pairs

above ground below living dead flesh stone

mottos and slogans

We believe in Expertism. We will spend vast sums of money with experts for a bag of magic words.
How many people in my City could cough up its slogan?
How many people could cough up that slogan with a straight face?

The State of Alabama has three slogans:
1. Share The Wonder
2. Alabama the Beautiful
3. Where America finds its voice

They don't have the farcical-nonsensical foundation of the wildly successful "Virginia is for lovers" slogan.

Thank you Alabama.

State mottos tend to be more idealistic. Mottos start in Latin. Few are understood.

Audemus jura nostra defendere

property rights

Went to a modern beach this past weekend, seashore, intersection of water and land.
It has been awhile since I've been to a beach.
The prevalent beach building pattern is rows of monumental condos.
The water was almost visible through gaps in the rampart of buildings.

Ash Wednesday

The roadside location above was unproblematic.
The location below was in a residential front-yard. I approached the house, knocked on the door. Waited several minutes. Hoping to secure permission, alert the homeowner to my presence. Homeowner appeared while I was taking pictures and invited me to leave the property lickety-split.

...and when I get through with you, you're gonna need saving.

street photographer

Photography while driving through the hinterland presents a challenge. The road and its shoulders, according to local law and custom, are usually a public right of way, except when they are not.
If our street photographer gets out of the protective automobile is he in public or private space? He is in a ROW (right of way), a corridor over which he has permission to travel, but not necessarily a corridor from which he can photograph. I have been reminded of this point at the end of a gun.
In our fair state of Virginia, in the hinterland, it is primarily the property owners who own the land under the dirt roads, gravel roads and lower order paved roads.
So, when you step out of the vehicle, be prepared to humbly beseech the proud landowner for permission to breath, and if it is His will, to safely return to your car and git on down the road.

I-85 Georgia

driving back to Virginia. Making time. The signs come to me.

day of rest

30.29.165N 86 06.640W, near Freeport Florida, US 20

on the road

The first day of driving I told myself I'd stop every time I saw Jesus name. Lot of stopping. First four hours in south-central Virginia and North Carolina I only covered sixty miles.

Concrete Andy

Sure, the Metropolitan Museum has a lot of statuary, but do they have the concrete Andy?

Smoke

Somewhere in North Carolina, saw the smoke and followed it.

Concrete World

Wye Farm

mother

day of rest

parkland

Historically, cities have pursued the acquisition of parkland to mitigate the oppressive congestion, the greyness, that comes with the piling together of rock, roofing, business and people.

Cash

banknote, bread, buck, bullion, cabbage, chicken feed, coin, coinage, currency, dinero, dough, funds, green stuff, investment, legal tender, lot, mazumah, note, payment, pledge, principal, ready assets, refund, remuneration, reserve, resources, riches, savings, scratch, security, skins, stock, supply, treasure, wampum, wherewithal--dictionary.com

Johnny, Rosanne, Suzie...

the final frontier

These are the voyages

Massive Resistance

April 23, 1951 - Under the leadership of Barbara Johns, fellow students at the all-black Robert Russa Moton High School in the town of Farmville in Prince Edward County, Virginia, walk out of their school to protest the unequal conditions of their education as compared to those of the white students in nearby Farmville High School.--Encyclopedia Virginia

the photographers understand

day of rest

5351 Pole Green Road

2x2x2x11

Earlier in the week I got on my hands and knees and scrubbed the kitchen floor. I helped my mother with this job when I was a child. She'd let me use a safety razor, to cut built up wax off the floor. So it was in the days before sheet goods.
This floor gets washed and waxed once a year. The only thing that builds up on it is red clay. No wax problem.
Today is 88th anniversary of my father's birth.
I miss him.
I will miss him forever.

Jinx's Pit's Top Barbeque

1307 East Market Street, Charlottesville, Virginia

free stuff

January 26,2009

Turning our backs on the National Mall for a moment.

In that post Inaugural moment.
States and Cities are positioned like reptiles at the Alligator Farm, mouths wide open.
The free stuff.
Toss the chicken.
Alejandro Escovedo was at the Gravity Lounge ten days ago.
Visit his web-site for free stuff.
Music from "Real Animal".

National Mall

January 20, 2009

National Treasure

Good opinion piece by Steven Pearlstein in the WAPO today:
Tom Daschle's problem wasn't that he didn't pay his taxes. It was that he -- along with those who vetted his nomination as health and human services secretary and many of his colleagues in the Senate -- found it perfectly ordinary and acceptable that he would be able to cash in on his time in the Senate by earning more than $5 million over two years as a law-firm rainmaker, equity fundraiser, corporate director and luncheon speaker, all the while being driven around town in a chauffeured town car. Not exactly Cincinnatus returning to the plow.--Pearlstein

McOusted

January 19, 2009

What is it with corporate America? "No photographs no photographs." We might see the hamburgers?
Moments after this photograph was made the McManager, man on the left with the white shirt, expelled us from the store.
Bill Clinton was always welcome in McDonalds.

Inauguration

January 20, 2009

DC for these three days was like Mardi Gras, only without the costumes; like Woodstock, but without the drugs; like the Olympics, only everyone?s cheering for the same team. It was like peace on earth. It was like heaven.-- Jill Martin Eichner

day of rest

adaptive reuse