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Letter to James Luna

(in memoriam, d. March 4, 2018)

Dear James Mister Luna, dear James you don’t maybe remember me? We met at Black the gallery. I wrote the grant to bring you. I am a member there. Your talk lecture talk lecture was inspiring goddamn. I won’t forget it. I can’t forget it. Forget it.  I am not Indian, native, first American. No repraitions  repairations retarains nothing is possible to forget about it. I liked best when that time you said you were the most most photographed Indian native first American on the planet. People took your picture at your invitation request. Your great joke. But I wondered then and now is this about stealing the soul thing? Idea of stealing the soul with a photograph. How the soul is stolen by a photograph. The soul and photograph thing. Endless stubborn wish to photograph you and how you turned that around and owned. And you owned the impulse. My impulse to thank you for this insight. In sight. Insight. Vision. Vision. Question. Quest. Quest. I had this question I wanted to ask, do you think this idea that the soul is stolen by taking a photograph. I mean some of these people on facebook and their children are doomed, if so.  Is true. Since we stole stold s’told robbed everything else?  Yet that idea was right. It preserved destroyed your people. I wonder. You opened my eyes to that. Might take me while to send this letter. I plan to send this letter right away. I figure I have time to get it right. I mean my gratitude that you came. And spoke. What you said. My mind’s a jumbled mess. So much clarity in your way of speaking. I don’t even have a picture. Idiotic assertion I know. I kinda wanted something to remember the moment. If you answer, I will.

Ever, always

M.