Here We Are

Chris Makos

2011-03-11T17:11:00.010-05:00

All of his photos are evocative of something more and nearly like... textural. Like little stories or sculptures or something.

Mike Sacks - Photos of TV

2011-03-07T16:30:00.007-05:00

Don Quixote in Barcelona

2011-02-27T02:12:00.001-05:00

Home

2011-02-27T02:04:00.000-05:00

Far, far away

2011-02-27T02:03:00.000-05:00

$2 for ice cream

2011-02-27T02:00:00.003-05:00

Michael Crowe

2011-01-21T17:56:00.005-05:00

"A camera takes photos of its own innards until a vital piece is removed and it no longer works."

A strong soandso

2011-01-20T22:44:00.001-05:00

"We have got impressed by a far excellent side. We are nonetheless a young team and also the young players should try to learn from this. They have to ensure there is no repeat. I have already been beaten badly prior to and the one thing you need to do after something like this really is to show your mettle. However its still really hard to adopt a hammering that way. This was so really painful, and we need to take our medicine.

"Yet I am a strong soandso, and now I need to restore the damage done to my personal team."

From a spammer's comment on a blog.

Torn Paper

2011-01-20T22:20:00.001-05:00

"Somewhere what I lost I hope is springing to life again." Howard Moss, The Pruned Tree

Louise Bourgeois

2011-01-20T22:15:00.002-05:00

"Ms. Bourgeois's sculptures shared a set of repeated themes, centered on the human body and its need for nurture and protection in a frightening world."

People dressed as pandas to help baby panda

2011-01-20T22:09:00.002-05:00

New York, Line by Line

2011-01-20T22:08:00.000-05:00

Crescent Zhang

2011-01-20T22:04:00.001-05:00

North Korea

Sarah Lawrence

2011-01-20T21:38:00.001-05:00

Screaming Females: Live at Shea Stadium

2011-01-20T21:31:00.001-05:00

Can't. Stop. Listening.

Alas

2011-01-20T21:28:00.000-05:00

Walter Erhard

2011-01-20T21:27:00.001-05:00

Upsetting

2011-01-20T21:23:00.000-05:00

From the French fairy tale, "Blondine. Bonnie-Bich, and Beau-Minon"

2011-01-20T21:20:00.004-05:00

I would like to go back in time

2011-01-20T21:18:00.001-05:00

Oh no

2011-01-20T21:16:00.001-05:00

Not hostile but indifferent

2011-01-20T21:11:00.003-05:00

Vince Laforet

2010-10-16T13:53:00.001-04:00

Photos one year after Hurricane Katrina.

Only In Dreams (3)

2010-09-26T22:41:00.004-04:00

"I don't consider myself to be a very educated person, 'cause I've spent a lot of my life in dreams."

Jeff Mangum

Matisse

2010-09-25T16:11:00.000-04:00

Alvin Lustig

2010-09-25T15:28:00.006-04:00

Mitsuru Arakawa

2010-09-25T15:25:00.002-04:00

There's a reason we've all read this poem a hundred times in class

2010-09-25T12:56:00.002-04:00

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

- Yeats "The Second Coming"

Sarah Sudhoff

2010-08-29T12:57:00.001-04:00

Vending machine in a hospital. Another artist via Vanessa.

Rinus Van de Velde

2010-08-29T12:44:00.012-04:00

Found this artist via Vanessa.

Homer Murray

2010-08-29T12:18:00.005-04:00

I love these photos.

Pakistan circus

2010-08-07T12:29:00.007-04:00

America

2010-08-07T12:20:00.005-04:00

Color photos from the 1930s and 40s, via the Library of Congress.

Emedemarta

2010-07-25T13:32:00.004-04:00

The Shiny Squirrel also has a great blog, which brought me to this blog, which brought me to these images.

The Shiny Squirrel

2010-07-25T12:54:00.007-04:00

Great online store where you can buy jewelry and art, including the prints above. The first one is by Lisa Solomon and Aurora Robson - they picked the same colors and the size of the work, and then they worked separately to create complementary pieces. When they compared the work, it was different in some ways but also unbelievably similar. The next print is by Yellow Monday, then Shawn Creeden, and the last three are by Julianna Swaney. The Shiny Squirrel also does PR for emerging artists in Brookyln.. pretty awesome.

Haunting

2010-06-06T18:07:00.000-04:00

This was on the blog with all of the circus pictures.

Circus

2010-06-06T17:56:00.010-04:00

All the Palumbos in the world

2010-05-23T01:37:00.004-04:00

There are so many Stephanie Palumbos on the internet. This is a relatively new phenomenon; there weren't half as many results when I Googled my name a year ago. Other Stephanie Palumbos out there - do you Google yourselves and find me? Do you feel uneasy about the other Stephanie Palumbos in the world, like I do?

Things people said after witnessing the failed car bomb in Times Square

2010-05-19T12:15:00.002-04:00

"I feel like I'm on a TV show. Where is Denzel Washington?"

“I got free ice cream, they gave us crayons to color with."
(17 year old girl)

“It’s almost the equivalent of a $150 show.”
(After not getting into the Broadway play Next to Normal)

Possibly Living People

2010-05-18T15:42:00.001-04:00

Wikipedia has a category for Possibly Living People with 1,873 entries.

America

2010-05-16T22:01:00.000-04:00

"I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version."
Don DeLillo

Zoo

2010-05-13T18:08:00.002-04:00

A zoo in India is putting its animals on display after they die.

Laziness

2010-05-10T11:16:00.001-04:00

Joanna Newsom on Lady Gaga:

"I'm mystified by the laziness of people looking at how she presents herself, and somehow assuming that implies there's a high level of intelligence in the songwriting. Her approach to image is really interesting, but you listen to the music, and you just hear glow sticks. Smart outlets for musical journalism give her all this credit, like she's the new Madonna [...] Although I'm coming from a perspective of also thinking Madonna is not great at all. I'm like, fair enough: she is the new Madonna, but Madonna's a dumb-ass!

"I may have contradicted myself. My problem isn't actually with Lady Gaga. But there's not much in her music to distinguish it from other glossy, formulaic pop. She just happens to wear slightly weirder outfits than Britney Spears. But they're not that weird-- they're mostly just skimpy. She's fully marketing her body/sexuality; she's just doing it while wearing, like, a 'fierce' telephone hair-hat. Her sexuality has no scuzziness, no frank raunchiness, in the way that, say, Peaches, or even Grace Jones, have-- she's Arty Spice! And, meanwhile, she seems to take herself so oddly seriously, the way she talks about her music in the third person, like she's Brecht or something. She just makes me miss Cyndi Lauper. [...] I shouldn't have called Madonna a dumb-ass. Her music and she have just gotten so boring to me, this last decade. I think maybe she doesn't hold her money very gracefully, the way some people can't hold their drink. But one thing she is surely not is dumb."

In my opinion, she's dead on.

Killer

2010-05-10T01:32:00.001-04:00

Buffalo bones in Detroit, 1880

2010-05-10T01:30:00.000-04:00

Start over

2010-05-10T01:16:00.005-04:00

Beautiful

2010-05-10T01:08:00.003-04:00

Thanks, Shane.

Nothing to fear

2010-05-07T13:25:00.001-04:00

"I wrote a secular requiem, where there's nothing to fear in the afterlife, so I just had everybody sleep, cause I like sleep."
Kurt Vonnegut

Deep Thoughts

2010-05-04T15:41:00.001-04:00

DeepThoughtsByJackHandey.com

Exploding whale

2010-04-28T23:37:00.005-04:00

I didn't know that beached whales are often blown up because they're too big to be disposed of otherwise. Sometimes, it doesn't go well. The internet says that in 2005, Iceland detonated a whale carcass and "the remains were dragged out to sea; however, they soon drifted back, and eventually had to be tied down." Whales can also spontaneously combust after they die. One time, a whale exploded, and its blubber "hung in the trees for weeks." Apparently this is widely known to everyone but me.

Video here. The reporter says people found the dead whale "an object of curiosity until they tired of the smell."

I want to see

2010-04-25T14:58:00.001-04:00

Joseph Cornell's dreams

2010-04-25T13:10:00.003-04:00

"July 31, 1964. old photos of childhood come to life–self come to life… as tho seeing self from a raised ledge in a sheltered area looking out + down upon costumed self moving across lawn… upturned of self with its awkward (movement) across the lawn."

I want this book. And this one, too.

Marwencol

2010-04-24T18:46:00.007-04:00

"Marwencol is a fantasy world created by Mark Hogancamp. This website is dedicated to capturing the beauty of Mark's secret world.

"After being beaten into a brain-damaging coma by five men outside a bar, Mark built a 1/6th scale World War II-era town in his backyard. Mark populated the town he dubbed "Marwencol" with dolls representing his friends and family and created life-like photographs detailing the town's many relationships and dramas. Playing in the town and photographing the action helped Mark to recover his hand-eye coordination and deal with the psychic wounds from the attack. Through his homemade therapy, Mark was able to begin the long journey back into the "real world", both physically and emotionally - something he continues to struggle with today."

More details here.

Slickness

2010-04-10T23:55:00.001-04:00

From The Believer on Brent Green: "His aesthetic priveleges imperfection over slickness." Mine too.

All this

2010-03-21T16:59:00.001-04:00

“Anxiety is the result of the perception of the truth about one’s condition. The idea is ludicrous, if not monstrous. It means to know that one is food for the worms. This is the terror: to have emerged from nothing, to have a name, consciousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life and self-expression - and with all this yet to die.”
Ernest Becker

Safety Coffins

2010-01-31T22:14:00.005-05:00

Lately I have been reading about the "Safety Coffins" of the 19th century. Apparently, everyone was afraid of being buried alive, so a few people designed coffins fitted with ropes to pull that would trigger a bell, a flag, or fireworks.

RIP

2010-01-28T21:18:00.004-05:00

"You wrote down that you were a writer by profession. It sounded to me like the loveliest euphemism I had ever heard. When was writing ever your profession? It's never been anything but your religion. Never. I'm a little over-excited now. Since it is your religion, do you know what you will be asked when you die? But let me tell you first what you won't be asked. You won't be asked if you were working on a wonderful, moving piece of writing when you died. You won't be asked if it was long or short, sad or funny, published or unpublished. You won't be asked if you were in good form or bad form while you were working on it. You won't even be asked if it was the one piece of writing you would have been working on if you had known your time would be up when it was finished—I think only poor Sören K. will get asked that. I'm so sure you'll get asked only two questions. Were most of your stars out? Were you busy writing your heart out? If only you knew how easy it would be for you to say yes to both questions. If only you'd remember before ever you sit down to write that you've been a reader long before you were ever a writer. You simply fix that fact in your mind, then sit very still and ask yourself, as a reader, what piece of writing in all the world Buddy Glass would most want to read if he had his heart's choice. The next step is terrible, but so simple I can hardly believe it as I write it. You just sit down shamelessly and write the thing yourself."

JD Salinger

"My first hope is that you will not be too discouraged by the way the world looks at this moment. It is easy to be discouraged, because our nation is at war -- still another war, war after war -- and our government seems determined to expand its empire even if it costs the lives of tens of thousands of human beings. There is poverty in this country, and homelessness, and people without health care, and crowded classrooms, but our government, which has trillions of dollars to spend, is spending its wealth on war. There are a billion people in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East who need clean water and medicine to deal with malaria and tuberculosis and AIDS, but our government, which has thousands of nuclear weapons, is experimenting with even more deadly nuclear weapons. Yes, it is easy to be discouraged by all that.

"But let me tell you why, in spite of what I have just described, you must not be discouraged...

"The lesson of that history is that you must not despair, that if you are right, and you persist, things will change. The government may try to deceive the people, and the newspapers and television may do the same, but the truth has a way of coming out. The truth has a power greater than a hundred lies. I know you have practical things to do -- to get jobs and get married and have children. You may become prosperous and be considered a success in the way our society defines success, by wealth and standing and prestige. But that is not enough for a good life...

"Those years at Spelman were the most exciting of my life, the most educational certainly. I learned more from my students than they learned from me... I learned something about democracy: that it does not come from the government, from on high, it comes from people getting together and struggling for justice. I learned about race. I learned something that any intelligent person realizes at a certain point -- that race is a manufactured thing, an artificial thing, and while race does matter (as Cornel West has written), it only matters because certain people want it to matter, just as nationalism is something artificial. I learned that what really matters is that all of us -- of whatever so-called race and so-called nationality -- are human beings and should cherish one another."

Howard Zinn

Helena Kvarnstrom

2010-01-10T19:26:00.013-05:00

She's a really cool artist. And then she has this amazing blog - I basically want to repost everything that she posts. So here are some of the things you will find if you go to her blog:

"Sit Down by the Fire" by the Veils. I'd never heard this song before, and I like it now.

A story about childhood dreams.

Sally Mann photographs:

Beautiful photos of her dog:

Elinor Carucci's photos of her mother:

Also Bruce Springsteen and Roy Orbison songs, which I obviously love. And Lhasa de Sela, who I just posted about. Sometimes I love the internet.

Lhasa de Sela

2010-01-10T18:56:00.002-05:00

Covering Elliott Smith

She died on January 1st. I listened to her for the first time today. I feel so sad.

Home - Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

2010-01-10T01:21:00.001-05:00

I took a short break from watching this clip over and over to post it. If this doesn't make you feel good, I don't know what will.

Things I found on the internet last night

2010-01-02T14:00:00.004-05:00

Two quotes from Ernest Becker

2009-12-29T03:42:00.002-05:00

"To live fully is to live with an awareness of the rumble of terror that underlies everything."

"Genuine heroism for man is still the power to support contradictions, no matter how glaring or hopeless they may seem."

Shinzi Katoh

2009-12-29T03:39:00.003-05:00

Home Movie Day

2009-12-29T02:59:00.000-05:00

It's a year away, but I'm already excited.

D-Bros glass

2009-12-29T02:12:00.003-05:00

Fill the glass with water and things get scary.

Anjelica Houston

2009-12-29T02:09:00.004-05:00

Kevin Miyazaki

2009-12-29T01:57:00.005-05:00

"In the series Early Places, I photograph physical details that are at the heart of my earliest memories, and that remain largely unchanged... These pictures serve as a type of evidence. My motivation is based somewhat in fear - that my memory will fail me without these photographic documents. But I also wish to celebrate these small, lasting things around me that hold such intimate and powerful memory."

I feel like I have access to his memories, without actually knowing what they are. It's a strange, intimate feeling.

The human brain

2009-10-27T22:48:00.010-04:00

It looks like a tree! Via Kottke.

Mary Travers

2009-10-27T22:30:00.003-04:00

Roles I'm glad Brooke Shields turned down

2009-10-27T21:56:00.002-04:00

Melanie Griffith's role in Working Girl
Michelle Pfeiffer's role (Catwoman) in Batman Returns
Geena Davis's role in A League of Their Own
Molly Ringwald's role in The Breakfast Club AND Pretty In Pink
Andie MacDowell's role in Sex, Lies, and Videotape
Diane Lane's role in The Outsiders

Only in dreams (2)

2009-10-25T19:24:00.001-04:00

"O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams." Hamlet

Only in dreams

2009-10-25T19:19:00.004-04:00

Arlo Weiner

2009-10-24T13:31:00.005-04:00

Son of Matthew Weiner, creator of Mad Men. Doesn't he look like young Chas Tenenbaum? Via We Love You So.

Vena Cava

2009-10-23T00:54:00.006-04:00

I don't like to post fashion-y things, but Vena Cava's blog is great. It brought me to find the above stories: crystals growing in the Moscow sewers, an artist who makes sculptures out of cheese, AND a book collection that surpasses my own.

The Ones We Love

2009-10-23T00:31:00.004-04:00

Art project where photographers take 6 photos of someone they love. Results are beautiful... though it is a little strange to see that some of the contributors were born in 1991. I'm not old but that makes me feel old. These two photos are from Peter Baker, who was not born in 1991.

Taeeun Yoo

2009-10-23T00:24:00.008-04:00

LOVE THIS DOG

2009-10-23T00:12:00.009-04:00

I do, it's true.

Peektures

2009-10-21T21:29:00.003-04:00

From this photo blog.

52 Weeks

2009-10-21T20:02:00.006-04:00

Art project by Jason McHenry and Chris Dyer where they made an art box each week. Jason sold me a postcard on Etsy and I came upon his (really cool) website. I also very much love this photo.

Longface Mahoney

2009-10-21T19:56:00.001-04:00

Longface Mahoney Discusses Heaven

If someone said, Escape,
let's get away from here,
you'd see snow mountains thrown
against the sky,
cold, and you'd draw your breath and feel
air like cold water going through your veins,
but you'd be free, up so high,
or you'd see a row of girls dancing on a beach
with tropic trees and a warm moon
and warm air floating under your clothes
and through your hair.
Then you'd think of heaven
where there's peace, away from here
and you'd go some place unreal
where everybody goes after something happens,
set up in the air, safe, a room in a hotel.
A brass bed, military hair brushes,
a couple of coats, trousers, maybe a dress
on a chair or draped on the floor.
This room is not on earth, feel the air,
warm like heaven and far away.

This is a place
where marriage nights are kept
and sometimes here you say, Hello
to a neat girl with you
and sometimes she laughs
because she thinks it's funny to be sitting here
for no reason at all, except perhaps,
she likes you daddy.
Maybe this isn't heaven but near
to something like it,
more like love coming up in elevators
and nothing to think about, except, O God,
you love her now and it makes no difference
if it isn't spring. All seasons are warm
in the warm air
and the brass bed is always there.

If you've done something
and the cops get you afterwards, you
can't remember the place again,
away from cops and streets -
it's all unreal -
the warm air, a dream
that couldn't save you now.
No one would care to hear about it,
it would be heaven
far away, dark and no music,
not even a girl there.

-Horace Gregory

I love this

2009-10-10T23:29:00.000-04:00

Tiny living room in a PC

2009-10-10T13:14:00.002-04:00

Don't you wish you were so small that you could climb inside the computer and relax in the living room?

More Life Magazine

2009-10-10T13:02:00.002-04:00

I've said it before, but Life Magazine's website is really good. That first photo makes me think of "Road to Nowhere."

Life Magazine

2009-10-10T12:55:00.004-04:00

They just posted photos of 30 "dumb inventions." But I don't think they're dumb at all. If I could get a robot to answer my phone, even if it couldn't speak, I'd be happy.

One long summer day

2009-10-09T20:51:00.000-04:00

"I remember when I wrote it — I was trying to create this picture of one long summer day... and night."

Bruce Springsteen on writing the album Born to Run.

Swinging Mademoiselle

2009-10-09T20:43:00.003-04:00

Compilation of French pop songs, all sung by girls, from between 1965 and 1968. Shane sent this to me a while ago - I should have posted it sooner. So cool. The link will take you to a music blog where you can download it. Or go here and click on any of the three songs listed to get a taste - I particularly recommend the first song by Stella.

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life

2009-10-07T16:19:00.001-04:00

NUN
A friend sat next to a nun on a plane. He asked her what she missed most. "Wearing blue jeans," she replied.

PEDESTRIAN
When I'm about to cross a street and a car stops to let me go, I don't just walk - I sort of jog-dodge across to, you know, show the driver that I'm not taking advantage of this situation. Yes, I, the pedestrian, have the right of way, but see, I care about you, too, here, just a sec, I'll cross quickly and get out of your way.

RETURNING TO LIFE AFTER BEING DEAD
When I am feeling dreary, annoyed, and generally unimpressed by life, I imagine what it would be like to come back to this world for just a day after having been dead. I imagine how sentimental I would feel about the very things I once found stupid, hateful, or mundane. Oh, there's a light switch! I haven't seen a light switch in so long! ... Oh! And look - the stairs up to our front porch are still completely cracked! Hello, cracks! ... And there's my neighbor, standing there, fantastically alive, just the same, still punctuating her sentences with you know what I'm saying? Why did that used to bother me?

More here!

O-o-h Child

2009-10-05T22:54:00.001-04:00

Lit map of San Francisco

2009-10-04T21:44:00.000-04:00

For Meghan and Katie. The entire Strange Maps blog is awesome.

Thomas Jefferson's recipe for vanilla ice cream

2009-09-27T23:59:00.000-04:00

Waiting for the End of the World

2009-09-26T19:38:00.008-04:00

An incredible photography book featuring images of bomb shelters. Eerie. One of them actually contained a jail and operating room.

Tristin Lowe

2009-09-26T19:35:00.002-04:00

Giant felt whale inspired by Moby Dick. Can be unzipped, packed together, and transported easily, barnacles and all. Via Supernaturale.

Edward Gorey's house

2009-09-26T16:04:00.005-04:00

Life in Las Vegas storm-sewers

2009-09-26T15:28:00.004-04:00

Also via Boing Boing.

An extra in your own life

2009-09-26T15:24:00.004-04:00

Miranda July photographed herself as extras in scenes from six movies - including The Outsiders.

Nabokov's notes on Kafka

2009-09-26T15:21:00.002-04:00

Via BoingBoing. Pretty cool. I also just bought Nabakov's lectures on literature.

What a dog!

2009-09-26T14:26:00.002-04:00

Someone Shane knows posted this photo on Facebook. I love it so much. It's at a counter demonstration against the awful "God hates fags" people.

Huckleberry Finn

2009-09-25T15:17:00.001-04:00

"I went up to my room with a piece of candle and put it on the table. Then I set down in a chair by the window and tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn’t no use. I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars was shining, and the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die; and the wind was trying to whisper something to me and I couldn’t make out what it was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me."

Mark Twain

Three places I used to go

2009-09-22T00:14:00.004-04:00

Luc Sante

2009-09-21T23:53:00.003-04:00

He's the kind of writer I want to be. Political, philosophical, fascinated by the hidden life in ordinary things. He has a (now defunct) Flickr page, blog, and a bunch of books. He's up there with Lawrence Weschler on my mental list of cool people.