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Friday 28 June 2013

Danny Lyon: Summer in the Inner City, 1974


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Two black youths and a dog in Paterson, New Jersey, June 1974



Three young girls in Brooklyn
, July 1974



Three young girls on Bond Street in Brooklyn, July 1974



 Inner city life on Bond Street in Brooklyn, July 1974



Row houses on Bond Street in Brooklyn, July 1974


  Wall painting in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, July 1974


  Sports heroes are the motifs in these wall painting on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn, July 1974


Graffiti with a supergraphic "Vail" and other words on on a wall in Brooklyn, July 1974


Boys playing frisbee across West 46th Street in Manhattan, July 1974


Two Latin girls pose in front of a wall of graffiti in Lynch Park, Brooklyn, June 1974



Latin youths at Lynch Park in Brooklyn, June 1974



Three boys and "A Train" graffiti in Lynch Park, Brooklyn, June 1974



Young man with his leg in a cast, Hiland Park, Brooklyn, July 1974


Puerto Rican boys playing softball in Brooklyn's Hiland Park, July 1974


  Boy against a yellow platform at the Kosciusko Swimming Pool in the Bedford-Stuyvesant district of Brooklyn, July 1974


 The Kosciusko Swimming Pool in the heart of the Bedford-Stuyvesant district of Brooklyn, July 19744




 Avenue D housing project on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, July 1974



People relaxing in East River Park in Manhattan, July 1974



People on an outing in East River Park in Manhattan, July 1974


Kids enjoying playground equipment in East River Park in Manhattan, July 1974


People looking at boat traffic on the East River Park with the Manhattan Bridge and New York City in the background, July 1974


Young Latin male in Paterson, New Jersey's inner city, June 1974



 Latin girl holding a child on an inner city porch in Paterson, New Jersey, June 1974



Man working on car in Hell's Kitchen, New York City, June 1974



Man lounging on a park bench with his radio on the Reis Park Boardwalk in New York City, July 1974


Wall painting at Division and Forsyth Streets in Lower Manhattan, June 1974



Apartment house across from Fort Green Park in Brooklyn, June 1974


Fire set by Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute to test wires and insulation in New York City
, June 1974



 Inner city residents of Brooklyn walk along Bushwick Avenue, July 1974


The underside of an elevated train platform is part of the environment on Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn, June 1974


View from under elevated train tracks at Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn, June 1974




Brooklyn's Bushwick Avenue seen from an elevated train platform
, June 1974


Photos by Danny Lyon for the Environmental Protection Agency's Documerica project, June-July 1974 (US National Archives)

Thursday 27 June 2013

Harris Schiff: My Prayer (Revisited)


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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/23/Hong_Kong_Skyline_Restitch_-_Dec_2007.jpg/1280px-Hong_Kong_Skyline_Restitch_-_Dec_2007.jpg

Hong Kong Skyline, panoramic view: photo by David Iliff, 2007
 

for Jesse Edmund Schiff


. . . that the rushing.byway
...................the lowly
...................................highway
.............................................would be still
Stilled
...................by..a
...................nearly inaudible
hiss
...................
whiz of
............................electromagnetic
......................................................vehicles
..................................visionary
......................................................concepts
courageously
...................embodied
bringing us
..................................into the present
gifting us
...................more dawns
..................................such dawns
as dawns before
............................foresaw
imagined
............................were
...................are


 


Harris Schiff: My Prayer (Revisited), from One More Beat, 2011



File:Europe night.png

Europe at night (human-made lights only): image by C. Mayhew and R. Simmon (NASA), from data by C. Elvidge (NOAA), 2008


Lightning and lava flow over Eyjafjallajokull: photo by Olivier Vandeginste, Sunday 18 April 2010

File:Terre-lumieres de nuit.jpg

Earthlights at night: image by C. Mayhew and R. Simmon (NASA), from data by NOAA, 2000



Lightning and lava flows over Eyjafjallajokull: photo by Olivier Vandeginste, Sunday 18 April 2010


Alex Lopez plays baseball with his sister Sugey while smoke generated by the Las Conchas fire covers the sky in Espanola, New Mexico. As crews fight to keep the wildfire from reaching the country's premier nuclear-weapons laboratory and the surrounding community, scientists are busy sampling the air for chemicals and radiological materials: photo by Jae C. Hong/Associated Press, 29 June 2011

Wednesday 26 June 2013

Charles Murray: The Whistle


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Any spare change pls (street pennywhistle player): photo by Fiona Alton, 14 May 2010 (National Archives UK)
 

He cut a sappy sucker from the muckle rodden-tree,
He trimmed it, an’ he wet it, an’ he thumped it on his knee;
He never heard the teuchat when the harrow broke her eggs,
He missed the craggit heron nabbin’ puddocks in the seggs,
He forgot to hound the collie at the cattle when they strayed,
But you should hae seen the whistle that the wee herd made!

He wheepled on’t at mornin’ an’ he tweetled on’t at nicht,
He puffed his freckled cheeks until his nose sank oot o’ sicht,
The kye were late for milkin’ when he piped them up the closs,
The kitlins got his supper syne, an’ he was beddit boss;
But he cared na doit nor docken what they did or thocht or said,
There was comfort in the whistle that the wee herd made.

For lyin’ lang o’ mornin’s he had clawed the caup for weeks,
But noo he had his bonnet on afore the lave had breeks;
He was whistlin’ to the porridge that were hott’rin’ on the fire,
He was whistlin’ ower the travise to the baillie in the byre;
Nae a blackbird nor a mavis, that hae pipin’ for their trade,
Was a marrow for the whistle that the wee herd made.

He played a march to battle, it cam’ dirlin’ through the mist,
Till the halflin’ squared his shou’ders an’ made up his mind to ‘list;
He tried a spring for wooers, though he wistna what it meant,
But the kitchen-lass was lauchin’ an he thocht she maybe kent;
He got ream an’ buttered bannocks for the lovin’ lilt he played.
Wasna that a cheery whistle that the wee herd made?

He blew them rants sae lively, schottisches, reels an’ jigs,
The foalie flang his muckle legs an’ capered ower the rigs,
The grey-tailed futt’rat bobbit oot to hear his ain strathspey,
The bawd cam’ loupin’ through the corn to ‘Clean Pease Strae’;
The feet o’ ilka man an’ beast gat youkie when he played --
Hae ye ever heard o’ whistle like the wee herd made?

But the snaw it stopped the herdin’ an the winter brocht him dool,
When in spite o’ hacks an’ chilblains he was shod again for school;
He couldna sough the catechis nor pipe the rule o’ three,
He was keepit in an’ lickit when the ither loons got free;
But he aften played the truant -- ‘twas the only thing he played,
For the maister brunt the whistle that the wee herd made!
 
Charles Murray (1864-1941): The Whistle (from Hamewith, 1900)



Penny Whistle: photo by dsasso, 12 January 2006 (National Archives UK)


Pennywhistler: photo by Liam Seasby, 19 July 2007 (National Archives UK)


 Pennywhistler: photo by Kate (dicegirlsnapz), 15 September 2010 (National Archives UK)


 Morgan playing the penny whistle (Manchester homeless): photo by Ian (krishudds), 19 April 2013 (National Archives UK)


The Whistler, Belfast. I swear this is the same wee man I seen in Ballycastle at the Lammas Fair two years ago: photo by *~Mac Bern~* aka Argyll Images, 11 October 2008 (National Archives UK
)

 Street pennywhistler with his dogs, Bath: photo by John Gulliver, 10 April 2009 (National Archives UK)


Waltzing Matilda. We'd hear his pennywhistle if we had photos with sound (Ludlow, UK): photo by Chris Mullineux, 23 August 2012 (National Archives UK)

Tuesday 25 June 2013

Blindness


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Grau (Grey): Gerhard Richter, 1974, oil on canvas, 250 x 195 cm (Gerhard Richter Art)



If you stand before a blank wall
and open your eyes as wide as you can
you will see nothing.
Believing the lies
is always exactly
that easy. It's known as playing the game.

This is not a game of the blind lead the blind.
On the other side of the wall
which was not after all a wall
but an artificial barrier of darkened glass
they're watching. And now the light grows

almost bright enough to blind.







Erschossener 1 (Man Shot Down 1): Gerhard Richter, 1988, oil on canvas. 100 x 140 cm (Gerhard Richter Art)
 


Rot-Blau-Gelb (Red-Blue-Yellow): Gerhard Richter, 1972, oil on canvas, 150 x 150 cm (Gerhard Richter Art)



Erschossener 2  (Man Shot Down 2)
: Gerhard Richter, 1988, oil on canvas. 100 x 140 cm (Gerhard Richter Art)




Rot-Blau-Gelb (Red-Blue-Yellow): Gerhard Richter, 1973, oil on canvas, 98 x 92 cm (Gerhard Richter Art)


  
Rot-Blau-Gelb (Red-Blue-Yellow): Gerhard Richter, 1972, oil on canvas, 150 x 150 cm (Gerhard Richter Art)