Jim Stahr has a Different Year

Part of it is the cold and the effort required to go anywhere. I don't mind the solitude or  the thoughts that clutter my mind on these days,  but I still end up dreaming of summers past and future.

While asking the class to walk the walk before they talk, some children did calisthenics while most napped. Peter Pan pondered their beliefs and Tinkerbell was executed. This was celebrated by a rousing rendition of "This Land is Your Land" and ice cream with a cherry on top. The preachers gave their prognosis, then monkeys flung poo wrapped in Wonder Bread bags.

In my windowless office I suddenly felt the pier wiggle. The signs posted for inspectors showing the deterioration of 70 year old columns raced through my mind, as did a recent collision with one of the buoy tenders. I was joined by coworkers as we rushed outside to see which boat bumped into us this time. Some west coast transplants seemed a bit homesick, and no boats were in mooring. Soon the news reports of earthquakes started. Most of us were surprised to find out that there are several minor fault lines throughout New England. Here's the best map I could find of Connecticut to illustrate. This UConn map simplifies the lines. I live quite close to that eastern Lake Char Fault line, and it or the Hope Valley Shear Zone has been rumbling the past week. Earthquakes are rare and slight in New England, but at 3.3 on the Richter Scale it woke a few people up at 6:30 this fine morning. Mind, this is a minor earthquake and nothing to be worried about. Pe

I started music lessons as a mere child with little more artistic ambition beyond playing - repeating, really - nursery songs I heard my teachers singing. After studies of scales, rhythmic counting, ligados, etudes, and chords I started to express myself in the pieces I learned. As a teen I was taken under wing by a teacher that thought me a prodigy. He encouraged and even copied some of my expressions as we explored the classical and popular guitar works of Andres Segovia , Jim Croce , and others. It was this same time I discovered photography. I studied that love of all the early philosophers, light. I pored over instruction books and manuals for the equipment and materials required to produce a satisfying image on paper. Shutter speed, aperture, film speed and grain, darkroom processes, and design aesthetics became part of my vocabulary in a struggle to capture an artistic image. At seventeen I realized that I was no match for heroes such as Eugene W. Smith , Ansel Adams , or Go