Canyonesque

.

Irish mannequin in store window during Mardi Gras, New Orleans, Louisiana: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, January 2008 (Library of Congress)

No one asked me where I wanted to be born
said the store window mannequin, but if they had,
I'd have preferred almost anywhere to this festival
of false delights, where the distance between wishes
and dreams is equal to the distance between
promises and lies. That is, it doesn't exist. The deer
do not come down to the water to utter
their spontaneous cries. There's nothing here but concrete.
The deer are legitimately terrified. I too
am terrified. Morning in the canyon, then again night
in the canyon. The gap grows ever more wide
the way the light falls
on a diagonal, the night in its radial aspect
defying meditation. A moon rose in the mind and each thing there
picked up its radial aspect in the night.
Sometime in another other
wise completely ordinary
random century.

Slot Canyons, Page. Arizona: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, May 2009 (Library of Congress)

Public

.

Graffiti by Banksy, Bethlehem: photo by Pawel Ryszawa, 2008

Stencil by Banksy, City Road, London: photo by LoopZilla, 2005

Stencil by Banksy at waterline on social entertainment boat Thekla, central Bristol, England: photo by Adrian Pingstone, 2005



Anti-bullfighting inscriptions on bullfight advertisement, Leganés, Spain: photo by Juan Garcia, 2005



Street art, Barcelona: photo by Mujinga, 2004



Urban decay: Falsas Promesas/Broken Promises; Charlotte Street stencils by John Fekner, South Bronx, New York: photo by John Fekner, 1980



Stencil by John Fekner, New York: photo by John Fekner, 2007



Toxic by John Fekner, Long Island Expressway, Queens, New York: photo by John Fekner, 2007



Ancient Pompeii satiric graffito caricaturing a politician, found in the atrium of the Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii: photo by Vincent Ramos, 2004

The Juan de Onate Inscription at El Morro National Monumemt, New Mexico, dated 1605. It is the oldest historical inscription at El Morro. (Shows vandalism to the inscription almost from the day it was inscribed). Inscription text: "paso por aq[u]i el adelantado don ju/an oñate del descubrimiento de la/ mar del sur/ a 16 de Abril del 1605". At left: "Casados/1727" and "J[ose?]parelo". At right: "P. Joseph de la Candelaria". Photo by George M. Grant, 1934 (National Park Service Historic Photograph Collection)



Second century pagan graffito preserved at Palatine Hill museum, Rome, depicting a man worshiping a crucified donkey. Inscription text: ΑΛΕΞΑΜΕΝΟΣ (ΑΛΕΞΑΜΕΝΟC) ("Alexamenos respects God"): image by Tablar, 2005



Graffiti depicting graffiti removal by Banksy, created in May 2008 at Leake Street, London, painted over by August 2008: image by Victor Falk, 2010

Fabrication

.

Mural, Route 66, Tucumcari, New Mexico: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, July 2006 (Library of Congress)

for better
or
worse

people
make
art

what
it
is

Mural, Baltimore, Maryland: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, September 2008 (Library of Congress)



Mural, Baltimore, Maryland: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, September 2008 (Library of Congress)



Mural, Baltimore, Maryland: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, September 2008 (Library of Congress)



Mona Lisa mural, Columbus, Ohio: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, July 2009 (Library of Congress)

Mural, Dothan, Alabama: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, April 2010 (Library of Congress)



Mural, Mission District, San Francisco, California: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, April 2009 (Library of Congress)



Gas station next to hand painted revolutionary mural, Havana, Cuba: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, January 2010 (Library of Congress)



Mural in Chinatown, Havana, Cuba: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, January 2010 (Library of Congress)



Murals painted on a building on Dragones Street in Chinatown section of Havana, Cuba: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, January 2010 (Library of Congress)



Committee of the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) mural, Havana, Cuba: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, January 2010 (Library of Congress)



Murals painted on abandoned building on Lower Dexter Avenue in Montgomery, Alabama: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, February 2010 (Library of Congress)



Murals painted on abandoned building on Lower Dexter Avenue in Montgomery, Alabama: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, February 2010 (Library of Congress)



Murals painted on abandoned building on Lower Dexter Avenue in Montgomery, Alabama: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, February 2010 (Library of Congress)

Election

.

Row houses, Baltimore, Maryland: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, November 2008 (Library of Congress)



beyond
the anxious
private
enclaves
of the very
rich






Row houses, Baltimore, Maryland: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, November 2008 (Library of Congress)

a bad
land,
empty,
sad,
abandoned

Row houses, Baltimore, Maryland: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, November 2008 (Library of Congress)

A Slice of Empty

.

Old gas station along the road in upperstate Michigan: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, April 2007 (Library of Congress)

The future as Meg will shape it for us offers a full life for everyone, said the paid political commercial.

When I counted her chins, I wondered what the phrase "Hunger in America" might mean to her?

The derelicts and destitutes loitering on the Avenue in the path of the satiated diners exiting the expensive gourmet eatery probably don't have televisions. (This may be a movement Elvis began on that historic night in Vegas when he shot his TV, though in that instance the provocation was relatively innocuous: not the bloated image of a right wing political candidate, merely the mug of Robert Goulet.) Nor do they possess those little black plastic devices the size of playing cards which allow the bonafide citizens of this society to be in touch with each other in every waking moment. For reassurance, I believe it must be. How can one subscribe to an enormous lie without being perpetually reassured everyone else is subscribing too?

So are we having fun yet, my fellow members of the grey majority, earners of 0.00001% of the gross national income?

Is there some part of what this guy's saying that doesn't fit the facts of the present case?

Murals painted on an abandoned building on lower Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, February 2010 (Library of Congress)

Badlands

.

Badlands National Park, South Dakota: photo by Alan D. Wilson, 2010

Above these Grand Staircases

Chinle Badlands at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah: photo by US Bureau of Land Management, 2004

under these distant skies

Badlands National Park, South Dakota: photo by Jsoo1, 2006

beyond our seeing or knowing

Badlands National Park, in southwest South Dakota: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, 2009

Time is frozen

Badlands near Drumheller, Alberta: photo by Chensiyuan, 2006

Whose foot prints are these?

Red Shirt Table, near Hermosa, South Dakota: photo by Alan D. Wilson, April 2010

I know I am who I am

Horsethief Canyon, close to Drumheller, Alberta: photo by John Johnson, 2007

but not who it is

Göreme, Cappadocia: photo by Carsten Dörre, 2006

who is going where I am going

Las Médulas, Nueva Léon, Spain: photo by Rafael Ibanez Fernandez, 2005

This post dedicated to Julia

Return of the Rainy Season (An Oasis in the Badlands)

.

Badlands National Park, in southwest South Dakota: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, September 2009 (Library of Congress)

tears water the dry fields of memory

Abandoned farm south of South Heart, North Dakota, Little Badlands in background: photo by Paul Carter, August 1936 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)



Dry and parched earth in the badlands of South Dakota: photo by Arthur Rothstein, May 1936 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)



Badlands, Williams County, North Dakota: photo by Russell Lee, October 1937 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)



An oasis in the Badlands (Oglala man, Red Hawk, with horse drinking at an oasis): photo by Edward S. Curtis, c. 1905 (Edward S. Curtis Collection, Library of Congress)

Chicharito: How Did He Do That?

.

Javier Hernandez scores in the 28th minute against Stoke City: photo from The Guardian 10/24/10


The Little Pea's brilliant backward bucking bronco header against Stoke -- how in heaven's name did he do that?

At the Movies

.

Tulare County, California. Farm Security Administration camp. At the movies: photo by Russell Lee, February 1942

Parables about a Kingdom of Hell whose ruler is not so much a Father of Lies as a Father of Wishes

-- W.H. Auden, in The Dyer's Hand (1962), on the novels of Nathanael West


Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language. This is so partly because of its intricate historical development, but mainly because it has now come to be used for important concepts in several intellectual disciplines and in several distinct and incompatible systems of thought.

The fw is cultura, L. from colere, L. Colere had a range of meanings: inhabit, cultivate, protect, honor with worship...

-- Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised edition, 1983)

Movie theatre, Chicago, Illinois: photo by John Vachon, July 1940

Blue island, Illinois. The Senise family going to the movies: photo by Jack Delano, February 1943




Man in front of movie theatre, Waco, Texas: photo by Russell Lee, November 1939

Saturday afternoon movie crowd, North Platte, Nebraska: photo by John Vachon, October 1938

Tulare County, California. Farm Security Administration camp. At the movies: photo by Russell Lee, February 1942

Photos from Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress