Category: Personal

Legacies

Posted on September 11, 2009September 12, 2016 By Mark Tiedemann

Comparisons of the disaster of 9/11 to Pearl Harbor break down in the aftermath.Â What I remember is getting a phone call from my wife to turn on the news, any news, and then seeing the images on CNN.Â I then called several people, including some on the west coast, early as it was.

It was a binding experience.

Then the silence of the skies for next few days.Â All planes grounded.Â We don’t pay attention to all that background noise until it disappears.

And I remember wanting to strike back.

But at who?

I am not a reflex pacifist.Â I do not believe in turning the other cheek as an automatic gesture.Â …

Boston, 1989

Posted on August 18, 2009August 19, 2011 By Mark Tiedemann

One of these days I will get the Art section of this website straightened out.Â If you go there now, you’ll find a lot of photographs, but several of them when clicked on expand to huge size and you only see a corner of the image.Â I found that if you click on that again, it reduces to screen size.Â Still, it’s a bit of a pain.

Meantime, I can always post an image here now and then, and for no other reason than I like to.Â Like this one, taken in Boston circa 1989.

I’m proud of my photography.Â Quietly, almost too shyly.Â …

When I Was But A Wee Thing

Posted on August 12, 2009August 12, 2009 By Mark Tiedemann

I found a very old packet of photographs the other day, going all the way back to nearly the beginning.Â They were snapshots taken the day of my Christening.Â This would have been, according to the date written in the booklet, November of 1954.Â I pulled the one of my parents and me, did a little clean-up with photoshop, and here it is.

Mom was a fox, dad had moviestar good looks—maybe B picture, but who cares?Â Mom was absolutely crazy about him and he has never lost his complete fascination with her.Â They have never regretted a single day they’ve spent together as far as I know (barring the usual ups and downs every relationship has) and they are good companions.Â …

Readingless Writers—Not Right

Posted on July 24, 2009 By Mark Tiedemann

I’ve heard of this phenomenon, but never before encountered it directly.Â Excuse me, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the utter vapidity of this…

I have a MySpace page.Â Admittedly, I pay less attention to it these days in lieu of my Facebook pageÂ (all these Pages…for such a functional Luddite, it amazes me I navigate these strange seas), but I do check it at least once a week.Â I post a short blog there.Â And I collect Friend Requests.

I received such a request the other day from someone whose name I will not use.Â Unless it’s from someone or something I recognize, I go to the requester’s page to check them out.Â …

Choice Evening

Posted on July 18, 2009August 19, 2011 By Mark Tiedemann

Donna and I arrived a few minutes after six.Â The evening—the physical manifestation of July 17th—was wonderful.Â Mid seventies, straggly cloudlets in darkening blue sky, a pleasant breeze.Â Early for the usual nightlife that flows up and down Park Avenue on a Friday night, but there are a few folks choosing restaurants.Â There’s a custom glass shop across the street, customers still perusing.

I’d changed clothes twice, trying to decide what level of chic or cool I wanted to reach.Â Had to wear the hat, the Bogard, which Donna had made me buy several years back and which I love.

Only the owners are in the Gallery as we step through the door.Â …

July Memory

Posted on July 2, 2009August 19, 2011 By Mark Tiedemann

Back in 2001, Donna and I took a vacation that has become, for us, a high bar, a hall mark, the Gold Standard of vacations.Â We flew into Oakland, CA, rented a car, and for next several days wandered up toward Seattle.Â We visited many places, saw many amazing things, ate some wonderful food, and ended the automotive part of the trip in Seattle where we stayed with our very good friends, Kelley and Nicola.

Arriving in Washington state, Donna wanted to take the ferry into Seattle, so we drove into Bremerton.Â Just in time to catch the ferry.Â I took this shot of the clever, hungry, graceful gulls that followed the boat all the way.Â …

My Dad’s Hands

Posted on June 25, 2009 By Mark Tiedemann

This image was made in the days when I had serious pretensions toward being a world famous photographer.Â I always admired Ansel Adams, certainly, and Edward Weston.Â But there was Philip Halsmann, too, who was one of the best portrait photographers ever.Â Between him and Arnold Newman and Karsh, most of the really significant people of the 20th century were preserved in photographs that were as amazing as the people themselves.

Dad was a machinist then.Â Eight hour days in stifling heat, wrestling steel and machinery.Â He always made things.Â That was what dad was all about, making things, often massive things.Â …

No Excuse

Posted on June 19, 2009June 24, 2009 By Mark Tiedemann

Generally speaking, I don’t like to criticize books.Â Tim Powers told us at Clarion that a sale negates all criticism.Â That may be more true with fiction (though I reserve the right to privately diss any book that’s badly done, regardless) but when it comes to nonfiction, I find it inexcusable.

I’ve been slogging—slogging, mind you—through a history of the rise of the Spanish Empire under Fernando and Isabel, the period during which the New World (?) was discovered by Europeans and Spain became the pre-eminent power on the global scene.Â The book is called Rivers of Gold and it was penned by one Hugh Thomas, published in 2003.Â …

Thought Image

Posted on June 16, 2009 By Mark Tiedemann

Kind of feels like where my thoughts are going of late…

…

Plans…

Posted on June 15, 2009June 15, 2009 By Mark Tiedemann

The book I’m working on is the second of a trilogy.Â Back when I became seriously engrossed in science fiction—the second time, not the first; the first was at age 10 or 11, when everyone is supposed to fall headfirst into this wonderful amalgam of weirdness— in the late 70s, early 80s, there was a running joke in the field that for a bunch of science geeks, SF writers couldn’t count because we didn’t seem to know that there were only three books in a trilogy.Â I think it was Piers Anthony who began getting joked about this way.

I never intended to write series.Â …