About
Mark McMahon |
March
5, 2001-Probably from Somewhere in California |
Article
by Dana Smith |
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| The
first time I met Mark McMahon was by way of my
mouth. I had an accident and I needed to see a Dentist in
the worst way. As life would have it one thing leads to
another and I learn that he is also a juggler, performs
stand-up comedy at clubs around San Francisco, and is shuttling
back and forth to Tucson where he is practicing cosmetic
dentistry. |
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| Mark is
a student. He was studying photography, learning how to
write and deliver jokes, and traveling to the far corners
of the globe always believing that there was some other
piece to the puzzle to add to the mosaic of his life. |
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Mark
wanders both near and far. It is as if his ship
is both inbound from the sea of his life to a safe
harbor, and at the same time outbound to uncharted
water. His photographs and prose are always sent
back from the deep far flung jungles of the world.
They are a kind of report on the state of how things
really are on this earth right now. |
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| The
frogs, the bars, tribes, friends, food, water, bugs
and thrills and spills of this and that all soon whirl
and twist then fall into place. It is as much about
the landscape as it is about the terrain of his mind.
It is as much about the family of man as it is about
this particular man. Those fingers that probed my
gums are the same gentle fingers aiming that camera
and writing this journal! |
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Why
is Mark doing this? Digital camera, laptop computer, 4X4
Toyota pick-up truck and most of all desire. You have
to want to do something right now. To do it along the
way. To take this moment and catch it with camera, describe
it with words, and then post it on your web site, because
now you can. |
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So,
read the journals, look at the photographs, and
then draw your own conclusions. I believe Mark McMahon
is telling us something about the condition of his
heart. He is telling us something about desire,
curiosity and a kind of players love for the game
of life. Some of us just have to take ourselves
off the bench and put ourselves into this game. |
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| The more
I visit my friend here on his web site, the more evidence
I find through these images and stories, these fragments
of the here and now, posted in pixels, at the speed of digital
virtuality, a kind of state of things as they are. I have
much admired the poetry of a Jesuit priest by the name of
Gerald Manley Hopkins who wrote from Ireland in the last
century. He practiced writing every day by simply trying
to describe something with no care whatsoever to any other
goal. Just take words on paper and capture a thing. Mark's
work is sort of like that. It isn't for Mark to tell you
what all this means. You get to figure it out for yourself. |
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