I found some more photos...

from the alleycat, actually broken "src" tags. Fixed now, so take a look below. Work goes, and goes, and goes. Still more driving than a nail gun in a roofing project.

I'm reading three books right now, "bomb the suburbs" about hip-hop culture, "Camera lucida" about photography, and "The Yiddish Policemen's union," an alternate history novel. Bomb the Suburbs has some flaws, starting with the title.

First of all, Bomb the suburbs. As social theories go, race analysis sucks. You can't generalize along race lines. Economic and class analysis, however, can be really really good at finding whys and solutions. Second: cultures always cross pollinate and steal things from each other and everybody is richer for it. Wismatt, the author, is against the mainstreaming and what he sees as cheapening of hip-hop, because (to paraphrase) what it was was real, and what it's become is whack and stupid and missing the point.

Here's a thought: the mainstreaming of hip hop has created a cultural dialogue that didn't exist before, has given legitimacy to several new ways of making art, and has empowered people on both sides of the perceived divide to communicate in ways that weren't possible before. And the great thing about dialogue, about discourse: there's always more to say, and rappers and b-boys and kids from the burbs are still out there talking. Of course there's going to be stupid shit out there you can ridicule and try to use to say that the world is fucked up and nobody gets it any more, but you gotta have the shit so you know what smells good.

Camera Lucida is a lot more thoughtful. If "On Photography" (sontag's shitty rant) was about photo with a small p, Camera Lucida is about photography with a capital P. By prodding gently at the subject, rather than slashing and burning, some really interesting ideas come through. Then again, I'm only one chapter in, so it might start to suck soon. Philosophy books usually lose me pretty quickly.

Sleep now. Later everybody.