"They willingly traded everything they owned…They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features…They do not bear arms and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance…They have no iron…Their spears are made of cane…They would make fine servants…With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."
~ Christopher Columbus writing in his diary upon landing in Hispaniola, from A People’s History of the United States
Fuck him.
via Curate
Though the first recorded celebration of Columbus occurred in New York City 1792, during a 300th anniversary celebration of his landing in the New World, Columbus Day did not become a federal holiday until 1971, courtesy of President Richard M. Nixon. ...
George Giusti (Oct. 10, 1908 - 1990)
"Civilization is a method of living, an attitude of equal respect for all men.”—Jane Addams, Speech, Honolulu, 1933.
From the series Great Ideas of Western Man, 1955 - India ink and gouache on paper (Smithsonian)
via Ordinary Finds
Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it.
"A thing which is present can be invisible, hidden by what it shows." - René Magritte
Rock on by Tanya Johnston
If you ever find happiness by hunting for it, you will find it as the old woman did her lost spectacles. Safe on her own nose all the time.
- Josh Billings
Photo by littlehonda
"Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such."
Henry Miller
via Peter Nidzgorski
Our use of euphemisms is proof of a deep-seated belief in the magic of words.
Steven Pinker explains:
"Taboo speech is part of a larger phenomenon known as word magic. Though one of the foundations of linguistics is that the pairing between a sound and a meaning is arbitrary, most humans intuitively believe otherwise. They treat the name for an entity as part of its essence, so that the mere act of uttering a name is seen as a way to impinge on its referent. Incantations, spells, prayers, and curses are ways that people try to affect the world through words, and taboos and euphemisms are ways that people try not to affect it." (The Stuff of Thought, p. 331)
Unfold a street map.. place a glass, rim down any where on the map, draw around it’s edge. Pick up the map, go out into the city and walk the circle, keeping as close as you can to the curve. Record the experience as you go, in what ever medium you favour: film, photograph, manuscript, tape. Catch the textural run-off of the streets; the graffiti, the branded litter, the snatches of conversation. Cut for sign. Log the data-stream. Be alert to the happenstance of metaphors, watch for visual rhymes, coincidences, analogies, family resemblances, the changing moods of the street. Complete the circle, and the record ends. Walking makes for content: footage for footage.
Robert MacFarlane, A Road of One's Own via @tsparks
Poet. Lover of academy and porch.
