There exist little pockets of time when imagination converges with reality. These brief, colorful moments can be happy or terrifying, uplifting or full of grief. Whatever emotion is associated with them, they are always vivid, they burn a permanent place in our memory like bleach on blue jeans: —Read on »
Still astonishing for the engineering fete of persistence that keeps a city built on mud flats standing after 1500 years. Piazza San Marco floods with a rising tide every twelve hours but what’s a little water in the foyer? A true Venetian would never abandon his city to a fickle tide. —Read on »
One of my customers in the restaurant last night was a little girl, who could not have been older than one year old; who could not even speak to me, if she could speak at all; and who sat in a high chair and flipped through photos and videos on an iPhone with more dexterity than you would expect out of any fully grown, intelligent adult with a college education. —Read on »
But I don’t mind promoting them. They make some of the best outdoor gear on the market.
Houses are built to shelter the course of a human life or family of lives. These feral houses, photographed in Detroit, no longer serve the same purpose. They still stand, but they have been reclaimed by nature.
The absence of human presence in the photos sharpens the contrast. They stand alone, emptied of occupants and of their original meaning. They stand only for the observer, as a reminder of what was lost.
Whether they were abandoned or neglected so long that abandonment was the only option left, the end result is the same: Mother Nature now rules these buildings.
The growth that inhabits a space once used by people proves that the houses are more than just monuments to decay. They have taken on a new meaning as the birth of life in the midst of a city in decay.
The beauty lies in the opposition between destruction and creation. People would do well to remember that destruction implies the chance to build anew.
A solitary dancer throws his body to the heavy bass of a funky beat. Most of the crowd is sprawled languidly on the grass covered hill beneath the dancer’s flailing arms as a man walks up the hill past the dancer without a glance and steps out of the frame. The dancer continues unabated, immersing himself in a creative movement of his own until he is joined by another. He greets the newcomer and then returns to his own rhythm. Shortly, the two dancers harmonize, each dance separate yet in tune with the same funky beat. Another dancer joins the two, this a big man with a wild mess of black hair and also apparently barefoot. The three spin and make themselves dizzy and roll in the grass down the hill and dance back up again. From the edge of the frame where the first spectator disappeared emerges now to join the three another pair of dancers, then three more. Cheers and screams erupt from the crowd and the madness spreads, people no longer shy or put off but encouraged by the confidence of company. Men and women run from behind the camera, from up the hill and down, and the languid crowd becomes unseated and swells the dance. Suddenly it is a large crowd and the brave incitor, the first solitary dancer, is lost in a joyous, dancing mass moving to the rhythm of the same funky beat.
Keep a tennis ball and a hacky sack handy for healthy entertainment in dull times and to relieve agression. Especially useful in small spaces. Surrounding flat surfaces and various objects are fair game. If you annoy the neighbors, count it as a bonus.
the cold side of the pillow. irreverent poetry. screaming obscenities in large crowds. skipping class. the first drink. breaking minor laws. renouncing mistakes of the past. impromptu roadtrips. the scent of a woman. hot coffee in the morning. tea in the evening. reading a good book in one sitting. playing guitar till your hands ache. finally succeeding after countless failures. the smell of rain. learning something new. snowboarding in fresh powder. old friends who proves their worth once again. falling in love with a new favorite musician. or falling in love with an old one all over again. laughing till you cry. dirty jokes. daydreams.
—to name a few.
nothing like a hot cup of tea to fire the mind and prop the eyelids open when night sets in. dodge the shackles of sleep, just a few more hours. escape from routine in the pages of a novel or sip the steaming liquid as you roll the first lines of a poem around your mouth long enough to leave a taste. eventually, sleep quietly overcomes …
i dream of the tragic desperation of an aged king… of perfect harmonic cadences… of ships lost on tumultous seas… of a beggar girl’s queenly radiance
I see a mad scientist with unkempt hair and crazy bulging eyes when I attempt to cook something new. Frantically involved in the experiment, I juggle twelve tasks simultaneously. I lose track of things and forget steps in my haste. A myriad of possible disastrous outcomes harass my best effort.
No matter. The end result is (usually) delicious and, for me, cooking is synonymous with edible creative experimentation. What’s not to love?
