I just learned the other day that my new favorite tune was the swan song of one of the greatest musical minds of all time. Our Love Is Here to Stay was composed by George Gershwin and the lyrics were written by his older brother Ira, for some long forgotten depression era musical. It was released after he had died of a brain tumor. When I read this I as taken back, what a perfect song to leave the world, like a tip from the other side of the galaxy. It is one of the deepest most succinct meditations on art making in a universe ruled by entropy.

Sometimes I question why I bother making pictures when it seems such a waste of time in the face of a world of apathetic stares. Pictures are my life but every thing ends eventually hell did you know the pyramids were buried under sand when the British found them, then they pillaged the fuck out of them and burned mummified slaves in the furnaces of the trains heading back to port. Likewise they are finding Mayan Pyramids every day underneath one thousand years of jungle vines and bat guano.

Gershwin tell us not to worry about all of that, that the work itself is the point of living and to be strong and smart enough to be able to make meaningful work is the Point of it all. We only have one life to live and the only way to even pretend to outlive your body is through hard work, and even then its just some notes on paper. Its a hard pill to swallow, that’s why the greatest voices always sing it, and they sing it often.

Think about Billie Holiday, all she really ever had was music, every thing else just kicked her in the face, racism, terrible lovers, heroin. I get so sad when I think about what the world did to her, then I hear this song and I remember why we go through it anyways.

TECHNICAL DETAILS all pictures from a roll of tr-x that I found in the bottom of a suitcase, I’m pretty sure its from like 3 years ago, shot through a broken original Nikonos… man all the pictures look like a dream from paris 1919…

PS Inspired by my Friend Traverse Robinette!