Defending Their Turf?
The white men, who emerged from a black 2005 Cadillac Escalade before dawn,
sent the [three] black men fleeing into nearby swampland and through the streets
of the largely white, insular neighborhood. One of the black men, Glenn Moore,
22, of St. Albans, Queens, tripped over a lawn. There, his assailants beat
him with a metal bat [fracturing his skull], stole the sneakers off his feet
and ripped an earring
from one ear, the police said.
The event took place mere blocks from the site of a 1986 attack in which
a group of about a dozen white men set upon three black men whose car had
broken down in the neighborhood, forcing one of the men to run for his life.
He died when he was struck by a car. ...
– NY Times report
One of the white “men” involved in this latest attack was 19 years
old. In
1986, ordinary folk in Howard Beach were incensed that the media labeled their
quiet little neighborhood
racist. For their part, it seems many of the locals in the hometown of John
Gotti feel they are simply defending their turf, as this sympathetic
Newsday article suggests.
The part that you probably can't read on this sign is the most interesting
part. On the top it says, ‘The voice of the people is the voice of God,’ and
at the bottom it says ‘The people from this block.’
There is an eerie connection that looms here. The mood in Howard beach seems
to echo a national mood of violence against outsiders in the name of self-defense.
Maybe
Howard
Beach has nothing to do with our motives in Iraq, maybe it says a lot.
Didn't watch the speech
:::
:::
This guy approached me, and asked if I was a professional photographer. When
I said 'yes,' he insisted that I take his friend's picture. The guy's a talented
artist, he said. I asked what kind, and he told me the guy is a rapper. The
friend, covering most of his face with the bill of a white baseball cap, blocked
my shot with his hand, and refused to be photographed. Mr. RJ24 said something
to his friend about how stars can't be afraid of being photographed.
:::
Walking the bunny...
“There's nothing more difficult than a line.”
– Pablo Picasso
I picked up a Moleskine notebook yesterday. Along with the cute little history
of the “legendary” notebooks carried by Hemingway, Picasso, and others, was
that quote. For all the hype, the books are good: solid covers, an inner pocket,
a little
elastic band to keep them closed, and acid-free paper. Writing in it for the
first time felt very nice. This is not your average dime-store notebook.
:::
awww... little dawg.
...ex aedificium
:::
I just received a spam titled “Jesus freaks out in the street.”
How do you parse that? Is it a message about “Jesus-freaks” busting loose,
or is it a
report of the Second Coming, and ol' Mr. Nazarene is having a hard time with
what he's seeing... Naw, the content was typically pedestrian: just another ad for home
refinancing.
:::
6/28, the door to the B-52 bus opens and a woman steps off wearing a t-shirt
that reads “I want the one I can't have.”
:::
...There is no such thing as a strictly flat, two-dimensional image. We are
reminded here of the struggles of the painter Piet Mondrian, who during the
last years of his life renounced all references to physical subject matter,
even to any shape, except for undifferentiated straight bands. But there was
one remnant of the visual world he could not overcome: the distinction between
objects and surrounding empty space. ...
Line represents itself in three basically different ways: as object line,
hatch line, and contour line. ...
The visual combination of lines is controlled by the law of simplicity. When
the combination produces a simpler figure than the mere sum of separate lines
would, it is seen as one integrated whole...
– Arnheim, p. 219
Ya just gotta believe.
(In other words, you've got to be a legend in your
own mind before you become a legend anywhere else.)
:::
Svim - vear!
:::
Not quite July, but I think the phrase ‘hotter than July’ will have real meaning
this year. Cold drinks and siestas for everybody!
:::
No Idea
It's raining here this afternoon. I think the bird on the wire is a mourning
dove. For several minutes, it sat there slowly stretching its wings
out one at a time and holding them open to the falling rain, the way I do in
the shower when I'm washing my underarms. I have no explanation. He (?) didn't
have any soap.
Shooting Mermaids on the Boardwalk
The annual Mermaid Parade was this past Saturday. After seeing the photos of
a number of other shooters, I decided to go and make some of my
own photos.
It was good fun, even in the hot 2pm sun. Still, I found I'd expected more.
This event has been going on for something like 25 years, and I think a fair
amount of the creative zest has gone out of the parade. On the other hand,
there are much worse ways to spend a Saturday afternoon.
Mermaids or not, this performer is out on the boardwalk regularly
Not everybody at Coney Island was consumed with the Mermaid Parade
:::
“The body is a highly contested site – its flesh is both the recipient
and source of desire, lust and hatred. As a pawn of technology, it is sacred
and sacrificial, bearing the politics of society and state. The body is our
common bond, yet it separates us in its public display of identity, race and
gender.”
– Daina Augaitis
:::
Invasion
“I'm conducting a survey on behalf of America's leading pharmaceutical companies
because they want to know...” [click]
“This is Mark in the individual and family health department. Your area has
been selected...” [click]
I've mentioned before, that telemarketers have gotten in the habit of having
their machines talk to me. Worse, their machines are set up to talk to my machine
more and more these days. Increasingly, I find messages on my vm from telemarketing
voice mail droids.
It
gets more obnoxious. I got an e-mail from a “Lionel P” recently. The subject
line had my name, and more significantly, a fragment of my address. The one
thing that was off, was the phrase “view my website,” which I've seen in a
number of spam messages. Still, I've received a number of legit messages, that
I almost gave the spam treatment to, because the subjects looked a bit suspect.
I didn't recognize the name, but adding my address fragment certainly made
me think this must be from someone I've conversed with. I don't even put my
address on my business cards anymore... But no, it was from a marketer. I think
they used WhoIs to harvest my contact info. Pretty bogus – actually, not pretty
at all.
On a related note, I looked in my spam can the other day to find a message
titled “Think before you use dialup.” Indeed. Why not “Friends don't let friends
use dialup?” I suppose that one's on the way any day now. Amazing – the spammers
have got me writing copy for them now!
