Monday, June 13
Monterrey: Man hung from a busy overpass and burned
Guadalupe: Butchered man in taxi left at Police Headquarters
Guerrero: 4 gunmen killed in firefight with army
Tabasco: Police confuse famers with gunman, two dead
Chihuahua: Pregnant woman killed by gunman
Acapulco: Man tortured and beheaded
Nayarit: Pregnant woman found badly tortured
Morelia: Executed man discovered
Sunday, June 12
Generan Teran: 3 skinned heads discovered in bags on busy street
Monterrey: beheaded man found in park
Sinaloa: Man tortured and executed in Sinaloa
Canatlan: Father and 2 sons executed
Montemorelos: Armed men open fire in front of Police Station
Excobedo: Violent gun battle, 3 dead
Campesina: 3 men executed at a rehab center
Saturday, June 11
Guerreo: Men killed and skinned, left on highway
Tijuana: Human head discovered
Monterrey: Two men hung from overpass
Monterrey: Man tortured, beheaded
Sinola: Man executed
Nuevo Leon: Butchered man dumped by school
Chihuahua: 3 men gunned down
Guerrero: Warning to Police. Two men skinned. One videotaped before death
Friday, June 10
Sinaloa: Man gunned down in restaurant
Hualahuises: Heads of 3 policeman found
Monterrey: Grenade thrown at State Investigation Agency
Acapulco: Six unmarked graves discovered
Acapulco: Young woman executed
Michoacan: 21 executed
Monterrey: Handcuffed man chased and killed
Vera Cruz: Tortured body of navy man discovered
Thursday, June 9
Guanajuato: Scores of trash bags found with human body parts
Cadereyta: Dismembered woman found
Monterrey: Prison break after grenades are thrown
Monterrey: Police kill two gunman
Chihuahua: Gunman kill three men
Sinaloa: Two young men executed in stolen car
Coahuila: Arsenal discovered
Durango: Police ambushed and executed
Monterrey: Rotting corpse discovered under a bridge
Guerrero: Young Man tortured and burned
Michoacan: 21 bodies found
Santiago: Army attacked by assassins, several dead
Monterrey: Young man executed on busy street
Wednesday, June 8
Monterrey: Woman's Head left at popular restaurant
Victoria: Remains of 30 people found in fuel drums
Chihuahua: Hitmen attack police
Monterrey: Two men hung in broad daylight
Guerrero: Armed group ambush police
Monterrey: Gunbattle in Monterrey
Sinaloa: Armed group attacks and kills three
Guerrero: Two people chased and gunned down
Coahuila: Homemade tank discovered buried in a cave
Tuesday, June 7
Torreon: 11 dead by gunfire.
Guerrero: Body of brutally tortured man found
Tamaulipas: Grenade thrown
Mochicahui: Bullet riddled body of man found
Cadereyta: Bodies of dead men found being eaten by animals
Guadalupe: Two men executed
Monterrey: Beheaded man foudn on street.
Chihuahua: Bodies of two beheaded women discovered
Monterrey: Young man executed in his bedroom
Sinaloa: Policeman and son killed.
Nuevo Leon: Three headless bodies found on the highway
Nuevo Leon: Three heads discovered
Michoacan: Man quartered fond on side of road
Morelos: Running run battle. At least two killed.
Juarez: At least 7 found dead in shallow grave
Monterrey: Officer surrounded and attacked

It's estimated that since 2006 when this drug war ramped up between 30,000 and 40,000 people have died in narco related violence. This is roughly double the total number of estimated deaths (civilian and military) in Afghanistan since 2001.

These headlines were taken from a single blog that covers narco violence. If I were to include accounts from major newspapers and other blogs this list would have been many times longer.

Update: Two days after this was posted between 33-39 people were killed in drug violence in Monterrey. This went largely unreported in American media. To give this context on an average day in New York City which is more than double the size on Monterrey, 1.4 people are murdered.

If you want more background on the drug war in Monterrey, Nik Steinberg's piece The Monster and Monterrey in the Nation is excellent.

G: Does Louis Armstrong have strong arms?

Me: Yes. Very strong.

G: But not stronger than Superman.

Me: Nope.

G: But he sings better than Superman.

[quiet]

G: I love Louis Armstrong. He is dead though.

--

G on the bus w/ his mom, apropos of nothing.

G: Who is Louis Leakey?

Jenn: He was a famous researcher. Where did you learn about Louis Leakey?

G: What's a researcher?

Jenn: Someone who studies things.

G: Louis Leakey studied fossils.

Jenn: Well he looked for human fossils from people who lived a long time ago.

G: Only humans? No dinosaurs? Right?

Jenn: Only humans.

G: Louis Leakey is dead. He should study his own bones.

Click the image for a larger version.

I see this view every morning when I walk to work. Business Insider posted the middle image by Danny Lyon this morning... (via @kottke)

I have a couple of books of Dayanita Singh's work and am a big fan so I was excited to hear that Radius is publishing a new book titled House of Love. The press release says "House of Love is a work of photographic fiction that takes the form of nine short stories." I've not seen the book yet or the work, but am looking forward to grabbing a copy.

Don't know Singh's work? You can find a few of her images here and on her gallery site. Her books are available through Amazon UK.

When I was a kid, sometimes on hot summer days my abuelito and I would drive in his big American car to Cine Elizondo in the middle of the day and watch movies. I remember seeing westerns, Santo movies, and American films like Herbie the Love Bug dubbed in Spanish. I loved the everything about those days, but the theater made everything extra-special. The air was cold and theater was spectacular, covered in dragons and golden temples. Audiences were loud and enthusiastic and they clapped at the end of each movie. Years later I would visit Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood only to be disappointed by it's relative plainness. I had been ruined.

The Elizondo was torn down in the 80's. Hearing about it from my dad who also loved that theater, I remember thinking it was the end of an era. I thought I would never again experience a movie like that. But then years later I found myself in India, again on a hot day. The food was a little different (samosas and vada), but there was the cool, the fantastic decoration, and the sense that you were experiencing something special.

Zubin Pastakia has been photographing Bollywood movie palaces which it seems are again being destroyed. The pictures make me nostalgic for places I've never seen.

talWhat's not to love about solargraphs—multi-week or month exposure images made by pointing pinhole cameras at the sky and recording the trails left by sun. I've always thought of solargraphs as portraits of time itself.

A Finnish student named Tarja Trygg sends pinhole cameras to "assistants" around the world. They record images and mail the cameras back for processing. Trygg has set up a solargraphy website to showcase the results. Some examples (from Alexandria, Egypt and Tijeras New Mexico respectively):

More solargraphy links: Becky Ramotowski's Castle Rock , flickr sologoraphs , Justin Quinnell's widely blogged solargraphs , Michael Wesely

From Mrs. Deane, a wonderful set of images of Schützenkönig or Rifle Kings. Click through for more info and many more pictures.

Want the inside scoop on the North Korean music scene? Check out this this fascinating series of articles by the Guardian collectively titled Pyongyang goes pop.

Related: Music for Maniacs offers an entire album's worth of North Korean tunes.

More North Korea Links: Russian Student in Pyongyang, North Korean Children Playing Changgu, North Korean Stop Motion Animation, North Korea Uncovered (a Google Earth file to heavily annotate the map of North Korea, North Korean Soliders Taking Snapshots, and (my favorite) Kim Jong Il's water slide

Ok. Ok. Just one more.

This photographer hails from Chongqing, shoots 6x6, and goes my the name Mirocn. You'll have gleen the rest of the story from the photos themselves.
(via hanna)

p.s. This photographer's work reminds me a bit of 木格's (Mu Ge's) work who is also from Chongqing. Friends? Do they influence know each other? Maybe even the same person?

Are there any Chinese photographers out there who can shed more light on on the great work coming out of these Chongqing natives?

Strict ethnographic portraits are deeply out of favor in academia and yet it's hard to deny that they are compelling. Phyllis Galembo specializes in these portraits very much in the style of 19th century ethnographer's without modern overlay, comment, or idiosyncratic technique; their power is their subject matter.

Newsha Tavakolian is a well known photojournalist, but her work has gradually become more metaphorical. She has many projects that challenge assumptions we might have about Iran and Iranian women in particular.

Interesting interview with Ms. Tavakolian from last year where she speaks of being inspired by Naser al-Din, an early Sha of Iran and, apparently, a photography buff.

Chengdu based Zhang Xiao produces work that makes me miss China intensely. He also occasionally posts to flickr: Zhang Xiao on flickr.

I was looking around for someone to develop 127 film today and came across Film Rescue a company specializing in old film stock development. Even better they've uploaded a huge flickr set of pictures of old film stock. Not pictures on old film stock, pictures of the rolls of film themselves. It's a litmus test of your film geekiness. Double thumbs up over here.

Related: Film Box Group

I love Julia Gillard's Series American Holidays. This one is titled "Labor Day, Detroit Michigan". I wish there she introduced her portfolios. I'd like to hear more about the thinking behind the images.

I'm a big fan of this short set of images by the New York based Belgian photographer Clémence de Limburg on Mali. Her images leave me wanting more, and to dust off my traveling shoes...