Charlie Crane

January 22, 2008

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Unlike many photographers who visit to Pyongyang, North Korea only return with images of the Potemkin Village spectacles put on for tourists, Charlie Crane manages to capture the some of the stark emptiness and weirdness of the place. Crane's recent Welcome to Pyongyang is one of the best of the recent spate of North Korea books and has been widely hailed as one of the best photo books of 2007.

We have a Charlie Crane print available on 20x200 this week!

Pineapple

January 22, 2008

Mongolia has never been known for its salads, but on my first trip there in the early 90's there were virtually no green vegetables to be had in the entire country. Fruit was impossible to come by, in fact I could find nothing to eat but mutton. For almost two months I had mutton for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Occasionally the lamb would be served with a bit of onion or some sickly looking rice, but generally it was just mutton. Boiled, fried, or roasted three times a day you would be served meat on a plate until you couldn't stand the site of the stuff. You would sweat mutton, pee mutton, shit mutton. If you were lucky you could wash the mutton down with mares milk, but it was more common to be given a bowl of mutton broth. I slept in homes with sheep skin pelts on the floor. I chased sheep with kids who played games amongst the livestock in the streets. I killed sheep with a sharp knife (apparently an honor, rude to refuse).

Counting sheep did not lull me to sleep but instead sheep became the stuff nightmares in which I could feel my chemical composition tipping toward the bovid. Eventually I stopped eating all together except when starving.

If you can imagine all that, think of what it was like to take a night train away from Mongolia and waking up in Ulan Ude in Siberia and seeing a woman selling a can of pineapple on the train platform. The can's bright red Vietnamese and Cyrillic letters printed over an obscenely lush pineapple drawing hovering over a turquoise background practically shouted at me. I paid the woman, a Buryat with a pleasant open face and bright green eyes, one dollar which was probably 10 times the value of can. Still, I would have paid 10 dollars. Maybe 20. The can was marked 'Hanoi' and was 2 years out of date. It was heavy duty. Like the kind you see in 60's movies, But it opened right up. And the pineapple? Well, I close my eyes in pleasure at the thought of the first scent of that opened can. You will never known pineapple until you have only eaten mutton for a month or two. When I finished the fruit, I drank the juice and then added water to leach out any remaining flavor. For years that can would remain on my desk holding pencils until it was finally lost in a move. I don't know why I am remembering this at 2:55 in the morning but I can't stop thinking about that can, about how it felt to open it, and about how rare it is to get such pleasure from such small things.

Joakim Eskildsen

January 18, 2008

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I had never gone through Denmark based photographer Joakim Eskildesn's portfolios because the work I had seen of his had a high polish finish which doesn't suit my taste (overly dramatic skys are always the tipoff...National Geographicy for want of a better adjective.), but his project titled iChickenMoon which I believe was shot in South Africa is beautiful stuff and got me looking. And my stylistic qualms notwithstanding Eskildsen has seen more than most of us, and his portfolios all hold fascinating imagery. His site is worth delving into.

Nicholas Nixon

January 9, 2008

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Next Thursday here in New York Nicholas Nixon will be opening a show titled Patients which is a must see... It features arresting images of terminally ill patients. Nixon turns the photographic cliché of shooting the dying it's head by making savagely beautiful almost sensual portraits that are at once sculptural and delicately, tragically human. Most of the images from the show aren't online yet, but I expect they will be soon.

Nixon became part of the modern art photography canon for his Brown Sisters project, but his portfolio is wide ranging. I wish galleries/phtographers would realize the value of putting up older projects online. Nixon's Photos from one Year for example is a no brainer for the web.

Mexican Retablos

January 8, 2008

SanCamilodeLelis.jpgI collect Mexican retablos- small paintings of saints on tin. One of my favorite dealers James Caswell has written an insightful book titled Saints and Sinners on Mexican devotional art with a big section devoted to retablos illustrated largely with selections from his own impressive collection. The book came out 2 years ago but somehow escaped my notice until recently. I recommend the book as well as his gallery's website which contains a good selection of links and explanatory information and where most items for sale have detailed descriptions to give context. For example on the image above:

An illustration of the Catholic belief that Camille guides and protects at the final hour. Titled at bottom San Camilo de Lelis Patron de los Agonizontes, or "San Camilo of Lelis patron of people in final agony", depicts a fascinating cast of Hieronymous Bosch like characters who represent spiritual hazards of death. San Camilo and his acolytes guard the dying soul against final temptations of a host of satanical troublemakers. A devil in the window says, "I can't" (meaning he can't get to the dying man to detour him to hell). The demon floating above the enthroned Virgin Mary threatens, "your children". The Virgin invites, ven a mi gloria, "come to my glory". Notice the dying man's little white soul flying up to the Virgin's open arms..... The devil beneath the bed says, vuelvale intentar "try again". On the left are the seven demons of the deadly sins...

On Turning 41

January 6, 2008

41 is one of those blah birthdays. Like 31 or 27 or 11 it’s a day to be marked and then quickly forgotten. 41 rates a Wikipedia entry which seems impressive at first blush, but so do all numbers under 100. 42’s entry is much more impressive.

My three year old can’t count to 41 yet and calls it a "big big very big number with a 4 and a 1". Nobody bothers to put 41 candles on a cake and as it’s a prime number there’s no easily divisible scaling factor. I imagine some get candles that look like the numbers 4 and 1 or candles arranged into 4’s and 1’s but most of us just get a random set of candles that fill the cake. I got 16 candles spread out in a circle. 16 was something to look forward to. I'm not sure anyone looks forward to 41 which is not to say there's anything wrong with actually being 41, it's just not as fun as 16 when you could get a driver's license picture from the front instead of from the side.

At 41 I’m the age my mother was when I went away to college. I’m a little over double my youngest brother’s age when he died. I’ve lived 14,975 days which is less than I would have thought. Actuarial tables suggest I have about 12,401 days left although family history would suggest something like 19,345 days. Perhaps counting days is morbid but I've been doing it since I was 11. Back then I was probably a little less optimistic than I am now. Back then if I thought 31 was ancient never realizing that the distance that separates 11 and 31 or 11 and 41 is much shorter in many ways than the distance between 11 and 1.

In my 41st year I plan on making things. On my post for 42 I'll resolve to list the projects completed.

related: 40

Lisa Robinson

January 4, 2008

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Long time readers of this blog know that I have something of an obsessive relationship with snow, a product of a largely snowless childhood in a hot corner of Texas. Simply put I love snow. It makes me a little bit crazy, so I guess I was predisposed to be a fan of Lisa Robinson’s Snowbound, photographs taken over several years of snows. Her landscapes remind us of the thrill of being the first to tread on new snow and the wonder of discovering a world made new. The understated images achieve power through subtlety which is a hard trick indeed given the challenges of shooting and of printing such images.

This work deserves to be seen in person as digital files viewed on screen don’t do the prints justice, so make the trek over to DUMBO and check out the show at the Klompching Gallery, it’s up through February 29th.

If aren’t in the New York area, Robinson’s book of the same title was cited by PhotoEye editor and photobook connoisseur Darius Himes as one of his favorite photobooks of 2007.

Tangential: And while we’re on the subject of snow and photography why not re-read Alec Soth’s snow-tagged posts. Of all the blogs that have come and gone over the years, his is the one I miss reading the most.

To Each His Own

January 3, 2008

It is the third day of the year
I’m on a train eating clementines
The woman behind me is enjoying a bucket of chicken
Which smells delicious
but she would never share
and besides, the clementines are sweeter.

Model Home

January 2, 2008

One of my wife's aunts just bought a new house in one of those pre-fab subdivisions that seem to be taking over middle America, a McMansion. The subdivision is still brand new. The streets aren't on maps, and most of the houses are half-finished, or have that just-moved-in look. But there is one house with green grass and trees outside. It's the model house, and that's the one they bought—fully furnished. To give the illusion of the perfect life, the model house has fake family photos in each room—the pictures always feature a handsome couple with one or two kids. The couple would vary from room to room, but you wouldn't notice if you didn't look closely. The mom was always blonde, the dad, muscular, occassionally shirtless. In the kid's room a framed drawing titled, "World's Best Dad" was carefully hung in the corner while the master bedroom was decorated with glossy travel magazines, and books in bookshelves that invitably carried the word "success" in the title. In the living room a pretend television displays a serene ocean scene.

My wife's aunt and uncle and their daughter will move into the new house leaving most of their old furniture behind, walking into a readymade life. In truth the new life looks pretty similar to the old life. The new house is virtually indistinguishable from the old one which is also in a pre-fab subdivision. Inside the house feels the same- miles of beige carpet, huge windows with plastic sills, and a sense of complete anonymity. The cherry veneer furniture and bland paintings on the walls are indistinguishable between the homes. But in the new house the rooms are all one or two sizes bigger, there's a third door on the garage, and the basement is graced with a media room. A year from now little will have changed in the model house. The furniture will not have been moved, the paintings will stay exactly as they are, and my guess is it will take months if not years to replace all those family photos scattered around. Even the plastic TV will stay put.

It is easy for my wife and I to be horrified by all this as the house and everything it represents is pretty much the opposite of how we believe life should be lived, but for my wife's aunt and uncle, immigrants from Korea who were both children of war who arrived here with nothing, the house is tangilbe evidence of a life of unbelievably hard work— year upon year of labor without vacations or government holidays often in dangerous neighborhoods where they are mocked and threatened. The house will remain chilly in winter as they would never waste money on something as frivoulous as heat, and it will feel empty to visitors, but out in the back Jenn's uncle will plant a vegetable garden with seeds sent from Korea. He grew up on a farm and still sometimes refers to himself as a farmer. He'll complain about the soil, but he'll make it work and before long the garden will be overflowing with tomatos and squash and chilis. In the summers he'll host barbecues complaining about the expense of such a big house, but enjoying hosting everyone in it, and dreaming of a bigger one.

Obsequies for 2007

December 31, 2007

Remember when years measured the time between Christmases and birthdays?
A year was 4 summers.
A year was a new notch on the doorway, your height scribbled nearby.
A new year felt new because
A year was everything.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Endless.

On television the crowds in Tokyo and Paris would smile, and cheer, and kiss while we waited...
In Times Square the ball would drop at eleven o’clock.
This was the burden of living in Central Time.
The hour between eleven and twelve would crawl slower and ever slower....
Fighting sleep.
Until those last seconds.
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4 3, 2, and then...
A dive into the unknown.

We would write out the new year because it felt weird to see it in ink.
In a year we could learn geometry, the stories of Athena and Apollo, and how to catch catfish on rainy days.
In a year we might fall in and out of love 20 times.
In a year we might kiss a girl. With tounge.
In a year we had time to build forts in trees.
A year was something.

Does the calendar change anything now?
Wasn’t it just... Wait. That was 4 years ago.
My favorite winter overcoat is six years older than some of my friends.
I return to places and find trees I planted towering above the rooftops.
I see someone else in the mirror.
Birthdays mean nothing to me.
I’ve forgotten how to measure things.

Mikiko Hara

December 28, 2007

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As a response to yesterday's post a friend asked if I had ever seen the work of Mikiko Hara. I haven't seen it in person, but I recently read a nice post on Hara on Japan-Photo.info, one of my favorite photography blogs. Hara's work is quiet and poetic, a rare quality in street photography. Works for me.

Update:Lesley Martin, who always writes incisively about photography has written a nice piece on Ms. Hara in the Winter 07 issue of Aperture. I've met Lesley a couple of times while sitting on Jen Bekman's Hey Hot Shot Panel, she also happens to be swell in general.

The Internet Giveth

December 28, 2007


20 year old clips featuring my wife. I plan on using the phrase "Drop the Monkey" often around the house.

Hiromi Tsuchida

December 27, 2007

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Hiromi Tsuchida always included on the short list of great Japanese photographers for his books Hiroshima and Counting Grains of Sand. He's recently released New Counting Grains of Sand, a continuation of the original project. It's a delightful book and worth tracking down (you can find it on PhotoEye .)

If you don't visit Tsuchida's website for the photography, go for the 20 year timelapse of his head... I have a weakness for time based projects...

And if you happen to be in London you still have a week to see some of Tsuchida's prints in person. They are part of a show titled The Eyes an Island: Japanese Photography 1945-2007.

Related: Noah Kalina, Time Photography

Charlie Wilson's War

December 22, 2007

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For my entire childhood in Texas Charlie Wilson was my congressman. I have yet to see the movie in which he is portrayed by Tom Hanks but I can heartily recommend the book on which the movie is based. It's the story of how one congressman from a district of no special importance managed to get the United States involved in a covert war that played a major part in bringing down the USSR and how that involvement ultimately gave rise to the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden's brand of fundamentalism. My guess is that at each step from which the story is removed from the man, the story is diminished, although perhaps these versions are more believable than the truth which is outrageous enough to seem fictional.

Wilson lived down the road from my first childhood home, and although he was rarely around, he was hard to miss when he was in town. He often held court on Saturday mornings at local breakfast spots like the Hot Biscuit and the Holiday Inn and if you were anywhere in earshot of his table you would inevitably catch loud profane tales of Washington skullduggery... And then there were always whispers about his various girlfriends around town. If you're curious about the man, he's profiled in today's Washington Post in an article titled "Charlie Wilson Sticks to His Guns". A football coach in Lufkin once said of Wilson, "You either love the fella or you hate him, he'll be re-elected unless he kills someone so you might as well love him. Hell, he might have already killed someone, with Charlie you never know."

Sidenote: The Post article mentions his campaign ads, which I remember fondly for their pure outlandishness. This is a somewhat tame selection. I hope someone digs up some of his earlier ads.

Santaland

December 22, 2007

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Years from now I look forward to torturing my kids with a collection of 'scared of Santa' pictures. This one is pretty good, but 2005's is my favorite.

Guillaume Herbaut

December 19, 2007

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Guillaume Herbaut travels to many of the world's grim hard places; his portfolio is a catalog of suffering and woe. By photographing what most of us would run away from he forces us to consider the large swaths of the world where misery is the norm. The two images above are from the series Vendetta taken in Albania where thousands of people are locked in blood struggles...

Children's Books I love

December 11, 2007

A friend who's baby is still a few months away from being born asked me for some suggestions for children's books because she wants to start building a library. Assuming she has the basic classics covered, here's a list of slightly less well known books that my sons and I love. Many of these books are out of print but can easily be found on Amazon, ebay, or on bookfinder.com. Here are a few to get you started...

The Birthday Party - Maurice Sendak
Little Blue and Little Yellow - Lionni
May I Bring A Friend - de Regniers
Where Everyday Things Come From - Aldren Watson
Tall Book of Nursery Tales - Feodor Rojankovsky
The Tall Book of Make Believe - Garth Williams
A Tail is a Tail - Katherine Mace
Rotten Island - William Steig
Doctor Desoto - William Steig
Today's Basic Science - Navarra and Zafforoni
Henri's Walk to Paris - Saul Bass
The Wonderful House - Margert Wise Brown
Choo Choo - Virginia Lee Burton
The Dead Bird - Margaret Wise Brown
The Line Up Book - Marisabina Russo
What Makes A Shadow?- Clyde Robert Bulla
Tiny Nonsense Stories
Goodnight Gorilla - Peggy Rathman

My general advice on buying kids books:

1. Always buy hardcover. A used hardcover is usually better than a new softcover. If your kids loves a book, he will read it hundreds of times. Softcover books just don't hold up.

2. As a general rule avoid celebrity authors.

3. Avoid modern "message" books.

4. Love the politically incorrect. The Tiny Nonsense Stories feature gun wielding kittens, cigarette smoking ducks, and pig families that sneak around scaring the daylights out of each other. Kids of course love these stories.

5. For vintage books, never worry about finding a first edition if you plan on actually reading your children's books. Your kids will want to bring them to the dinner table, they will bend them, tear, them and so on. This is how children's books like to be read. Just find the cleanest cheapest copy you can find.

If you are looking for more book buying ideas, check out this japanese site which always has a well curated selection of vintage visually spectacular kid's books... (the little links that read A-C, D-F, and so on show thumbnails of the covers)

Melanie Schiff

December 10, 2007


In interviews Melanie Schiff often references music. "You hear a sad song and you feel like it's your experience, and I wanted to make art like that, to make photos like that." And many of the images in her current portfolio literally reference music. There are still lives with skulls and cassette tapes, another of light bouncing off cd cases, and a self portrait with a Neil Young album. It might sound silly when described but it all just works. The image selection is eclectic and personal and for me it does play like a very good album.

I read on MAO today that Ms. Schiff was recently chosen for the 2008 Whitney Biennial which is good news indeed. I look forward to seeing her enormous prints here in NYC.

More of Schiff's work can be seen at the Kavi Gupta Gallery.

Stefan Rohner

December 9, 2007


If you've ever found yourself in a taxi roaming a part of the world far from home, you'll appreciate Stefan Rhoner's essay from Morroco "The King Is Coming"...


On Turning Three

December 9, 2007

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On Thursday a day shy of his 3rd birthday, my son and I turned a corner onto Prince street when we encountered a man who had just been hit by a car. His face was badly bloodied and his leg was twisted at a grotesque angle. We arrived just as he slumped over to the ground. The man driving of the car was also in distress, also bleeding. He was sitting in the driver's seat trying to adjust his broken glasses, stunned, and surrounded by smoke, presumably from the airbag. The car had jumped the curb and was pressed into a lamp pole. Although we arrived just seconds after the accident people on the street had already sprung into action. Two passersby were comforting the man on the ground. Another man sacrificed an overcoat to keep him warm. A husband and wife team in matching full length fur coats were attending to the driver. My son was still, outwardly impassive. Although my instinct had been to hurry him down the street he was transfixed. Hearing the ambulance siren he said, "The ambulance will take the man to the hospital and give him a big band aid and then he'll be better."
"Yes," I said, "We should go so the ambulance men can do their work."
"Ok," he said.
A few minutes later we were at a restaurant. "I want french fries and cauliflower", he announced and then went on to talk about robots, his mom, a girl he likes in school, his little brother, his upcoming birthday party, robots again, and trains.

In his second year of his life, our son's world has opened up to include all the things he reads in books. He has a sense that the world is round. He knows we live in Brooklyn and that winter follows fall. When it we got a dusting of snow the other day he first wanted to taste it, then build a snowman, then build an igloo. He calls his mom "my cutie pie" and loves to sing Amazing Grace and Clementine. And yet for all that knows and all that he can do at 3, there are still many traces lingering babydom. His parents are still his touchstones and too much time apart from us leave him somewhat undone. A blank face is often presented to strangers, a mask for a vague distrust. He falls asleep alone, but ends up in our bed every night. The upset over an apparently small thing can easily turn into tears.

Raul Andres' world has been turned upside down several times this year, most dramatically by the addition of a brother, later by the loss of a house.

I knew he would be a good big brother when he began asking me to include Gabriel in his bedtime stories just a few days after Gabriel was born. "One day a little boy, Raul Andres, went out for a walk..." I would start.
"And you too?"
"Me too."
"And mommy?"
"And mommy."
"And Gabriel?"
"And Gabriel.... So Raul Andres, mommy, daddy, and Gabriel all went out on a walk..."

The old house, he still misses. We moved four blocks away so it's still painfully close for him. Last week we walked by the old place on the way home from school.
"This was our house," he declared, "we lived here for a long time. Can we go inside."
"No," I replied. "Someone else lives there now."
"I'm sad," he said.
"Me too," I said.
"Can we sit down?" he asked pointing to the stoop.
We had spent countless hours on the stoop during his first two years. Sitting there and watching people pass by was one of his favorite things to do."
"Of course. Let's sit."
We sat for a while in silence and then continued walking home. "I miss that house too much," he declared.

And so it was for much of the year—a wonderful economy in his words.

His terrible twos were miraculously short. We can count the number of limp-noodle-fall-on-the-ground-sobbing incidents on one hand. And that period seems to be long over.

Unlike a 2 year old whose his life is all about the here and now, the 3 year old anticipates events big and small Halloween, Christmas, or maybe just the next time we sit outside and eat peppermint. And after experiencing things he thinks about them. "Last Halloween I was a wolf, next Halloween I want to be a robot and a fireman."

The 3 year old is contemplative. Last night, or 'last night ago' as he would say, my son brought up the man who had been hit by the car. "Do you think that man will be ok?" he asked.
"I think so." I replied.
"We must be careful when we cross the street," he declared.
"Yes." I said, "We must be careful when we cross the street."
"Today is my birthday, tomorrow is my birthday party, just like in my book."
"Yes," I answered."
"Then I will be 3?"
"Yes," I said."
"And then 4?"
"And then 4," I replied.
"Someday..."


related: On Turning Two

Time and Light

November 30, 2007

When I was a kid one of things that made photography so compelling was the idea that it was a way to fold time. I dabbled with long exposures, double exposures, photographs of the same exact spot on different days, etc etc. Later I became a light junkie... sometimes spending days scoping out a place to find the exact time when the light would be just right-obsessing over the exact film stock to record the blue of my grandmother's front wall when it was first illumated with morning sun. After that I became emotion obsessed and so on and so on... I imagine most beginning photographers go through some similar trajectory. This comes to mind because today I was looking at the work of 2 photographers who have distilled their work down to time and light. Both work with a camera on a tripod and a mirror to make their images.

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Photographers who shoot long exposures and light trails are a dime a dozen, but Tokihiro Sato's shothe manages to create light that feels organic and mysterious. Many of his images remind me of fireflies (they remind me Crewdson's firefly pictures more than actual fireflies) or of childhood imaginings of sprites and woodland ghosts.

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Julianne Swartz makes similarly lyrical images using the same basic tools as Sato. Her Placement series is a project in which she shoots photos of hands holding mirrors reflecting the opposite horizon. I saw a few of them at Mixed Greens recently and they've stuck with me. If you're in Manhattan you should check them out.

David Goldblatt

November 21, 2007

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This morning I was reminded of this exhibition of photographs of South Africa from 1998 by a friend who attended with me. Then this evening I got an email about an upcoming Goldblatt show. If you don't know his work you should check it out. The photographs are quiet but powerful, especially in person.

Artist Talk at SVA

November 14, 2007

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This Friday Lisa Ross and I will be speaking at SVA. Lisa and I have both made made many journeys through China's western provinces and our work from those parts of the world will be the focus of the discussion. Our gallerist Nelson Hancock who also wears a professor of visual anthropology hat (and is an amazing photographer himself) will be moderating the discussion afterwards. The talk is part of the ongoing Artists Talk on Art series. Annoyingly there is an entry fee, but it's worth it to hear Lisa speak. If you don't believe me, check out what Holland Cotter has to say about her work.

Info:

School of Visual Arts
209 E 24rd Street, NYC
Auditorium
Friday 7:00 PM, doors open at 6:30
$7 General Admission
$3 Students
SVA students

Simon Roberts at Klompching

October 24, 2007

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Ever since I first noticed Simon Roberts' Motherland project I've been waiting for it to show here in New York. Tonight it opened at the newly minted Klompching Gallery and the exhibition does not disappoint. I definitely recommend heading over to DUMBO to check it out.

Klompching is the creation of the husband and wife team of Darren Ching and Debra Klomp Ching both of whom are well known in the photo world, he for his work as creative director at PDN and she for her smart writing about photography. This was their inaugural opening and they are putting together a sharp roster of emerging photographers including Lisa M. Robinson and Tessa Bunney (check out the Romania portfolio). It's a promising start. I know I'll stay tuned...

Mallard

October 23, 2007

My wife on my hopes of getting internet service in our new apartment which seems to exist in a one block blackhole of telecommunication : "You know what you are, you're a duck in a game preserve. So happy, so hopeful: "Look," you quack, "the cage door is open. A pond, blue sky, lets go waddle out and flyyyy...."


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