Re-admitting Eternity (Joseph Ceravolo: No Complaints)

July 15, 2015, 5:58 am

≫ Next: Pressure Drop: Democracy in Chains: The Reluctant Capitulation of the Recalcitrant Victim (John Giorno: An Unemployed Machinist)

≪ Previous: Telos -- The End? (Yannis Ritsos: It’s taking us a long time to get old)

Iranian carpet salesmen watching an announcement of the nuclear pact Iran reached with six nations and the European Union, an agreement negotiated by the United States. The deal will end international oil and financial sanctions in return for limits on Iran’s nuclear production and fuel stockpile over the next 15 years: photo by Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times 14 July 2015

Joseph Ceravolo: Complaint

Have no social complaints

have no god complaints
was born a beggar

live a beggar.

I have no complaints.

I have no complaints to the moon,

none to the stars,

none to the astrology of the mind,

none to the liars of religious words

or to the doom prophets

on the edges of truth.

Have no complaints.

Not to the rich, not to the poor,

not to the powerful, not to

the weak. I only ask for a little grace,

a tear here and there

shed for the brotherhood of man and woman,

not for me.

I have no complaints.

................................................August 27, 1986

Joseph Ceravolo (1934-1988): Complaint, 27 August 1986, from Collected Poems, 2012

Iranians take to Tehran streets to hail nuclear #IranDeal: image by Agence France-Presse @AFP, 14 July 2015

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 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 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 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 20144

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

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, visiting Infineon Technologies in Dresden, part of a tour of the German microelectronics industry. Infineon employs about 2,000 people in its Dresden factory, where it makes semiconductors: photo by Arno Burgi/Reuters via New York Times, 14 July 2015

The conventional view holds that girih (geometric star-and-polygon, or strapwork) patterns in medieval Islamic architecture were conceived by their designers as a network of zigzagging lines, where the lines were drafted directly with a straightedge and a compass. We show that by 1200 C.E. a conceptual breakthrough occurred in which girih patterns were reconceived as tessellations of a special set of equilateral polygons ("girih tiles") decorated with lines. These tiles enabled the creation of increasingly complex periodic girih patterns, and by the 15th century, the tessellation approach was combined with self-similar transformations to construct nearly perfect quasi-crystalline Penrose patterns, five centuries before their discovery in the West.

Decagonal and Quasi-Crystalline Tilings in Medieval Islamic Architecture, by Peter J. Lu and Paul J. Steinhardt: abstract of a paper in Science 23, February 2007, Vol. 315. no. 5815

A glance at heaven: vault at the Nasr ol Molk mosque, Shiraz: photo by dynamomosquito, 2008

Another glance at heaven: vault at the Nasr ol Molk mosque, Shiraz: photo by dyanamomosquito, 2007

For all their tantalizing glimpses into medieval scientific knowledge, the designs of the Darb-i Imam [in Isfahan, taken by Peter Lu as a template for his thesis] and other Islamic buildings must also be understood in their religious context. Geometric patterns in Islamic architecture and ornamentation were used as much for spiritual as for artistic reasons. As Robert Irwin writes in his study of Islamic art, such patterns may have been viewed 'as exteriorized representations of abstract, even mystical, thought' -- aiming to inspire contemplation or to make a statement about the imponderable harmonies of a divinely ordered universe. Sufism in particular is closely linked to the practice of geometry, above all in the form of symmetries, as a way of giving physical expression to mystical thought.

The girih designs are thus comparable to Gothic art and architecture in another sense, namely in their shared ambition to embody spiritual cogitation and emotion through geometry. The real significance of the magnificent tiling of the Darb-i Imam lies not in any kind of cultural one-upmanship about who first conceived a certain idea or technique, but rather in the remarkable trajectories of ideas and scientific endeavors through time.

Sebastian R. Prange, on the Lu thesis, in Islamic Arts and Architecture, 20 May 2012

Eternity: ceramic tile mosaic, roof of the tomb of Persian poet Hafez, province of Fars, 2008: photo by dynamomosquito, 2008

Imam (formerly Shah) Mosque (Masjed-e Imam), Isfahan: photo by Dara Mulhern, 18 October 2010

Main Dome, Imam (formerly Shah) Mosque (Masjed-e Imam), Isfahan (1611-1629}: photo by Dara Mulhern, 18 October 2010

Side Dome, Imam (formerly Shah) Mosque (Masjed-e Imam), Isfahan: photo by Dara Mulhern, 18 October 2010

Imam (formerly Shah) Mosque, Isfahan: photo by HORIZON, 18 May 2006

Masjed-eh Shah (Imam Mosque), Isfahan: photo by Mahdiz, 27 April 2013

Imam Mosque, Isfahan. Interior view of the lofty dome covered with polychrome tiles, intended to give the spectator a sense of heavenly transcendence: photo by مانفی February 2013

Imam Mosque, Isfahan: photo by مانفی February 2013

Interior wall and ceiling of the Sheikh Lotf Allah Mosque, Isfahan: photo by Philip Maiwald (Nikopol), 27 August 2008

Ceiling of the Sheikh Lotf Allah Mosque, Isfahan: photo by Philip Maiwald (Nikopol), 27 August 2008

Interior wall and dome ceiling of the Sheikh Lotf Allah Mosque, Isfahan: photo by Philip Maiwald (Nikopol), 27 August 2008

Sheikh Lotf Allah Mosque, Isfahan: photo by oceanbaby, 4 May 2007

Sheikh Lotf Allah Mosque, Isfahan: photo by Behrooz Bashokooh, 15 March 2011

Sheikh Lotf Allah Mosque, Isfahan: photo by Kookan, 21 September 2008

Muqarnas, Sheikh Lotf Allah Mosque, Isfahan: photo by Mandana Fard (baraneh), 8 January 2008

↧

Pressure Drop: Democracy in Chains: The Reluctant Capitulation of the Recalcitrant Victim (John Giorno: An Unemployed Machinist)

July 16, 2015, 1:26 pm

≫ Next: The Desertification of Eden

≪ Previous: Re-admitting Eternity (Joseph Ceravolo: No Complaints)

Protester outside Greek parliament says it with a symbol: image via Paul Mason @PaulMasonNews, 15 July 2015

John Giorno:  An Unemployed Machinist

An unemployed
machinist
An unemployed machinist
who travelled
here
who travelled here
from Georgia
from Georgia 10 days ago
10 days ago
and could not find
a job
and could not find a job
walked
into a police station
walked into a police station
yesterday and said
yesterday
and said:

“I’m tired
of being scared
I’m tired of being scared.”

John Giorno: An Unemployed Machinist, 1964, from Balling Buddha (1970)

The machinist at work. This man is machinist on an old steamboat at Auckland: photo by Ben Raynal, 30 November 2011

Image from page 486 of "Canadian foundryman (1918)" (1918) | by Internet Archive Book Images

Machinist at work: photographer unknown, from The Canadian Foundryman (1918); image via Internet Archive Book Images/ University of Toronto Library

Statsakten (Celebration of Act of State at Akershus, marking transition to German supremacy in Norway under the national government of Vidkun Quisling): photographer unknown, 1 February 1942(National Archives of Norway)

Prime Minister for Act of State Lunde. From left: General Feuerstein, Generaladmiral Böhm, Quisling, Rediess, Terboven: photographer unknown, 11 January 1942 (National Archives of Norway)

Parliamentary

Voting on the new austerity measures in the Greek parliament: Greek PM Alexis Tsipras: image via Aris Messinis, @ArisMessinis, 15 July 2015

Greek PM Alexis Tsipras during a parliamentary session in Athens: photo by Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters, 15 July 2015

Voting on the new austerity measures in the Greek parliament: Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotas: image via Aris Messinis, @ArisMessinis, 15 July 2015

Voting on the new austerity measures in the Greek parliament: image via Aris Messinis, @ArisMessinis, 15 July 2015

Greek Parliament agrees on bailout deal, Athens, Greece - 15 Jul 2015<br>Mandatory Credit: Photo by Xinhua/REX Shutterstock (4903851h) Alexis Tsipras addresses the Greek Parliament before voting Greek Parliament agrees on bailout deal, Athens, Greece - 15 Jul 2015 Tsipras on Wednesday called on his radical left Syriza party parliamentary group to remain united in critical times for the country, amid a string of anti-austerity strikes and protests. With a Syriza rebellion, the final outcome was a majority ‘yes’ to the measures.

Alexis Tsipras addressing the Greek Parliament before tonight’s vote: photo via The Guardian, 15 July 2015

Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis leaves a parliament session in Athens on July 15, 2015. AFP PHOTO / ARIS MESSINISARIS MESSINIS/AFP/Getty Images

Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis leaving tonight’s session: photo by Aris Messinis/AFP, 15 July 2015

Greek finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos

Greek finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos

Here’s the current finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos: photo by Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters, 15 July 2015

Greek PM Tsipras reacts during a parliamentary session in Athens<br>Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras reacts during a parliamentary session in Athens, Greece July 16, 2015. The Greek parliament passed a sweeping package of austerity measures demanded by European partners as the price for opening talks on a multi-billion euro bailout package needed to keep the near-bankrupt country in the euro zone. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

Another late night for Alexis Tsipras: photo by Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters, 15 July 2015

IMF head Christine Lagarde and Greek finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos in Brussels at the weekend: photo by Laurent Dubrule/EPA, 15 July 2015

Greek finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos holds his head as he attends parliamentary session in Athens. #AFP: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 15 July 2015

Greek finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos gazes toward he ceiling as he attends parliamentary session in Athens. #AFP: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 15 July 2015

Alexis Tsipras casts his vote in the Greek parliament: photo by Christian Hartmann/Reuters, 15 July 2015

Bill passes #Greece: image via Derek Gatopoulos @dgatopoulos, 15 July 2015

They've done a recount. Final count: 229 yes. 6 no. 6 present. 38 defectors from @tsipras_eu. 124 stick with him.: image via M. Caruso-Cabrera #MCaruso_Cabrera

Direct Action

#BREAKING: Rally broke up. Street war just started. #Greece: image via Dim Rapids @rapidis, 15 July 2015

#Athens #Greece tonight, People are angry: image via Conflict News @Conflict News, 15 July 2015

Anti-austerity protesters with petrol bombs clash with police in Athens. Photo by Louisa Gouliamaki: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 15 July 2015

Photos: Police getting attacked by Molotovs in #Athens #Greece tonight: image via Conflict News @Conflict News, 15 July 2015

Riot police officers run through fire as anti-austerity protesters throw petrol bombs, during clashes in Athens. Greece's PM Alexis Tsipras is fighting to keep his government intact in the face of outrage over an austerity bill that parliament must pass: photo by Emilio Morenatti/AP, 15 July 2015

Riot police officers run away from fire as anti-austerity protesters throw petrol bombs, during clashes in Athens: photo by Emilio Morenatti/AP, 15 July 2015

LIVE video and photos from protests in #Athens: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 15 July 2015

lets dance ... #Athens #Greece July 15 #ACAB #ThisIsACoup #Syntagma #Greekment #GreeceCrisis: image via #ThisIsACoup @Chara_fc, 15 July 2015

#Greece: Protestors hurl molotovs at riot police in #Athens during confrontations ahead of deadline for bailout deal: image via syndicalist @syndicalisms, 15 July 2015

Anti-austerity protesters with petrol bombs clash with police in Athens. Photo by Angelos Tzortzinis: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 15 July 2015

Anti-austerity protesters with petrol bombs clash with police in Athens. Photo by Louisa Gouliamaki: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 15 July 2015

LIVE NOW: Media truck set alight in in #Athens #Greece tonight: image via YouTube Newswire @ytnewswire, 15 July 2015

#Athens #Greece tonight, People are angry: image via Conflict News @Conflict News, 15 July 2015

Global Civil War

"This is a coup, in fact, because they want to humiliate the government..."#ThisIsACoup: image via The Real News @The Real News, 13 July 2015

Wrote a small piece late last night for @LookLeftMag on SYRIZA. Finished with this. #ThisIsACoup: image via Ronan Burtenshaw @ronanburtenshaw, 15 July 2015 Greece

STATEMENT by 109 out of 201 members of Syriza’s Central Committee #ThisIsACoup: image via Makis Mantas @makismantas, 15 June 2011

Not sure why I hadn't seen this photo before...#Greece: image via Shawn Donnan @sdonnan, 15 July 2015

I'm sorry this isn't funnier, I meant it to be a parody, but it is alas, much too close to the truth. #ThisIsACoup: image via Rolf Dahl @RolfTheGreek, 15 July 2015 Greece

Hands up! #ThisIsACoup. If you call for democracy again I will shoot. : image via Viva la causa! 70 @torinoman, 15 July 2015 Greece

#exarchia #Athens: image via eatps @eatps, 1 July 2015 Greece

Spain showing solidarity with the Greeks... #ThisIsACoup: image via Exenl @Exen, 15 July 2015 Greece

More amazing #streetart in Thessaloniki #greece: image via Theo Lynn @theolynn, 15 July 2015 Thessalonica, Central Macedonia

Solidarity! #ThisIsACoup STOP repression! United against austerity & liberal extremism!: image via Revolución Real Ya @RRYrevolucion, 15 July 2015 Greece

↧

The Desertification of Eden

July 18, 2015, 5:02 am

≫ Next: Really Not a Planet

≪ Previous: Pressure Drop: Democracy in Chains: The Reluctant Capitulation of the Recalcitrant Victim (John Giorno: An Unemployed Machinist)

What remains of New Melones Lake | by Ben Amstutz

What remains of New Melones Lake. Tuttletown, California: photo by Ben Amstutz, 3 June 2015

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: from The Waste Land, 1922

California Drought 2015 | by Ben Amstutz

California Drought 2015. Way below Tuttletown Camground at New Melones, California: photo by Ben Amstutz, 4 June 2015

Fruits of the Earth: Days of Paradise in the Land of Plenty

Lemon crate label, Southern Cross brand, Western Litho. Co.: n.d.; posted 6 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Orange crate label, Good Cheer Brand, Western Litho. Co.: n.d.; posted 6 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Orange crate label, Miracle Brand, Western Litho. Co.: n.d.; posted 6 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Orange crate label, Belt Brand, Schmidt Litho. Co.: n.d.; posted 6 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Orange crate label, Navajo Brand, Schmidt Litho. Co.: n.d.; posted 6 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Valencias crate label, Weaver brand of Piru, Schmidt Litho. Co.: n.d.; posted 6 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

California oranges crate label, Yokohl Brand, Schmidt Litho. Co.: n.d.; posted 6 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

California apples crate label, Diving Girl Brand, Schmidt Litho. Co.: n.d.; posted 6 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Orange crate label, Redlands brand, Lehmann Printing and Lithographing Co.: n.d.; posted 6 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Lemon crate label, Archery Brand, Lehmann Printing and Lithographing Co.: n.d.; posted 6 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Citrus crate label, Red Rock brand, Lehmann Printing and Lithographing Co.: n.d.; posted 6 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Orange crate label, Victoria Brand, Schmidt Litho. Co.: n.d.; posted 6 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Lemon crate label, Progressive Brand, Lehmann Printing and Lithographing Co.: n.d.; posted 6 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Lemon crate label, Comet brand, Western Litho. Co.: n.d.; posted 6 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Lettuce crate label, Air Chief brand, Lehmann Printing and Lithographing Co.: n.d.; posted 4 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Olives label, Sylmar brand, Lehmann Printing and Lithographing Co.: n.d.; posted 4 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Bartlett pears label, Life Brand, Schmidt Litho. Co.: n.d.; posted 6 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Topepo label, Olsen Litho. Co. | by California Historical Society Digital Collection

Topepo label, Olsen Litho. Co.: n.d.; posted 6 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Chilitos encurtidos en escabeche label, Cuaresmeños brand, Lehmann Printing and Lithographing Co.: n.d.; posted 4 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Texas style tamales with sauce label, IXL brand, Lehmann Printing and Lithographing Co.: n.d.; posted 4 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Chinese language label, Lehmann Printing and Lithographing Co. | by California Historical Society Digital Collection

Chinese language label, Tux brand, Lehmann Printing and Lithographing Co.: n.d.; posted 4 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Macaroni label, Il Garofalo brand, Lehmann Printing and Lithographing Co.: n.d.; posted 4 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Ceci Mexicani label, Bella brand, Lehmann Printing and Lithographing Co.: n.d.; posted 4 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Lard label, Virden's Camp Fire brand, Lehmann Printing and Lithographing Co.: n.d.; posted 4 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Hot cake and waffle syrup label, Lyons-Magnus Mellow Drip brand, Lehmann Printing and Lithographing Co.: n.d.; posted 4 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Hop flavored male syrup cake and waffle syrup label, Merritt brand, Lehmann Printing and Lithographing Co.: n.d.; posted 4 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Fromage de Camembert, Marque Chamois, Lehmann Printing and Lithographing Co. | by California Historical Society Digital Collection

Fromage de Camembert, Marque Chamois, Lehmann Printing and Lithographing Co.: n.d.; posted 4 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

Apricots label, Berkeley brand, Lehmann Printing and Lithographing Co.: n.d.; posted 4 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

California apricots label, Lusk's Bear Brand, Lehmann Printing and Lithographing Co.: n.d.; posted 4 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

String beans label, Catalina brand, Lehmann Printing and Lithographing Co.: n.d.; posted 4 March 2015 (Crate, can and bottle label collection, California HIstorical Society)

When the rivers and the wells run dry

What happens when wells run dry in California's drought? #California Drought: image via Boing Boing @BoingBoing, 13 July 2015

#California Drought Please pray for rain in California. #ButSeriously this is a river...ummm...: image via Jen Lilley @jen_lilley, 2 July 2015

Summer has been hot, dry, and disappointing. Meh. #California Drought: image via Shekeela Jones@Shekeela Jones 2 July 2015

A tractor collects golf balls on a driving range in the Palm Springs area: photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters via the Guardian, 9 May 2015

People play golf on a course in La Quinta: photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters via the Guardian, 9 May 2015

A farm with a lawn and a swimming pool is seen in the Central Valley near Fresno: photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters via the Guardian, 9 May 2015

Swimming pools are seen behind homes in Palm Springs: photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters via the Guardian, 9 May 2015

Homes with swimming pools are seen in the Palm Springs area: photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters via the Guardian, 9 May 2015

Almond trees fall victim to the drought in Coalinga in the Central Valley, California: photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters via the Guardian, 9 May 2015

Growing and dead almond trees in Coalinga in the Central Valley: photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters via the Guardian, 9 May 2015

Mean Green

The encroaching desert surrounds homes in the golf resort city of Rancho Mirage, southern California. A fourth year of drought has prompted state governor Jerry Brown to order a 25% cut in domestic water consumption: photo by Damon Winter/New York Times/Redux/Eyevine via the Guardian, 11 April 2015

Every one of the neighbours has a special exemption

or so it seems from all those dripping lawns in the morning

but

it's

every

over

developed

unit

for itself, now

Homes in Rancho Mirage, California, in the Coachella Valley. Gov. Jerry Brown has ordered a 25 percent statewide reduction in non-agricultural water use: photo by Damon Winter/The New York Times, 4 April 2015

In the middle of a major drought and there is a man made river running down the street #California Drought #LosAngeles: image via Bob. O. @VinoMutt, 2 July 2015

A home swimming pool in Rancho Mirage: photo by Damon Winter/The New York Times, 4 April 2015

Agricultural runoff headed for the Salton Sea, a huge lake that sits partly in the Coachella Valley: photo by Damon Winter/The New York Times, 4 April 2015

A golf course in the Sun City Palm Desert community for older adults sits near barren land about 10 miles east of Palm Springs: photo by Damon Winter/The New York Times, 4 April 2015

Footprints and a tire in dried mud along the banks of the Salton Sea: photo by Damon Winter/The New York Times, 4 April 2015

A housing development in Cathedral City, near Palm Springs: photo by Damon Winter/The New York Times, 4 April 2015

Will the Golden State turn brown -- ?

Will the Golden State turn brown? BBC's @peterbowes looks at the #CaliforniaDrought: image via BBC News US @BBCNewsUS, 6 April 2015

This #California Drought is making summer look more like fall: image via Paty Ventura @patyventura, 12 July 2015

SMDH!! RT@michaelallenmar: California used 70 million gallons of water in Fracking in 2014 @Reuters: image via TheRedWineGal @TheRedWineGal, 3 April 2015

#CaliforniaDrought water restrictions don't apply to thirsty #frackers: image via simon boxer @simonboxer, 3 April 2015

#CaliforniaDrought Let @JerryBrownGov know you want to #unfrackcal #CA drought: image via Hattori Hanzo @Oni_no_Hanzo, 3 April 2015

Baking

Farming Fields by the River | by M. Dolly

Farming Fields by the River. San Luis Rey River, Oceanside, California: photo by M. Dolly, June 2015

Shoreline Wildlife Refuge, fourth year into severe drought. Normally, you wouldn't see any ground at all, it would all be water, as far as the eye can see: photo by bluesbby, 9 July 2015

California Drought. Winery, Napa, California: photo by John Weiss, 1 December 2013

A sign at Lake Isabella reminds me to keep our waters clean as I ride into the dried up lake bed. The state of California’s water supply cannot be more clearly depicted. April 2015 | by thewronski

A sign at Lake Isabella reminds me to keep our water clean as I ride into the dried-up lake bed, April 2015: photo by Chris Wronski, 24 June 2015

Drought-Driven Dried Roses | by sjrankin

Drought-Driven Dried Roses, Northern California: photo by Stuart Rankin, 26 June 2015

New Melones (almost empty) Reservoir | by sjrankin

New Melones (almost empty) Reservoir, California: photo by Stuart Rankin, 28 June 2015

Conflagration: The fiery face of the future in Eden

Firefighters use small headlamps at night to battle flames from the 3,500 acre North fire after it ripped through the Cajon Pass and headed north on July 17, 2015, in Baldy Mesa, California: photo by Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times, 18 July 2015

A brush fire burns near 15 Freeway: photo by KTLA via Los Angeles Times, 17 July 2015

A big-rig burns on the 15 Freeway in the Cajon Pass as a brush fire that has grown to more than 2,000 acres moves toward two mountain communities: photo by KTLA via Los Angeles Times, 17 July 2015

A fast-moving brush fire swept over the 15 Freeway in San Bernardino County on Friday, engulfing cars and threatening several mountain communities: photo by KTLA via Los Angeles Times, 17 July 2015.

A fast-moving brush fire swept over the 15 Freeway in San Bernardino County on Friday, engulfing cars and threatening several mountain communities: photo by KTLA via Los Angeles Times, 17 July 2015

Cars stop on the 15 Freeway in the Cajon Pass as a brush fire that has grown to more than 2,000 acres moves toward two mountain communities: photo by Austin Stefanovich via Los Angeles Times, 17 July 2015

A Melted Shell

Burned cars sit on a car carrier after a brush fire jumped the 15 Freeway in the Cajon Pass: photo by Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times, 17 July 2015

A burned boat sits on the southbound 15 Freeway in the Cajon Pass: photo by Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times, 17 July 2015

The melted shell of a big rig after the fast moving North Fire forced drivers and passengers to abandon their vehicles in the Cajon Pass: photo by Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times, 17 July 2015

The Earth in 2100. Edited NASA visualization of what climate change (specifically temperature) will probably look like by the year 2100: image by Stuart Rankin, 10 June 2015

↧

Really Not a Planet

July 20, 2015, 3:53 am

≫ Next: Insecurity: Burundi

≪ Previous: The Desertification of Eden

Pluto, Jupiter and Neptune: Caravaggio, 1597-1600, ceiling painting in oil, 300 x 152 cm (Casino dell'Aurora, Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome)

Fuck Pluto. Somebody's got to own

Something

Sometime. The rest

Is jest

The rest,

As the troublous wo/man

In the street was saying

To no one

After her bus went by without

Stopping, in the world

Night.

A Kashmiri villager cries for his missing relative after a cloud burst at Kullan village in Ganderbal district, on Friday. At least four people were killed in a series of cloud bursts that were reported from several parts of Kashmir during heavy rainfall: photo by Danish Ismail/Reuters, 18 July 2015

Pluto's Grave: Lucien Freud (1939-2010), 2003, oil on canvas (Private collection)

A boy carries a dog as he stands after Peruvian police operation to destroy illegal gold mining camps in a zone known as Mega 14, at the southern Amazon region of Madre de Dios.

A boy carries a dog near a Peruvian police operation to destroy illegal gold mining camps in a zone known as Mega 14, at the southern Amazon region of Madre de Dio: photo by Janine Costa/Reuters, 16 June 2015

Pluto

Pluto, from The Chain Gang, 1930: Walt Disney and Norm Ferguson (image by Muchi, 2005)

Born a few months after
the naming
of what was thought to be
the ninth planet

A normal dog

Unlike the endlessly neurotic
anthropomorphic
dog Goofy

How refreshing

Spoke only two words in his entire life

"Kiss me"

"To Pluto the strong...": Nora Sawyer: from Ezra Pound: Canto I -- Into the Underworld (A Poetry Comic)

Oh, Heck, Pluto -- you were never meant to talk!

The Fuck Map...we've never seen a word map quite like this....: image via Jack Grieve @JWGrieve, 16 July 2015

The Shit Map...9 billion words of geocoded Tweets 2013-2014: image via Jack Grieve @JWGrieve, 16 July 2015

Alright, let's keep going: the Bitch Map. This and Shit have a similar and common pattern (see other maps below): image via Jack Grieve @JWGrieve, 16 July 2015

So pretty much everyone's swearing. We just don't all prefer the same words. The Asshole Map.: image via Jack Grieve @JWGrieve, 16 July 2015

The Faggot Map: image via Jack Grieve @JWGrieve, 16 July 2015

The Motherfucker Map (as one word): image via Jack Grieve @JWGrieve, 16 July 2015

I hesitate to post this. We're doing some work on slang for a news outlet and they say any word is cool except this.: image via Jack Grieve @JWGrieve, 16 July 2015

The Damn Map...hydro-electric polysemy doesn't seem to be skewing things too much at least: image via Jack Grieve @JWGrieve, 16 July 2015

The Darn Map. I know, I know, I should be mapping damn/darn alternation for the variationists out there but fuck it: image via Jack Grieve @JWGrieve, 16 July 2015

The elusive Southern Midland Dialect region appears: The Gosh Map: image via Jack Grieve @JWGrieve, 16 July 2015

Let's get Round 2 started: The Crap Map...another Southern Midland pattern: image via Jack Grieve @JWGrieve, 17 July 2015

The Douche Map...: image via Jack Grieve @JWGrieve, 17 July 2015

The Hell Map...notably lining up with Shit etc rather than Gosh...: image via Jack Grieve @JWGrieve, 17 July 2015

The Slut Map... : image via Jack Grieve @JWGrieve, 17 July 2015

...and then the Whore Map, very similar to slut...I guess I'll need to run hoe next: image via Jack Grieve @JWGrieve, 17 July 2015

The Bastard Map...a weaker pattern here.: image via Jack Grieve @JWGrieve, 17 July 2015

Last one for now: the Fuckboy Map. Also one of the fastest rising words in 2014: image via Jack Grieve @JWGrieve, 17 July 2015

Pluto -- Fuck Yeah!

We did it! We did it! #PlutoFlyby: image via NewHorizons2015 @NewHorizons2015, 15 July 2015

It's been 9 1/2 years since New Horizons launched. So excited to see pictures of Pluto tomorrow. @NASANewHorizons: image via Donny Osmond @ Donny Osmond, 13 July 2015 Provo, Utah

This is how the #PlutoFlyby is going to happen: image via NYT Science @NYT Science, 13 July 2015

ALICE BOWMAN IS A NATIONAL HERO: @NewHorizons2015Mission Operations Manager (aka MOM): image via Sarah Stern @notsterno, 15 July 2015

The @NewHorizons2015 Team all smiles as they look over data (images?) downlinked this morning: image via AmericaSpace @AmericaSpace, 15 July 2015

We're almost a million miles beyond Pluto now! WOW!: image via NewHorizons2015 @NewHorizons2015, 15 July 2015

Thanks Laurel. Today, the BBC team decamps to DC for Friday's final #PlutoFlyby briefing.: image via Jonathan Amos @BBCAmos, 16 July 2015

Today in 1969: Apollo11 launched on first mission to land humans on the Moon: image via Spaceflash News @spaceflashnews, 16 July 2015

I think someone spotted @DrFunkySpoon! That long arrow is pointing right at Him!: image via Pluto Major Planet @plutosgems, 16 July 2015

Love this!: image via NewHorizons2015 @NewHorizons2015, 16 July 2015

Spent 14 years taking [sic] about our first data as the "New York Times" dataset. BINGO, that happened today! #PlutoFlyby: image via NewHorizons2015 @NewHorizons2015, 16 July 2015

@NewHorizons2015 journey to #Pluto made front page of the @nytimes this morning: #PlutoFlyby: image via Sarah Stern @notsterno, 16 July 2015

How Big Is Pluto? New Horizons Settles Decades-Long Debate: image via The SETI Institute @SETIInstitute, 16 July 2015

This #DearPluto letter is outstanding! @ClarkPlanet thanks for sending these our way! @NewHorizons2015 @AlanStern: image via NewHorizons2015 @NewHorizons2015, 17 July 2015

#DearPluto Letters from @ClarkPlanet's #Plutopalooza S/O to 'big heart' @NewHorizons2015 @AlanStern: image via NewHorizons2015 @NewHorizons2015, 17 July 2015

#DearPluto Letters from @ClarkPlanet's #Plutopalooza S/O to 'science' @NewHorizons2015 @AlanStern: image via NewHorizons2015 @NewHorizons2015, 17 July 2015

National Geographic's #Pluto issue, autographed by @NASANewHorizons team. WANT! @NatGeo: image via Boing Boing @Boing Boing, 17 July 2015

VOTE for @NewHorizons2015 to have its own #LEGO set! #space #PlutoFlyby #Pluto: image via Sarah Stern @notsterno, 18 July 2015

Finding Pluto: the hunt for Planet X: image via Prof. Abel Méndez @ProfAbelMéndez, 17 July 2015

Looking at photos of Pluto doesn't get old. #PlutoFlyby: image via Planetary Society @exploreplanets, 18 July 2015

New Pluto images show no craters but plenty of weird mounds: a delicious enigma. #PlutoFlyby: image via Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell, 17 July 2015

Should Pluto be a planet again? A petition is now out: image via CNN @CNN, 15 July 2015

Day 110 On 2nd look #Pluto you look like a planet. Sorry I doubted you. Good night from @space_station! #YearinSpace: image via Scott Kelly @StationCDRKelly, 15 July 2015

I feel small again, but in a big, amazing way! Pluto -- Fuck Yeah!

Pluto, Jupiter and Neptune: Caravaggio, 1597-1600, ceiling painting in oil, 300 x 152 cm (Casino dell'Aurora, Villa Boncompagni Ludovisi, Rome)

SNEAK PEEK of gorgeous Pluto! | by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center

SNEAK PEEK of gorgeous Pluto!: image by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, 16 July 2015

New Horizons Launches to Pluto | by colinjcampbell

New Horizons Launches to Pluto: image by Colin Campbell, 19 January 2006

TONIGHT, JULY 16, 2014! Ask Experts About the New Horizons Mission to Pluto! | by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center

TONIGHT! Ask Experts About the New Horizons Mission to Pluto!: image by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, 16 July 2015

Pluto By Moonlight | by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center

Pluto by Moonlight: image by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, 14 July 2015

New Horizons 3-billion-mile Journey to Pluto Reaches Historic #plutoflyby! | by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center

New Horizons 3-billion-mile Journey to Pluto Reaches Historic #plutoflyby: image by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, 14 July 2015

Pluto and it's moon Charon Shine in False Color | by NASA Goddard Photo and Video

Pluto and it's [sic] moon Charon Shine in False Color: image by NASA's Marshall Space Center, 14 July 2015

Pluto: All I've got to say is -- Kiss me!

celebrating PLUTO ! - NOT my image | by Shein Die

Celebrating PLUTO ! -- NOT my image: image by Shein Die, 15 July 2015

↧

Insecurity: Burundi

July 21, 2015, 12:24 pm

≫ Next: Turbulence and Serenity: van Gogh at Auxers, June-July 1890: Last Strokes

≪ Previous: Really Not a Planet

Election observers sit in an empty polling station for the presidential elections in Bujumbura, Burundi, Tuesday, July 21, 2015. A low turnout was experienced in several polling stations in the Burundi s capital at the start of voting in the country s presidential election following a night of explosions and gunfire in at least two opposition strongholds that oppose President Pierre Nkurunziza s candidacy for a third term in office

Election observers sit in an empty polling station for the presidential elections in Bujumbura, Burundi, on Tuesday: photo by Jerome Delay/AP 21 June 2015

A policeman casts his vote while a soldier waits at a largely empty polling station in #Bujumbura #Burundi @vicenews: image via Daniel Bateman @Daniel Bateman, 21 July 2015

#Burundi presidential election: "it's just the beginning of violence" says @TVircoulon: image via Eye On Africa F24 @EyeOnAfricaF24, 21 July 2015

Bujumbura, Burundi. A woman is turned away for not being at the proper polling station in the presidential elections: photo by Jerome Delay/AP, 21 June 2015

#Burundi votes after overnight violence: #BBCAfricaLive page for updates throughout the day#photo by @fil: image via BBC Africa @BBC Africa, 20 July 2015

Incumbent President Pierre Nkurunziza arrives by bicycle to cast his ballot #Burundi #photo by @fil: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 21 July 2015

#Burundi election Nyakabiga, writing "nkurunziza =crook, killer" on the floor dozens cheer: image via Maud Julien @Maud Julien, 21 July 2015

Resident in Nyakabiga lights a barricade as community mourns 1 dead overnight; exact cause of death unclear.#Burundi: image via Zoe Flood @Zoe Flood, 21 July 2015

#Burundi still tense in Nyakabiga ppl initially gathered around body - now some erecting a barricade: image via Maud Julien @Maud Julien, 21 July 2015

#Burundi election: violence ‘likely to escalate’ as shots, explosions echo through the capital: image via Eye On Africa F24 @EyeOnAfricaF24, 21 July 2015

A man carries a metal gate on a bicycle in Bujumbura, #Burundi #photo by @CarldeSouza1: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 20 July 2015

A child in the Cibitoke neighbourhood of Bujumbura attaches a board protesting against President Nkurunziza’s third mandate: photo by Phil Moore via the Guardian, 6 July 2015

A protestor throws fuel on to a shop kiosk dragged into the road to form a barricade in Cibitoke. Protestors fought street battles against the police and Imbonerakure -- the youth wing of the ruling CNDD-FDD party -- resulting in at least three deaths:: photo by Phil Moore via the Guardian, 6 July 2015

A market worker closes a potato stall in the Musaga market in Bujumbura. Shopkeepers say the price of fresh goods like tomatoes and potatoes has risen by up to 300%. A failed coup in May brought a marked reduction in protests, but many market stalls remain closed. The wholesale price of goods is higher due to the weakened Burundian franc and a rise in transport costs caused by insecurity.: photo by Phil Moore via the Guardian, 6 July 2015

A barber gives a man a haircut in Cibitoke, Bujumbura. Cibitoke has been hard hit by the protests, stifling commerce in what is already one of the city’s poorest neighbourhoods: photo by Phil Moore via the Guardian, 6 July 2015

People transport goods at the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Cross-border trade has been affected by increased insecurity: photo by Phil Moore via the Guardian, 6 July 2015

Cylists hang to the back of a truck outside the capital Bujumbura, July 19, 2015, as the country awaits next week's presidential elections. Each day scores of cyclists make the 45 kilometer downhill journey at breakneck speed from Bugarama to sell bananas, often hanging from the back of trucks for the return uphill trip. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY REUTERS NEWS PICTURES HAS NOW MADE IT EASIER TO FIND THE BEST PHOTOS FROM THE MOST IMPORTANT STORIES AND TOP STANDALONES EACH DAY. Search for "TPX" in the IPTC Supplemental Category field or "IMAGES OF THE DAY" in the Caption field and you will find a selection of 80-100 of our daily Top Pictures. REUTERS NEWS PICTURES.

Cyclists hang to the back of a truck outside the capital Bujumbura, as the country awaits next week’s presidential elections. Each day scores of cyclists make the 45 kilometer downhill journey at breakneck speed from Bugarama to sell bananas, often hanging from the back of trucks for the return uphill trip: photo by Mike Hutchings/Reuters, 20 June 2015

......................... Cyclists hang to the back of a truck: photo by Mike Hutchings/Reuters, 20 June 2015

↧

Turbulence and Serenity: van Gogh at Auxers, June-July 1890: Last Strokes

July 22, 2015, 6:29 am

≫ Next: What I Did on My Summer Vacation

≪ Previous: Insecurity: Burundi

I...Tree Roots

transistoradio: Vincent van Gogh, Tree Roots (1890), oil on canvas, 100 x 50 cm. Collection of Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Via WikiPaintings.

Tree Roots: Vincent van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, July 1890, oil on canvas, 50.3 x 100.1 cm (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)

Van Gogh had already made several drawings of tree roots in The Hague in 1882. He wrote at the time of his wish ‘to express something of life’s struggle […] in those gnarled black roots’. It is tempting to see the same symbolism in these twisted tree roots, painted eight years later.

The work seems to consist at first sight of a jumble of bright colours and abstract forms, prompting some art historians to identify Van Gogh as an important forerunner of abstract art. If you keep looking, however, you make out the tree roots, plants and leaves, and beneath them the brown and yellow of the sandy forest floor, all laid down on the canvas with powerful brushstrokes and oily gobs of paint.

Many people believe that the more dramatic Wheatfield with Crows is Van Gogh’s final work. This colourful painting is a much likelier candidate, however, as he was unable to complete it, which helps explain its irregular, unfinished character. Theo’s brother-in-law, Andries Bonger, described it as follows in a letter: ‘The morning before his death, he had painted an underwood [sous-bois], full of sun and life.’

-- Van Gogh Museum

Tree Roots: Vincent van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, July 1890, oil on canvas, 50.3 x 100.1 cm (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)

Technique must be born of inner necessity. When Van Gogh at one time, in order to achieve the plastic character of the roots of a tree, squeezed oil directly from a tube on his picture, it seemed to him the best means of expressing what moved him at the moment in nature. That technique is the best which permits the artist to express what he has to say as directly and convincingly as possible.

-- The Materials of the Artist and Their Use in Painting, with Notes on the Techniques of the Old Masters: Max Doerner, 1934

Tree Roots: Vincent van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, July 1890, oil on canvas, 50.3 x 100.1 cm (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)

...this amazing painting –- one of the very greatest (and least noticed) masterpieces from the founding moment of modernism –- is yet another experiment in the independent vitality of painted line and colour, as well as the uncountable force of nature. Almost lost within it -– as in Undergrowth With Two Figures -– are allusions to and repudiations of, the exhausted traditions of landscape...

...The view is therefore bipolar: simultaneously that of the rabbit and the hawk. Colours -– wheat-gold, clay-brown -– tease the eye with possibilities of making sense of a field or a hill, but then scramble them into chaos. The usual aesthetic markers –- beauty and ugliness –- have been made meaningless. In Tree Roots the painted forms rap against the visual panes of our windows, as if trying to crash through the glass. In other paintings from these last weeks in Auvers the interior of the field –- green or gold stalks -– occupies the entirety of the visual field like a curtain. Without a beginning or an end this infinity of growing matter closes over us. It’s the ultimate compression of heaven and earth, a live burial within the engulfing sea of creation.

[This] may well be another view from inside Vincent’s hectic brain: all knots and strangling thickets, knobbly growths, bolting ganglia, claw-like forms, and pincers the look more skeletal than botanical... But this amazing painting – one of the very greatest (and least noticed) masterpieces from the founding moment of modernism -– is yet another experiment in the independent vitality of painted line and colour, as well as the uncontainable force of nature.

-- Simon Schama: on van Gogh's Tree Roots in Power of Art, 2006

Tree Roots: Vincent van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, July 1890, oil on canvas, 50.3 x 100.1 cm (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)

II...Undergrowth with Two Figures

Vincent van Gogh - Undergrowth with Two Figures, 1890 (Cincinnati Art Museum) Van Gogh: Up Close at Philadelphia Museum of Art | by mbell1975

Undergrowth with Two Figures: Vincent van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, July 1890; image by mbell1975, 5 May 2012 (Cincinnati Art Museum)

Then undergrowth, violet trunks of poplars which cross the landscape perpendicularly like columns. The depths of the undergrowth are blue, and under the big trunks the flowery meadow, white, pink, yellow, green, long russet grasses and flowers.

-- Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh and Jo van Gogh-Bonger, Auvers-sur-Oise, Wednesday, 2 July 1890

"Undergrowth with Two Figures" - detail | by hoobie3

Undergrowth with Two Figures (detail): Vincent van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, June/July 1890; image by hoobie 3, 16 March 2011 (Cincinnati Art Museum)

Undergrowth with Two Figures (detail): Vincent van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, July 1890; image by Terri Viltrakis, 17 March 2007 (Cincinnati Art Museum)

Texture of Undergrowth with Two Figures by Vincent van Gogh, painted June 1890, one month before his death: photo by erkaflugge, 2 April 2014( Cincinnati Art Museum)

Undergrowth with Two Figures: Vincent van Gogh. Auvers-sur-Oise, late June 1890, oil on canvas, 50 x 100.5 cm: photo by David Lewis-Baker, 24 April 2011 (Cincinnati Art Museum)

Van Gogh's brush strokes: Undergrowth with Two Figures, 1890 (taken at Cincinnati Art Museum): photo by elycefeliz, 4 February 2011

Van Gogh's Brush Strokes | by elycefeliz

Van Gogh's Brush Strokes."The only time I feel alive is when I'm painting." Undergrowth with Two Figures, Auvers-sur-Oise, July 1890 (detail): photo by elycefeliz, 4 February 2011

Van Gogh's brush strokes: Undergrowth with Two Figures, 1890 (taken at Cincinnati Art Museum): photo by elycefeliz, 4 February 2011

Undergrowth with Two Figures (detail of brushwork): Vincent van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, June/July 1890; image by hoobie 3, 16 March 2011 (Cincinnati Art Museum)

Undergrowth with Two Figures (detail of brushwork): Vnicent van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, June/July 1890; image by renzo dionigi, 10 November 2009 (Cincinnati Art Museum)

Undergrowth with Two Figures: Vincent van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, July 1890; image by renzo dionigi, 10 November 2009 (Cincinnati Art Museum)

III...Bank of the Oise at Auvers

Bank of the Oise at Auvers: Vincent van Gogh, July 1890, Auvers-sur-Ois, oil on canvas, 74 x 94 cm (Institute of Arts, Detroit)

Van Gogh's Bank of the Oise at Auvers, detail (taken at Detroit Institute of Art): photo by Maia C, 3 September 2010

Bank of the Oise at Auvers (detail): Vincent van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, July 1890, oil on canvas, 74 x 94 cm (Institute of Arts, Detroit); photo by Martin Beek, 20 July 2014

Detail of Bank of the Oise at Auvers | by ellenm1

Bank of the Oise at Auvers (detail): Vincent van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, July 1890, oil on canvas, 74 x 94 cm (Institute of Arts, Detroit); photo by ellenm1, 23 January 2010

Bank of the Oise at Auvers (detail): Vincent van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, July 1890, oil on canvas, 74 x 94 cm (Institute of Arts, Detroit); photo by Martin Beek, 20 July 2014

Bank of the Oise at Auvers (detail): Vincent van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, July 1890, oil on canvas, 74 x 94 cm (Institute of Arts, Detroit); photo by ellenm1, 23 January 2010

Vincent van Gogh - Bank of the Oise at Auvers (1890) | by Quick fix

Bank of the Oise at Auvers: Vincent van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, July 1890, oil on canvas, 74 x 94 cm (Institute of Arts, Detroit); photo by Quck fix, 6 July 2012

Bank of the Oise at Auvers (detail): Vincent van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, July 1890, oil on canvas, 74 x 94 cm (Institute of Arts, Detroit); photo by Martin Beek, 20 July 2014

IV...Auxers and environs: views

Thatched Cottage in Cordeville: Vincent van Gogh, June 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, oil on canvas, 73 x 92 cm (Musée d'Orsay, Paris)

Landscape with Carriage and Train in the Background: Vincent van Gogh, June 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, oil on canvas, 72 x 90 cm (Pushkin Museum, Moscow)

Yesterday in the rain I painted a large landscape, showing fields as far as one can see, looked at from a height, different kinds of green growth, a potato field of a sombre green, between the regular beds the rich violet earth, on one side a field of peas in white bloom, then a field of clover with pink flowers and the little figure of a mower, a field of long and ripe grass somewhat reddish in tone, then various kinds of wheat, poplars, on the horizon a last line of blue hills, along the foot of which a train is passing, leaving behind it an immense trail of white smoke over all the green vegetation. A white road crosses the canvas. On the road a little carriage, and white houses with harshly red roofs by the side of this road.

Vincent van Gogh to his mother, on the painting Landscape with Carriage and Train in the Background, Auvers-sur-Oise, 12 June 1890:

Vineyards with a View of Auvers: Vincent van Gogh,June 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, oil on canvas, 64 x 80 cm (Art Museum, Saint Louis)

The Church at Auvers: Vincent van Gogh, June 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, oil on canvas, 94 x 74 cm (Musée d'Orsay, Paris)

V...Texture and Palette

Van Gogh texture (taken at Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam): photo by zutaten, 30 October 2013

Van Gogh texture: photo by dacarrot, 23 June 2009

Van Gogh: detail of brushstrokes: photo by torpenhow3, 21 April 2011

Van Gogh's Wheat Field with Reape, detail (taken at Toledo Museum of Art): photo by Mario Q (aka MichSt), 9 February 2008

Van Gogh texture: photo by dacarrot, 23 June 2009

Van Gogh texture (taken at Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam): photo by zutaten, 30 October 2013

Netherlands-3963 - Van Gogh's Palette | by archer10 (Dennis) (50M Views)

Vincent van Gogh's palette, with tubes of paint. "The only time I feel alive is when I'm painting.": photo by Dennis Jarvis, 20 September 2013

VI..."...that immense plain with wheat fields up as far as the hills, boundless as the ocean..."

Landscape near Auvers: Wheatfields: Vincent van Gogh, July 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise oil on canvas, 74 x 92 cm (Neue Pinakothek, Munich)

Young Peasant Woman with Straw Hat Sitting in the Wheat: Vincent van Gogh,June 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, oil on canvas, 93 x 74 cm (Private collection)

Two Women Crossing the Fields: Vincent van Gogh,July 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, oil on paper on canvas, 30 x 60 cm (MacNay Art Museum, San Antonio)

Wheat Field with Auvers in the Background: Vincent van Gogh, Auxers-sur-Oise, summer 1890, oil on canvas, 44 × 51.5 cm (Collection of the Musées d'art et d'histoire, Geneva)

House at Auvers, by Vincent Van Gogh, 1890 | by Alaskan Dude

House at Auvers: Vincent van Gogh, summer 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, oil on canvas; photo by Frank Kovalchek, 28 October 2011 (The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.)

House at Auvers: Vincent van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, summer 1890, oil on canvas, 48.6 × 62.9 cm (The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C)

Field with Wheat Stacks: Vincent van Gogh, July 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise. oil on canvas, 50 x 100 cm (Private collection)

Wheat Fields: The Plain of Auvers: Vincent van Gogh, June 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, oil on canvas, 50 x 100 cm (Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna)

So -- having arrived back here, I have set to work again -- although the brush is almost falling from my fingers - and because I knew exactly what I wanted to do, I have painted three more large canvases. They are vast stretches of corn under troubled skies, and I did not have to go out of my way very much in order to try to express sadness and extreme loneliness. I hope you will be seeing them soon since I'd like to bring them to you in Paris as soon as possible. I'm fairly sure that these canvases will tell you what I cannot say in words, that is, how healthy and invigorating I find the countryside.

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, c. 10 July 1890

Wheat Field with Crows: Vincent van Gogh, July 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, oil on canvas, 50.5 x 103 cm (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)

I myself am quite absorbed in that immense plain with wheat fields up as far as the hills, boundless as the ocean, delicate yellow, delicate soft green, the delicate purple of a tilled and weeded piece of ground, with the regular speckle of the green of flowering potato plants, everything under a sky of delicate tones of blue, white, pink and violet. I am in a mood of almost too much calm, just the mood needed for painting this.

-- Vincent van Gogh to his parents, Auvers-sur-Oise, c. 10-14 July 1890

Wheat Field under Clouded Sky: Vincent van Gogh, July 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise, oil on canvas, 50 x 101 cm (Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam)

Our dear friend Vincent died four days ago.

I think that you will have already guessed the fact that he killed himself.

On Sunday evening he went out into the countryside near Auvers, placed his easel against a haystack and went behind the chateau and fired a revolver shot at himself. Under the violence of the impact (the bullet entered his body below the heart) he fell, but he got up again, and fell three times more, before he got back to the inn where he was staying (Ravoux, place de la Mairie) without telling anyone about his injury. He finally died on Monday evening, still smoking his pipe which he refused to let go of, explaining that his suicide had been absolutely deliberate and that he had done it in complete lucidity. A typical detail that I was told about his wish to die was that when Dr. Gachet told him that he still hoped to save his life, he said, “Then I'll have to do it over again.” But, alas, it was no longer possible to save him….

On Wednesday 30 July, yesterday that is, I arrived in Auvers at about 10 o'clock. His brother, Theodore van ghohg [sic], was there together with Dr. Gachet. Also Tanguy (he had been there since 9 o'clock). Charles Laval accompanied me. The coffin was already closed, I arrived too late to see the man again who had left me four years ago so full of expectations of all kinds… The innkeeper told us all the details of the accident, the offensive visit of the gendarmes who even went up to his bedside to reproach him for an act for which he alone was responsible…etc…

On the walls of the room where his body was laid out all his last canvases were hung making a sort of halo for him and the brilliance of the genius that radiated from them made this death even more painful for us artists who were there. The coffin was covered with a simple white cloth and surrounded with masses of flowers, the sunflowers that he loved so much, yellow dahlias, yellow flowers everywhere. It was, you will remember, his favourite colour, the symbol of the light that he dreamed of as being in people's hearts as well as in works of art.

Near him also on the floor in front of his coffin were his easel, his folding stool and his brushes.

-- Emile Bernard to Albert Aurier, Paris, 2 August 1890

Landscape at Auvers in the Rain: Vincent van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, July 1890, oil on canvas, 48.3 x 99 cm (National Museum of Wales)

korenaren. Vincent van Gogh 1890-detail | by efraa

Ears of Wheat (detail): Vincent van Gogh, Auvers-sur-Oise, Summer 1890, oil on canvas; image by marlie bouten, 29 June 2009 (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)

The small attic room in Auvers-sur-Oise where Vincent van Gogh lived and died: photographer unknown, c. 1950s, via T. F. Simon: Vincent van Gogh and Auvers-sur-Oise

↧

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

July 23, 2015, 1:33 pm

≫ Next: Negativland: No Other Possibility ("...dying is easy, comedy is hard")

≪ Previous: Turbulence and Serenity: van Gogh at Auxers, June-July 1890: Last Strokes

A homeless man sleeps beside a wall covered with movie posters in Los Angeles [photo: Frederic J. Brown]: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 21 July 2015

The sun sets behind the minaret of a mosque in Ramallah on 16 July, marking the end of the last fasting day of Ramadan: photo by Nasser Nasser/AP, 16 July 2015

Holiday on the West Bank: House Raid

Israeli army kills Palestinian man while trying to arrest his son #West Bank: image via Middle East Monitor @MiddleEastMnt, 23 July 2015

Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian inWest Bank: Palestinian doctor in Hebron identifies man who died in house raid, in which two others were injured, as Falah Abu Maria: Reuters in Ramallah, Thursday 23 July 2015

Israeli soldiers have killed a Palestinian and wounded two others during a raid on a house in the occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian medical officials.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said soldiers were attacked while trying to arrest a suspect in the village of Beit Ummar and opened fire on the main attacker.

As the forces left the scene, the spokeswoman said, they were attacked once more, with rocks and bricks, and “responded to the assaults with fire towards the main instigator”.

A Palestinian doctor in a Hebron hospital said a 52-year-old man had been shot and killed and two of his sons were injured. The doctor identified the man as Falah Abu Maria.

Yusuf Abu Maria, an anti-Israeli settlement activist in the town, said there had not been any clashes and that the shooting had taken place inside a house.

On Wednesday, a Palestinian was killed in a separate arrest raid when clashes erupted with residents.

Israeli troops enter Palestinian-controlled territory frequently to detain people suspected of militant activity. Palestinians condemn this practice as an encroachment on the limited self-rule they hold in parts of the West Bank.

23 JulyDozens of Palestinians in the #WestBank city of al-#khalll participate in the funeral of martyr Falah Abu Maria, 52: image via Al Qassam Brigades @qassamsms, 23 July 2015

Israeli forces kill Palestinian Falah Hamdi Abu Maria in the town of Beit Ummar in the West Bank while trying to arrest his son: Middle East Monitor, 23 July 2015

The Israeli army on Thursday killed a Palestinian man in the West Bank while trying to arrest his son.

Witnesses told Anadolu Agency that Israeli forces killed Falah Hamdi Abu Maria in the town of Beit Ummar.

Medical reports said he was shot in the chest.

"Dozens of Palestinians have begun arriving at Abu Maria's house, amid anger in the town," witnesses added.

On Wednesday, Israeli military forces killed a young Palestinian man in the northern West Bank.

More than 20 Palestinians have been killed and another 2,156 have been detained by the Israeli military in 2015, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) said in a report issued earlier this month.

23 JulyDozens of Palestinians in the #WestBank city of al-#khalll participate in the funeral of martyr Falah Abu Maria, 52: image via Al Qassam Brigades @qassamsms, 23 July 2015

Holiday in Gaza

A Palestinian man takes a picture of his daughter at sunset at the sea port in Gaza City [photo: Mohamed Abed]: image via Agence France-Presse @AFP, 22 July 2015

A man hangs ears of corn out to dry before selling them on the beach in #Gaza. Photo by #MohammedAbed #AFPphoto: image via Catherine Weibel @Catherine Weibel, 18 May 2015

#Gaza City - Palestinians in rubble of buildings destroyed during the 50-day war. By Mohammed Abed #AFP: image by AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 22 July 2015

A Palestinian street vendor carries balloons on a street in #Gaza City. #MohammedAbed #AFPphoto: image via UNICEFpalestine @UNICEFpalestine, 18 May 2015

Palestinian children pose for picture on a makeshift boat at the port of #Gaza City. #MohammedAbed #AFPphoto: image via UNICEFpalestine @UNICEFpalestine, 20 May 2015

Un petit garçon regarde une lampe de #Ramadan sur un marché de #Gaza City. Photo by #MohammedAbed #AFPphoto RamadanKarim!: image via Catherine Weibel @Catherine Weibel, 18 June 2015

Holiday on the West Bank: Don't Level My Village

We ain't going anywhere sweetie @YDan10 @purplhaze42 @canarymission @charlesfrith @umm_hashim @avibono: image via Shim Rational @shimrational, 30 May 2015

More than 900 Israeli settlement housing units approved #West Bank: image via Middle East Monitor @MiddleEastMnt, 23 July 2015

[Middle East Monitor:] 651k Israeli settlers live in 185 illegal settlements and 220 unauthorised locations in #WestBank and Jerusalem at the start of 2015: image via Palestine @ops_pal, 18 July 2015

US, EU take strong stand against Israeli demolition plan: Akiva Eldar, Al-Monitor Israel Pulse, 20 July 2015

The timing of the announcement by US State Department spokesman John Kirby regarding the Barack Obama administration’s position on the small Palestinian village of Susiya was no less important than its content. Kirby made the statement July 16, as the administration was going out of its way to douse the flames in US-Israeli relations following the signing of the nuclear agreement with Iran.

While world opinion speculated about the effect of the Iran agreement on US-Israeli relations, Kirby arrived for his briefing armed with a stern declaration about the potentially far-reaching implications of the planned demolitions in Susiya in the Judean Mountains south of Hebron.

Kirby made clear that the consequences of Israel's harassment of Susiya residents would extend beyond the demolitions’ impact on the villagers and their families. He noted that the planned expulsions and land appropriations in Susiya were particularly glaring given the settlement activity in that same region. Several hours beforehand, Dorothy Shea, acting US consul general in Jerusalem, had used similar language. She, too, urged Israeli authorities to abstain from demolishing the homes in the village. These sharp public pronouncements thus turned the Susiya affair into the first test of Israeli foreign relations in the post-Iran nuclear crisis era.

According to information acquired by human rights organizations in Israel and the territories, the Israeli civil administration did not wait until the end of the month of Ramadan to hand out demolition orders for 37 structures. It intends to carry out the orders before Aug. 3, the date set for the Supreme Court to hear an appeal submitted by the Palestinians and these organizations.

European capitals are also eyeing with concern the bulldozers parked outside the tiny village, whose residents have the dubious distinction of living in a region of the West Bank known as Area C. The Oslo Accord divided the West Bank into three zones -- A, B and C -- with Area C under complete Israeli control.

A Palestinian man, Jihad Nuwaja, stands next to a tent in Susiya village, south of the West Bank city of Hebron: photo by Mussa Qawasma/Reuters, 20 June 2015

On June 29, the European Union’s ambassador to Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, said the EU’s humanitarian affairs agency had reported that every month, Israel destroys five to seven projects that the union funds in Area C. “We’re talking about European taxpayer money,” the envoy said at a conference on Susiya held by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. The ambassador stressed that European aid does not free Israel of its responsibility under international humanitarian law to ensure a reasonable quality of life for the Palestinian population under its control. He noted that Area C constitutes some 60% of the West Bank and, therefore, is a key to the establishment of a future Palestinian state.

According to EU data, said Faaborg-Andersen, recent years have brought an increase in the number of demolitions in the region (in addition to extensive demolitions in Bedouin villages in Israel). He explained that this stems from the minute number of building permits Israel grants the residents of Palestinian villages throughout Area C.

“If people knew where they could build,” Faaborg-Andersen said, “it would prevent construction without permits and demolition orders.” He added that Yoav “Poli” Mordechai, coordinator of government activities in the territories, shares the view that the appropriate way to overcome the problem is to prepare an Israeli-Palestinian master plan that would enable the Palestinians to build in a legal and orderly manner.

“Unfortunately,” Faaborg-Andersen remarked, “the master plan process has been taken hostage by other events that have been going on between Israel and the Palestinians,” such as complaints against Israel lodged by the Palestinian leadership with international organizations. Like the American speakers, Faaborg-Andersen did not forget to mention that even as Palestinian homes are being destroyed, the settlements are taking over more and more land for construction and security needs.

One can assume that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not keen to see footage of bulldozers destroying the homes of indigent Palestinians on television screens worldwide, bumping reports on the condition of human rights in Iran. Even if the prime minister could be persuaded that he should seek a way out of this affair, he could expect a fair number of obstacles along the way.

A Palestinian woman holds a Palestinian flag in the West Bank village of Susiya: photo by Baz Ratner/Reuters, 24 June 2012

On the one hand, the international community is pressing him to stop the bulldozers. On the other, Netanyahu is being held hostage by the settlers and their representatives in the leadership of the Likud and HaBayit HaYehudi parties. They will not leave him alone until he wipes out the village stuck in the craw of the settlers of the south Hebron Hills. Yisrael Beitenu, the right-wing opposition party led by former Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, would have a field day were Netanyahu to surrender to the left.

This equation is missing an important element -- the Israeli left-wing opposition. The Zionist Camp has once again left the Meretz Party to face the right alone. The silence of the main opposition party on the Susiya affair can be added to the absence of its members from the vote on force feeding hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners held on security-related offenses, its vote in favor of the nationality bill that tears apart Palestinian families, its support for thwarting peace activists’ Marianne flotilla to Gaza and its competition with Netanyahu to slam the Iran agreement.

This time as well, Meretz was the sole Zionist party to rush to the defense of the downtrodden. This time, too, a handful of Israeli peace activists -- led by members of the organizations Ta’ayush (Living Together, in Arabic), B’Tselem and Rabbis for Human Rights -- are standing by the weakest group among the occupied Palestinian population. A chosen few among them, like professor David Shulman, serve as voices delivering the shepherds’ and farmers’ messages to air-conditioned administrative offices in Washington and at European Union headquarters in Brussels.

In his book Dark Hope: Journal of a Ta'ayush Activist, Shulman, a member of the Israeli Academy of Sciences and recipient of the prestigious Emet Prize, writes about how he and his friends collected poison pellets that the settlers had scattered to kill the Palestinian residents’ goats and sheep, planted olive trees to replace the ones uprooted by settlers, helped a farmer cross the few yards to his well and provided blankets for uprooted Palestinian cave dwellers.

“Two relentless national movements are engaged in a conflict, street to street, house to house,” Shulman wrote. “One side is infinitely stronger than the other, but not more magnanimous. It abuses its power over and over -- the tremendous machine of a state and army and judiciary -- in order to disown, threaten, expropriate, control, destroy.”

The well-oiled mechanism of the major powers proved in reaching an agreement with Iran in Vienna on July 14 that it can use its power to achieve compromise, to bridge, to rehabilitate and to build. Now this mechanism is free to focus on dismantling the ticking time bomb on the heights of the Hebron Hills.

West Bank villagers deliver final plea to save homes from destruction: Shlomi Eldar, Al-Monitor Israel Pulse, 20 July 2015

On July 12, the residents of the Palestinian village of Khirbet Susiya, located in the Mount Hebron area of the West Bank, had a meeting with Gen. Yoav (“Polly”) Mordechai, the commander of the Israeli military's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories unit. It was only then that they discovered that at the beginning of August, the Civil Administration, which administers civilian activity in the West Bank on behalf of the Israeli government, plans to demolish half of the structures in the village.

If this happens, the curtain will fall on the legal battle they have been waging against the state for more than 20 years, ever since they were expelled from the caves where they had previously lived and which were designated a national park. After their expulsion, they set up several temporary structures on farmland they cultivated while they were living in the caves. According to the state, these structures are illegal. Israel plans to relocate the residents of Khirbet Susiya to Area A in the environs of the village of Yatta. Khirbet Susiya is located in Area C. Under the 1993 Oslo Accord, Area C is under full Israeli control, while Area A is under full Palestinian civil and security control.

Some 350 people currently live in Khirbet Susiya, half of whom are under 18. Located nearby is the Jewish settlement of Susiya that was established in 1983. Some of the residents of the Palestinian village who used to live there had given up because of the harsh conditions and unending legal battles. Instead, they moved to the area controlled by the Palestinian Authority.

“One day, in 1986, we were notified that we had to leave our village and go somewhere else. We were never given the opportunity to protest and no alternative location was offered. I was a child back then and I remember the trauma,” Salah Nawajeh, a resident of Khirbet Susiya, told Al-Monitor. “We were given a couple of days. Then the military showed up, put up fences and we were barred from going in. This was our land, our life, our homes. We were told that that was an archaeological site and that from that moment on it would be run by the settlers. But we came [to the cave village] because we were banished from our first natural territory.”

Salah’s father, Muhammad Nawajeh, told Al-Monitor, “We used to live in the area of Tel Arad [in the eastern part of the Negev Desert]. We had been there all our lives, since the times of the Ottomans and the British. We stayed there even after [Israel’s 1948 War of Independence]. In 1952 we were banished for the first time and then we built our village in Susiya. We dug caves and water wells. In 1986 we were expelled from there, too. Now we are being banished for the third time. I’m already 70. I’m old and tired. I was born before Israel was founded on this land, and this is where I want to die. All I can remember from the Jews is banishments.”

Don’t destroy #WestBank village: EU to Israel: image via Press TV @PressTV, 21 July 2015

The residents of Khirbet Susiya claim that for years their requests for construction permits were denied. Two years ago, they submitted to the Civil Administration a zoning blueprint they had prepared with the hope that the living structures they had built would be legalized. However, the Civil Administration rejected the plan, arguing that it did not meet the basic standards of living. With the help of the organization Rabbis for Human Rights, the residents filed an appeal with the Supreme Court against the rejection of the blueprint. Concurrently, they requested that the demolition orders be stayed pending the court hearing. In May of this year, Justice Noam Solberg turned down their petition. In the wake of the ruling, the residents have been looking for a new avenue for their struggle: international pressure.

In fact, already in 1986, in a bid to dissuade Israel from uprooting them from their land, the residents of Khirbet Susiya turned to the US ambassador to Israel, Thomas Pickering, asking that he intervene on their behalf. Pickering, they say, pledged to assist them, but two weeks later the area where they had been living was fenced off with barbwire. Now they have approached the US Embassy once again, asking that it pressure Israel not to demolish the village. It appears that their efforts have not been unsuccessful.

“An assistant and an attache from the embassy came to see us,” Salah said. “We explained to them about our legal battles against the State of Israel for the past 20 years and how everything works here in Susiya, with pressure brought to bear by the settlers. I told [the Americans] that in 1986 the ambassador promised that we would not be banished, but he didn’t keep his word. That’s why I asked that they not let us down again. Our fate, our lives are in their hands. If the Americans don’t exert pressure on the Israeli government, we, the residents of the village who have been living here for centuries, will be expelled again. This will be a blot on everyone’s reputation for generations to come.”

Recently, the Civil Administration has started promoting the demolition of the structures, submitting to representatives of the residents a list of the structures slated for demolition. As noted, the residents of Khirbet Susiya claim that the Civil Administration is being pressured by the settlers and that they heard things in this vein during their meeting with the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. In response to this allegation, the Civil Administration says that Mordechai, on his own initiative, invited representatives from the village and their attorneys to find alternative solutions in keeping with planning considerations.

Presently, the residents of Khirbet Susiya refuse to accept the proposed solutions, claiming that the land has been theirs for many generations.

“We turned to whoever we could,” Salah said. ‘We used the Americans and the Europeans and even the Palestinian Authority. If the houses are demolished, we will turn to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. If Israel talks about coexistence and peace, it’s time to show it and not act because of pressure from the settlers. They have brought calamity on us ever since they arrived here and took over our lands. It was only a week ago that they uprooted four old olive trees, and they keep stopping us from working our land. That’s the reality of things and this is what we’re fighting against.”

Israel, Don't Level My Village; Nasser Nawaja in Susiya, West Bank for New York Times, 23 July 2015

In 1948, as Israeli forces closed in on his village of Qaryatayn, my grandfather carried my father in his arms to Susiya, about five miles north, in the South Hebron Hills area.

“We will go back home soon,” my grandfather told my father.

They did not. Qaryatayn was destroyed, along with about 40 other Palestinian villages that were razed between 1948 and the mid-1950s. My family rebuilt their lives in Susiya, across the 1949 armistice line in the West Bank.

In 1986, my family was expelled from our home once again -- not because of war, but because the occupying Israeli authorities decided to create an archaeological and tourist site around the remains of an ancient synagogue in Susiya. (A structure next to the abandoned temple was used as a mosque from about the 10th century.) This time, it was my father who took me in his arms as the soldiers drew near.

“We will return soon,” he said.

We did not. Without compensation, we were forced to rebuild Susiya nearby on what was left of our agricultural lands.

A Palestinian child runs in the village of Susiya on the West Bank: photo by Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times 23 July 2015

If, in the coming weeks, the Israeli government carries outdemolition orders served on some 340 residents of Susiya, I will be forced to take my children in my arms as our home is destroyed and the village razed once again. I do not know if I will have the heart to tell them that we will soon go home; history has taught me that it may be a very long time until we are able to return.

In 2012, the Civil Administration branch of Israel's Defense Ministry issued demolition orders against more than 50 structures in Susiya, including living quarters, a clinic, shop and solar panels. The reason given in these orders was that our village was built without permits from the Israeli military authorities.

The new Susiya was built on Palestinian villagers’ private agricultural land, but that is no safeguard. In practice, it is virtually impossible for a Palestinian living in what is known as Area C -- the 60 percent of the West Bank under both civil and security control of the Israeli military -- to receive a building permit. According to Bimkom, an Israeli nonprofit focused on planning rights, more than 98 percent of Palestinian requests for building permits in Area C from 2010 to 2014 were rejected.

The threat has now become immediate. Following the initial distribution of demolition orders, there was a political and legal campaign spearheaded by the residents of Susiya that had support from Palestinian, Israeli and international activists and rights groups. The village was not demolished, our case returned to the courts and the pressure let up.

But this past May, a few months after the re-election of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Supreme Court justice Noam Sohlberg, who himself lives in an Israeli settlement that is considered illegal under international law, caved in to pressure from right-wing and settler organizations and ruled in the High Court that the Israeli military could go ahead with demolitions in the village -- despite the fact that the higher-ranking Supreme Court had scheduled a hearing for our case on Aug. 3.

Earlier this month, I learned from lawyers working against the demolition of Susiya that representatives of the Israeli military had stated their intent to demolish parts of our village before the Aug. 3 hearing. Since the May ruling, we in Susiya have been grateful for an outpouring of support and solidarity. Last week, the State Department’s spokesman, John Kirby, made a strong statement on the issue.

“We’re closely following developments in the village of Susiya, in the West Bank,” he said, “and we strongly urge the Israeli authorities to refrain from carrying out any demolitions in the village. Demolition of this Palestinian village or parts of it, and evictions of Palestinians from their homes, would be harmful and provocative.”

That was a step in the right direction, but we need more than mere declarations now. If the Israeli government demolishes all or part of Susiya once again, it will be for no other reason than that we are Palestinians who refused to leave, despite immense pressure and great hardships of daily life under occupation.

The situation in Susiya is only one of many such situations in Area C of the West Bank. Several villages near ours have pending demolition orders as well. If Susiya is destroyed and its residents expelled, it will serve as a precedent for further demolitions and expulsions through the South Hebron Hills and Area C of the West Bank. This must not be allowed to happen.

This story is not a story of Jews against Muslims, or even a story of Israelis against Palestinians. We’re grateful for the many messages of support our village has received from Jewish communities around the world, and the groups and activists working by our side include many Israelis. This is simply a story of justice and equality against dispossession and oppression.

Nasser Nawaja is a community organizer and a field researcher for the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem.

At any moment, Israeli occupation forces may demolish Palestinian village of Susiya near Hebron: image via Ben White @benabyad, 1 June 2015

At any moment, Israel’s Civil Administration (CA) might demolish all homes and structures in Khirbet Susiya, a small Palestinian village in the South Hebron Hills, the West Bank. On 4 May 2015, Israel’s High Court of Justice (HCJ) denied a request for an interim injunction that would prevent the CA from implementing the demolition orders it had issued. The request was made during a hearing of a petition filed by the villagers, the latest measure in their battle against efforts by Israeli authorities to forcibly transfer them from their homes in Area C to Area B or A, as part of a policy to annex the area de-facto to Israel. Demolition would effectively mean banishing the residents from their land and their village. The residents of Khirbet Susiya were expelled from the original site of their village in the 1980s, after the CA declared it a “national park”. They then took up residence on their farmland but the Israeli authorities tried to expel them from there, too. After a protracted legal battle, the villagers remained on the farmland, but the CA issued demolition orders for all their homes and refused to authorize the master plan they drew up for the new village. In response, the residents petitioned the HCJ with the help of Israeli NGO Rabbis for Human Rights. They argued that the CA had rejected their master plan on discriminatory grounds and requested that the court issue an interim injunction to stay the demolition until the petition is heard. Justice Noam Solhberg denied the request. Without homes to live in, the residents will remain without shelter in harsh desert conditions. Demolishing all structures in the village would be both cruel and illegal. International occupation law prohibits both the demolition of homes in such circumstances and the forcible transfer of an occupied population. Based on past experience, if the residents are forced to leave their land, settlers will take it over with the support of the state -- as they have already done with 300 hectares of village land. We can help the villagers fight for their land. They want to stay in their homes and need our help making their story public knowledge. At present it is virtually unknown to the world. -- via btselem. org, 1 June 2015
Village of Khirbet Susiya, faced with demolition: photo via btselem. org, 1 June 2015

Residents of village og Khirbet Susiya, threatened with Israeli demolition: photo via btselem. org, 1 June 2015

I want this to be a picture of dignity: a true canvas of the suffering of humanity. #MohammedAbed #Gaza: image via Jean Stürgoen @asicjk, 18 November 2013

A Palestinian girl plays outside a tent in the southern West Bank village of Susya on Wednesday. Israel’s High Court ruled in May that Susya’s 340 residents could be relocated and its structures demolished: photo by Hazem Bader/AFP, 22 July 2015

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Negativland: No Other Possibility ("...dying is easy, comedy is hard")

July 24, 2015, 11:53 am

≫ Next: "Everything is sighing" (Joseph Ceravolo: Come Clean)

≪ Previous: What I Did on My Summer Vacation

RIP radio master Don Joyce #negativland #KPFA @kpfa: image via Derk Richardson @Derk Richardson, 23 July 2015

DON: Well, dying is easy, comedy is hard. That 19th Century actor's death bed confession could hardly have suspected that making fun is not only hard, but that someday there would be nothing left to make fun of! I think a longer view will show that there is plenty left to make fun of now, even if there is nothing "new" to make fun of. Let's start with ultra serious religionism before it kills us...

-- from interview with Don Joyce and other members of Negativland in Wired, October 2008

RIP Don Joyce of Negativland (1944-2015) father of "culture jamming" #donjoyce #negativland: image via Kutmusic @Kutmusic, 23 July 2015

Don Joyce (February 9, 1944-July 22, 2015)

Words cannot do justice to the loss of Donald S. Joyce, Crosley Bendix, C. Eliot Friday, Omer Edge, Izzy Isn’t, Bud Choke, Leland Googleburger, Wang Tool and Dr. Oslo Norway, who all died yesterday in Oakland, CA of heart failure at age 71. Perhaps a loud, mournful squawk from Don's “Booper” feedback oscillator would better sum up the feelings of Negativland, his comrades and partners in art for 34 years, who are devastated. It was Don who coined the term “culture jamming”, and who devoted his life to the art of sound collage and his weekly live radio program, "Over the Edge", on KPFA FM in Berkeley, where it has continuously lived on the dial on Thursday nights at midnight since 1981, without interruption.

Don was a DJ at the station when a mutual friend, Ian Allen (who died this past January) introduced him to a group of Contra Costa County noise/music artists called Negativland, who entered the station one night, armed with stacks of recordings and electronic gear, and immediately transformed Don’s “normal music show” into a free-form collage sound odyssey, totally blowing open Don’s idea of what a radio program could be and what a DJ could “do”. And in Don Joyce (whose initials were conveniently also “DJ”), Negativland had found its “lead vocalist” without even realizing they were looking for one. It was Don who took the idea of reshaping previously recorded words -– in a pre-sampling age –- and ran with it to an extent and depth never before heard, and never equalled. “Recontextualization” became his weapon, with the 1/4” tape machine and razor blade his ammunition, and the radio “cart player"–- an entirely forgotten piece of broadcast history using endless-loop tape cartridges, which he used until his death - – his delivery system.

When he and Negativland discovered their mutual love for “found” sounds, an intensely collaborative creative partnership was cemented. It continued non-stop for the ensuing decades, with Don endlessly scanning the airwaves of radio and television, along with his massive LP collection, for new material, day by day, week by week. There was often a TV and a radio on in his room simultaneously, cassette recorders always at the ready. And as an extremely shy and often quite reclusive person, radio was a perfect medium for Don. He could reach thousands of people each week without having to deal with very many actual humans, just as he preferred it. Creating art was not only Don’s full-time pursuit, it was literally his life’s work. He had made it clear to the group as recently as a few weeks ago that he was happy and satisfied with what he had been able to achieve in his life, and were he not able to continue to work, his life would feel as good as over.

Don Joyce’s singular editing style was laced with profundity and silliness in equal measure. His work was that of a dada humanist, able to wring unforgettable sentiments and statements out of material which originally spoke something entirely different. Hugely inspired by both the droll radio of Bob and Ray and the reckless free-form of the Firesign Theatre, he created a wicked language of repurposed purple prose which has inspired legions of other collage artists over the past three decades. He was the father of the form. One need only to listen to his work on “Time Zones” (on the Escape from Noise album) or “Piece of Pie” (in the No Business CD/book) to immediately tune into his unique wavelength.

He was also an animal lover, a Bob Dylan fanatic, a staunch atheist, a convicted (but never jailed) draft dodger, and slept with the radio on. Cranky, curmudgeonly, loyal and fair, brilliant, hilarious and uncompromising, he was steadfastly devoted to the creation of his art, full-time, for more than three decades. He leaves behind not only his massive recorded legacy via "Over the Edge", but his work on nearly 30 Negativland albums, two books, three DVDs, and his giant, meticulous paper collages.

There was Negativland before Don Joyce (though not by much), and there will be Negativland after (indeed, Don stopped touring with the group in 2010), and he made it clear that he wished for the group to continue on in some fashion if he was the next member to go. At the very least, there are two nearly-completed albums in the works and possible live shows, and, in late 2015, all 34 years of “Over the Edge” (5000-plus hours' worth) will be available until the end of time on the Internet Archive, the result of a multi-year archiving project. But there will never be another Don Joyce.

Don Joyce was born in Keene, New Hampshire, where he spent his childhood obsessed with drawing, leading to him getting a masters degree in painting at the Rhode Island School of Design. By the late 1960s, he had relocated to Northern California (with a brief stint living in Toronto during Vietnam) where he lived, in Oakland, until his death. He is survived by his sister, his brother, a spider plant which thrived on a window sill through decades of choking cigarette smoke, and his Negativland family.

Don Joyce obit via Negativland, 23 July 2015

Negativland live! Doing a faux radio show about atheism! | by skyfaller

Negativland live! Doing a faux radio show about atheism!: photo by Nelson Pavlosky, 5 August 2007

Negativland. Taken at 12.50 AM -- cameraphone upload by ShoZu: photo by fo.ol, 28 November 2007

It's All in Your Head FM | by Rádio Zero

It's All In Your Head FM. Negativland no Auditório de Serralves, 18 de Maio de 2008: photo by Rádio Zero, 18 May 2008

Negativland - A Big 10-8 Place | by kevin dooley

Negativland -- A Big 10-8 Place: image by Kevin Dooley, 31 May 2009

Ian Allen: photo courtesy of Peter Montgomery/Sharon Jue via Rolling Stone

Ian Allen (December 15, 1958-January 17, 2015)

Past Negativland member, and long time friend of the group, Ian Allen, died on January 17, 2015 from unexpected complications and infections following heart valve replacement surgery at Stanford Hospital in California. We are extremely shocked and saddened by this news. He was with dear friends of his at the time of his death, and is survived by his brother, Pyke Allen.

Ian was very active with Negativland from 1981 to about 1987, and his impact, inspiration, and influence on the group is impossible to overestimate. There would be no group as we know it today, no Over The Edge radio show, no "culture jamming" and no "A Big 10-8 Place" LP without him.

Ian struggled with various serious health issues his entire adult life, and while they lead to his gradual withdrawal from active participation with the group by the late 80s, he remained a good friend and supporter, attending all of our live shows whenever we performed in the SF Bay Area. With Ian's blessings we were thrilled to recently revive and rework an early 80's unfinished tape loop based work of his called "Like Cattle Act," and made it a part of our current live set. He was part of creating Negativland's "points" LP in 1981, introducing to the rest of us, on the track BABAC D'BABC, the idea of using tape splicing not just as a way to make loops and connect tracks, but as a compositional tool unto itself. This revelation led to the exploration of this technique full-on in 1983's "A Big 10-8 Place," and he played a major role in the creation of that record and its unique packaging. He was instrumental in helping to create and articulate the group's idea of "culture jamming," and pushed the group into making "A Big 10-8 Place" our first ever concept LP. From then on that was the standard for us, and nearly every single Negativland release, up to and including our current one, "It's All In Your Head," has been a concept project. He came up with the idea of making four-channel tape loops (as we couldn't afford early expensive samplers back then) and this became a technique that was used extensively on 1987's "Escape From Noise." Ian was obsessed with the number 17, which is why it appears in various ways on so many Negativland projects and texts in the 80's and 90's (please note the day he died!). In the summer of 1981 he introduced the current group members to radio DJ (and now long time Negativland member) Don Joyce, and thus our weekly audio collage radio show Over The Edge was born, still broadcasting to this day.

For those who knew him, he was a visionary, magical, impish, playful and eccentric thinker, a true genius who was light years ahead of all of us with his ideas about art, sound, society, and technology. He will be dearly missed.

Ian Allen obit via Negativland, 21 January 2015

Recently deceased Negativland founding members Ian Allen (d. December 2014) and Don Joyce (d. July 2015), early to mid 80s...: photo courtesy of Negativland

Negativland -- A Big 10-8 Place: image by Kevin Dooley, 31 May 2009

Free High Speed Internet (Vallejo, California): photo by efo, 21 January 2014

Sad news, #don joyce of #negativland has passed. Give "Escape from Noise" a spin: image via murraybradmurray @mrrybrdmrry, 23 July 2015

Rain (Albany, California): photo by efo, 8 June 2013

@jobsworth #London in the 1929s: #Telephone #Engineer /v @oldpicsarchive: image via Alexander Ainslie @AAinslie, 8 January 2015

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"Everything is sighing" (Joseph Ceravolo: Come Clean)

July 25, 2015, 11:24 am

≫ Next: Josephine Miles: Saving the Bay

≪ Previous: Negativland: No Other Possibility ("...dying is easy, comedy is hard")

Young men clean second-hand shoes to sell them on a market in Bujumbura on July 24, 2015. Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza is set to win a controversial third term in office, but analysts say his victory will be hollow, with the country divided, isolated and facing aid cuts

Young men clean second-hand shoes to sell them in a market in Bujumbura on Friday. Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza is set to win a controversial third term in office: photo by Phil Moore/AFP, 24 July 2014

Everything upsets me,

sick people suffering,

friends leaving, friends parting.

Even having to tell you this,

having to admit that

I am burning out like the edges

of lava. But I think it is related

to you as I try to understand,

because I am not brilliant

like a nuclear formula.

But I think it is related to you

and only music seems to breathe,

only insects seem to speak.

I do not want to be a fool

who struggles within my own breast forever.

Now the sun is coming out

and the sting within my breast crawling away,

troubled, spiked with insanity

Everything is sighing, even

the trees without the wind that you possess.

...............................August 1, 1986

Joseph Ceravolo (1934-1988): Come Clean, 1 August 1986, from Collected Poems, 2013

Men carry tables on their heads through the streets of Bujumbura @AFPphoto @fil: image via AFP Photo Department @AFPphoto, 24 July 2015

Palestinian protesters from the village of Beit Ummar near Hebron, West Bank, clash with Israeli soldiers in the village on 23 July 2015. Following the funeral of Falah Abu Maria, 53, who was shot dead by Israeli soldiers during a raid on his home early 23 July 2015 to arrest his son, in the southern West Bank town of Beit Ummar. The man's two sons, both in their 20s, were injured in the raid

Palestinian protesters from the village of Beit Ummar near Hebron, West Bank, clash with Israeli soldiers in the village on Thursday: photo by Abed Al Hashlamoni/EPA, 23 July 2015

Funeral of 22-year-old Mohammed Alawneh on July 22 in the West Bank village of Birqin. @AFP Photo by Jaafar Ashtiyeh @fil: image via Aurelia BAILLY @Aurelia BAILLY, 22 July 201

A man uses a cane as he walks past a store in the Poto Poto popular district of the Congolese capital Brazzaville: photo by Frederico Scoppa/AFP, 23 July 2015

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Josephine Miles: Saving the Bay

July 26, 2015, 11:58 am

≫ Next: Underground

≪ Previous: "Everything is sighing" (Joseph Ceravolo: Come Clean)

[Looking westward from Berkeley hills, early evening]: photo by Film&PhotoArchivist, 19 May 2015

Apart from branches in courtyards and small stones,

The countryside is beyond me.

I can go along University Avenue from Rochester to Sobrante

And then the Avenue continues to the Bay.

Often I think of the dry scope of foothill country,

Moraga Hill, Andreas, Indian country, where I was born

And where in the scrub the air tells me

How to be born again.

Often I think of the long rollers

Breaking along the beaches

All the way down the coast to the border

On bookish cressets and culverts blue and Mediterranean.

There I break

In drops of spray as fine as letters

Blown high, never to be answered,

But waking am the shore they break upon.

Both the dry talkers, those old Indians,
And the dry trollers, those old pirates,

Say something, but it's mostly louder talking,

Gavel rapping, and procedural dismays.

Still here we are, and where we roll and call,

The long rollers of the sea come in

As if they lived here. The dry Santa Ana

Sweeps up the town and takes it for a feast.

Then Rochester to El Sobrante is a distance

No longer than my name.

Josephine Miles (1911-1985): "Apart from branches in courtyards...", from Saving the Bay, 1967, in Collected Poems 1930-83 (1983)

Bay Side Ocean View (Berkeley). 35 mm plastic toy camera from dog food. Expired Tri-X from the 1980s.: photo by Dave Hebb, 12 July 2015

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7a/Berkeleynight.jpg/1024px-Berkeleynight.jpg

University Avenue, Berkeley, at night: photo by Whyzee, February 2008

StrawberryCreek I: photo by Sean Goebel (geekyrocketguy), 3 February 2010

StrawberryCreek III: photo by Sean Goebel (geekyrocketguy), 3 February 2010

StrawberryCreek coming out of the culvert from UC Berkeley: photo by Coro, 13 January 2009photo by Coro, 2009

StrawberryCreek as it drops to a lower level, just east of Sather Gate Bridge at UC Berkeley: photo by Coro, 13 January 2009

StrawberryCreek: postcard, c 1906, photographer unknown for E.P. Charlton and Company, San Francisco (via East Bay Creeks)

Oak trees, El Sobrante Ridge Regional Preserve: photo by nick fullerton, 15 October 2010

Manzanita trunk, El Sobrante Ridge Regional Preserve: photo by nick fullerton, 15 October 2010

Pallid Manzanita trunk, El Sobrante Ridge Regional Preserve: photo by nick fullerton, 16 February 2010

Path with Manzanitas, El Sobrante Ridge Regional Preserve: photo by nick fullerton, 16 February 2010

Oak, El Sobrante, California: photo by Paul Excoff, 19 February 2009

Varied Thrush, El Sobrante, California: photo by Becky Matsubara, 28 February 2015

Wildcat Canyon hike panorama. Taken from Wildcat Canyon, facing east at the center, San Pablo Bay is on the left, San Francisco Bay on the right: photo by Daniel Ramirez, 7 February 2009

El Sobrante Ridge Regional Preserve: photo by nick fullerton, 13 April 2012

TreasureIsland.01925 | by Film&PhotoArchivist

Treasure Island. Bay Bridges.: photo by Film&PhotoArchivist, 13 July 2014

TreasureIsland.01933 | by Film&PhotoArchivist

Treasure Island. Angel Island: Camp Reynolds Barracks. If we had been around here 50-100 years ago we'd have also seen a row [of] enlisted [men's] barracks on the right, but those were demolished many years ago.: photo by Film&PhotoArchivist, 13 July 2014

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Underground

July 28, 2015, 12:52 pm

≫ Next: Cecil the Lion, Meet Man the Killer

≪ Previous: Josephine Miles: Saving the Bay

A homeless person sleeps back dropped by wallpaper of New York city on the windows of a casino near the main railway station during a police raid in Bucharest, Romania. Police in Romania have searched the capital's sewers in an anti-drug raid and detained dozens of people, mostly homeless, including the suspected ringleader, for questioning on suspicion of trafficking: photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP, 21 July 2015

BUCHAREST, Romania, 21 July 2015 (Associated Press)— Police in Romania have searched the capital’s sewers in an anti-drug raid and detained dozens of people for questioning on suspicion of trafficking.

Anti-narcotics officers and prosecutors who investigate organized crime went down into the sewers, where some of the alleged drug traffickers live, and also conducted searches in several nearby buildings on Tuesday.

Prosecutors said in a statement that the probe is centered on breaking up a drug trafficking ring with 23 known members, who were selling methadone, heroin and other drugs. Dozens were detained for questioning, including the 41-year-old suspected ringleader.

Media reported that police found paintings, televisions, drugs and money in the sewers, but prosecutors couldn’t immediately confirm that.

Hundreds of people are believed to live in the sewers.

Florin Hora, known as Bruce Lee, a leader of the homeless people inhabiting the sewers and suspected ringleader of a drug trafficking network, watches special police officers as he sits handcuffed near the main railway station during a police raid in Bucharest, Romania.. Police in Romania have searched the capital’s sewers in an anti-drug raid and detained dozens of people, mostly homeless, including the suspected ringleader, for questioning on suspicion of trafficking: photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP, 21 July 2015

Bruce Lee, un.king of the underground

King of the Park at Gara de Nord | by JoB Colours and More

This man told me that he is the King of the homeless at the park near the main train station in bucharest. He showed me the entrance to the sewer tunnels, where they can sleep during winter: photo by Joe, 15 July 2011

heroinmanie (bucharest). met the underground world of bucareste there several years every time I went to the Roma people see I passed and I realized a little about this .parias addicts community. They began to seek refuge in the sewers, there are nearly two decades after the fall of communism. Now this strange and literally underground community has joined together to become a famille. Des hundred people live in the tunnels of the sewers of Bucharest network not just adults, but children have nowhere to go but here they food and water and chaleur. ils almost all HIV and tuberculosis. it can be dangerous. To be admitted inside their world, there is a leader, an elusive and mysterious man known as Bruce Lee.un king by those who live underground. He also wears medals full heals the corp has a large pack of dogs with him .: photo by Alain, 24 April 2015

Hidden Bucharest: photo by Sen Kadokura, 3 April 2015

Goin' Underground. Bucharest, Romania.: photo by Sven Beck, 31 August 2006

disco sewer. i took this in bucharest. i really don't like that city. I think the way the casino lights were reflected in the puddle at top of the sewer cover was pretty funny. it really shows my feelings about the way things are there.: photo by Dacian Groza, 27 September 2006

heaven is in a bucharest sewer | by dtailed

heaven is in a bucharest sewer: photo by Tudor Prisăcariu, 30 October 2007

Darkness. Shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken

Paturica tine de cald. | by Ion Cristian

Paturica tine de cald: photo by Ion Cristian, 23 October 2014

Hope, Loneliness & Degradation | by Avisionn Photo

Hope, Loneliness & Degradation. Bucharest, Romania.: photo by Avisionn Photo, 18 September 2012

[Homeless, Bucharest]: photo by moroiu, 25 April 2008

lalele: photo by Ion Cristian, 23 May 2014

in the streets of bucharest | by energeticspell

in the streets of bucharest: photo by Cinty Ionescu, 16 July 2008

Uitare: photo by Ion Cristian, 2 July 2014

Nichita Stănescu: Decree

I may be forgotten, because
I don’t care for my arms. I may lose them.
I may be abandoned, because
I don’t love my legs. I can walk
just as well with air.
I may be left alone, because
my blood will pour into the sea
in any case.
There’s room. My ribs have all risen
like sea walls.
There’s enough light. My eyes
see only one mask.
But it does not yet exist,
so there’s room, there’s room, there is.

Nichita Stănescu, b. Ploiesti, Romania (1933-1983): Decree, from Necuvintele (The Unwords), 1969, translated from the Romanian by Sean Cotter in Wheel with a Single Spoke and Other Poems, 2012

my homeless neighbour | by energeticspell

my homeless neighbour (bucharest): photo by Cinty Ionescu, 18 August 2008

Marieta Maglas: Latina Time

Once all of them have won a very special princess prize,
the game is over....
and they will never buy another one.....

Alis grave nil.
Nothing is heavy to those who have wings

And maybe we cannot understand what's going on,
but we can understand that the players
skillfully hide behind the walls....
They think....

Cessante ratione legis cessat ipsa lex.
When the reason for the law ceases, the law itself ceases.

We seek escape from reality, we undermine our self-esteem.
Maybe we are unable to see them, but we need to talk about this.
And maybe they do not trust us when we tell them to come to us if they need
to talk....
....about those who become their victims......

Sed ipse Spiritus postulat pro nobis, gemitibus inenarrabilibus.
But the same Spirit intercedes incessantly for us, with inexpressible sighs.

Marieta Maglas, b. Suceava, Nord-Est, Romania: Latina Time, from Eschatological Regression, 2015

Tragedy: photo by Ion Cristian, 26 June 2014

Nichita Stănescu: Knot 23

I stole my childhood body,
I swaddled it and put it in a basket of rushes,—
and threw it in the river
so it would go and die in the delta.

The unfortunate, tearful, tragic fisherman, full of pity,
brought me the body in his arms
just now.

Nichita Stănescu, b. Ploiesti, Romania (1933-1983): Knot 23, fromNoduri şi semne (Knots and Signs), 1982, translated from the Romanian by Sean Cotter in Wheel with a Single Spoke and Other Poems, 2012

Zi torida: photo by Ion Cristian, 9 June 2014

Nichita Stãnescu: The Keynote

The bone is a joy only when it's the forehead bone,
when it protects, does not disjoin,
as are the alkaline vertebrae
from the difficult depths of the flesh and the wedding.
I'm resigned to losing the habit
of my manner of being,
but not the desertion
preserved in the verb to be.

------------------------------------------------------

I will lose the habit of using my body,
giving birth to a Prince Charming of verbs,
as the wolf loses the habit of being a wolf,
of hunger.

I will lose the habit of stars in the heavens
as frozen water loses the habit of snowflakes.
I will take my frozen body
and give it to the young goats that they might graze it.

It was my lot, and easily given,
to lose the habit of being a man.
To lose the habit of living,
I needed only death with murder.

I find it hardest to lose the habit of wolves.
they are alone and on the snow.
Surely I must lose the habit of loneliness.
Surely I must lose the habit of snow.

For what remains, time departs, time returns.

Nichita Stănescu, b. Ploiesti, Romania (1933-1983): The Keynote, fromNoduri şi semne (Knots and Signs), 1982, translated from the Romanian byThomas Carlson and Vasile Poenaru in Bas-Relief with Heroes: Selected Poems 1960-1982, 1988

Darkness. Shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken (subway, Bucharest): photo by Ion Cristian, 22 January 2015

București (Bucharest, Romania) - Gara de Nord (metro station) | by jaime.silva

Bucuresti (Bucharest, Romania) -- Gara de Nord (metro station)): photo by jaime.silva, 17 August 2010

Massimo Branca: Catalina, Child of the Underground

Picture of Catalina at the entrance to a tunnel.

Catalina at seventeen, 2013,seen at the entry to the Bucharest sewer tunnelwhere she had been living for five years: photo by Massimo Branca via National Geographic PROOF, 17 June 2015 (Launch Gallery)

One Girl’s Tunnel Life: Under the Streets of Bucharest: Coburn Dukehart, National Geographic PROOF, 17 June 2015

Photographer and anthropologist Massimo Branca first met Catalina in 2013 when she was 17 years old.

“Her large, black eyes seemed to become more mysterious the longer I looked at them,” he said. “It took me a lot to understand just how much she had been through in her short life.”

Catalina, 17 years old, 2013. After being abandoned at birth, she grew up in an orphanage, then lived on the street and in Bucharest’s tunnels starting at age 12.: photo by Massimo Branca via National Geographic PROOF, 17 June 2015 (Launch Gallery)

At the time, Catalina was living with a group of homeless people in, around, and under the Gara de Nord train station in Bucharest, Romania. She was left in the hospital at birth, raised in an orphanage until age six, then was reunited with her family only to run away at age 12. At 13 she started using intravenous drugs.

Branca photographed Catalina’s life as part of a larger project called "Under the Surface," which documents the people who live in the tunnels under Bucharest. Hot, humid, and cramped, the tunnels were part of former Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's plan to centrally heat the city. Now, they are home to multiple generations of street children and adults who access them via small craters in the ground.

During winter, up to 40 people occupy the tunnel to stay warm, living together in a space of only a few square meters: photo by Massimo Branca via National Geographic PROOF, 17 June 2015 (Launch Gallery)

Branca and his friend Igor Marchesan first gained access to the tunnels in July 2013, after receiving permission from the de facto leader -- a man who goes by the name of Bruce Lee -- who controls all the ins and outs of tunnel life, including food and electricity. Branca had to convince Lee that they weren’t out to produce a quick exposé, but rather wanted to study the group’s social relationships from an anthropological perspective.

“I want people to understand what happens in street life and to be more tolerant and open, in case they accidentally meet these people -- or meet homeless people anywhere,” said Branca. “I want to enable the audience to imagine what underground life is like, without their eyes being clouded by pity, judgment, or fear.”

Boredom is common in the tunnels, with few available activities apart from using drugs. Although she started using intravenous drugs at age 13, Catalina also liked to write: photo by Massimo Branca via National Geographic PROOF, 17 June 2015 (Launch Gallery)

Picture of dishes in tunnels underground

Washed dishes and a copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting “The Last Supper” are seen in the tunnel. The tunnel’s inhabitants use generators to produce electricity for lights, fans, stereos, refrigerators, and television: photo by Massimo Branca via National Geographic PROOF, 17 June 2015 (Launch Gallery)

According to Branca, most of the tunnel residents suffer from tuberculosis, hepatitis, or HIV, and are addicted to drugs including heroin, mephrodone, and Aurolac -- a silver paint they inhale from plastic bags. He says most of the people end up in the tunnels because of a lack of a stable home life -- many are former orphans, people exiled from their families after contracting HIV, or folks who ran away from poverty or abuse.

Catalina and Bruce Lee (center) are seen during a blackout. Before the arrival of Lee -- the de facto leader of the tunnels -- the tunnels were only lit by candle: photo by Massimo Branca via National Geographic PROOF, 17 June 2015 (Launch Gallery)

Branca says that while at first glance the environment can appear shocking to a casual observer, he doesn’t want viewers to be shocked by his work. Instead, he wants people to feel compassion and understanding for his subjects. He wants viewers to understand how the tunnel dwellers came to be there, and that people like Catalina are worthy of empathy, compassion, and love.

“I think shocking images would make an observer feel more distant from these people, and my aim is exactly the opposite,” he said. “I want to make the audience understand that they could be in the same situation, and I would like people who see my pictures to change their behavior toward these kinds of issues.”

For a while Catalina tried to stay off drugs. During this period she ate and slept most of the time, trying to recover and find relief from her pain: photo by Massimo Branca via National Geographic PROOF, 17 June 2015 (Launch Gallery)

Despite being an anthropological observer, Branca says he still tried to help Catalina, even while documenting her life.

In January 2014 she passed out after inhaling fumes from a faulty generator and badly burned her leg on one of the tunnel’s heating pipes. Branca took her to the hospital, and later to a safe house, where she stayed off drugs for a few weeks and swore to him she would quit for good. But she begged him to take her back to the tunnels, and shortly afterwards she began using drugs again.

“I was a human being, and was trying to think of some way to help her. I felt really close to her -- like she was something between a sister and a daughter to me,” Branca said. “I knew she wasn’t in good health, but a lot of other people living in the tunnel were in worse condition. She was quite independent, and I didn’t think about the possibility of her dying.”

After a couple of weeks of abstinence, Catalina couldn’t resist using drugs any longer. She wrote: “It’s too late, I’m a drug addict and there is nothing left to do.”: photo by Massimo Branca via National Geographic PROOF, 17 June 2015 (Launch Gallery)

But on May 28, 2014, one month after she turned 18, Catalina died. The official cause was listed as cardiopulmonary arrest -- but unofficially, it was from AIDS and an infection at a drug injection site that traveled to her brain.

Branca was in Italy when he heard the news. He rushed to Romania for her funeral -- mostly paid for by her street family.

Catalina died on May 28, 2014, one month after she turned 18. Her boyfriend, Santo (bottom right), asked to be buried near her. He is also HIV-positive: photo by Massimo Branca via National Geographic PROOF, 17 June 2015 (Launch Gallery)

“Many say that these people could have a different kind of life if they choose -- get a job and have stability,” says Branca. “But they don’t consider that after many months or years closed to other people, they consider each other a family.”

Massimo Branca is an anthropologist and photographer living in Italy and Romania. He is a member of Collettivo Fotosocial, an Italian association of documentary photographers that uses visual storytelling to produce positive social change.

His project "Under the Surface" recently received a Magnum 30 Under 30 award for documentary photography. He is currently working on a project following Catalina’s birth family, documenting the many hardships they are facing in life.

Branca says Catalina used to smile with caution and a little shame, because a couple of years earlier she had lost her front teeth: photo by Massimo Branca via National Geographic PROOF, 17 June 2015 (Launch Gallery)

Down the rabbit hole with Bruce Lee (May 2014)
Beneath the streets of Romania's capital, a living hell: Paraic O'Brien and Jim Wickens, Channel Four News, 20 May 2014

Deep under the streets of Bucharest -- in Europe, in the 21st century -- there is a network of tunnels and sewers that is home to hundreds of men, women and children stricken by drug abuse, HIV and TB.

You can travel to the heart of the EU from Bucharest's Gara du Nord,but our journey will take us just a few metres.

On the surface, the newest member of the European club has worked hard to redefine itself. But there's another Romania, underground.

When Ceausescu fell there were tens of thousands of children in orphanages and in state "care" in Romania. But in 1990 a series of reports revealed what a nightmarish misnomer that was. Scenes of neglect and cruelty reminiscent of the concentration camps.

So what happened to those children?

We've been told that some moved into the tunnels underneath Bucharest. Drug addiction is rife, some have had children of their own.

The streets gangs of Bucharest, who live in the sewers

Photo courtesy of Radu Ciorniciuc/Casa Journalist via Channel 4 News, 20 May 2014

The entrance to this underworld is a hole in the pavement on a traffic island in front of the station. By late afternoon they start to wake up, clambering up out of the ground like the undead.

Among them is a little boy, Nicu, who looks about 12. We find out later that "little" Nicu is in fact 17 but his development has been stunted by the drug abuse. He agrees to send word down that we would like to meet the boss.

This underworld, we're told, has an overlord and you only get to go down by invitation. A couple of hours later and word comes back up: he will see us now.

On our hands and knees we pothole down into the darkness and a parallel universe. It's the heat that hits you first. These old tunnels were part of Ceausescu's grand design to centrally heat the city.

Then there's the smell: a metallic paint called Aurolac, snorted by the addicts from small black bags. Next up the music.

Photo courtesy of Radu Ciorniciuc/Casa Journalist via Channel 4 News, 20 May 2014

The whole place is wired with electricity, there's a stereo system pumping out dance music. If they had a club night in hell it would feel like this.

We're in the first chamber: they call it The Office. You try not to gawp. Out of the corner of your eye, a woman with a syringe between her legs; a little boy stares at you with the Aurolac bag at his mouth, pumping slowly, like a black heart.

Everyone here is HIV positive, a quarter have TB. They're all on their way to "the counter".

Photo courtesy of Radu Ciorniciuc/Casa Journalist via Channel 4 News, 20 May 2014

The man behind the counter is called "Bruce Lee" (pictured above) after his street fighting days. He points to a tattoo on his inner thigh, it reads: "Bruce Lee, King of the Sewers".

He will be our guide down Bucharest's surreal, tragic rabbit hole.

Photo courtesy of Radu Ciorniciuc/Casa Journalist via Channel 4 News, 20 May 2014

Remembering Catalina: photo by Jim Wickens via Channel 4 News, 13 June 2014

Is death the only escape? (13 June 2014)

Is death the only escape from life in Romania's tunnels? Catalina was one of the main characters in our film about life in Bucharest's tunnels. After the film was shown, she died from Aids-related heart failure. Channel 4 News returned for her funeral.: Paraic O'Brien and Jim Wickens, Channel 4 News, 13 June 2014

Deep beneath the streets of Romania's capital, a living hell exists, The last time we met Catalina had been underground, deep in the Bucharest tunnel system that Bruce Lee and his gang of homeless drug addicts call home.

She was in the queue to buy drugs, perched on one of the heating pipes in front of an icon of the Virgin Mary. The ring of infected syringe sores around her neck a jagged reminder of her drug-addicted life in the sewers. "This is where I destroyed myself," she had told us almost prophetically that day.

But it is too late for Catalina. She is dead. She collapsed and died in the tunnels last week after suffering from Aids, chronic pneumonia and heart failure which cut short her painfully short life. She had just turned 18.

Channel 4 News was invited back to Romania and to her wake. We were ushered through the cobblestones and courtyard, past children playing in the dust and adults weeping by the door of the tiny tin-roofed shack.

Veiled in a bridal gown, as is custom for Roma girls who die before their wedding day

Catalina lay in the open casket, veiled in a bridal gown, as is custom for Roma girls who die before their wedding day. A priest stood to one side, chanting prayers as her sisters stood over her, fussing over the veil or rearranging her beloved pink CD player that they had stuffed under her pillow, music to keep her company in the grave.

As the candles flickered late into the night, Catalina's friends began to arrive in the house, familiar faces from her home in the tunnels, coming to pay their last respects.

"We met in a foster house named Pinocchio"

We found Eliza, one of Catalina's best friends whom we filmed joking around in the tunnels weeks earlier. "We met in a foster house named Pinocchio. I hanged out with her everywhere. She was like a sister to me," she told us, tears streaming down her face.

One of five siblings born into acute poverty, Catalina's parents had abandoned her as a baby, sending her to live in a children's institution called Pinocchio's on the edge of Bucharest, for the first years of her life.

It was a factor, we were told later by the head of the institution, that had impacted deeply upon her life, a lifetime lacking in love that had drawn her deeply into life within the sewers -- Bruce Lee and the tight-knit gang underground she said had become the family Catalina had never had.

"For her, getting some attention was an extraordinary experience," said Carmen, her sister, "because now she felt valued in those moments. She was happy if anybody was looking out for her or giving her any attention," she said.

The procession of mourners continued to stream in, silent faces, clutching her hand, kissing her forehead, whispering their goodbyes.

Remembering Catalina: photo by Jim Wickens via Channel 4 News, 13 June 2014

The new shack above ground; raid and eviction (22 July 2015)

Romania's 'sewer people' evicted from tunnel network: Channel 4 News, 22 July 2015

Police have raided a network of tunnels and sewers in Bucharest, home to a community of drug addicts. Bruce Lee, who led the underground community has been arrested along with 5 others.

Police have carried out a large-scale raid on a network of Bucharest tunnels and sewers, home to hundreds of men, women and children stricken by drug abuse and TB. Police said the operation followed months of surveillance on what they described as an organised criminal gang and reports of child prostitution.

Over the past year, some of the so-called 'sewer people' constructed a shack by the tunnel entrance in an attempt to build a better life above ground. This was the complex just last week -- before the raid took place: