CounterPunch+ Exclusives

CounterPunch+ Exclusives

Architecture of Cities: Mapping Beauty XXII

Architect: Herzog and DeMeuron: “56 Leonard” New York City.

Alchemists sweep into the chambers: Mozart descends: The Magic Flute is heard.

The genius is followed as in tow: A dozen draped in drab transparency: There is a pause: The cabal of mystics circle the composer: The serious crucibles and unknown apparatus fill the known perimeter: The maestro plays.

A pause in progress: A whispering chant ensues: “Ring Around the Rosies” echos: The science and creative music that is Mozart is thrust into centuries ahead: The alchemists’ manifest potions for greatness:

Whispers are heard: Whispers are seen: Invention is about- -the music plays: We picture whispers: We begin to see what we hear. In Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers we heard Chopin’s Mazurka in A Minor: A mere assembly of chords stirred the elixirs- -mystic senses imagined:

Leonard Bernstein’s Westside Story was a cinematic first: The ears leaned to hear the code of the streets: A call from the New York wilds beckoned:

The Beatles never hesitated to grab our ears as the initial  jarring chords awakened our eyes to

Who was not romanced as Robert DeNiro sparred alone to the Intermezzo from Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana:

Dizzy Gillespie’s cheeks blasted: A myriad of senses walked into The Cool World: The authentic Harlem: Foreign territory- -life emboldened  for some.

In the Mood for Love- -Yumeji’s  Shigeru Umebayashi tempts our romantic core. We forever move to keys of life.

Music, the ultimate lure: Exotica or mere romance: Sensory perceptions invite you extend your beliefs: To lend your arms and feet to dance Anthony Quinn’s Zorba’s Dance.

Architect: Zaha Hadid: “520 West 28th Street” NYC.

The alchemy that accompanies my captures is a consciousness of great joy: Most importantly the musical sound from movies heard speaks as a companion might along my million mile walk: Tens of thousands of movies reveal a chord or string of notes that set a stage for more to happen.

My eyes live in a constant tilt and shift: It is part of an emotional lure towards captures but yes it is the music that tends to inform what the camera is privileged to see- -The confession is not mine alone- –

The great photographers (and there are certainly many in this category) Eugene Smith and Ansel Adams come to mind- -They  have addressed the importance of music in their lives in their photography> I am merely a naive with a camera- – Like a two year old lured by something colorful or candy- -cinema is my candy colored magic- -it narrates my life’s movements- -my life’s composition. A photographer is never alone: He/she is transported through time and millenniums to make sense of what they see- -drawn/lured by what they hear.

Architect Herzog and DeMeuron: Parrish Museum: Southampton New York.

If for a fraction of your life you freeze frame moments in Fellini’s 8 1/2, Orson Welles’ A Touch of Evil, and Godards’ Breathless you may see what I dream to accomplish: Sound and fury, peace and philosophy in one single frame: The three and more films have multiple moments that stolen my eyes- -frozen my ambitions>and then there is more:

We see what we can imagine: If to imagine traveling a million miles to dream is my reality- -so be it: I have lived with an imaginary  army of alchemists for decades: Each day an elixir: Each day an invention from the mind: Each day I hear the tension on my cameras shutter-release: I feel what  Fellini, Welles have seen what they have heard: I have tried to manner their potions:

I travel to where the music plays: Japan, Greece, Sweden France across this continent and more to feel that tension atop my shutter-release- -to breathe what I see: if my circle of alchemists make potions and hypothesis real- -the pleasure of the madness will gather:

I would dance naked atop the whales of the seven seas for that pleasure: Magic lives: One day what is captured will be erased or vanquished

Energy Building: Con Edison: New York.

Richard Schulman is a photographer and writer. His books include Portraits of the New Architecture and Oxymoron & Pleonasmus. He lives in New York City.

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