Et maintenant au Congo

Often when I am photographing wealthy socialites partying or buying art on the north shore of Chicago, I often think of a friend of mine, Amy Ernst, who is in the Congo right now taking amazing photos of interesting people.  But she’s not just there taking photos, she’s also doing her part to help out in that war-torn part of the world.  I asked her to write up a... Read More

Cracking Open the Omniverse

Today I experienced a cranial disaster resulting from a singularity in all space and time.  It all started way back when my parents decided not to have any more children after the birth of my older sister Sarah.  Sixteen months later, I was a newborn being carried around the hospital by my father showing me off to the nurses.  Growing up, I was mothered by two sisters and... Read More

The Killers of Juarez

One of the greatest crimes of the favored is apathy to the plight of the unfortunate.  Many Americans feel this to be true and for a few moments each year, they gather behind the news of the day and text money to a cause.  They allow others to work out the details and go on drinking Starbucks and smoking pot.  Edmund Burke wrote, “The only thing necessary for the triumph... Read More

Life Should Be Delicious

I woke up with vomit in my mouth. The kind of dirty stink that makes you run to a cup of anything to change the experience. All night I had been bent at the waist, feeling my body implode, stopped only by the frozen stomach muscles that I hadn’t felt for years. My skin was chilled and I could feel the fever coming on. At first I thought I had been sitting too long in the... Read More

True Colors

Would that the man on the moon were a lonely fellow, perhaps reclining against the slope of some great crater, he might say that he had more insight under the print of his thumb than all of the Earthling  extrospection gleamed from upon the snowy vantage of Everest.  Perhaps he fingers the collapsing edges of the first human manprint in the silty soil or sweeps away the gunmetal... Read More

Universal Tooth

Debating the details of someone’s  core beliefs is an entertaining yet usually pointless endeavour; but let slip the dogs of war, I say.  I once argued with a girl for what felt like two hours about the existence of Universal Truth, she on the, “it obviously exists,” side and me on the, “you can never prove it,” side.  Arguing about Universal... Read More

Medium Sized

After college, I lived in Kankakee County in a small town called Momence for a while.  There were only a few hundred people living there with a main street no longer than 10 or 15 blocks long, and that’s being generous.  It was far from work, but in the neighborhood which is what I wanted.  I used to run everyday, and in the summers it would be so hot that would I run... Read More

Mother and Daughter

I’m sure there’s some sort of life lesson to learn from the massive striped spider which has been constantly making a web on the side of my car door.  But I really don’t care because the damn thing scares the crap out of me every time I jumps out at me.  Perhaps the lesson is that I shouldn’t go to McDonalds because that’s the only fast food place... Read More

Subtitled for Success

Regular readers of my blog already know that I imagine myself to be fluent in several foreign languages including Russian, Spanish, French, Southie, Klingon and of course Huttese. But I use the word fluent to mean, “I know enough to get myself in trouble.” The drawback of my foreign language skills is that I have acquired them through watching movies. For example, I... Read More

Making bubbles

Photoshop has been good to me.  Since version 4.0 or so, I’ve been teaching myself successfully how to use it and having a lot of fun along the way.  I’m always impressed with what it can do in such a short amount of time.  Getting a Wacom tablet opened up a whole new world to me in PS as well, especially CS2 and later.  I often give tutorials to my friends and... Read More

College Paper Redux

While recently poking through my ancient floppy disks, I found some college papers which were written on a vintage Canon Starwriter 30 electronic typewriter.  Most of the disks are corrupted or unreadable, but mixed in among the Organic Chemistry and Ecology Lab papers were five or six philosophy papers that I could decipher if I corrected the strange formatting.  Some were basic... Read More

If you forget me

I want you to know one thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. Well, now, if... Read More

Canine Compound

Every morning, someone is out in the courtyard behind my bedroom window screaming “Duke,” in inadequately-hushed tones repetitively in some kind of valiant attempt to overcome the human-dog language barrier.  Either that, or he is attempting to train a dog on the spot without supplying it with any commands.  The poor dog is probably thinking, “Yes, my name is... Read More

You All Everybody

I’m in the middle of watching a marathon of Lost episodes from Season 1 through 6 and I’m finding that even though I never really liked Charlie, the washed up heroin-addicted rock star, before, I particularly don’t like him now that I’ve just seen Get Him To The Greek’s character of Aldous Snow played by the hilarious Russel Brand.  Both are British,... Read More

A is to B

Blogging can be a rewarding and/or frustrating source of happiness/malaise.  Forests require trees, fortune seems pale, fury seems petty and sometimes you just don’t feel like a good enough writer to compete with other talented bloggers using their accounts to their fullest.  For example, let’s say that person A and person B both have blogs.  Person A used to be... Read More