Well, as seems to happen with some degree of regularity, City of Dust is going to go on hiatus. Someday my life may actually contain some semblance of stability and perhaps I’ll quit my ramblin’ ways, but ‘tis not now, apparently. This time it’s off to the desert, namely, New Mexico and Arizona. You know, many major figures throughout history have spent significant time in the desert. Moses. Jesus. Clint Eastwood. All these guys logged serious miles amongst the sand, the stones, and the snakes. Whether you’ve come to be tempted by Satan or have simply returned as a ghost to exact revenge on the town that did you wrong, the desert has the landscape, both physical and psychological, that you’ll need to get the job done. So, hey, I’m in good company.
How long will I be gone? Dunno. At least a couple weeks, so it’ll probably be late-November before another post appears. But it should be a good desert-themed one. I’m looking forward to taking lots of photos and will be armed with two cameras. Yes, two cameras! In the meantime, I’ve been posting photos on Flickr, all of which have appeared on City of Dust at some point, but Flickr is a nice way to get a few shots up elsewhere. Also, Phirebrush has a few photos and some scrawling of mine in their current issue (#32). Oh, and Snaps Magazine should have a photo or two as well in the Transportation and Weather issues. I'd heartily recommend these last two venues even if I wasn't a contributor.
As for the photographs here, I thought one last look at water was appropriate. These were all shot with woefully expired film. The top photo was taken in Grand Marais, Minnesota, USA, with Kodak Gold that expired in 1996. The middle photograph, a mosquito-ridden lake in northern Wisconsin, and this last, Bayfield Harbor, Wisconsin, were shot with decade-old Seattle Filmworks film made out of old movie stock leftovers. Do you know how hard it is to find a place to process that stuff these days? Anyway, I find the idea of working hard to get an once-in-a-lifetime shot while never really being certain that your film is fit to be processed exhilarating. You can’t achieve that feeling with digital, can you? Nope, I thought not. Have a happy Halloween and I'll see you toward Thanksgiving.
"I wasn't always like this. You know, I had a home. A job. A wife and kids. But right now, right here, that doesn't just seem like a lifetime ago, it seems like those things belonged to another person. I feel no greater connection to my memories than if I'd found a box of polaroids on the ground and glimpsed the random moments of another man's life. No, those things happened to somebody I don't know and I'm somebody else. Someone bad." Rod Stevens, Venice, California.
"By land we are impregnable and the coast and river's assailable points are susceptible to a degree of defense that floating wood or iron cannot make an impression." Well, that wasn’t quite right because on April 18, 1862 USN Commander David D. Porter's armada began shelling Fort Jackson. The barrage continued all night and one of Porter’s schooners was sunk. However, USN Flag Officer David G. Farragut's Western Gulf Blockading Squadron had been standing by and on April 20th breached Fort Jackson’s outer obstructions. Yet it took until the early morning of April 24th for Farragut’s ships to move past the two forts and fully engage the Confederate flotilla, eventually sinking or capturing thirteen vessels and breaking the back of the Confederacy’s naval presence on the Mississippi. The unhappy soldiers at Fort Jackson mutinied on April 27th and half the men left their posts. On April 28th, Confederate soldiers blew up their prized ironclad ship, aptly named the Louisiana, before CS Brigadier General Johnson K. Duncan surrendered both Forts Jackson and St. Philip to Commander Porter. Two-hundred and twenty-nine Union soldiers died in the battle along with 782 Confederates. 
Following the Civil War, Fort Jackson became a prison and later a military training base. Thereafter, it was basically abandoned until 1898 when the threat of the Spanish-American war brought about a restoration and the addition of two large coastal guns. Fort Jackson became a training base once again in 1917-1918, during WWI, but afterward both it and Fort St. Philip were sold as surplus government property. Mr. and Mrs. H. J. Harvey of New Orleans bought Fort Jackson in 1927 and,in 1960, donated it to the Parish of Plaquemines for the purpose of restoring the fort and 82 acres of grounds. Jackson and St. Philip were immediately classified as National Historic Monuments, though Jackson was then called, “a veritable jungle with mud-filled tunnels infested with snakes.” Thus, levees were built to hold the river back and an automatic pumping station installed to keep the fort dry. Now, of course, one can’t help but wonder how those levees and pumps held up during Hurricane Katrina and what, if anything, might be left of old Fort Jackson. Anybody know? As for St. Philip, it's still privately owned, in bad repair, and was reportedly accessible only by boat BEFORE Katrina. It's probably gone now. 
This night is unwelcome. The wind has risen, the sun has set too soon. Beyond the window, black birds are gathering in the tree tops. The birds speak to you; you try to believe you don’t understand what they are saying. Would that you could sleep. To awake on the other side, the danger passed, was once easy. The dawn arose clean and forgetful. But now there comes a knock at the door that you need not answer, for he will show himself in.
This was certainly a good place for such work. Still, if you spend eight hours a day working someplace you inevitably find yourself looking forward to leaving when five o'clock rolls around. These shots are to remind me that there are many, many worse places to find oneself toiling. Anyway, the top shot is the hill we climbed up and down all day, the middle photo is the path we walked every morning, noon, and evening to get to and from the site, and at the bottom is some nice, tall big bluestem (AKA Andropogon gerardii). While quiet, sterile subdivisions ring the prairie on every side, this place is safe from development. I hope.
