Sulfur lights candles on the altar.
Hands fold yellow, blue, and pink,
paper and pipe cleaner flowers,
drape intricate tissue cutouts
over edges of one soul’s journey.
Smudge some sage or cannabis
over a dusty favorite fifth
of bourbon, vodka, or tea.
Sugar skull grins, shows its teeth
to photographs and sweet breads,
to fetishes and wooden beads.
Black wax clings to aqua blue,
and children’s fingers track edges
and faces of memento-heart cakes.

It is the slow silent time after life.
Pulp yields to its yearly harvest
and mythology adapts a new suit.
Brief with moments of reason,
moments of sorrow and bliss,
she comes on like autumn.
Leaves drop like feathery tears
and then one-day, a strong breeze,
a random gale, and all are down.
Branches bare to sun and snow,
sleep the short days away.

Identity is vigor in moments,
the metrics of heat and history,
wonderment and fresh breathe.
The spark transforms and remains,
but self blows to dust in winter winds
like so many forgotten, rendered leaves.

           “The Savoy Express rolls down track number 4. ALL ABOARD.” My last few days in the forties and memories of everything until now color my mood and fogs recall with soft focus. No single incident, but a continuous flutter of moments pass as if through the window of a passenger car. It’s a blur with occasion detail and color, unless I gaze further a field at the Grandest View or the Mother of all Delusion. Where did the time go? Did it matter and did I accomplish anything at all? How do you measure the success of your life?

           I am not sure if there are metrics for those questions? I know that material things never satisfy, but only wet the appetite. Desire is insatiate, and shallow comfort rewards complacency and boredom. All is vanity; it is its own worst enemy that feasts upon itself. Knowledge is a good cause, but it to is only the filter of someone else’s experience. Lots of people know lots of things that I never hope to nor would want to know, and they don’t seem any happier for it.

           It could be that I am asking the wrong question. A single lifetime is its only true expression, good and bad, happy and sad, or success and not. Does wisdom come from devouring as much experience as possible while clearing the filters that protect the self-journey or something else? I know it is the journey, but the mind must have its catalogue and metrics. I have succeeded at being exactly where I wanted to be; I just need to find a way to accept it. I am where I need to be at this moment on these paths. Where else is just so much wankery.

           So at 50, I have to finally throw off childish expectations and desires, move on with my life. I have to stop asking these questions expecting that I am going to find or figure out the answer. I have to believe that wherever my life may lead is enough.

Fog arrives with the fleeting sun
as a tempest of slow whispers.
Concrete lamp posts brace the mist,
gold bulbs pop the tick of the clock,
as a duty of light for the unfamiliar.

Far enough from the bay,
late crows circle and roost,
caw old friends to warm feathers,
gold eyes, black or brown,
beaks and squawks embrace
along the rank of the elders
and chat the happenstance.

Day is at its always end
open parenthesis to the present;
never future or memory’s past
only hard scrabble hunger
and the absence of fear,
to sleep through the night
and never dream of death.

Quiet, quiet, the rustle
fades into the scenery.
I watch and listen, quiet,
will my elders speak?
Will their whispers in the fog
banish the waking fear,
details in between (the future
and memories of the past).
Only the crows will visit Elysium,
deaf to what my elders never say.

           “Ms. Hallowell,” Cochran says. She sighs. “Please Ms. Hallowell, may I call you Genevieve?”

           Genevieve Hallowell sniffles into the tissue and looks up at Lt. Inspector Emily Cochran’s brown amber eyes. They are softer, not so piercing. Genie sniffles. She looks full up at Cochran, and manages a slight smile. Cochran smiles back.

           “Ms. Hallowell,” the inspector queries.

           “You can call me Genie. Everyone calls me that.” Genie says. Her voice is calmer.

           “You can call me Emily.” They shake hands. Cochran returns to the table and sits opposite of Genie.

           “Ms. Hallowell, Genie, we need to know what happened. What happened to Salvatore Klement the other night?”

           “Yes, poor Sal. I was so scared.” She looks and begins to tear up again.

           “Genie, I met him once. He worked at Horseshoe Tavern, right?”

           “Yes. Sal usually worked the close. He was a sweet man.”

           “I remember him as fine person. I remember his upbeat nature.” Cochran adds. “I was in the Horseshoe late one night and a stumbling drunk Marina local came in and ordered a shot of tequila.”

           “Sal would’ve never served him; he didn’t cater to out mind drunks too well.”

           “Your right, he brought the guy a glass of water with a lime in it. He told him that he was too drunk.” Cochran says. “The drunk became outraged.”

           “Sal could hold his own with any trouble.” Genie says.

           “I thought I might have to help. I don’t know what Sal said, but the guy calmed down immediately. Seems his wife just left him with his best friend, and Sal listened to him for an hour, refilling his water.”

           “He was really great with people.” Genie adds.

           “Long/short, Sal gave him a hug and bought him a cab ride home.” Cochran finishes.

           “I, I,” Genie begins to tear up, “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

           “I know Genie,” Cochran takes her hands, “so help us. Lets put the son of bitch who did this away forever.”

           “I, I…”

           Cochran releases her hands and reaches for the tissues. She pulls out a handful and passes them across the table. Genie lowers her head into her hands and sobs full on. Cochran stands and circles around the end of the table. She grasps Genie’s shoulders and Genie turns up, salty mascara washes down her face. Emily can’t make out the color of her eyes under a deep puddle of tears. Genie closes them and grabs hold of Emily.

           “Knock, Knock.” The blue raps on the observation room. Detective Sampson turn toward the door and stands up. He opens it and the uniform hands him two cups of coffee.

           “I should have the report in a few minutes Sir.” He says.

           “Good.”

           Sampson closes the door, and walks over to Bardo. “Here.” He extends the paper cup to him. Seven looks up at Sampson, a forced frown and a harsh glance cannot hide the puddles in his eyes. His neck stiffens as he takes the coffee.

           “Thanks.”

           “She’s not that bad you know.” Sampson says.

           “Yeah, I know. It’s just hard to see Genie suffer. I’ve known her for a while. She’s a class act.” Seven says.

           “She just needs to tell us the truth.” Sampson replies.

           “I know that, but she really doesn’t know anything.”

           “She may know more than she realizes?”

           “No. You guys are wasting time. Emily knows I would never lie to her.” Seven says.

           “Maybe. I don’t know much about that, but we need to hear it from her mouth.”

           Another couple of knocks on the observation door, and Sampson stands to answer. “Yes.”

           “Hallowell, Genevieve Alicia, sir.” A different uniform hands a file folder to Detective Sampson. It is a plain manila letter-size, and on the cover “Confidential” is stamped on it several times. The Tab is filled out with G. Hallowell.

           “Thanks Mike. Thanks for the rush.” Sampson pats Officer Mike Manson on the arm.

           “De Nada, man,” the blue answers and turns to leave.

           Sampson shuts the door, folder in hand, and returns to the window. Cochran is back on her side of the table, and Genie’s face is flush but clear.

           “What happened at the Plaza Bridge Motel Genie?” Cochran asks. She stares into her eyes.

           “I don’t know. I just don’t know.” Genie says.

           “Start from the beginning. Lt. Cochran says, “it’s usually best.”

           “Well,” Genie shrugs, “I met Sal at the bar; he was closing.”

           “Come in.” Sampson raps on the interview door and Cochran looks up from the table.

           “Lieutenant, I have the report.” Sampson says as he enters and hands a manila folder across the corner table. Bid red letters are stamped multiple times on the cover and back. Genie follows the movement as if it were in slow motion, silencing her tears.

           “Please continue.” Cochran says and opens the folder. “

Click on Image for full report

Click to open Genie Hallowell SFPD Report.

          The 2009 Autumn Moon Festival in Chinatown, San Francisco, provided me the perfect opportunity to try out an interesting new camera gadget. The Autumn Moon festival is a harvest festival celebrated by Chinese and Vietnamese people. Around, over, or on the autumnal equinox, families gather and celebrate the harvest by eating moon cakes. The moon is at its brightest and roundest during the equinox and Chinese tradition holds that at one time the earth had ten suns, and during one harvest they all lined up together evaporating the rivers and burning the crops. The emperor offered his crown to anyone who could solve the problem. A brilliant archer, Houyi, shot out ten of the suns and became emperor. Eventually a despot, he acquired a pill for internal life. To spare the people, his wife ate the pill first and ran from her husband. She flew to the moon. Houyi’s pursuit failed, but he so loved his wife that he could not shoot down the moon. People hand out and consume moon cakes to honor the princes, for good luck, and harvest.

          My new lens, or 3D Lens In A Cap is a crude beam splitter from Loreo, Hong Kong. It creates a stereo image on a digital SLR. It is a matched pair of focusing lenses from one meter to infinity, 38 mm focal length at F22. It is a permanent focus device with three settings, 1.5 m, 3m, and infinity with 2 f-stops, F22 and F11. Although the manufacturer claims it should work with my onboard TTL flash, I’ve not been able to get it to work. Instead, I’ve been adjusting the shutter speed to accommodate light conditions, slower to bring in more, but not too slow without a tripod. My best results are between 1/30^th to 1/60^th of a second.

          At around $100 bucks Loreo’s 3D Lens in a Cap really works as you can tell from the first slide show below.  You will need a stereo viewer to see 3D from the parallel images. Several are available online, such as at www.3dstereo.com, who also distributes the Lens In A Cap. Bring the viewer to your eyes and move closer or further away from your screen until the image is sharp. Focus on one of the images.

          Also, I’ve been exploring a second method to display 3D images, an anaglyph. It creates a “stereoscopic 3D effect, when viewed with 2 color glasses (each lens a chromatically opposite color, usually red and cyan). Images are made up of two color layers, superimposed, but offset with respect to each other to produce a depth effect. Usually the main subject is in the center, while the foreground and background are shifted laterally in opposite directions.”¹

          I am using a piece of software called Anabuilder, created by Etîenne Monneret and Didier Leboutte. It has the capability to convert 2D images to 3D from a single image, two very similar images, or in my case, stereo pairs. Anabuilder converts directly and has the capability to batch. The user can tweak the image if necessary. I took the above parallel stereo pairs and created anaglyphs sans tweaking. You will need a red and cyan lens viewer to see 3D (available as from above.)

          If you have a stereoscopic viewer or red and cyan lens, check out the slide shows and tell me what you think. So far, it’s interesting, but I would guess not many people have the viewers, so not very practical. I will have to search for a java app that can simulate one.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaglyph_image