So we had a Kickstarter “The Way We Were” promotional meeting at the Round House Cafe this morning, we got some posters printed up by our friend Deb Foster and Maria and I began distributing them all over town. George and Donna had plans to storm the bank and library and other buildings in his neighborhood on Main Street.
People in our town wish to contribute to the project too, and the posters give instructions on how to get to Kickstarter and “The Way We Were.” George and I had a long talk this morning, he said the aliens had taught him that all of us live in the “now,” in the moment, there is no future and no past. Thus, he says, there is no reason to fear death. I like him, but I told him that really went against the grain.
He said that as a wizard, he was always against the grain. “I’m a wizard, you, know, and wizards don’t know why they do what they do, they just do it.” George said I was a wizard too, a great compliment. I have always thought of George as a wizard, I told him he would have been burned alive at almost any point in human history by the Catholic Church or most governments.
George’s Kickstarter project is a hit, he has raised more than $15,500 on Kickstarter and another $8,000 via a private donor. His new $500 computer is arriving in a day or so, and he is keeping his old monitor, purchased for $10 at a thrift shop. He is already hard at work making up silver gelatin prints for his major donors and has begun working on his book “The Way We Were,” a collection of his photographs taken in New York before 911. He will now be able to have them published, probably in October.
Life Magazine has also noticed his Kickstarter project and called yesterday to talk about doing a photo spread of his New York photos taken for his project, and for another project called “The Access Project”, which also involved photographs of the New York City landscape. They said they wanted to come upstate and meet him. You can see some of those photos here, on the website of his gallery, the Park Slope Gallery in Brooklyn.
George is always upbeat, but there is a gleam in his eye now, and a lot of excitement in his voice. This is a wonderful happening, genius will triumph over the greatest odds.