The Story in a Photograph

Perchance to Love

Are you going to Scarborough Faire? It has become a favorite time of year for me. I get to put on the studded leather (my real cloths) and go out to see the shows and spectacles and peruse the merchants in the dirt streets of the Waxahachie, TX Renaissance Festival.

I remember one of the first festivals I attended, I wasn't five steps in the door when a beautiful red head jumped into my arms and kissed me on the cheek. Deep green eyes stared into my own, mystified. She began speaking but enchanted as I was, I understood nothing.

I bumbled, as baboons are apt to do, and said something to the tune that she'd mistaken me for someone else. She was distraught and persistent, apparently I'd said the wrong thing, she became offended and asked me why I would treat her this why. Did I know her? I thought. It hadn't occurred to me at the time but I was going to see my twin brother Joshua who was working as man wench as the local tavern. It turned out, this fiery minx was his main squeeze. Certain situations are advantageous for dopplegangers, but then there are some lines you just can't cross.

He seems to be taken in by red haired renaissance beauties. A few years later, he returned after another festival with another story of love and a photograph. She was a Music Fae named Twig Oaklyn Flewinia Thistlebottom, tho she never spoke it. I suppose it must be made up tho because legend tells that to know the true name of a Fae fairy can grant you gifts and the power to summon and command the fairy. It took some creative investigation skills to even discover her alias. She had auburn red hair and a mischievous grin. When she looked into his eyes, that was it, he was in love. Gathering his courage he struck up a one-sided conversation, his feeble attempts to impress her (twin bumble gene), his ridiculously unfunny jokes that make us giggle anyway, and finally his observations of the weather.

Despite his persistent rambling, she returned only flirtatious smiles and the occasionally giggle stirred by his goofy charm. Overcome by emotion, he burst out, "Marry me! I... I think I'm in love with you!" She blushed brightly drawing the warm rosy blood into smiling cheeks. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a smooth shiny stone and placed it in his hand. As he was looking at it, she began to play a melody on her brilliant double flute, and gracefully danced away.

He was not sad that she'd flown away, but looked down at his stone and smiled. He remembered something about fairies giving magic stones as gifts. He wondered about fairy customs, particularly surrounding behavior following a marriage proposal. He drooled (a little) as he watched her float away bewitching other festivarians with her lullaby. Or maybe, he thought, the stone was her silent way of saying he's got some big stones asking her to be his wife. :) With a smile like that, you can't blame a guy for tryin'.




They say, "a picture is worth a thousand words." First off, who are the ambiguous "they" and secondly, what kind of feral paparazzi barters photographs for words by the thousand!?! The mind recoils in horror, like the rusty aperture of an antique Leica relic that survived the hippies. There is nothing quite like the modern digital world to embellish and propagate nonsense!

You get 15 seconds at most for wandering eyes that stumble on your site to look around, but the average is likely 1.5 seconds. In that short amount of time, you can dump 1,000 words into somebody's mind that will leave them thinking, inspired or amazed. Here's a call to photographers and writers alike, send me your photograph and story you'd like to see featured on The Sun, The Rain & The Appleseed and I'll post the best ones and tell your story.

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Creating Collective Genius

By James Pierce

Every once in a while, something comes along and knocks loudly on your skull, causing you to stop, look and listen. In a world chalk full of random media distraction, some things still stand out like wildflowers in a garbage heap.

The random whimsical hope for the chance at discovering something new keeps us all on our toes despite the growing hum of the mundane.

As one from the masses, I know some of the dedication, diligence and persistence required to make an art form magic but I am far from mastering it. Strokes of creativity here and there are no match for a prolific master at work.

Then one day, you're sipping coffee on a street bistro reading the classifieds and New Mexico native, Zachary Condon, comes along, raps a beat into your noggin with his vibrato and suddenly the world explodes with a blast of trumpets from the rest of his band Beirut. This all sounds fantastic until you realize he's your next door neighbor and 35 people responded to his craigslist ad for musicians. The scheduled jam secession would begin at 2 a.m. to weed out the undedicated hobbyist.


And as they begin to wail their instruments loudly through the thin apartment walls, you become restlessly taken on a fantastic journey. A few hours stripped of sleep but, no ones complaining.

The magic here is indeed driven by Condon's singing talent but also through a group of people. Just everyday people who could have remained lost among the hum of the masses but chose instead to band together and raise a mighty ruckus. After all, the masterpiece is more than a single stroke.

Perhaps the real art here, more important than the expression of the music itself, is in the moments when all these people come together. Each, driven to the notes, called to dedicate their solitude with clumsy fingers stumbling through chords that echo loudly in their souls; brought together to awkwardly congregate in confined spaces around the music they love.

I love the way this collective inspires. Here's a Canadian husband and wife duo, Win Butler and Régine Chassagneband with their band Arcade Fire.

In the created hum, the imperfections become lost like drops of water in the ocean building and receding with the tide. This music is a deep and magical expanse of impressionism, layered by individual strokes of creativity collected in a single expression of sound.
Of course, bands have been around forever and still practice the nomadic gypsy lifestyle, playing their music wherever they go. Young people will continue to pick up that old banjo uncle Joe had left laying around the house and they'll find creative new ways to express themselves.

Who said that ukulele or xylophone was a dumb gift idea? Not the latest nu-grass folk rock ensemble Mumford and Son's. You can't drive your car without hearing their voices through the radio today. An early video of the lads looking eerily like they hail from Liverpool with a similar uplifting sound.
My point is, let's find more ways to collaborate with other artists and create something that stands out. It would be a healthy effort getting involved with friends and like minded folks for a project. The more voices we have the louder they sing out demanding to be heard, so when you find yourself with a band of misfits marching down the street, you can knock on people's skulls and wake them up.