3D animated gifs

Found these neato pics while researching animated gifs...

 

Must ask FP how this works before my head ah-splodes.

  

More to be found at:  three frames.

newlyweds

a few nice portraits

women with dogs

a few nice photos

I periodically find very nice anonymous photos from the 1920s on the internet. Today's selection:

southwestern new mexico

Some pictures from our recent trip to visit friends and family...

(Rainy Creek trailhead, Orien & Oscar)

(Mogollon Mountains, Gila, NM)


(Aili & Bella cooling off in irrigation ditch)


(monsoons!)


(a New Mexico sunset)

the art of jumping fences

"Jump" by Vic De La Rosa

Imagine that you are working on a small farm. You went to school only up to the sixth grade, like most people in your home town. That was the only education offered nearby - you would have had to pay to go to high school, and where? Besides, you had to help your father with the farming.

You marry a sweet girl, go to church, have several beautiful children. You manage to support your family on the income you make growing corn. But then the market for corn falls out from under you - suddenly everyone is importing corn more cheaply from up north, as NAFTA allows. Money gets tight, then stops altogether. There's no work for you here, so you do what most of the local young men are doing. Your last pesos go to bus fare the hours and hours north to Juarez. You get a job in the General Motors factory (another aspect of NAFTA), assembling car steering wheels. You make 34 pesos per 8 hour day (about $3.53), which doesn't go far. The prices here are high, and a day's work barely buys you beans and tortillas. You eat as little as you can, sending what you save back to your wife and kids. After only a few weeks your family also makes the trip to Juarez, so your wife can work too.

Even with the two of you working, you can't save enough money. You work every extra shift. No extra for overtime. Your oldest child, who is eight years old, cares for the younger two while you both work. There is no school nearby. Your wife works so hard she makes herself ill, or the adhesive she has to handle all day at work is affecting her health. No money for a doctor. You and your once beautiful wife are squatting on the outskirts of Juarez , with no water or electricity, just a roof made of scavenged materials. Your children are hungry. You are tired, desperate, and ashamed.

photo by Antonio Zazueta Olmos

Someone says they have a friend who can get you a job in Nebraska, where you can make $5.75 an hour - maybe more, they say. They even know a guy who can get you across the border, but it will cost two month's wages. What else can you do? You pay a stranger all your money, and he takes you, and ten other men, to the Sonoran desert, and you start walking....

Over 3,000 people are estimated to have died in the last decade crossing the Sonoran desert into the United States.

Several artists have created art works addressing border crossing. Here are a few of my favorites:

1. Casa Segura

“Casa Segura (Safe House) is an artwork that combines a small public access structure on private land in the Sonoran desert in Southern Arizona with a dynamic bilingual web space that facilitates creative exchange, dialogue, and understanding. Located north of the Mexican border, Casa Segura engages three distinct groups: Mexican migrants crossing the border through this dangerous landscape, the property owners whose land they cross, and members of the general public interested in learning more about border issues and the intricate dynamics at play in this heavily trafficked region.

The small solar-powered structure acts as a temporary transitional space in which migrants can meet basic needs for water and nutrition and share stories via an embedded touch screen interface. Drawing upon the vernacular of traveler graffiti, pictograms, and the Mexican tradition of ex-voto painting, migrants are invited to creatively share something about themselves and their journey with the homeowner and the larger populus.”

2. Las Madres Project

Las Madres by Valarie James

“The sculptural installation “The Mothers; Las Madres” standing vigil is an artist’s response to the human suffering and ongoing death of migrants coming across the Mexican/American border in search of work in El Norte. Each Mother figure represents over 1000 men, women and children who have lost their lives crossing the desert. The sculptures are made from discarded migrant clothing reclaimed from the desert and then blended with Sonoran plant material."

Valarie James continued the series with "Wall of Bordado", a collection of traditional embroidered fabrics found in the desert:

“Over time, we have found over 35 hand embroidered 'bordado' cloths with inscriptions such as 'Yo e Tu Rec. Felicida de Ma Ma' You and I remember the happiness of our Mother, 'Pienso En ti' I think of you and 'Somos Dos Enamorados' We are two people in love. Some of the cloths are of heirloom quality with relleno crewel work, others are everyday tortilla wraps. All are edged with lacy 'tejido de gancho' crochet. We wash the cloths and display them with care to honor the nameless women who made them."

James also created "The Migrant Shrine," a beautiful commission for the Southside Church in Tucson Arizona. This piece strikes a chord for me, because this church was at the heart of the Sanctuary Movement, of which my mother was part when I was a young child.

Border issues have been a part of my life since then - because of my mother's activism, because of our home being so near the border, because I felt there was an inherent injustice to the poverty just on the other side of the fence.

Photo by M Paulda

Many years ago I spent a year as a volunteer at Annunciation House in Juarez, Mexico, where border issues, poverty, and violence against women are at their most severe. It was possibly the best year of my life.

I am far from the border these days. So I was thrilled recently when I happened upon a talk given by a group of local teenagers who had participated in a Border Witness Delegation. They had been to Juarez, seen the maquiladoras, tried to live for a week off of Mexican wages. They had seen the families living in shacks made of factory palettes, drinking polluted water from the Rio Grande. They were inspired to do something about it, to educated others, and to appreciate their own lives in a much more profound way. Read their book:

I'd like to take all the depressed teenagers I work with at the psych hospital on such a border witness trip, let them see how relatively lucky they are. Let them take part in trying to make a difference for their peers on the other side of the fence. Volunteerism therapy.

Image by Josh MacPhee

kid's art goes to japan

I see a lot of kid's drawings as I make my way into the field of art therapy. Never before have I seen anyone try to interpret it as literally as does Yeondoo Jung, in a series of photographs titled Wonderland. These are so elaborate, Japanese, and entertaining:

I also suggest that you look at the magazine Fruits, which monthly publishes the photos of Shoichi Aoki. These are pictures, taken from 1997 on, of incredible D.I.Y. fashion on the streets of Harajuku, Japan. Phaidon press published two collections of these photos, also titled Fruits. I gave a copy to PS a few years ago, and we looked through it over and over again. It prompted a resurgence in creative dressing in our circle of friends at the time.

ride that train

I was recently made aware of the fact that New Mexico is now in possession of its very own commuter train, the New Mexico Rail Runner Express. I am more than a little proud of my home state for investing in such a noble form of public transportation. My love of trains and train subculture has lain dormant recently, but this news sent me off an a train tangent. Therefore, a blog on the subject:

Perhaps my first love for trains - or, more specifically, the subculture around them - came about when in 1985 I watched the film The Journey of Natty Gan. In it, a depression era girl hops trains from Chicago to the northwest in an attempt to reunite with her father who has gone in search of work. Along the way she sees the rougher edges of life, but has the good company of both a loyal wolf dog and John Cusack. I had a crush on both Cusack and trains from that day forward.

I've thus far always bought my ticket to ride, but I can't help but romanticize the hobo lifestyle. The hobo is perceived both as a down-on-his-luck bum with a fondness for liquor, and as a noble free-spirit who can't be tied down by the mundanities of life. He was an icon of Americana; he was the depression-era working man, he was Jack Kerouac On The Road. He had his own styles of art, currency, and his own system of written communication.

More recently, the hobo is the gutter punk teenager living free from adult constraints. As an adolescent, I was pretty thrilled to see my beloved subculture of punk-rock combined with that of hoboing. Had train hopping with these sorts not necessitated total lack of sobriety, sanity, and cleanliness, I may have hopped along.

A wonderful young photographer named Mike Brodie (aka The Polaroid Kidd) has documented contemporary hobos in a series of photos titled Boys and Girls of Modern Days Railways. I think his images capture both the tragedy and freedom of young train hoppers:


One of the other appealing aspects of hobo subculture is the quantity of hobo themed songs. Musicians like Jimmie Rodgers and Boxcar Willie are famous for their hobo tunes, and folks like Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, and John Prine have penned several hobo themed songs. In fact, if anyone would care for a CD of hobo and train themed songs I've compiled, I'll happily mail you one.

Some hobo themed films worth watching are the documentaries Catching Out: A Film About Train Hopping and Living Free and Who Is Bozo Texino? as well as classic old black & whites like, Beggars of Life, Sullivan's Travels, and Wild Seed (pictured below).


Finally, as an example of the melancholy romanticism of the hobo legacy, here are the most oft heard lyrics to the song Big Rock Candy Mountain, first recorded in 1928 by Harry McClintock:

One evening as the sun went down and the jungle fire was burning

Down the track came a hobo hiking and he said boys I'm not turning

I'm headin for a land that's far away beside the crystal fountains

So come with me we'll go and see the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains there's a land that's fair and bright

Where the handouts grow on bushes and you sleep out every night

Where the boxcars are all empty and the sun shines every day

On the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees

On the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains all the cops have wooden legs

And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens lay soft boiled eggs

The farmer's trees are full of fruit and the barns are full of hay

Oh, I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow

Where the rain don't fall and the wind don't blow

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains you never change your socks

And the little streams of alcohol come a-trickling down the rocks

The brakemen have to tip their hats and the railroad bulls are blind

There's a lake of stew and of whiskey too

You can paddle all around 'em in a big canoe

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains the jails are made of tin

And you can walk right out again as soon as you are in

There ain't no short handled shovels, no axes saws or picks

I'm a goin to stay where you sleep all day

Where they hung the jerk that invented work

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

I'll see you all this coming fall in the Big Rock Candy Mountains

But perhaps a more telling depiction of the hobo lifestyle is heard in McClintock's last stanza, which was left out of the recorded version:

The punk rolled up his big blue eyes

And said to the jocker, "Sandy,

I've hiked and hiked and wandered too,

But I ain't seen any candy.

I've hiked and hiked till my feet are sore

And I'll be damned if I hike any more

To be buggered sore like a hobo's whore

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains.