New Hitherby
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Sylvia Townsend Warner

Margot Fonteyn and Michael Somes 1940

"SWOON is not me. I’m not Swoon."

Here's Jason Kottke's putrid little "Shorpy" writ black against the night, and all the greed contained therein large and contrasted in proof.
And I'd like to say "fuck you all" in all sincerity, seriously and completely. Scammy worthless assholes.

The whole realm of staged (to whatever extent), yet true photography, which commonly is perceived as "pictures from the real", is manipulated to some extent even without the extensive use of Photoshop: think of Justine Kurland, Taryn Simon, Jeff Wall, Gregory Crewdson, most of all view camera portraiture and so on. Even composing an image from various photographs taken in different locations is not really new – although it has become easier with digital tools. Coming back to US orthodoxy, maybe, for example, Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand were perceived as being not so manipulative. But how does that orthodoxy work with, say, Richard Avedon, or Duane Michals?

Having said this, I think this is a hollow debate. Whereas I myself prefer to work in the realm of "straight" photography – meaning not to photograph or manipulate digitally – I think it doesn't really matter if you do it or not. As long as the final image is good and not self-indulging the technical process ("how the hell is it done?"), I think the new tools just add to the possibilities of photography as a medium.

A Conversation with Kai-Olaf Hesse
Jörg Colberg/Conscientious

Chipmunk Squirrel Costume Party
Jason Bredle
Verse Daily

Because ultra high energy cosmic rays are so rare and because their extrapolated directions are so imprecise, no progenitor objects have ever been unambiguously implied. New results from Auger, however, indicate

Woman in aeroplane ready for swimming
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Herr Oscar Iden-Zeller, the first white man to cross the Tschaun Mts., Siberia, on foot

The Nomoi

...I came to my own door. I found my way
from room to room in darkness,
drawing the bolts as they existed
in my mind, triangulating the threshold
from the distance between my hands.

I found my love asleep
and now I lie beside her, touching her hair
cautiously, explaining...

D. Nurkse
Poetry Daily
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"through the roots of the great chords"
A thrilling poem, astonishing.

If You Should Care For Me

mmmmmmmmmm...mix a brew of horse
manure, of menstrual blood and soil dug from
a dead love's grave.
mmmmmmmmm The moths flew from their mouths.
We heard them say you too shall one day be
like us.

Lacy Schutz
Verse Daily

Update!

The Library of Congress Digital Catalog search engine is down, or missing, or broken or something, so I have no idea what, or when, this is.

Mr. E.H. Maxwell, inventor, displaying his lynx-eyed fire ferret, a fire extinguisher, at the National Safety Congress, in the Stevens Hotel, Chicago, Illinois

He wasn't Egypt's most powerful or important king, but his staggering treasures, rumors of a mysterious curse that plagued Carter and his team — debunked by experts long ago...
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Those would be "experts" in mysterious curses. Busy guys these days.

Vitro Nasu > Shoot The Projectionist > Final Girl

There are no dogs here.

Rathbone's Ghosts
via Vitro Nasu

1.2 billion personal computers, 2.7 billion cell phones, 1.3 billion land phones, 27 million data servers, and 80 million wireless PDAs.

Mummies and skulls in a room

Dolly Parton wrote "I Will Always Love You" for Porter Wagoner.
Porter Wagoner wrote "A Satisfied Mind" and "Albert Erving", among many other fine songs.
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Mr. Wagoner riled country traditionalists in 1979 by inviting James Brown, the ”Godfather of Soul,” to the Opry.

Record of longings forgotten

Although the Iraqi Muslim scientist Ibn al-Haitham was the first to experiment with camera obscura, Shen Kuo was the first to apply geometrical and quantitative attributes to the camera obscura, just several decades after Ibn al-Haitham's death. Using a fitting metaphor, Shen compared optical image inversion to an oarlock and waisted drum.