A throw back Thursday (#tbt) social media post from today.
This image (from 1984) is from the last time I was seriously writing fiction, the mid-to-late eighties in San Francisco. I had an agent, I had deals within reach. Then things changed.
I never stopped writing, but for decades it was non-fiction: journalism, theory & criticism, business communication.
I was also a widely exhibited film artist at the time, and this photo was from a full-page feature about me in the old arts & leisure ‘pink pages’ supplement of the San Francisco Chronicle. The reporter waltzed into the Canyon Cinema offices where the interview was held, and he was wearing a fedora. I didn’t like the angle he took on me in the published article, so to gripe I contacted my friend Dinty Moore, at that time a lapsed UPI writer and editor, and asked “WTF?”
“Never trust a journalist wearing a hat,” was the only advice Dinty had to offer.
Fashion notes: I think I’m wearing wool vintage pants from the late 40s or early 50s, cuffed and pleated, and wingtips. The tie is very early 60s beat style. The charcoal wool overcoat is also vintage, of uncertain era. Everything would have been gray or black, the shirt perhaps a steel blue. In my right hand I’m holding (I believe) a Bell & Howell Filmo 16mm camera.