Author: JH

Here’s an insightful analysis of the lives of women in the glorious present, a time of great opportunity, that I’ve already emailed to some of my female friends earlier today – medical doctors, artists, and the like. That is, women who will recognize the dilemma described in the article, namely how to choose between the prospects of suffering in a relationship, in a job, or both. What is the rational response? My very small sample group seems to go for yet another option, mentioned only at the very end of the piece, the blameworthy easy way out…

While it is beyond me why anybody would make a photograph of something that is not a traffic cone, I want to point you to three images that I came across this week: Muhammed Ali training underwater, and Gemini I, both by Flip Schulke here, on James Danziger’s blog. I thought I know every photograph that exists, but for some reason I didn’t know these, and find them exceedingly intelligent both visually and conceptually. And then there is the World Press presentation here (via Rob Haggart). Of the 2008 winners, I find the story of the making of the Putin portrait quite brilliant. I don’t think that it is “Platon’s” strongest photo so far, but the entire act of getting it may well be.

For any Manhattanite, this is a shocking experience: All this week I woke up from the sound of singing birds in front of my open window at 5:30 a.m. (crazy!). A few days out of town, and I am certainly not homesick yet. Along these lines, a great little outburst over at A Shaded View (interesting even for those of us, I think, who are not aware of our shirt brand at any given moment):

“So I was in Queens running on the subway platform trying to catch a train and I slipped in a huge puddle of vomit and blood and fell flat on my ass next to the homeless man who had created the puddle and my Issey Miyake shirt and brand-new John Varvatos jeans which I bought at the private showroom sale were now covered in vomit and blood and I was afraid to wipe it off because I didn’t want to touch it so I got on the train and a few people handed my tissues but I was dripping with so much vomit and blood that it would have been futile trying to wipe it off and then suddenly they stopped the train and some MTA workers came on and escorted me to another car which was chained off from the rest of the cars like I was being quarrantined yet the train was completely packed with people so I’m standing there pressed up against all these people and my clothes are still dripping vomit and blood and everyone just stared at me with disgust and contempt for the whole ride back to Manhattan and I probably have some horrible disease now.”