Archivalism

zoee: New York, I love youBut you’re bringing me down

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:42:57 -0400

zoee:

New York, I love you
But you’re bringing me down

stuffparty: penllawen: Old school Google. (via kapi) Way too...

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:40:16 -0400

stuffparty:

penllawen:

Old school Google. (via kapi)

Way too good not to reblog.

stuffparty: B: Homage to Woody Guthrie Awesome indeed. I just...

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:26:40 -0400

stuffparty:

B: Homage to Woody Guthrie

Awesome indeed. I just took a look under my Nikon D40 and I don’t think this would work on it and, besides, my tripod plate is pretty much always on it.

Perhaps I can do this with my Soviet Zorki-4 which isn’t so dissimilar from the Leica pictured. Would be cool for International Commie Camera Day…

(via beccaginns)

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:10:19 -0400

(via beccaginns)

Adieu / Farewell

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:08:00 -0400

I guess since you did it, I should be able to.

Later days

Spring break just started, so I went to Jenny Holzer’s...

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 19:41:26 -0400

Spring break just started, so I went to Jenny Holzer’s exhibit PROTECT PROTECT at the Whitney. I was definitely not disappointed.

The power not only of the visual strength but the LED messages was overwhelming. Equally profound were her redaction paintings of US government documents. This exhibit was a gratifying aesthetic experience because it was so accessible. Many times I think artists (in particular modern artists) make their work convoluted, obscure, and unnecessarily inaccessible. Jenny reverses this sad and common dynamic. Congrats to her.

DECLARATION

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 18:22:41 -0500

Today, I’m the shit.

Fortify thyself, partake in this libation zoee: Drink up,...

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 18:21:48 -0500

Fortify thyself, partake in this libation

zoee:

Drink up, whiners! I wish this was a t-shirt. (by Ministry of Aesthetics)

mills: Since I can remember, I have loved sodium-vapor light:...

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:23:20 -0500

mills:

Since I can remember, I have loved sodium-vapor light: the orange low-intensity glow from municipal lamps that for me recalls the warmth of a sunset but in a sea of night’s blackness: a concentrated sunset, a sunset threatened by oblivion.

The other night, taking photos of sodium lights, I recalled a possible explanation: my father used to tell me stories when I was very young about a telephone pole / streetlamp that faced our house in Mississippi. I remember little except that, incredibly, he would make them up as he went, narrating adventures in which I would confront some danger and would require the assistance of this telephone pole, which could magically move and bash foes into the ground. In one, I think he saved me from a demon wearing a cloak.

If I recall correctly, this pole looked a bit as though it had a face, at least to a child, and while I am not sure whether it was sodium vapor I do suspect that my fondness for such lights is at least connected to these memories.

I also find it extraordinary and moving to imagine my father twenty years ago, tellings such stories -of a boy and his sidekick / protector, the magic telephone pole from Bay St. Louis- to his son on summer nights, a small act of creation, a tiny narrative gift of remarkable ingenuity and invention.

A veces

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 19:17:52 -0500

Sometimes I feel the nostalgia

Sometimes I feel distant

Sometimes I feel connected and enfranchised

Sometimes I ponder the fate of humanity

Sometimes I feel depressed for no good reason

(i live in a town where you can’t smell a thing
you watch your feet for cracks in the pavement)

"I’m not what I used to be, I’m not what I’m not what I used to be, and I I..."

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:49:29 -0500

“I’m not what I used to be, I’m not what
I’m not what I used to be, and I
I don’t know myself from anybody else
I’m not what I used to be, I’m not what
I’m not what I used to be, and I
You don’t know what you have done
My frame is here but the mind is gone, gone away”

- Esthero, Superheroes

mills: A second in the series of photos of sunsets through my...

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 20:39:36 -0500

mills:

A second in the series of photos of sunsets through my office windows, rows of reflected fluorescent lights extending into the clouds. The first is here, and was to my knowledge the most noted thing I’ve ever posted.

Oh my fucking god. stuffparty: bullshit: oomb: This is a...

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:33:45 -0500

Oh my fucking god.

stuffparty:

bullshit:

oomb:

This is a recording of Barack Obama saying, “You ain’t my bitch, nigga! Buy your own damn fries!”

Apparently there are some choice phrases quoted in Dreams From My Father. Obama did the audiobook, and so there are now clips of him saying these things, including, also:

“Sure you can have my number, baby!”

“There are white folks, and then there are ignorant motherfuckers like you.”

“You know that guy ain’t shit. Sorry-ass motherfucker ain’t got nothing on me.”

And, perhaps best of all, “So what happens when we go out to a party with some sistahs, huh? What happens? I tell you what happens: Blam! They on us like there’s no tomorrow. High school chicks, university chicks, it don’t matter!”

From the Boston Phoenix, with many thanks to ephemeron

I wish I were more daring.

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 22:58:31 -0500

I wish I were more daring.

(via zoee)

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:45:34 -0500

(via zoee)

Binge & Purge

Sun, 04 Jan 2009 22:43:12 -0500

Feels like springtime again, ladies and gents

It’s more fitting that the world isn’t so...

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:36:00 -0500

It’s more fitting that the world isn’t so anonymous

mills:

Snow, from Elle in the Woods and S. Stratodrive at the Elder Street Train Platform.

mills: Rory O’Rear found another wonderful piece by Cursive...

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:53:53 -0400

mills:

Rory O’Rear found another wonderful piece by Cursive Buildings, and I can’t resist posting it: “Modern Lovers.”

Click here for a larger view, and click here for his Flickr, since I have to stop putting one of these up every other day.

90

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 14:43:36 -0400

Today is my grandfather’s 90th birthday. The majority of my extended family made the pilgrimage to DC to pay their respects to the clan patriarch… there’s a filial sort of quality to this reunion. There’s a palatable sense of obligation and deep respect for someone so old, wise, experienced. Family from Connecticut to South Carolina made the trek to DC, to simply sing, slice some cake, and reminisce.

I am in NYC. I decided not to make the four hour trip to see my grandfather. I suppose I don’t see the gravity of the situation (yet)… I just saw him last wednesday, and making such a trip seemed kind of arbitrary considering the circumstances. This feeling, it’s difficult to explain… our culture puts emphasis on our base-10 numeric system, so things like 10, 50, and 100 are big anniversaries. With this considered, 90 would be a decently important year for a human, also because my grandfather might not make it another year.

I feel like a lazy traitor, a terrible grandson, a generally bad human being. I’ve failed to pay due respect to this great man, my blood relative, someone who has cared for me since I was very little.

I called home and wished him well etc, but I could hear the sadness in his voice “I understand why you wouldn’t be able to make it, thanks for the call.”

A phone can’t send a hug.

Destruction, Reincarnation

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:56:00 -0400

Today I balance between an end and a beginning, a movement of life, miles and minutes from drastic change. Today I must pack all my belongings quickly, efficiently. I must salvage everything of my life in DC. Any item I cannot or do not pack will be archived in the attic for generations.

I must pick up my life and move it to another location. This process is synthetic and a byproduct of modernity. It’s sort of disturbing to think a person can be in one place on a given day, and utterly disappear the next.

I will be driving to New York City tomorrow morning, and I don’t think I’ll ever turn back. I might not ever look back. Perhaps I’ll return to the District one day, but my heart will always remain in the skyscrapers of Manhattan, the blocks of Brooklyn, in the city’s maw, permeating.

Tomorrow there will be a sorrowful destruction. A boy will leave the nest. Goodbyes always hurt in a soft way. Endings always tear me up. The family that lovingly raised me will say farewell and goodluck. As I exit the District, I will not be able to forget that.

But as we approach Manhattan, and I behold its magnificient spires, its inspiring vastness, I will be unable to look away. A place where 10 million people have 10 million dreams, how profound!

And I will add my small lot to it.

Goodbye, in the sickly sweet sort of way.