4/22/04:
Second person plural
From "How to be a Texan" on Texas Trifles, the coolest writey-type weblog I've seen in a while -
Before we begin, I must clarify, sanctify, and preachify about the southern word "yawl". When we say "yawl come" to someone we mean the whole family, when we say "do yawl have really cold northers?" we are talking about the whole town. You never go up to a single person and ask "do yawl have a beer?" cause you ain't askin' the world for a brewsky, only one person. You gotta know your conjugations, cowboy. And word to the wise, we never, ever say "you all". Mebbe "yew" but never "you all". That's Yankee for yawl (with many pardons to my very favorite up north friends !!) [Here.]
Without a doubt, perusing these fine posts is definitely going to save my ass where I'm going.
See also:
iN-PUBLIC - the home of street photography [via douzeLunes].
"Collage Depicting Growing Worldwide Anger at the United States" [long download].
How To Gag On 'The Passion' [9 fun filled ways that Gibson's snuff film makes a mockery of true belief].
The Writings on the Stall [via chicha].
Truck driver sayings in Portuguese [Could someone who speaks Portuguese tell me what "p?ra-choques" means?] .
Supermodel Personals [via spittingImage].
Trashlog - collecting a piece of trash for the Internet every day.
posted by jeremy @ 2:55 AM
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Easter eleven
An interview with JG Ballard [via chicha.]
Caterina asks for things to do in Tokyo to many interesting replies.
Book of Hours looks promising [em portugu?s]
Bombing Starbucks: a downloadable novel.
Oculart is the scariest beautiful thing I've seen in a while [via pennyDreadful].
A Reader's Guide to the Underground Press.
I've never seen Berlin look like this before [via vignaMaru].
Reclaiming the City through Poetry [via woodsLot].
A mosaic of soldiers who've died in Iraq.
Unused London Tube Stations [via boingBoing].
Tourism and photography in virtual worlds.
posted by jeremy @ 2:52 AM
4/20/04:
From rust belt to bible belt and fat beltbuckle
Personal update: I've meandered down to Nashville, Tennessee, hanging out in the dirty south for a week. After that, I'll be making my way over to southwestern Texas. I would be more specific, but seeing as how the town only has about 200 people, that would be more personal identification than what's wise. So that makes me fall from Sao Paulo's 15 million to a Texas 200 in the same month - go figure that one.
Impersonal findings: I've been sort of nostalgically looking at pictures of downtown Chicago through this Real Estate Research website which isn't at all as square as it may sound. Included is a list of Chicago skyscrapers that were never built includes the really intriguing Miglin-Beitler Skyneedle which would've surpassed the Sears Tower in height had it not been for the recession in the early 90s. This was found on route to a search on the Trump Tower Chicago, which apparently isn't aspiring to be Chicago's tallest this time out (thank god). Each world city also has a list of theoretical projects like the Torre Pluralista in Sao Paulo, each building section designed by a different architect.
Document sheds new light on US support for 1964 coup in Brazil
Humanity is the first casualty of war
Prison deletes inmate's writings after she wins $25,000 PEN award [via boingBoing].
The American Traveller International Apology Shirt.
[Note: I've since removed some overly specific information from this post. Jw 11/22]
posted by jeremy @ 2:52 AM
4/10/04:
Safe again?
Safetyville
I've been staying for the past week in a sub-suburban town in a space of stripmalled nothing somewhere in the 45-minute drive between Detroit and Ann Arbor. I've been watching CNN and short minutes of Fox News before flinching and having to look at something else. When I first arrived, the quiet was deafening. It's so flat, you can see the curve of the earth. After the noise and poverty and the keep-a-hand-on-the-wallet vibe of Sao Paulo, this place seems to move in slow motion. The cars glide slowly, efficient patterns, everything in such perfect, clean order that the mind just shuts off and that explains a lot. Then the news creates such a jarring contrast that that becomes all one actually sees. And then I think "Don't Americans realize how incredibly safe they are?"
I've met people that have to think about being kidnapped, or avoid parking their cars outside. At the Banco do Brasil, where I've spent many hours in line, there is a security guard in corner encased in this sort of bullet-proof podium, his head sticking out over the top to watch the floor, then with a narrow slit in the middle where the gun barrel will go if he should ever need to open fire. And I'm not trying to perpetuate the stereotypes of "third world" Brazil, or to give the impression that Sao Paulo should be avoided because of this. Quite the opposite. It's a chaotic city, but an amazing city, and if you dig cities the way I dig cities, please visit this city at some time in your life.
But the dangers are real, and I can probably assume that these are the realities for most people in the world, that the insular safety that I'm currently surrounded by is actually quite a rare thing. And while I don't intend to sound alarmist about the crime and poverty in the world, I'd hate to sound callous about it too - aside from a couple of very petty muggings in Chicago, I've never been the victim of crime. But the one thing I want to scream out in response to all of these alarmist "Is _______ safe!?" headlines is - Most of the world lives with real danger, and it's no worse than your imagination
Again, maybe I have to admit being naive to say such a thing. Even in Safetyville, USA, people have lived with crimes and suffering worse than I can imagine and worse than I've seen even now after having traveled a little. But when I get back to the headlines I'm still left dumbfounded as to what this information is supposedly protecting us from. Here the danger is cops without enough to do, not the crime they're supposedly charged to prevent. The US's prisons are continuing to fill; immigrants who've unintentionally thrown up the wrong red flag are continuing to disappear. And then the only threat comes out of the television, a cropped image from far away, while actual physical space remains empty, safe and silent.
posted by jeremy @ 2:51 AM
4/7/04:
Tuesday sweep
Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Communications and International Economic Policy, Trade, Oceans and Environment of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, One Hundredth Congress, First Session, May 27, July 15, and October 30, 1987
+ Wired reviews the excellent and necessary Memory Hole.
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Quarenta anos do Golpe Militar de 1964
Various Brazilian artists, thinkers and politicos reflect on the country 40 years after the 1964 coup. [In Portuguese]
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A capital to fit the grandeur
Brasilia is dull, full or ugly skyscrappers, concrete buildings, highways and artificial gardens. If you don't have a business here (say, you're not a politician, an architect, a journalist or a diplomat) you might end up either bored or disappointed. My suggestion is, try to enjoy it while it lasts.
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posted by jeremy @ 2:50 AM
4/6/04:
Cities loved by all
Rio de Janeiro -
as shot through a vaseline-smeared lense.
This site's overly sentimental introduction calls Rio "the city loved by all" in Brazil. My impression from the many dozens of Paulistas I've talked to indicates anything but. Still, I love the sun-baked grimey side of Rio that these images bring out.
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WTC Bombings: 1993
Such odd proportions when one tragedy stands so close to another.
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Expat Express Blog Ring
"I believe that those of us who?ve changed our environment so drastically tend to have a unique perspective on things. We?ve given our minds and hearts some space and objectivity with which to consider where we started from, where we?re going, and where we are now."
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The Falling Man
"Do you remember this photograph? In the United States, people have taken pains to banish it from the record of September 11, 2001. The story behind it, though, and the search for the man pictured in it, are our most intimate connection to the horror of that day. "
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Alfredo Jaar's Rwanda Project
"Jaar is not a photojournalist, and his work does not include images of dead bodies (those were the province, however belated, of the mass media). Rather, this is a media artist's encounter with holocaust, memorializing his tourism of the scenes of genocide. It shares the conceptual space of photojournalism and documentary film: cold, neutral, modern. But the work's referent is suffering, distant, incomprehensible, unimaginable pain and loss. "
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Markets and Anti-markets in the World Economy
"Moreover, other historians have recently shown that that specific form of industrial production which we tend to identify as "truly capitalist", that is, assembly-line mass production, was not born in economic organizations, but in military ones.... This largely ignored military component of large scale enterprises is, I believe, another good reason to replace the term "capitalism" with a neologism like "the antimarket", since we can simply build this military component right into our definition of the term."
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British Industrial Ruins
"In Britain, at the end of the 1970?s and through the eighties, the government of Margaret Thatcher allowed ?market forces? full reign, promoting an orgy of real estate speculation which produced a reconstructed industrial landscape. But not everywhere was able to capitalise on this economic reconstruction and in many areas, as old industries died, the buildings that housed them lay dormant and empty. This process persists and the material legacy of the industrial revolution, in the form of ruins, can still be found in most British cities. "
[via pennyDreadful].
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posted by jeremy @ 2:50 AM
4/2/04:
The welcome back set
I'm back to paying attention to this here log - for the next little while anyways. I'm changing up the format slightly and will finally finish tediously migrating the old Blogger archives over to the new server. Expect new posts about every other day, at least the next couple of months.
Links:
Zed Nelson
Highly topical documentary photographs whose subjects include obese Americans, plastic surgery in Iran, and a scathing portrait of Texas post-GWBush - the most polluted state in the US
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Futureme.org
Send an email to the future. I've actually been pretty addicted to this thing lately. All the little fragments and faces that are slowly flickering out of my head right now will come screaming back at me in 2005.
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Brasileiros em Chicago:
Edilson Lima
is a dancer and Portuguese teacher in Chicago. His site also has a huge links page for local Brazil-centric events.
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Saudades do Brasil
Letters home from a Paulistana living in Aurora [in Portuguese]
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Unfocused Thoughts
are more amusing snapshots of expatriate Brazilianess in the windy city [also in Portuguese]
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Also newly blogrolled:
posted by jeremy @ 3:49 AM
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