View allAll Photos Tagged Everpresent
I had just got booted outta Jazz Fest because my 'credentials' weren't 'real'...
can you believe that shit?
You can't get access as a photographer unless you 'sell your pictures'... if you shoot because you wanna share the love they'll throw your ass out on the street.
That's where the love is anyway.
I know... there needs to be rules or everybody would just misbehave and stuff.
Of course I'd still push it if there weren't any rules I'm sure.
I really kinda wanted a piece of Ira Sullivan's birthday cake backstage there.
Viewminder gets tossed!
'No cake for you!'
Then I got chewed out by the guy sellin' Jesus 'cause I didn't have any cashish in my pocket to buy a 'ticket to heaven' after I shot him up close...
He sure wasn't too forgiving of my lack of coin.
'No heavenly paradise for you!'
But a prestidigitating practitioner of the Luciferian 'dark arts'... the street magician that I shot next... he showed me some love.
The irony!
Right after all that I met Peter Michaels.
Peter had come to repay Cecil three dollars that he owed him for a 'round of chess' that they played sometime before.
Cecil wouldn't take the money.
Peter insisted.
Cecil wouldn't have it.
Seein' that I figured Peter must be alright and Cecil told him that I was a photographer.
I needed to 'reset my mojo' and sittin' down on the concrete wall there on Michigan Avenue across from Cecil's chess tables was the place to do it.
Other than his name, I don't know anything about Peter Michaels.
We didn't get into 'who we were'... we talked about 'where we were.'
It was a long conversation about the moment.
Sitting on the wall we talked about what was going on around us.
During our exchange of observations I just started shooting Peter as we talked.
He asked a lot of questions about my camera and why I shot the way that I did... how it was and what it all meant.
I noticed he had on nice shoes and when I went to show him some shots on the back of the camera he hadda put on his glasses.
As soon as he could see the shots it just lit him up...
It does that to everyone it seems like.
There's this moment of explosive joy.
I don't know if I can explain it.
The energy changes and it's like we become instant friends.
There's really something to that moment if you break it down.
And I haven't broken it down yet.
Peter dug the shots and I gave him a card and told him he could find them here.
He said he doesn't use the computer.
I accused him of being 'half amish and half rastafarian.'
'Amirastamofo!'
Peter left... still talking and joking with me as he walked backwards into the night.
I thought I heard the muffled notes of a flugelhorn in the still air underneath the everpresent background hum of the city.
Faces on the street
Chicago 9.4.11
35mm 1.8 cropped square expo and contrast all funky'd up
Riot Miles Davis on the trumpet and Wayne Shorter on the tenor sax.
A celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders art, life and culture at the National Gallery Singapore during Ever - Present : First Peoples Art of Australia exhibition.
Welcome to Mars it's open all hours.
What are we doing here?
After a few weeks of doing little, and only a couple of gigs in two years, we suddenly have two on consequtive nights, one in Canterbury and one in Deal.
And it was the last working day of the week. Friday. I was all caught up, and the apple of my boss' eye, by all acounts.
Friday night we would be going to Canterbury, meeting my friend Pete from work, having a meal, a pint, and then go to see Avant Garage band, Pere Ubu in concert, doing their take on the Canterbury Tales. In Canterbury.
But first, the working day.
It is reporting season in Denmark. Financial reporting season, so on Wednesday we had La Grande Fromage give his talk, and on Friday it was the turn of the COO, which went as well as expected. Much for us all to do in relation of quality. And apparently, yours truly is central to that, somehow.
Eeek.
After than is our departmental weekly social, with life returning to normal in Denmark and India too, though vaccinations are in short supply there.
But life goes on.
I have a few loose ends to tie up, including a question relating to my travel expenses. In short if my boss isn't satisfied with my explaination as to his decision to cancel the team meeting in December, then I will have my company credit card taken off me, which mean I couldn't travel any more.
Seems more like a carrot than the stick he thinks it is.
I have some very thin toast for breakfast and lunch.
And soon there is just an audit closing meeting to sit through. I try my hardest to concentrate. Honest I do.
And at half two, I am done for the week.
I was putting the computer away when Jools returns from Tesco having hunted and gathered on her way home. I make a coffee.
Other hot news was that I was halfway through making a last post-festve batch of mince pies.
Needing to allow them to cool down meant that we needed to wait half an hour before being able to take said pies out of the tin to eat. This meant a fresh brew was needed.
So it goes, so it goes.
By which time it was time to leave for Canterbury. The sun had set and it was getting dark, but having been a glorious day, the sky was a wonderful mox of blues and pinks as the sun sank lower over the horizon and dusk fell.
We parked near the castle, then walked through the back streets before cutting through to Westgate, over the river and through the gate itself to the West station where Pete's train would be arriving at half five.
We had been looking somewhere to eat on the way and had narrowed it down to about 30 or 40 restaurants.
Life can be hard.
We watch the trains cross the main road, and soon I spot Pete on the other side of the road, on his mobile, calling me. Which I hadn't heard.
Oi, oi saveloy! I shout, and he comes over.
As we walk back to the centre, we discuss where to eat, and in the end we agree on the Turkish place on the way to Westgate.
Pete and I have kebabs, not in a pita, but in a bowl and with herbs and spices. Classy, like.
We get a fre salad to share, and it is all rather mavelous.
Next up, was the need for a pint. I had spooted a micropub and brewhouse down on Stour Street, so we go there.
I have a half of their "nitro" porter, which came in at 9.6%.
Yes, you read that right.
It was good, but the sourness of the beer rreally smothered the vanilla flavour added in the mashing. A good attempt though.
It was twenty to eight, the gig started in 20 minutes, and we had to get out to the University.
We walk back to the car, then go round the inner ringroad, back past the station where we met Pete and up the hill.
Parking should have been easy, but the lot near the theatre was full, so we had to park at a place a ten minute walk away, then find our way back up, hoping we would find the car three hours later.
We go in and find our way past the main arena to where the gig was, entering as the support band were finsihing their set.
And now the ghost of Pere Ubu it was announced.
Pere Ubu lead singer and mastermind, Dave Thomas was wheeled on stage in a wheelchair. He has had a hard few years, two health crisis, he's lucky to be here. We're lucky he's here.
They do one song and the stage is cleared as the main act was set up.
Pere Ubu have been going since the mid-70s, and have had a large troupe of members passing through. Thomas is the only everpresent member, is the singer and main songwriter.
They come back on, and the rest of the ban get him on a stool, and the gig starts.
Some of the music could be described as "challenging", I was worried that Pete wouldn't like it, before Mnday he hadn't heard of them, but the musicianship on show was wonderful, especially the drummer who did some great work.
Behind the band a film, or clips of films from the 1950s were shown, tinted and damaged. Artistic, like.
Each song begain with an spoken word intro, before the band leapt in.
90 minutes rattled along, and soon it was all done.
We file out and walk back through the desserted campus to the car. We set Pete's postcode in the sat nav and we set off on a grand tour of Kent's back lanes en route for Thanet.
We drop him off in Dumpston, between Broadstairs and Margate, then we had to find our way through Broadstairs and Ramsgate back to the main road to Sandwich then to Dover and home.
We get back at ten past midnight.
Saturday.
A celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders art, life and culture at the National Gallery Singapore during Ever - Present : First Peoples Art of Australia exhibition.
i worked most of the weekend but today jade and i will head to the beach for the "official" end of summer -- here it's summer temperature-wise for weeks to come.,
cutoffs - michael kors -- totally overpriced at $90 - i got them for 12.
top -- i'm not sure -- something random
random hat
everpresent trusty flip flops!
A celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders art, life and culture at the National Gallery Singapore during Ever - Present : First Peoples Art of Australia exhibition.
A celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders art, life and culture at the National Gallery Singapore during Ever - Present : First Peoples Art of Australia exhibition.
A celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders art, life and culture at the National Gallery Singapore during Ever - Present : First Peoples Art of Australia exhibition.
A celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders art, life and culture at the National Gallery Singapore during Ever - Present : First Peoples Art of Australia exhibition.
A celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders art, life and culture at the National Gallery Singapore during Ever - Present : First Peoples Art of Australia exhibition
The Janis Joplin tree, located on the edge of Hippie Hill, is named so because the late Janis Joplin was said to play her guitar under it during the 1960s.
Nestled in the trees between the Conservatory of Flowers and legendary Haight street, Hippie Hill has been a popular hangout for San Francisco's counter culture--home to a seemingly everpresent drum circle and and endless parade of marijuana smokers.
Or, how I almost became one at the age of 14. After about nine months of agony I managed to pass off as normal angst in 8th grade it came blowing way out of proportion when I graduated. Days before graduation I tore up my hands clawing at a wall and my desk in a desperate bid to keep myself attached to reality. I slipped into a flashback that kept me still and frozen, locked into place by horror. When reality set back in, I shook. It was like I'd been punched in the face, stomach, and golf-clubbed again. My fingers bled. The nails were ragged.
My summer should have been spent working and relaxing. While I did work, I didn't relax at all.
Days after graduating, a strange, new, and horrifying feeling took over.
I was going to die. How, I didn't know, but I knew it would be imminent. I didn't know what I had had a name of its own, but I knew that it was the most out-of-touch I'd ever been with the world. When I was normal I knew that I was safe, but when I felt I was going to die, no one could convince me otherwise.
Through the panic attacks and manifestations of PTSD I managed to maintain a somewhat stable facade. I managed to think of all kinds of excuses to stay around the house, which was the only truly safe place. But excuse after excuse wore thin and I would get dragged out to grocery shop, clothes shop, car shop, and to just get me out of the house. I hated these excursions. I hated the shower curtains, the clothes that still hung on me (I'd lost 20 pounds due to being sick), the stupid dealerships and the cars and the bags of lettuce and dressings.
All I wanted to do was stay alive.
When the first attack hit at work I almost jumped out of a window. While displaying my ever-so-stable face I shut myself in the bathroom. As my heart raced and the building seemed to crumble around me I filled the sink with water. Taking only the time to whip off my eyeglasses I plunged my head into the basin. It always worked in the movies, right?
I'd forgotten about the body's shock response. My hair flipped water all over the tiles, the ugly flocked wallpaper and the stupid matching towels. I couldn't go back to the office like this. My whole ruse would come tumbling down. And I couldn't let it - how good I looked in my little cornflower blue buttondown, cuffs turned up ever-so-slightly with the little-bit-big black jeans (negative sizes don't exist) and the everpresent black shoes. Not a hair out of place. Brand-new black eyeglasses. Earrings all lined up.
So I opened the window. It took some forcing. When I'd finally raised it enough to permit the passage of a body I perched up on the sill, anchored by my bony hands gripping the window and my rubber soles hanging on for dear life. If I could safely fall I could run out of the alley and into the street and away from death. I could feel my thin shoulderblades poking at the shirt, straining to break free. I saw myself hitting the alley below like James Bond and making my getaway.
I also saw a meaty splat in a cornflower blue shirt. I looked down and my stomach dropped. With an inward cry I fell back into the bathroom. I waited for death but it never came.
Throughout the summer I tried to subvert the panic attacks. I stopped reading the newspapers. I ceased listening to the radio. I shunned the New York Times magazine that I'd been reading since I was 12. Even the end piece - my favorite part. I even stopped watching the Ten O'Clock News with Dennis Richmond, a nightly tradition ever since I'd been young. It would be difficult to give up, but by removing triggers I could guarantee safety.
Yet somewhere, there was always a radio turned too loud. A newspaper headline staring up at me from the gutter.
The attacks would come more often. They'd last longer. I'd try to escape them. I would run. There was one day when I almost ended up in the windshield of a brand-new Mercedes. Another day I ran all through San Francisco, depositing myself by the Bay Bridge. But I had outsmarted death. I had survived for the day.
I don't think I've ever feared for my life in any situation more than I have in those four months of hell.
Eventually I couldn't take it any more. After running all over San Francisco and having strangers feel the need to check my arms for track marks and comment on my weight and getting tired of trying to outsmart death, I couldn't take it any more. I got help for what had been troubling me, though sometimes I think the lady was more interested in telling me about the plight of the girls my age in the Albany school district. She was surprised about the physical scraps I'd been in and how my friends and never spread rumors and how I'd never been reduced to a sobbing heap over something someone said about my manner of dress. Not many 14 year old girls showed a prediliction for open buttondowns over tank tops. She told me about Tony Soprano and how he told his therapist what she wanted to hear - not exactly lying, but not telling the whole truth either. Maybe she gave me ideas, but I really think everyone does that when they're uncomfortable.
Four years later, I'm about to graduate high school and I'm doing well. Bumps were hit along the way, but that's life. My nails have long since grown out and scars have long since flattened and healed, but it will always be with me. Since I lost my job I don't wear my cornflower blue shirt that much, but sometimes I take it out and look at it and feel sad, but triumphant.
Some days I still wonder if death is waiting for me behind a light pole, but for now, I've kept on walking.
please picture the five miles of open terrain to asshole's left, and the pole that effectively resides in my car to the right.
funny story about this horrible picture...
about 10 pm the other night, while walking the beautiful grounds at canyon ranch, i noticed this guy in a hole about 6 inches to the right of the sidewalk.
it was bigger than my hand (and for a 5'4" woman i have hands roughly the size of baseball mitts) and who knew they lived in freaking holes!?!?!? i then did the thing any transplanted new-england girl with a formidable fear of spiders would do: ran screaming to my car, locked the doors and drove away with haste,shaking and muttering things like "big hairy ass f*cking spider" over and over again until the rivers of cold sweat pouring down my back began to abate slightly and rational thought returned to my terror-numbed brain.
unfortunately, not good thougt... i realized that , as a new england girl, this was the first time i had ever seen a tarantula that wasn't encased in lucite and in an airport gift shop. i began to feel shallow for not taking a moment to observe and appreciate the awsome beauty of my unique desert surrounding and to lament the missed opportunity to take a picture to document this exciting event that was kind of becoming incrementally funnier with each mile being rapidly put between myself and the site of the encounter.
flash forward to the next night: i am leaving work, everpresent point-and-shoot already in hand. i scan the dirt to either side of the sidewalk like i was looking for a lost engagement ring (now that i know they live in holes, i realize they could be everywhere; they could even live together in holes like tiny giant freaking tarantula roommates ordering pizza and splitting the cable bill). i am excited. i am horrified. my heart is beating like bad techno and i really, really think i might puke ...and i see it.
same hole: about 6 inches from the sidewalk, about 6 feet from the employee parking lot (actually not far from where the bobcat, or whatever it is, lives by the employee parking lot). i stand about 2 feet from the hole, and kind of off to the side in case it has bad peripheral vision or it just might think i was hanging out waiting for a bus or meeting a friend. i zoom a in a little, but not too much- it is night time and dark and i don't want things to get too "noisy"because it is a very important picture; me documenting wildlife and facing my fears and all, so i snap the picture, the flash goes off...
...and i learn that tarantulas jump. five f*cking feet in the air! this thing was eye-level (EYE-LEVEL) to me in the freaking AIR! i did not see where it landed; i was screaming and running out to the parking lot.
it took a minute to shake and cry and brush my hands all over myself to remove imaginary spiders while hopping up and down outside my locked jeep. it took a minute to realize that there was no way i could stick my hand in my bag to rummage for my keys, pry the camera out of my frozen fingers and dump my bag out onto the hood to find the keys so there was no blind sticking of my hand anywhere potentially harboring a giant hitchhiking tarantula. it didn't take long to decide that nothing in my bag, except the located keys, was worth waiting around to see if spiders keep jumping for so i was in the jeep, doors locked and gunning it out of the gate shaking and crying, rocking back and forth slightly and muttering something about jumping deamon spiders in no time.
anyway; here is my spider picture. they live in holes, they jump and if i made a spider gesture with my hand to indicate a giant freaking hairy jumping tarantula this spider was bigger than that. no lie. i lived to tell about it even though they hate having their pictures taken.
A celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders art, life and culture at the National Gallery Singapore during Ever - Present : First Peoples Art of Australia exhibition
monsieur! crossing ze street is so dangerouse!
So it's less than 24 hours until the KOTO sponsored bike ride.
An eighty kilometre bicycle ride through the still green lakes and hills of Vietnam, to raise money for a worthy cause: the education and training of street children of Ha Noi, by an aussie charity here.
I'm all hyped up. Pumped, as Arnie says. I'm ready to kill myself doing this.
And kill myself doing this is extremely likely.Did I mention that I'm not really outdoorsy?That despite my action man exploits underwater, back on dry land, I remain the world's biggest seven stone weakling?Did I mention that I haven't ridden a bicycle in fifteen years?Did I mention that I haven't done any physical exercise at all since rowing with the british dragonboat team in Singapore four weeks ago?I did mention that just those two hours left me crippled for two days, didn't I?Did I point out what eighty kilometres is in imperial measurements? It's FIFTY MILES. When I wrote to everyone in my address book asking for sponsorship, I didn't realise this. To a Brit, every metrical measurement appears tiny. I assumed this would be something simple, like a foot or so. 80 metres. 80 centimetres. Perhaps 80 millimetres. You know, something possible?I ever mention to you that even in the gym in days of yore, the stationary bike machines were the one thing I couldn't cope with? That my thigh muscles are such flaccid dead fish of a human sinew that they usually appeared to split at the seams after just 75 repetitions of pressing down an unweighted wheel to get nowhere?Many of my good sponsors have communicated an earnest hope that I have been in training since I foolishly agreed to murder myself by two wheeled means. This is not so. My training regime has been a peculiar one. It involves food poisoning, a full week laid prone in bed, running to the toilet every hour, and eating one bowl of rice and boiled broccoli a day. I look skinnier, yeah, but fitter? Think 'The Pianist'.Have I mentioned that Ha Noi's road traffic doesn't follow any rules whatsoever? That simply crossing a road intact was a Vietnamese challenge set by one reader, here?The streets are infested with speeding mopeds, ridden to be seen, not to get from A to B, and therefore populated with the type of motorist whose mirrors are angled to check their hair is straight rather than to stay alive.The rules of the road are: the bigger the vehicle, the faster you have to move out of the way. Horns are a deafening everpresent scrum. A horn beeping replaces the indicator lights, replaces the use of brakes, alerts people to the oncoming road accident, and tells everyone that you're rich enough to have a moped. Horns beep day and night in an orchestral cacophony. Horns beeping will not save me from harm.Did I tell you that the reason I never cycled in London was because I'm not roadworthy. I was the only kid in my primary school class who didn't pass the Cycling Proficiency Test.Did I tell you that the last time I cycled anywhere, I had to ask a friend to cycle just in front of me, so I could steal the signals from her without looking behind me? Because if I look over my shoulder, I wobble ten feet to the left, then fall off the bike?That I've never yet managed to stay on the bike on a mild incline?That I have a serious problem navigating Ha Noi's streets, and have only once managed to leave my hotel without getting lost within six paces?That one of the KOTO bike rides central problems is that people with an actual sense of direction get lost year after year?Are you feeling quite how bloody foolish this bike ride will be for me yet?Nevertheless I will do this.
I will do this because KOTO is a really really worthwhile cause. I will do this because I promised my friends if they sponsored me, I would photograph my agony and embarrassment.
I will do this because having read this promise, my sodding bloody over-generous friends committed more than $800USD in just 48 hours, if I kill myself on Saturday.
Every mile I ride, every muscle I tear, every ragged gasp I breathe, every pained tear I shed, every tendon I split will be recorded for their delectation.
And it will kill me.
"if you're not willing to be changed by a place, there's no point in going."
If you're willing to add to the sum raised by my death, and are titillated by the thought that KOTO will sell you pictures of it, please leave your email and your sponsorship promises in the comments below.
Roll call of esteemed sponsors:
Russell Braterman, Germany, Eroica from Frogstar World, NZ, Looby from Gay Nazi Sex Vicar ..., UK, Francesca from End Message, UK, Vikki Tomlinson, UK, Martin from Web Frog, UK, Tess from Bored and Broke, Northern Ireland, Duch, UK, my mum and dad, UK, Margret Smith, Spain, Ruth Gilburt, UK, jatb, UK, Will of Moving Forward, Mexico, Tim Worstall, UK, Karen from Secret Walk, Phillippines, Robin Brzakalik, UK, my sister, UK, Paul from Noxturne, USA, Paula Newark, UK, Fishboy from Effing the Ineffable, Australia, Pete Connolly, UK, Yidaho from kitchensunk, UK, Bloom from Tales from the Chalkface, UK, Madeleine Minson, Sweden, Emma from Etcher: A Print Maker's Diary, UK, my mum's boss at work, UK, Terry of More Coffee, Less Dukkha, UK, Mike of Troubled Diva, UK, Nicole Hammond, UK.
Killers, all of them.
This photograph was a finalist in the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2009 which was displayed at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra and several touring venues around Australia during 2009.
www.portrait.gov.au/site/NPPP2009.php
Artist statement:
Drawing visual influence from the chalk drawings of the sitter’s favourite artist, Sandro Botticelli, my conceptual portrait of Barry Otto depicts the creative dichotomy of the man, playfully displaying the everpresent duality I find with Barry, those being the painter and the actor. I am also depicting the two very strong traits that go hand in hand within the artist himself, these being confidence and vulnerability, and the constant questioning that occurs between the two. Accompanying this theme of duality is the addition of symbolic elements that represent the alchemistical symbol for the actor. Neptune (represented by the three pronged paint brushes in Barry’s left hand) and Venus (represented by the Elizabethan ruff found around Barry’s neck). Together they form the Alchemist symbol for Illusionary Reality, or as we know it today, the modern day actor.
Harvard Square is a large triangular area at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Brattle Street, and John F. Kennedy Street. Adjacent to the historic heart of Harvard University, Harvard Yard, the Square (as it is called locally) functions as a commercial center for Harvard students, as well as residents of western Cambridge and the inner western suburbs of Boston. In an extended sense, the name "Harvard Square" can refer to the entire neighborhood surrounding this intersection for several blocks in each direction.
The Square boasts of famous residents from earlier periods and the high pedestrian traffic makes it a popular place for street performers. In recent years, however, the Square has been gentrified. Harvard Square used to have many new and used bookstores, but few are left today. The Square also used to be a neighborhood shopping center, with a grocery store and a Woolworth's five and ten. There does remain a small hardware store, but the Square is now more of a regional shopping center. During the late 1990s, some locally run businesses with long-time shopfronts on the Square—including the unusual Tasty Diner, a tiny sandwich shop open long hours, and the Wursthaus, a beloved old-world German restaurant—closed to make way for national chains. The local Harvard Trust Company bank was absorbed into Bank of America through a series of mergers. The student co-op, the Harvard Coop, is now managed by Barnes and Noble. Schoenhof's Foreign Books is owned by the French Éditions Gallimard. In 2004, the famous Grolier Poetry Bookshop was sold, and even the emblematic Out of Town News is owned by the UK-based Hudson Group. Still, a few establishments, such as Algiers Coffee House and Cardullo's Gourmet Shoppe (est. 1950), remain as longstanding, locally-run businesses.
At the center of the Square is the old subway kiosk, now a newsstand, Out of Town News, stocking newspapers and magazines from around the world. The sunken region next to the newsstand and the subway entrance is sometimes referred to as "The Pit." Its arena-like appearance attracts skateboarders and teenagers, referred to as "pit kids" or "pit rats." One block east of the pit, an outdoor cafe features always-busy tables for chess players, including Murray Turnbull, with his everpresent "Play the Chessmaster" sign.
Max and Erin photo bombing our group photo at Thanksgiving
*
Tsars, Kings, Emperors,
sovereigns of all the earth,
have commanded many a parade,
but they cannot command Humor.
When Aesop, the tramp, came visiting
the palaces of eminent personages,
ensconced in sleek comfort all day,
they struck him as paupers.
In houses where hypocrites have
left the mark of their puny feet,
there Hodja-Nasr-ed-Din, with his jests,
swept aside their banalities like a board of chessmen!
They tried to buy Humor–
but Humor is not for sale!
They tried to murder Humor,
but Humor thumbed his nose at them!
It’s a hard business to fight Humor.
They executed him time and again.
His hacked-off head was stuck on the point of a pike.
But as soon as the funeral pipes
began their plaintive song,
Humor defiantly cried: “I’m back, I’m here!”,
and broke into a dashing dance.
In an overcoat, shabby and short,
with eyes cast down and a mask of repentance,
Humor, a political criminal now under arrest,
walked to his execution.
He appeared to submit in every way,
accepting the life-beyond,
but all of a sudden he wriggled out
of his coat, and, waving his hand, escaped.
Humor was shoved into cells,
but like hell that did any good.
Humor went straight through
prison bars and walls of stone.
Coughing from frozen lungs
like any man in the ranks,
Humor marched, singing a popular ditty,
rifle in hand upon the Winter Palace.
He’s accustomed to frowning looks,
but they do him no harm;
and Humor regards himself at times
with humor.
He’s everpresent.
Nimble and quick,
he’ll slip through anything,
through everyone.
So glory be to humor.
He is a valiant fellow!
“Humor” — Yevgeny Yevtushenko
*
The B-29 Superfortress’ chronic engine fires led Boeing to consider replacing the Wright R-3350 Duplex Cyclone engines with newer and more powerful Pratt and Whitney R-4360 Wasp Majors. Simultaneously, in an effort to increase bombload and speed, Boeing switched to a lighter and stronger aluminum alloy. To compensate for the higher weights of the planned B-29D variant, the control surfaces were enlarged with a taller tail and larger flaps. The USAAF placed an order for 200 B-29Ds in July 1945, but World War II ended soon thereafter and the B-29D was threatened with outright cancellation.
In an effort to save the aircraft, Boeing changed the designation to B-50A, claiming it was a new design. It worked and production went forward, although the order was cut to 60 aircraft. As it was based on the proven B-29, testing went smoothly and the first B-50As went into service in 1948. With delays in the jet-powered B-47 Stratojet and B-52 Stratofortress, and recognizing that the B-36 Peacemaker could not carry the load of nuclear deterrent alone, the USAF ordered 222 B-50Ds, the main production variant. The B-50D differed from earlier versions by having a single-piece nose cone, underwing fuel tanks, and provision for inflight refueling.
These were sufficient enough to “hold the line” until the B-47 reached Strategic Air Command in 1955, by which time the B-50Ds were retired. The survivors were then converted into a variety of roles, including RB-50 strategic reconnaissance aircraft and KB-50 tankers, mostly the latter. The KB-50s would replace the KB-29 and supplement the KC-97 as aerial refuelers, and late-model, jet-augmented KB-50Js would briefly see service in the opening months of the Vietnam War. Following a spate of crashes in 1965, the B-50 fleet was found to have heavy corrosion of wing spars, and the type was immediately retired. 370 B-50s were produced, and five survive in museums today, including "Lucky Lady II," which circumnavigated the world nonstop in 1949--the first aircraft to do so...
...and this is her. 46-0010, "Lucky Lady II," was assigned to the 43rd Bomb Group at Carswell AFB, Texas when General Curtis LeMay notified the unit in early 1949 that they would be flying a nonstop circumnavigation of the world. While many others had flown around the world before by air, it was always with stops for fuel, but this would be different: the aircraft would be refueled in midair. Inflight refueling was still a primitive science, but LeMay wanted to try it--not just as a public relations stunt to show Americans what the newly-independent USAF could do, but also as a warning to the Soviet Union that SAC could hit them anywhere at anytime. Previous attempts by two other "Lucky Ladys"--both B-29s--either required landings or ended in crashes. This time, LeMay selected four B-50s for the attempt, hoping that at least one would make it.
"Lucky Lady II," with two crews aboard, took off from Carswell on 26 February 1949. The mission was not easy: bad weather dogged the aircraft, and aerial refueling at this point consisted of trailing a fuel hose from the tail of a KB-29 tanker and gathering it in with a reel from the tail of the B-50. Besides being inefficient, turbulence could snap the hose or the reel could break. Engine fires were an everpresent hazard--another aircraft, "Global Queen," had already been forced to land in the Azores; it had taken off a day ahead of "Lucky Lady II."
But the "Lucky Lady" was well-named: four days later, its exhausted crews landed the aircraft back at Carswell, having covered 23,452 miles in 96 hours. It was the first time someone had flown around the world nonstop, proving LeMay's theory. The crews were awarded the Mackay Trophy for 1949. Eight years later, three B-52s would break "Lucky Lady II's" record by completing the trip in 45 hours; in 1995, two B-1B Lancers would do it in 36 hours. (The first aircraft to circumnavigate nonstop without air refueling was Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager's Voyager in 1986.)
"Lucky Lady's" luck nearly ran out shortly thereafter: it was involved in a horrific landing accident that practically destroyed the aircraft. Rather than scrap such a historic aircraft, the USAF was able to salvage the fuselage and, after using it as a touring recruiting exhibit, placed it on display at Norton AFB, California for awhile. It was then acquired by the famous movie stunt pilot Paul Mantz for his Movieland of the Air collection, and in 1968, was given to Planes of Fame in Chino for eventual restoration.
"Lucky Lady II" was another must-see for our May 2021 California trip, but while making my way around Planes of Fame, I didn't see it. I figured the museum probably had it in a hangar somewhere, and wrote off seeing it. I caught up with my friend Nate, who asked me, "Did you see Lucky Lady yet?" He took me to where it is--currently between some conex boxes; I had walked right past it--and a museum docent helpfully moved some things so I could get a shot. Certainly "Lucky Lady" has seen better days, only a fuselage that shows the effects of sitting in a California or Arizona sun for 70 years--but it's still here, and hopefully someday it will be complete again.
I don't still know many people from high school. Quite frankly, when I graduated, and left for the Army, I pretty much left that era of my life behind. The military gave me a fresh chance to discover who I was outside of the pressure of teenage social groups. When I came back home, David Berg was one of the few people with whom I reconnected. This weekend we went to his birthday and house warming party.
To be fair, Dave and I don't get a chance to see each other as often as we'd like. We both have very active lifestyles and a family. Even though we live in the same city, I'm guessing that it'd been a good year since I had last seen Dave. We ran into each other at a craft fair when Paige was still nursing (if memory serves). With that in mind it was a real treat to be able to spend an afternoon catching up.
Dave's new house is very spacious, with a three car garage, den, and large basement - all of which I wish we had in our home.
To help Paige get motivated to get showered, dressed and in the car (a routine she used to love, but now postpones however she can), we told her that we were going to a birthday party. Her response to this was to break out in singing "Happy Birthday to You" which is the only line she knows, and therefore sings over and over. She eventually connected the party with cake and other treats, and en route began demanding sugar.
Once we got to Dave's of course, she was totally distracted and forgot all about it. Later in the day Marna was recounting the story as a humorous adventure in parenting. Dave'd wife, Natasha, bless her heart, hadn't arranged cake, so she hopped in the car and headed to the nearest store. She was determined to get Paige here cake, but all she found was doughnut.
Paige figured that a doughnut was great and launched into eating the snack after refusing to give her rendition of "Happy Birthday". Thanks Dave and Natasha for thinking of us and inviting us to the party. We're looking forward to many more, and hoping it's a much shorter time before we get together again.
Welcome to Mars it's open all hours.
What are we doing here?
After a few weeks of doing little, and only a couple of gigs in two years, we suddenly have two on consequtive nights, one in Canterbury and one in Deal.
And it was the last working day of the week. Friday. I was all caught up, and the apple of my boss' eye, by all acounts.
Friday night we would be going to Canterbury, meeting my friend Pete from work, having a meal, a pint, and then go to see Avant Garage band, Pere Ubu in concert, doing their take on the Canterbury Tales. In Canterbury.
But first, the working day.
It is reporting season in Denmark. Financial reporting season, so on Wednesday we had La Grande Fromage give his talk, and on Friday it was the turn of the COO, which went as well as expected. Much for us all to do in relation of quality. And apparently, yours truly is central to that, somehow.
Eeek.
After than is our departmental weekly social, with life returning to normal in Denmark and India too, though vaccinations are in short supply there.
But life goes on.
I have a few loose ends to tie up, including a question relating to my travel expenses. In short if my boss isn't satisfied with my explaination as to his decision to cancel the team meeting in December, then I will have my company credit card taken off me, which mean I couldn't travel any more.
Seems more like a carrot than the stick he thinks it is.
I have some very thin toast for breakfast and lunch.
And soon there is just an audit closing meeting to sit through. I try my hardest to concentrate. Honest I do.
And at half two, I am done for the week.
I was putting the computer away when Jools returns from Tesco having hunted and gathered on her way home. I make a coffee.
Other hot news was that I was halfway through making a last post-festve batch of mince pies.
Needing to allow them to cool down meant that we needed to wait half an hour before being able to take said pies out of the tin to eat. This meant a fresh brew was needed.
So it goes, so it goes.
By which time it was time to leave for Canterbury. The sun had set and it was getting dark, but having been a glorious day, the sky was a wonderful mox of blues and pinks as the sun sank lower over the horizon and dusk fell.
We parked near the castle, then walked through the back streets before cutting through to Westgate, over the river and through the gate itself to the West station where Pete's train would be arriving at half five.
We had been looking somewhere to eat on the way and had narrowed it down to about 30 or 40 restaurants.
Life can be hard.
We watch the trains cross the main road, and soon I spot Pete on the other side of the road, on his mobile, calling me. Which I hadn't heard.
Oi, oi saveloy! I shout, and he comes over.
As we walk back to the centre, we discuss where to eat, and in the end we agree on the Turkish place on the way to Westgate.
Pete and I have kebabs, not in a pita, but in a bowl and with herbs and spices. Classy, like.
We get a fre salad to share, and it is all rather mavelous.
Next up, was the need for a pint. I had spooted a micropub and brewhouse down on Stour Street, so we go there.
I have a half of their "nitro" porter, which came in at 9.6%.
Yes, you read that right.
It was good, but the sourness of the beer rreally smothered the vanilla flavour added in the mashing. A good attempt though.
It was twenty to eight, the gig started in 20 minutes, and we had to get out to the University.
We walk back to the car, then go round the inner ringroad, back past the station where we met Pete and up the hill.
Parking should have been easy, but the lot near the theatre was full, so we had to park at a place a ten minute walk away, then find our way back up, hoping we would find the car three hours later.
We go in and find our way past the main arena to where the gig was, entering as the support band were finsihing their set.
And now the ghost of Pere Ubu it was announced.
Pere Ubu lead singer and mastermind, Dave Thomas was wheeled on stage in a wheelchair. He has had a hard few years, two health crisis, he's lucky to be here. We're lucky he's here.
They do one song and the stage is cleared as the main act was set up.
Pere Ubu have been going since the mid-70s, and have had a large troupe of members passing through. Thomas is the only everpresent member, is the singer and main songwriter.
They come back on, and the rest of the ban get him on a stool, and the gig starts.
Some of the music could be described as "challenging", I was worried that Pete wouldn't like it, before Mnday he hadn't heard of them, but the musicianship on show was wonderful, especially the drummer who did some great work.
Behind the band a film, or clips of films from the 1950s were shown, tinted and damaged. Artistic, like.
Each song begain with an spoken word intro, before the band leapt in.
90 minutes rattled along, and soon it was all done.
We file out and walk back through the desserted campus to the car. We set Pete's postcode in the sat nav and we set off on a grand tour of Kent's back lanes en route for Thanet.
We drop him off in Dumpston, between Broadstairs and Margate, then we had to find our way through Broadstairs and Ramsgate back to the main road to Sandwich then to Dover and home.
We get back at ten past midnight.
Saturday.
He's been an Occupier from the beginning.
Every time I've gone to the demonstration to shoot he's been there.
I've never had a really good conversation with him...
he doesn't seem to come to socialize...
he comes and he holds his sign on the curb and pretty much keeps to himself.
It seems like he's got a deeply personal reason for wanting change.
Maybe it's something that he doesn't want to talk about.
I've been able to gain a pretty unique perspective on the movement and some of the people involved because of my long term observation of the Occupiers.
Sure I made the 'journalistic mistake' of getting involved with the story... letting my true feelings become known...
but I'm not a journalist.
I don't have to live by those rules.
I'm just a dude with a camera who likes to capture what I see.
And so much of what I see comes from what I feel.
It's getting cold out there.
Today there's rain.
The game of 'cat and mouse' with the police goes on in a tiresome way...
'keep that food cart moving' they'll say... or 'there's no loitering... keep moving' and the Occupiers march in slow circles as the police smile and return to the warmth of their everpresent police car on LaSalle Street.
The lack of leadership has been one of the strengths of the movement...
there hasn't been anyone to focus on and attack personally.
But then there are few defined goals.
Without 'defined goals' you can't have a 'defined victory.'
I claim a different victory for the Occupation.
That victory is that everytime I've gone there to take pictures I've had some amazing conversations with some people that are truly concerned with the state of affairs of our nation and our world.
The victory is that this movement has gotten people off of their couches and into conversations where they've learned that there are others who want fundamental change too.
The movement's proven that they can stand on a street corner with signs for two months in any weather, day and night.
That's worthy of note... I mean... it's an achievement in itself to say 'this is how motivated we are.'
But like a hunger strike... it may gain attention... but in the end it's self defeating.
I've always said that the movement needs to mature into it's 'second phase'...
In December when the cruel winds blow off the lake and frostbite becomes more than a philosophical concept... the people the movement call 'The 1%' aren't going to be there to see the effort and the committment of the Occupiers.
They're gonna be at their vacation homes with their families in the Hamptons... Florida... California and Arizona.
It's time to find a place to meet... for a couple of hours on Saturday mornings...
where a few hundred people can gather and then jump a bus or something to go demonstrate anywhere that demonstration is called for.
That corner is nothing more than the birthplace of a revolutionary idea.
It's time to mobilize in a different way.
The 'Occupation' isn't a place or a thing...
it's a state of mind.
Once that concept is embraced no amount of police interference, tear gas or arrests can defeat the movement.
Occupy is a state of mind.
Take it to the next level and achieve change.
If you truly want change you've got to be open to it and flexible.
It's time to occupy hearts and minds.
Shame on the police for pepper spraying these people
America used to be better than this.
Or maybe just fewer people had video cameras.
What a shame.
A celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders art, life and culture at the National Gallery Singapore during Ever - Present : First Peoples Art of Australia exhibition.
A celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders art, life and culture at the National Gallery Singapore during Ever - Present : First Peoples Art of Australia exhibition
Welcome to Mars it's open all hours.
What are we doing here?
After a few weeks of doing little, and only a couple of gigs in two years, we suddenly have two on consequtive nights, one in Canterbury and one in Deal.
And it was the last working day of the week. Friday. I was all caught up, and the apple of my boss' eye, by all acounts.
Friday night we would be going to Canterbury, meeting my friend Pete from work, having a meal, a pint, and then go to see Avant Garage band, Pere Ubu in concert, doing their take on the Canterbury Tales. In Canterbury.
But first, the working day.
It is reporting season in Denmark. Financial reporting season, so on Wednesday we had La Grande Fromage give his talk, and on Friday it was the turn of the COO, which went as well as expected. Much for us all to do in relation of quality. And apparently, yours truly is central to that, somehow.
Eeek.
After than is our departmental weekly social, with life returning to normal in Denmark and India too, though vaccinations are in short supply there.
But life goes on.
I have a few loose ends to tie up, including a question relating to my travel expenses. In short if my boss isn't satisfied with my explaination as to his decision to cancel the team meeting in December, then I will have my company credit card taken off me, which mean I couldn't travel any more.
Seems more like a carrot than the stick he thinks it is.
I have some very thin toast for breakfast and lunch.
And soon there is just an audit closing meeting to sit through. I try my hardest to concentrate. Honest I do.
And at half two, I am done for the week.
I was putting the computer away when Jools returns from Tesco having hunted and gathered on her way home. I make a coffee.
Other hot news was that I was halfway through making a last post-festve batch of mince pies.
Needing to allow them to cool down meant that we needed to wait half an hour before being able to take said pies out of the tin to eat. This meant a fresh brew was needed.
So it goes, so it goes.
By which time it was time to leave for Canterbury. The sun had set and it was getting dark, but having been a glorious day, the sky was a wonderful mox of blues and pinks as the sun sank lower over the horizon and dusk fell.
We parked near the castle, then walked through the back streets before cutting through to Westgate, over the river and through the gate itself to the West station where Pete's train would be arriving at half five.
We had been looking somewhere to eat on the way and had narrowed it down to about 30 or 40 restaurants.
Life can be hard.
We watch the trains cross the main road, and soon I spot Pete on the other side of the road, on his mobile, calling me. Which I hadn't heard.
Oi, oi saveloy! I shout, and he comes over.
As we walk back to the centre, we discuss where to eat, and in the end we agree on the Turkish place on the way to Westgate.
Pete and I have kebabs, not in a pita, but in a bowl and with herbs and spices. Classy, like.
We get a fre salad to share, and it is all rather mavelous.
Next up, was the need for a pint. I had spooted a micropub and brewhouse down on Stour Street, so we go there.
I have a half of their "nitro" porter, which came in at 9.6%.
Yes, you read that right.
It was good, but the sourness of the beer rreally smothered the vanilla flavour added in the mashing. A good attempt though.
It was twenty to eight, the gig started in 20 minutes, and we had to get out to the University.
We walk back to the car, then go round the inner ringroad, back past the station where we met Pete and up the hill.
Parking should have been easy, but the lot near the theatre was full, so we had to park at a place a ten minute walk away, then find our way back up, hoping we would find the car three hours later.
We go in and find our way past the main arena to where the gig was, entering as the support band were finsihing their set.
And now the ghost of Pere Ubu it was announced.
Pere Ubu lead singer and mastermind, Dave Thomas was wheeled on stage in a wheelchair. He has had a hard few years, two health crisis, he's lucky to be here. We're lucky he's here.
They do one song and the stage is cleared as the main act was set up.
Pere Ubu have been going since the mid-70s, and have had a large troupe of members passing through. Thomas is the only everpresent member, is the singer and main songwriter.
They come back on, and the rest of the ban get him on a stool, and the gig starts.
Some of the music could be described as "challenging", I was worried that Pete wouldn't like it, before Mnday he hadn't heard of them, but the musicianship on show was wonderful, especially the drummer who did some great work.
Behind the band a film, or clips of films from the 1950s were shown, tinted and damaged. Artistic, like.
Each song begain with an spoken word intro, before the band leapt in.
90 minutes rattled along, and soon it was all done.
We file out and walk back through the desserted campus to the car. We set Pete's postcode in the sat nav and we set off on a grand tour of Kent's back lanes en route for Thanet.
We drop him off in Dumpston, between Broadstairs and Margate, then we had to find our way through Broadstairs and Ramsgate back to the main road to Sandwich then to Dover and home.
We get back at ten past midnight.
Saturday.
Not too long ago, you did not have much of a choice in India when it came to cars. It was usually down to two:
Ambassador - First car to be manufactured in India based on British Morris Oxford. The design belonged to 1950s! And the car has hardly been changed lookwise even today. Wonder what the western world would think of that. Car is still produced and has been improved performance but the look remains that of a 50s car. In fact it proudly wears that. And Indian politicians and others with jingoistic tendencies proclaim their patriotism by sticking to it.
Premier - Handed down from Fiat 1100 of 1960s vintage. Shown above. The car is still seen on roads but out of production. Despite many attempts Fiat has not repeated this success in India though it is trying with so many new models.
Both these cars were not known for their finesse or finish but were excellent workhorses. They were at home in a society not known for its throw-away culture. The lights and electricals would be whimsical, gears and pedals would give a better workout than a personal trainer and the solid sheet metal body could take some serious damage and still have many action points left. However any roadside mechanic with hammer and tongs along with common sense can set things right while you catch a quick cup of masala tea in an everpresent tea stall nearby.
While I have moved on to far snazzier models over time, I can't forget the good ol' Premier, as it was our first car and stayed with us for a long time. My wife and I learnt driving in it and I am sure we can drive a MACK today if required. It was fine as long as my wife and I were driving it. Sadly drivers trained on newer cars did not know how to take care of it (one drove it for a month without filling up the radiator) and we had to sell it by wieght.
The towers around here roar to the sky like great creatures long forgotten. They stretch their steel bones toward sinking skies, trying desperately to meet their bodies, just out of reach. They creak with cold passion, twisting softly in the wind. They seem as strong and alive as any living thing.
Forget pad Thai. When I think of Thai street food, I think of these deep-fried beauties that are everpresent on the streets of Bangkok. The aroma wafting from these carts is incredible, and it's only through sheer willpower that I don't stop and buy a wing or two each time I pass by these carts.
The installation features stainless steel beams, measuring 20 feet in height, which provide a scale model version of the Twin Towers. The design in the steel frame includes “gaps” that echo the impact points of the jet planes during the terrorist attack. The gaps are designed to create a “rising cross,” which will be highlighted with yellow, orange and red stained glass.
The “rising cross” design element of the installation is meant to symbolize Christ’s great love and self-sacrifice for humanity. The cross, centered in the monument, reminds us that God was present in the midst of the crisis. It invites us to look carefully in order to see the everpresent God.
--------------
The 9/11 Memorial monument of the Archdiocese of Newark’s Catholic Cemeteries is being built to remember those who lost their lives during the September 11, 2001 tragedy. In addition, the monument is meant to honor the many individuals who came to the aid of others in need, during and after the tragedy.
The 9/11 Memorial will first be shown at Holy Cross Cemetery in North Arlington, N.J., during a brief and simple unveiling at the cemetery’s annual Memorial Day Mass.
On Sept. 11, a full Mass will be celebrated at Holy Cross Cemetery, where first responders, survivors, dignitaries, government officials and fellow parishioners will gather to remember and pray for the fallen victims. During that ceremony, Newark Archbishop John Myers will officially bless the memorial, marking the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Archdiocese of Newark - Catholic Cemeteries 9/11 Memorial Monument - Holy Cross Cemetery - 340 Ridge Road in North Arlington, New Jersey - Google Map - Catholic Cemeteries 9/11 Memorial Monument
Miles to Ground Zero: 11
A celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders art, life and culture at the National Gallery Singapore during Ever - Present : First Peoples Art of Australia exhibition
the central market in ho chi min city is a crazy quilt of vendors by day. only to be reborn, as another set of vendors takes to the streets with clothing, shoes, kitchens and pop-up restaurants promptly at 7pm – in an afterdark rodeo of commerce.
during the day, this clerestory is the source of light for all of the vendors whose wares range from fresh herbs, shellfish, spices, unrefrigerated pork, bullfrogs… to say, counterfeit watches and coffee which has passed through the GI tract of a weasel. crazy, but fun.
at times pungent, mouthwatering, and mindcrushing.
the texture in this image occurs naturally. It is not an effect of photoshop or lightroom. concrete may be the building material of choice. It is cheap, available and relatively plastic to work with. but it is also safe harbor for all of the humidity and bacteria which are everpresent in a building that meets so many demands.
A celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders art, life and culture at the National Gallery Singapore during Ever - Present : First Peoples Art of Australia exhibition
He was like a budding flower in the way he had grown into himself—showing the promise of self love and acceptance he'd lacked for most of his life. He struggled for many years to get to this point—at times, almost allowing himself to wither away; he once defined himself by his sorrow. Now vibrant and flourishing, he has become much more. He is beautiful without tragedy—more content than melancholic.
His growth is ongoing—everpresent. It may stagger at times, leaving him to wither once again, but he refuses to; he clings on, knowing what waits on the other side of it is worth it. He knows that he is worth it. He is the flower that has grown through concrete—one that continues to bloom in the winter. He has embraced himself fully, and is proud of the person he’s become—no longer self-loathing; he’s come to love himself.
The season is new, and he’ll continue to grow brighter and more beautiful, fueled by love, hope, and creativity—free to become who he’s always wanted to be: himself.
At the National Gallery Singapore during the exhibition of Ever - Present, First Peoples Art of Australia.
Everypresent gray. If you look at the last four pictures you see what I saw when I moved to Tacoma for High School. Years ago. Hasn't changed. Everpresent gray. If you move to the area between the Olympics and the Cascades that is what you can expect. For about 9 months out of the year.
I usually do at least some color correction on images. Not on this one. That is straight from the camera sensor. That gray. That soul-sucking hide-the-sun anti-vitamin-D everpresent gray that earns Seattle top honors.
I've often wondered, if there is any truth to the time of your birth affecting your personality (Leo, Gemini, Pisces, etc) that if where you lived during formative times of your life (born, graduated, married, etc) affects your personality as well. Surely it does, right?
Now wait. This isn't to say I don't love the Pacific Northwest. I do! But it should come with a warning label that lets you know it will take your body six to twelve months to adjust. To live again. It is that real. Particularly if you relocate from the big-sky south! The people are awesome! The weather is very much less than awesome.
So there it is. Proof that the Northwest is still, and will always will be, everpresent gray.
seattle wa
just to continue with my everpresent foot theme of the past few days
(and! i actually discovered another one from the wedding i shot saturday)
i'm always snapping photos from the hip while i walk
it's a half-chimp, half-grounding routine
this was right after the stage feet shot on the way outside to more (ahem) boring lines of teachers holding awards
which might explain why i shot more than one foot shot at this assignment...
it had just downpoured an hour before and the grass made a delicious scrunch as i stepped across it toward the grip-n-grins
stay tuned for voting feet.
Jack Skafte was born Eyvind Jacob in 1959 – son of a Dutch mother and a Danish father in Cornwall, Ontario. He married Karen Bateman in 1979, and they had a son in 1980 (my oldest brother James). They left for Nova Scotia in 1981, where the rest of us were born – David (1982), Janet (1985), and Steve (1987).
Dad was always an intensely technical man to me, having started up Integrity Printing (still a successful business today), then doing computer sales/repair throughout my childhood as Beacon Communications. He had an innate understanding of a certain era of technology, answers to all the confusing questions – if he had the patience to teach you. I learned a lot about doing hard things the easy way.
What I got from my mother was mostly in my mind, photos and memories, everpresent stories and reasons to remember. But what I got from my father was standing all around me, a house he started building years before my birth – and was still building long after. Often with no money and little backup, the project was as hard as you'd imagine. We lived in the basement of a tar-paper shack for years, only moving upstairs when I was about to be born. Dad taught me the weight of silence, how you can never make a quiet man speak up, no matter how hard you hope. We weren't alike, but that never stopped me from trying to bridge the gap.
Mom and Dad bicycled across Europe for their honeymoon in 1979, and the pictures they brought back got in my heart and under my skin. The story was always there, shown in slides and talked about whenever possible. So when I was 19, almost 20, I spent all my savings so we could rebuild his rusty old bike together. Looking new as ever, I took that 1977 Gitane across New Brunswick, Maine, and on to New Hampshire, chasing my father's footsteps on a solo trip through the woods. I turned 20 way out in western Maine, doing by best to prove myself.
But it's true that I'm very little like him, too chaotic, uneasy and anxious. There's a hard-working, Dutch/Danish gene that I only half-inherited, because I tend to lose my mind every time I put my head down. I'm not good with big plans, so I plow away at little projects, trying to wake up my dreams before they oversleep. I'll never build a house with my own hands, and as for kids, well, I'm older than my father when he had his last son. Dad was 28 by the time I was born, and now I'm 31.
Sometimes I wonder who he'd be if I wasn't – and I believe that's something we should all ask ourselves as children. Our fathers had dreams that didn't include us, and they should get the time to live them out. Whatever distance it takes, all the drive and adventure required. When they're gone, they don't need to leave a thing behind, no inheritance, no pile of money. We aren't owed anything but life.
photo by my mother, Karen Skafte
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Bike racing is a big sport in Greater Victoria. Participation has grown and diversified over the several decades that I have been involved in or have been observing in Greater Victoria.
A snapshot in time here in Oak Bay, Victoria's tony suburb, where a short, flat circuit closes roads for a quiet Sunday morning and gives them to the faster crowd.
This shot is useful in illustrating an often important pattern of bicycle racing in progress. The night before posting this pic is a case in point.
My first connection with bike racing in Victoria came in the 1970s, and the local road club, where just about everyone who raced knew one another through a single club.
There were a dozen or two race courses around the region - roads quiet enough and race groups often small enough to cause little traffic disruption or citizen consternation across the many communities involved in Victoria's capital region.
In recent years, the numbers of riders have exploded, built on not just the immediate past interest in racing and the exploits of high level athletes, but built over decades of diversification through the BMX and mountain bike eras, the growth of triathlon, the adoption of cycling as a mainstream leisure and vacation activity, as well as its adoption as an important mode of transport.
The growth in cycling groups from shop teams and their club rides, through Triathlon and event cycling (Cops for Cancer, the MS Bike Tour, Gran Fondo and Randonee events), coupled with a growth in population, not just in people, but more perversely in the number, size and speed of vehicles on our roads, continues to make cycling for sport and leisure a bigger challenge.
Events require insurance and a diversity of course to meet a demand for more and more events while residents chafe at closures or controls and everpresent "scofflaw" cyclists who may impede them on the roads where drivers are often oblivious to the routine violation of speed limits and other "minor" offenses that reflect the narrow perspectives of the beholder.
Going to municipal councils and local police forces to secure permissions for events can by trying, and those unfamiliar with bicycle as a sport, let alone transportation, often have little understanding and less patience for the activity.
Roads are designed for cars, not necessarily well enough for bikes, though racing can, and should be done more so on roadways away from more leisurely trail corridors. Race speeds in any event may average 35 to 45 km/h or more, and traffic is little impeded in circumstances where drivers and cyclists share well designed roads.
Closed course where speeds may be even higher are essential for short cirucuit events, less so for longer road races from point to point or on longer, more challenging loops.
This image illustrates well enough how road race groups may string out, though paradoxically, it is more typical of early stages of a short circuit course like this one to see more bunched up, across the road packs. As speeds increase, the swift percolate to the front and slower riders will drift back. Everyone normally takes turns within parameters of group dynamics with race leaders sharing pace making turns near the front and posers like me hanging in somewhere down the food chain, taking as few turns as possible.
The pattern when well observed and understood, counters the oft heard complaint the cyclists take up too much of the road. They will not likely be in strict single file, as presecribed by law, itself an anachronism that needs fixing. In race or training situations, single file is safe for no one and is more, not less likely to impede traffic.
More can be found in other photos elsewhere on the site, where bits and pieces of race imagery can be found among the advocacy shots.
This one was used to support a presentation to a local, rural municipal council where there is an interest in improving a road circuit - a 9km loop with some good, if short, stiff climbs to sort out the pack. For those that want to insist that racing will obstruct traffic, the image belies the complaint, showing that often enough, a fast pack, (and one that is at or approaching the speed limit anyway - and exceeding it on descents), is, as a group well designed and reasonably well behaved. Drivers can adapt with patience and a responsible approach to sharing the road.
With respect to other issues, there is much value in event tourism, community benefits in promoting healthy sport, and a variety of other returns on growing and supporting a diversity of cycling acitivity, including road racing, in one's community.
is vulnerable
I straight up stole the idea for this from Richard Kuhne. There are two treatments of the same photo.
Angie had done a selfportrait in this bathroom and I used her camera and settings.
I was so totally taken with Kuhne's photo that I had problems constraining myself from taking over the comments on the page which were in a lighter vein (pun not intended but noticed) than the darker observations I would have expressed.
And of course it is not good manners to burst into someone else's party and hang crepe.
Questions of mortality are, nonetheless, everpresent in my awareness since the home invasion where my cameras were stolen less than a month ago.
It was not only the cameras. A DVD player, $80 cash (removed from a change purse which was not taken) a tub of tobacco, a box of tubes, the roller, my bic lighter, some pills and an old bottle of methadone which I'd found in Marlon's room after he left and which I had stashed in a drawer because I didn't know what to do with them, a new box of Blondissima hair bleach, and some groceries: an economy sized jar of instant coffee, a large jar of mayonnaise and two packages of wieners out of the fridge freezer. This seemed to me fairly conclusive evidence that this was done by addicts living on an edge of economic and psychic reality more desperate than my own.
I called Richard and Ang who came right away -- Ang got here first and Richard got a speeding ticket and arrived at approximately the same time as the police.
The police took what information I could provide at the time -- and it was only later in the day, around supper time, when I discovered the slit in the screen of the door because Fiddy wanted to be let in and had clawed at the screen making the separation obvious in the light.
That was when I felt the chill of realization that my intruders were in possession of a strong, sharp blade. And the vulnerability of that lifeline artery, the obvious place to slit to silence a person who has awakened and might scream or call for help.
I made a screen grab and posted it and I received supportive messages from friends on Flickr who grasped immediately that the loss of stuff was secondary to the fact I was physically unharmed. Apart from Ang and Rick, and Barry who immediately fixed and reinforced the screen the response from those I know in town has been much more ho-hum. People are concerned with securing their own survival in this dangerous crime-infested town and there is an undertone that I have somehow brought this on myself by living where I live, how I live. I have survived so many catastrophes over the years that it is almost expected -- catastrophe will come and I will survive.
The loss of the cameras has proven to be not as terrible as I thought. I can get access to cameras -- I just have to plan and plot the images I want to make.
We all have flesh and bones and vulnerable places where a swift slice can stop us between heartbeats. Including the critters who invaded my home and stole my stuff.
A celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders art, life and culture at the National Gallery Singapore during Ever - Present : First Peoples Art of Australia exhibition.
A cloudy evening is so still the time of year, so steady and breathless. The gloaming settles in heavy, with a chill in the air and no hint of movement. The forsythia has yet to bloom, the leaves in the trees and the grassy fields are still far more brown than green. What seems like limbo will soon shake loose and come alive, and maybe it's you I'm talking to, in these whispers to myself...
THE THIN MAN
they built a cell phone tower
just down the road
to remind us that we're really not all alone
but I'm not convinced
that it isn't a trick
from crowded minds
trying to make sense
of the everpresent empty next
I'm making neighbors of strangers
trying to prove them all wrong
that to sing a song
you need to know the words
but I believe to my soul
it's effort enough just to mimic a bird
is there no honor in failure anymore?
can't we fight the battle and lose the war?
can't we start out rich and end up poor?
without mourning what we spent at the store
I've been sleeping like a log
waking up in a fog
and going through the day that way
I've got a white flag on my pillow case
looking for a race so I can let you win
because losing is a virtue
not a mortal sin
if it matters to you
you can steal my food
either way,
I'll always be thin
Some 250 corpses a day are dealt with at the burning ghats. Once the cremation is complete, the remains are scattered to the four elements, with most of the ashes ending up in the water, floating merrily on their way to moksha.
The Ganges cleanses all sins and ensures a release from the Hindu cycle of rebirths: it's an instant passport to heaven. Many elderly and ill people come to Varanasi to die, and old Sadhus (men who have given up their worldly possessions for a life of absolute religious devotion) congregate along the river banks.
Mark Twain visited over a century ago and commented that Varanasi was 'older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together'.
Varanasi is best known for its ghats - there are over 100 of the riverside structures. While most of the ghats are used for sacred bathing by pilgrims, it is the few burning ghats - easily accessible to visitors - that really grip the ghoulish.
Burning ghats, such as the auspicious Manikarnika Ghat, are where the dead are cremated. First thing in the morning is the best time to observe the death rituals in Varanasi; the light is at its most striking, draping a honey glow across the buildings rising steeply from the river.
In India death - like defecation - happens in public: funeral pyres are open to everyone, and there's little of the fear or squeamishness everpresent in Western funeral parlours. Little kids rummage through the ashes for valuables that the owners will no longer be needing, while only metres away the devout cleanse themselves in the (slightly ashy) waters of the Ganges.
To begin the ceremonies, the shrouded corpse is carried through the streets by outcasts known as chandal, followed by the deceased's family, chanting and praying. Funeral pyres are built and tended to all day, and cremations regularly take place simultaneously on the same ghat. The Dom Rajas are keepers of the sacred fire - which is never allowed to be extinguished - and cremators of the dead. Armed with wooden sticks, they poke at the fires, keeping things moving along.
The tree of life in science describes the relationships of all life on Earth in an evolutionary context.
The tree is a manifestation/causal symbol - the Tree of Life representing the coveted state of eternal aliveness or fulfillment, not immortality of the body or soul. In such a state, physical death (which cannot be overcome) is nevertheless a choice, and direct experience of the perfect goodness/divine reality/god is not only possible, but everpresent.