Even though I would have loved to have said goodnight Irene, I will see you in my dreams. Unfortunately, we are left with a few nightmares. We're working on eradicating all that remains of the nightmare, and returning to sweet dreams shortly. See you next Monday.

I had it all ready. For the last few days, I have been thinking intently about what I'd write about. Profound thoughts and feelings were flowing out of me like a stream overflowing it's bounds and just as morning arrived and I sat down to pour my heart out, and sing my song of life to you, something happened. I had lost my loving feeling. My heart these last days was swelling with the delicate perfume of a bygone era, where a woman's touch, or the shape of the nape of her neck, or the song of a woman's stockings as she was crossing her legs would make me swoon. It was all so nuanced and so beautiful and profound, but here I am at my desk ready to write and coming up empty. But fear not, for there is a lesson to be learned other than that the wheels go round and round, and it goes something like this. In the fall of 1988, I was beginning to feel on top of the world. I had begun to receive a modicum of success as a photographer and was receiving praise from a number of different sources (especially those that were beginning to fill my deeply empty pockets). I was feeling full of myself, which was a nice manic high to the years of unrest and emotional turmoil that preceded it. I had been photographing CEO's and was right in the midst of this corporate work, looking deeply into their moneyed souls and enjoying it, when along came Bennett. Some years before, he had helped start, if not actually began my career as a commercial photographer. At another date I will pay Bennett the homage that he deserves for choosing and trusting me with the assignment of a lifetime, but this is not the story for today. This is a story that transpired some years later, where Bennett and I had become friends of sorts, and we were used to working together on assignments. One afternoon, I received a call from him asking me to come to his office the next morning. When Bennett called, I obliged and promptly at 8 am (Bennett was a fastidious early morning man, which suited me perfectly) I arrived at his office. He was always immaculately dressed: shirt pressed with a bow tie, slacks with a crease you could have skied down, and with polished shoes to a high military shine. One of the things I loved about Bennett was his office. He always had a perfectly laid out mock-up of the brochure or project he was working on, on a sideboard in his office. He would love to show me the design and scale of each page, which quite honestly, I loved to see. Seeing the project in horizontal form with its ebbs and flows, typographic treatments, scale of photographs, always seemed to add an extra perspective to the finished project. This morning however, all I saw on the long settee behind his…

Much as I own, I owe The passers of the past Because their to and fro Has cut this road to last I owe them more today Because they've gone away. -Robert Frost (excerpt from Closed for Good) Well here it is around 3:30 in the morning (an hour I almost never have had the opportunity to participate in, let alone, luxuriate in the very wee small hour of late evening.) I know late evening is a love of many. Writers find their muse and solitude, others find their peace, many find it the time to party, but for me it is the hour to be avoided. Its purpose is to provide a gracious time to sleep through all the trouble the world unfolds. Tonight though, I woke up with a start, feeling an immediate need to describe the call of the food and the power it has to satisfy one with love through comfort food. This is really quite peculiar because I can't even boil water. I love gardening and know a great deal about plants and trees, but I know nada about the culinary art of food preparation. If abandoned by my wife, our maids, gardeners, laundresses, etc., I would be completely lost. I probably wouldn't starve, but I definitely would be lost without numerous boxes of cold cereal. Just like our beautiful oasis of a pool, which I have swam in less than five times in 25 years, I cannot ever recall turning on the stove. So what makes me at 3:30 in the morning, wake up with a sudden start with a clear notion of being famished, and knowing what I love about certain foods? It started at about 11 p.m. last night when I was watching (on television) one of my few favorite shows. It is called “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” in which a spiked haired, tattooed man, goes from one road food joint to another throughout America and describes how all this extraordinary, bizarre, American food is prepared. He and I are two people that you would normally see as incompatible. But, oh...how I love this man, how I love this food, and I love his enthusiasm. In fact, I wish I had his job, though instead of driving up in a vintage, ugly, American, muscle car I probably would like to approach my travels in a Bentley driven by Michael and his bow tie. The show runs the gamut from breakfast fare to lunch and dinner, with a dab of this and a ton of that. There are no delicate recipes. It is all home grown and made to taste. It is all mixed in large containers, stirred, whirred, boiled baked, fried, lathered, salted, caressed, kissed, and by the time he finally taste the Piece-de-resistance I am starved. This gentrified, elegant, photographer is in love with fast food cooking, done to perfection. I love the atmosphere and the smell of home cooking. There is barbeque in Memphis and in South Carolina, Po-Boy's and…

Some years ago, I was asked to make photographs that illustrated the idea of being on the edge. This was a perfect assignment for yours truly, since as I described so eloquently last week, my life always seems to be on the edge of some ledge or precipice. I never seem to have trouble pushing conversation and my physical self to the edge of inappropriateness and danger, but I never seem to make that final leap to intimacy or faith, except with the help of my little camera. So I came up with some ideas that I felt best suited what I was being asked to illustrate, both because they visually appealed to me, and they were things that felt new. I know many people are fearful of heights, but this is one fear I do not own. In fact, I feel exhilarated, even joyful at the thrill of standing high up on an edge, looking down below. It's not that I want to jump, it's just that at this spot at that time, I feel all is possible. I can see both up and down, and far into the past and future. I have this choice and I love it. So no wonder I came up with the idea of shooting on a large airplane wing. I could have easily asked to go The Oval Office. It took so much effort (FBI clearance) etc, to finally get permission, both from JFK airport and the airline, to make these pictures. Eventually my request was granted, and we were allowed one hour (escorted by many guards) to make these pictures. Only the model was allowed on the wing. He was watched and supervised like a hawk. I must admit it made you feel that at least there is some sense of security around these planes. I (the photographer) was not allowed to be on the wing with him. They did provide me with a movable ladder, but as I was racing the clock, I used it only on one or two occasions. The picture you see is one of my favorites. The scale of the plane, the figure, and one's imagination all seem to work for me. As we slip the surly bonds and fly, fly, fly, oh, how wonderful it must feel.