Robert Creeley: A Wicker Basket

September 9, 2014, 3:08 am

≫ Next: Heimat: A Tribute in Light: What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understanding

≪ Previous: Alien Emergency

up there: photo by ...storrao..., 2 April 2014

Comes the time when it’s later

and onto your table the headwaiter

puts the bill, and very soon after

rings out the sound of lively laughter --

Picking up change, hands like a walrus,

and a face like a barndoor’s,

and a head without any apparent size,

nothing but two eyes --

So that’s you, man,

or me. I make it as I can,

I pick up, I go

faster than they know --

Out the door, the street like a night,

any night, and no one in sight,

but then, well, there she is,

old friend Liz --

And she opens the door of her cadillac,

I step in back,

and we’re gone.

She turns me on --

There are very huge stars, man, in the sky,

and from somewhere very far off someone hands me a slice of apple pie,

with a gob of white, white ice cream on top of it,

and I eat it --

Slowly. And while certainly

they are laughing at me, and all around me is racket

of these cats not making it, I make it

in my wicker basket.

Robert Creeley: A Wicker Basket, from For Love, 1962

CADILLAC AUTOMOBILES LIFE 04/01/1957 p. 88

General Motors advertisement for Cadillac automobiles: Life, 1 April 1957 (Gallery of Graphic Design)

↧

Heimat: A Tribute in Light: What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understanding

September 11, 2014, 2:20 am

≫ Next: Hazard Response: What Went Wrong in Happy Valley?

≪ Previous: Robert Creeley: A Wicker Basket

0009-112: photo by sebati. 11 November 2003

0009-113: photo by sebati. 11 November 2003

0009-117: photo by sebati. 11 November 2003

The Tribute in Light rises behind buildings adjacent to the 1 World Trade Center, Monday, Sept. 8, 2014, in New York. The tribute, an art installation of 88 searchlights aiming skyward in two columns, is a remembrance of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: photo by Mark Lennihan / AP, 8 September 2014

tribute in light

Brooklyn Bridge leaves streaks of light while a test of the Tribute in Light rises from the lower Manhattan skyline in New York: photo by Mark Lennihan / AP, 8 September 2014

Traffic crossing the Brooklyn Bridge leaves streaks of light while a test of the Tribute in Light rises from the lower Manhattan skyline in New York: photo by Mark Lennihan / AP, 8 September 2014

A large, jubilant crowd reacts to the news of Osama bin Laden's death at the corner of Church and Vesey Streets, New York City, adjacent to ground zero, during the early morning hours of 2 May 2011: photo by Jason DeCrow / AP, 2 May 2011

Untitled (Mount Desert, Maine): photo by Patrick Joust, June 2013

[Pittsburgh Steelers return man Antonio Brown drops a Cobra Kai front kick to the face of Cleveland Browns punter Spencer Lanning] Wait, wait, wait... When did this happen?!?: photo via Spencer Lanning on twitter, 7 September 2014

A ridiculous image. Protesters in Ferguson aimed to stop traffic. So police did it instead: photo via David Harris-Gershon on twitter, 10 September 2014

Protesters confront police in Ferguson, Missouri

Protesters confront police in Ferguson, Missouri

Police confront Ferguson protesters on Interstate 70: photo by BBC News, 10 September 2014

Police on Hanley seem ready for lots of arrests with Dept of Corrections bus: photo by David Carson via twitter, 10 September 2010

Police on Hanley seem ready for lots of arrests: photo by David Carson via twitter, 10 September 2010

Hanley is now shutdown in both directions: photo by David Carson via twitter, 10 September 2010

In an earlier tweet I mentioned protester mooning cops, didn't know I'd shot it but here it is: photo by David Carson on twitter, 10 September 2014

Hanley: arrests have been made, threats to arrest more if they block traffic, but police are ones blocking it: photo by David Carson on twitter, 10 September 2014

Urban Shield: after Ferguson, police and suppliers consider fate of military-grade tactical gear

Giant black armoured vehicles, assault rifles, gas masks and drones: the modern face of policing in America is on display at a four-day police trade show in Oakland, held mere weeks after a fatal police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri

Ed Pilkington in Oakland, The Guardian, Monday 8 September 2014

Several of the country’s top companies had stalls in the vendors’ show, suggesting they still believe there is serious money to be made: photo by Robert Gumpert via The Guardian, 8 September 2014

“Warriors”, says the sign emblazoned in huge letters across the top of the Marriott conference center in downtown Oakland.

It refers to the Golden State Warriors, the hometown basketball team who have their practice facilities here, but it might equally apply to the unusual gathering inside the hotel.

Sprawled across the ground floor of the Marriott, a trade show was under way that represents the modern face of policing in America.

Hundreds of burly men (they are largely men), heads shaved and dressed in battlefield uniforms in black, green or camouflage are milling around in groups of 10 or 20.

There to greet them are scores of weapons manufacturers and military-grade technology companies eager to win their business.

On three sides of the hall, giant black tactical armoured vehicles are stationed, wheels chest-height, sides armour-plated to resist an AK-47 round or blast of a roadside bomb, roofs decked out with spotlights, surveillance cameras and swivel turrets able to house machine guns.

One of the vehicles, the aptly named Sentinel -– 21ft long, 17,500lbs in weight, and costing $250,000 and up –- was developed by a Florida-based company called International Armored Group that began supplying the US army in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“With all that experience in blast resistance, we decided to branch off into tactical vehicles tailored to police departments at home,” said the company’s Sally Stefova.

The men huddling in groups around the stalls are all members of police Swat teams, 35 in all, who have come to Oakland from across the US and as far afield as Singapore, South Korea and Brazil.

They are here for the annual Urban Shield -– a four-day event that concludes Monday.

The schedule includes a 48-hour simulated disaster training program that has put the Swat teams through mock scenarios of a mass shooting, hostage-taking or terrorist radiological attack.

When they are not engaging in such exercises, police departments are invited to browse the Urban Shield vendors’ show where weapons contractors who normally deal with the US military seek to redirect their products to domestic use on America’s streets.

This year’s Urban Shield has been held under the shadow of a police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri.

As a result of the shooting of the unarmed black teenager Michael Brown on 9 August and the protests that ensued, ordinary Americans were introduced for the first time to the look of their modern police force.

Pictures of black armoured personnel carriers trundling through city streets topped by marksmen wielding sniper rifles, while on the ground officers kitted out in full camouflage gear pointed M-156 assault rifles at protesters standing with their hands above their heads, were beamed into millions of living rooms.

As the tragedy of Ferguson unfolded, the country collectively gasped and shook its head. Where was all this happening? In a suburb of St Louis, Missouri, or in Fallujah?

In an earlier tweet I mentioned protester mooning cops, didn't know I'd shot it but here it is: photo by David Carson on twitter, 10 September 2014

Given the national soul-searching about militarized policing that Ferguson inspired, you might expect to see a muted, self-reflective Urban Shield this year. Not so, judging from the hardware on display on the convention floor.

As you enter the vast exhibition space you are accosted by assault rifles, gas masks, helmets, tactical knives, robots, drones, night-vision devices and countless other references to the war zone.

The poster for the Urban Shield event itself shows a police officer from Oakland’s local Alameda sheriff’s department wearing a helmet and goggles and pointing an assault rifle directly out at the viewer.

He crouches above a clock that has stopped symbolically at 9:11, alongside the words “Critical training 4 critical times”.

Many of the stalls are selling products initially created by the Pentagon and now repurposed for use by police departments.

Armored Mobility Inc is offering body armour with built-in plates that can stop 30 rounds from an AK-47. The company is aggressively marketing its armoured shield to police officers posted within elementary schools.

“It’s unfortunate, but school shootings like the one at Sandy Hook in Connecticut can happen anywhere at any time,” said the firm’s Bill Gazza.

A company called Aircover is offering unmanned aerial systems, or drones, that it originally developed for the Department of Defense for sale.

Its QR 425 four-propeller drone can be in the air within 15 seconds, rises at 80 feet per second, is largely self-piloting and streams military-grade encrypted high definition surveillance footage back to the base unit.

A UK weapons manufacturer based in Portsmouth, Accuracy International, is trying to interest American police departments in the sniper rifles that it originally designed for the British army.

The guns, equipped with interchangeable barrels, are also widely used by the German armed forces.

Even the T-shirts on sale at Urban Shield show no self-awareness of post-Ferguson sensitivities. “Keep calm and return fire,” one model says.

Another has printed on it the figure of a person with hands in the air -- the same symbol of peaceful defiance used by Ferguson protesters -- onto which a gun-sight has been superimposed directly over the head, above the rubric: “This is my peace sign”.

Ronnie Fowles is managing a stall at Urban Shield for his company, First Spear, that makes lightweight carriers in camouflaged nylon.

First Spear is based in St Louis, close to Ferguson, and before he joined the firm Fowles spent 10 years as a member of the city’s metropolitan police Swat team.

Each year, his unit carried out up to 350 raids on houses to search for drugs or weapons, often turning up in armoured vehicles like the Sentinel and effecting what is known in the trade as “hard doors” where forced entry is gained using a battering ram.

In his view, the Swat teams in Ferguson acted entirely appropriately. “Throwing stones and Molotov cocktails –- that’s not protesting peacefully. You can’t have police officers stand in the streets without protecting themselves.”

Members of the Sacramento Swat team check out a sniper rifle: photo by Robert Gumpert via The Guardian, 8 September 2014

Fowles’s belief is that the changing face of American policing has been a necessary bottom-up response to the increasingly well-armed criminal and domestic terrorist.

But that argument is disputed by criminologists and civil liberties groups who point instead to a top-down cause of militarized policing: billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money that has been spent since 9/11 acquiring tactical equipment for police departments by the federal government.

Under the Pentagon’s 1033 program, mine-resistant armoured vehicles, or MRaps, assault rifles and other heavy gear designed for Iraq and Afghanistan has been thrown at police departments at a rate of about half a billion dollars-worth a year.

A similar amount goes out annually under the department of justice’s Edward Byrne Memorial JAG program and the Department of Homeland Security’s Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI), both of which provide grants for police to buy the latest military-grade gadgetry of the kind that’s on display at Urban Shield.

The outcome, according to a major report earlier this year from the American Civil Liberties Union, is that military hardware is making its way onto the streets of America for use in everyday policing.

“It’s inappropriate for the federal government to be fuelling the militarization of local police. Urban Shield seems to encapsulate this blurring of the lines between military and police,” said Kara Dansky, author of the ACLU report.

In the aftermath of Ferguson, there are signs of change in Washington. President Obama has ordered a review of the 1033, Byrne and UASI programmes and Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri will hold congressional hearings on them on Tuesday.

‘Urban Shield seems to encapsulate this blurring of the lines between military and police,’ said Kara Dansky, author of the ACLU report: photo by Robert Gumpert via The Guardian, 8 September 2014

But so far the message doesn’t appear to have filtered down to the local level.

The Bay Area UASI helped to fund Urban Shield this year, and the DHS even has its own stall in the vendors’ show where it is showing off the latest whizz-bang tools created by its science and technology directorate.

The innovations include a radio-wave machine that can detect heartbeats through a wall to help Swat teams anticipate how many bodies they will face when they make a “hard door”.

There’s also a robot that can shoot a pistol -– for testing purposes only, DHS officials stressed.

With such federal encouragement beaming out from the DHS stall, it is scarcely surprising that the prevailing mood at Urban Shield is that the trend towards militarized policing is here to stay.

As Steve Lenthe, a member of a narcotics unit within the local Alameda County sheriffs office who is participating in the event, sees it, Ferguson-style policing is essential because “my job is not to take a bullet. If wearing full body armour gets me home safely, absolutely.”

He thinks police have to stay a step ahead of the criminal. “If the bad guy’s got a stick you need a baton, if he has a gun you need a rifle, if he gets hold of a rifle you need something even more powerful.”

But what is the precise nature of the threat that obligates this ever inflating police-criminal arms race? Where is it coming from?

Lenthe was one of several police officers and vendors who told the Guardian that a serious threat came from Iraq and Afghanistan military veterans returning home with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“These are sophisticated people, guys coming back from combat who know how to use their weapons and are dealing with PTSD,” he said, despite the insistence of the Department of Veterans Affairs that the link between PTSD and violent crime is overblown to the point of distortion.

The idea raises the paradoxical thought that military hardware from America’s two wars is being transferred to domestic police under the Pentagon’s 1033 programme in order to deal with the threat of US veterans returning from those very same conflicts.

Another paradox is that police forces are acquiring military equipment to protect them from themselves.

When I asked Joshua Nielsen, a sales rep from Adamson police products, why the latest model of gas mask on display was necessary, he replied that Swat teams wore them when they propelled gas canisters into a house before raiding it.

Nielsen also said the masks came in handy when police deploy tear gas into a crowd, as they did at Ferguson.

Several Urban Shield participants mentioned crowd control as one of the features of the perceived “rising threat levels” that justified the trend towards militarization.

Tom Nolan, a criminologist at Merrimack College in Massachusetts who served 27 years in the Boston police department and has studied the trend in modern policing, said that “new threats are being invented that law enforcers and manufacturers use as justification.

"Weapons companies who used to court the US military now see a commercial opportunity in domestic police forces so they try to convince people of a need that is non-existent.”

Here’s a Dragon Runner robot for “combat situations from the Middle East... to the streets of Europe and the United States": photo via Shane Bauer on twitter, 7 September 2014

The Halo Drop Drones vendor got nervous about us taking too detailed of pictures, in case we wanted to duplicate them: photo via Shane Bauer on twitter, 7 September 2014

A drone company is set up at an Urban Shield site, but the county is waiting for FAA permission to use them: photo via Shane Bauer on twitter, 7 September 2014

The Marines said they participate in the Urban Shield SWAT competition to bring the tactics back to the military: photo via Shane Bauer on twitter, 6 September 2014

Today at Urban Shield SWAT teams begin a 48 hour competition across 9 Bay Area counties. 35 teams. 31 scenarios: photo via Shane Bauer on twitter, 6 September 2014

Medical dummies. From the Urban Shield cop convention: photo via Shane Bauer on twitter, 5 September 2014

The California Highway Patrol started using this POF 556 a year ago. Fish and Game also uses it to shoot bears: photo via Shane Bauer on twitter, 5 September 2014
.

Drones for cops at Urban Shield: photo via Shane Bauer on twitter, 5 September 2014

At Urban Shield: photo via Shane Bauer on twitter, 5 September 2014

SWAT teams before they go on a 48 hour STRAIGHT competition around the Bay, including BART and the Golden Gate: photo via Shane Bauer on twitter, 5 September 2014

A SWAT team from South Korea checks out vendors at the Urban Shield cop convention in Oakland: photo via Shane Bauer on twitter, 5 September 2014

The Armored Group representative said cops use these vehicles to respond to suicide threats: photo via Shane Bauer on twitter, 5 September 2014

The Armored Group representative said police need these trucks for protests because protesters might shoot at cops: photo via Shane Bauer on twitter, 5 September 2014

The representative of The Armored Group said these vehicles are effective because they are intimidating: photo via Shane Bauer on twitter, 5 September 2014

From the Urban Shield cop convention in Oakland: photo via Shane Bauer on twitter, 5 September 2014

Back at Urban Shield this morning. The Marriott is crawling with SWAT teams today: photo via Shane Bauer on twitter, 5 September 2014

SWAT teams send dogs into buildings first with these cameras mounted to their backs: photo via Shane Bauer on twitter, 4 September 2014

Homeland Security sells at 3D printed drone for $1,100. Enter coordinates and it drops stuff "like in Hunger Games": photo via Shane Bauer on twitter, 4 September 2014

Sermon and Deeds of the Antichrist (detail): Luca Signorelli (c. 1450-1523), 1499-1502, fresco, width 700 cm(Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto)

20% of Republican voters believe that President Obama is the Anti-Christ, compared to 13% of independents and 6% of Democrats who agree.

Sermon and Deeds of the Antichrist (detail): Luca Signorelli (c. 1450-1523), 1499-1502, fresco(Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto)

28% of voters believe that a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order. 34% of Republicans and 35% of independents believe in the New World Order threat compared to just 15% of Democrats.

Sermon and Deeds of the Antichrist (detail): Luca Signorelli (c. 1450-1523), 1499-1502, fresco(Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto)

29% of voters believe aliens exist and 21% believe a UFO crashed at Roswell in 1947.

Apocalypse: Luca Signorelli (c. 1450-1523), 1499-1502, fresco, width 455 cm(Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto)

6% of voters think Osama bin Laden is still alive.

Apocalypse (detail): Luca Signorelli (c. 1450-1523), 1499-1502, fresco(Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto)

58% of Republican voters agree that global warming is a conspiracy, while 77% of Democrats disagree.

Apocalypse (detail): Luca Signorelli (c. 1450-1523), 1499-1502, fresco(Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto)

5% of voters believe that Paul McCartney died and was secretly replaced in the Beatles in 1966.

The Damned (detail): Luca Signorelli (c. 1450-1523), 1499-1502, fresco(Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto)

4% of voters believe shape-shifting reptilian people control our world by taking on human form and gaining power.

The Damned (detail): Luca Signorelli (c. 1450-1523), 1499-1502, fresco(Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto)

7% of voters think the moon landing was fake.

The Damned (detail): Luca Signorelli (c. 1450-1523), 1499-1502, fresco(Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto)

14%of voters believe the CIA was instrumental in distributing crack cocaine into America’s inner cities in the 1980s.

The Damned (detail): Luca Signorelli (c. 1450-1523), 1499-1502, fresco(Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto)

9% of voters believe the government adds fluoride to America's water supply, not for dental health reasons, but for other, more sinister reasons.

Empedocles: Luca Signorelli (c. 1450-1523), 1499-1502, fresco, width 190 cm (Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto)

Data from a poll of 1,247 registered American voters surveyed 27-30 March 2013, released 2 April 2013 by Public Policy Polling,Raleigh, North Carolina. ("The margin of error for the overall sample is +/-2.8%. This poll was not paid for or authorized by any campaign or political organization. PPP surveys are conducted through automated telephone interviews.")

7 World Trade Center on fire after the collapse of the Twin Towers, 11 September 2001: photographer anonymous; image by Trycatch, 5 March 2010 (Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress)

↧

Hazard Response: What Went Wrong in Happy Valley?

September 12, 2014, 3:21 am

≫ Next: Palintology: Final Words

≪ Previous: Heimat: A Tribute in Light: What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understanding

Untitled [Young people on the Brooklyn waterfront on September 11] (detail): photo by Thomas Hoepker / Magnum Photos, 11 September 2001

As in that grey exurban wasteland in Gatsby
When the white sky darkens over the city
Of ashes, far from the once happy valley,
This daze spreads across the blank faces
Of the inhabitants, suddenly deprived
Of the kingdom’s original promised gift.
Did I say kingdom when I meant place
Of worship? Original when I meant
Damaged in handling? Promised when
I meant stolen? Gift when I meant
Trick? Inhabitants when I meant slaves?
Slaves when I meant clowns
Who have wandered into test sites? Test
Sites when I meant contagious hospitals?
Contagious hospitals when I meant clouds
Of laughing gas? Laughing gas
When I meant tears? No, it’s true,
No one should be writing poetry
In times like these, Dear Reader,
I don’t have to tell you of all people why.
It’s as apparent as an attempted
Punch in the eye that actually
Catches only empty air -- which is
The inside of your head, where
The green ritual sanction
Of the poem has been cancelled.

TC: Hazard Response, 2001, from Light and Shade, 2006

So She Moved into the Light: Eric Fischl, 1997

On Hazard Response

I like the call and response style the poem uses right after it sets up the contrasting opening lines, “grey exurban wasteland” and “once happy valley”. The poem goes well with the title of this book -- Light and Shade (which in turn evokes Keats).

Here is a bit from a conversation featured in Jacket's April ’06 issue, where Clark talks about this poem:

“I had that passage [from The Great Gatsby] in mind when I started the poem: ….

"With 'happy valley,' I was thinking, perhaps, of the America of Johnny Appleseed, in the Disney version, bright and abundant fields and orchards, that cartoon dream of an American past supplanting the endarkened vision of the present and future which Fitzgerald saw, or vice versa…

"The poem was written in that interesting early Fall of 2001, just after 9/11 and during the subsequent anthrax terror scare. One gaped with wonder at the TV while white-lipped network newscasters grimly presented footage of Hazmat teams in yellow plastic suits swarming pointlessly around outside suspected toxic terror sites…

"Meanwhile crowds of evacuated workplace normals could be seen apprehensively looking on, too sheepish to acknowledge the real terrorists might be those they’d chosen to govern them. That image of the doubled wastelands, the wasteland in Gatsby, the wasteland in the suburban office building parking lot, was indeed, as you’ve said, the switch that opened the floodgates of the 'call and response' structure that holds the poem together, even as it tries to fall apart.”

-- Black Mamba, (pō‘ĭ-trē), 26 April 2006

"Hazard Response": The White Sky Darkens over the City of Ashes

Entrance to Happy Valley, Tennessee: photo by Brian Stansberry, 2008

¶ I believe “Hazard Response” was written not too long after the fateful events which led to and proceeded from 9/11. Your admiration for Fitzgerald’s classic Gatsby is as pertinent as Fizgerald’s own ardour for the works of the aforementioned John Keats (especially “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” as you point out in your lectures on Keats), who is of course evoked in the title Light and Shade, your forthcoming book. How does the opening image of the “grey exurban wasteland” feature in opening the floodgates of call and response in this poem, which seems to be arranged on a suddenly active faultline?

Yes, the title Light and Shade evokes Keats, who, in a letter written as he was dying, told a friend he could no longer write poetry because it took too much out of him -- to write poetry, he was suggesting, requires a tremendous effort, to set up its contrastive bases, to distinguish “light and shade,” the “primitive information,” and he no longer had that kind of energy. I can understand that. As to Fitzgerald -- who owed as much to Keats as one great writer can owe to another -- there’s a beautiful letter to his daughter in which he recounts reading the “Ode on a Grecian Urn” a hundred times before beginning to sort out the exquisite mechanics, the inner chime -- yes, the poem “Hazard Response” begins with a deliberate reference to his work. His early prophetic vision of a wasted post-industrial America was very much in my mind. I was thinking specifically of the opening of the second chapter of The Great Gatsby in which he describes a stretch of road on Long Island, about half way between West Egg and New York, where the highway seems to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. “This is a valley of ashes -- a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.” The ash-covered men are railway workmen, but they are also symbolic men, of course. “Occasionally a line of gray cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-gray men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight.” Just what is it those surreptitious men are doing, in that ash-gray cloud?

The Great Gatsby (first edition): F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925 (dust jacket illustration by Francis Cugat)

What a beautiful writer Fitzgerald is. It’s a road between worlds. Between the world of leisure, dreams and consumption -- Daisy’s world -- and the world of iron mills, stock markets, production -- Gatsby’s world. The main line of late capitalism in its full traffic. Things are just beginning to go to rot, so the society has to go a little out of its way so as not to look at its own corruption, the ashes that have begun to accumulate at the margins of its dream, like an off-taste in its mouth that needs washing down and away with a good stiff drink, and maybe then another one.

I had that passage in mind when I started the poem: “As in that grey exurban wasteland in Gatsby / When the white sky darkens over the city / Of ashes, far from the once happy valley, / This daze spreads across the blank faces / Of the inhabitants, suddenly deprived / Of the kingdom’s original promised gift.” With “happy valley,” I was thinking, perhaps, of the America of Johnny Appleseed, in the Disney version, bright and abundant fields and orchards, that cartoon dream of an American past supplanting the endarkened vision of the present and future which Fitzgerald saw, or vice versa, the two perhaps colliding, vision and dream, at the post-9/11 moment when the inhabitants are suddenly and abruptly forced to see the shadow of a possible ash-gray cloud descending over their erstwhile bright world. The poem was written in that interesting early Fall of 2001, just after 9/11 and during the subsequent anthrax terror scare. One gaped with wonder at the TV while white-lipped network newscasters grimly presented footage of Hazmat teams in yellow plastic suits swarming pointlessly around outside suspected toxic terror sites -- the parking lots of drab office blocks, suburban school buildings, gray hospitals. It made one think of gangs of lost, bumbling astronauts who’ve landed on the wrong planet and aren’t quite sure what to do next. Meanwhile crowds of evacuated workplace normals could be seen apprehensively looking on, too sheepish to acknowledge the real terrorists might be those they’d chosen to govern them. That image of the doubled wastelands, the wasteland in Gatsby, the wasteland in the suburban office building parking lot, was indeed, as you’ve said, the switch that opened the floodgates of the “call and response” structure that holds the poem together, even as it tries to fall apart.

Thomas Hoepker, View from Brooklyn, New York City, USA, September 11, 2011. © Thomas Hoepker/Magnum Photos. From Reading Magnum. Five (count ‘em, FIVE) of our titles were selected by American Photo as 2013 Photo Books of the Year. They are: Steven Hoelscher’s Reading Magnum: A Visual Archive of the Modern World Amon Carter Museum of American Art’s Color: American Photography Transformed Roy Flukinger’s Arnold Newman: At Work Dan Winters’s America: Icons and Ingenuity

View from Brooklyn, New York City, September 11, 2011: photo by Thomas Hoepker / Magnum Photos, 11 September 2001 (via Reading Magnum, U. of Texas Press)

¶ If the poem is about the apocalyptic disintegration of the founding illusions surrounding “the kingdom’s original promised gift,” what is your role in this process as a sometime citizen of the United States? After all, one cannot help noticing that you are engaging in a series of spiralling questions directed at your own assumptions. Are you allowing that your own subject-engagement with the perceived shift in historical epoch be counted among the other “inhabitants”?

Absolutely. The “call and response” -- the self-corrective, interrogative series that follows the wasteland image -- actually turns the argument of the poem over to the reader to play with and sort out. It’s definitely a kind of confession of being at a loss along with the reader. That’s what takes the poem over the falls, that identification with a common nescience. It scares me every time I read it.

from Tom Clark in conversation with Ryan Newton, in Jacket 29 (April 2006)

City of Ashes

Copper mining section between Ducktown and Copperhill, Tennessee. Fumes from smelting copper for sulfuric acid have destroyed all vegetation and eroded the land: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, September 1939 (Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Who is the third who walks always beside you?

When I count, there are only you and I together

But when I look ahead up the white road

There is always another one walking beside you

Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded

I do not know whether a man or a woman

-- But who is that on the other side of you?

What is that sound high in the air

Murmur of maternal lamentation

Who are those hooded hordes swarming

Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth

Ringed by the flat horizon only...

T.S. Eliot: The Waste Land (excerpt), 1922

A train bringing copper ore out of the mine, Ducktown, Tennessee. Fumes from smelting copper for sulfuric acid have destroyed all vegetation and eroded the land: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, September 1939 (Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Copper mining and sulfuric acid plant, Copperhill, Tennessee: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, September 1939 (Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

WTC crash: photo by Kevinalbania, 11 September 2001

Einsturz World Trade Center 2 gesehen vom West Broadway (Collapse of World Trade Center 2): photo by Hans Joachim Dudeck, 11 September 2001; image 21 June 2009

The corner of Greenwich and Barclay, facing East, near the destroyed World Trade Center on 9/11/2001: photographer anonymous, 11 September 2001 (Prints and Photographs Division. Library of Congress)

Onlookers viewing the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 Attacks on September 11, 2001, in Doric Park in Union City, New Jersey. The location was rebuilt as Firefighter's Memorial Park, which opened on August 8, 2009. The buildings of Hoboken are visible between the background of Manhattan and the foreground of the Park. Doric Park was later turned into Firefighter's Memorial Park, which opened on August 8, 2009: photo © by Luigi Novi / Wikimedia Commons, 11 September 2001

Smoke rises from the site of the World Trade Center Tuesday, September 11, 2001: photo by White House Office of Management and Administration (Photographs related to the George W. Bush Administration, George W. Bush Library, Lewisville, Texas / US National Archives)

The Day the Sun Went Down on Happy Valley

Untitled [Young people on the Brooklyn waterfront on September 11] (detail): photo by Thomas Hoepker / Magnum Photos, 11 September 2001

Now that a broad discussion has opened up about a photograph that I took on September 11, 2001, on the waterfront in Brooklyn, I think I should add my voice and view of the event.

This image happened, in passing, so to speak, when I tried to make my way down to southern Manhattan on the morning of 9/11. I live on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and, being a seasoned photojournalist, I followed my professional instinct, trying hard to get as close as possible to the horrendous event. When I heard that the subway had stopped running I took out the car, only to get stuck immediately in traffic on Second Avenue. I took my chances by crossing the Queensborough Bridge. Then, turning south into Queens and Brooklyn, I stayed close to the East River, stopping here and there to shoot views of the distant catastrophe, which unfolded on the horizon to my right. The car radio provided horrific news, nonstop. The second tower of the World Trade Center had just imploded; estimates of more than 20,000 deaths were quoted and later discredited.

Untitled [Young people on the Brooklyn waterfront on September 11] (detail): photo by Thomas Hoepker / Magnum Photos, 11 September 2001

Somewhere in Williamsburg I saw, out of the corner of my eye, an almost idyllic scene near a restaurant -- flowers, cypress trees, a group of young people sitting in the bright sunshine of this splendid late summer day while the dark, thick plume of smoke was rising in the background. I got out of the car, shot three frames of the seemingly peaceful setting and drove on hastily, hoping/fearing to get closer to the unimaginable horrors at the tip of Manhattan.

from I Took That 9/11 Photo: Thomas Hoepker, Slate, 14 September 2006

Looking Away

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus: Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1555 (Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels)

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (detail): Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1555 (Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels)

Where Was Happy Valley? Did it Ever Exist?

Farmland along the upper Delaware River in New York State: photo by JohnCollier, June 1943 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Wheat farm, WallaWalla, Washington: photo by RussellLee, July 1941

In the false-dawn twilightthe distances appeared limitless
to the lost rider,
who crossed the field alone, and at the other side paused
to examine the vast sky. Time passed. There were people

gathering, milling in mute groups at the edge of the field,
small, silent. They came up
over the horizon, then fell back. Were there, then not there,
and now here. The rider, remembering

the poem of Sepehri, enquired of a passer-by:
Where is the house of my friend?
But the only answerwas the wind
feathering through the empty wheatfield.

TC: The Distances, 2012

Wheat land, WallaWalla, Washington: photo by RussellLee, July 1941

Wheat farm, WallaWalla, Washington: photo by RussellLee, July 1941

Wheat farm, WallaWalla, Washington: photo by RussellLee, July 1941

FarmingnearKlingerstown, Pennsylvania: photo by ScottBauer, 2005 (U.S. Depatment of Agriculture)

Marsh Bride Brook and Coastal Salt Marsh, East Lyme, Connecticut: photo by Alex756, 2003

↧

Palintology: Final Words

September 13, 2014, 4:41 am

≫ Next: Dennis Cowals: Before the Pipeline (Near the End of the Dreamtime)

≪ Previous: Hazard Response: What Went Wrong in Happy Valley?

Sarah Palin: 'I Owe America a Global Apology': photo by AP via Huffington Post, 12 September 2014

Final Words

“Nuclear weaponry, of course, would be the be-all, end-all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet.”

-- Sarah Palin, Republican party vice-presidential candidate, to CBS reporter Katie Couric, 25 September 2008

Palin family 'involved in drunken brawl' as house party turns nasty: image via punchumgum on twitter, 12 September 2014

Alleged Screaming, Chest-Pounding Drunk Snowmachine Clan Brawl in Great White North: “This isn’t some damned Hillbilly reality show!”

Eyewitness comes forward on ‘Palin brawl’

via Amanda Coyne: Inside Alaska Politics...So You Don't Have To Be, 11 September 2014

Eric Thompson was having fun with friends and his wife at a party in South Anchorage on Saturday night. Thompson, who is 56 years old, was the designated driver for the evening, so he wasn’t drinking. But that was okay with him. He was among friends. It was a birthday party for twins Matt and Marc McKenna, who own McKenna Bros. Paving, for whom he works as a project supervisor. Marc is an Iron Dog snow machine racer. Other snow machine racers were said to have been there also.

The party was at the house of Korey Klingenmeyer, who is the office manager at McKenna Bros. According to Thompson, Klingenmeyer is a very large, muscular guy, “super easy going, and super friendly.”

Most of the party was outside. A live band was playing. People were dancing. Thompson noticed two girls wearing sunglasses walking with an unusual amount of confidence around the yard. He only noticed them because of the sunglasses. That was odd, because it was at night. His wife told him it was Bristol and Willow Palin. “Does she think she’s Marilyn Monroe?” he said to his wife about Bristol.

Todd and Sarah were there also. Todd races in the Iron Dog. According to another witness, Palin wore platform high-tops with the American flag emblazoned on them. Track Palin was there and so was Bristol’s son, Tripp.

They had all pulled up earlier in the evening in a stretch Hummer limo. It was also Todd’s 50^th birthday.

He, along with the McKenna brothers and Klingenmeyer’s son, who was also celebrating a birthday, were brought in front of the band. Everyone sang Happy Birthday.

View East along Glen Highway toward Mount Drum (elevation 12,002 Feet) and intersection of road and Trans-Alaska Pipeline. The 48-inch diameter pipeline will cross the roadway between the two vehicles. The exact point Is marked by a pair of wooden stakes along the right shoulder. Mile 673, Alaska Pipeline Route: photo by Dennis Cowals, August 1974 (US National Archives)

It wasn’t long after that things started going horribly wrong, according to Thompson and a handful of others interviewed for this story.

Screams erupted. Profanities spewed. Fists flew. The Anchorage Police Department was called. The APD released a statement on Thursday, confirming that multiple people were involved in the fight. “However, at the time of the incident, none of the involved parties wanted to press charges and no arrests were made. However, the case is still an active investigation and is being reviewed by APD and the Municipal Prosecutors Office. Alcohol was believed to have been a factor in the incident. Some of the Palin family members were in attendance at the party,” the statement said.

As I had reported a few days ago, multiple accounts say that it started when Track confronted Willow’s former boyfriend, Conner Cleary, who was there with his father Steve and his mother Melissa. Thompson didn’t see this part, but other witnesses, who didn’t want to be named, say that Conner and Track fought on the front yard. Steve tried to break it up. Todd jumped into the mix and began to choke Steve.

After that ended, Conner, Steve, and Melissa Cleary huddled together close to Thompson, who spotted Bristol and Willow from a distance, walking straight towards them with purpose.

Sarah Palin and daughter Bristol at the MSNBC party after the White House Correspondents Dinner in 2011 (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

Sarah Palin and daughter Bristol at the MSNBC party after the White House Correspondents Association Dinner in 2011: photo by Jonathan Ernst / Reuters 2011 via Washinton Post, 12 September 2014

“They were on a b-line, coming straight at Melissa,” Thompson said.

The owner of the house, Klingenmeyer, was trying to head them off at the pass. He approached them and told them to leave. Bristol, according to Thompson and other witnesses, planted her feet, “stood straight up, brought her arm back and cold-cocked him right in the face,” Thompson said.

And then she did it again, about six more times, before he pushed her away, and she fell, and Todd appeared.

“I was thoroughly amazed at the restraint Korey showed. He’s a total gentlemen,” Thompson said.

Meanwhile in the Palin neighborhood..: image via UniteBlue on twitter, 12 September 2014

Another melee. This time Sarah got involved and began to scream profanities at everyone. One source, who didn’t want to be named, said that she was “nearly crawling on top of people,” trying to get into the scrum.

Sarah Palin News: Sarah & Family Engage In Drunken Alaska Brawl!: photo via Equality Rising!, 12 September 2014

As these things go, that also broke up, and the Palins were asked again to leave. They piled into the Hummer, but not until Track stood out in front of the house, inexplicably with his shirt off, his middle finger raised at those who were also leaving.

Then the cops came, and took statements from about 10 people, including Thompson. It’s unclear who called them. Thompson thought it was the Palins.

“It was a really nice, mellow party,” Thompson said. “Then it turned into the Jerry Springer show.”

The Palins Don't Always Display Christian Family Values: image via Frankenpublican on twitter, 12 September 2014

Hell hath no fury like a Palin family visit

via Amanda Coyne: Inside Alaska Politics...So You Don't Have To Be, 9 September 2014

Just when I was about to give up on them, the Gods of gossip came visiting this week, and as they’ve done in the past, they beckoned me to look towards Wasilla, towards the fortress of Our Lady of the North, the woman who was almost a heartbeat away from the presidency, whose family had a dramatic weekend, Wasilla style! As many of us have read, Bristol Palin was visited by a Floridian stalker on Sunday who somehow ended up on the family’s balcony. The stalker currently sits in jail. That’s pretty dramatic. But that’s the least of it. The night before, Saturday, was a doozy. The details are a little sketchy, but there’s enough of them, from enough different sources, that a story emerges, a story that according to the gossip Gods, looks kind of like this: There’s some sort of unofficial birthday/Iron Dog-type/snowmachine party in Anchorage. A nice, mellow party, until the Palins show up.

Overheard At Palin Family Riot: 'This isn't some...Hillbilly reality show!: image via The Baxter Bean on twitter, 12 September 2014

There’s beer, of course, and maybe other things. Which is all fine, but just about the time when some people might have had one too many, Track Palin stumbles out of a stretch Hummer, and immediately spots an ex-boyfriend of Willow’s. Track isn’t happy with this guy, the story goes. There’s words, and more. The owner of the house gets involved, and he probably wished he hadn’t. At this point, he’s up against nearly the whole Palin tribe: Palin women screaming. Palin men thumping their chests. Word is that Bristol has a particularly strong right hook, which she employed repeatedly, and it’s something to hear when Sarah screams, “Don’t you know who I am!” And it was particularly wonderful when someone in the crowd screamed back, “This isn’t some damned Hillbilly reality show!” No, it’s what happens when the former First Family of Alaska comes knocking. As people were leaving in a cab, Track was seen on the street, shirtless, flipping people off, with Sarah right behind him, and Todd somewhere in the foreground, tending to his bloody nose.

Everyone was was having a good ol' time before the Palins showed up: image via Emilio on twitter, 12 September 2014

Sarah Palin Talks About Killing Her Own Dinner in New Reality Show: Erin Dooley, ABC News, 4 April 2014

Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin served up some down-home Alaska charm -- and a platter of moose hot dogs and bear-meat chili -- on her new reality TV show, “Amazing America".

Hosting a television show is nothing new for the former governor, who began her career as a sportscaster for an Anchorage-area TV station and later hosted “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” on TLC.

She promises the new show, which premiered Thursday, will be “unscripted, uncensored, unchained.” One thing’s certain: Palin is straight shooter -- literally and figuratively.

Staring down the barrel: Mrs Palin aims a gun in the direction of a camera in another scene from her show

SarahPalin aims a gun in the direction of a camera in a scene from her reality show: photo by Scope Features, 11 January 2011

“I tell my kids, ‘Yes, we eat organic, we just have to go shoot it first,’” she told her first guest, DeeDee Jonrowe, a veteran Iditarod musher.

“Our meals happen to be wrapped in fur, not cellophane,” Palin said, noting she didn’t realize people actually bought meat until she attended college out-of-state.

Caribou trot across the tundra near Prudhoe Bay, where the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline will start: photo by DennisCowals, August 1973 (US National Archives)

A young female fox near Galbraith Lake Camp, along the planned route of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline: photo by DennisCowals, August 1973 (US National Archives)

Day's work done, the Parka Squirrel stands on the bank and surveys its domain, with Franklin Bluffs in background, along the planned route of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline: photo by DennisCowals, August 1973(US National Archives)

In Thursday’s double-episode premiere, the conservative politician-turned-reality-show-host hit the trail with Jonrowe and her dogs.

“I love my life!” Palin screamed as she sped across the snow.

But “Mamma Grizzly” also made sure to slip in a reference to her political celebrity.

“When I do some kind of hit on national television, and people see the background, they think it’s fake — it’s not!”

Overheard At Palin Family Riot: The words 'Do you know who I am?': image via The Baxter Bean, 12 September 2014

Sarah Palin: 'I Owe America A Global Apology': Paige Lavender, The Huffington Post, 12 September 2014

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin said she owes America a "global apology" for the 2008 GOP presidential ticket's loss to President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

During an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, Palin spoke about Obama's long-term strategy for defeating the Islamic State -- a militant group formerly known as ISIS or ISIL -- that he laid out in a speech Wednesday night.

"As I watched the speech last night, Sean, the thought going through my mind is, 'I owe America a global apology. Because John McCain, through all of this, John McCain should be our president,'" Palin said.

Poster girl for the gun debate: Sarah Palin buys a gun at a shop in Wasilla, Alaska, in a scene from her reality show, Sarah Palin's Alaska

SarahPalin buys a gun at a shop in Wasilla, Alaska, in a scene from her reality show, SarahPalin's Alaska: photo by Scope Features, 11 January 2011

Palin went on to compare the Islamic State to Hitler and questioned how seriously Obama is taking the group.

"So when Barack Obama, like the rest of us, hear these bad guys, these terrorists, promising that they will raise the flag of Allah over our White House, for the life of me I don't know why he does not take this serious, the threat. Because yes, it's more than a vision," Palin said. "They're telling -- just like Hitler did all those years ago, when a war could've been avoided, because Hitler, too, did not hide his intentions. Well ISIS, these guys aren't hiding their intentions either."

No-Lose Strategy

Sarah Palin says the strategy to deal with ISIS is we win, they lose: photo via Senator Kelli Ward on twitter, 4 September 2014

Tongue-Tied?

Sarah Palin explains all that punching people out stuff: photo via Anomaly on twitter, 12 September 2014

Getting There

Is this the stretch Hummer the Palins took to the Palin Brawl?: image via Ukiddnme? on twitter, 12 September 2014

Tipping-point

And that's when things got out of hand at the Palin Brawl..: image via Jeremy Newberger on twitter, 12 September 2014

Autocthonous Virtuosity

Musician at the Snowmobile party where the Palin Brawl broke out: image via Jeremy Newberger via twitter, 12 September 2014

And then... the pool party

More images being released from the Palin Brawl: image via Jeremy Newberger on twitter, 12 September 2014

No Comment

"Sarah Palin could not be reached for comment": image via Anomaly on twitter, 12 September 2014

Reprisal

Eyewitness lost job after saying on TV Sarah Palin family brawl was like ‘Jerry Springer': image via Equality Rising! on twitter, 12 September 2014

Support

Photo of Sarah Palin together with Matt McKenna, who fired employee Eric Thompson for speaking out about the Palin Brawl: image via Politicalgate Blog, 12 September 2014

Wired

Is Sarah Palin still drunk from that kegger brawl?: ‘I owe America a global apology...': image via I.M. Important on twitter, 12 September 2014

Beyond Scary

Sarah Palin and family involved in Alaska house party brawl, police investigating: photo via ABC7 News on twitter, 12 September 2014

Documentary

The only known picture of the THRILLAH IN WASILLA! Thinking of sending it to TMZ: image via Snarcasm on twitter, 11 September 2014

War of the Worlds

File photo of Brick Palin at the Palin Brawl: image via GDF on twitter, 11 September 2014

↧

Dennis Cowals: Before the Pipeline (Near the End of the Dreamtime)

September 14, 2014, 3:13 am

≫ Next: An End to Empire

≪ Previous: Palintology: Final Words

Caribou trot across the tundra, near Prudhoe Bay where the Trans-Alaska pipeline will start

Leaped at the caribou.
My son looked at the caribou.
.

We are looking

at the caribous out in the water

swimming around.
.

Caribou, what have I
done?

Joseph Ceravolo (1934-1968): from Ho Ho Ho Caribou, in The Paris Review #44, Fall 1968; reprinted in Spring in This World Of Poor Mutts, 1968

Young bull caribou crosses gravel roadway near Mile O

Caribou feed near the Sagavanirktok River. The pipeline will follow the Sag River south some 110 miles.

Caribou graze near the Sagavanirktok River, eight miles east of the north slope site where the Alaska Pipeline will start. The pipeline will follow the Sag River south for the first 110 miles. Gravel from riverbeds will be used for pipeline bed and road.

Caribou in "Alaska Cotton", a plant found in marshy areas along the entire 789-mile route of the pipeline

"Alaska Cotton", found in marshy areas along the entire 789-mile route of the pipeline

Caribou feeding on lichens and moss. The bird is an Alaskan Raven.

Wading shore bird searches out insects in pond. Near Mile 0, Alaska pipeline route.

A young female fox near Galbraith Lake Camp, along the planned route of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline

Young female fox near Galbraith Lake Camp

Day's work done, the Parka Squirrel stands on the bank and surveys its domain, with Franklin Bluffs in background, along the planned route of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline

A Parka Squirrel, or "Siksikpuk". The Eskimos make their warmest winter parkas from the pelts of the Parka Squirrel

This Parka Squirrel is gathering green grasses to eat during the 9-month winter

Emerging from its hole, this Parka Squirrel takes a look around for predators -- anything bigger than itself

A Parka Squirrel in the tundra

This Parka Squirrel makes its home among the boulders at the foot of Worthington Glacier. Mile 757, near the Trans-Alaska pipeline route

A pair of young rams, 3-5 years old, descend the west salt lick in Atigun Gorge, four miles from the point where the pipeline will cross the Atigun River

A pair of young rams, 3-5 years old, at the west salt lick in Atigun Gorge, four miles from the point where the pipeline will cross the Atigun River

Young sheep on its way to the west salt lick in Atigun Gorge, four miles from the point where the pipeline will cross the Atigun River

Bolder than its companions, this mountain sheep decided to investigate photographer Dennis Cowals. Photo taken on a bluff above the west salt lick in Atigun Gorge.

Two young sheep cross a hillside on the south side of the Atigun Gorge

A young ram, not yet mature enough to be hunted because he lacks a full 3/4 curl to his horns, approaches a salt lick. Grit and dirt on the high rock ledges have stained his coat a pinkish brown

An adolescent ram struts proudly, showing off before the young females at the west salt lick In Atigun Gorge

A young ram at the west salt lick in Atigun Gorge, near the point where the pipeline will cross the Atigun River

Butt where It itches; this young ram scratches his itching horns on a Dwarf Alder (about 4 miles east of the designated pipeline crossing in the Atigun Gorge)

Two young rams nibbling on a Dwarf Alder 4 miles east of the designated pipeline crossing in the Atigun Gorge

Three young Dall Sheep at the west salt lick in the Atigun Gorge, four miles from the point where the pipeline will cross the Atigun River

Wolf tracks along the shore of a lake near Mile 101. Pump Station 14 will be built atop the hill overlooking this lake. View southeast from north shoreline.

A wolf-chewed caribou thigh bone in the center of the Atigun Valley. View east toward Peak 5430

Atigun Valley. View east toward Peak 5430

Silver-white Wolfin the Atigun Valley. Wolves are found in isolated areas along the entire pipeline route. Being territorial they generally remain within their own valley systems unless the migratory passage of caribou and the need for food take them elsewhere.

White female wolf (Canis lupus) in the Atigun Valley, Alaska. This wolf dens in the riverbank of the Atigun inside the main valley about five miles south of Galbraith Camp. She roams at least twenty miles a day in search of food, from the main valley den into the gorge and then back to the valley proper.

Photos by Dennis Cowals (1945-) for the Environmental Protection Agency Project DOCUMERICA, August 1973 (US National Archives)

↧

An End to Empire

September 17, 2014, 5:26 pm

≫ Next: Better Together?

≪ Previous: Dennis Cowals: Before the Pipeline (Near the End of the Dreamtime)

"I didnae ken!": A Scotsmanbeinghit by a pie: Adam Cuerden, 2008

Jesus: But Father you have created this wondrous land with beautiful scenery and natural wonders, why are you so generous to these people?

God: Yes my Son! But wait until you see the Neighbours I am giving them!

william the wallace, 15 March 2006

THURSDAY'S THE TIMES WRAP: Funny you'd think it was a UK referendum -- and they wonder why we want to leave!!!: image via Scotland @Independent_SCO on twitter, 18 September 2014

Q. What do you have when 100 English football fans are buried up to their necks in sand?

A. Not enough sand.

BarryOuski, 22 February 2005

Four Catalonian firefighters drove over 1,500 miles to show support for #indyref 'Yes' vote: image via Scotland @Independent_SCO on twitter, 18 September 2014

An American is on 'vacation' in the UK and is touring famous Cathedrals and churches. In London, he visits Westminster Abbey and sees a golden telephone with a sign advertising 'calls to God, £1000'.

In York, he visits York Minster and sees the same golden telephone with the same sign advertising 'calls to God, £1000'.

In Edinburgh, he visits St Giles and again sees the same golden telephone, but this time the sign reads 'calls to God, 10p'.

Surprised, he seeks out a member of the clergy and asks,

'Minister, in Westminster Abbey and York Minster I have seen this golden telephone and calls to God advertised at £1000, yet here the price is only 10p! Why is that?'

The Minister replies 'Ah, you are in Scotland now. It's a local call!'

Ewan Carmichael, 10 October 2006

Oh come on, are there this many people in Scotland? So many pics! :D George Square from above: image via HIGHLAND SNP @HighlandSNP on twitter, 18 September 2014

Bad news for the Empire as their troops begin to join the rebellion: image via James Doleman @jamesdoleman on twitter, 18 September 2014

Glasgow now. Don't tell the Daily Mail: photo image via One @RetroScot on twitter, 18 September 2014

Fantastic Nation East of Ireland and South of Norway of Haggis Munching Commando Bollocked Handsome Devils.

Natural Enemies of The Sassenachs English, we live in an uneasy truce for now, called The United Kingdom on the island of Great Britain.

But that will change shortly when we decide to become independent again.

Hamish Bond, 7 June 2006

Huge support for @YesScotland in Galashiels tonight!l: photo image via Yes Scottish Borders @YesScotBorders on twitter, 18 September 2014

On the Brink

DAILY EXPRESS FRONT PAGE THURS 18 SEPT: GREAT BRITAIN ON THE BRINK YES: image via Scotland @Independent_SCO on twitter, 18 September 2014

Invasion of the Giant Spiders

DON'T WORRY PEOPLE -- IT'S NOT THE LATEST PROJECT FEAR HEADLINE -- just a run of the mill Daily Star Front Page :-): image via YES Scotland @Independent_SCO on twitter, 17 September 2014

Beware of Sheep

Beware of sheep. They seem innocent enough to me in this field near Chatto. This old RAC sign is by the minor road from Hownam. An identical sign is by the road to Sourhope, southwest of Attonburn:photo by Walter Baxter, 13 May 2009

File:A new arrival at Henderland - geograph.org.uk - 1249901.jpg

A new arrival at Henderland. A new born lamb gets a look of approval from mum in a field at Henderland Farm: photo by Walter Baxter, 13 April 2009

File:Sheep at Chester Knowe near Gattonside - geograph.org.uk - 241851.jpg

Sheep at Chester Knowe near Gattonside. Sheep normally run away when approached, but this lot came rushing up expecting to be fed and stayed around for a while: photo by Walter Baxter, 17 September 2006

File:A horseshoe of sheep - geograph.org.uk - 1762772.jpg

A horseshoe of sheep. To the northwest of Redheugh Farm where the farmer has made a feed delivery in this field by the east coast: photo by Walter Baxter, 19 March 2010

File:Sheep in the mist - geograph.org.uk - 657204.jpg

Sheep in the mist. Brightly marked sheep viewed from the Southern Upland Way in misty conditions: photo by Walter Baxter, 12 January 2008

Let the sun set

THURSDAY'S DAILY EXPRESS SCOTLAND EDITION: "Don't let the sun set on our union': image via Scotland @Independent_SCO on twitter, 18 September 2014

Jilted

DAILY MIRROR FRONT PAGE: Thurs 18 Sept, 14: image via Scotland @Independent_SCO on twitter, 18 September 2014

Stone and Water

The Battle of Culloden: David Morier, 1746

"He would not allow Scotland to derive any credit from Lord Mansfield; for he was educated in England. 'Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be *caught* young.'"
"Mr. Arthur Lee mentioned some Scotch who had taken possession of a barren part of America, and wondered why they would choose it. Johnson:'Why, Sir, all barrenness is comparative. The *Scotch* would not know it to be barren.'"

"Your country consists of two things, stone and water. There is, indeed, a little earth above the stone in some places, but a very little; and the stone is always appearing. It is like a man in rags; the naked skin is still peeping out."

"What enemy would invade Scotland, where there is nothing to be got?"

"Knowledge was divided among the Scots, like bread in a besieged town, to every man a mouthful, to no man a bellyful."

"Asked by a Scot what Johnson thought of Scotland: 'That it is a very vile country, to be sure, Sir''Well, Sir! (replies the Scot, somewhat mortified), God made it.'Johnson:'Certainly he did; but we must always remember that he made it for Scotchmen.'"

from James Boswell: The Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791

Heriot's Hospital, Edinburgh: Joseph William Mallord Turner, c. 1819 (National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/St-Kildans.jpg

Inhabitants of St. Kildans sitting on the village street: photographer unknown, 1886 (National Trust of Scotland)

Thanks for Sharing

DAILY MIRROR -- May we respectfully suggest you change the hashtag to #madeyouboak: Six Shades of Condescending: image via YES Scotland @Independent_SCO on twitter, 17 September 2014

"Gonnee put that tit away. Yer givin' me the boak" -- Burney Nesbitt.

World of Weird, 10 July 2003

Empire: The 11th Hour

VOTE NO/SUPPORT FASCIST NAZIS ON THE STREETS OF SCOTLAND -- JUST LIKE TONIGHT IN GLASGOW: image via YES Scotland @Independent_SCO on twitter, 18 September 2014

The sunset

Fields at sunset, Langholm, Dumfriesshire, Scotland: photo by Bug in Box, 10 October 2009

↧

Better Together?

September 19, 2014, 3:17 am

≫ Next: I Scare Myself: Marguerite Yourcenar: Exploring the Dark Brain of Piranesi's Prisons

≪ Previous: An End to Empire

Fife is NO, taking Better Together over the line It’s official: Scotland REJECTS independence: photo via Yahoo UK News @YahooNewsUK on twitter, 19 September 2014

Breaking Down the Analytics

Breakin down the analytics ay the fuckin referendum: image via Francis Begbie @Franco__Begbie on twitter, 19 September 2014

WELL THAT WIS A FUCKIN WASTE AY TIME. SHITEIN CUNTS.

12:43 AM - 19 Sep 2014

tweep via Francis Begbie @Franco__Begbie on twitter, 19 September 2014

Come play with us, Scotland: image via Francis Begbie @Franco__Begbie on twitter, 19 September 2014

Vote Yes!: tweep via Irvine Welsh Quotes @WelshQuotations on twitter, 7 September 2014

Breaking News: Twits in Colonies Butt-Kiss Fossil Empire Again!

The #uk survives! #better together :-): image via John Walpole @JWalpole on twitter, 19 September 2014

Congratulations, Your Majesty. The union has been maintained. Hopefully forever: image via Terry M. Corcoracn @CorcoranNYC on twitter, 19 September 2014

Andrew Marvell: A Pict Kickabout, Early Doors (Post-Eikonoklastic)

Oliver Cromwell's face (statue outside Guildhall Art Gallery, London): photo by Garry Knight, 2006

The Pict no shelter now shall find

Within his party-colour'd Mind;

..But from this Valour sad

..Shrink underneath the Plad:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Oliver_Cromwell_by_Robert_Walker.jpg

Oliver Cromwell: Robert Walker (d. 1658), n.d. (National Portrait Gallery, London; image by Coetzee, 2009)

Happy if in the tufted brake

The English Hunter him mistake;

..Nor lay his Hounds in near

..The Caledonian Deer.

File:Cromwell at Dunbar Andrew Carrick Gow.jpg

Cromwell at Dunbar, 3 September 1650: Andrew Carrick Gow, c. 1866

But thou the Wars and Fortunes Son

March indefatigably on;

..And for the last effect

..Still keep thy Sword erect:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Oliver_Cromwell_by_Samuel_Cooper.jpg

Oliver Cromwell: Samuel Cooper (d. 1672), n.d. (National Portrait Gallery, London; image by Coetzee, 2009)

Besides the Force it has to fright

The Spirits of the shady Night,

..The same Arts that did gain

..A Pow'r must it maintain.

Oliver Cromwell's death mask, Warwick Castle: photo by Chris Nyborg, 2006

Andrew Marvell: from An Horatian Ode upon Cromwel's Return from Ireland, 1650

Dougie Wallace: Better Together??

Dougie Wallace: from Stags, Hens and Bunnies: A Blackpool Story (September 2011-November 2013), Dewi Lews Media, July 2014

Better Together: a Triumphalist twerpgasm

Rule Britannia: image via Will @W_E_H_Barker on twitter, 19 September 2014

Rule Britannia!! Well done Scotland!: image via Alex Mitchell Will @AlexRM on twitter, 19 September 2014

Its over. No going back now. We're in it together. United under one flag, the way it should be. Rule Britannia: image via Jack Forsyth @JackForsy on twitter, 19 September 2014

It's official the people of Scotland have spoken and they have said Rule Britannia: image via Derek McMonies @DerekMcmonies on twitter, 19 September 2014

Rule Britannia. Our great nation must stick together. In times of need we come together: image via J @RTM_LOYAL on twitter, 19 September 2014

Rule Britannia: image via Toby Maxtone-Smith @TRMaxtoneSmith on twitter, 19 September 2014

Same country Tommy one Britain. Rule Britannia: image via LordC4rson @LordC4rson on twitter, 19 September 2014

This is me driving down the M8. Congratulations. Rule Britannia. God save the queen: image via FT Toker@westbenhar on twitter, 19 September 2014

Rule Britannia!: image via markus @webbounited on twitter, 19 September 2014

Rule Britannia!! Well done Scotland!: image via Alex Mitchell Will @AlexRM on twitter, 19 September 2014

Rule Britannia: image via Phineas Fahrquar @irishspy on twitter, 19 September 2014

Thank Christ for that!!!! Great news this morning: image via Carl 'Bones' Evans @gasgasbones on twitter. 19 September 2014

hurrah!: via Johanna in Central Luzon, Republic of the Philippines @ducheeofsass on twitter, 19 September 2014

It's official the people of Scotland have spoken and they have said Rule Britannia: image via Matthew j Morgan @MattJMorgan89 on twitter, 19 September 2014

Rule Britannia! Sorry aboot that like: image via James Hardie @JHardie7 on twitter, 19 September 2014

↧

I Scare Myself: Marguerite Yourcenar: Exploring the Dark Brain of Piranesi's Prisons

September 21, 2014, 3:29 am

≫ Next: Robinson Jeffers: De Rerum Virtute

≪ Previous: Better Together?

Invenzione Caprice di Carceri (Imaginary Prisons) (plate VII): Giovanni Battista Piranesi, c. 1760, etching, 545 x 415 mm

Let us consider these Prisons, then, which with Goya's Black Paintings are one of the most secret works bequeathed us by a man of the eighteenth century. First of all, what we are shown here is a dream. No connoisseur of oneiric matters will hesitate a moment in presence of these drawings evincing all the chief characteristics of the dream state: negation of time, incoherence of space, suggested levitation, intoxication of the impossible reconciled or transcended, terror closer to ecstasy than is assumed by those who analyze the visionary's creations from outside, absence of visible contact between the dream's path or characters, and finally a fatal and necessary beauty. Next, and to give the Baudelairean formula its most concrete meaning, it is a dream of stone: powerfully hewn stone, set in place by human hands, constitutes visually the sole substance of the Prisons, with an occasional wooden rafter, iron jack, or chain; contrary to the program of the Views and Antiquities, here stone, iron and wood have ceased being elemental substances -- they now become no more than a constituent part of the edifice with no relation to the life of things. Animal and plant are eliminated from these interiors where only human logic or human madness rules; no trace of moss touches these bare walls. The natural elements are absent or narrowly subjugated; earth appears nowhere, covered over by tiles or indestructible pavings; air does not circulate -- no puff of wind, in Plate VIII, animates the frayed silk of the flags; a perfect immobility reigns in these great closed spaces. At the very bottom of Plate IX, a fountain rim on which a woman is leaning (and both figure and object seem to come out of the Views of Rome) is the only sign of water's presence in this petrified world. In several plates, though, fire is present; smoke rises from a cauldron strangely set on the brink of the void at a cornice's jutting edge, suggesting an executioner's brazier or a magician's crucible. In reality, it seems Piranesi chiefly delights in setting the smoke's pale and shapeless ascent against the verticality of the stones. Nor does time move any more than air; the perpetual chiaroscuro excludes the very notion of the hour, and the dreadful solidity of the structure defies the erosion of the centuries. When Piranesi could not help introducing into these buildings a rotting beam or a noble patch of ancient wall, he sets it, like a precious jewel, in the midst of some timeless masonry. Finally, this void is sonorous: each Prison is conceived as an Ear of Dionysus. Just as in the Antiquitiesone heard the faint echo of an aeolian harp in the ruins, the rustling of the wind in the weeds and rushes, here the roused sense of hearing perceives a formidable silence in which the lightest footstep, the faintest sigh of the frail and diminutive strollers lost in these aerial galleries would echo from one end of the enormous structures to the other. Nowhere sheltered from sound, one is nowhere sheltered from sight either, in these hollow, apparently vacated chambers linked by stairs and gratings to other invisible chambers, and this sense of total exposure, total insecurity, perhaps contributes more than all else to making these fantastic palaces into prisons.

Invenzione Caprice di Carceri (Imaginary Prisons) (plate IV): Giovanni Battista Piranesi, c. 1760, etching, 54.5 x 41.5 cm

The irrational world of the Prisons dizzies not from its lack of measurement (for never was Piranesi more of a geometrician) but from the very multiplicity of calculations which we know to be exact and which bear on proportions which we know to be false. For these figures high on a gallery at the back of the hall to have such infinitesimal dimensions, this balcony, which is extended by still more inaccessible cornices, would have to be separated from us by hours of walking, and this discrepancy, which suffices to prove that this somber palace is only a dream, fills us with an anguish analogous to that of an inchworm trying to measure the walls of a cathedral. Often the arch of a vault in the upper part of the image conceals the top steps of a staircase or the end of a ladder, suggesting heights still loftier than those of the steps and rungs visible; the hint of another staircase plunging lower than the level on which we are standing warns that this abyss is also to be extended beyond the plate's lower margin; the suggestion grows even more specific when a lantern hung almost on a level with the same margin confirms the hypothesis of invisible black depths below. Moreover, the artist succeeds in convincing us that this disproportionate hall is hermetically sealed, even on the face of the cube we never see because it is behind us. In the rare cases (Plates II, IV and IX) where an inaccessible opening gives onto an exterior itself imprisoned by walls, this sort of trompe l'oeil merely aggravates the nightmare of closed space in the center of the image. The impossibility of discerning any overall plan adds another element to the discomfort inspired by the Prisons; we almost never have the impression of being in the main axis of the structure, but only on a vectorial branch; the preference of the Baroque for diagonal perspectives inevitably gives us the feeling we exist in an asymmetrical universe. But this world without a center is at the same time infinitely expansible. Behind these halls with their barred bull's-eyes, we suspect there are other halls just like them, deduced or deducible in every direction. The frail catwalks, the drawbridges in midair which almost everywhere double the galleries and the stone staircases, seem to correspond to the same desire to hurl into space all possible curves and parallels. This world closed over itself is mathematically infinite.

Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-1987): from The Dark Brain of Piranesi, translated by Richard Howard in collaboration with the author, in The Dark Brain of Piranesi and Other Essays(original Sous Bénéfice d'Inventaire), 1984

Prisoners on a Projecting Platform: Giovanni Battista Piranesi, c. 1749-1760, etching and engraving (first state of two) (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

Round Tower: Giovanni Battista Piranesi, 1749-1750, etching and engraving (first state of six) (The Hermitage, St. Petersburg)

Carceri d'Invenzione: Giovanni Battista Piranesi, 1749-1750, engraving

Self-Portrait: Giovanni Battista Piranesi, engraving

Prisoners on a Projecting Platform: Giovanni Battista Piranesi, c. 1749-1760, etching and engraving (first state of two) (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

↧

Robinson Jeffers: De Rerum Virtute

September 23, 2014, 12:57 am

≫ Next: Mahmoud Darwish: Think of Others

≪ Previous: I Scare Myself: Marguerite Yourcenar: Exploring the Dark Brain of Piranesi's Prisons

This magnificent blue iceberg was shot from a ship off the South Sandwich Islands in Antarctica. It’s a cathedral of ancient ice, with a little group of Adélie penguins and a prion perfectly positioned overhead. To catch the moment and frame it perfectly reveals skill, in this case, of a photographer in love with ice: photo by Cherry Alexander, 1995, from 50 Years of Wildlife Photographer of the Year: How Wildlife Photography Became Art,edited by Rosamund Kidman Cox (Natural History Museum, 2014) via The Guardian, 17 September 2014

I.
Here is the skull of a man: a man’s thoughts and emotions
Have moved under the thin bone vault like clouds
Under the blue one: love and desire and pain,
Thunderclouds of wrath and white gales of fear
Have hung inside here: and sometimes the curious desire of knowing
Values and purpose and the causes of things
Has coasted like a little observer air-plane over the images
That filled this mind: it never discovered much,
And now all’s empty, a bone bubble, a blown-out eggshell.

The elephants are obviously relaxed, but also they are perfectly composed and almost perfectly still -– hardly a ripple in the water. They all appear to be meditatively watching the heron walking slowly in front of them, looking for fish they might disturb when drinking: photo by Angie Scott, 2002, from 50 Years of Wildlife Photographer of the Year: How Wildlife Photography Became Art, edited by Rosamund Kidman Cox (Natural History Museum, 2014) via The Guardian, 17 September 2014

II.
That’s what it’s like: for the egg too has a mind,
Doing what our able chemists will never do,
Building the body of a hatchling, choosing among the proteins:
These for the young wing-muscles, these for the great
Crystalline eyes, these for the flighty nerves and brain:
Choosing and forming: a limited but superhuman intelligence,
Prophetic of the future and aware of the past:
The hawk’s egg will make a hawk, and the serpent’s
A gliding serpent: but each with a little difference
From its ancestors—and slowly, if it works, the race
Forms a new race: that also is a part of the plan
Within the egg. I believe the first living cell
Had echoes of the future in it, and felt
Direction and the great animals, the deep green forest
And whale’s-track sea; I believe this globed earth
Not all by chance and fortune brings forth her broods,
But feels and chooses. And the Galaxy, the firewheel
On which we are pinned, the whirlwind of stars in which our sun is one dust-grain, one electron, this giant atom of the universe
Is not blind force, but fulfils its life and intends its courses. “All things are full of God.
Winter and summer, day and night, war and peace are God.”

Two bronze whalers (copper sharks), their mouths stuffed with fish, burst out of the swirling mass of sardines. The predator feeding frenzy accompanies the annual sardine migration off the east coast of South Africa: photo by Doug Perrine, 2004, from 50 Years of Wildlife Photographer of the Year: How Wildlife Photography Became Art, edited by Rosamund Kidman Cox (Natural History Museum, 2014) via The Guardian, 17 September 2014

III.
Thus the thing stands; the labor and the games go on—
What for? What for? —Am I a God that I should know?
Men live in peace and happiness; men live in horror
And die howling. Do you think the blithe sun
Is ignorant that black waste and beggarly blindness trail him like hounds,
And will have him at last? He will be strangled
Among his dead satellites, remembering magnificence.

On the frozen Lake Kussharo, on Hokkaido, Japan, a population of whooper swans (Cygnus cygnus) gathers around the lake in winter, migrating there to take advantage of areas of open water kept ice-free by hot springs: photo by Stefano Unterthiner, 2011, from 50 Years of Wildlife Photographer of the Year: How Wildlife Photography Became Art, edited by Rosamund Kidman Cox (Natural History Museum, 2014) via The Guardian, 17 September 2014

IV.
I stand on the cliff at Sovranes creek-mouth.
Westward beyond the raging water and the bent shoulder of the world
The bitter futile war in Korea proceeds, like an idiot
Prophesying. It is too hot in mind
For anyone, except God perhaps, to see beauty in it. Indeed it is hard to see beauty
In any of the acts of man: but that means the acts of a sick microbe
On a satellite of a dust-grain twirled in a whirlwind
In the world of stars ....
Something perhaps may come of him; in any event
He can’t last long. —Well: I am short of patience
Since my wife died ... and this era of spite and hate-filled half-worlds
Gets to the bone. I believe that man too is beautiful,
But it is hard to see, and wrapped up in falsehoods. Michael Angelo and the Greek sculptors—
How they flattered the race! Homer and Shakespeare—
How they flattered the race!

Narwhals in sea ice, shot from an ultralight plane on floats in the Arctic Bay of Baffin Island. It took six weeks and a series of disasters before the moment when a group of males was seen taking a breather within a teardrop area of water surrounded by a pattern of melting ice: photo by Paul Nicklen, 2007, from 50 Years of Wildlife Photographer of the Year: How Wildlife Photography Became Art, edited by Rosamund Kidman Cox (Natural History Museum, 2014) via The Guardian, 17 September 2014

V.
One light is left us: the beauty of things, not men;
The immense beauty of the world, not the human world.
Look—and without imagination, desire nor dream—directly
At the mountains and sea. Are they not beautiful?
These plunging promontories and flame-shaped peaks
Stopping the sombre stupendous glory, the storm-fed ocean? Look at the Lobos Rocks off the shore,
With foam flying at their flanks, and the long sea-lions
Couching on them. Look at the gulls on the cliff wind,
And the soaring hawk under the cloud-stream—
But in the sage-brush desert, all one sun-stricken
Color of dust, or in the reeking tropical rain-forest,
Or in the intolerant north and high thrones of ice—is the earth not beautiful?
Nor the great skies over the earth?
The beauty of things means virtue and value in them.
It is in the beholder’s eye, not the world? Certainly.
It is the human mind’s translation of the transhuman
Intrinsic glory. It means that the world is sound,
Whatever the sick microbe does. But he too is part of it.

Robinson Jeffers: (1887-1962): De Rerum Virtute, from Hungerfield and Other Poems, 1954

One of the last great wildlife spectacles to be seen in northern Europe is the winter evening gathering of hundreds of thousands of starlings over their roost sights. Here the stage is Gretna Green in Scotland, the swooping, swirling flock boosted by huge numbers of wintering starlings from Scandinavia: photo by Danny Green, 2009, from 50 Years of Wildlife Photographer of the Year: How Wildlife Photography Became Art, edited by Rosamund Kidman Cox (Natural History Museum, 2014) via The Guardian, 17 September 2014

The Helix Nebula (NGC 7293). Resembling a giant eye looking across 700 light years of space, the Helix Nebula is one of the closest planetary nebulae to Earth: photo by David Fitz-Henry, 2014(via The Guardian, 18 September 2014)

↧

Mahmoud Darwish: Think of Others

September 24, 2014, 3:25 pm

≫ Next: Marwan Ali: Train / Ahmed Ashraf: The Iron Way

≪ Previous: Robinson Jeffers: De Rerum Virtute

The Red Sea. Guided-missile destroyer USS Arleigh Burke launches a Tomahawk cruise missile, as the US and allied forces began air strikes against Islamic State militants in Syrian territory: photo by Carlos M. Vazquez/US Navy/EPA via The Guardian, 23 September 2014

Mahmoud Darwish: Think of Others … فكِّر بغيركَ

As you prepare your breakfast, think of others.
Don’t forget to feed the pigeons.
As you conduct your wars, think of others.
Don’t forget those who want peace.
As you pay your water bill, think of others.
Think of those who only have clouds to drink from.
As you go home, your own home, think of others
don’t forget those who live in tents.
As you sleep and count the planets, think of others
there are people who have no place to sleep.
As you liberate yourself with metaphors think of others
those who have lost their right to speak.
And as you think of distant others
think of yourself and say
“I wish I were a candle in the darkness.”

وأنتَ تُعِدُّ فطورك، فكِّر بغيركَ
لا تَنْسَ قوتَ الحمام
وأنتَ تخوضُ حروبكَ، فكِّر بغيركَ
لا تنس مَنْ يطلبون السلام
وأنتَ تسدد فاتورةَ الماء، فكِّر بغيركَ
مَنْ يرضَعُون الغمامٍ
وأنتَ تعودُ إلى البيت، بيتكَ، فكِّر بغيركَ
لا تنس شعب الخيامْ
وأنت تنام وتُحصي الكواكبَ، فكِّر بغيركَ
ثمّةَ مَنْ لم يجد حيّزاً للمنام
وأنت تحرّر نفسك بالاستعارات، فكِّر بغيركَ
مَنْ فقدوا حقَّهم في الكلام
وأنت تفكر بالآخرين البعيدين، فكِّر بنفسك
قُلْ: ليتني شمعةُ في الظلام

Mahmoud Darwish (13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008): Think of Others, 2005: translation via TheSemiClassicalLimit, 10 August 2012

Suruc, Turkey. Thousands of Syrian refugees, mostly tired and devastated, enter Turkey at Yumurtalik crossing gate. Over 200,000 people fleeing the Islamic State militant advance on Kobani, Syria have arrived in the last four days: photo by Burhan Ozbilici/AP via The Guardian, 24 September 2014

Sanliurfa, Turkey. A Kurdish woman runs away from a water cannon near the Syrian border after Turkish authorities temporarily closed the border near Suruc: photo by Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images via The Guardian, 22 September 2014

Suruc, Turkey.Turkish soldiers stand guard as Syrian refugees wait behind the border fences near the southeastern town of Suruc: photo by Stringer/Turkey/Reuters via The Guardian 17 September 2014

Mahmoud Darwish: Think of Others … فكِّر بغيركَ

while preparing your breakfast,
think of others
don’t forget the aliment of the doves

and while you are going to war,
think of others
don’t forget those seeking peace

and as you pay your water bill,
think of others
those who drink the clouds

and while you are returning home,
your home,
think of others
don’t forget the people of the tents

and as you sleep and count the stars,
think of others
those who don’t have a space to sleep

and as you liberate yourself with metaphors,
think of others
those who have lost their rights to speak

and while you are thinking of others far away,
think of yourself
and say: I wish I was a candle in the dark

Mahmoud Darwish (13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008): Think of Others, 2005: translation by Fayeq Oweis via oweis, 8 September 2010

New Delhi, India. A homeless man takes a morning bath in the old city area: photo by Bernat Armangue/AP via The Guardian, 22 September 2014

Marikina city, Philippines. Residents wade through floodwater brought by Typhoon Fung-Wong. The tropical storm has triggered widespread floods in and around the Philippine capital: photo by Francis R. Malasig/EPA via The Guardian, 19 September 2014

Manila, Philippines. A boy stands in a window overlooking burnt houses following a fire near the international airport in Pasay city. Over a hundred families were left homeless after a blaze that destroyed shanties: photo by Francis R. Malasig/EPA via the Guardian, 16 September 2014

Lagos, Nigeria. Muslim women on route to Mecca undergo health checks for the ebola virus at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos: photo by Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via The Guardian 17 September 2014

Islamabad, Pakistan. A displaced teenager sleeps outdoors to escape the heat in his home: photo by Muhammed Muheisen/AP via The Guardian, 22 September 2014

Mahmoud Darwish: Think upon Others

قصيدة محمود درويش

فكّر بغيرك

وأنت تُعدُّ فطورك، فكر بغيركَ
لا تَنْسَ قوتَ الحمام
وأنتَ تخوضُ حروبكَ، فكَر بغيركَ
لا تنس مَنْ يطلبون السلام

وأنتَ تسدد فاتورةَ الماء، فكَّر بغيركَ
مَنْ يرضَعُون الغمامٍ
وأنتَ تعودُ إلى البيت، بيتكَ، فكَّر بغيركَ
لا تنس شعب الخيامَ

وأنت تنام وتُحصي الكواكبَ، فكرِّ بغيركَ
ثمَّةَ مَنْ لم يجد حيّزاً للمنام
وأنت تحرّر نفسك بالاستعارات، فكَّر بغيركَ
مَنْ فقدوا حقَهم بالكلام

وأنت تفكر بالآخرين البعيدين، فكِّر بنفسكَ
قُل: ليتني شمعة في الظلام

____________________________________________________________________

When you prepare your breakfast, think upon others

Do not forget to feed the pigeons

When you engage in your wars, think upon others

Do not forget to demand peace

As you pay your water bill, think upon others!

Who seek sustenance from the clouds, not a tap

And when you return to a house -– your house -– think upon others

Such as those who live in tents

When you fall asleep counting sheep (planets), think upon others

Who cannot find a space for sleeping

And as you search for meaning with fancy metaphors, think upon others

Who have lost their right to words

And while you think of faraway others, think of yourself

And say: I am a candle to this darkness

Mahmoud Darwish (13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008): Think of Others, 2005: translation by Hamish Kinnear via The Edinburgh Arab Initiative, 12 February 2012

Kabul, Afghanistan. A displaced girl from Helmand Province stands outside an adobe house: photo by Xinhua/Landov/Barcroft Media via The Guardian, 19 September 2014

Jerusalem. A Bedouin boy herds sheep in the West Bank village of Al-Eizariya: photo by Ammar Awad/Reuters via The Guardian, 19 September 2014

Gaza City. Young Palestinian students at their school, which was damaged during the recent conflict with Israel, on the second day of the school year: photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via the Guardian, 16 September 2014

Hebron, West Bank. People gather at the site where Israeli troops shot dead Palestinians Marwan Kawasme and Amar Abu Aysha. The Israeli military said they were Hamas members responsible for killing three Israeli youths in June: photo by Ammar Awad/Reuters via The Guardian, 23 September 2014

↧

Marwan Ali: Train / Ahmed Ashraf: The Iron Way

September 27, 2014, 12:18 am

≫ Next: Marwan Ali: Translation

≪ Previous: Mahmoud Darwish: Think of Others

Cairo's train station, built in 1853, is the most important station in Egypt: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014

Whenever the train
goes by your house
it looks back.
That, in spite of the long journey
is the secret of the passengers’ joy.

Waiting for the absent train: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014

Untitled: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014

Life in the train stations moves fast: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014

Banha station, the city before Cairo: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014

'Your ticket, please.': photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014

The train is the only method of transport for people from the south going to Cairo and the delta cities: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014
.

Traveling from the village to the city: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014

Commuting to work outside Cairo: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014

The train's bathroom is not adequate for human use, so it has became a place to sit instead: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014

Those riding without paying resort to sitting between train cars or above them: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014

Commuting to work outside Cairo: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014

Untitled: photo by Ahmed Ashraf

At the back of the train: photo by Ahmed Ashraf from The Iron Way via Jadaliyya, 18 June 2014

Marwan Ali was born in 1968 in Qamishle, Syria. Since 1999, he has published his poetry in several Arab magazines and newspapers. He has published two collections of poetry. He left Syria for Holland in 1996 and now lives in Essen, Germany. His poem Train appears as a supplement to a selection of his work in Banipal 50: Prison Writing, 2014.

Ahmed Ashraf Is an Independent self-taught photographer from Egypt. He has documented events of the Egyptian Revolution, "but quickly realized that documentary photography suited me better... after that i was very Interested in working on personal documentary projects" His work has been published in Time Magazine, The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Telegraph, Boston Globe, New York Daily News, Associated Press, The Guardian, Le Monde, EPA and NurPhoto.

Ahmed Ashraf dedicates his Iron Way portfolio "to the soul of Youssef Chahine,"director of the 1958 Egyptian film classic Cairo Station.

↧

Marwan Ali: Translation

September 28, 2014, 11:35 am

≫ Next: Ideology #2: With Respect

≪ Previous: Marwan Ali: Train / Ahmed Ashraf: The Iron Way

Mr. Barack Obama Just look at this picture: photo via Marwan Ali @Marwan68 on twitter, 7 May 2014

You:

another reason for the Dutch translator’s passion to translate my poems. He got confused like the rest of them and translated the poems back into Arabic.

Marwan Ali (Syrian, b. 1968): Translation, translated by Raphael Cohen in a supplement to Banipal 50: Prison Writing, 2014

Mr. Barack Obama Just look at this picture: photo via Marwan Ali @Marwan68 on twitter, 7 May 2014

↧

Ideology #2: With Respect

September 30, 2014, 1:43 am

≫ Next: Beneath the Great World's Notice and Lost to History

≪ Previous: Marwan Ali: Translation

New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter warms up Thursday night: photo by Kathy Willens/AP via Chicago Sun-Times, 26 September 2014

Netanyahu uses Derek Jeter analogy while talking about terrorism

Chad Merda/AP via Chicago Sun-Times, 29 September 2014

UNITED NATIONS — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the United Nations General Assembly Monday, comparing his country's recent bombing campaign in Gaza to the U.S.-led strikes against militants in Iraq and Syria, saying Hamas and the Islamic State group share the same goal of world domination.

He railed against countries who condemned Israel for its war with Hamas while world leaders praised President Barack Obama for attacking Islamic State militants and other extremists.

And Netanyahu managed to incorporate a Derek Jeter analogy into his speech.

"To say that Iran doesn't practice terrorism is like saying Derek Jeter never played shortstop for the New York Yankees," he said.

Netanyahu addresses the general assembly: photo by Seth Wenig/AP via The Guardian, 29 September 2014

After a 20-year rivalry, Fenway Park tipped its collective cap to Derek Jeter on Sunday: photo by M. Scott Brauer for The New York Times, 28 September 2014

Awesome in pinstripes for Bibi and the Captain tonight

The Empire State Building in Yankee pinstripes for the captain tonight. Awesome: image via Meredith Frost @MeredithFrost, 28 September 2014

Pure Class, plus Bonus Pickle WMD and Weird Derek Good Luck Icon

The Weirdest Derek Jeter Memorabilia You Can Buy Right Now: image via Molly Fitzpatrick @mollyfitz, 25 September 2014

Hey! It's About Me! And New York! And Iran!

The Captain. #Walkoff. How else would you expect it to end?: image via New York Yankees @Yankees, 25 September 2014

God Is Great, with Two Classic Meats

#FarewellCaptain: image via Meredith Frost @MeredithFrost, 25 September 2014

At The UN Bibi Netanyahu Compares Iran To Derek Jeter, Twitter Responds Accordingly: Zayin A'Ayin, Heeb, September 29, 2014

Pop quiz, hotshot: When is the Nation of Iran like one of the greatest baseball players of the modern age?

If you’re scratching your head at that one, it’s safe to say you probably haven’t been watching Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu speak at the United Nations General Assembly. There, the Israeli head of state stood up in front of some world’s most powerful political figures, jumped on the Derek Jeter good-will bandwagon… and, well, see for yourself:

“To say that Iran doesn’t practice terrorism is to say Derek Jeter never played shortstop for the New York Yankees”

Wait, what? Is Derek Jeter Iran? Are The Yankees… terrorists? It’s a sloppy metaphor to be sure. Clearly Bibi here is trying to speak over the heads of the assembled UN notables, and directly to the folks at home. But insta-viral quotes like this smack of zeitgeisty opportunism, and not the serious business of statecraft. Which is probably why the moment Bibi uttered his Jeter jibe, the internet reacted with the same degree of somberness a line like that deserves:

And what do you think, #2?

Spencer Ackerman @attackerman · 12h 12 hours ago

So I guess Bibi is saying Iran is in first-ballot terrorism hall of fame but, by the numbers, is statistically overrated as a state sponsor

Spencer Ackerman @attackerman · 12h 12 hours ago

Damn you, Bibi, for inviting Derek Jeter/Iran-terrorism comparisons.

Spencer Ackerman @attackerman · 13h 13 hours ago

You can taste the classiness RT @JessicaGlenza: Carnegie Deli honors Jeter with $28 sandwich.

Derek Jeter with ad for Derek Jeter $28 Sandwich: image via TMZ Sports, 29 September 2014

Derek Jeter:Famous NYC Deli Honors #2... With $28 Sandwich

It might be the most special of all the Derek Jeter tributes -- TMZ Sports has learned the legendary Carnegie Deli in NYC will now offer a $28 sandwich to honor the Yankees captain.

So, what does one get for $28?

A rep for the deli tells us ... the "Derek Jeter Triple Club Sandwich" comes piled high with 2 classic meats (because he's #2) -- turkey and bacon.

Plus, several slices of American cheese -- with tomato and lettuce ... served on toasted white bread.

Mmmmmmmm.

The deli rep adds, "We chose American Cheese because nothing is more American than baseball.

"BONUS -- if you sit down to eat at the restaurant, you get complimentary pickles!"

Man Carrying Prop

Is that a prop? RT @IsraeliPM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his way to speak before the UN General Assembly: image via Gregg Carlstrom @glcarlstrom, 29 September 2014

Excerpts from twitter commentary on Netanyahu UNGA speech by Haaretz.com US Editor Chemi Shalev, 29 September 2014:

Netanyahu speech at end of GA, with hardly anyone around, sparks Twitter-Facebook memes and jokes about which gimmick he will use this time

*
I can already hear the groans RT @BarakRavid: Netanyahu's speech at UNGA will include a reference to Derek Jeter

Netanyahu laying the groundwork for claiming that Gaza campaign was part of war against militant Islam rather than Palestinians

Hamas=ISIS=Nazis

*
Hello? Not sure Yankees' fans will appreciate comparison of Iran to Derek Jeter. Gimmicks sometimes backfire, you know

Israel tries to enlist UNGA in war against Hamas. Not sure there will be many volunteers

Netanyahu - IDF upholds the highest moral values of any army in the world. Says army deserves "admiration of decent people everywhere"

Netanyahu shows blurry photo of rocket launchers near Palestinian children. Where's the guy who drew the Roadrunner Iranian nuke?

Now for the anti-Semitism chapter: Netanyahu says it masquerades as "legitimate criticism of Israel"

Netanyahu using every trick in the hasbara book that he's used in the past: perhaps this speech should be called Bib's Greatest Hits

*
Looks like Netanyahu didn't persuade the Icelandic FM who followed him: lambasts settlements and "superfluous" Gaza campaign

Netanyahu's hate speech at #UNGA today: image via kristyan benedict @KreaseChan, 29 September 2014

Netanyahu's done. Militant Islam=Nazis=Iran=Derek Jeter, obligatory graphic, no mention of Palestinian state.

-- from the United Nations General Assembly: Gregg Carlstrom @glcarlstrom, 29 September 2014

#Palestine delegate listening to Netanyahu’s speech is not having it: image via Shawn Carriée @Shawncarrie, 29 September 2014

Zzz-z-zzz-zz

#UNGA hall half empty during Netanyahu’s speech. ~100 guests of #Israel Gov. on upper/side seats applauded repeatedly: image via Bahman Kahlbasi @BahmanKalbasi, 29 September 2014

Derek's dating diamond: can Bibi have been driven into mad metaphor by simple envy of the captain and his awesome pickle?

DerekJeter'sdatingdiamond is something else: image via Meredith Frost @MeredithFrost, 28 September 2014 [retweeted 182 times since original SportsNation post 13 February 2014]

↧

Beneath the Great World's Notice and Lost to History

October 1, 2014, 12:31 pm

≫ Next: Gauze

≪ Previous: Ideology #2: With Respect

Iranian coal miners eat lunch at a mine near the city of Zirab 212 kilometers (132 miles) northeast of the capital Tehran, on a mountain in Mazandaran province. International sanctions linked to the decade-long dispute over Iran’s nuclear program have hindered the import of heavy machinery and modern technology in all sectors, and coal mining is no exception. The decision to privatize the industry 10 years ago has further squeezed miners, who work often in dangerous conditions -- and make just $300 a month, little more than minimum wage: photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP. 19 August 2014

An Iranian coal miner pushes a metal cart loaded with coal at a mine near the city of Zirab 212 kilometers (132 miles) northeast of the capital Tehran, on a mountain in Mazandaran province. The miners move up to 100 tons of coal a day: photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP. 18 August 2014

Iranian coal miners pose for a photograph at a mine on a mountain in Mazandaran province, near the city of Zirab 212 kilometers (132 miles) northeast of the capital Tehran. International sanctions linked to the decade-long dispute over Iran’s nuclear program have hindered the import of heavy machinery and modern technology in all sectors, and coal mining is no exception. The decision to privatize the industry 10 years ago has further squeezed miners, who work often in dangerous conditions -- and make just $300 a month: photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP, 18 August 2014

An Iranian coal miner works inside a mine near the city of Zirab 212 kilometers (132 miles) northeast of the capital Tehran, on a mountain in Mazandaran province. The miners tunnel deep into the mountains, working in dark, narrow passageways where the risk of toxic gases and cave-ins is never far from their minds: photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP. 18 August 2014

An Iranian coal miner stops collecting logs to pose for a photograph at a mine on a mountain in Mazandaran province, near the city of Zirab, 212 kilometers (132 miles) northeast of the capital Tehran, Iran. The workers make just $300 a month, little more than minimum wage: photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP, 7 May 2014

An Iranian coal miner with his face smeared black from coal poses for a photograph at a mine near the city of Zirab 212 kilometers (132 miles) northeast of the capital Tehran, on a mountain in Mazandaran province The workers who put in long hours in often dangerous conditions and make just $300 a month, little more than minimum wage: photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP, 7 May 2014

Iranian coal miners push metal carts loaded with coal at a mine near the city of Zirab 212 kilometers (132 miles) northeast of the capital Tehran, on a mountain in Mazandaran province, Iran. Iran's ministry of industry, mines and commerce says it has plans for improving the working conditions of miners alongside a drive to boost the production of minerals: photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP, 8 May 2014

An Iranian coal miner pushes an old metal cart to be loaded with coal at a mine near the city of Zirab 212 kilometers (132 miles) northeast of the capital Tehran on a mountain in Mazandaran province. A miner said they move up to 100 tons a day: photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP, 8 May 2014

An Iranian coal miner moves wagons to be loaded with coal at a mine near the city of Zirab 212 kilometers (132 miles) northeast of the capital Tehran, on a mountain in Mazandaran province. International sanctions linked to the decade-long dispute over Iran’s nuclear program have hindered the import of heavy machinery and modern technology in all sectors, and coal mining is no exception: photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP, 8 May 2014

An Iranian coal miner takes a break at a mine near the city of Zirab 212 kilometers (132 miles) northeast of the capital Tehran, on a mountain in Mazandaran province. International sanctions linked to the decade-long dispute over Iran’s nuclear program have hindered the import of heavy machinery and modern technology in all sectors, and coal mining is no exception. The decision to privatize the industry 10 years ago has further squeezed miners, who work often in dangerous conditions -- and make just $300 a month, little more than minimum wage: photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP. 8 May 2014

Iranian coal miners push metal carts to be loaded with coal at a mine near the city of Zirab 212 kilometers (132 miles) northeast of the capital Tehran, on a mountain in Mazandaran province. International sanctions linked to the decade-long dispute over Iran’s nuclear program have hindered the import of heavy machinery and modern technology in all sectors, and coal mining is no exception: photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP. 8 May 2014

An Iranian coal miner smokes a cigarette during a break at a mine on a mountain in Mazandaran province, near the city of Zirab 212 kilometers (132 miles) northeast of the capital Tehran. International sanctions linked to the decade-long dispute over Iran’s nuclear program have hindered the import of heavy machinery and modern technology in all sectors, and coal mining is no exception. The decision to privatize the industry 10 years ago has further squeezed miners, who work often in dangerous conditions -- and make just $300 a month: photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP, 19 August 2014

Iranian coal miners rest during a break at a mine on a mountain in Mazandaran province, near the city of Zirab, 212 kilometers (132 miles) northeast of the capital Tehran. The miners put in long hours in often dangerous conditions and make just $300 a month, little more than minimum wage: photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP. 6 May 2014

Iranian coal miners pose for a photograph before taking a shower after a long day of work at a mine on a mountain in Mazandaran province, near the city of Zirab 212 kilometers (132 miles) northeast of the capital Tehran. The miners put in long hours in often dangerous conditions making just $300 a month, little more than minimum wage: photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP. 7 May 2014

An Iranian coal miner takes a shower while others prepare to go home after a long day of work at a mine on a mountain in Mazandaran province, near the city of Zirab, 212 kilometers (132 miles) northeast of the capital Tehran. Around 1,200 miners work across 10 mines in the Mazandaran province, in a mountainous, verdant area. More than 12,000 tons of coal is extracted from the mines each month, almost all of which is shipped south for use in Iran’s steel industry: photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP. 6 May 2014

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Gauze

October 2, 2014, 2:27 am

≫ Next: Dwindling Domain (Nazim Hikmet: from Living)

≪ Previous: Beneath the Great World's Notice and Lost to History

Gaza. Palestinian boys stand behind a cloth barrier at their recently destroyed home: photo by Mohammed Abed/AFP via The Guardian, 25 September 2014

a wall, with the loss of nothing
that might pass through the mesh in the gauze

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Dwindling Domain (Nazim Hikmet: from Living)

October 3, 2014, 12:52 am

≫ Next: Tonight

≪ Previous: Gauze

A pair of white-faced ibis, left, and an egret forage for food in a rice field of the Montna farms near Yuba City, California, US. Severe drought has shrunk critical wetlands to one-sixth of their size, threatening the habitat of migrating birds along the Pacific flyway: photo by Rich Pedroncelli/AP via the Guardian, 19 September 2014

This earth will grow cold,
a star among stars
               and one of the smallest,
a gilded mote on blue velvet --
   I mean this, our great earth.
This earth will grow cold one day,
not like a block of ice
or a dead cloud even 
but like an empty walnut it will roll along
   in pitch-black space . . . 
You must grieve for this right now
-- you have to feel this sorrow now --
for the world must be loved this much
                               if you’re going to say “I lived”. . .

Nazim Hikmet (1902-1963): from Living, in Poems of Nazim Hikmet, translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk, 1994

A group of wood ducks, Aix sponsa, paddling pretty on a rainy day in North Carolina, US. A study found North America's birds are at risk from climate change, some facing extinction: photo by Robbie George via The Guardian, 12 September 2014

A turtle makes its way to the sea on a debris-strewn Medano beach in Cabo San Lucas, in the aftermath of a hurricane that hit Baja California in Mexico: photo by Henry Romero/Reuters via The Guardian, 26 September 2014

A blacktail doe and fawn being steered away from backyard gardens by fencing in Langley, Washington, US: photo by Dean Fosdick/AP via The Guardian, 12 September 2014

Wild bear Daniza with her cubs in 2012 in the Trento province, Italy. A bungled attempt to capture her after an attack on a man led to the death of the animal, prompting calls for the country’s environment minister to resign: photo by AP via The Guardian, 12 September 2014

painted stork carries a twig for its nest in New Delhi, India. Painted storks (Mycteria leucocephala) is a nearly threatened species found in the wetlands of the plains of the Indian subcontinent and extending upto southeast Asia. Their distinctive pink tertial feathers give them their name: photo by Arkaprava Ghosh/Barcroft India via The Guardian, 12 September 2014

Orphaned baby rhino in Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, Ngare Ndare forest, Kenya. The conservancy is hand-raising three orphaned baby rhino: Nicky, Hope and Kilifi. Rhino are becoming extinct as a result of the brutal poaching fuelled by an illegal international market for their horns: photo by Luca Ghidoni/Barcroft Media via The Guardian, 12 September 2014

A billboard in Hanoi, Vietnam, reads: ‘Rhino horns are just like buffalo horns, human hair and nail. Do not waste your money,’ to mark the World Rhino Day on 22 September. This year’s theme was ‘Five rhino species forever.’: photo by Luong Thai Linh/EPA via The Guardian, 26 September 2014

A vendor holds an owl for sale at Jatinegara bird market in Jakarta, Indonesia. Sale of endangered animals is a major problem in Indonesia: photo by Adi Weda/EPA via The Guardian, 5 September 2014

Vultures in Africa and Europe could face extinction within our lifetime, conservationists have warned. Veterinary drug diclofenac that wiped out 99% of vultures in India, Pakistan and Nepal, has been commercially available in at least two European countries. And in Africa they are facing increasing threats mainly due to poisoning: photo by Ramon Elosegui/BirdLife International via The Guardian, 12 September 2014

35,000 walrusess gather on the shoreline near Point Lay, Alaska. Pacific walrus unable to find sea ice on which to rest in Arctic waters are coming ashore in record numbers on Alaska’s north-west coast: photo by Corey Accardo/AP via The Guardian, 1 October 2014

This aerial photo taken on 23 September 2014, shows a gathering of 1,500 walruses on Alaska’s north-west coast: photo by Corey Accardo/AP, 23 September 2014 via The Guardian, 1 October 2014

Pacific walruses in the Chukchi Sea off the coast of Alaska in June 2014. Researchers are trying to improve their knowledge of the animal’s numbers ahead of an expected US Fish and Wildlife Service decision on whether they need special protection: photo by USGS/AP, June 2014 via The Guardian, 1 October 2014

Female walruses and their young rest on sea ice between foraging bouts in July 2012: photo by S A Sonsthagen/USGS, July 20i2 via The Guardian, 1 October 2014

The skull of a sub-adult Pacific walrus lies on the rocky tundra near the shore of Wrangel Island in Russia, 2009: photo by Jenny E Ross, 2009via The Guardian, 1 October 2014

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Tonight

October 5, 2014, 1:11 am

≫ Next: Barry Taylor: Foreshore Findings

≪ Previous: Dwindling Domain (Nazim Hikmet: from Living)

Study of a Nude: Edgar Degas, 1890-95, pastel and charcoal, 62 x 48 cm (private collection)

Tonight I’ve watched

The moon and then

the Pleiades

go down

The night is now

half-gone; youth

goes; I am

in bed alone

Sappho: Fragment 168B, translated by Mary Barnard (1909-2001) in Sappho (1968)

The Nebra sky disk, dated c. 1600 BC. The cluster of dots in the upper right portion of the disk is believed to be the Pleiades: photo by Dbachmann, 30 December 2006; image by Rainer Zenz, 10 March 2010

Reclining Nude (recto): Jacopo Pontormo, 1519-21, black chalk, 270 x 423 mm (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence)

Nevermore (O Taiti): Paul Gauguin, 1897, oil on canvas, 60 x 116 cm (Courtauld Gallery, London)

↧

Barry Taylor: Foreshore Findings

October 6, 2014, 4:49 am

≫ Next: Edward Dorn: If it should ever come

≪ Previous: Tonight

Prehistoric forest at Erith, Bexley: photo by Nathalie Cohen, 17 November 2006 via Thames Discovery Programme

bankedrubble, centuries deep
along the ghost-wharves

Trig, Broken, Kennett, Bell,

Allhallows, Queenhithe, Dyer's Hall

the scumbled edge unravelled

by fractious wavelets

surging with every

passing barge

each tide unpicking

this ragged seam

between Thames
and Thamesis

Londinium
and the City

wave-loosened shards

of the city's stone-

and earthen-ware

its brick and tile

smashed unremembered

histories washed out

with every tide, remixed

by the coiling waters

cast back, sucked in again

to the river's dark embrace

its deep encryption

Barry Taylor: from Foreshore Findings, 2014

View downstream: photo by Mike Webber, 1996 via Thames Discovery Programme

Greenwich Power Station and Jetty: photo by Mike Webber, 1996 via Thames Discovery Programme

Trinity Almshouse Stairs: photo by Mike Webber, 1996 via Thames Discovery Programme

Riverside wall: photo by Mike Webber, 1996 via Thames Discovery Programme

Riverside wall and Trinity Almshouse Stairs: photo by Mike Webber, 1996 via Thames Discovery Programme

Reused stones near Trinity Almshouse Stairs: photo by Mike Webber, 1996 via Thames Discovery Programme

Elizabeth I shilling, found in Thames foreshore by mudlarker John Higginbotham (Woolwich John): photo by John Higginbotham, 12 February 2014 via Thames Discovery Programme

Henry VIII silver coin, found in Thames foreshore by mudlarker John Higginbotham (Woolwich John): photo by Nick Stevens, 12 January 2012

via Thames Discovery Programme

Anglo-Saxon coin: The Fitzwilliam Museum had this to say: 'This is an excellent example of the bust Crowned type of Eadmund (939-46) by the Norwich moneyer Mainticen, who also produced the bust Crowned type for Athelstan (924/5-39) Th

Anglo-Saxon coin, found in Thames foreshore by mudlarker John Higginbotham (Woolwich John): The Fitzwilliam Museum had this to say: 'This is an excellent example of the bust Crowned type of Eadmund (939-46) by the Norwich moneyer Mainticen, who also produced the bust Crowned type for Athelstan (924/5-39): photo by John Higginbotham, 12 February 2014via Thames Discovery Programme

Spoon, found in Thames foreshore by mudlarker John Higginbotham (Woolwich John): photo by John Higginbotham, 12 February 2014 via Thames Discovery Programme

Bottle top, perhaps from an ink or medicine bottle (?), found in Thames foreshore by mudlarker John Higginbotham: photo by John Higginbotham, 16 March 2014 via Thames Discovery Programme

Gaming piece, marble, found in Thames foreshore by mudlarker John Higginbotham: photo by John Higginbotham and Nick Stevens, 15 October 2013 via Thames Discovery Programme

Child's spinning top with spinning top token, found in Thames foreshore by mudlarker John Higginbotham: photo by John Higginbotham and Nick Stevens, 15 October 2013 via Thames Discovery Programme

Glass artifact, found in Thames foreshore by mudlarker John Higginbotham: photo by John Higginbotham and Nick Stevens, 15 October 2013 via Thames Discovery Programme

Spur, found in Thames foreshore by mudlarker John Higginbotham: photo by John Higginbotham, 3 June 2014 via Thames Discovery Programme

Tudor wire clasp hook, found in Thames foreshore by mudlarker John Higginbotham: photo by John Higginbotham, 12 February 2014 via Thames Discovery Programme

Neolithic beater, recovered from the Thames foreshore at Chelsea in the late 1990s: photo by Museum of London, 6 November 2008 via Thames Discovery Programme

Roman intaglio, found on the Southwark foreshore: photo by Museum of London, 20 May 1999 via Thames Discovery Programme

Something a bit Anthony Gormley about these cofferdam piles (Greenwich): photo by Nathalie Cohen, 2 February 2014 via Thames Discovery Programme

View of the medieval jetty (Greenwich): photo by Nathalie Cohen, 2 February 2014 via Thames Discovery Programme

↧

Edward Dorn: If it should ever come

October 7, 2014, 1:23 am

≫ Next: Flux

≪ Previous: Barry Taylor: Foreshore Findings

Willows in Giverny: Claude Monet, 1886, oil on canvas, 74 x 93 cm (Konstmuseum, Gothenburg)

And we are all there together

time will wave as willows do

and adios will be truly, yes,

laughing at what is forgotten

and talking of what's new

admiring the roses you brought.

How sad.

You didn't know you were at the end

thought it was your bright pear

the earth, yes

another affair to have been kept

and gazed back on

when you had slept

to have been stored

as a squirrel will a nut, and half

forgotten,

there were so many, many

from the newly fallen.

Edward Dorn (1929-1999): If It Should Ever Come, from The Newly Fallen (1961)

Remnant of the tallgrass prairie which once flourished in the northeast corner of Kansas is seen overlooking the Missouri River from a bluff near White Cloud and Troy, Kansas, in Doniphan County. This area of the state Is unique because it contains the only hardwood forest in Kansas in addition to tallgrass prairie: photo by Patricia D. Duncan (1932-) for the Environmental Protection Agency project Documerica, September 1975 (U.S. National Archives)

Flocks of migrating Blue Geese and Snow Geese Stop at the Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge near Mound City, Missouri, at the northwest corner of the state: photo by Patricia D. Duncan (1932-) for the Environmental Protection Agency project Documerica, September 1975 (U.S. National Archives)

Closeup of tall grasses being taken over by forest and sumac, near White Cloud and Troy in northeastern Kansas. A wave of pioneers cleared the native grasses and planted crops in the fertile soil. As a result only isolated patches of native tallgrass prairie survive: photo by Patricia D. Duncan (1932-) for the Environmental Protection Agency project Documerica, October 1974 (U.S. National Archives)

Rusted iron hand pump on land which used to be covered by tallgrass prairie in Johnson County, Kansas, near Kansas City. The wave of pioneer farmers cleared the native grasses and planted crops in the fertile soil. As a result only isolated patches of native tallgrass prairie survive: photo by Patricia D. Duncan (1932-) for the Environmental Protection Agency project Documerica, September 1975 (U.S. National Archives)

Abandoned house and rusted iron hand pump on land which used to be covered by tallgrass prairie in Johnson County, Kansas, near Kansas City. The wave of pioneer farmers cleared the native grasses and planted crops in the fertile soil. As a result only isolated patches of native tallgrass prairie survive: photo by Patricia D. Duncan (1932-) for the Environmental Protection Agency project Documerica, September 1974 (U.S. National Archives)

A prairie cemetery in Wabaunsee County, Kansas, near Manhattan, in the heart of the Flint Hills region. Cemeteries are very good places to find the original plants of the tallgrass prairie: photo by Patricia D. Duncan (1932-) for the Environmental Protection Agency project Documerica, January 1975 (U.S. National Archives)

A prairie cemetery with tall grass growing along the fence in Wabaunsee County Kansas, near Manhattan, in the heart of the Flint Hills region: photo by Patricia D. Duncan (1932-) for the Environmental Protection Agency project Documerica, January 1975 (U.S. National Archives)

↧

Flux

October 8, 2014, 1:48 am

≫ Next: Viral (Philip Larkin: Myxomatosis)

≪ Previous: Edward Dorn: If it should ever come

Dragonfly on marsh grass near Sarpy Basin, Montana: photo by Boyd Norton (1936-) for the Environmental Protection Agency' project Documerica, June 1973 (U.S. National Archives)

If you are a simple mortal, do not speak
of tomorrow or how long this man may be
among the happy, for change comes suddenly
like the shining flight of a dragonfly.

Simonides of Ceos (c. 556-468 BC): Flux, translated by Willis Barnstone in Greek Lyric Poetry, 1962

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Trithemis_kirbyi.jpg

Kirby's Dropwing (Trithemis kirbyi), Tsumeb, Namibia: photo by Hans Hillewaert, 7 June 2007

shimmering day
haze of evanescence

at the rock pond

the red darters

and flame skimmers

gathering

slowly circulated

above the slowly

circulating koi

Concrete pond stocked with ornamental fish [koi]: photo by Hardyplants, 17 January 2009

18th day

Today also,
in the spring haze,
today also.

18th day: came dragonflies from pen...

18th day & dragonfly drawings: TC, from Cold Spring: A Diary, 2000

Ruby Meadowhawk Flame Skimmer (Libellula saturata), male: photo by Regular Daddy, May 2008

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Sympetrum_flaveolum_-_side_%28aka%29.jpg

Yellow-winged Darter (Sympetrum flaveolum): photo by André Karwath, 13 July 2005

↧