from norway.

[by Sølve Sundsbø. via Sophie Richardoz's blog ]

once in a rare while, someone bleeds creativity, painting a world mind- blowing enough that it doesn't look like anything before it, and takes us through a leap into what seems like another dimension.

this world is by norwegian photographer Sølve Sundsbø, in the current issue of French Numéro.

if movement represents invigoration, growth, energy, then this picture is an art of dynamicism in itself...
........ swathes of freed imaginings
obscuring hard form and figure,
erasing fantasy from fact,
and dissolving all boundaries.

yup. it inspires poetry like that.


[northern norway. taken by Thomas Laupstad ]

north of the arctic circle, the sunsets (at midnight!) also seem out of this world. i suppose right in nature itself is where lessons in fantasy can be gleaned.

latent bombs.

[khammouane province, laos. from the ramblingspoon ]

bombs which fell a decade ago, lie low
-and forgotten, almost-
until they flare up, indiscriminate,
to mar the lives of today
and recall the injustice of many yesterdays.

All last week, Jerry and I followed the affable Wisconsinite Jim Harris, who has dedicated his retirement to PCL and the people of Laos. We accompanied him and his bomb clearance team on their door-to-door, village-to-village excursions in the small district of Nakai. This is all part of our ongoing efforts to document the lasting effects of America’s “secret war” on Laos in the 1960s and 1970s...

Per capita, Laos is the most heavily bombed country on earth. US forces flew, on average, one bombing raid every eight minutes for nine years.

http://ramblingspoon.com/blog/?p=856

war-whoring for attention.

provocation is a useful tactic to at least direct attention to what you want, if not get what you want (think Madonna, circa 1986 and conical bras). sometimes democracy is best exemplified by irony and parody- you may speak and blabber, but you have to poke right at the tender meat of the matter for anyone to truly listen.

perhaps the more we get to parody is a truer reflection of the amount of freedom we have to protest. democracy says, speak, even if you make me look silly.


[ -from Friends of the Earth ]

this was from 2003, against that war (hint: includes a certain Bush), perhaps the only war, which dominates our social consciousness.

urban tales.

we attempt to make tangible and concrete that which we experience and seek to render meaningful.. and what is more real- in that it confronts and dominates the senses - than the concrete structures we erect around ourselves, altering our conscious landscape and building our selves into existence.



[ hamburg, germany]
if we built this city,

what do our manifestations of rock and mortar tell of our values and beliefs?
how do they influence and coerce our lifestyles and living?


[luebeck, germany.]

we are,
we make,
we become what we make.


[luebeck, germany.]
the perceived and believed, once realised, dominates.


[luebeck, germany. ]
cloistered in our urban claddings, we may feel safe and protected,

urban tales urban tales or stifled,

"The city, however, does not tell its past, but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the street, the gratings of the windows, the bannisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning-rods, the poles of the flags. Every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls"

- Italo Calvino, Cities & Memory

[chinatown, singapore. old shophouse staircase -taken by hc.]
,but perhaps we may also be enlightened ,but perhaps we may also be enlightened, by keeping trend of our physical developments as an organic society... to be confronted with what we were, are and are becoming.

all around is indeed a sensual education in what we are.

chinatown.

most posts here run on a photo-to- thought philosophy;
visceral images provoking latent truths and ideas we all hold within us.

but i thought this quote from Mary Oliver so relatable and beautifully simple with its use of verbal imagery in its universal metaphor of a bride and groom*, that i wanted a place to immortalize it, preferably a place which could give earthly evidence to to it.

All my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom,
taking the world into my arms.
- Mary Oliver

( ..take the female/male aspect metaphorically, perhaps as a yin/yang, which we all have, whichever gender we align ourselves with )

- it's easy to be swamped by the magnitude of alpine mountains, flooded with a sense of magic by the unworldly, but after casting around for a tangible behemoth to match the quote, i realised it had already been exemplified by ...


[along chinatown street market.]
... the quiet awe i held walking around in the chinese new year chaos of chinatown, the childlike rapture gained from seeing the familiar for the first time, realising there exists a force holding us who created it in its sway.




artifacts calling our attention: sign, lamps, lights, speakers, institutions.


the human horde below, their dominant creations above.


does one too many diminish meaning?


modern pillars built around chinese-style shophouses from colonial times:
imposing structures, built to contain lives, to entertain lives and to imbibe life.




waiting for whom and what?


the gods above us, accorded with illumination and omnipotence-
of religion,
& of consumption.
our governments,
& our binding traditions.

did we create them, only to pick and choose who to defy and obey?

... if the knowledge of god is the most necessary,
then why is it not the most evident and the clearest?
-p. b. shelley.

both entranced by their surroundings.
father documenting, son washed away by exotic displays.


objectifying yourself comes true.

... look upon familiar faces with renewed love,
go over once more to check what you have missed,
and re-examine your idea of magic.

twilight-ing.

departing from concrete daytodays for
a dip into fantasy and mystical dreamings..

[-from www.mischievousmeg.com/ ]
perhaps our imaginings are truly wider than the circumscribed world around us,
and at least a sense of wonder can suffice for real magic.

magic- merely means the unfathomable, supernatural, the unexplainable.
the unexplained is merely the unknown- to us,
if all life follows a set of laws, a given causation, however random that sequence may seem in itself;
if science has everything explained, and being in awe is seen as a corollary of being in ignorance...
perhaps we should realise

magic

is a factor of being alive, and in awe,
appreciation, gratitude,
and allowing yourself to be engaged and amazed.


[ -from Emsfilm ]
i certainly am amazed by the entire feel of this photo

and the poetry of,

(two shadows merge inseparably,
will time stand still
if its pierced with cold)

twilight descends on our silhouette
how soon
spring comes, how soon spring forgets
... hold time, say it will never begin
old man winter, be our friend.
old man winter, be our friend.

because the more i live,
the more i know:
what's simple is true.

-[jewel]

in the mood for ( ).

ways of togetherness:

[-from aubreym.com ]
entwined arms,
cupped faces.
i like how their embrace forms a heart, headed (no pun intended) by the union of a kiss.


[-from aubreym.com ]
liberation /enchainment
movement+growth /status quo
love as life /love as expectation

the light and colours throw all -nature and person- into a harmonious dynamic. even her hair harks back to the bush at the back.
...and dresses as free and light as the clouds above. certainly a contrast against heavy, monolithic wedding gowns.


[-from aubreym.com ]
contemplation from afar?


subtlety, never showing all-
as your eye, cutting down a frame forces one to look beyond the form, already familiar and habitual, towards the details within.


[-from aubreym.com ]
one thing the physical form is good for- intricate entwinnings.


[-from aubreym.com ]