Antidote is over, and I’m happy to report it was a big success.

Oddly, it was a lot like an art project, as I visualized something new, and then went about executing what I saw in my head, so it could come out into the world.

Unfortunately, the two days since the event ended have been filled with sorrow, as a good friend had to deal with tragedy here on our doorstep.

I don’t feel comfortable sharing the details, (since when?) but let’s just say that someone’s life fell to pieces, and my friend was left to deal with the aftermath. (And we became the support system for our friend.)

We spoke about how insidious PTSD is, as it basically perpetuates terror energy in an unbroken chain. Addiction, illness and War are representatives of the worst in life, and their fingers reach into many pies.

Take, for example, the soldier who signs up to serve his country, but ends up killing strangers on the far side of the world, for reasons he’ll never completely understand. With his guns, he perpetuates misery on others, even when his cause is noble and patriotic.

And then he, or she is killed in action.

Another life snuffed.
Potential lost.
Joy extinguished.

The soldier’s death then devastates his or her family. (Or when they come home broken, the effect is the same.)

I’ve gone morbid today, I know, but I just dealt with some heavy shit, on the heels of a weekend of intensely positive energy. I’m in a strange place, I admit.

But Antidote, a weekend of hide-out bliss, was counterpointed by what happened in Charlottesville. Open-faced Nazis, carrying torches, and screaming hate at the top of their lungs.

Violence is among us, and tensions are high.
As a columnist who often discusses what’s actually going on in the world, I must say, I don’t know where this is headed, but it doesn’t look good.

When countries go to War, which is what happened under the last Republican administration, young people die. That happens every time. But the normal ways of showing such things have lost the power to move people, I’d say.

So today, in light of all the aforementioned circumstances, I pulled an older book from the shelf, “Bedrooms of the Fallen,” by Ashley Gilbertson, published by the University of Chicago Press in 2014.

It was submitted last Fall, long after it had been introduced, but I’ve never had a hard rule about only reviewing new releases. It’s mostly worked out that way, but today, we’re mixing it up.

Ashley Gilbertson, an Austrialian-born-America-based photographer, has been a war correspondent for a long time. And at one point, while working in Iraq, a soldier was killed while protecting Mr. Gilbertson’s life.

That would leave an imprint on any psyche.
A PTSD of its own, if you will.

Eventually, Mr. Gilbertson’s wife suggested a project, as he grappled to deal with his feelings, in which he’d photograph soldiers’ bedrooms.

The ones that were intact, because parents couldn’t bear to part with the memories, which were enshrined within their homes.

Our childhood bedrooms, it’s well established, are where our identities first form. Are we neat or tidy? (Oscar or Felix?)

Do we have posters of sports stars, or bikini-clad women, or none of the above?

I noticed that the UK soldiers’ rooms had a lot of DVD’s. What’s that all about?

The pictures here, shot in black and white with a panoramic, wide angle perspective, are somber. How could then not be? And it’s not that I cried. I’m too numb for that.

The pictures are straight forward, and I’ll show a fair sample below. (As I always do.) Maybe a few extra, even.

Mr. Gilbertson’s well written, extensive afterword grabbed me more than the pictures. We all receive information differently, and in this case, the story about the story was more compelling for me than the images of the story.

I doubt many of you would agree, as the photographs are excellent, and it is a photo book.

We don’t need to have favorite children, though, and I commend the publishers, and the artist, for making a book that dripped with empathy in many ways.

I honestly hope, for all of our sakes, that the world calms down a bit, and that the USA is able to find a graceful, non-violent way out of the Trumpian mess we find ourselves in.

Fingers crossed.

Bottom Line: Poignant, important book about the true cost of war: our children

To purchase “Bedrooms of the Fallen,” click here

If you’d like to submit a book for review, please email me at jonathanblaustein@gmail.com

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1 Comment

  1. An impressive and honorable project!

    And not to belittle it in any way- but it’s also worth remembering that there were a whole lot of families in Iraq who perhaps couldn’t afford separate bedrooms for their children who were needlessly killed in a war of profit/revenge for a crime they did not commit…


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