this one was taken with my holga 120 (which broke this week, one of the shutterblades popped off and was rattling around inside) with a canon flash, which, surprisingly worked really well. it was pretty funny because the flash weighed like 5 times as much as the camera. this is meeghan on her front porch in columbia south carolina just after the sun went down. it's a double exposure as well.

this was taken outside of an abandoned post office somwhere in the middle of south carolina on a drizzly day in november. taken with my canon rebel xti.

pictures from now on

i am sick of writing. i am going to mostly post pictures and write about the pictures from now on. but don't expect any kind of smartypants art critiquey bullshit.

walking through cassanova

Jonas and I visited his hometown of Cassanova, Israel, which is built into a rocky seashore. His fathers house, crumbling unbelievably for how old it is not, is right there on the water. Our first night there was also the first storm of the season. The waves began crashing against the wall and quickly broke it down, flooding the house and causing us to evacuate to the street above. I took a few of my favorite items in a hardshell suitcase – not necessarily the most useful for a situation like this, but things that I was sure that I would need throughout my days in a place like Cassanova: a pair of silver chunky heel ankle boots, a few flowery tops, a black hoodie, and several books.
In the morning Jonas's father dispatched us to the insurance company to get some insurance for the house so that he could be compensated for the damages caused by the sea. It was still raining lightly and the house crumbled periodically, pieces fell off and floated peacefully away into the sea. Jonas's father was not concerned at all with this, in fact, Jonas informed me on our way through town to the insurance company that his father did this every year – waited until the damage of the first storm, payed for coverage for the three months up until the last storm and then cancelled the insurance until the next year. He saved money that way. That's why the house looked so strangely old for it's age – every year it was being partially destroyed by the forces of nature and rebuilt by this human's hands, which could be considered neglectful, given this seasonal process. However, in Casanova this way of dealing with things was the norm. As we came to the insurance office I saw that there were many of us, hundreds of sons and the visiting friends of sons being sent on this very same errand by fathers refusing to keep up the payment year round. We shared with the others stories of houses being ripped apart in the night, hardshell suitcases opened to display what we had considered to be our prized possessions. Many were impressed by my boots.
As I was showing my boots off I lost Jonas. I wandered around Cassanova looking for him and looking at the people. Since we had arrived at night it was the first time I had been able to explore. There really were very few roads, as instead most of the ground was covered in rubble – rocks and broken bits of cement, metal scraps, etc., which did not make for an easy stroll in the boots.
The people of Cassanova were a hairy bunch. There were many afros and long bushy beards on the men. The women were fashionable in an offbeat way and many seemed to make their own clothes. There was a commotion on one corner. I saw a girl walking who looked exactly like an acquaintance of mine named Annie. She wore long fingerless gloves stitched up the back with thick red yard, or were they a sweater-less sleeve? And then I saw two of Annie – she had doubled, replicated herself exactly right in front of me, same clothes, same hair, same person, just another! As I began to round the corner I saw that the two had turned into four and coming fully around the side of the building that four had squared, and there were sixteen Annies all arguing on the street corner, all wearing the same clothes, all exact replicas of one another, and they were arguing over which one of them was the original. I decided not to involve myself, really there was no place for me in the discussion, and anyway it seemed as though they only saw each other and were capable of only talking to each other, and only in order to have this one conversation regarding originality, over and over throughout their own forever, however long that lasted for them. So I stepped away and continued walking through Cassanova.
After a time I became tired of looking for Jonas and sat down on a pile of rubble. I was hungry. A boy came and handed me a Roma tomato. He was a teenage boy, maybe younger, and he was wearing a grey muscle tee. I thought maybe that he was Palestinian. I thanked him and looked at the tomato. It was split as if someone had thrown in against the pavement, and there was white mold growing from out of the split in the skin. I looked at the boy and he gave me a look, urging me to eat this rotten tomato, showing me the rotten tomato that he was holding and biting into, making faces like it was so delicious. I then saw that there was a gash on his upper arm, about the size of my Roma tomato, and there was white mold growing out of it. I wondered if this is where the tomatoes came from, perhaps he grew them out of his arm gash and walked around handing them to people sitting on piles of rubble looking hungry. Or maybe it was poison? I did not eat the thing, even though he continued urging me. I thought about throwing it at him to make him go away, but didn't. I was nice, and he eventually left me alone.

I decided to go back to Jonas's father's house. Maybe he had gotten the insurance and returned by now, I thought. I sat on the rocks below the house as the waves came in. the storm was over and the sea was back to its usual gentle behavior. As I got up to walk back up the hill towards the house a landslide begun. I was walking up, but getting farther from the house. Rocks were sliding down all around me, and I was sliding down with them towards the sea. It wasn't a big deal because the sea, being back to normal, wasn't exactly the scariest place to end up, it was just annoying because I wanted to get up the goddamn hill. I then realized that I could walk in a zig-zag pattern and easily traverse the rocks, as they were going straight down. I ascended the hill quickly, happy and proud to have figured out this problem of how to get oneself out of a landslide situation.
I saw my friend Jilberto, he had shaved his head completely bald. I have no idea why, or what the hell he was doing in Cassanova. He did not see me and I did not stop him. His bald head reminded me of Engadiner, and I thought of al of the things that I saw in other people that 'reminded me of Engadiner'. Because actually, the fact is not that everyone else and everything else has a little bit of Engadiner inside, it is Engadiner that possessed certain qualities that were of the world around him. Maybe he had a high concentration of very special things that I love of the world around (me) and that is what I love about him, but the point is that those things originate outside of him, and I am finding it easier to love those things outside of him, and finding also that those things have nothing to do with him, only that he has to do with them. like, for instance, once Engadiner sang to me, over the phone, for several hours, every top 40 hit of every year in the 1980's and some in the 1970's and even some before. He knew the words to all of them, even the ones I had never heard of before. But he didn't write those songs! So what if he just knows everything there is to know about everything. It is fun trying to stump Engie, even if it can't be done.

sunday mornin' comin' down

so i went to the flickr 4th anniversary party last night which was pretty fun. i went with Irina and Jackson. there are some pictures on my flickr account (how appropriate).

there was a drunk man with a beard in a wedding dress who was very sad because he had just been layed off from yahoo, and he kept telling me to lower my eff stop.

i told a guy who i thought was really hot but probably most definitely gay that i loved smoking cigarettes so much that i would choose them over sex. he said, no, i think i'd rather have sex! and i was like, girl, i have had to choose before and let me tell you i could not stop smoking. and he was all, oh. and then later irina told me that he is straight and single. goddamnit. SF has crashed my gaydar for real.

i need a hero!

i don't care what anyone says. i know he's a man. i know he's a politician. i know he's rich. i don't care. i have always loved eliot spitzer.

this is a great article

which deserves attention.

pig pops

tonight i had bacon and maple flavored lolli, and it was pretty fantastic, and they are from lollyphile. and i told jackson that they should re-name them pig pops. so if they change the name, they totally stole it from me. anyway, i'm fairly certain this shit's probably gonna take off and the people will become millionaires. either that or it will gross everyone out.

On the street and in the store

at the corner store which is not only a liquor store there are 3 men. one is from yemen and he has incredible eyes. i would bone him in a second. he's not smooth or anything, just really nice. one time the other 2 men were arguing about something over by the deli area, yelling, really getting into it in arabic. he kept looking over and i asked him what they were arguing about and he listened for a moment longer and then told me, "sandwiches."

the second man is a very sweet father-like type gentleman and is usually working by himself. he blushed when we spoke tonight. i said that the cereal was way too expensive, that i usually buy cereal in bulk, and that really the only time i ever go into his store to buy food is if i am so desperate because i haven't done my real grocery shopping. he said i should come in more often and i was like, don't you get it? that would mean i'm not taking care of myself. of course i didn't say that though.

the other guy i feel kind of bad for. he is big and dumb looking, although i'm not sure if he is actually a stupid person. he's just an oaf. and he always fucking things up and getting in trouble. like one time i went in there and asked for a half pound of smoked turkey and he signaled to me to wait, as he was taking singular cans of coca cola out of a case container and putting them into the refrigerator. he had 2 and a half cases to go. i was like, seriously? can you just do that after i leave? and guy #2 told him, i can only assume, to get to the turkey slicing now and leave that shit for later, because he jumped up and helped me. he gives me dirty looks, maybe because of that incident, or maybe he thinks i am a filthy white american whore, or maybe his face just looks like that. i like him anyway though. i think he probably has the best intentions.

i was waiting for the bus on the corner of 14th and mission just a little while ago, right in front of the Armory, which i love. i always try to see in the windows thinking maybe i can catch a glimpse of some action. (it's the kink.com headquarters....fucking machines!) i never, ever see any sex, but sometimes just standing outside of the building where soooo much sex goes on is totally exciting. it appeared to night as if someone may have been shot in front of the busstop. there was yellow police tape, a large dark puddle on the ground and the glass bus stop wall behind it was smeared with some circular scrubbing action and was all cloudy. there was a sign instructing people to catch the bus 100 yards up towards 15th street instead, and then a corresponding orange traffic cone where the alternative stop was. so maybe someone didn't get shot. really i have no idea what happened there, but that is the description of the scene.

there was a guy standing at the original busstop. i said to him, 'hey i think we are supposed to wait over here' and he laughed and walked with me, telling me that the last bus had blew right by him and he didn't understand why. but now he knew. also, he said that it was because the driver was 'a chinese' and that chinese don't care about anybody. he pointed to his heart and said, "you know why? because chinese have no mercy in their heart. and you know why that is?" he asked. no, i said, please please tell me why you think that chinese people have no mercy in their hearts?! " because they have no religion! not like you and me...they have no god or jesus or anything! they worship animals, like pigs!" evidence he offered for his claim was that if you go to chinatown and asked for help you would not get any from the shop keepers. i suggested maybe because they don't really speak english in chinatown? i asked this man where he was from. egypt. i had to say that he had come to quite an amazing conclusion about chinese people, and i asked him if he thought it was anything like when white people assume that 'all arabs are terrorists'. he did not answer my question, only went on to say that have i ever known a chinese? i said that as a matter of fact i was just hanging out with a friend who is chinese earlier today, and she helped me a great deal. he asked if she spoke english, i said of course! whatever. i t was an absurd conversation. really pretty interesting. he was nice. he didn't seem to understand why i wouldn't just fess up to hating chinese people.

on a similar note, when i got to the zen center i was a little early and so i went across the street to the cafe to get a light for my cigarette, which i hoped, as i hope all of them are, would be my last. there i found julia and tarumi sitting having coffee. they came outside with me, tarumi wanted to smoke too. julia remarked that i looked nice. yes, i said, i am wearing the sweater that you gave me. she said, look, i am wearing a a sweater that sarah gave me. sarah is my friend whom i had just been shopping with, the one who is chinese. ha! it all comes full circle now!
no.
so anyway, we started talking about how sarah is working for these rich people, she's a nanny, and she was trying to find out exactly how the husband's family got their piles of cash so she googled him and found out that he OWNS JCrew! and she was always wondering why the woman that she works for (heidi) wore jcrew sweaters because they are really not very good quality and the heidi is pretty rich...so we started talking about how heidi runs a non profit, and i was laughing as i explained it to tarumi. i said, it's a 'rich people non profit' - for people who have lost family members in plane crashes, and r. guliani is on the board of directors, as is g. newsom and sean penn and i'm sure other such luminaries. and it's just funny to me because: 1)9/11+ guliani is so funny ha ha!, and 2) rich people and their fucking causes! fucking plane crashes! so tragic! and julia is like blathering on about how she thinks it's so great that heidi is 'helping people' and how lovely that is and how SAD THAT PEOPLE HAVE TO DIE IN PLANE CRASHES! and i was like, "ha! i think it's funny, you know, rich people dying, i can't really be sad about that." and julia got really offended and said that "YOU NEED RICH PEOPLE because they have the money and you need to make money!" and i was like, whoa, this girl does not understand how the world works? why am i friends with her? and i went on to explain to her that, well, see, poor people die all the time because of rich people, like, as a direct result of rich people's shitty actions. and they die because they don't have things that are very basic, like water and they eat fucking DIRT CAKES because of rich people, and the rich people don't fucking care about that, and they go and instead do things like starting non profits for people who's families have died in plane crashes...which i'm sure is a traumatic experience or whatever, you know? and she was super angry at that point and tarumi was silent and then julia also added that i didn't know who i was friends with and what their backgrounds were and i was like, yes, i know, i am not friends with any rich people (her family totally has money). whatever. so now i think she hates me and thinks i am a shitty person, but i think i have a good point and also a right to not give a shit when all of a sudden there is one less person on the planet to head up a multinational corporation, say, or give money to the right wing think tanks, or support nuclear weapons development, or who rakes in profits from tearing up rainforests so that they can eat steak while people in that deforested country eat DIRT.

and then we went to the zen center and listened to a talk about how death is only a transition etc.

your problems

so shut the fuck up about whatever already. people in haiti are eating dirt.

Surviving on mud cookies

by Wadner Pierre, HaitiAnalysis.com

Wednesday, 06 February 2008

To stave off starvation in Haiti, women buy clay trucked in from the Central Plateau, then carry buckets of the dirt and water up ladders to the roof of the former prison at Fort Dimanche. “They strain out rocks and clumps on a sheet, and stir in shortening and salt,” reports AP. “Then they pat the mixture into mud cookies and leave them to dry under the scorching sun. The finished cookies are carried in buckets to markets or sold on the streets. A reporter sampling a cookie found that it had a smooth consistency and sucked all the moisture out of the mouth as soon as it touched the tongue. For hours, an unpleasant taste of dirt lingered. … Marie Noel, 40, sells the cookies in a market to provide for her seven children. Her family also eats them. ‘I'm hoping one day I'll have enough food to eat, so I can stop eating these,’ she said. ‘I know it's not good for me.’” Photo: Wadner Pierre

(article in full at www.sfbayview.com)