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Camilo José Vergara Documents Camden New Jersey’s Crumbling Economics

Camilo José Vergara’s 40-year project, “Tracking Time,” chronicles urban transformation in some of the poorest and most segregated communities in the Northeastern United States. In Camden, New Jersey, one of the poorest cities he regularly visits during his documentation, he captures what he calls “Paired Houses”: two dwellings that share a wall, one of them occupied, the other empty. Because each dwelling is part of the same building, Vergara is able to capture the stark contrast between deteriorated and maintained habitats, reflecting the declining state of Camden’s housing market. For some of the photographs, Vergara returns to a building he’s previously documented in order to chronicle the absence of formerly dilapidated buildings.

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“Whatever happened to ragamuffins?" 

How Charlie Chaplin and Jackie Coogan defined one of film’s most enduring tropes.

this is your periodic reminder that social issues are horribly complex, nuanced, and interrelated. if you hear someone propose a solution or action or way to move forward that includes the word “just,” it is likely an inadequate and insufficient solution. some things i have heard proposed:

we just need to focus on gun control

we just need to focus on homophobia

we just need to put more scrutiny on men who abuse their female partners

we just need to ban islam/deport muslims

we just need more good guys carrying guns

we just need to focus on toxic masculinity

i feel confident that none of those actions, taken alone, would completely prevent mass shootings like the one that happened this weekend. so when you hear people say “this isn’t about homophobia, it’s about guns” or “this isn’t about guns, it’s about islamic terrorism,” you can say, “it’s actually about all of those things, all of those things at once, and probably some more things, also.” 

i am very thankful that so many people are trying to understand what happened and figure out how to make sure it never happens again. (less happy about the NRA/trump talking points being wheeled out, obviously.) and i hope that people keep pushing on all these levers, tugging on all these strings, in hopes that all of our collective work will be enough to dismantle whatever structures or pressures permit or facilitate these things in happening.

Los Angeles, 1968 © Denise Scott Brown

Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989).

Russian Soyuz TMA-18M space capsule carrying the International Space Station crew of US astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonauts Mikhail Kornienko and Sergei Volkov lands in a remote area outside the town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, on March 2nd 2016. The crew returned to Earth after spending almost a year in space. Credit: AFP/ Kirill Kudryavtsev

Yea, that phase in life really sucks.

some FUCKING MORON accidentally paypaled me some money when they meant to send it to someone else. i am a nice person, so i forwarded the notification email to them saying, this seems like a mistake, i don’t want to keep your money for no reason. they then flagged the payment as problematic - which removes my ability as a receiver to issue a refund - and now have sent me TWENTY EMAILS demanding that i return the money immediately. a) i don’t have it, paypal is holding it, and b) paypal won’t let me return it and c) now i’m on hold with paypal trying to resolve this, ALL THIS GUY’S FAULT.

Read Howard Hawks’s original treatment for his timeless masterpiece Only Angels Have Wings