a heads up.

[masjid mosque. near bussorah street, haji lane. singapore.]

impending.

quickly now, why the grouch can be loved.

[ jim davis]
this is not a photo, but well, garfield is nice to look at, and gives plenty of food for thought.

wiki fact: jim davis grew up on a farm with mother anna, father james william, and 25 cats. interestingly, his first wife carolyn was allergic to cats.

i find most people take on any singular aspect of garfield in the most extreme sense:

• indulgently selfish
• laconic in the laziest sense
• sassy to the point of rudeness
• grouchy
• completely unhealthy
• manipulative

but garfield doesnt have an evil bone in his body; his faults stem from extreme epicureanism, a flow-with-the-languid-river philosophy, emotional honesty, joy in pleasure pursuits taken a lil too far. that he is nice and lovable means you cant hate him much.

lovely cat.

in fashion.

[all photos by tim walker. from foto_decadent ]
taking,
you are what you dress
how you dress
you dress what you need





a many layered haunting,
until each bleeds into the other,
smearing a broad thick memory of things past.

these photos by tim walker are breathtakingly beautiful and macabre in the same sweep.

and is not the depths of life the same, in the twists and tumults of emotions, irony of situations, imaginings and dreams, whether in paranoia or grandiose plans.

if the clothes, expressions,
speech, movements,
colours, light
of our physical surroundings turn to mirror our very
thoughts and heart,
old pains and future fears,
i do think earth would turn into a very macabre clownish hell.

will we sympathise with each other more then, having seen through and all.

or, perhaps, it is precisely why we need neat clothes, and careful makeup,
ettiquette and a norm,
clean walkways and obligatory handshakes-

- the japanese let it hang in akhihabara and shinjuku's kabuki-chou. their kinks are world-class. at work and at home, along the streets and in restaurants, they're the sanest, most polite-



so we are sick, daily players in the macabre,
but what curious colours they may make when we manage them well.

joe.

or more formally, joseph stalin jughashvili.


[.]

"man of the year" for 1942, said a january 1943 edition of Time magazine in the U.S,

"The year 1942 was a year of blood and strength. The man whose name means steel in Russian, whose few words of English include the American expression 'tough guy' was the man of 1942... Stalin's methods were tough, but they paid off."

[film director roland emmerich's london home.]
...featuring a mural of Mao, and a sofa cushion with Stalin's face

"The reality was that the Soviet Union was a vital ally and the West needed to keep the Red Army fighting the Germans.

The trouble is that the legacy of these "expedient lies" has still not entirely left us. Which is why I hope people will come to realise just how appalling Stalin was, and students might think twice before hanging pictures of Stalin on their walls. "
- reporter Lawrence Rees

[. ]
with daughter Svetlana, 1935


joseph stalin.
comments::

This is something I have wondered about for years. I have a German mother, born 1927 and who therefore went through the Nazi education/propaganda machine and was in the BMD (girls' equivalent of the Hitler Youth). I can't talk about my "Nazi mum" in public, even though her involvement was way beyond her childhood & teenage control. Compare with my grandfather - active communist all his adult life. Stalin was his hero even when the pogroms were well known and the world saw the brutality of the suppression of the Hungarian uprising & policing of the Berlin Wall. However, it is OK to talk about my Commie grandfather, as Stalin and the whole brutal Soviet regime are considered "possibly wrong but definitely romantic" in polite society.
Ruth, London

...One thing is true about all these men, Guevara, Hitler, Stalin, Mao etc - they are all (for better or worse, mainly worse) iconic and were giants in their time in history.
Chris Burnell, Putney, London

I've always found it strange how Communist dictators and terrorists are viewed in a different light to their fascist counterparts. ...How is a mass-murderer of one political ilk any different than another? Stalin and Mao should be morally repugnant to any right-thinking person.
Owen Gibbs, Chesterfield

... murderous butcher.
Andrew V, Canada

We seem to have a blind spot where Stalin, History's greatest mass murderer is concerned. Our education system perpetuates this. History now is taught on the basis of The Tudors followed by the Nazis. Under the National Curriculum quite some time is rightly spent learning about the Holocaust. However no comparison is made with the Soviet camps, where extermination took place. More were murdered by the Soviet regime than under the shorter lived Nazi regime. ... As a parting comment should we not consider why didn't many of the academics who had either supported the Soviet Union or "made allowances", not admit they got it wrong when Communism finally collapsed?
Richard, London

Stalin had a very keen mind and a sense of humour absent in Hitler and Mussolini. His interview with H. G. Well is worth reading.
Steve Abrams, London

[baquba, diyala province. baghdad]
under a US soldier's hat and rifles


[kamenica. bosnia]
along with at least 100 full body remains and over 1,000 partial remains of bosnian muslims killed by the bosnian serb army in 1995.


[kibati. congo]
in an improvised refugee camp, away from fighting between rebels and the congolese army.


[philadelphia. usa]
before presidency.


[400 million light years away. cetus]
with another galaxy, and named arp 147