I am hard at work today on clerkmanifesto.
But all art is an iceberg. You only see a little bit of it at a time. Most of it is underwater.
But the part that's above water looks a lot like what's under the water anyway, so one wonders a bit about that.
Clerkmanifesto especially.
Clerkmanifesto floats in the ocean and the ocean is very big.
It is also warmer than ice, so, floating in the ocean clerkmanifesto melts all the time.
But sometimes it can see whales.
As the custodian for Saint Minneapolis Weather Entertainment for the Internet, I am leery of jumping the gun and announcing:
WE ARE DONE WITH THE ICE FOR THIS YEAR!
But oops. I think I just did.
And I'm not saying that we are beyond a bit of wet snow, or freezing rain, or a cold night that crusts the edges of the local streams, but as for me taking grand pictures of frozen waterfalls, or great jagged hanging icicles, or mottled, multi-colored frozen walls of water, yeah. I think it's safe to call it a season.
And so here are my last ice pictures for Winter 21/22. I hope they will tide you over.
My friend, who may or may not ever much read my blog these days, wanted to see the waterfall I showed him on my phone as it turned to ice. But like a flower growing and blooming it happens too slowly in nearly every case for the naked eye to see.
I would have to set up a time lapse camera for that, which, I agree, might be very interesting footage. Though, oddly, I wasn't able to find any of it on the Internet.
I don't know where to start.
And I don't know what picture to use.
How about if I talk for a bit, and then I ask a small favor?
This has been a long Winter. It has been so long a Winter that I'm pretty sure I've already written several times about what a long Winter it is. And then the Winter just kept going on!
I know it will end, but I've had a hard time this Winter. There is no grand theme to this hard time, and it is not the main subject for me today to try and explain. But if you'd like to know about it in detail, simply go back through the last three months of posts and
read between the lines.
And so, in this long Winter, when I step out to photograph, and it's one degree out, and the skies are flat gray, and the snow is both fresh and ancient and interspersed with layers of ice, I don't really believe there will be anything for me to photograph.
I keep my camera tucked in my coat, like a pet mouse.
I don't believe there will be anything to photograph, but I am also sure there will be something to photograph. I can't explain that. Usually there is some point in my walk where I dig out my camera and say "I will photograph this... thing, even though it is ridiculous and won't be a good picture at all."
And it isn't a good picture at all. But as soon as I take a picture of it a flock of unicorns, or something like that, goes running by to my left.
"That's probably worth taking some pictures of." I say.
And it is.
Today I went to the river.
Exactly as I described I had no hope and a surety at the same time.
I can't explain it. Look into your heart. You will know the very thing I mean. That is life.
Here is my favor to ask:
The "Unicorns" I saw today was a waterfall of ice.
I'd like to show you pictures of it, but I just want to show you one picture of it so you know what it is.
If I show you one picture, can you pretend it is the only picture of it. And when you're done looking at the only picture I have of it, I will show you some more?
Thank you.
Here then, is the fall:
Let us begin the New Year with...
ICE!
Ice ice ice, beeeeeautiful ice!
Hey, what is it with you and ice, you wonder?
Ice is the new flowers!
"I don't understand." I have now quoted you as saying.
Let me explain.
In the late Fall, the World slowly bleached of its color. And I would go out and take pictures of it. Then I would come back home and open up the pictures on my computer. And I would say "Oh look, tree bark and squirrels. Look at all these nice pictures of tree bark, and black river water, and tree branches, and a gray squirrel on a tree branch over tree bark drinking black river water."
But one day I accidentally opened up some photos from July.
Oh.
It made me a little...
Wistful.
Yes dear collaborators, I felt wistful.
Maybe even sad.
Until I found ice!
Ice is colorful!
Wait, no, not that one. This one:
Or this one:
And even if maybe it's not quite as brilliantly colorful as flowers, I find it as endlessly interesting and beautiful.
My camera likes it!
Plus, much like flowers, things happen around ice.
Pull back sometimes and it's interesting:
But come close and it's endlessly fascinating and photographable:
And so in conclusion I'd just like to say,
Ice!
I think I need a warm drink.
