I love photography that jolts you subconsciously. Urban exploration is a unique genre, in that it exposes the long discarded underbelly of urban America. Horror movies, the more frightening ones, take place in empty asylums and decaying schools. And urbanlens.com is the absolute best site i’ve ever come across - the photography is lush with textural detail, the navigation purely focused on the exhibitions and subject matter. The mood is gritty and inquisitive, with humorous introductions to each photo gallery.

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Ever become paralyzed and lose track of what you are doing as you are doing it? Lately, i’ve had a lot of that. Perhaps its hitting the 6 month mark of freelance/unemployment. Part of me wants to jump all over someone or something, but the real truth is nipping at my ass. I have to take better care of myself and my career. Now. Not tomorrow. Not last week. Not a month from now.

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Gordon Parks never allowed labels to claim him. An amazing artist, his work spans photography, filmmaking, writing, and music. To see his work is watch a story unfold, from a respectful eye. He is right when he says no skin can claim him - the very essence of his art is apparent above all else. Park’s words are like quiet psalms, unadorned and pleasantly calming. His photography approaches his subjects deliberately, without judgment. He is a gentle herald of harder truths. As a filmmaker, his palette again was diverse, starting with “Flavio”, followed by “The Learning Tree”. His fourth film, “Shaft”, became an instant classic.

Parks is a master of the subtleties that make the soft unveiling of simple moments truthful and poignant. I would love to emulate this artist’s path, or at least use his example as an inspiration. He truly is a remarkable human being.

:) melissa

“if you don’t take anything on faith, you live a life of doubt” - Miracle on 34th Street

I grew up with the disappointment of Christmas - mom drunk, family fighting, the usual holiday dramas. Perhaps it was the promise of Christmas as a family event - that suddenly all the woes and worries of life would fall away, walls between us would come down and love would be an easy, warm, happy thing. That promise was embodied in the glitter of tinsel, the glow of blinking lights, the twinkle of stars that filled the northern Ontario sky in early evening.

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I am a creature of the night - work late and travel all over the city in search of the basics…

Here’s my 24/7 resource list:

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When exactly did feminism divorce itself from femininity? As a child of the 70’s, I grew up with conflicting images of beauty and power. What was intrinsically feminine was also the source of inequality. Beauty was not included in the modes of seeming liberated. Beauty seemed decadent, irrelevant, frivolous - clearly not the stuff of serious feminists fighting the good fight. From the braless, natural and makeup free women of my childhood, the androgynous explorations of the late 70’s/early 80’s, to finally the juxtaposition of the shoulder pad masculinity and in-your-face sexuality of my teens. By the time I hit 20, I had seen women reduce and reform their roles, wherein beauty was not essential. In the 90’s beauty became classified and commodified, a panoply of ethnicities and cultures were borrowed from, in cosmetic imagery, without being included on anything but a surface level. Somehow, nations and generations became unknowing parts of the exquisite corpse of gender and sexual definitions, the result a patchwork of disjointed iconography and unrealistic expectations. None of these being whole or entirely wrong, all seeking further clarification.

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