together, and I began to notice several examples of ways in which images and language were combined in ways that produced unintended reactions. At least in my mind. So, I did what I always do when I need a good picture taken: I contacted my friend Ryan Davis to see if he was in the area and could snap some photos of the discordant image/language I witnessed. But he was in Guatemala or Mozambique or somesuch, so being a nice day I resolved to take the photograph myself. And that's where the trouble started. One wouldn't think one would encounter any resistance in the course of shooting a simple photograph of (well, you'll see), but in this instance, one did. I got the Fuji Film old schoola digital camera off the shelf and set out to walk the two blocks to where I had seen a sign that amused me. It amused me a lot. Probably for reasons too idiosyncratic to entertain anyone else substantially, which I find is often a great failing of my work, but I've come to be amused even by the fact that other's aren't seeing the world as the incredibly goofy and inscrutable place it is. I persevere in making small productions out of what others might consider insanity. Nonetheless, I walk the two blocks to where I saw the sign that had created an incongruous message. In fact, in this case I can safely assume the sign created EXACTLY the opposite image in the beholder's eye as was intended. But in this case it wasn't necessarily the words on the sign that created the discordance, it was where the sign was located.


     Ok, but before I show you what I saw, let me tell you what happened. I had my camera out and I started taking a few different photos from different angles. I need to get a photo of a sign inside a shop, and the shop was closed, so I shot from outside. Even if the shop had been open I would have waited for them to be closed and done it this way. The sun was terrible but I fought on man against nature and all that and managed to get a few shots. Then, this lady rolls up on me and asks me what I'm doing. But I'm in don't fuck with me, bitch, because I'm working and I really want to get this shot mode, so I think my reply may have been rather terse and probably consisted of only two, three words maximum designed to inform her that unless she was about to get a bazooka out of her pocket she needed to get out of my fucking face. So, Ms. Self-Appointed Rona Barret of all local activity pretends like she's calling someone. Hey, I probably could have easily explained I was taking a picture of the ironically placed sign I saw thought the window and diffused the situation pronto with some social KY jelly, but that's not my nature. If i wanted you up my ass I probably would have asked for a date, but since I'm not absolutely positive what the legality of photographing someone else's private property is, and i didn't have time to consult my attorney, AND since I already had a dozen or so photos I thought I could use, I just walked away. It was a nice summer day and I had my photos and people like me who have already been declared insane by the State tend to lose arguments once the police show up.


     Without any more do-whacka-do, this is what I saw and what I titled it. The sign has since been moved.

     So, there you have it. No need for the Mayan prediction of Apocalypse in 2012. Nostradamus? A chump. You want the lowdown on the end of the world you talk to Clee, because apparently she's up to more than just cutting hair. 

Pin It