In two years, we will have this glorious building down the street from us. This afternoon, Bruce Ratner’s ratpack of politicians, Paterson, Bloomberg, Schumer, Markowitz, etc. pushed their ceremonial shovels into some ceremonial dirt.

Thanks to taxpayer subsidies, Ratner’s pockets are very deep, deep enough to buy almost everyone out. Most likely there will be a few eminent domain fights before Forest City Ratner can claim the last few pockets of privately owned land, but the Supreme Court has already spoken about that. Like the Republican Convention held in NYC in 2004, protestors were forced a block away from the ceremony. The Times reported this, but the story was mostly buried, strange given the scale of the Atlantic Yards project. (Could it have something to do with the NYT’s cozy relationship with Forest City Ratner?).

While I’m all for jobs and the expansion of affordable housing, this plan will do little good for the borough except help the construction industry and possibly build some borough pride with the Nets. Aside from real estate speculators, I do not know a single person who is in favor of this enormous project. It is totally out of character with the neighborhood, in scale and design. The traffic will be a nightmare. There aren’t enough schools, the subway and LIRR will be overburdened. And then there will be the loss of neighborhood businesses as anonymous mall life invades the borough. We live in Brooklyn because we like the brownstone scale of life. We like trees and parks and peace and quiet. We like owner-occupied small structures. There’s a reason we didn’t want to live in Manhattan. This is a very sad day for Brooklyn.

I had the privilege of spending a week with Barry Hannah in 2007, at a summer workshop at Amherst College. Though his love of storytelling was still richly evident, it was clear his failing health was most on his mind. Drink and cancer had ravaged him, and the financial fallout was terrible. Like Orson Welles, who needed to pontificate about cheap domestic wines to pay the rent, Hannah joked that he only did these workshops for the money. Still, I was charmed by his raucous sense of humor and his reverence for his literary forbears. After enjoying brief monologues on the craft of fiction, I got to lunch with him and talk about Faulkner and John Grisham and Larry Brown, and Donna Tartt, his hatred of the label southern writing. He had an amazing, playful way with words. His sentences and characters were wild and fun and irreverent. I have never encountered voices like those in Airships or Geronimo Rex. The horror and grotesque humor of Yonder Stands Your Orphan still haunts me. On Monday, America lost a truly original voice. Read the NYT obit here and an appreciation at Vanity Fair.

The EPA did the right thing, naming the polluted Gowanus a SuperFund site. According to this NYT article, the cleanup could take 10-12 years and cost $300-500 million. Bloomberg and company were very disappointed, no doubt upset about the prospects for crony real estate development. Next up should be the Superfund labeling of the terrible oil spill under Greenpoint, one of the worst domestic oil spills (even bigger than the Exxon Valdez).

I’m happy to say I got 11 out of 12 questions right on this test of current events ignorance. Try it yourself here.

JDS in 1950, photo by Lotte Jacobi

One of the most influential American writers of the 20th Century died on the 27th. The Catcher in the Rye remains one of my favorite books. I wonder if his children will reveal if there was a manuscript their father was working on all these years.

We had nearly completed documenting over 60 years of his work, when he died on November 11th. An obit is on the NYT here.

The above photo was taken in 1991 in the Bronx by New York Times staff reporter Angel Franco. Composed with the urban blight in the background, this Halloween picture of Guisette Muniz, then 6, elicited an outpouring of Times' readers emotions (and gifts). Readers interpreted Muniz's expression to be sad, vulnerable, and worthy of pity, when in reality she was scared--not of the desolate neighborhood--but of her uncle who was inside the apartment in a frightening Chuckie costume. Read more about this photo in the Times here. This also fits nicely with Errol Morris' series in the Op-Ed webpages on propaganda and photography, a fascinating read here. The subject of how photographers compose, put frames around what they see, is worthy of many books of essays. Context is everything.

Coincidentally, I was looking through a catalog raisonée of Gerhard Richter's work on the 32nd anniversary of the biggest events of the German Autumn on October 18, 1977. I am returning to a novel which takes some of its inspiration from the tragic, misplaced angst of the RAF.

While Ted Kennedy was on the way to Arlington Cemetery, Spike Lee threw a birthday party/ tribute to honor Michael Jackson’s 51st birthday. The crowd was huge, despite the rain, and everyone was dancing and singing.

I finally set up lights and got some background paper up. Soon I’ll be shooting headshots and portraits here.

Left, the “original”; right, the “altered” as it appeared in print.

Since my weekend NYT subscription is on hold, I missed this brouhaha at the Times Magazine over a series of digitally altered photographs. The photographer in question, Edgar Martins, presented his photos for a story called “Ruins of the Second Gilded Age” as actual documentary, unretouched images to his editors. The story ran on July 5th, then the pixel peepers started deconstructing the images, pointing out perfect symmetries and cloned pipes and staircases that went to nowhere. The Times retracted the story, apologized to readers, and banished Martins from practicing journalism at its paper. On July 31st, since the controversy ignited a great debate in imaging circles, Martins was generously invited to defend himself on Lens, the Times’ photography blog. Not much of what he says elucidates anything about why he did what he did, nor does he seem to understand the contract with viewers of documentary photography. The problem stems from Martins being an artist rather than a journalist, however much he seems to lie that his photographs are an actual depiction of reality. He is clearly more interested in aesthetics and theory than in pure documentation, something which I tend to share. The Times photography manipulation policy is very general:

Images in our pages, in the paper or on the Web, that purport to depict reality must be genuine in every way. No people or objects may be added, rearranged, reversed, distorted or removed from a scene (except for the recognized practice of cropping to omit extraneous outer portions).

It does not take into account selective sharpening, blurring, color balancing, dodging and burning, high dynamic range photography, and the dozens of other techniques, aside from cloning and montaging, which photographers use to enhance their images everyday. I’m sure we will be revisiting this issue many more times as technology matures. Very soon digital still and movie cameras will be able to montage and manipulate on the fly, further blurring the definitions of reality and beauty.

A few hours after I wrote of Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson’s death stole the limelight. While his last years were just so sad, I will always remember him for Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough and ABC. A half-decade older than I, his music was always there in the background as I came of age. So his passing also brings back waves of nostalgia. I can understand why Madonna and Quincy Jones wept when they heard the tragic news. Such an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime talent!

Photo: Bruce McBroom
I think this was the first babe poster I ever bought. What a smile! The nipples didn’t hurt either. This and the Avedon Natasha Kinski poster are forever etched in my adolescent memory. More about Farrah’s up and down career here.

Ratner’s giant project to Manhattanize my ‘hood has been partially derailed by the economy and lawsuits. Gehry even pulled out. For more info on developments read here and here and the Times’ latest here.

Not having a TV and not living in Seattle have made me miss a quite sensational trial going on in the picturesque town of Perrugia, Italy. Two college women, one British, one American, lived together for a couple of months while studying in Umbria. The British one, Meredith Kercher, 21, is found dead in the apartment they shared, stabbed and strangled, and the roommate, Amanda Knox, a U. of Washington Seattle native, 20 at the time, has some trouble getting her story straight about what she was doing with her Italian boyfriend during the night in question. In Italy and England, since the murder in November 2007, the press has had a field day, pushing the murder investigation and trial into the O.J. stratosphere. The case has all the ingredients of a tabloid smorgasbord: drugs, an African man who admits being at the crime scene, a zealous prosecutor, questionable DNA, and international youth and beauty. Knox, pictured above, has been subjected to a relentless onslaught of accusations, as well as detention in an Italian prison. Tomorrow she will have her day in court. Here’s a NYT blog on the subject, as well as a Seattle P.I. blog, a Newsweek article, and a website from the victim’s family’s POV.

Since that cloudless September morning in 2001, I’ve been secretly girding myself for the next uber-9/11 event. So imagine my surprise when I discovered this underreported tidbit this morning: the collision of French and British nuclear submarines two weeks ago in the Atlantic. Though reportedly no radiation was leaked, the submarines were carrying 250 sailors AND a whole bunch of nuclear warhead missiles. With high-tech mistakes like this between allies who needs the taliban and al queda to target us? I imagine Tom Clancy and Hollywood are already inking a contract. Maybe Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn will star as the subs’ captains. If I were writing the script, I’d throw in some ebola and lactose intolerance to ramp up the stakes. I’m sure this averted nuclear disaster will make the late-night comedy show rounds very soon.

Congratulations, Barack! As the Onion said, you are about to inherit America’s worst job. Only ten weeks until Inauguration, ten weeks for Bush to continue his reign of destruction. With a 25% approval rating, I’m sure he’s more than happy to gift industry with some more loose regulations. After all, he’s going to need some big donors to break ground on his presidential library at SMU.

After tarnishing his reputation with his U.N. speech about Iraq’s WMD, Colin Powell finally stopped waffling and offered his well-reasoned conclusion on why he’s supporting Obama. While I’ve never been a fan of generals, I did have respect for Powell’s calm, smart demeanor, at least before he shamefully toed the Bush line about the imminent danger of Iraq. Whether pundits want to spin this as a race thing or not, Powell did himself right this time. Tireless diplomacy and engaged multilateralism are the best approaches to ensure world peace, not bullying and jumping into unwinable conflicts. Powell’s experience tells him this and he knows Obama is clearly the better man for the moment.


Speaking of a calm, smart demeanor. The best advertisement for Barack Obama happens to be his appearance on Bill O’Reilly’s show on September 4th. If you haven’t seen this 4-part video, you should. Under O’Reilly’s dogged pressure, Obama remains confident, intelligent, and totally reasonable, even displaying a sense of humor. While the Fox News flat-tax, pro-corporate commentator could have sharpened his chainsaw a bit more, he was obviously impressed by Obama’s command of the issues. The usual stuff is discussed--class warfare, cap gains tax, Bill Ayers, Iran, Afghanistan--with Obama refusing to take O’Reilly’s inflammatory bait. Also mentioned, are my two biggest Obama disappointments, his support of FISA and embrace of nuclear power, both of which clearly show Obama is willing to imperil the citizenry at the profit of big corporate power. (I can only hope that this will not actually play out in his presidency.)

Somehow I missed this photojournalism controversy last week. Jill Greenberg, aka The Manipulator, was hired by The Atlantic to shoot a portrait of John McCain and she posted photoshopped outtakes (a few shown here) from the shoot on her website (all since removed). The editor of The Atlantic released a condemnation of Greenberg’s actions as well as an apology to the McCain campaign. The whole controversy has spawned some lively discussions (here, here, and here) on photojournalist ethics. Though I find her actions unprofessional and childish, I don’t see why Greenberg can’t publicize her strong political views. Of course, she won’t be working for The Atlantic again, but so what? Maybe she’ll have to give up her title of photojournalist, since she can’t remain impartial. But that’s okay, she’s not documenting reality anyway, she’s an artist illustrator.

Artists can and should take stands; too often they end up only making slick PR advertisements for the subjects they shoot. Even if McCain’s image was made into propaganda, it does not change the fact that he’s a Bush lapdog, a man who has totally lost his principles, and someone we should really fear running this country.

For an interesting read on how a real pro dealt with photographing a subject he considered evil, read this about Arnold Newman posing Alfred Krupp.

The view of the lights from Flatbush and Bergen, a very similar view I had of the towers when I left for a photoshoot and the first plane had just hit the north tower...

In a kind of Borgesian rewriting of history, United Artists has apparently doctored old photographs of Claus von Stauffenberg, the attempted assassin of Hitler, so they resemble better Tom Cruise who is playing the German hero in a film called Valkyrie slated to open in February of 2009. Read about the controversy and how it ties in to Scientology here.

According to this article in the NYT,The Iraq Petroleum Company is back! Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, and BP will return to Kirkuk, Mosul, and other petroleum-rich areas, starting June 30th. The British, Dutch, French, and U.S. companies are returning to what was once part of the Ottoman Empire, after 47 years of being locked out in 1961 when General Qassem nationalized Iraq's oil, a program completed by our man, Saddam Hussein in 1971. The foreign oil companies were given very nice no-bid contracts to begin extraction, almost certainly giving them a nice position to pump out a lot more when the contracts end in two years. With oil at $140 a barrel, the price of war is cheap in comparison. With the leveraged investment of 4100 dead U. S. soldiers, tens of thousands wounded, about 100K dead Iraqis, and a half trillion dollars of taxpayers' money, big oil should be poised to make some very nice profits.

It was called Colony Collapse Disorder, CCD, and was a description of the alarming decimation of bee colonies throughout the U.S. and the world. About a year ago we were very obsessed about it, fearful that the bees' demise was the canary in the coalmine of the irreversibility of global warming. What happened to that story? Was it just one of many soundbites of hype that briefly occupied our ADD minds? Or was it not as bad as we expected?

The answer is that we do have ADD and the bee losses are bad, but perhaps not as bad as expected. A virus is to blame for much of the bees' demise, but also a kind of karoshi, overwork. Now to the part I did not know anything about: the business of pollination. Did you know that bee pollination is a $15 billion dollar industry in the U.S., that approximately 1,000 commercial beekeepers own 90% of the country's 2.4 million bee colonies, that far more lucrative than honey production is the pollination of almond trees, a $1.9 billion dollar business (compared to honey's paltry $160 million and double even Napa Valley's wine production)? As food prices increase and the need to pollinate more and more acres of cotton, fruits, vegetables, and nuts, the value of the beekeeper's services increase. Like the chickens overfed and forced to live on 20-hour days so that they lay more eggs, honeybee colonies are driven around the country from one crop to the next to provide their indispensable services. This week almonds, next week, blueberries, the week after, alfalfa, and so on. In short, the bees are overworked, dropped into neverending fields of pornographically titillating flowers, and on top of this many are given hormones to stimulate their busy bee behavior so that they gather (and disseminate) more and more pollen. It's a fascinating topic, and I could go on, but you'd better get it from its source instead. If our planet is to survive, bees, too, will need shortened work weeks, guaranteed vacations, and much less stress.

Originally released as classified information in November of 2007, the full report is now available, redacted, of course, for general consumption. An analysis of 600,000 captured documents released 6 years after the drumbeat for war began, the report concludes, surprise, surprise, that there was no evidence found to support Saddam, as he's referred to by first name only in the report, was actively linked to external terrorist groups like al Qaeda or was developing WMD to attack the U.S. The timid conclusion on page 45 of the 94 page report says, that although Saddam had threatened the U.S. and Bush I specifically ("We can send people to Washington . . . a person with explosive belt around him could throw himself on Bush's car.") before the 1st Gulf War,

"the evidence is less clear in terms of Saddam's declared will at the time of OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM in 2003. Even with access to significant parts of the regime's most secretive archive, the answer to the question of Saddam's will in the final months in power remains elusive. Potentially, more significant documents and media files are awaiting analysis or are even yet to be discovered."

First a holocaust memoir turns out to be a total fabrication (Misha Defonseca's Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years), now an L.A. gang orphan story turns out to be fiction as well. Margaret B. Jones' Love and Consequences fooled a lot of reviewers for the best reasons: it was well written and compelling. In Defonseca's case, she was not found out until the book was already a bestseller and a movie. For Jones, we'll see how her career fares, especially since the publisher has cancelled her book tour and is recalling the book. (I wonder if you can sue for the mental anguish caused by memoir deception--WRITERS: a possible short story idea?). It's amazing how well a book can sell when it's labeled as a memoir, but when it's fiction, it's assumed to bear little resemblance to reality and is given much less attention. Reality sells. Though I haven't read her book, Defonseca's supposed raised-by-wolves childhood was probably no less vivid than a great book of powerful fiction thought to be based on some version of the author's youth: Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird.

Last night I was lucky enough to see a preview of Moore's new documentary Sicko, which is due to premiere at Cannes on Saturday. On the whole, I think this is his most compelling and reasoned film. Targeted more at mainstream America than globetrotting literati, the film makes a strong case for nationalized healthcare by comparing our sicko, broken "managed care" system here very unfavorably with Canada's, Britain's, and France's. France, home of the Cannes Festival (hello Palme d'Or numéro deux?), shines brightest under Moore's lights, with its 35-hour work week, 5 weeks of paid vacation, free healthcare, and exceptional maternity leave, which includes visits from government social workers who will assist mothers with just about anything--including laundry.

The film's most brilliant irony concerns a group of 9/11 rescue workers denied any kind of compensatory care for their severe health problems caused by their heroic work in the Ground Zero charnel pit. Moore takes them on a boat ride to crash the only place in America which offers excellent free health care: Guantanamo Prison--GITMO. Not surprisingly, the military does not agree to host them, and they end up testing demonized Castro's healthcare system where they are treated--surprise, surprise--with dignity, professionalism, and absolutely no bureaucratic red tape.

Healthcare is big business and big profit in the U.S. and its lobbying dollars are unmatched even by big oil. Democrats (Hillary, among them) as well as Republicans are very indebted to HMOs and pharmaceutical companies for their seats in Congress. National health care is the way of the future, but it will be a long, mean fight against corporate interests. Michael Moore has bravely lobbed the first volley of the national debate. Hopefully this will stimulate constructive dialogue among all Americans.

Though I've seen four of his films where his passion for the little guy is evident throughout, I was curious about what the man was like in person. The baseball hat, the tentish T-shirt, the shorts and hightops were his outfit for the evening and they seem to suit him well for his unpretentious, self-effacing character. Watching him interact with 9/11 rescue workers and others consulted or related to the Sicko production, I could not help being moved by his enormous compassion for people. Sicko is not a film about ideas, it is a call for action. And this man is the real deal, a true patriot dedicated to fight the injustices and indignities endured by all Americans.

China made a strategic test last Thursday evening local time. Now it's not just superior firepower that counts, "smart" bombs, but the ability to protect the satellites that guide them. GPS is very vulnerable if its satellite network is destroyed. Read more here.

Choromatsu, the monkey star of a legendary 1988 Sony Walkman commercial, has died at 29. For those of you who never lived in Japan, you've probably never heard of him. But when I was there and saw the commercial which features the serene Choromatsu donning in-ear headphones and clutching a cassette Walkman as he gazes into a pastoral landscape, I was totally charmed. It is one of the most memorable commercials I've ever seen and I've always wondered why Sony never exported it abroad. Rarely do you see a monkey with such dignity and intelligence. Click here for the commercial, or here for more info.