ENGLAND!!!, in all its strange and wondrous glory.

The “English breakfast”.

I spent the holidays in England this year visiting my lovely girlfriend who is studying for a year in Brighton.  She blew my mind with the above breakfast my first day  and I was off to a great start.

I went to Stonehenge on the Winter Solstice in search of Neo-Druids and I was not let down.  As there is no public transportation there I opted for a 3 mile hike in the dark on a confusing public footpath which went thru farms and fields.  Thousands of pantheist, pagan, neo-druids and hippies arrive in mass before sunrise on this day, one of the four during the year in-which people are able to get in amongst this giant, 6000 year old monument, touching, communing and praying with the stones.  Epic photos of this to come soon.. film being souped!

Child of Neo-Druid.

And after a day of photographing and communing amongst pantheists of all stripes and visiting some other ancient sacred sites and doing an epic sound healing ceremony with multiple gongs working male and female energy while holding a tiny stone lingam, what else was there to do but partake in the oldest of English traditions, Fish and Chips.  Those are “mushy peas” on the bottom right.  Fish was tasty and I must say, they do have some damn good “chips” (french fries in the US) in the UK. Our “chips” are their “crisps”.

After waking up in my new hippie friends RV in Glastonbury I had to hustle back to Brighton but not before a sunrise hike up to an ancient “Tor”…This tower, which used to be part of a monastery, and had once been surrounded by water, has been a pilgrimage spot for Christians for 1000′s of  years. Its steeped in celtic mythological lore and is said to be a possible burial ground of the Holy Grail.  From Wikipedia: “Gwyn ap Nudd, who was first Lord of the Underworld, and later King of the Fairies,.. The Tor came to be represented as an entrance to Annwn or Avalon, the land of the fairies”.

The roaring, loud winds sent ravens buzzing around the tower and I and lent the atmosphere a welcome Hitchcockian ominousness.

Back in Brighton, a seaside English town that people once used for beach escapes but are now, in greater numbers, choosing to live in year round as a respite from London’s hustle and  flow ($$) and commute to work via a 45 minute $23.00 train.

My first European Football game.  The Brighton and Hove/Albion Seagulls.  Was a huge thrill.  Splurged on a ticket out front of the game paying around $50.00   With two red cards against the home team in the first 5 minutes the audience was out for referee blood but not forgoing their English niceties, the crowd chanted, in perfect unison (a practice unheard of in the U.S.) “What a loooaad of rubbbish, What a looaaadd of rubbbbish”.  It was a bloody good game and I was completely knackered after.

Refreshment stand at the stadium.

Loved this happy bloke though I couldn’t understand a bloody word he spat out but as far as I could tell, he was a mighty good chap.

On the menu I spotted a “Gammon Steak” and thought I deserved a bit of an indulgence after a couple of days of roughing it.  This funky dish appeared in front me after about 30 minutes.  The perfect Guinness helped wash it down.

No idea.  Didn’t try either.  Did have the originator of the “Egg McMuffin” which was delicious.

The sign reads, “commit no nuisance”.  Was a non-working 400 year old public drinking fountain and the locals, the heathens, had not heeded their English manners.

This guy scared me into photographing him at a local Brighton mall of sorts.

Off to London.. And the first thing my brilliant, thoughtful girlfriend does is take me to this bit of tasty history, down in Brick Lane, one of the hipster/bohemian parts of town.  As it used to be the Jewish Quarter  there was ”beigel” place from 1855.  Has a synagogue from 1701!  Living in the Lower East Side of NYC for a couple of years I was fiercely protective of my local old school bialy/bagel shop Kossars, loving the fact that it had been around for what I thought of as ages. Turns out  only 65 years ??  What? Feels like 100.

And, they pile mounds of “smoked meat” into the pillowy middle of the delicious, simple and semi-small bagel. Corned Beef.  Unreal. Line was out the door.  Mustard was like yellow wasabi..had crazy brain burn.

Ai Weiwei, Sunflower Seeds at the Tate Modern.  The piece is one million hand-made porcelain sunflower seeds made in Jingdezhen, where I passed thru with my mom travelling a couple of months ago.  Photos.

Julian Stancza at the Tate Modern.  His work.

I loved the design and really appreciated the simple formality and functionality of these railing/benches in the Underground, London’s clean, rat free, easily marked, running on time, mass transit system.  BUT, its spendy as hell and does shut down at midnight so if I had to choose, I would take our decrepit, filthy, unreliable, laborious to use,  NYC Subway anytime.

Grannie brigade in search of christmas bargains.

 Side trip to Canterbury.  This is the Cathedral, built-in 597 A.D., the oldest in the UK and where Christianity first landed in England . Been a Pilgrimage spot for a 1000 years. The Archbishop of Canterbury calls it home, the main dude in the Church of England.

And then, we finished up with some nature taking in some of the English walking paths.  The country is littered with trails that connect hamlets and villages. At 500 ft., this is England’s most favored spots for suicide.  They have an emergency chaplaincy team who hurry out to the site to thwart poor tortured souls plans.

We did the “Seven Sisters” hike,  a 10 mile hike along the cliffs just 20 miles East from Brighton.   I hadn’t experienced a similar topography before and its rolling hills, short natural grasses and mud, its grazing animals and views of picture perfect hamlets was something to behold.  We timed it for great weather and Radioheads new album had me running up the last mile uphill doing weird little side stepping dance moves.  Calves locked up for two days after. Totally worth it.

The Sea, France lying just 2o miles off in the distance.

Thanks for a great trip baby.

 xoxoxo

Image from my “Lynching Memorial Project” series published in social justice magazine.

Frederick Jermaine Carter, a 26-year old native of Sunflower, Mississippi was found hanging from this tree in the white section of Greenwood on December 3, 2010.

I recently started a new project that attempts to document (and in the future, help to create memorials) at historical sites of racial violence in the US.  My main reference material was the amazing and disturbing book “Without Sanctuary”, which reproduced about 80 postcards that were used as souvenirs from lynchings throughout America. Here is a short video from the book.  Unbelievably, many lynchings (which in many instances took the form of people being burned alive) took place on court house squares and whose huge audiences of the town folk, sometimes numbering in the thousands, came to view the incidents as entertainment.  The project idea had been fomenting for years and I feel strongly that until these crimes are recognized and memorialized and we as a society reconsile our past our racial relations can’t move forward in a positive and productive way.  I travelled thru three states to track down and photograph a handful of the locations of these racial atrocities that still go unmarked & unacknowledged today.

While in New Orleans I had a productive meeting with Professor Alex Mikulich at Loyola whose expertise lays in racism, lynching history and white privilege .  He was interested in my project and we discussed its future and implications and he had great advice.  He later selected one of my photos from the series to accompany his article for the magazine of the Jesuit Social Research Institute, “Just South Quarterly” a theology based social justice organization from Loyola University. Here is a PDF of the article  and another of the entire issue.  The layout with my image is below.

Manure in Midtown

The PBR professional bull-riding rodeo is back gracing our shores here in NYC.   I shot it a few years back for the Huffington Post but never got it up here on MPT so here is a link to the full photo-story.  I’ve posted a couple images below along with the text which I penned (something I rarely do).  I was drawn to the event as its quite a juxtaposition having this old Western tradition in the middle of the concrete jungle.

“The Professional Bull Riders rodeo came to Madison Square Garden January 9th-11th, and the smell of 700 tons of dirt and cow manure brought out every closeted cowboy this side of the Gowanus Canal. In its modern incarnation what with jumbo-trons, pyrotechnics and corny patriotic salute to the U.S Border Patrol (a corporate sponsor), the event was basically NASCAR with live, angry animals. The fans cheered their favorite riders to eight seconds of glory, but the Garden became eerily silent when competitors were stomped and gored by their 2,000 lb. adversaries, hands slowly dipping back into their nachos as they watched the replay of the carnage above.”

Playing Gursky for a day.

Shanghai train station.

Art night in Chelsea

Holy Shit!  I have never seen, in 17 years of being in the photo industry, images such as the ones I saw last week at an opening at Hasted Kraeutler gallery in Chelsea, NYC with my new friend Henny Garfunkel Spanish photographer, Pierre Gonnard, brings a studio set up into the Spanish and French back roads and photographs, in his words, “Lately, I have been approaching certain minorities and communities that have been displaced for ethnic, economic or political reasons, whether these be gypsies or people from Balkans and the Maghreb recently immigrated to Spain. My last project, is still on developpment. I am travelling, and setting my studio “On the road”, in the secret and hidden rural areas of the Peninsula Ibérica, from Andalucia to Galicia and Portugal, along the former “Ruta de la Plata”, looking for different human conditions: farmers communities, fishermen and coal minors. I question faces and open spaces, landscapes; seeking something different in nature andunder the earth.”

Technically speaking, most of the images are flawless and grainless and confront the viewer with their size and subjects gaze.  They are shot surprisingly on a Hasselblad.  We spoke to the photographer and he told us he brings these people, usually “gypsies”, a portfolio of images the next year he sees them as well as a box of presents.  I asked him if the subjects are aware that the images sell for $25,000 each and he said “they know everrryyyything”.  Interesting dynamics here with globalization, art as commodity and exploitation of subjects.  Some of the images I was not so fond of (focus being off and different kinds of film used) but overall quite a feat.

Next was the Canadian master photographer, Edward Burtynsky.  Breathtaking.  These are fields shot from the air in Spain.  Looked like paintings.  The exhibition entitled “Dryland Farming” at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery.  The prints, like Gursky are MASSIVE.

From the gallery:  ”Shot in the remote Monegros region of northeastern Spain, the photographs capture the vibrant topography of a landscape in flux. This hilly, arid terrain is both desolate and fertile, with farmland carved from the gypsum foothills. Despite a scarcity of water, generations of farmers have attempted to tame this wilderness, growing cereal grains, such as wheat, barley, and corn, and creating the undulating patchwork seen today. Burtynsky trains his lens on these constructed landscapes, which are a juxtaposition of nature’s unspoiled beauty with man’s endeavor to harness the power and bounty within it.”

Took in some interesting performance pieces as well. The Gladstone gallery had two related pieces by dancer/yoga/performers.  The first one we saw was insane.  The room was bare except for a hole that was broken in the concrete floor about 4 ft. in circumference and was full of water.  It was dark in the room except for the lights positioned on a large disco ball that hung about the hole and slowly descended down into hole until it was completely submerged (I believe its symbolism referring to the AIDS epidemic in the 80′s).  The dance did this incredible yogic movement piece as if she was being born from the hole.  She had long hair extensions that she had wrapped around her big toes and she was moving into different contorted positions and around the hole while the spectral lights of the disco ball moved in the opposite direction which made the whole room feel as it was spinning.  People were getting dizzy in the room. She eventually submerged into the water filled hole in the middle of the gallery.  The next one consisted of her and a man climbing all over each other in a room that had electronic controlled paint drips coming from the ceiling.

The AMAZING production of the INCREDIBLE CHINESE EGG SANDWICH…14 years in the making!

(If u have ZERO patience proceed directly to AMAZING culinary ACTION video below!)

In 1997 I cruised thru China from Korea on the way to a 3 month traipse around Mongolia.  While acquiring the Beijing Hack during the wait for a Visa to Mongolia I ate the same truly magnificent sandwich everyday for 8 days.  Last month I got to revisit China and luckily, one of these sandwich artisans was literally a steamed buns throw from my sisters apartment in Suzhou (in 1 AD, the 14th largest city in the world), which sits just 2 hours SW of Shanghai (which daily hosts the worlds largest pajama party).  It was a chance I would not miss.  Monumental in both its complexity of taste (savory, sweet, spicy, crunchy ) and construction (crepe +eggs+veggies+sauce+wontons, folded over itself into a burrito all under 2 minutes) and in its simplicity in acquisition (street-side) and monetary procurement (they cost about 80 cents).

WATCH THE AMAZING MAGIC of the making the CHINESE EGG SANDWICH!!

Ingredients.

Wontons

The change basket, which works on the honor system, while she makes the sandwich.

Customers flocking.

This 7am-10am line up was typical.

The star chef.

Survey of the Foods of China

Drying meat in the Jianxi Province.

The Chinese classic and it was perfect: Slightly charred fried green beans with garlic and chicken in a light brown sauce. Shanghai.

Head Cheese. (wondering what the character means for Head Cheese. Just learned that Chinese words are formed by combining different words into one character. Might word for Head Cheese be the combination of: brains, repulsive, congealed and waste not?)

An employee meal in Jingdezhen (where Chinese blue and white porcelain obtained its finest form 1700 years ago). Food of note: far left, an amazing shredded fried potato dish, the classic and my favorite, sautéed greens with garlic and a pancake with scallions.

Green tea.

Wide array of tofu in a fantastic, local only market in Suzhou.

Curried lamb soup with hand-pulled noodles. Incredible curried fried rice at rear. I recently discovered Arabic influenced Chinese cuisine after reading a hilarious Sunday Routine in the NYT with Gary Shteyngart. I have been eating quite a bit in NYC but was a bit surprised to find it so prevalent. Loads of curry, lamb, skewers of bbq'd meats, hot fresh bread.

Shucked nuts

Attacking a stalk of sugarcane on a local bus from Wuyan to Guanxi in the Jianxi province..

Rice stuffed lotus root in sweet sauce.

Barrel baked bread. Coal bricks in the center, fresh dough (at left) is stuck to the interior walls and bakes in less than 2 minutes. Two types: One round piece stuffed with honey, the other an oval shape with scallions. One piece cost about 8 cents.

Another incredible bread dish. This fried bread with sesame seeds was served piping hot and one had the choice of a brushing of a spicy red pepper sauce. 15 cents for the bag.

30 types of Rice Wine. Two main types, dark or clear. The dark was similar to a tasty port. Clear was like moonshine. Some were quite expensive.

One of the best dished I had in China (though my stomach would dispute this the next day). Small whole fish in an extremely spicy pepper sauce. I would open up the fish with one chop stick and pull out the whole spine in tact, meat falling away. Must of eating 10. Washed down with lots of terrible Chinese beer which color could not have been a lesser yellow.

Egg sandwich from street vendor. Incredible sandwich I had waited 14 years to have again. A crepe batter with egg, scallions, sweat bean sauce, spicy pepper sauce, cilantro and fried wonton cracker folded over itself. Larger blog post devoted solely to this breakfast miracle in coming days.

The national bird of China is the…..

The Crane.

Henry Gipson, Alabama juke joint proprietor

Henry Gipson of Gip’s Place. (Watch a video of him playing guitar below)

I ventured to the deep south a little while back in search of rural juke joints.  Project was a failure as I couldn’t locate what I was looking for but did spend some time with this amazing man in North East Alabama.  A gravedigger who went on to own his own cemetery and still works everyday, he has also been a blues guitarist for the better part of 70 years and his musical history includes playing with John Lee Hooker in Detroit in the 1940′s.  Here is an article about him.

Here is a small video of him playing.

Old Timers Day @ the Gowanus Houses projects

Shot this event, a re-union at the Gowanus Houses, on a nice hot Sunday in August.