-2-

I had to admit these impressed me in a strange way, especially the first one. Lisa Sarkis said it reminded her of a painting called "The Scream" by Edvard Munch. I thought so myself, but it also looked a little like the mask used in the movie "Scream," though much more forlorn. It now seems to me that the primary identity is the forlorn spirit captured in or finding expression or traveling through the ice. The second one I leave entirely to your imagination (alien).

~

In a longer email, I wrote to Jim:

...whatever madness possesses you enters through your eye in these photos. I don't even know whether they are photographs so much as visions. You once called them portals, and I think you're further than that in these. You are not looking in through a portal, you are all the way through the portal when you are taking the picture...I don't know how you capture these things, but the first step, I'm pretty sure, is seeing them. I will be looking at them for a while to come.

Jim wrote back, referring at one point to a scrape with cancer:

i have gone partially through the portal. being close to death has that effect if you are open to it. this makes me really curious about death. will things come to me and ask what took so long? will they ignore me? do these questions even make sense in the context of death? will i retain enough worldly consciousness to know if these questions are answered? am i going to eat my sandwich before the dog laps it up? the little bastard is eying it already.