the “death of modernism, cont’d

Posted on 26September2018 by joeeirwin

in the 40 years since pruitt-igoe was knocked down, the land has grown into a forest with lush vegetation. the earth is still covered in broken bricks, pavement, and manhole covers. it should be of no surprise that in its present state this land and the land around it was acquired nefariously. just lookup developer paul mckee – actually don’t, why read about crooked developers when one might read of minoru yamaski, who designed the thirty-three, eleven-story buildings (as well as new york’s world trade center), or godfrey reggio, who featured pruitt-igoe’s destruction in 1982’s koyaanisqatsi (life out of balance), or philip glass, who composed the score to the film (and who’s pruit igoe & prophecies was later used in the birth doctor manhattan scene of 2009’s watchmen).

im living blocks away from the site. big machines are grazing what’s left. soon it will become the national geospatial agency-west; a space-spy agency

i take some rubble, a few instant photos, and send it off to an acquaintance in the philip glass ensemble. this is that

pansies growing in a clearing that was a parking lot

national geospatial intelligence agency, west

a mountain of rubble with downtown buildings and the gateway arch in the background

cass+jefferson

pieces of pavement + brick, B

looking east on 40 years of brush (possibly dickson street)

a tower of tires

pieces of pavement + brick, A

(a+b)

listening to phillip glass’ pruit igoe (1983)

Old School / Fishing

Posted on 21May2018 by joeeirwin

mississippi riverfront, st. louis

this champion of ingenuity was pumping royalcash’s radio activity while fishing the mississppi. is there ever a time someone plays old school and it isn’t magical?

fishing with an old bolt

steaks on the grill

daily catch

hearing royalcash’s radio activity (let’s jam) (1983)

Summer.2017

Posted on 23August2017 by joeeirwin

i’d been in chicago and it was perfect. not perfect at the time (i wrote this in hindsight), but exactly what i needed. i’d grown creatively and knew it was best to leave and focus on my craft outside of distractions. so st. louis: where i can do yoga, connect with family, and live/work for pennies on the dollar.

listening to dur-dur band’s dooya (1987)

the phoenix thing

Posted on 3July2015 by joeeirwin

this was difficult to write about, especially at the time
it’s backdated with the gift of hindsight. thanks hindsight

one foot in front of the other. i start with 10 minutes of exercise. im out of shape and constantly checking my pulse. i got fat. not super-fat but fat enough – fat enough that in my ultramarathon of over-thinking my beating heart means “heart attack”. i haven’t moved like this in years, outside of a dance floor anyway. i stick with it and grow with it. a daily routine. my blood flows; i exit stasis

i need more and find meditation impossible with the whole over-thinking ultramarathon thing, i start my yoga practice. my first classes suck: the misery of being lost in a matted sea of others with no idea where we’re at or what we’re doing and i can’t stop thinking: how much longer is this class. this person next to me… wtf. wtf. wahhh my ego. then class is over and i feel satisfaction in its completion. the next day i show back up for the same fight. and the next day and the next and the next and the next. i start understanding the physical: the flows. the poses. the breath. i stretch a little further than before and for brief moments it’s as if time stops and i think of nothing – which is everything

the second month of my practice my studio holds a month-long challenge: do yoga everyday. i stop counting classes after sixty – im figuring out the breath and feeling the connection of the mind and the body; what yoga’s really about. my mood lifts and life is becoming better / more magical: serendipitous, synchronicitous, calml

before the first footing i was an ultramarathon of over-thinking. depressed. near the bottom – in the darkness. some time ago i soared the skies of possibility. i was up: a glimpse of love, purpose, spirit but now nothing. it was a year since up and my ego wouldn’t surrender; the only part of me staying in a fight: a useless fight over tough decisions i know were already decided. finally, i let go. the walls, which were keeping me from starting over, crumble. at last in pieces. i build again. first one foot

everything [this site, this journey] has led me to this point – i understand that what i was doing took me to this rebirth. i had a vision of what’s possible when i was up, but have to do the work to get there. infinite paths infinite times would still lead to this: life’s boot camp and it takes as long as it takes. yada yada yada im a phoenix

not everyone knows what it’s like to soar the sky. to travel. to be. to feel. heights so high there are no higher. to see all. to feel all. to be all. and thankfully not everyone knows how deep the depths can get. where light is blocked by the walls of the abyss. where the abyss becomes everything. where everything is nothing.

the highs make the depths ever deeper and the depths make the highs ever sweeter. especially when looking at light after so long in darkness. the short-term key is to stay self-aware; to not travel from one extreme to the other too quickly, too swiftly – doing so will always lead to anxiety, paranoia, fear…one must find balance. the long-term goal is to keep soaring without looking down, growing ever higher with each lesson learned…until it’s real

this phoenix thing only works if one works to stay a phoenix. if not, it’s back to the ashes. back to the abyss…until that one foot. at the time of this writing, im a phoenix and im working hard to stay a phoenix, but this is life and one day in this life i may run this emotional saṃsāra again – but with a set of tools more powerful than any i’ve had before

A Day to Hannibal

Posted on 15March2013 by joeeirwin

in elementary school history class we were taught about the pony express. the pony express was a horse-powered courier service which delivered messages across the american west from april 1860-october 1861. it failed after 18 months because it was replaced by a better product, the telegraph. sure morse code isn’t as exciting as dodging indians on the back of stallions but if understanding History is about learning from our mistakes then why, year-after-year, were we taught about a failed delivery service?
“the pony express” is a lot of things.

i drove my mom’s car up the illinois side of the mississippi river then across to hannibal, missouri. we went to hannibal a few times as a family. i haven’t been back since. mark twain is from hannibal. the temperature was near 70 and the sun was shining. a cloud hovered just above the water’s surface. it rolled north, much further north than i traveled. on one of our family trips to hannibal we went to lover’s leap. it was the first time i heard the term, was quite heavy. i went back there after taking a photo of a yellow corvette one block from the real becky thatcher’s house. becky is the unattainable aristocratic woman.

i asked a young couple if i could take their picture. they agreed and she added, “i been livin here my whole live and i’d never seen anything like this” pointing to the cloud riding up the river. they’ve been through a lot. neither of them have had it easy but they’re trying and they found each other (a little laughter too). she’s 17 and lives with him. he works full-time. they’re saving money to move to alaska after she graduates high school in the spring. they’re ready to leave now. they just moved into a new apartment building. the first night he went into the basement. he moved a sweatshirt on the wall and discovered a meth lab. i hope they make it to alaska. we said goodbye, i thought i heard them say “hey…” as i got in the car but maybe i imagined it.

starting in east st louis

meeting the mississippi river

before arriving in hannibal i shot my way around side roads taking an occasional photo. around the bend of a dirt road i found a group of holstein cows. the farmer who’s land i was on came down on his atv to say hello. his dog was in the back. she goes everywhere with him. he took over the farm after he lost his previous one in the flood of 1993. i remember the flood, it was 20 years ago but it’s recent history along the river.

returning to hannibal and lovers leap

i want to do this forever.

Sain’t Louis

Posted on 1March2013 by joeeirwin

st louis. i went home in january. i could wax poetic stl history for days but it still feels like a compromised place. there’s gun toters, there’s abortion clinic bombings, there’s “legitimate rape”, there’s seedy strip clubs, there’s abandoned strip malls, but there’s jesus. in the black neighborhoods where the whites dare not go and want them to stay, there’s a lot of crime but jesus is also there. it’s a melting pot of midwestern simplicity with licks of northern and southern culture. the people and their varying groups, no matter how extreme, are separated by a single colloquialism: ain’t. some use it their Others don’t but they’re all St. Louis.