photographed near Choc Beach, St. Lucia on April 8, 2010

I met Jack Kennedy in November, 1946. We were both war heroes, and both of us had just been elected to Congress. We went out one night on a double date and it turned out to be a fair evening for me. I seduced a girl who would have been bored by a diamond as big as the Ritz.

She was Deborah Caughlin Mangaravidi Kelly, of the Caughlins first, English-Irish bankers, financiers and priests; the Mangaravidis, a Sicilian issue from the Bourbons and the Hapsburgs; Kelly’s family was just Kelly; but he had made a million two hundred times. So there was a vision of treasure, far-off blood, and fear. The night I met her we had a wild ninety minutes in the back seat of my car parked behind a trailer truck on a deserted factory street in Alexandria, Virginia. Since Kelly owned part of the third largest trucking firm in the Midwest and West, I may have had a speck of genius to try for his daughter where I did. Forgive me. I thought the road to President might begin at the entrance to her Irish heart. She heard the snake rustle however in my heart; on the telephone the next morning she told me I was evil, awful and evil, and took herself back to the convent in London where she had lived at times before. I did not know as yet that ogres stand on guard before the portal of an heiress. Now in retrospect I can say with cheer: that was the closest I came to being President. (By the time I found Deborah again—all of seven years later in Paris—she was no longer her father’s delight, and we were married in a week. Like any tale that could take ten books, it is best to quit it by a parenthesis—less than ten volumes might be untrue.)

Excerpted from An American Dream by Norman Mailer. Published by Vintage, New York, 1999.

photographed on the Brooklyn Bridge, New York on March 11, 2010

2008 marked the 125th anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge. Hip hop in Brooklyn has not quite reached fifty years, but the culture’s fundamentals are well built, well supported, and showing no signs of weakness. The annual summer Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival is increasing in popularity among artists who perform families (from babies to grandparents) who attend. There are also film (including a segment of the Hip Hop Festival), book (Brooklyn literary festival in downtown Brooklyn), and photography (Powerhouse Books in DUMBO) festivals that draw attendees and participants from all over the world.

And, since hip hop has had a global audience for decades now, it is not unusual for organizers in Brooklyn to get sponsors and participants who are favored in the hip hop industry for their events. For instance, The Freestyle Union (FSU) is an artist development organization that is now based in Brooklyn, originally started in Washington, D.C. FSU has many initiatives, including the Cipher Workshop that helps participants improve their spontaneous writing, speaking, and performance skills.

Excerpted from Hip Hop in America: A Regional Guide: Volume 1: East Coast and West Coast by Mickey Hess. Published by Greenwood Press, Santa Barbara, California, 2010.

photographed near Micoud, St. Lucia on April 9, 2010

The Ministry of Communications and Works has been searching for a computerized system to verify that the vehicles on the roads are legally registered. The Advance transport Licensing Authority or “Atlas”, replaces an obsolete system used to document and regulate automobiles. Government Officials say the old regime was woefully inadequate.

The Ministry of Communications says an upgrade was long overdue. The new system which incorporated the views of the Saint Lucian public was developed with the help of ICT experts from the island’s close diplomatic ally Taiwan. Officials say the introduction of Atlas will vastly improve the capabilities of the transport Ministry.

Taiwanese Ambassador, Tom Chou explains Atlas was two years in the making and involved thorough analysis of the Police Traffic department and the Transport Ministry. An ICT centre has been opened in down town Castries to train government employees in the use of the system.

Minister for Communications, Guy Joseph says the transition to a full fledged department of motor vehicle and registration is the ultimate goad and remains a work in progress. He is confident the technologically advanced system will make a useful law enforcement tool. The Minister says his personal experience highlights the extent of vehicle licensing fraud in Saint Lucia.

Excerpted verbatim from ‘New Licensing Agreement’ by Winston Springer. Published October 21, 2009, by HTS Channel 4 St. Lucia.

photographed in Castries, St. Lucia on April 8, 2010

Prime Minister the Right Honourable Sir John Compton has vowed to erect a home for the performing arts in St. Lucia. Sir John made the announcement after he was wowed by several cultural performances by students at the Annual National Schools Rally at the Vigie Sports Complex on Independence Day last week. The rally followed shortly after the National Independence Day Parade on the Vigie Playing Field.

“The Government will take the lead in this. I pledge to them that there will be one million dollars in this year’s budget to start the organisation of this. We cannot allow our flowers to blush unseen. We can’t allow our gems, our purest ray serene, not to be seen by the world. We are going to do it and we are going to start from today,” the Prime Minister said.

Speaking on secondary school placements and the issues that it poses in terms of location, the Prime Minister also vowed to reintroduce school subsidized transportation to help relieve parents of the financial burden.

“We shall transport the children to the schools to which they are assigned and take them back home safely. The loitering on roadsides will be a thing of the past,” said Sir John.

Excerpted from ‘Prime Minister Pledges One Million for National Theatre,’ published February 26, 2007, by the government of St. Lucia.

photographed in Rodney Bay, St. Lucia on April 7, 2010

The Independent Grocer’s Alliance (IGA) was one such organization. The hundreds of IGA stores that dotted cities across the nation, including upstate New York, based their very name on the concept of the independent merchant. The alliance was first formed in Poughkeepsie, New York, in August 1926, when seventy-six retailers joined with a wholesaler to form a cooperative group. Their purpose was to eliminate price competition with chain stores and maximize collective buying power. IGA founder J. Frank Grimes was an outspoken critic of the chain store movement and defended the rights of the independent merchant in almost mythical terms. At an address to the Advertising-Selling Leauge of Omaha, Nebraska, Grimes played up the specter of faceless, absentee bureaucrats associated with the chains. “I say to you,” he roared, “if the chain stores start in the state of Nebraska until they cover every avenue of retail endeavor, I say to you that Omaha will suffer, and it will suffer severely.” Only the smaller merchant was responsive to the needs of consumers in smaller cities such as Omaha. Big business and chain stores were too detached from the area and made no effort to get to know the community. Grimes echoed generations of populist protestors who saw the world as a conflict between eastern capital and western consumers. “Men, sitting back, managing these big corporations in the eastern states, send their stores here to break down the individual in business; they don’t understand what the west or any other part of the country wants, or how it really lives or how it exists.”

Excerpted from Sales & Celebrations: Retailing and Regional Identity in Western New York State, 1920-1940 by Sarah Elvins. Published by Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio, 2004.

photographed in Chicago, Illinois on April 3, 2010

John Philip Sousa in 1906 (in)famously pointed out that recording devices were a danger to creativity. The quote is laughed at by many because it is similar to the statements at the top of this post. Not only does he predict creativity will be stifled: “These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country.” Sousa also makes the claim it will be total: “When I was a boy…in front of every house in the summer evenings, you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal cord left. The vocal cord will be eliminated by a process of evolution, as was the tail of man when he came from the ape.” …

However, his argument about total annihilation of creativity was bogus, and I think to do it now is even more ridiculous given the century-long conversation that has occurred. Be wary of closed systems: yes. Accept that future generations will only have gray paint and DRM’d pencils to choose from? Come on. You and I grew up (probably) punching Hayes AT codes into modems when others were out running around on the playground. And generations before us were soldering capacitors and breathing lead infused smoke. And generations before that were relaying bawdy jokes by tapping magnets that would send an electrical charge across town.

Anyway, to get back to the title of this post, I will be buying an iPad this weekend because I enjoy using thoughtful, well engineered products. I have tried many times to use non-Apple computers, to use the open and “free” choice and you know what? They are terrible. Really bad! Worse than bad, they’re almost creatively stifling.

Excerpted from ‘why i will be buying an ipad this weekend‘ on notes.torrez.org.

photographed off the California coast on June 12, 2009

The bird in its flight without the help of the wind drops half the wing downwards, and thrusts the other half towards the tip backwards; and the part which is moved down prevents the descent of the bird, and that which goes backwards drives the bird forwards.

When the bird raises its wings it brings their extremities near together; and while lowering them it spreads them further apart during the first half of the movement, but after this middle stage as they continue to descend it brings them together again.

When the bird lowers one of its wings necessity constrains it instantly to extend it, for if it did not do so it would turn right over. The bird when it wishes to turn does not beat its wings with equal movement, but moves the one which makes the convex of the circle it describes, more than that which makes the concave of the circle.

Excerpted from Leonard Da Vinci’s Note-Books, arranged and rendered into English, with introductions, by Edward McCurdy. Published by Charles Scribner and Sons, New York, 1906.

photographed in Hillsboro, Ohio on March 20, 2008

Location of the Hillsboro Cemetery is in Highland County, State Rt 138 South West, Hillsboro, Ohio 45133. Hillsboro Cemetery was created on May 30, 1862 as recorded in Original Book 30, page 349, Highland County Deed Records, the Hillsboro Cemetery Association of the Town Hillsborough purchased from Allen TRIMBLE and wife RACHEL 31 acres 1 quarter and 25 poles of land for a cemetery. On July 22, 1862, in the Original Book 30, page 351, the Association sold to Lafayette Lodge No. 25 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows of Hillsboro 4 acres. 1 rod and 15 poles “to hold and use the above described premises for burial purposes exclusively”.

Excerpted from ‘Hillsboro Cemetery‘ on RootsWeb. Last updated November 11, 2004.

photographed in Centennial, Colorado on July 20, 2007

Bob Meeks, who would be 88 now, told me once that down in Frio County the life of a cowboy was more drudgery than excitement. The only fun in it, he reckoned, was giving the women hell on Saturday night–if you could find one. No, the old pastimes like bronc busting and calf roping have been out of favor on the serious ranches for years. The large remudas are gone and the horses are expensive and indulged more as pets and symbolic hobbies than as work animals. Joe Boy Ellis, the big general manager at the Circle K in Kaufman County, says there are three things he will fire a hand for, and roping is one of them. “We’ve got from two hundred to a thousand dollars in each head,” he said, “and we don’t want their hides skinned.”

Everyone who works on a ranch isn’t called a cowboy. The rancher himself, even if he lives and works on the place, may not like the handle. There is a subtle connotation on the term that is both appreciative and pejorative. A cowboy can be admired for his skill in the old ways, but they aren’t of much unless he’s Larry Mahan and has good public relations costuming. If he isn’t willing to stay put and mend fence, bale hay, and drive a tractor, he isn’t worth hiring. You find ranchers correcting you: “I’m a cowman, not a cowboy.” The former implies manful responsibility and no nonsense, a manager, a businessman in boots and gabardine; the latter suggests immaturity and a romantic nature. The hand who insists he is a pure cowboy and will not touch anything but leather and hemp and animals is often a drifter, a kind of bad actor who is playing a role rather than working at a trade. This is the cowboy portrayed in our music, who has captured the popular imagination. Our last rustic of the road, riding into the sunset away from the corruption of city slickers and science. The old movie-and-TV popular imagination saw the cowboy as a killer with a six-shooter, a gun for hire. The new musical romanticism has him a gentle knight, repulsed by arms and armor and aggression and refinery air, returning to a pastoral West. Neither, of course, was ever a reality.

Excerpted from ‘In Search of the Modern Cowboy’ by Bill Porterfield. Published in Texas Monthly, volume 3, issue 10, October 1975.

photographed in Chicago, Illinois on July 18, 2008

From being a founding member of the ground-breaking, politically minded hip-hop group Public Enemy to starring in a string of hit reality shows about his seemingly eternal search for love, Flav has continued to reinvent himself in the public eye.

Flav, born William Jonathan Drayton Jr., burst onto the public consciousness more than 20 years ago with the socially-conscious rap ensemble Public Enemy.

A classically-trained pianist, he attended Adelphi University in Long Island where he met fellow Public Enemy founding member and then graphic design student Carlton Ridenhour (Chuck D). The two began rapping together and by 1987 they — along with DJ Terminator X and Professor Griff — released the group’s debut “Yo! Bum Rush The Show.”

That was followed up the next year with “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.” The release made a splash on the charts thanks to hits like “Don’t Believe the Hype” and “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos.”

Excerpted from ‘Flavor Flav’s Modesto block party‘ by Marijke Rowland. Published August 22, 2008 in the Modesto Bee.

photographed in the 51st Street Station, New York on February 13, 2010

Station Finish—Route No. 5, Sections Nos. 7 to 11.—The contract for the construction of station finish for the seven stations on Sections Nos. 7 to 11 of Route No. 5 was awarded to John B. Roberts, dated August 9, 1916, the contract price being $278,182.66. In this contract is included also the station finish for signal towers north of 51st Street Station to and including the 103d Street station.

Work was started on these sections in the early part of 1917, and is practically completed. The hollow tile work, plastering, rough plumbing and electrical conduit work for all these stations is complete. The glazed tile work is placed and with the completion of the stairways on the 51st Street Station, the stairway construction is finished. The placing of control railings and ticket boots complete the work on this contract.

Excerpted from Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York, volume 141, issue 4. Published by J.B. Lyon Company, Albany, 1918.

photographed in Chicago, Illinois on July 19, 2009

This is the story of a band called Sparklehorse and the remarkable man who fronts it, a tale as bipolar as the music it spawned.

Sparklehorse and Mark Linkous– who resides on a farm in Bremo Bluff, a Fluvanna village by the James River– are essentially synonymous, and if the band has multiple incarnations, the most important is the one in Linkous’ head. Songwriter, performer, engineer, and producer, Linkous embodies the do-it-yourself indie rock auteur ethos. An enigma whose influence can’t be measured in record sales, Mark Linkous and his music have met with critical, if not widely popular, acclaim.

Name-dropping comes easy when you’re talking about Sparklehorse. Linkous opens for the likes of Radiohead and Cracker, collaborates with Tom Waits, housesits for P.J. Harvey’s next-door neighbor in the south of England, and, as helper Eric from the Sound of Music recording studio was eager to share with me, knows Adrian “Portishead” Utley’s private phone number by heart.

Excerpted from ‘He Sparkles: The Sad and Beautiful World of Mark Linkous‘ by James D. Graham. Published February 28, 2002 in issue #0004 of The Hook.

photographed outside Lander, Wyoming on September 28, 2006

Before the automobile and the bus and truck supplanted them, steam locomotives, streetcars, and steamships held sway as our transportation of choice for over a century. They were fast and efficient; clean and modern. And while one might argue that the smoke and soot from coal-fired boilers was far from clean, we must remember that they came into a world of horse-drawn wagons and rutted mud roads. So what was a little soot? After all, a horse couldn’t whisk you cross-country in palatial comfort at seventy miles per hour!

Unfortunately we are not a patient people, so the airplane killed the ocean liner. And we are a self-centered people, wanting to travel when and where we please, so the car and truck killed the train. And, unfortunately, we are a trusting people, so that when companies fronting in secret for the automobile, rubber, and petroleum industries bought up and dismantled the streetcar lines—explaining, sadly, that they were no longer profitable and had to go—and replaced them with diesel busses, we believed them.

Excerpted from Ghostly Ruins: America’s Forgotten Architecture by Harry Skrdla. Published by Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2006.

photographed in Providence, Rhode Island on February 20, 2010

We have never said—until the skyscraper—“We want such and such a building because it is suited to our lives , the way we work, the way we play, the way we live—simple, strong, and fairly intelligent lives.” At least, if it has been said before the last few years, it was in a whisper, and the idea was never realized. When a man of wealth among us has desired a home, he has not asked his architect to study the land upon which he was to build, and the stone he could quarry from the land, and the wood he could find in the forest, and the lay of the landscape, and the manner of life of the man who wanted the home. A check was written and the architect started fro Europe, or the Orient, or in any futile direction, and then he returned and imitated in wrong materials the most inappropriate place he had seen and the man lived in the place and was proud and uncomfortable. Thus our homes in general average about as national and personal an expression of our wants as a log cabin on the Boulevard des Italiens or an Indian tepee on the Nile.

But when difficulties arose with our housing problem in one long, narrow tape-measure of a city, and we found ourselves with twice as much business as space, it became impossible to sit around and wonder what Ptolemy would have done in the building line under the circumstances, or even to rely upon the architectural impulses of Italian nobles or the needs of monkish communities in the Middle Ages.

Circumstances put an iron hand upon counterfeit architecture for commercial purposes in New York, and forced us to build something that we, as a nation, needed, that was adapted to our own way of living and working, that in fact possessed national characteristics. The manifestation of this first honest building impulse in America was the skyscraper, maligned, wronged, insulted from the start, and yet up to the present time the finest architectural expression in this country because of the completeness of its adaptation to need. And it is the skyscraper that has changed the outline of New York City, that has revolutionized the quality of it, and that has created the first suggestion of beauty the city had ever laid claim to.

Excerpted from ‘How New York has Redeemed Herself from Ugliness—An Artist’s Revelation of the Beauty of the Skyscraper’ by Giles Edgerton. Originally appearing in The Craftsman, an Illustrated Monthly Magazine in the Interest of Better Art, Better Work, and a Better and More Reasonable Way of Living, volume 11. Published by Gustav Stickley, New York, 1907.