Between the Blinks of a Day

the moments we forget forever

Today I learned that my favorite photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson, traveled to my home state during my lifetime and took wonderful photographs that were defaced for television and then languished in his archives until his death. The photograph above is from the Salem County Nuclear Power Plant, as workers march stroll to the punch clock with their lunch pails under their arms. The real Homer Simpsons of the world, circa 1975.

Cartier-Bresson was a street photographer, and one of the best. He had a skill and an eye for capturing the wonder of the every day, like those workers, or a woman resting on a park bench. Along with Weegee and Diane Arbus, he’s one of my idols. He was best at catching the unplanned moment, one of the billion images we might see between the blinks of a day, and forget forever. You can see more of the photographs and read about Cartier Bresson’s trip to New Jersey in this New Yorker article.

A subscription to the New Yorker has become a sort of joke, or elitist stamp, but other than keeping up with the weekly arrival, I have enjoyed reading it. Once in a while there’s an issue that I’ll skim most of, but nearly every issue has something worth learning about. I try not to use social media for news, as it is usually a confusing mess that feeds anxiety. While legacy media wants us looking at ads and buying Breitling watches or reverse mortgages, social wants us glued to it in the way the boob tube had us in ye olden days; doom scrolling so they can claim we looked at that ad nobody ever clicks on. So, I also have a subscription to the Philadelphia Inquirer, but I only get the Sunday delivered. I read the website in the morning, and then NPR. I listen to my local PBS news station WHYY on the way to and from Timber Creek for my morning hike, where I listen to the Tides of History podcast as I switch up the trails I know mostly by heart, to make things interesting. Sometimes I just walk with my thoughts, but I usually reserve that for weekend bike rides.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s daily newsletter, The Pump—which focuses on the positive side of wellness—mentioned the benefits of having a routine, and keeping away from your phone or social media for the first and last hour of the day. I’m still working on that second bit, but the morning routine of hiking before breakfast, feeding the birds and the squirrels, and playing Wordle before I look at the news or my phone, has helped my mood and health immensely. Sometimes I read Heather Cox’s newsletter while the coffee is brewing. It’s a good summary of American news from the day before:

February 6, 2023

Around 8 am, I get a daily newsletter from NJ Spotlight News and from the NJ Monitor, for my local journalism. The latter is a bit loose and funny, with a Democratic bent, while Spotlight is kind of like NPR for New Jersey, and well balanced. And then I read Reddit for way too much time. It’s my new addiction, after kicking Twitter. I’ve set timers on my phone and web browser.

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt is my new favorite read. I first noticed this book thanks to the striking cover by Dan Stiles, which you may peruse at his website. To my enduring shame, I didn’t buy the book because it was a western. This was before I read True Grit and Deadwood and started to enjoy westerns. A few years ago, I picked up French Exit by the same author, which is not a western but a sort of Gorey-esque tale of a boarding school orphan and his mother who flee debt collectors with a cat that is possessed by the spirit of their awful and dead patriarch. I found that book hilarious, so I returned to The Sisters Brothers. And I am not disappointed. Eli is a wonderful character. He’s played by John C. Reilly in the movie adaptation, who seems too goofy to be menacing. The brothers are quite funny, but they are killers, and not slapstick caricatures of them.

I am also reading The Cooking Gene by Michael W. Twitty, who I knew from Twitter. He’s a culinary historian of African-American foodways, and the book is part memoir, part history, part cookbook. It’s very informative and gripping, as Twitty shares his discoveries and explorations.

Last weekend, we traveled to Washington, D.C. for Sarah’s birthday, to visit friends, tour the Library of Congress and the Capitol, and eat and drink our way around the Hill and Dupont Circle. It was a lovely trip, and one we will make more often, as the drive was short on a weekend morning, and we miss being near a real, international city. I think the trip deserves its own post, so maybe it will be Sunday’s.