Category: Photography

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Clarity of distress

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Clarity of distress
Clarity of distress, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

iPhone snapshot modified with Best Camera App

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probably my personal favorite iPhone snapshot, so far. Might be a copy of some famous photo, but not consciously, if at all.

Street corner in the rain

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Street corner in the rain
Street corner in the rain, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

West Loop, from my office window. Modified with Best Camera app

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if I had opened this on my computer before uploading, I might have cropped this a bit, but not drastically.

Reading Around on October 13th through October 14th

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A few interesting links collected October 13th through October 14th:

  • F.A.A. Proposes Fines for United and US Airways – NYTimes.com – $3.8 million fine against United for operating one of its Boeing 737 aircraft on more than 200 flights with shop towels covering openings in an engine,
  • Vivian Maier – Her Discovered Work – THIS WAS CREATED IN DEDICATION TO THE PHOTOGRAPHER VIVIAN MAIER, A STREET PHOTOGRAPHER FROM THE 1950S – 1970S. VIVIAN’S WORK WAS DISCOVERED AT AN AUCTION HERE IN CHICAGO WHERE SHE LIVED FOR 50 YEARS BUT WAS ORIGINALLY A NATIVE TO FRANCE. HER DISCOVERED WORK INCLUDES OVER 40,000 MOSTLY MEDIUM FORMAT NEGATIVES. BORN FEBRUARY 1, 1926 AND PASSED AWAY ON TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2009.
  • Critics’ Picks: Call it the “liberal Bible” | Salon Arts & Entertainment –

  • “Life of the World to Come (Dig)” (Mountain Goats)

    “Darnielle claims he’s always been fascinated by religious texts, but up until now more secular fixations have dominated his music: Ruptured relationships, literary heroes and his own difficult childhood are among the most common subjects of nearly two decades’ worth of studiously lo-fi Mountain Goats songs. And, as a die-hard black metal fan who, last year, published a short novel based on Black Sabbath’s “Master of Reality,” Darnielle may seem a particularly unlikely candidate to explore the spiritual.”


    “Black Sabbath’s Master of Reality: 33 1/3” (John Darnielle)

    Didn’t know who wrote this book, just thought it unreadable. I got through about ten pages before tossing it to the floor in disgust. Maybe there is more to it, but it wasn’t obvious.

Train Chants Resuming

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Train Chants Resuming
Train Chants Resuming, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

Kinzie Street and Clinton.

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Yahoo Maps/Flickr lists this as being in Killgubbin, Chicago. There is an alternative spelling of Kilgubbin, which was also known as Little Hell. Used to be predominately Irish immigrants, many from the Irish town of Kilgubbin.

GapersBlock wrote about the area a few years ago;

So where do the Irish come in, and how did the name transfer?

In the mid-1840s a devastating blight struck the potato crops in Ireland, leaving hundreds of thousands hungry and penniless. Perry Duis writes in his book, Challenging Chicago, that, as a consequence of the famine, “three large landholders in Kilgubbin, County Cork, and County Mayo evicted their peasants and paid for their passage to America.” (93) These Irish peasants made their way to Chicago.

Jobs in Chicago in the late 1840s were scarce, and the Irish arrived with little money or resources. As a result, they became squatters, erecting a shantytown on unoccupied land just north of the river, near the site of the “original” Goose Island. When the Irish moved their settlement northwards to the present-day Goose Island, they took the island’s name with them.

Accounts from the period clearly state that the Irish settlers raised livestock on the island, including cows, chickens and pigs. Whether or not they actually raised geese in their backyards is a bit unclear, but that certainly became the popular story.

…

By the 1890s, Goose Island had developed an unsavory national reputation for its slums, crime and industrial pollution. In 1896, a news item in the New York Times about a fire at the American Varnish Works on the island described Goose Island as “a dilapidated locality.” Partly in an attempt to combat this image of the neighborhood, Chicago alderman considered making “Ogden’s Island” the official name in 1891, but the change apparently was never made. (Duis 107) Goose Island persists as the accepted name for the area.

In addition, the neighborhood has entertained many other nicknames throughout its early history. The Irish settlers gave the area the name “Kilgubbin” for the home they left in Ireland. In the 1860s, flames and smoke from the Peoples Gas coal plant on the island gave the neighborhood the name “Little Hell.” And, finally, the fumes from tugboats moored at the island in the early twentieth century gave one unfortunate area the name “Smokey Hollow.” (Duis 103)

[Click to continue reading Gapers Block: Airbags – Goose Island]


“Challenging Chicago: Coping with Everyday Life, 1837-1920” (Perry R. Duis)