Month: November 2013

We just got back from two days away and the farm is rocking. We will not have a quiet day today.

– Maria has launched her quite radical Plaid Friday experiment, yet another of the almost daily things Maria is trying and doing that she would not have tried and done before. Plaid Friday is the local business response to the Black Friday Corporate Theft of the Thanksgiving holiday, artists and small business owners are offering their own great works inexpensively, kicking off their own Christmas shopping season. At 10 a.m. this morning, Maria offered 90 potholders in differing themes  — elephants, manly, flowers, Goddess, Minnie and Flo, the Hens and Affirmation Potholders – they are shown in five gallery pages on her website, they are moving fast. Good for her, I am bursting with pride in my former girlfriend, she is the real deal. She takes Paypal and ships almost anywhere. Good shopping. At Bedlam Farm, we embrace the idea of buying local, supporting artists, staving off the corporate takeover of the earth, supporting individuality.

– More good news. George Forss, perhaps the most acclaimed landscape photographer alive today, returned to New York two weeks ago, to visit scenes of some of his most famous masterpieces.

So there are some new masterpieces – shots of the new city skyline with the new World Trade Center tower (formerly the Freedom Tower), magnificent skyline shots of New York and Brooklyn, and shots of his partner in creativity and life, Donna Wynbrandt on the Jersey City boardwalk, one of his most evocative black and white photographs. George captured the grandeur of New York, then and now, two different but beautiful worlds. He is selling his new photographs – most are in color – for $65 plus shipping, and there cannot be a greater bargain on any corporate website anywhere in the world than a George Forss print for $65, there cannot be a better gift for a photographer, urbanite, New Yorker or artist that these amazing photographs. You can see them and buy them on George’s new blog, in between his observations on the universe, politics, God-force and alien beings.

George called this morning to say he was stunned by the orders, he was running out to get some new mailers. I think we may sell 100 of George’s prints in the next week or so, maybe 500 by Christmas at this rate. George is a wonderful human being and a true genius, his celebrated work somewhat derailed by the 911 attacks,  the rise of digital photography, and his own eccentric individuality – he does not play the game. He is a master, acclaimed by the great photographers of our time, celebrated in Time Magazine, on the Today, in a book by David Douglas Duncan. His star is rising again, and thanks to you for recognizing this authentic American genius. I can assure you a George Forss print will always be worth more than $65, just check out the prices on the Park Slope Gallery site.

– Then, last but not least, there is me. This weekend marks the next phase of my new kind of book tour for “Second Chance Dog: A Love Story.” I am using new technology to connect with my readers and find an audience for my book, which went into a third printing last week. This is the crunch phase – have I gone as far as I can, as some people in publishing think, or am I just beginning as the Christmas shopping season approaches?  I think the latter, time will tell. My book is a wonderful Christmas gift, it is a Christmas story, it is a happy book (no dogs die, or even get hurt)  the last chapter is called the “Christmas Miracle.” If I can tap into the Christmas gift book buying market using my blog and social media, I will truly have made some history. Publishing has changed, so I have I. You can check out some of the early reviews here.

For me, one test of sales is the orders coming into  Battenkill Books, my local bookstore. We think they will really pick up when people start focusing in on Christmas, which is now. You are eligible to win some free stuff if you buy books from Battenkill – dog food, books, photos, potholders.You can support a great bookstore as well as my work and also help reaffirm the meaning of writing and publishing in this new world. Maria and I will sign and personalize any books purchased through Battenkill, you can visit the store’s website or call them at 518 677-2515.

We have sole well over 800 books at Battenkill, I am shooting for 1,000. At least. Thanks to all of you, we are happy to be offering great and original and affordable stuff to buy for Christmas.

Back home from a quiet Thanksgiving with Maria at a beautiful inn in Vermont. My voice is still shot, my cold is rioting, we had a wonderful time, we are returning to lots of good news and exciting stuff, from my book to Maria’s Plaid Friday initiative to George Forss who seems to have been discovered anew. More later, got to check on a limping sheep. Glad to be back.

When Simon, poor thing,  emerged from his struggle with death and came into the big pasture and uttered his great bray of greeting to me that morning at Bedlam Farm, I called it the “Call To Life” and it may have been the only donkey bray in history that was heard around the world, it captured a feeling, a moment, an affirmation that resonated with so many people in so many places, it resonates still. Every time I see Simon, he sounds his roller-coaster, warbly bray of affection – some say it is a call of gratitude.

Whatever it is, it is a powerful sound and I am happy to put it up here for all of you to see, it seems apt on Thanksgiving. In between eating, Simon reminds us to pause and count our blessings, most especially the gift of life, in all of it’s ups and downs, imperfections, struggles and joys. Everyone else might be rushing off to the mall or watching TV, but my wish for you is that you find a corner of your world and utter your own call to life, your own determination to live a meaningful life.

Yesterday a kind of bronchitis overwhelmed me, I got sick and lost my voice. I suppose, given the past week, it ought not to be a surprise to me, it always is. My wife doesn’t seem as concerned about this as she might be, she says I sound like a squeaky little duck – Daffy Duck perhaps. She keeps chuckling and says she is intrigued by the idea of a soft-spoken me. I am heading to the doctors this morning, then we are taking off for Vermont to an inn we love for two days to rest, be with one another and get fed well. No better place to spend Thanksgiving for us.
Maria says a “voiceless Jon Katz is intriguing,” she is going to have some fun with it. I will find a way to communicate, especially my great love for her. I have books and music, I am good.

It is bittersweet in some ways,  neither of us are in a position to do the traditional family Thanksgiving thing for all kinds of reasons that do not need to be shared, but are still sad. Maria and are building our own traditions, new traditions, we are very much family to one another. I am so grateful for her, for my life, for my daughter in Brooklyn, for my work, photos, friends, the animals on the farm, this remarkable community that seems to have sprung up around me, that means you, for my new book, the-book-that-won’t quit, for our farm for every day of my life.

Like you, my life has ups, downs, crisis, mystery, joy and sorrow, that is the very definition of life, and my goal is to look back one day and say I finally learned to live it fully and well.  I honor the creative spark, I give thanks for it. I wish all of you the most meaningful Thanksgiving. Your lives are important, your stories are important, you have to right to be fulfilled. Give thanks for your life do not speak ill of it.
Get to it.

Come and see Simon and his “Call To Life,” and hear his message.

I was surprised and humbled to go to my Post Office Box 205 yesterday and find a pile of letters from very different places with different ideas but one common theme that ran through all of them was that they gave thanks for my blog. So this post is about my giving thanks to the blog, about you giving thanks to the blog, and about me giving thanks for you. Sounds a bit sappy, but my Post Office Box is helping me finally understand what the blog means to so many people out there, in so many different places. The people who write me at my PO box (it is Post Office Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816) seem to be individualists to me, people who care about communicating and who do not wish the Internet to be their only means of communicating with people. They care about living their lives, and  they follow my life and Maria’s, and those of the animals here.

People like Jan Mitchell, a photographer and card maker from St. George, Utah. She says she was very pleased when I got a post office box, “sending an e-mail to a stranger seems like an invasion of privacy. We haven’t been properly introduced. Sending a letter or card through the mail seems to me to be a proper introduction. It takes time to prepare, time to send it and be delivered, time to sit in the mailbox waiting. It is not so presumptuous as to demand your immediate attention.”

This sense of boundaries and appropriateness has been largely obliterated by the Internet, where complete strangers offer advice and criticism as if you had known them for years. They also offer love and support and connection. It is different.

Jan wrote to thank me for the blog, which she has been reading for years. She has watched my growth as a photographer, and especially loves the landscape photos I’m doing. “It must also be said,” she added, “that a good part of the charm is the ongoing story of the animals. The way you present them it is easy to see their individual personalities and develop and affection for each of them. I shed a few tears when Rose and  Izzy died.”

“Last but not least,” Jan added,” Maria is such a wonderful part of the story and it has been a pleasure to watch her blossom as a person and an artist. She deserves the success.” Amen to that. Jan enclosed a beautiful photo card of a cabin in Montana that she made.

It is hard to describe the impact of graceful and heartfelt letters like this, they are all treasures, gifts, shafts of light. They help me see my work through the eyes of others, help me understand why I am  here, what I am doing with my life, what the purpose is. So many people tell me they have been following the bog for years, they have seen so much, they grasp Maria’s great heart and hard-won blossoming. It is rare to get a letter these days without a mention of Maria, and the P.O. Box almost always has some beautiful handkerchief or piece of fabric, it is part of the river of life, the flow of energy and connection that seems to swirl around the farm and especially, the blog.

Nancy Todd, also of Utah, sent me a $3 check because she had to  cancel her Paypal, she wanted to pay me for my work on the blog. She thanked me for the blog, and added “I am replacing my own ideas of an unhappy relationship with the possibilities of the Jon & Maria mode. Thank you so much!”

Thanks back, Jan and Nancy and the other letter writers,  I am grateful to you, I give thanks for you, I love the letters I get in my Post Office Box, Jan is right, there is something especially meaning about them and the work and time it takes for them to get to me. I am thankful to all of the people reading this.

.

George Forss called me this morning, excited about a slew of orders he got of the New York skyline I posted her the other day. George returned to New York City last week to shoot some new urban landscape photos here, the kind of photos that made him famous and put him in Time Magazine and on the Today Show. George is selling these new masterpieces for $65 dollars, and a photo from a master like George for $65 is by far the greatest holiday shopping bargain you will find anywhere, including Amazon, any mall or Best Buy. George’s legendary photographs of New York City before 9/11 range from $750 to $1,000.

I love this dual shot George took of the Brooklyn and New York skyline, he took four or five photographs and used a computer stitching program to put them together as one shot, George is a technical and artistic genius. This shot would be a wonderful gift for anyone who lives cities, or the new New York landscape, you can see George’s work and purchase it on his blog. Trust me, a George Forss photo will only grow in value, a distinctive gift from one of the premiere photographers in the world. Just don’t ask about aliens unless you have the time or the interest. How nice that so many of you bought some of George’s wonderful new works, this community just shines.