Work in progress

 

Maybe my magnum opus here at clerkmanifesto isn't the things I finish, but all my work in progress. It's all a work in progress at clerkmanifesto.

I have mentioned, and shown examples of, a series of layered ai and hand drawn pictures of Genoa. This is a faintly ridiculous project of about 80 pictures, which are made from probably more like 500 pictures. And as I create the layers to complete the actual final drawings, which is a project that has now gone on for a couple of weeks, I am sometimes struck by how nice some of the layers are by themselves.

So we are talking about process today!

Yes, I am keen to show you my 80 picture suite of Genoa photo paintings. But I still have a ways to go to do that.

And in the mean time I not only have a few pieces of work I am keen to show you, though I will try to keep it to a minimum, but I also get sidetracked by occasional bizarre ventures into mythologizing my very work on this series.

Yes, it does slow down the overall project, but I am ever a victim of my muse.

So, what do you want to see first?

The mythologizing of creating the work, or the work along the way (which actually appears in the mythologizing)?

Okay. Mythologizing series it is! Tomorrow we will show some of the work along the way.

And yes, before you ask, I am a cat now.

And yes, in my mind my studio is very large and not a computer cubby in a small dormer window.

And most amazingly, though you really wouldn't be able to know this part, the images of drawings and paintings in these photograph ARE actually the ones I am working on (easiest to see in the commonality of the drawing here in image one and image two).

Expressing my feelings

 

As we officially launched a search for a new city to live in in France, I have a lot of different feelings.

I am full of feelings.

I have so many feelings that I write clerkmanifesto!

But these feelings are a little unwieldy, and head in one direction at three in the morning but head in an entirely different direction while having a 50 cl Affligen beer at a cafe at a lovely old city cafe at four in the afternoon.

So let's, just for today, offer these three:

In which I almost say nothing

 

For today I present a collection of four images. I decided that sometimes these images are enough for a clerkmanifesto posting, and that I need no commentary. Surely they can speak for themselves!

Yes, they can speak for themselves.

If only I would let them.

We take a moment out for doris

 

Doris has not got much play lately despite appearing as a statue come to life, so I thought I would share a couple of her latest escapades, this along with my new avatar. 

Yes, this may be me from now on. It's possible I have turned into a cat in France. But that's not the main point today.

We're here to see what's up with Doris, intergalactic traveler and super intelligent alien.

More clerkmanifesto boosterism

 

There is not too much to say about today's video except that it may be setting a bit of a high standard that the other ones I'm working on will surely not quite meet. I have long maintained that I have an almost magical disability to when it comes to marketing. Nevertheless, I don't think I could come up with a better ad than this:

(remember: click to engage. hit the enlarge button. make sure you are prepared for the essential sound here, and then click again to play)

The Bartleby homage

 

I do have in mind what readers like and don't like in clerkmanifesto. And it's not so much that I easily disregard what you out there might like to see or hear about on clerkmanifesto, as it is that I remember that my idea of what you like or dislike is almost entirely fictional.

So even though I might think you are least interested in developments in the powers of AI video, I don't actually know that.

Which is good because an annual subscription I have had, along with expiring credits, along with an astonishing burst in the capabilities of video generators, have all conspired to leave me with several new video clips that I'll be showing you.

Would I be showing these if I didn't think they were astonishing?

 Maybe. 

But for the best of these, that work cleanly, I stand pretty well amazed. Nevertheless, I like everyone am a little confused as to how much creative credit I get for something like these clips.

But in the end I think: Most of it. 

On the one hand these are vastly easier to make than seems possible. On the other, it's not exactly "easy".

But I can try to remain humble about it.

Here is the second of these clips then. Remember to click it to engage it. Enlarge it, which would be better for its effect. And then click again to play it. This is fully audio too.

Since it is all fiction in my head I am going to go with: you absolutely adore seeing stuff like this!

Living the dream

 

As we officially put into motion in this coming week a plan to move from this famous city to perhaps another more suited to us, maybe Montpellier, maybe not, I can't help starting to wistfully reflect upon our time here. Much like when we left Saint Minneapolis a year ago, and I was wandering around like Frodo before he fled the Shire, constantly muttering "Lo, I shall never look down upon this storied river again!" and silly things like that, I am now looking at buildings and across at vistas with a similar early nostalgia. "Lo, shall I gaze upon this frilly Belle Epoque apartment building ever again?"

Well, yeah, probably. But at some point, no, never.

Life, eh?

One thing that crazily occurred to me today, which vaguely shocked me because I don't really think of us as people constantly making our dreams come true is, weirdly, we do have a tendancy to make our dreams come true.

Five or six years ago we came on a vacation to this city. We stayed for a couple of weeks. We had a bit nicer apartment than this, but not wildly out of the range of it. We shopped in the markets in the morning. We explored the city, even once taking a train out to Menton to check that out. We went to cafes. And in the evening we tended to sit around a kitchen table eating things we collected, drinking, playing scrabble. 

This is mostly what we've been doing now since December.

As one does, we, at the time, on vacation, were all like: We should move here and do this all the time!

And so we did.

Fox and skunk hit the rooftops and I'm there to report it!

 

We haven't gone in for much video footage since fleeing America, but what with these guys showing up again on my rooftops and my mananging to capture them with my phone, I couldn't resist this clip for today. 

Assuming everything still works here like it did in the past, click to activate the video below, then enlarge it if you want, then click again to finally play it. It does have sound if you want to hear me talk, though the content shan't suffer terribly without sound if you're in a library or something.

At the speed of clouds

 

Since retiring I have been spending more time looking at clouds.

I recognize there may be something a bit cliched about that, or too quaint, but not wanting to go into these conditions wherein I look at clouds so much, I can say that said conditions are pretty bland. I am not lying in some magical grass meadow or anything. But there, nevertheless, I am, and there are the clouds, and sometimes I look at them a lot. That's just how it is.

So you may ask: Is this place I live in so particularly good at clouds?

Every place in the world, on the right day, is good at clouds. That's just how clouds are. So no, not in particular

But this place, the Cote d'Azur, seems to do particularly well at very volumetric, very clear, complicated, and grand clouds. More than once I have gotten all photography about them and served you up all sorts of pictures, mangled this way and that, to try to get the point of their sheer wonderfulness across to you. Whether I did or did not get that point across would be up to you and your long search through the clerkmanifesto archives. But this is not my mission today, and I have no new pictures.

I was really just watching the clouds.

And I noticed something about them. 

There is something miraculously pitched about the speed of clouds.

Clouds move at a speed just fast enough for us to notice, but one has to look for it. At first glance they seem to be stilled, a set tableau. And while one can see the movement and change with an applied concentration, each moment seems fixed, the scene casually appears to be a settled one, but the movement of the clouds nevertheless happens at the fastest possible speed for that fixed quality to still be true. As I watched the clouds I could see the movement, but the sky did not seem to be changing. Yet if I turned my attention, or looked away for even just a handful seconds, looking back to the sky I would find a very different scene.

What does this all mean? You might ask.

Nothing. Nothing at all.

But probably a bit more than most of things you might find here on the Internet today, which, come to think of it, might move at just about the same speed.

Best painting in the palaces

 

While I muck about with the many pictures I took of Genoa, some of which maybe don't need any mucking about, it occurs to me I have a picture of the best painting in that city. And it might be nicer of me not to scribble all over it because it really knocked me out.

One of the reasons we wanted to go to Genoa was to see their Caravaggio. We did see it, The Ecce Homo, but that is not the painting I am here to talk about. It has a disputed provenance, basically meaning some people think it is by Caravaggio, and some don't. I lean towards it being a Caravaggio, and that's mostly down to some beautiful passages in how Caravaggio paints living flesh, nevertheless it's not one of the best Caravaggios. 

But unbeknownst to me, in one of the palaces, filled with many paintings, there were two paintings by Durer. 

Though I have of course seen pictures of his work, I have encountered very few actual Durers in my life in person, despite being an admirer. Paintings by 15th century geniuses aren't just floating around in every museum one wanders into. And before showing you this portrait that I liked so much I will give you my odd, offhand take on Durer:

Durer is the Western artist from the longest time ago whose work sometimes doesn't look like it's particularly old in any way at all (though here I'll grant the clothes give it away).

I hope I didn't build that up too much. Portraits aren't everyone's cup of tea. But it's just so interesting and fresh looking to me. I love that lower right eye, the clarity, and that beautiful green.

The other Durer is too full weird not too look old, but it's a great, unique fun kind of old. I wouldn't even begin to break down this painiting.

Durer has that composed, almost symbolic carefulness of the painting of the era he was born into (the 1400's Northern Renaissance), but sometimes there will be this lovely naturalism juxtaposed or appearing in his work, like you can see the future of art taking shape. One delightful aspect of Durer is just how all over the map he can be.

This wasn't in Genoa, but is a watercolor of a hare by Durer I always loved and maybe helps make my point a little:

There were some other wonderful paintings in the Genoa Palaces, and one in particular might come into things in the coming days. But for today I sign off as I am, ever your faithful correspondent.

f.

Focaccia

 

Obviously this is not a picture of focaccia:

But it might as well be, because it is a picture of Genoa, taken over the rooftops of the medieval city from a baroque palace. And Genoa is focaccia. It is everywhere. It's Italy, so they don't have boulangeries, they have focacciarias! Our hotel had piles of focaccia, homemade, in their breakfast buffet. The streets of Genoa are paved with focaccia.

Oh, wait, I have an idea.

But maybe don't eat the focaccia paving?

All the other focaccia is really good though.

Focaccia in Genoa is like the baguette of France, ubiquitous, cheap, and tasty. But, and this shocks me to say it, it might be better in an important way than the baguette, and that is simply because it is more complete in itself. Full of salt and olive oil, which are the ingredients that elevate the Genovese focaccia so consistantly above the others I've had, it's like if the baguette came with butter or cheese built in.

Maybe that's a croissant?

Whatever, just, the focaccia is delicious.

Questions you may have:

1. What, are you working for the Genovese Tourist Board now?

2. Are you sure about this? I mean, it's focaccia. It's... fine. I've had focaccia.

3. Are you moving to Genoa?

4. Do you know the best place to shop for reasonably priced socks in the greater Pittsburgh metropolitan area?

5. Does Genoa really rank third in the world for total tourist visitor satisfaction?

Answers I probably have:

1. My French visa specifically forbids me from doing such a thing, so "No, I am in no way engaged in employment or work of any kind in or for the European Union." That said, did you know that Genoa ranks third in the world for total tourist visitor satisfaction?

2. Yes. And, if you haven't been to Genoa you may have had focaccia, who am I to say? But it probably was improperly salted, had too little olive oil in it, and was made with inferior water. So the jury is out.

3. I mean... no. No. That would not be a good idea. There is no fiber in focaccia. And, with due apologies to the Genoa Tourist Board, the city looks like it has an unusual amount of muggers and prostitutes. Plus, like we moved to one place we liked already, France, and it was exhausting!

4. I don't, but I would love to!

5. It's possible, but I just made it up.

The active lifestyle in Southern Europe

 

Having been out in the hot Mediterranean sun during our grand burst of August adventurousness, with trips to Italy, 1,000 year old olive trees, small town festivals, and Roman ruins, I find myself struggling with how to tell you all about it all. And for each day we head off somewhere else, and I come back with another hundred pictures and twenty different stories to tell, I find myself then starting from scratch with a new plan and a longer list of things to prepare.

And then I remember.

This is clerkmanifesto: Where all plans fail and all plans triumph!

No, I'd rather not explain that at the moment, but thank you for your interest.

But that doesn't mean that I won't be showing you a hundred paintings of Genoa made in layers and through a process involving hours of hand drawing according to my original plan. Remember, all plans triumph here! Given the quite ample time we have left until the heat death of the Universe (which, with the heat of this summer I am not nearly so opposed to) there is plenty of time for all those vast pictures of Genovese Palaces and magnificently grimy alleyways I have been working on. It's just that I might decide to first tell you about what a revelation the focaccia is in Genoa, which is the home of focaccia and the home of pesto too. Or I may stop to tell you how much I despise Duolingo with my whole heart sometimes and why I still use it. I could talk about the terrible crowds in my city in the Summer, the women's tour de France, or, I don't know, I could suddenly get involved in making an AI video. At which point, bam! The heat death of the Universe will be here and I won't have finished those hundred paintings. Which, fair enough. After all, remember:

 All plans fail here at clerkmanifesto.

But then so do waves, eventually,

It doesn't mean we can't ride them.

What makes a city great?

 

"What makes a city great?" The title of this post asks.

"Oh no!" You cry. "He's bitten off more than he can chew!"

You are right again. What was I thinking?

I love a lot of things about a lot of different cities, but when it comes to cities that really rip the heart right out of my chest I always end up thinking about one aspect.

No, it's not about the number of cars.

Wait, maybe it is about the number of cars

(everyone holds their breath for a second because cars really do fuck with cities!)

But...

No, it's not quite the car thing.

(breathing resumes)

It's the layer thing.

Wait, what layer thing? No one said anything about layers. Is this how he's introducing the layer thing?

Yes.

Layers make my favorite cities. Because while there can be a kind of harmony and beauty in an almost entirely Medieval city, for example, it ends up copying itself a little. As much as one might love the style there will always be better and worse examples, and seeing the worse ones might be a little fatiguing. All the copies of themselves can get a little disenchanting after ahwile.

But get this: What if the city knocked down the kind of crappy Medieval buildings and put up some Renaissance ones, once that fancy new style came along? And then what if they tore down some more of the not great medieval buildings, and some too of those Renaissance buildings that didn't work out quite like we hoped, and then they added Baroque buildings, which are beautiful! Maybe they'd even create a new neighborhood full of Baroque buidings because this city is kind of getting awesome, and its growing!

Do you see where I'm going with this?

Well that's sort of Genoa, Italy.

I mean, except half of the buildings are crumbling a bit, and its dark and full of trash and a bit of dangerous mystery. But, wow. It has layers.

Layers and layers and layers.

The Cathedral Lion of Genoa

Medieval Alleyway of Genoa

The White Palace, Genoa

Layers of Genoa the first one

 

Yesterday I presented the plan that maybe I could work up all 100 pictures I took in Genoa before I start talking about Genoa.

So I worked all day for hours and finished one picture.

It's a start.

I don't ever see a finish, but, it's a start.

Genoa and what's next

 

Though you may not have noticed I was away, 

I AM BACK! 

My darling wife and I went to Genoa for a few days, and, um, Genoa is, um, I took a lot of pictures. A lot of pictures! Let's just start with that information and ease into all the emotional reactions to being able to saunter over to a city like Genoa after a few hours of trains and just, be there for four days. 

What is a city like Genoa like? You may wonder.

I promise that will all come into it over the next many days. But there is a bit of housekeeping with clerkmanifesto to take care of first, and I'm still setting things up so...

A few things come into it.

The first is that in preparing to be away I was going through a lot of old posts here and their attendant photography. Some of it was a bit silly, some old styles we're a bit rough, and some were probably more exciting to me when I was first making them. But the one general style of photography work up I liked consistently is the multi layered, hand drawn and erased style first expressed well in some pictures I made, curiously, the other time we left here for Italy, on a day trip to Ventimiglia (where we changed trains on this trip). 

Here is an example:

So somewhere along the way of taking hundreds and hundred of pictures in Genoa, I resolved to make finished pictures in a style related to this. But in calculating how long it will take to generate, organize, and hand craft each of about a hundred pictures, I decided it would take three billion hours.

That's why I'm here sort of stalling now.

I have three layers of each of a hundred or so pictures, and probably need a couple more, but I don't want to say too much about Genoa until I'm more ready to go with the pictures. But to set the stage I did do one mock up picture of one single picture from Genoa so you can see where we'll be going with this. I don't think this is a final iteration, just a taste...

The other thing is that, despite the terrible heat and the crowds and the back problems, we have been on quite the adventurers kick, having in addition to Genoa gone up the hill behind us to finally venture fully into the Roman ruins there and the archaeological museum that occupies the site, and today we took a climb out a mile or two west of us where a small wild area has broad views at the top of the hill and a more than 1000 year old olive tree.

All of this comes with photography too.

So I'm racing to get it all together, but would like to hold off a bit telling you about it all in detail until I can do it along with the pictures. Hopefully it won't be too long.