If
I could just let it go, forget about that picture.
Aug
6 2013
As
usual, I try to distingish the importance of this morning's essences.
As usual, around 8 oclock, I peer outside into the bright eastern
morning and sparkling currents of the river below, reconfiguring what I see
to another location and time. Then, at 8:15, the required moment, I'll note it all before my eyes, the angle of the sun across roofs, New York's own awakening. I'll compare the similarities and dismiss the differences quickly. Its an annual ritual. Then later, as usual, I'll linger and scrutinize
the forms and shades of the bridge embankments of Manhattan, looking
odd I guess, even odder than usual, as I stare at what, to others, is
nothing at all, but project on these ordinary, urban, functional and
gray angles, an emotional echo. August 6. Its a strange personal ritual I
share with very few, if anyone else at all, I imagine. As usual, I'll
quietly, futiley tell myself to bring my camera there sometime one August 6th,
to the Manhattan embankments with their thick railings, to start an
art project to mimic or re-enact...that picture... that is seared into
my soul, as though my familiar Manhattan surroundings were Miyuki bridge. As though I was Matsushige- the person
who made that picture. Or maybe someone else, some lower
ranked Military photographer who might have recorded a few on that
day too, maybe hidden away even now, forgotten somewhere in a
Hiroshima warehouse. As usual, I'll shake my head wondering why I'm
so regular in my thinking about these matters around August 6th.
That day.That picture.
Dreadful
anxieties about annilation flow from that picture.That smudgey,
rectangle of distant fires, broken windows and burned victims seems
like a detailed imprint not only from the past, but of a possible,
awful future too. I grew up in the 1960's, and vividly remember
sitting in a school hallway, shoulder to shoulder with my class,
ducking and practicing, molding ourselfs to a suitable position which
might better resist the impact of a Hydrogen bomb. One morning an odd
picture appeared in the lobby of my family's apartment building.
That toxic looking, yellow and black fallout shelter icon, directing
us to an imagined safety.
During
World War II,Yoshito Matsushige was working in Hiroshima as a
photographer for the local newspaper. Soon after the atomic
explosion, he had the presence of mind to dig out his camera from
under the debris of his home, as well as two rolls of film - 24
possible pictures. And at the end of the day, 17 potential shots
remained blank.
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