Guy Tillim

This afternoon has passed in an absolute awe of the genius of Guy Tillim. The South African is studying the social: the inequality, the daily, the material, landscapes, environments etc, mostly set in Africa. In his photos the aesthetics enhance the narration. I'm not sure I've seen anything up to this moment that would master this to the extent present in this photographs. While the shots offer visual pleasure, my main sensation is a wish to go beyond the picture, stand before the stories and listen.

















More photos by Guy Tillim here http://www.agencevu.com/photographers/photographer.php?id=137 and here http://www.lensculture.com/tillim.html?thisPic=8

The difference becomes especially clear to me when looking at Juha-Pekka Kervinen's photos, who undoubtedly is also good at taking pictures http://www.pbase.com/kervinen/portfolio

vana vs uus

õhtune meelelahutus treffneristidele ja nendele, kes ei usu paremasse tulevikku

http://www.htg.tartu.ee/pildid/vanauus/pilt034.html

Mondays

Prahlad Jani, an 82-year-old Indian yogi says he hasn't had any food for 70 years.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.ce6e076d355a498ef621bad2bbef1a32.f1&show_article=1

A good friend of mine from the Edinburgh era didn't use to eat anything on Mondays. I will try to introduce raw-juice-tea Mondays to my life this year. It's been two years and two weeks now that I've been a vegetarian with occasional fish, which is slowly leaving my diet. I'm very good with what is good for me when I have a good practice routine. I've realised it's about time I should do something particular and new to challenge my very comfortable habits. This article http://www.healthandyoga.com/html/news/food/spm_fos.asp pretty much summarises why. So this Monday I'll donate blood, maybe it'll be Wednesday instead for this week's bananas and herb tea, although there's no rush. It's nice to think there's plenty of time for all this.

Orgnanizatsia

Jeesus kristus боже мой on vist hetkel kõik, kuidas võin kirjeldada asjaajamist Venemaale minekuks. See nädal on möödunud Vene viisasüsteemi ja registreerimisseadustikku uurides ning arvutusi tehes. See kõik on äärmiselt võimalik ning põnev, kuid oleks seda veelgi enam, kui mul oleks eelarveks 600 euro asemel 800. Muidugi on mul enne Eestist lesta tõmbamist vaja tõmmata gaasi ja käsipidurit ja teha ära see õnnetu viimane sõidukoolitus, muidu kaotan ma oma juba praegu kehtetud juhiload. Tarvis on külastada ka hambaarsti. Ma tegelikult ei tea, kas see eelarve ikka küündib 600ni.

Emailimine. Leidsin eelmine nädal endale inglise keele õpetaja koha Izhevskis, Personal Contact keeltekoolis, kuhu algul mõtlesin minna kaheks kuuks, nii et alustaksin veerbuari keskpaigas ning lahkuksin, et jõuda Vene antropoloogilise filmi festivalile Jekaterinburgis, 16.-21. aprill.

Olen nüüd selle vastuvõtva organistatiooniga üsna sisulist ja detailset kirjavahetust pidanud. Mulle tundub, et on tõenäoline, et käin neile närvidele. Asi on lihtsalt minu poolt selles, et nad nõuavad igasuguseid registratsiooni- ja tagatisrahasid, mida mul lihtsalt pole ning olema ei saagi. Kõige võimatum on igakuine elupinna tagatis, suuruses $500-$700, üüri maksaksin sealjuures lisaks. Uitasin Couchsurfis ja leidsin kena paari, kes oli nõus mind majutama kaks kuud korteris, mis tundub olevat täis lahkust, kolme mittesuitsetavat inimest ning kahte kassi, kõik jagatud nelja tuppa. Mul oleks oma ruum, saaksin kasutada kodumasinaid, sõpru ja üldse kõik tundub väga siiras olevat.

Mõtlesin- juhei. Saan ikkagi minna. Veelgi enam, integreerun.

Siis kirjutasin uuesti vastuvõtvale keeltekoolile. Nad loetlesid probleeme, minu versiooni valupunkte ja tingimusi. Mina loetlesin lahendusi, probleeme, mida ma ei näe, ning tingimusi.

Ootan homset, loodan, et nad vastavad ja saan teada, mis on seis nüüd. Olen muidugi juba paranoiliseks muutunud ning püüan kõigest väesti igasugu alttõmbamist kindlaks teha. Küllap ei tundu ma praegusel hetkel neile just sõbralikuim õpetajamaterjal. Aga mis seal ikka, vähemalt on seal Voroneši juures endiselt vanausuliste hääbuv kommuun, mis tegelikult tundub päris meelitav, kuigi ma ei tahaks mitte kunagi näha oma ema nägu, kui ta teaks, mis mu plaan B on.

Ja sel nädalal on enamuses olnud need ööd, mil ma ei saa magama jääga, sest elu tundub liiga põnev ja elevus on liiga suur. Ärkamiseni jäänud alla 4.5 tunni.

Ewert and The Two Dragons - "Good Man Down"

A little Estonian treat with beautiful pictures.

to all the guys

hi moulds,
what are you up to? how's life?
i've been in estonia, mostly, since august. i chilled out for a while and got a job as an archeological outdoor researcher (sounds fancy but included lots of soil), after which i worked in the lab with the finds, ceramics, mainly. now im finished with this and wanting to hitchhike to beijing. it's a little complicated due to snow and small population of siberia but im sure trains will come handy at some point. so im going through all the suitable males who could provide protection from rapists and crooks, while i could assist with my poor russian language skills and a list of russian communes to stay in for free. really weird places. i would like to spend approx 3 months in russia, and then go via mongolia to beijing. or take a train around mongolia, depending on time/money/other conditions such as how empty mongolia really is. i want to leave in late february, the latest. depends on my/others visas. my time limit is july, i'll be probs flying from beijing to dubai and stay there for a while with my sister.
so let me know if you are up for this or know anyone who would. although i don't know you very well, i think it could work. you could bring a girl- or a boyfriend. i guess three would be difficult but possible. this is not match-making but serious gap year activity.

hope you don't have any plans at all and want to end up in china,
mari



do your feet itch for a little more
than what they've had before?

Panpsychism

Andy Clark shifts the philosophical emphasis from analysis of the brain to analysis of a human’s kinesthetic interaction with an ecological and social space. He points out that large-scale social projects, such as a building project or a disaster relief effort, occur across a considerably extended space and through the intersection of many people’s minds, and are not limited to neuronal firings in any individual brain. Clark, in a joint paper with David Chalmers, discusses the fictional example of Otto, a man with memory problems who remembers the location of a library (and other useful pieces of information) by writing it down in a notebook. They argue that Otto’s memory is literally in the notebook, not in his brain. Similarly, much of the memory of all of us arguably now resides in a variety of electronic devices.

A more robust form of criticism of the reductionist program comes from a revival of panpsychism by philosophers such as Galen Strawson and Gregg Rosenberg, and physicists such as Henry Stapp. They concur with Alfred North Whitehead’s view that for consciousness to be anywhere in nature it must be everywhere in nature, and with William James’ view that our stream of consciousness is open to intrusions from an environmentally-pervasive conscious ‘more’. In other words, everything has an element of consciousness. For most of the materialists, consciousness exists only as a rare occurrence in the brains of a single or a few species (if at all). The panpsychists charge that on this account, consciousness is a complete ‘ontological dangler’: a few anomalous islands of consciousness surface, for little apparent reason, in a vast sea of insentient and unconscious dead matter. Strawson, Stapp and Rosenberg object that the materialist picture arises from a Newtonian misunderstanding of matter. However, in quantum physics, matter may not be insentient, unconscious and dead, but have an element of consciousness too.

by Laura Weed http://www.philosophynow.org/issue87/Philosophy_of_Mind_An_Overview

To the new! (yesterday)

A vagabond is a drifter and an itinerant wanderer who roams wherever they please, following the whim of the moment. Vagabonds may lack residence, a job, and even citizenship.
Decadence can refer to a personal trait, or to the state of a society (or segment of it). Used to describe a person's lifestyle. Concise Oxford Dictionary: "a luxurious self-indulgence". Oscar Wilde: "Classicism is the subordination of the parts to the whole; decadence is the subordination of the whole to the parts."
Source Wikipedia

I'm can't stop listening to 'One Night in Bangkok' while actually I should be sleeping indeed. The beat is following the earlier 'Down Under', and 'Africa'. If there was any chance of learning Russian in Africa, Toto would give me the firm push needed for deciding where to head now when my archeology career is coming to its end. I have been googling Trans-Siberian to Beijing too many times and any B-starting large Asian city has a catch on me now. Besides surfing in the web to find out all the visas to China and places are quite expensive and input consuming, I was reading about Nietzsche and his stuff and thinking people are like house plants, if they're a little uncomfortable and in a little pot, they come up which much more. I guess I'm comparing Nordic to the rest of it, on the other hand, their minimalistic design is great. Anyhow, I'm not trying to suppress my roots and sprouts from stretching out but the fact is that I'm not doing much. I did go to yoga today and had an amazing practice, I indulged myself later on and had some fancy salad and bread-- the prospect of affording all the visas was not happy. So I yoga my way through vagabondage and decadence; put the pieces together and hopefully do something.

I would like to believe the time of suffering diseases and writing great things is over and this unknown new will come up. Maybe it'll be minimalism and nothing, and all. It shouldn't be too hard. It's 2012! Better than ever, it is. It seems future has taken God's place.


There's a a good documentary about Grandfather Jing and his customers by Zhou Bing on this website http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/FILES/grandpa_jing.htm
I wanted to download it as a new year's post but the file was too big.