One interesting thing I’ve noticed about the barn cats now living with us that have been driven inside by the endless winter is that they look the same when they are about to commit mayhem and torture on a mouse or mole as they do when they seem to be showing affection and love. It’s the same look, and it reflects the interesting line cats walk between savagery and the wild and domesticity and sun worshiping. If you have a cat, you will have to often wonder what they are thinking, as they have very few expressions and many of them seem to mean the same thing.
I’m offering this photo for sale to blog readers only, it seems only fair, they have been so supportive. I call it “Red In The Snow” and I suppose it speaks to me of Red and his determination to work all through this rough and continuing winter. He inspired me every morning. It was printed by George Forss on digital archival paper and is matted and framed – 16 by 20 inches. The photo costs $200 plus shipping and can be purchased by calling Scott Carrino at 518 677-2233.
I went to the Round House Cafe today and it was quiet, most of the tables were empty, this vase with two red flowers stood alone and in the sunlight at the edge of a plain white table. I sat there for a bit, the image had much emotion for me, and I thought generosity was the most selfish thing in the world because almost nothing feels better. Whenever I do anything for someone else, I understand it is a gift to me.
Around noon Friday, the legendary photographer George Forss launched his first Kickstarter Project, “The Way We Were,” he is seeking to raise $8,200 to publish a book of his photographs taken before 911, photographs praised by Ansel Adams, Henry Cartier-Bresson, Gordon Parks and Alfred Eisenstadt (“Great photographs of New York,” said Eisenstadt, “the man can see.”) He can, and does.
His project is taking off. By four p.m., George had raised more than $5,000 and seven people have pledged to purchase one of his silver gelatin prints from the book for $500. Only three chances left (I bought one). George is offering rewards and incentives for $10, $50, $100 and $500. Almost anyone can contribute something if they wish.
George embodies the idea that true genius will emerge despite the greatest odds, something Gordon Parks said of George’s work. If you can, please help George to reach his goal of publishing the wonderful photographs he took of New York before 911, he so brilliantly captured that majestic city in that place and time. Anyone with an Amazon username and password can pledge instantly, no money will be transferred until the project funding expires in 29 days. If George does not reach the full amount, he will get none of the money, but he can go over.
He deliberately set the figure on the low end, he is simply too modest to ask for more, but he could surely use more and put it to good use. You can check it out here. Those three remaining silver gelatin prints are one of the greatest bargains in the arts, few people can still print using that process. Ansel Adams did.
I was inspired to become a writer by the late I.F. Stone who write a newsletter in Washington dedicated to exposing falsehoods and lies by powerful people. He was only one man, and not a large or imposing one at that, but he wrote that the greatest calling of any journalist was to find lies and expose them, to worship the truth and tell it. Fight for justice, he wrote me once, never run from it.
Living on my farm, writing about animals and taking my photos, justice doesn’t come up all that often, I am not a warrior for anything. It does come up when I think of the carriage horses. They have helped us build our world, they are our partners on the earth, they call out for justice, they are in the greatest danger, close to being sacrificed on yet another human altar of selfishness and false righteousness.
I have always believed – and do still – that there are at least two sides to every issue, sometimes more. In my time as a journalist, I only came across two or three indisputable lies, they are rare, as opposed to arguments, which are everywhere in our culture and replicate like flies. Good people can disagree about anything. But lies are different than arguments, facts are different than opinions.
The carriage horses are voiceless, but animals do cry out for the truth to be told about them, their very lives and future depends on it. I respect them as mystical creatures that share our planet, not as dependent tools and balms to comfort us in our disconnected and fragmented existence.
So here is my simple truth based on facts, not arguments:
the carriage horses are not abused, they are neither miserable nor unhealthy, there is absolutely no evidence of any kind that supports this libels and big lies, transmitted every day, and for years. Work is not abuse. Grass is not the measure of the lives of horses, these animals exist in more safety and supervision and greater harmony with their city than at any time in their long history here. They are much safer than they used to be, not less. The truth is right there for anybody to see and find – from the police, from city records, from vets and transportation officials, from the evidence before our own eyes, even from the S.P.C.A., which oversaw the horses for years, but now wants them gone. There is little truth in most of the angry and hysterical websites and blogs, there is only dark fantasy, manipulation, selfishness and need.
I think of I.F. Stone almost every day, I believe in the truth, there is no “left” and “right” way of looking at the world for me, the truth does not need those labels. And I owe it to the horses to speak about the truth, their lives may depend on it. I owe it to myself to say it, because it is the truth, and when a writer hides from the truth, a part of him dies ever time. The horses are not abused, their work is not abusive, they are as healthy as horses anywhere have been and are, much healthier than most.
If they are driven from New York, it will be for reasons other than these, and the people who do it will be held responsible for their actions, they will join one of humanity’s longest and sorriest lists, that of people who exploit animals out of their own ignorance and for their own needs and drive them from of the world.
Animals that are banished never return, they are both lost and forgotten.
