This should be on an about page, but I wanted it to get top-billing. For a long time there have been no memoir-style updates on my site. The reason is I was presenting myself as an artist/poet/photographer, and I didn’t want my site to look like a blog. I even dislike the word, ‘blog’. It is undignified and aesthetically unpleasing. It sounds like a creature form a nineteen-fifties B movie sci-fi flick.
Anyway, I was trying to market myself as a soon-to-be professional, and I had planned to do drawings and photos for printing (which I would still like to do), so I wanted the site to look clean, simple, and focused on visual art. Another reason I was marketing my work in website format–with no daily updates and only links to what was featured–was that my girlfriend was saying she wanted to see a professional site. And another reason still, was a good friend was saying to be professional, ‘get the personal stuff off the site.’ Some of the most successful people have marketed themselves that way, but their sites are boring, even when designed beautifully, because they are like sign-posts in the desert, where no one goes for long. Why? They are lonely, and the interactive blog environment is the answer to that, and it is the website of today, where people congregate. So that is why I am returning to a blog-style format.
Here’s the thing. A long time ago I had an epiphany; ‘Don’t change yourself into something, be more of what you are, or get better at it.’ I am not only a photographer. I am not only a poet. I m not only a teacher (well, I don’t do that any more). I am not only a spoken-word performer and a comic. I am all these things and that is what I am. And the charm in a person comes in the amalgam of what she or he is, not in dissecting his or her parts. Besides, it’s more fun and less pretentious to present yourself as a whole person, and on the blogosphere, ease is the means of the day, so I have everything all here in one place. I think that if anyone wants to take a professional interest in me or my work, he can click one link or another and focus on what he wants.
Furthermore, in the spirit of being whole, I will have daily updates of my life in Korea, because, let’s face it, this is my ‘journey to the moon’, and the defining event of my life, thus far.
Peace, Love, Joy, & Imagination,
Carl
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Carl Atteniese / 亜天二恵世万慈道
Thank you for reading. I hope this finds you exceedingly well.
I was born in Brooklyn, in the middle of the NASA Gemini space Program era--which was on course for the Apollo program, aiming to land men on the moon. I watched Neil Armstrong make humanity's first step on the lunar surface. The space program left a lasting effect on me and inspired life-long interest and passion in me.
I was born a little more than 2 years after President John Kennedy was assassinated and a few years before Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated. It was a time of tumult, but better manners, a gentler approach to one another (despite the prejudice being worked on by progressives-) little political correctness, no cancel culture and thicker skin & more opportunity for laughs, a time of fantastic television, austere and fact-based news delivered with brevity and sobriety and much superlatively stylish design. It was the beginning of Star Trek, Star Wars, and a few years on, personal computers, digital watches, hand-held electronic games and movies were still in theaters--not on our TVs--unless they were a little old. People paid more attention to books, from where trust is built with credibility we intrinsically see, competency earned and reflected and facts & expertise. One reason I am not apt to dabble in irrational conspiracy theories is I made many a trek to the local library, to read about stars, planets and astronauts, and to the local bookstore--no longer there--to find my favorite science fiction novels--to either read, or simply marvel at their covers, by Boris Valejo and Frank Frazetta--inspirations that would fuel my later entry into the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
I grew up in Long Island, worked and was educated there until I discovered New York City, then it was on to Boulder Colorado, The Mojave Desert, South Korea and now Japan. I have visited Mongolia, the Philippines, and England and hope to see the rest of the world--and maybe even beyond it.
I teach English as a Second Language, practice secular Buddhism and pay attention to philosophy, astronomy, spaceflight, aviation and human & species rights. I make art, poems and photography--and real friends, wherever I go--when I can.
Maybe our paths will cross; until then, enjoy my writing and pictures, and send me a note. Maybe we can have a cup of coffee someday, somewhere.
Thank you for reading.
I wish you love, peace, joy and enlightenment--sincerely--because you are sentient, and you suffer, too.
Carl Atteniese
Tokyo
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