Quick! Someone Identify These People!

Which ones are writer Miranda July and which ones are musician Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent).  Good luck.

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Never Ending Polaroid Project Living Up to its Name

In what seems like forever ago, I reported on Bob Nanna’s chain of Polaroid images which capture Somebodies and Nobodies alike in a chain that started nearly 8 years ago — March 3rd 2001, with a photo of Bob at Second City in Chicago.  Bob, at that point, was with the band Braid, and the photo chain weaves it’s way through a number of musicians you most certainly know.

Mr Nanna, who is clearly on a New Years resolution streak, is now SCANNING each one for posterity’s sake and allowing the general public to see it online — both on Facebook and Flickr.

Quite a task. 

The best part about the Flickr portion is that there’s also a brief description of each photo in case you don’t immediately recognize (or wouldn’t recognize) who’s in the photo.

03/09/01 – Second City, Chicago IL
This is me. I look young and happy… just like the pic of George Wendt to my left. 

 

 

03/10/01 – The Rave, Milwaukee WI

This is Rob, although back then everyone called him Robbie. He played bass in the Get Up Kids but lately, you’ve probably seen him scouring the globe (and your tv sets) as the bass player of Spoon! Together we probably listened to ‘The Lonesome Crowded West’ one thousand times during our European tour. 

Awkward, but with Poise

 

(photo by Ruthie Hauge)

I see a bit of Sally Mann here, and a bit of the awkward with attitude posing that reminds me of Rineke Dijkstra.  Hauge is employed as a newspaper photojournalist, but her journalistic endeavors also give us a chance to see some impromptu slices-of-life.  When you think about it, both a photojournalist and a photographer try to capture the moment, except that a photojournalist can’t tell you to do it again. 

Hauge’s online portfolio is available here and check her forays into video reporting here. (Type “Hauge” into the search video box for all of her pieces.)

Dijkstra

Mann

The Creepiness Factor of Cellphone Cameras and The Internet

While I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve recently fell in love with Tumblr, and it’s ability to post cell phone pictures, there’s something creepy and slightly obnoxious going on over R.O.C.K. on the CTA.

 

      

    

Sadly, the poor taste only begins with what I’m assuming is a John Mellencamp song reference. 

Here’s the gist of what RotCTA does — “David Rockwell” takes covert cellphone pictures of people on Chicago Transit Authority trains and buses (they also accept submissions from others at ROCKontheCTA@gmail.com) and then posts them for the world to see.  David describes his blog thusly: 

a somewhat snarky, sometimes cranky, borderline stalker-y view of the world from my seat on the bus. No offense meant to anyone.. all of these stories are just made up. I really know nothing about you. And I care even less. I love watching the urbanites as they do their daily dance along the train tracks and bus routes…They make me happy. And sleepy.

Borderline stalker-y indeed.  It all seems harmless, but the site irks me for the following reasons:

1. They are rarely that funny
2. They are more likely to be mean-spirited and petty
3. Their idea of a “hunk” is any dude dressed business-casual
4. Their idea of a stylish or cute girl is a trixie dressed business-casual
5. As you’d expect, photos are taken almost exclusively on the northside brown line and red line.
6. Tons of creepy anonymous ass photos, and even some moose-knuckle.  Why?

If you’re on the CTA and you’re old, overweight, asleep, not cool looking, or a minority; prepare to be ridiculed anonymously.  Otherwise keep using public transportation in Lakeview and you might just become famous — if you wanted to or not.