image gallery

preface: apology to walter benjamin...

over the last 2 centuries the world is defined more and more through collections of images of things you haven't ever really seen, taken out of their contexts in quite an alienating way. my understanding of almost everything is informed by what i have seen through other peoples' camera lenses--in history, in places i've never been, & in the personal i've never experienced. physically seeing through someone elses eyes is--was?-- a dream; its a recurrent fantasy, an expression of love, maybe unimaginable before the 19th century. "i wish you could see yourself the way i see you."

in cinema studies, it's funny-- you start taking it because you love movies, but when you read a bunch of theory you come out being like WOW THE IMAGE HAS THE POTENTIAL FOR UNIMAGINABLE EVIL!!!! anyway, it's too late now: here are my images...

 

 

 

Stew Leonard's animatronics!! From my home town grocery store. :) I thought this was a huge ubiquitous national chain until I mentioned it to my college roommates who were from the pacific northwest and they had no idea what i was talking about. turns out its only regional. but still foundational. winnie and i got matching shirts and ice cream here and listened to pure heroine in the parking lot over the summer before going to play tennis. once in 2022 bryan cranston and aaron paul were there to promote their tequila brand but I couldn't go because i had to look at an apartment in new york that we didn't even end up getting anyway. oh well! my aunt always complains it's overpriced. but i get it--it's really "dinner and a show."

screenshot from Sets, Streets, & Eats on youtube!! posted december 13 2023.

 

 

Henry Kissinger's grave at Arlington on April 1 2024 with Andrea. (five months after he died in Connecticut.) We were so overwhelmed by being surrounded by the people he killed we didn't really say anything. I can't find any pictures of the actual tombstone, if they ever made one for him. The last time i can find someone posting a picture of it was april 28 2024, and it looks the same as it did when we saw it, only they put grass over it. i wonder what it looks like now. maybe he'll have a little paper thing forever. it doesn't really matter. he never got what he deserved. Arlington hasn't updated their website to include him under notable graves in politics and culture. You can probably guess why, lots of people with full bladders in the surrounding area most likely.

 mine, from arlington national cemetery, april 1 2024.

 

Oldcroghan Man-- 2,000 year old bog body discovered in june 2003. he is now displayed in the National Museum of Ireland. it's free (yayyy) so I have visited a couple times, mostly to visit this exhibit; i think the science of the bogs is fascinating. of course a lot of people will litigate the morality of displaying human remains. i'm not sure if this particular instance is in that conversation-- what to do with your body after death; it is simultaneously personal and the first, infinite instance of true detachment. mostly, i think it is about respect, and like journalism, weighing public interest against whatever imagined wishes a person or their family may have had. it is also an exercise in projection: ultimately we don't know these people. i will never know him, but i like to sit with him; it does feel a little like companionship. oldcroghan man is special because he is so well preserved. i like to inspect his fingernails.

mine, from the national museum of ireland, september 30 2024.

 

 

the birth of athena-- 550–525 BC, Louvre. 

By User:Bibi Saint-Pol - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2061180