Fence of Freedom
Several weeks ago, Kelley and I decided to leash up the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood. As we opened the gate to exit the yard, the elder of the two opened up his throttle and quickly discovered his collar wasn’t properly latched. Our dogs are house trained, but they aren’t traffic trained, so the animal’s untethered sprint across the street required our immediate attention.
Strider chased his nose in the exact same northwesterly direction he had been aiming his incessant bark for the past several months. It was the house where the big, spotted, fluffy cat was….for some reason. always being treated like a king. My wife hollered and chased after, as I pivoted to secure our younger pup.
After tucking the remaining pooch back inside the yard, I hustled to join the rescue. I was just beginning to wonder exactly who would most need my help, when I saw the old boy coming back across the road. His eyes bulged like golf balls and his tongue flapped in the wind. He was moving at the same speed he had used to escape only a minute earlier, and he was coming right at me. I had about enough time to halfway squat before he landed in my arms at full blast. Dude doesn’t get out much. He might strut when he’s inside the fence, but he apparently just runs for his life when he’s loose in the wild.
I recently had a conversation with a guitar student about the overwhelming array of options the modern world lays before us. We agreed that it is often more than a mind should have to handle.
Included here are images of the instrument that likely taught me more than the sum of all other electric guitars I ever touched. One pickup. Volume-knob-only. The chrome knob is a nonfunctional “dummy” my friend Sean used to cover the original jack. He kindly installed a sturdier jack in the Tele position, and he joked that the chrome knob is “true-bypass”.
Like my pets’ yard, this mid-eighties made-in-Japan Squire Strat offers “limited options”. It encourages the player to explore what can be done when left with only the bare essentials. I still find new sonic territory to explore in it after all these years (of borrowing it from my brother).
I made these using long exposures at night using a small flashlight to “paint with light”.