i woke up to a dampy /gloomy wednesday morning, new years is of course, inevitably around the corner. i start the routine with a rolled up bugler  (having switched from the ubiquitous hollywood favorite -- American Spirit), and the reasons are ostensibly economic, and two cups of my favorite espresso - cafe bustelo.  everyone on the block  is either asleep or at work, nonetheless, nothing is going to stop me from playing my morning station -kcrw on my little grundig.  enough with the jibber jabber and cut to the chase.   Susan Sontag  has died at  71.  this was  the highlight of the morning radio news.
i knew she was a prolific writer and stuff,  but  never ever got  deeply into her biography and works. the only  unpretensious involvement  with the writer is that i do own a dilapidated paperback, ON PHOTOGRAPHY, that i've had for over  22 years, and never fully understood it's context, until recently.  For those souls who spent their entire life photographing (whatever), i  very so recommend this literary work of art.  she will be a remembered writer in my book.

a quote out of the book:

Memorializing the achievements of individuals considered as members of families (as well as of other groups) is the earliest popular use of photography.  For at least a century, the wedding photograph has been as much a part of the ceremony as the prescribed verbal formulas. Cameras go with family life. According to a sociological study done in France, most households have a camera, but a household with children is twice as likely to have at least one camera as a household in which there are no children. Not to take pictures of one's children, particularly when they are small, is a sign of parental indifference, just as not turning up for one's graduation picture is a gesture of adolescent rebellion.