[dovate.com] » 2007 » February
I’m not writing shit today, so go ahead and watch James Fattu’s 30 minute documentary about squatters and ex-squatters here in Philadelphia. It’s interesting and good so you should watch it. For your convenience part 1 is embedded below. Links to the rest are provided below that.
URL = PART ONE - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2_d5wdqGNc
URL = PART TWO - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udvgH2lqhuo
URL = PART THREE - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz0Hf9_dm3g
URL = PART FOUR - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvF8StUZy9Q
Just to kick things off on a pretentious note, a passage from Alexis de Tocqueville’s sprawling observation of our infant republic, Democracy in America has stood out in my mind since I read it many (5) years ago. In the passage Toqueville traveled by boat down the Mississippi River.
To one side was the Northern territory and to the other, the slave South. On the Northern side he saw the Jeffersonian ideal. The well-cultivated land was filled with neat and tidy small farms. Industrious workers carved out a very decent living, working independently, but in a larger sense working together to build a stable and progressive economy. There was no aristocracy or extreme poverty. The vision was almost utopian.
On the southern bank, he saw enormous farms being worked by slave labor. Land (and human) owners were wealthier, but far more rare. Owners were less capable and generally less resourceful. Landowners hadn’t developed the skills to make for themselves. Instead they learned the talents they needed to manage a workforce of slaves or indentured servants who made for them. In the south, Tocqueville saw the birth of an aristocracy ruling over a poor or enslaved majority through violence, fear and oppression.
It’s a powerful agent for thought and possibly for a call for change when economic disparity grows so extreme that it creates a clear visual contrast. Take a look at Lancaster Avenue as you leave the city. If you blink, you might think you just passed through a hole in the space-time continuum and ended up miles from where you just were.
But back to the North/South thing and on to the photography of Walker Evans.
The other day I was enjoying a very old pastime of mine, sitting in Borders browsing through the photography section. I took a new Walker Evans book down and settled into the corner by the window. In the same aisle, 2 very normal looking teenage girls searched through Magik texts in preparation for casting some spell later on that night. Eventually a third girl returned from Harry’s Occult and Spiritual Supply Shop with the final element and they were off. In the next aisle over an older man preached his bizarre brand of Christianity to a young man/old boy. I made myself comfortable and looked through the book. This is the new thing that I saw in the presentation of the images this author/editor selected.
There’s not really much sense in explaining what I want to present visually, except to keep in mind that North/South divide. Walker Evans made both these photos. Both factories are steel mills. The top is a tremendously famous shot taken in 1935 in Bethlehem, PA. The second is a less famous shot. In it, Evans pays homage to his own work. It was taken in Alabama in 1936.
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The photo map feature of the photoblog section of this website has been vastly improved. How?
Now when you click on the link “View on Map” (located just below each photo) the map page will open over the location where the image you were just looking at was taken. If this doesn’t make sense, click here and then click “View on Map.”
This is a function that’s been available since I added the photo map, but until now I never took advantage of it. That wrong has now been righted.
During the month of January, my site statistics registered 363 search hits from a total of 285 unique search terms. How people randomly stumble across the site is always an interesting thing. Following is a list of the top 30 search terms from January ‘07. (*not the most popluar search terms, but the top 30 of my own choosing) I don’t think any of these people found what they were looking for… or let me rephrase that and say that I hope to hell they (most of them) didn’t find what they were searching for. What a strange world we live in:
30: dumpster pictures throwing away garbage
29: dead bodies photos blood gore
28: piece of concrete came down on my car
27: strangest restaurants in philadelphia
26: gay butt
25: when to busting a nut.com
24: molly pitcher path to fame
23: last exit in new jersey
22: lost in the wissahickon valley
21: common loon video
20: nut stroking
19: pigeons
18: butt dances
17: penn professor bludgeons wife
16: busting a nut in public
15: sheepfuckers
14: defining qualities of south philly
13: cult men drinking sperm
12: unique facts about molly pitcher
11: etymology | origin | derived | derivation scum | cum semen | ejaculate
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10: dovate scientology
9: looking at a flickering fluorescent light
8: hyperdimensional resonator test result
7: what makes keith haring so fucking great?
6: light dispelling darkness nj archive weird
5: sublime drunken clown
4: blood and gore everywhere and you didnt bring a spoon
3: spork utensil statistics
2: how would a human being fare on the planet saturn
1: clown gags and teenagers
