Cartier-Bresson in Palermo
Braille at Google at Vitro Nasu

I have a PayPal account now. I'm trying to think of it as a tip jar. This is compromised by the presence of many others who do what I do at least as well without tip jars.
But an actual jar of actual money is at present my only tangible source of revenue. The threads of circumstance that have led to this are many, though the two events that most signify are my mom's passing in August and my breaking my ankle in early September. During these last three years I went from being a returned son/roommate as she first began to decline, to a housekeeper/companion when she could no longer walk out unassisted or cook for us, to full-time caregiver. It wasn't hard until the very last, when it was very hard. The time immediately after should have been when I squared up with the demands of continuing my own life, but that was interrupted before it began.
The ankle needed surgery, the recovery's been slow and slower, I've started getting food assistance from the county gov't, but there's been no money coming in for four months now. This jar (photo) is my current balance, aside from any tips that show up in the PayPal account - (thank you, initial contributor!)
I've stood on hungry street corners more than once or twice with a guitar and a troubador's shirt; the hardest part for me was always the beginning - opening the case, throwing some pesos and guilders and francs and quarters down to start the flow, and announcing the intent to perform, making some noise. This is different but no less awkward to begin.
The internet connection's probably going down tonight, and it'll be at least a week until I can get that turned around. Though the unexpected does occur.
All and any contributions will be most gratefully accepted.

Link:

29. When faced with danger, the octopus can wrap six of its legs around its head to disguise itself as a fallen coconut shell and escape by walking backwards on the other two legs, scientists discovered.

BBC: 100 things we didn't know this time last year
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boynton

Auden

...agitprop and slogans,
all the trite forms of disinformation.
Good is always like starlight and sunlight,
and poetry when it means just what it says,
and yet admits the moon's ambiguities...

Mark Jarman
Poetry Daily
28.12.05

Maggot, Maggoty.

Whimsical, full of whims and fancies. Fancy tunes used to be called maggots, hence we have “Barker’s maggots,” “Cary’s maggots,” “Draper’s maggots,” etc. (Dancing Master, 1721.)

When the maggot bites. When the fancy takes us. Swift tells us that it was the opinion of certain virtuosi that the brain is filled with little worms or maggots, and that thought is produced by these worms biting the nerves. “If the bite is hexagonal it produces poetry; if circular, eloquence; if conical, politics, etc. (Mechanical Operation of the Spirit.)

Instead of maggots the Scotch say, “His head is full of bees;” the French, “Il a des rats dans la tête;” and in Holland, “He has a mouse’s nest in his head.” (See BEE.)

E. Cobham Brewer, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898.
Bartleby

Cut shot down and partly loaded

Coal Car in Pocahontas Mine
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Pony Pulling Worker Into Mine
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Coal Miners at Work
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Teach Sloan and child
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Deserted Houses of Coal Mining Families in Big Stick, West Virginia
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Old Houses
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Wall of Coal
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Samples from the Coal Mines of America

A few people, some wires, some horses, no cars.
Street Scene, Cambria, Virginia

Being towed across Conococheague Aquaduct
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Boat Locking Through Canal
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Lockkeeper & Family, Lock 25

Man Exiting Cave
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Man drinking coffee in cave

Some cars, some people, lots of wires.
Looking North on Jefferson St. from Campbell Ave. Roanoke, Virginia July 19,1932
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Railroad : Norfolk and Western Historical Photograph Collection : Maps, Fares, Timetables, and Train Schedules
Virginia Tech Imagebase

No cars, no people, no wires.
View of the street in Knoxville [Tennessee, 1880] from in front of Mrs. Maynard's house.
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Civil War: New England Press Association Photograph Album
Virginia Tech Imagebase

Harriet Tubman

Mrs. Pankhurst being arrested for demanding the right to vote
15 October 1913

Women voting in Japan for the first time
and in France

Rebecca L. Felton, first woman elected to the United States Senate
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Maud Younger working on her Ford in Washington D.C.

Mrs. Pankhurst being arrested 02 June 1914

She's being arrested for demanding the right to vote.

Mrs. Pankhurst on Wall Street
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Mrs. Pankhurst on Wikipedia

Scorning man's aid suffrage leader motors alone from California

Maud Younger, legislative chairman of the National Woman's Party, seated at steering wheel of her automobile, on her arrival in Washington, D.C., from California, with her dog. (detail)

Homemade snippets, in the spirit of things just now.

Mariza Bateau
Belgian
Willy Moran

ID: regardez (at) gmail
Password: beloved

Lower left green box Labels sound.
The vocal clip is a sample from Mariza. She's Malagasy, and very famous in the larger world.
Made with d-lusion's Rubberduck bass synth and Drumstation
Belgian is Moonfish and Audacity and some old wav samples.
Willy Moran is a contact-pickup duct-taped to the guitar and held down by the heel of my thusly immobilized right hand, run through the microphone port on a Turtle Island sound card and recorded with Audacity. Tuning is D-A-C#-F#-A-C#. Watch the volume!
These aren't works or even projects - I'm not sure what they are, besides snippets.

Crowd waiting for Salvation Army Christmas dinner baskets (detail)