Marwencol

This is the most gripping, moving, peculiar, and astonishing movie I have seen in a long time.

Rent it, stream it, watch it now!

Mark Hogancamp was beaten savagely and suffered amnesia and long term cognitive disability.  As part of his rehabilitation, he builds a town called Marwencol.

The 1/6 scale WWII era Belgian town lays bare the inner workings of its creator's psyche (one of my favorite moments of the movie: Mark's best friend saying, This is Mark's war.)  To see Marwencol - and Hogancamp's extraordinary photographs of the intricate story lines he develops -- is to see a damaged spirit and gifted mind trying to heal itself through the generative power of artistic expression.

Turtles of Franklin County

Received this e-mail a while ago:

Dear Julie

Got a new camera, a Sony alpha 65, now doing a mini documentary on the Turtles of Franklin county --- first one is:

   

   

Love, Dad

Since then I have received several more photos of the turtles of Franklin County:

Reptile smile:

Actual turtleneck!

Gorgeous, no?  My dad, the polymath.

Fotos

I often rip out photographs from Real Simple that appear in the 'Thoughts' section if they speak to me in some way.

Like this marvelous photo... so easy to make up a backstory, no?

'Common Sense', Martin Parr, 1998

 Real Simple (August 2011), with this quote from decorator Billy Baldwin as a caption:

Be faithful to your own taste because

nothing you really like is ever out of style.

Slim Aarons, 'The Saunderson Bedroom', 1976

So many wonderful details: the mural, the tea set, the dogs, the Siamese on the settee, the Snoopy on the chair, the feathers on the nightgown sleeve, the husband reading the paper. Divine.

Richard Foulser's photo of his wife Ursula and daughter Oona. 

Little socks.

                                                                                    Richard Foulser, 2003.