The older I get, the more I resemble a gentile West Coast pseudo-Liberal version of Mr. Allen. But since I tend not to be quite as cynical (as in distrustful) or sarcastic (as in mocking), it looks like The World of the Mundane will have to be my milieu for now. Of course, my levels of sarcasm and cynicism are open for debate by friends and relatives.
Most people think that mundane means boring. That really is not the case. It means of the world, or relating to the world, or...simply ordinary. Not that there is anything wrong with being ordinary. Most of us are just that...average, ordinary people doing average, ordinary things in life and at work.
So, perhaps in my photography and writing efforts, I need to stretch out a bit more. Perhaps I need to be more cynical and sarcastic with what I write and with my images. Picasso was far from mundane. Richard Avedon is not mundane. Writers like Arthur Clarke, Ray Bradbury, and Rod Serling were not mundane. Are Normal Rockwell's paintings of every day life mundane? And are they so precisely ordinary as to make them unique? The same could be said for one of my favorite writers, John Steinbeck.
But maybe Woody Allen was mundane. Speaking about the most day-to-day things, he managed to turn them into the absurd...thus transcending the mundane of the ordinary. Thus putting himself into his own category of artist.
As a photographer, I think I could be considered a realist. I enjoy capturing images of people and things as they are and as they happen. Photo-portrait journalistic...with a flair for the ordinary. Too much of a contradiction in terms? Certainly seems that way. So be it.
That great fictional pop philosopher, Popeye, once said, "I 'yam what I 'yam!". Maybe he said it best. You do what you do...we are what we are. And the best we can hope for is that we strive to do it better all the time. But Popeye had a magical transforming elixir. Popeye had spinach. What is my spinach?
As I mention in my blog profile, "I know I'm here for a reason. We just haven't quite figured out what that reason is". I hate spinach. But perhaps, therein lies a clue to finding my own personal muse.
For sure, I'm not particularly fond of another thing...myself.
Ah hah! I may be on to something here!
