Basquiat.
In an attempt to envisage the world’s largest collection of refuse, the photographer Chris Jordan traveled to a lonely swath of the Pacific Ocean. The Midway Islands rest in the heart of what is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch—an enormous, growing cluster of plastic waste shaped by broad-scale ocean currents between Japan and the west coast of the United States. The area is home to most of the global Laysan Albatross population and over a third of the world’s Black-footed Albatross. Here, the young marine birds are dying in staggering numbers. Scanning the ocean for food, the Albatross confuse the plastic for food and feed it to their nesting young. The result, captured here in Jordan’s series, is both surreal and sobering. Nothing in these photographs is staged: Each is unadulterated, with every plastic-filled carcass exactly as the photographer found it. Jordan hopes the imagery will alert the public to an ecological crisis that, while largely unseen and incomprehensible, is relentlessly escalating. “To me, the birds look like us: filling themselves with something that is not nourishing, thinking that it is, and killing themselves in the process,” Jordan says. “Isn’t that what we’re all doing as a culture?”
jesuisperdu: LA CHINOISE (1967, JEAN-LUC GODARD)
The entire evolution of the moon is a story of catastrophes. — Carl Sagan
i loathe television. advertising makes my blood boil. i analyze everything. i can’t help it, it’s what i am going to school for, forpete’ssake. everywhere i go, though, there is a tv. the bar has one. my boyfriend has three in the house. my mom watches constantly. my 87 year old grandma too. everyone i know basically. the store where i bought cigarettes today - the man never looked away from it during the transaction. there are no tv’s at school. being there is nice. but i don’t have any friends at school. that’s my other woe of the evening. i’m into my second semester and i haven’t really gotten to know anyone. it’s partially because of how little time i have, but it’s also because i’m quiet. i’ve always seemed to do okay despite of that, though, and i think that’s why i’m bummed out about it. i’m not a part of any groups or anything, but i don’t really want to show up to a meeting or event alone. it’s an all girls college so bonds are tight and i’m popping in for a few semesters, after going to two other schools, to finally turn this mess of credits into a degree of some sort. so making friends isn’t high on my list of priorities. i can barely make time for the ones i have now. it’s just sad not talking to anyone all day. it gets lonely. i like the parking lot attendants. i think it’s because they are lonely too. they talk to me about the degrees they would get if they were in school and their kids. that’s what i miss about working at a cafe in a bookstore. people telling me crazy things all the time, sometimes disturbingly personal or just everyday run of the mill chit chat. i guess eight hours of it, combined with the fact that an apartment complex, housing primarily senior citizens, was just up the hill from our store and the fact that i was not free to leave the vicinity made me fail to appreciate it at the time. such is life, i guess. i’ll survive though, i’m going to focus on being more efficent with my school work so i can see my other friends more often. as for at school, i’ll be an outsider. it’s cool. i’m going to get my phd in cultural anthro so treat it as ethnographic research and that will make it interesting for me. oh gosh.
“I am a proud academic.”
this year should be interesting.
I’m terrified actually.
yoga will help.
6 years of college is too many
let’s get this done.
I will from hence forth use proper grammar and will graciously accept any corrections from anyone at any time. Thank you and have a nice day.
i lean forward and realize those stars were orion’s feet and he is slowly engulfed by a mountain of white clouds. a storm is coming.
two little stars decided to hang in my window tonight. a white cloud against a black sky is their only company.
how’d you expect it to feel
to fall from such great heights
i thought i saw you screaming
until i opened up my eyes
i heard you through the doorway
lying sweet to the night time
bathed in red
a diplaced refugee, a runaway at best
see homes can be built and burnt
and built back up again
sometimes they are occupied
sometimes they have the softest skin
but oh how they all do burn away in the end.
if i could i’d make you an overcoat
to keep out the cold to ward off the hurt
cause it’s hard living, hard to stick around
to handle all the exposure
then to be placed below the ground
i know you’re scared to go there
i know you’re scared to go.
until we meet again, my friend
may the light of those with love for you
burn away this night like the sun
blind your enemies with proof
that they need not do harm to you
may you never be alone
may you have all you need