Philly cops seek info on 2 taking subway pix

9/25/09:

Philadelphia police are trying to identify two men who were separately spotted photographing parts of the Broad Street subway line earlier this week.

Aware that the mere mention of such activity could trigger terrorism fears, authorities were quick to note yesterday that neither incident seemed ominous.

"We don't believe either one of these events are terrorism-related, or that there's any connection to what's been going on in New York," said Homeland Security Chief Inspector Joseph Sullivan, alluding to an alleged terrorist plot there that had led to three arrests.

The first incident in the local subways occurred about 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, when a bearded white man in his 20s apparently took pictures of the underground area at the Snyder Avenue stop in South Philadelphia, Sullivan said.

SEPTA security cameras captured footage of the man, who had a backpack and a ponytail, as he left the station.

Shortly after 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, a SEPTA cashier noticed a clean-shaven "Middle Eastern" man with close-cropped hair taking pictures at the Lombard Street station, he said.

The cashier confronted the man, who proceeded to show her images of other subway facilities on his camera. He then indicated that he was deleting the pictures and left, Sullivan said [...]




[A terrorist wouldn't walk around brandishing a camera. He could simply scope out a place by eye and, if pictorial references are needed, use a cell phone or a palm-sized video camera. Walking around with my rather bulky camera, I've been questioned by cops in a train station, and shooed away from buildings, malls and a subway station. To find terrorists, they should look inside the DC Beltway and places like Crawford, TX and Wilson, WY.]

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Caution, White People

Dmitry Orlov, 9/17/09:

I happened to be in Washington, DC last weekend, and on the way to and from the National Gallery I had the opportunity to observe the March on Washington, which was in full swing. Once upon a time I had joined demonstrations, not out of some misplaced idealism, but to pick up women (I was still single at the time). The demonstrations were always full of pretty, high-spirited young women, and the context of marching and chanting slogans together rendered them approachable. And so my first question concerning the crowd marching around the Mall last weekend was, "Where are all the pretty young women?" There weren't any! Surprised, I observed some more. What I saw only deepened my consternation. Not only were there no pretty women to be seen, but the crowd included exactly zero blacks, Latinos or Asians. I don't believe I have ever before seen so many middle-aged, obese, shabbily dressed, melanin-challenged individuals gathered in one place!

What political interests bind over-the-hill flabby white people to the exclusion of all other ethnic groups? What is the shabby white agenda? Perhaps the signs the marchers carried might offer a clue? Most of them carried white corrugated cardboard signs stapled to a sharpened pine stake, of the sort designed for displaying on suburban front lawns [...]







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Any drama

In the current Harper's: "The following rules appear on two pieces of plywood posted to a tree in Tent City, an area occupied by the homeless in Camden, New Jersey. Linh Dinh photographed the rules in August and posted the image on his blog, State of the Union."








[A poem, first posted on my Lower Half, will also appear in an upcoming issue of Harper's.]

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Revealed: The ghost fleet of the recession

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Fifty questions on 9/11

Pepe Escobar in Asia Times, 9/11/09:


It's September 11 all over again - eight years on. The George W Bush administration is out. The "global war on terror" is still on, renamed "overseas contingency operations" by the Barack Obama administration. Obama's "new strategy" - a war escalation - is in play in AfPak. Osama bin Laden may be dead or not. "Al-Qaeda" remains a catch-all ghost entity. September 11 - the neo-cons' "new Pearl Harbor" - remains the darkest jigsaw puzzle of the young 21st century.

It's useless to expect US corporate media and the ruling elites' political operatives to call for a true, in-depth investigation into the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. Whitewash has been the norm. But even establishment highlight Dr Zbig "Grand Chessboard" Brzezinski, a former national security advisor, has admitted to the US Senate that the post-9/11 "war on terror" is a "mythical historical narrative".


The following questions, some multi-part - and most totally ignored by the 9/11 Commission - are just the tip of the immense 9/11 iceberg. A hat tip goes to the indefatigable work of 911truth.org; whatreallyhappened.com; architects and engineers for 9/11 truth; the Italian documentary Zero: an investigation into 9/11; and Asia Times Online readers' e-mails.

None of these questions has been convincingly answered - according to the official narrative. It's up to US civil society to keep up the pressure. Eight years after the fact, one fundamental conclusion is imperative. The official narrative edifice of 9/11 is simply not acceptable.


Fifty questions

1) How come dead or not dead Osama bin Laden has not been formally indicted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as responsible for 9/11? Is it because the US government - as acknowledged by the FBI itself - has not produced a single conclusive piece of evidence?

2) How could all the alleged 19 razor-blade box cutter-equipped Muslim perpetrators have been identified in less than 72 hours - without even a crime scene investigation?

3) How come none of the 19's names appeared on the passenger lists released the same day by both United Airlines and American Airlines?

4) How come eight names on the "original" FBI list happened to be found alive and living in different countries?

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911

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Vertigo
Vertigo

He has a muscular torso
With a thousand erections
Lighting up the night sky
But none sticks up more
Than the twin cocks.

(And yet)
Who would think of going all the way
Downtown to castrate
With two knives ablaze?

A muscular story ends.
He now speaks differently
And cannot look into the void
Without flailing.

.....................................
[from American Tatts]

Half Bakery: Whitman as Aim and Shoot

I

I DREAM’D in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth;
I dream’d that was the new City of Friends;
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love—it led the rest;
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
And in all their looks and words.

These lines about Camden, Whitman published in 1991, months before he died. He lived there for 19 years, longer than any other place except greater New York. During his first year, he wrote, “I don’t know a soul here—am utterly alone—sometimes sit alone & think, for two hours on a stretch—have not formed a single acquaintance here, any ways intimate,” and, “I am very comfortable here indeed, but my heart is blank & lonesome utterly.”

Oscar Wilde and Charles Dickens visited, Thomas Eakins came from Philly to photograph, and the 38-year-old Anne Gilchrist sailed for three weeks, with three children in tow, to marry our snowy bearded, sepia toned and partially paralyzed bard. They ended up having many dinners together, with Whitman staying over in a separate room at her rented Philadelphia home. Her kids called him "Uncle Walt," but the youngest, Grace, sensing another bambino, perhaps, didn't really care for the cuddly old bugger. "Get away from me, you creep." Actually, she uttered, "Get the fuck away from me, asshole." Frankly, she intoned, "Fuck off, you goddamn creep. Go back to Camden."

Camden, New Jersey, derives its name from Camden Town, a London neighborhood known today for a touristy flea market and herds of alternative types in black T-shirts, tattoos and nose rings. For real funk, try Brixton. Hanging out in Camden, NJ, I haven't bothered to visit the Walt Whitman house, though it's only a few blocks from the train station. Nearly 65, Whitman paid $1,750 for his first home, "a little old shanty." He'd fork over $4,000 for a self-designed tomb. During his time, there was no bridge between Philly and Camden. Whitman often rode the ferry back and forth, just to look at people and the river.

Finished in 1926, the Ben Franklin Bridge helped to destroy downtown Camden, since the locals could easily drive to Philly to shop and dine, then Cherry Hill, a suburban mall, finished the job. It didn't help that the G.I. bill after World War II stipulated that veterans had to buy a detached home in a homogenous neighborhood, bureauspeak for a white suburb. Enabled by the car, bridge, mall and sprawl destroyed Camden.



II

To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them..to touch any one....to rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment....what is this, then?
I do not ask any more delight....I swim in it, as in a sea.

Cradling a tub of crunchy white meat, I do my strokes in a steel box, my legs no longer suitable for walking. Honking mellifluously, I flip off a bare-assed bicyclist, run over some jaywalking asshole. A midget in a tank, I'm bad-assed, man, baaaaaaaaad, just like the gloved one, before his nose splintered for good.

Invaded by a gazillion piston-pumping assassins, the city has been eviscerated to make room for countless thousand-tiered parking emporia and drag racing merry-go-rounds. Hey, I saw that spot first. Shove another coin into my anus, will ya?

Mechanized conveyances prefer straight lines, but man is delighted by irrational alleys and curving lanes. He doesn't mind meandering, and when lost, inevitably steers in a wobbly circle.

The freedom of the car is the ability to be nowhere, fast. Unlike walking, one can rarely dictate one's pace, pause or reverse direction without carnage. One can't look, much less study. Idling, one fouls. "I drove through Kansas" means "I haven't been to Kansas." Instead of experiencing a single Topeka street, one has been dragged through a fastforwarded reel of inconsequences.

Smell me, the unplugged, meat version. How cha like me now? Camden was the home of RCA Victor. Incorporated in 1901, it was a pioneer of canned music. With the phonograph, sung, plucked and drummed sounds began their rapid descent from social rituals to masturbatory celebrations. There's a tailored yet generic playlist for each man, woman and dog. I just love the tunes in my head. Don't you finger my Ipod. Camden was also the home of Campbell soup.



III

In a little house pictures I keep, many pictures hanging suspended--It is not a fixed house,
It is round--it is but a few inches from one side of it to the other side,
But behold! it has room enough--in it, hundreds and thousands,--all the varieties;

In the passage above, from "Pictures," written before Leaves of Grass, Whitman compares the mind to a gallery of photographs, and when his masterpiece came out, he explained in an unsigned review:

Its author is Walter Whitman, and the book is a reproduction of the author. His name is not on the frontispiece, but his portrait, half length, is. The contents of the book form a daguerreotype of his inner being, and the title page bears a representation of its physical tabernacle.

Emulating the camera, a brand new invention in 1855, Whitman tried to catalogue pretty much the entire earth, and like a photo, he projected himself across time zones and into the future. Like his contemporaries, Whitman could finally glimpse many distant lands, so he rattled off mountains and rivers of places he had never been. To him, the camera was a model of a democratic, insatiable and lusty eye, capable of capturing and immortalizing all:

The pure contralto sings in the organ loft,
The carpenter dresses his plank....the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp,
The married and unmarried children ride home to their thanksgiving dinner,
The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm,
The mate stands braced in the whaleboat, lance and harpoon are ready,

On and on it continues, everything neutrally stated, objective, a slide show without commentaries. Whitman was ahead of his time not because he saw himself as a bulky, studio bound daguerreotype, or a mere photographer, mind you, but because he became an aim and shoot that missed nothing as it roamed real or imagined sidewalks, or as it barreled over real or imagined cobblestones on a horsedrawn carriage.

A century and a half later, we are positively luxuriating in canned food and music, and, most of all, the photograph. I can't take three steps without bumping into yet another effigy of my dear, dearest mother-in-law, can't shift one brain cell without upsetting a babylon of glossy comeons, can't wiggle a mouse without unleashing a torrent of pixelated genitalia.

Much has been written about the camera as a gun or phallus surrogate. To snap without peering through viewfinder is even dubbed "shooting from the hip," when in fact it's dangling on one's chest or beer belly. Can't even see it. And one doesn't just shoot, but captures, with each photo a (soon-to-be-forgotten) trophy. I come, see, I photograph. Greedy, compulsive, the photographer must shoot everything before singling out the really good looking ones. Armed with an automatic, each vista becomes a free fire zone. An amusing, unpleasant memory: On Waikiki, a Japanese youth suddenly plopping himself next to two bikinied blondes, so his buddy could snap a quickie. Since Honolulu is not a huge, open brothel like Bangkok or Amsterdam, one can't easily bed the locals, but hey, check out my babes.

Actually, most of the whores around Oude-Zijds-Voorburgwal and Achterburgwa are Eastern Europeans, Asians and Africans. Good luck finding a Dutch girl. And I haven't been to Bangkok, only seen the photos on Flickr.

Every spot on earth has been photographed so thoroughly that it's impossible to have a virgin encounter, one would think, and yet, no actual visit meets expectations, no matter how many photos one has pored over. A place's true flavor and texture always escape the tyranny of the camera. Excluding irrelevancies, photography zeroes in on a point of interest, but life itself teems with extraneous details. Often, it is such a pointless intrusion that makes an image interesting.

One can say that authenticity begins just outside the frame, that is, with everything that wasn't photographed, but to have an artistic vision is to be fixated on a tight set of concerns and a fistful of phenomena, at the exclusion of all else.

One can only measure another by one's limitations. Thus, we flatter each other with innumerable cheery and gaseous adjectives. Your name is Cosmo? Why, that's mine also! We must be related.



IV

I've been everywhere, man.
I've been everywhere, man.
Crossed the desert's bare, man.
I've breathed the mountain air, man.
Of travel I've had my share, man.
I've been everywhere.

I've been to:
Reno, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota,
Buffalo, Toronto, Winslow, Sarasota,
Wichita, Tulsa, Ottawa, Oklahoma,
Tampa, Panama, Mattawa, La Paloma,
Bangor, Baltimore, Salvador, Amarillo,
Tocapillo, Baranquilla, and Perdilla, I'm a killer.

--Johnny Cash, from "I've Been Everywhere, Man"

Dominant societies disperse emissaries to convert, kill, loot or photograph, and a conquering army is always accompanied by embedded vultures. There's no point in kicking down doors, ransacking homes, burning huts, tying up men, raping women, torturing and slaughtering if photos aren't globally disseminated to be seared into our collective memory. Minus these trophies, there's no victory. Even if it's politically inexpedient to release the images now, it's important that there's a photographer in the vicinity, and it must be one of ours, of course, not a bystander or freelancer. These traitorous parasites ought to be arrested, if not shot.

Images of atrocities don't stop wars any more than pornography deters rape. To the righteous, photos of an enemy being humiliated only confirm the justness of their cause and their own racial, national, class or gender superiority. Think lynching postcards. Think Abu Ghraib. We can do this because God, history and nature are on our side.



V

In English, one shoots, but in Italian, one merely fa, "does" a photograph, and in Vietnamese, chụp, or catches, like the English take or capture. Though it targets and zooms, the camera ejects nothing. It's only an opening, after all, that allows even the most hideous to enter its diaphragm. As an apparatus, then, it's both an intrusive eye and all-swallowing mouth.

Most people don't mind being photographed, many do love it, but they don't want to reliquish control over their self-presentation. That's all we're about, really. Posing and voguing. I must be seen in the proper light, from the right angle, with every hair and comma in place. Denied this right, I might just break your fuckin' camera.

To be humiliated is to have one's self-presentation stripped away, soiled or caricatured. (Sometimes all it takes is a near facsimile.) To endure even a second of that is mortifying enough, but now, thanks to photography, its sting can be stretched into eternity.

The camera as the mouth of fame. May it speak your name for 1/200th of a second.

[This piece needs work, but I don't feel like writing any more. I'd rather shoot.]

A poster designed by CJ Martin

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[How dismal?]




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