Category: Other

So Much Beauty

I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die.
First of all, that one second isn’t a second at all; it stretches on forever, like an ocean of time…
For me, it was lying on my back at Boy Scout camp, watching falling stars…
And yellow leaves, from the maple trees that lined my street…
Or my grandmother’s hands, and the way her skin seemed like paper…
And the first time I saw my cousin Tony’s brand new Firebird…
And Janie…
And Janie…
And… Carolyn.
I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me… but it’s hard to stay mad, when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst…
…and then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life…
You have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure. But don’t worry…
You will someday.

American Beauty

War Photographer

Why photograph war? Is it possible to put an end to a form of human behavior, which has existed throughout human history by means of photography? The proportions of that notion seem ridiculously out of balance yet that very idea has motivated me. For me the strength of photography lies in its ability to evoke a sense of humanity. If war is an attempt to negate humanity then photography can be perceived as the opposite of war, and if it is used well it can be a powerful ingredient in the antidote to war. In a way, if an individual assumes the risk of placing himself in the middle of a war in order to communicate to the rest of the world what is happening, he is trying to negotiate for peace. Perhaps that is the reason why those in charge of perpetuating a war do not like to have photographers around. In the field, where your experience is extremely immediate, what you see is not an image on a page in a magazine 10,000 miles away with an advertisement for Rolex watches on the next page. What you see is unmitigated pain, injustice, and misery. It’s occurred to me that if everyone could be there just once to see for themselves what white phosphorus does to the face of a child, or what unspeakable pain is caused by the impact of a single bullet, or how a jagged piece of shrapnel can rip someone’s leg off. If everyone could be there to see for themselves the fear and the grief just one time, then they would understand that nothing is worth letting things get to the point where that happens to even one person, let alone thousands. But everyone cannot be there, and that is why photographers go there. To show them, to reach out and grab them and make them stop what they are doing and pay attention to what is going on. To create pictures powerful enough to overcome the diluting effects of the mass media and shake people out of their indifference. To protest and by the strength of that protest, to make others protest.

James Natchwey, War Photographer

21 Grams

Cristina Peck: Katie could have lived. She’d be alive right now but that bastard left her there. Laying in the street. He left the three of them like animals. He didn’t care. She could be here with me. That son of a bitch is walking the streets, and I can’t even go into their room. I wanna kill him. I’m gonna kill Jack Jordan. I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch.

Paul Rivers: Slow down, just slow down.

Cristina Peck: Slow down. Slow down. While I what, huh? While I what?

Paul Rivers: Take it easy.

Cristina Peck: Take it easy? My husband and my little girls are dead, and I’m supposed to take it fucking easy? I can’t just go on with my life! I am paralyzed here! I am a fucking amputee! Do you see that? Who are you? You owe it to Michael. No, you’ve got his heart. You’re in house fucking his wife! And sitting in his chair! We have to kill him!

Paul Rivers: Not like this.

Cristina Peck: Then how? Tell me how! Katie died with red shoelaces on. She hated red shoelaces. And she kept asking me to get her some blue ones. And I never got her the blue ones. She was wearing those fucking red shoelaces when she was killed!

The Mirror

We celebrated each moment of our meetings as a revelation alone in all the world. You were lighter and bolder than the wing of a bird flying down the stairs two at a time… pure giddiness, leading me through the moist lilac to your domain beyond the looking glass. When night fell, I was favored. The altar gates were opened and in the dark, there gleamed your nudity, and I slowly bowed. Awakening, ‘Be blessed,’ I said and know my blessing to be bold for you still slept. The lilac on the table stretched forth to touch your lids with heavenly blue and your blue-tinted lids were calm, and your hand was warm. Locked in crystal, rivers pulsed, mountains smoked, seas glimmered. You held a sphere of crystal in your hand and slept on a throne. And– righteous Lord!– you were mine. You awakened and transformed our mundane, human words. Then did my throat fill with new power and give new meaning to ‘you’ which now meant ‘sovereign.’ All was transformed, even such simple things as basin, pitcher, when like a sentinel, layered, solid water lay between us. We were drawn on and on where cities built by magic parted us like mirages. Mint carpeted our way, birds escorted us, and fish swam upstream while the sky spread out before us as Fate followed in our wake like a madman brandishing a razor.

Andrei Tarkovsky, The Mirror (1975)

The Mysterious Equations of Love

Nash: Thank you. I’ve always believed in numbers and the equations and logics that lead to reason.

But after a lifetime of such pursuits, I ask,

“What truly is logic?”

“Who decides reason?”

My quest has taken me through the physical, the metaphysical, the delusional — and back.

And I have made the most important discovery of my career, the most important discovery of my life: It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reasons can be found.

I’m only here tonight because of you [his wife, Alicia].

You are the reason I am.

You are all my reasons.

Thank you.

John Nash: 1994 Nobel Prize, A Beautiful Mind (2002)

Victim of Americanism

I’m one of the 22 million black victims of the democrats, one of the 22 million black victims of the republicans and one of the 22 million black victims of Americanism. And When I speak I don’t speak as a democrat or a republican, nor an American. I speak as the victim of America’s so called democracy. You and I have never seen democracy, all we’ve seen is hypocrisy. When we open our eyes and look around America we see America not through the eyes of someone who has enjoyed the fruits of Americanism; we see America throughout the eyes of someone who has been the victim of Americanism. We don’t see any American dream; we’ve experienced only the American nightmare. We haven’t benefited from America’s democracy; we’ve only suffered from America’s hypocrisy.

Malcolm X