This is one of those times when I knew the photographs would fail me (and I only had my cheap phone camera), but I took them anyways. I came upon this scene of a man reading to a woman in park and I couldn't disturb it by getting too close. The woman's Gauginesque back and arm, the man reading with such formality and intent, all of it grasped my attention. Periodically, the man stopped reading and they both appeared to silently take in the meaning of his words. I am glad I dared to walk to another vantage point because from there I could see the magenta flower in the woman's hair and a young girl lying on the woman's lap, reading her own book. Where in the world could such a thing happen in 2016? What kind of man would dare to enact such a scene in public? Have the troubadours come back to life?
In 2013, the Basque director Oskar Alegria introduced his film " The Search for Emak Bakia" at the 56th San Francisco International Film Festival. An exceptional experimental film, it weaves documentary, storytelling, and history while revealing aspects of Man Ray's time in the Basque Country that are difficult to appreciate otherwise. Emak Bakia means "leave me in peace" in Basque and it was also the name of the house that Man Ray lived in. In this movie there are scenes of women sleeping whose eyes are captured just at the moment of awakening. These reminded me of some of my favorite Man Ray photos, such as the one of Kiki de Montparnasse. http://emakbakiafilms.com/fotos/?pid=1 Kiki and the African Mask, by Man Ray 1926