How it was.

A-country-divided-Segregation-Jim-Crow-South.

Careful.

Mouse to mouse resuscitation

Remember these guys?

Apostrophes are possessives, not plurals

Rust, Like Love, Never Sleeps

Click on for a larger picture.

Abandoned Hotel, Del Salto, Columbia

Click on:

‎"Lemonade Stand" Music St. New Orleans, 1948

In the summer me and my buddies would set up a lemonade stand for the neighborhood and for an excuse to sit in the shade. L to R - Alex Coulonge, Allen Coulonge, Billy Creevy, T.N. Retiff, Ronnie Coulonge..




Attribution: Bill Creevy

Freedom Riders - 1961

In-depth presentation

How the Wild West REALLY looked.

Click on:

Amazing sepia photos of the West shown here for the first time.

An Inspiration.

"Whiter Shade of Pale" – a timeless favorite

NPR's All Things Considered, April 15, 2009 - Procol Harum's classic "A Whiter Shade of Pale" has just been named Britain's most-played song in public places in the past 75 years.

Annie Lennox does a great cover of the song, too.

Midnight, Mississippi

Yes, there is a Midnight, Mississippi.

Midnight is an unincorporated community located in Humphreys County, Mississippi. Midnight is approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) north of Louise and 5 miles (8.0 km) southwest of Silver City along Mississippi Highway 149.

Although Midnight is unincorporated, it has a zip code of 39115. Population in 2010 was less than 200 people.

A Reminder

Captured: America in Color from 1939-1943

Click on: http://extras.denverpost.com/archive/captured.asp

A Bonding

The handler and his dog returning from a year long deployment!

Answers to the name, Ben

Click on:

You knew this was coming, right?

"Girl In Thought"

by Sabrina Cabada

Lovely West Texas Photography.

If you enjoy photography of natural things and an have attention span longer than that of a gnat, click on.


Beautiful West Texas Photography

"City Of New Orleans"

A recent rider's experience

Here's a radio interview with the song's author, Steve Goodman (1948–1984, Leukemia, 36 years old). Goodman also sings "The City of New Orleans" at the conclusion of the interview

One of the first ones out there.

Radio Commercial.

"Don't Cook Tonight, Call Chicken Delight"

"Bastard Blue" by Murray Dunlap.

Over the last year I discovered a friend. I also discovered a writer whose stories soar. I'm referring to Murray Dunlap. The stories he has pulled together in his newest book of stories, "Bastard Blue", had me reading many over several times. They are that good. Most of them are themed from his experiences growing up in south Alabama, but they are not simply regional. They cast a much wider net than that and the texture of the lives he writes about are palpably universal.


"Bastard Blue" is available at Amazon– in both hard copy and the Kindle edition – and bookstores everywhere.

What those who know are saying:

High Praise...
“Forged with a poet’s attention to cadence and rhythm, a storyteller’s devotion to character, and tension that just keeps ratcheting up, Bastard Blue is finally a love story, between a young man and the place that made him, the southern culture that proves to be both a blessing and a curse. Murray Dunlap is a brave writer, and an honest one; the lives he portrays here are as heart-stoppingly authentic as his prose is dazzlingly beautiful. He serves up everything I want in a story: compassion, humor, substance and style.”
Pam Houston, author of Cowboys Are My Weakness

"Yes, Bastard Blue is a first book but there’s more than promise on display within its pages. This collection introduces us to a fully realized talent. Murray Dunlap’s voice is confident, his characters richly drawn, his sense of place as vivid as you will find in fiction. Sentence for sentence his prose is crisp and direct, edged somehow with both menace and hope. He has a knack for creeping up to sentiment in his stories without crossing the line, leaving only genuine, well-earned emotion on the page. This book is so fine somebody should offer a money back guarantee."
-Michael Knight, author of The Typist

"If possible, read Murray Dunlap’s Bastard Blue in a Louis XV style chair, near a subtle fire, or in an Adirondack chair, between peach and dogwood trees. Reading his stories is about as close to having a storyteller there—present, in the room--as I know. This collection is full of heart, mischief, and sly winks. What a grand triumph."

-George Singleton, author of The Half-Mammals of Dixie

Murray's recent history is a tribute to his courage, tenacity and strength.

Murray on Murray: I was very nearly killed on 6-7-08 in a car wreck, so I'm trying very hard to put my life back together. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a complex injury with a broad spectrum of symptoms and disabilities. The impact on a person and his or her family can be devastating. And my memory-loss has to be the most frustrating component of this entire disaster. It is as if I woke up from a dream of a life to a nightmare of a reality. But, as we all do, I keep focused and build a new life.

Murray Dunlap's work has appeared in about thirty magazines and journals. His stories have been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, as well as to Best New American Voices, and his first book, "Alabama," was a finalist for the Maurice Prize in Fiction.

Falling Slowly – the song

This is a song I like very much. It is from the movie, Once, released in 2007 and well-received by critics. It was low budget: $160K and grossed over $20M. One well-regarded critic wrote, "It may well be the best music film of our generation." I liked the movie, too.

Used Prose Poem II

Friend's Wife

I will undo you. I will do it single handed like I might a button on a collar. And I will watch you as you, like a collar, spread apart. And I will hear your breath’s soft whistle as you pull the air inside you. And I will know your eyes are closed. And we will.

Afterwards, because we swore we wouldn’t, your expletives will sting like hornets. And we will swear we won’t again.

Haitian Flea Market

Click on to enlarge

Martha Markline Hopkins's Art.

I really appreciate friend and former classmate, Martha Ann's paintings and sculptures

"One Wire,"
My piece chosen for the exhibition "Bare Essentials: Minimalism in the 21st Century" at Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, IL, Nov. 4 - Dec. 22, 2011. Note that though it shows masculine austerity and uses industrial materials, it also has expression shown through the history of other movements of the wire. The addition of expression is a quality I expect to see in many if not all of the works in this upcoming show.



"One Wire," 12" x 12" x 2, Canvas on Board painted with Rabbit Skin Glue, Wire, and Tacks. (Click on image to enlarge.)

A companion piece: "Four Wires":

New Yorker Cartoon

"Losing My Religion" – R.E.M.

A favorite song. A favorite video.


R.E.M. - Losing My Religion by WBRNewMedia
The video is based in part on Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" which tells a story about an angel who falls down from heaven and how people make money displaying him as a "freak show." Michael Stipe is a big Marquez fan and the song's whole idea of obsession and unrequited love is based on the central theme of the author's masterpiece, "Love in the Time of Cholera". The video was also heavily influenced by the art of Caravaggio and by the sensibilities of film director, Tarkovsky

From Ghost Town To Havana – a film

A new documentary film being made by Eugene Corr.

"In the summer of 2006, three unarmed kids were gunned down on an Oakland street. Roscoe Bryant, 44 at the time, ran out of his house. One of the boys, Thomas, 15, died in his arms. Roscoe, the father of two boys himself, decided he had to do something. As an alternative to the gangs and violence engulfing his Ghost Town neighborhood, he started the Oakland Royals baseball team. We've been following the story of Coach Roscoe and his players for the past three and a half years." – Eugene Corr

I have long been touched by the despair that resides in the sad existences suffered by inner city kids, who, through no fault of their own, with no nuclear family and no role models except "Rap Stars", drug dealers and other criminals in their respective communities are presented with nothing positive and useful upon which to base their futures.

I believe a compelling lesson can be learned from Eugene Corr's film, “From Ghost Town To Havana” and that is that, if the sad, dangerous and wasteful things are going to be changed in the many neighborhoods like Ghost Town (this film focuses on West Oakland, California, but there are Ghost Towns in every one of our larger cities), mentors are needed and needed badly. The film's purpose is to show that more Roscoes ( learn about him in the trailer) can make a difference.

I spent the week of July 10 – 15, in Berkeley, California, pro bono, to learn more about the film from "Gene" and his associate producer and its needs – which as you might expect is money, needed to complete the full translation from Spanish and final editing. The film's cost was front loaded and still needs about $200,000 to finish with the translation and final editing so it can find a public audience with PBS, HBO or other similar venues.

If you find "From Ghost Town To Havana" can be an important vehicle to make a difference and you can make a 501(c)(3) tax deductible contribution, we will be grateful and hopefully some kids will have a better shot at improving their lives through the film's mentoring objectives.

I invite you to review this inspiring film’s trailer here:

http://playtwopictures.com/

Red Light Lullaby

Ruby Friedman / Nick Page

‎1912, Storyville prostitutes, New Orleans

From the New Yorker

"Set a Spell"

Click on for a larger photo:


July 1939. Gordonton, N.C. "Country store on dirt road. Sunday afternoon. Note kerosene pump on the right and the gasoline pump on the left. Rough, unfinished timber posts have been used as supports for porch roof. Negro men sitting on the porch. Brother of store owner stands in doorway."

Photo by: Dorothea Lange (May 26, 1895 – October 11, 1965) she was an influential American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA).

North American Indians (Denver Post Series)

In 1906, American photographer Edward S. Curtis was offered $75,000 to document North American Indians. The benefactor, J.P Morgan, was to receive 25 sets of the completed series of 20 volumes with 1,500 photographs entitled The North American Indian. Curtis set out to photograph the North American Indian way of life at a time when Native Americans were being forced from their land and stripped of their rights. Curtis’ photographs depicted a romantic version of the culture which ran contrary to the popular view of Native Americans as savages.


More Remarkable Native American Indians via The Denver Post's "plog".

3 Father Poems by Meg Pokrass

Meg is a friend of mine. Her recently released book, Damn Sure Right is getting brilliant, rave reviews and is available from Amazon and leading bookstores everywhere. She is one of the brightest, most creative people I have ever read... or known.

Father Poems

by Meg Pokrass

no proof exists

my dark father
was human though
no proof exists

his photographs
were torn in two
then four then eight
his face in the trash

pieces slipping

near each other
becoming
who I wanted him to be

my father never loved us but I loved him madly when I was three

riding his shoulders
grabbing his hands

seeing from above
how breakable
we really were

Before Dusk, Autumn

The two kites went up
into the late afternoon.
One of them, then the other.

I was locked in the car
while Dad and my cousin, Mamie
swirled the field.
Mamie, watching her shadow grow,
looked embarrassed.

I watched through the window-
The kites were leaves,
wind picking them up,
grabbing them.

As shadows spread
Dad must have remembered
that I was his daughter,
that it was my birthday.

Piggy Back

“Let's go
for a piggy back ride!”
He
draped me
over him
like a sweater.
Shouldered safely
I let my hands
explore
his face
and found
two caterpillars.
He told me
to feel his chin,
how it was
like sandpaper.
Everything
was
BIG,
HAIRY,
TERRIBLE
(laughing high above his face).


___

My friend, Meg told me, "Fathers really are a rich source. My mother and I left my father when I was five, I never saw him again, so I had many years to think about the memories."

About Meg:

Meg Pokrass writes flash-fiction, short stories and poetry. Damn Sure Right is her debut collection of flash fiction. Meg serves as Editor-at-Large for BLIP Magazine (formerly Mississippi Review) and before that, for SmokeLong Quarterly. Her stories, poems, and flash fiction animations have appeared in nearly one hundred online and print publications, including Mississippi Review, Gigantic, Gargoyle, The Nervous Breakdown, HTML Giant, Wigleaf, The Pedestal, Keyhole, Annalemma, Smokelong Quarterly, elimae, Prime Number, Women Writers and Joyland. Meg creates and runs the popular Fictionaut-Five Author Interview Series for Fictionaut and consults with Writing MFA programs about online publishing. Meg lives with her small, creative family and seven animals in San Francisco, where she edits and teaches flash fiction privately.

Another Side of Bruce Springsteen

w/ The Seeger Sessions Band

"If I Should Fall Behind" w/ wife, Patty Scialfa



"Oh, Mary Don't You Weep, Don't You Mourn"

Buying Cars Down South

New Orleans – John Stewart

A favorite song by an original member of the Kingston Trio, a '60s folk singing group. (R.I.P. 9/1939 – 1/ 2008)

And one would be hard-pressed to find a more poignant elegy for the pre-Hurricane Katrina Crescent City than “New Orleans,” with its heartbroken piano accompaniment a la Tom Waits and Randy Newman, regret-filled vocals, and lyrics that were largely written by John’s longtime wife, soulmate and sometime singing partner, Buffy Ford Stewart.



Another video of the song with great NOLA video.

Not a relation. I promise.

Watch it!

Meet Meg Pokrass and her Newest Book

Meg is a friend of mine and I am anxiously awaiting the release of her new book, Damn Sure Right. It is scheduled to be released this February, 2011. She is one of the brightest, funny women I have ever read... or known.









Meg Pokrass writes flash-fiction, short stories and poetry. Damn Sure Right is her debut collection of flash fiction. Meg serves as Editor-at-Large for BLIP Magazine (formerly Mississippi Review) and before that, for SmokeLong Quarterly. Her stories, poems, and flash fiction animations have appeared in nearly one hundred online and print publications, including Mississippi Review, Gigantic, Gargoyle, The Nervous Breakdown, HTML Giant, Wigleaf, The Pedestal, Keyhole, Annalemma, Smokelong Quarterly, elimae, Prime Number, Women Writers, and Joyland. Meg creates and runs the popular Fictionaut-Five Author Interview Series for Fictionaut, and consults with Writing MFA programs about online publishing. Meg lives with her small, creative family and seven animals in San Francisco, where she edits and teaches flash fiction privately.

To view Meg's website – a great slide show review of her book with a sample story

To order a copy of her new book go here

Praise for her writing:

“Pokrass writes like a brain looking for a body. Wonderful, dark, unforgiving.”
– Frederick Barthelme
“Read Damn Sure Right, a collection of miniature tales sure to ruin your
waking hours the way you’ll want them ruined.”
— Kyle Minor, author of In the Devil’s Territory
“Meg Pokrass’ flash fiction conveys entire worlds that are touching,
haunting, funny, moving and strange in the most beautiful ways.”
— Jessica Anya Blau, author of Drinking Closer to Home
“Meg Pokrass is the new monarch of the delightful and enigmatic tiny
kingdom of micro- and flash fiction.”
— Brad Watson, author of Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives
“Meg Pokrass is the brewmaster of flash.”
— Sean Lovelace, author of How Some People Like Their Eggs
“No one this side of Amy Hempel is more capable of saying more with
a handful of well-chosen words… and no one is better at stretching
language into such brilliant new hallucinatory shapes.”
— Grant Bailie, author of Morta rville and Cloud 8
“I feel Pokrass thinking through her sentences, surprising herself, taking
chances. Some of her lines hover between the best stand-up comedy and
Dostoevsky.”
— James Robison, author of The Illustrator
“Pokrass’ unsettling, exciting approach to fl ash is indeed infectious.”
— Sam Rasnake, editor of Blue Fifth Review

Enjoy Caroline Herring

I think she's terrific!

About Her:

Caroline Herring is a Canton, Mississippi-born artist whose music has been hailed for combining traditional folk and bluegrass sounds with striking, original observations of modern life and love. Thoroughly steeped in southern culture, Herring began her music career in Austin, TX, where she released her first album, “Twilight,” and won Best New Artist in both the Austin American Statesman and Austin Chronicle in 2002. Since that time, Herring has built an international following and released three more albums, including the masterpiece “Golden Apples of the Sun.”

And learn about Walter Anderson

The critical acclaim for “Golden Apples of the Sun” firmly supports Herring’s status as one of the top musical artists of her generation. The Oxford American says, “Golden Apples is the album of a woman who has come into her powers as a singer-songwriter, claiming as her stomping ground the territory where folk meets alt-country.” NPR’s All Things Considered interviewed Caroline in January 2010 about the making of the record, and Jim Allen of All Music Guide said the following: “It's not easy being a great folksinger -- Kate Wolf, Linda Thompson, and Iris DeMent are some of the names on the short list, but ‘Golden Apples of the Sun’ makes a strong case for the addition of Caroline Herring.”

Herring’s album “Lantana” (2008) received widespread acclaim as an alt-country masterpiece. The Austin Chronicle proclaimed it to be “the best modern Southern Gothic album since Lucinda Williams’ Sweet Old World,” and NPR named it one of the “ten best folk albums of 2008.” On “Lantana,” Herring writes and sings about a myriad of southern topics, from a character in a Larry Brown novel to the infanticide and racism exposed by the dark and troubled life of Susan Smith. With “Golden Apples of the Sun” Herring stakes out new terrain, exchanging the country-influenced resonance of her previous albums for a sound inspired by the iconic female folk singers and songwriters of the 1960s and 70s.

Caroline Herring lives in Atlanta, with her husband and two young children.

For a lot more of Caroline's music, go here:

Opossum

Hurricane Katrina –Came Ashore on Monday, August 29, 2005

Click on(for a larger photo)



More Katrina with Narrative and more Photos

A Joan Baez favorite

All You Need to Know About Life.

Here's Looking at You Kid

Great Lyrics Here

Cartoon 10/10

Fireflies – Rhett Miller

Sorry, my mistake!

Sarah McLachlan

Yusoff, the Yak farmer

On facebook

Yustoff, Yak farmer

About Me

Basic Info

Sex:

Yes

Birthday:

Yes

Current City:

No city, farm

Hometown:

Yakutsk

Political Views:

What?

Religious Views:

What?

Bio

Siberian, height: 6' 8", weight: 1 medium Yak.

eyes: yes, brown, hair: yes white, Teeth: yes

Myers Briggs profile: INTJ

Favorite Quotations

Yak good, Polar Bear Bad

Work Yes

Education No

College: What?

High School: What?

Likes and Interests

Activities:

Fucking and yaks and farming and eating

Interests

Yes - see above

My Favorite Siberian Music

Best Bull Yak named: YAK-ob Schmirnoff

Montreal Die In

Photo and Narrative by photographer, Kreddible Trout. I think he has captured an interesting event here. He's a good, alert photographer.

montreal die in © Kreddible Trout Visiting my hometown of Montreal a while back I happened upon this. A mass die-in. Normally I get all the memos on protests in my vicinity, but I haven't lived in MTL in a decade so I'd no idea what I was about to bump into. I had spent the day shooting headshots for a good friend when I lucked out on this. We zigged when we might have zagged and I noticed a swarm of cyclists appearing in all directions. My Troutie senses started tingling... something was going on here. Next thing I knew, they stopped and dismounted. Right spot. Right time. Dozens of point and shoots and phones started snapping where they stood, I thought 'vantage point!' I was closer to the front so I b-lined it. I think I made a good choice.They were protesting the death of a cyclist onMontreal street. Killed by a motorist It was incredible. They shut down Rue Ste. Catherine. in the late afternoon on a Saturday. Closed the city for ten minutes. It was beautiful. I would say that it made a lot of Montreal motorists unreasonably angry, but that would mean the protesters really had no effect.

New York City from Above

Click through this slide show below –

provided by The Denver Post.

Captured: New York City from Above – Plog Photo Blog

Meet Ferron – A Canadian-born Folksinger

My favorite song of hers:

"Ferron writes of love with the relentless introspection of Leonard Cohen, and, as with classic Bob Dylan, her songs' tough, questioning attitude sometimes gives way to an unexpected." - Rolling Stone Magazine

When Canadian singer-songwriter Ferron was 15, she hit the road alone. She had a single shopping bag with a change of clothes, a toothbrush, a waitress uniform, and a Leonard Cohen LP. Little did she know then, but one day her own songs would be compared to Cohen's for their depth of word-craft, intimacy, and wisdom. (NPR)

Ferron's Website

Wild And Free

Vedran Vidak, Photographer

From: Imotski, Croatia

The photographer's Narrative:

On the vast pastures of untouched nature Livno field, only ten kilometers away from the town of Livno, relaxing peace that rules the area impairs gallop over two hundred wild horses! That way they inflict on the area has been circulating since Koritine to Pine head, impress the stunning scenery herds of wild horses, in search of good grass, salt and water a day and go to the tenth kilometers. Wild horses on these pastures, almost fifty years of living under the open sky, left to themselves, weather conditions, strong winters and attacking wild animals in the surrounding woods is a lot. Survive only thanks to regions that are rich grass.

Wild Horses

Peace

Winter Comes