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Current obsession

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Assholes always prosper.

 

But then,  you probably already know that.

Written by birdflew

December 14, 2008 at 6:25 am

Current obsession

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Current obsessions:
Africa
fake bands/real t shirts
honesty
baked squash
going out too much
being invisible
make do with what you have/take what you can get/pay no mind to us/we’re just a minor threat

Written by birdflew

October 14, 2008 at 4:52 am

Current Obsession

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jesus fucking christ, don’t you hate it when you talk in your sleep and someone records it, and you find it only after a well-meaning friend emails it to you? yeah, i hate that too.

Written by birdflew

August 3, 2008 at 6:54 pm

Current obsession

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July 16, 2008 at 3:10 am

Current Obsession

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Current obsessions: horchata, reading in the grass, silver martin rabbits, giant sea kelp and my new career as a sea otter.

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June 5, 2008 at 6:34 pm

Current obsession

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Current obsession: Lewis Hine, an early American photojournalist best known for documenting American labor, in particular, for exposing child labor and helping to end it.

When the “breaker boys” in the photo worked fourteen or sixteen hour days, any daydreams of the childhood they were missing were snuffed out by sheer exhaustion. What exhaustion didn’t kill, physical ailment mangled; one stray thought meant pieces of slate and coal went crashing into fingers and hands, breaking small bones. Thoughts of school or lazy Saturdays went up into the air along with the dust that went into their lungs and aged them from within. “Black lung” it was called, but the small miners knew it was just another side effect of the American Dream. Youthful energy didn’t go away; it clung to the coal, burned and ascended heaven like unheard prayers, blackening and condensing into smog. The hopes of a generation went into the incinerator along with the anthracite that fueled the Industrial Revolution, leaving instead massive amounts of CO2, soot particles which still gnaw away at the ozone layer.
So today, as you consider global warming and climate change and ways to “green” your life, it is the dead dreams of children that float over our heads. As the mercury inches up, crossing every line the scientists draw in the sand, the sins of our laisse faire fathers literally decide the fate of our children and us. Ultimately the ghost of child labor gets its revenge as the byproducts of burning coal still create the acid rain that chips away at the Carnegie and JP Morgan marble shrines to Industry and Wealth and Progress, built by youth mortgaged away ton by ton. Ironic that the small miners’ most lasting contribution is as visible and as invisible as they were.

Happy Earth Day.

Written by birdflew

April 22, 2008 at 12:54 pm

Current obsession

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Grand Pinnacle Iceberg, East Greenland, September, 2006

Dirty Iceberg, Cape Bird, Antarctica, December 25, 2006

Grounded Iceberg, East Greenland, August 24, 2006

Where There Should Be Ice II, East Greenland, August 27, 2006

Finding these was like one day opening the mailbox to find forwarded postcards from someone else’s trek through my dreams.

Current obsession, addendum to yesterday: Camille Seaman.

The clock is winding down on the exam, class, but I’m not noticing right now because I’m astounded to see photographic evidence of the exact colors and landscape that I didn’t think existed anywhere outside my head.  Use this time to your advantage.

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April 4, 2008 at 5:58 pm

Current obsession

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Current obsessions: Subsidence as applied to daily life, dreams of being lost, so many times, (i) tried not to wonder:

Written by birdflew

April 3, 2008 at 7:29 pm

Current obsession

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Public Square, Cleveland and Edward Burtynsky’s Quarries.

Collapse vs excavation.

Written by birdflew

March 23, 2008 at 10:59 pm

Current Obsession

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What we call our destiny is truly our character and that character can be altered.  The knowledge that we are responsible for our actions and attitudes does not need to be discouraging, because it also means that we are free to change this destiny.  One is not in bondage to the past, which has shaped our feelings, to race, inheritance, background.  All this can be altered if we have the courage to examine how it formed us. We can alter the chemistry provided we have the courage to dissect the elements.
 
-Anais Nin

(emphasis mine)

Written by birdflew

March 17, 2008 at 3:33 pm

Posted in current obsession

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