In awe of Alvarez

As always, I'm in awe of Steve Alvarez, who posted this image on his blog today. It's so claustrophobic but enticing, it really sucks me into that place in myself that feels trapped and lost.

Also, I've been looking at Margaret Bourke-White today, who just has every image you could have hoped to capture. She took photos of the most historically important moments of her era, she was incredible. Read a little about her here. (See here for a little more of something relevant, though not altogether flattering re her book about the Great Depression.)



My most significant quote of the day:
"Sometimes a novel can come pretty consecutively and it's rather like a journey in that you get going and the plot, such as it is, unfolds and you follow your nose. You have to decide between identical-seeming dirt roads, both of which look completely hopeless, but you nevertheless have to choose which one to follow." Martin Amis, Paris Review 146, 1998 (read in the Paris Review Interviews vol 3)

That is exactly how I feel about my writing at the moment.




I think it's interesting that so much of myself is focused on the external at the moment - I like it, maybe it's because I like to think it's growing me.

Here's a photograph of my own to compensate:


It's from the disused flour factory near Granada. The focus is off and the light isn't right - it would have been so much better at sunset, but it was just a cloudy wintry day. Still an amazing setting.



(PS I want to read the new book by Lady Antonia Fraser. I came across some letters from her when I was archiving Elaine Feinstein's stuff, she seemed like a very generous and gracious person.)