Street Magic In Las Vegas — Image by kenne
Everywhere you look
Vegas is an illusion
Running from the truth.
— kenne
Archive for the ‘Books’ Category
Street Magic 2 comments
Everywhere you look
Study Bookshelf — “I cannot live without books.” 2 comments
Study Bookshelf — “I cannot live with books.” Photo-Artistry by kenne
Son of a reader
I grew up a non-reader
Just a “slow bloomer.”
A high achiever
Branded as low potential
In school early on.
As a survivor
Libraries became my home
Learning about self.
— kenne
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What Price Human Dignity 4 comments
“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”
— Bertrand Russell
“This Old Porch” — Image by kenne
At What Price Human Dignity
Our world is complex and confusing, actually, it’s a crazy world out there. Part of the craziness is the tendency to label and patronize groups in ways lacking of human dignity. Such acts toward others deprive them of their dignity, the one thing that belongs to us.
“When we are really honest with ourselves we must admit that our lives are all that really belong to us. So it is how we use our lives that determines what kind of men we are. It is my deepest belief that only by giving our lives do we find life. I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness is to sacrifice ourselves for others in totally nonviolent struggle for justice. To be a man is to suffer for others. God help us to be men!” – Ceasar Chaves at the end of a fast and a Mass of Thanksgiving
Being a child of rural Alabama in the 1940’s, I was nurtured by a southern environment still recovering from the Great Depression. To this day I possess images of poor working people who own little more than their dignity, each day a struggle not to lose.
Later, in my twenties, I saw some photos of tenant farmer families and immediately identified with the people in the images. Walker Evans, who alone with James Agee were assigned by Fortune magazine in 1936 to document the lives of tenant farmers in Alabama, took the photos. When Fortune declined to publish their work, Agee and Evens published a book entitled “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” in 1941. Although the original edition only sold about 600 copies, today it is considered a classic in American art and many credit their work, alone with Roosevelt’s New Deal, for helping address the depression era issues of social responsibility and human dignity. Like so much art, especially that which affectively captures life’s anguish, this recognition came only after death.
“Conversation” — Image by kenne
Agee and Evans tried to distinguish between what was real and what was actual by avoiding judgment by a commitment to interaction — doing as they would be done by.
It’s not always easy to make sense of what we may see while trying to learn what we believe and where our ethical concerns might require us to go. In doing so, we are drawn not to an explanation, but to the profound compliment dependence and use.
“Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired.”
— Erik H. Erikson
kenne
“Rural Alabama” — Image by kenne
(First Posted October 8, 2008)
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Western Smoke BBQ 1 comment
Western Smoke BBQ, Tucson, Arizona — B&W Image with Some Color Masked Through by kenne
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“We shall not cease from exploration, . . . “ 2 comments
Ventana Canyon Panorama — Image by kenne
We shall not cease from exploration,
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.
— T. S. Eliot
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— will affect me like music Leave a comment
“Tell me what you think Art is” — Image by kenne
Tell me what you think Art is — of you can
— ask a lot of people — and see if anybody knows . . .
You asked me about music — I like it better than anything
in the world — I like it better than anything
in the world — Color gives me the same thrill once in
a long long time — I can almost remember and count the times
— it is usually just the outdoors or the flowers — or a person —
sometimes a story — or something that will call a picture
to my mind — will affect me like music —
Georgia O’Keeffe — Words/Works
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Capturing The Moment — Stagecoach Driver 1 comment
Stagecoach Driver — Image by kenne
Westward the wagon jolted
along the ruts and trails,
along the interminable course of empire,
while the sun took a long time going down in the fields.
The earth was slow and hard
and there was nothing to see but land:
it was not a country at all
but the sketch of a country,
the material out of which countries are made.
— from “Nebraska, 1883,” by Edward Hirsch
The dust of travel still clings to his body,
and particles of sunlight fade on his skin.
What has happened to the eternal presences?
— from “The Renunciation of Poetry,” by Edward Hirsch
