The polaroid kid (Mike Brodie) has been taking photos of rail-punks across America. From Wikipedia:
In 2003 Brodie left home at 18 to travel the rails across America. A friend gave him a camera and he found himself spending three years photographing the friends and companions he encountered
Make the jump for our faves:
sniffing cocaine in the bus on the way to the baile funk in pavuna suburb
Found this Flickr set of photos from Rio de Janeiro nightlife. Includes pics from baile-funk-raves, transvestite-clubs, hardcore carnival-parties etc.
Make the jump for a few, or visit the Flickr set using above link.
There’s a Mexican town chockablock with witches and warlocks, which is drawing tourists (DG field trip?!):
All the weird stuff goes down in Russia:
Sergei Kazantsev, a local farmer, is one of the latest victims. He is suing Russia’s Federal Space Agency because he claims toxic fuel from rocket debris caused the death of four of his horses, the Moscow Times reported on Thursday.
It was the second complaint to emerge in as many weeks. Boris Urmatov, a shepherd in Altai, demanded $40,000 in compensation for emotional distress after an 11-foot long slab of rocket crashed close to his house. The space agency awarded $400 to an Altai resident several years ago after a similar incident.
Image by Jonas Bendiksen, of farmers fucking around in a satellite, fallen from the sky. From a series of shots he took over seven years in the former USSR.
Is touring a slum ethical?
Slum tourism, or “poorism,” as some call it, is catching on. From the favelas of Rio de Janeiro to the townships of Johannesburg to the garbage dumps of Mexico, tourists are forsaking, at least for a while, beaches and museums for crowded, dirty — and in many ways surprising — slums. When a British man named Chris Way founded Reality Tours and Travel in Mumbai two years ago, he could barely muster enough customers for one tour a day. Now, he’s running two or three a day and recently expanded to rural areas.
Slum tourism isn’t for everyone. Critics charge that ogling the poorest of the poor isn’t tourism at all. It’s voyeurism. The tours are exploitative, these critics say, and have no place on an ethical traveler’s itinerary.
I have to say, I’ve been on slum tours, and learned from them. But I can’t say I felt great about it.
Image: Luis Gispert, The World Is Yours from his awesome recent show at Zach Feuer, which took on themes of socioeconomic inequality and dislocation.
Baton Rouge, if you’ve never been, is a unique place—too big for this blog. I was lucky enough to be raised a child of the swamp. But I can only introduce you to the phenomenon slowly. A good place to start is with the hand painted signs that live there. Some of the fascination stems from the DIY nature of these productions. Other mysteries will surely arise when you imagine just what sort of entertainment “adults” enjoy. Or why does “Jazzy” imply a lack of class as the owners of “Jazzy but Classy” simultaneously point out and challenge? Trends include loitering, food stamps, crabs, etc.
I’ve collected some images from this website (by Veni Harlan) to spare you the bad layout and unfiltered quality control. From depths unfathomable, I bring you hand painted swamp jewels:
Just slowing down the barrage of dick-related posts, to point you over to Jan Chipchase’s Future Perfect. Love signage.
Like a lot of my friends, I can’t help but wonder what life would be like for me Berlin. The short answer: You’d take up things that would scare the fuck out of your parents, but you’d love it all.
A longer answer: If you were going to a DJ show, the flier might look like the one above, from a recent gig at KIM by Dyssembler. If you were making porno, you’d get yourself a rubber doll and start making this. (“My Secound Check by Doctor. He is interest how i feel me as a Rubber Doll.”) And if you were making art your group’s name would be AIDS-3D (natch) and you’d make stuff like this:
