s. sent a picture of a grainy couple in grainy candlelight in a grainy building across from her. i asked her if she was doing free-lance surveillance work. she said no, the couple just happened to be having a romantic dinner in the building she likes. she didn't happen to notice them. she said she once had to surrender a roll of film to a street person in s.f. who was in the front of the building she was picturing.

i was thinking about surveillance anyway. that funny surveillance park dis-service tree-cam in osaka garden, the sign of a dog on a bike saying no dogs/no bikes and me with my golden buddha dog looking in the lens with my camera eye. last night we watched cameraperson, by kirsten johnson, a film about looking- looking with great feeling and compassion, with being with others, and seeing them with love in camera. so beautiful. in a scene with a physicist with a huge brain and waving arms speaking with infectious excitement about quantum entanglement she says after him, i'm feeling pretty entangled with you, right now.
also there is a short film she made in kabul, the above, about life lived under a giant tethered surveillance airship, which looks so cartoon-like in shape, so benignly menacing, america the occupier, the eye in the sky, seeing all. the ship of state hovers in every shot, behind every act, every scene, so ubiquitous it is no longer watched, only watching. the constant presence of the conqueror. one man talks about god, ever present, all seeing, with the airship looking down on him. 

i think about these ways of looking, all in a spectrum of looking, all of us looking at something, looking for something, looking at spectacles, looking at rocks, looking for god, looking at each other, looking to intimidate, looking for love. just looking.