Taken in Budapest in 2014.
This museum, located at Andrássy út 60 in Budapest, was used by both the Arrow Cross Militia (i.e. the Hungarian fascists during WWII) and the ÁVH (the secret police from the Communist era.) Specially-constructed (and diabolical) torture cells in the basement probably made it convenient to keep from one regime to the next.
Taken outside Lusaka in May of 2016
Savage winds hit like a ramming shoulder.
Pelting rains sting like sand-blast on pink skin.
Dipping ships drop from sight of their beholders.
Soft sounds compile into a raucous din.
Nothing stands still; everything is moving —
Sound and Fury signifying Calm’s death.
Minds conflate the confused and the confusing.
Mouths gasp open but they can’t suck a breath.
Angry gods find newly pious converts.
Sinners sin like they’ll not get one more chance.
While disaster plays the consummate flirt,
dunking sailors, but pulling them back to dance.
Every soul knows each storm must – in time – end.
But one can’t know whether time is one’s friend.
There was a worker from Detroit
who — in his job — was quite adroit.
They said he had powers —
a thousand nuts an hour,
but it’s not like he could enjoy’t.
There was an old woman of Singapore
who was fit as a fiddle but quite poor.
Her legs, they were stout
from lugging about
fixings to sell chicken-rice door-to-door.
There was a businessman from Osaka
who flew in (for safari) to Lusaka.
Walking the savanna
he slipped on a banana,
and was lost in an elephantine ca-ca.
There was a bad boy from Budapest
who wanted to behave his very best.
No more driving drunk —
a corpse in the trunk.
Being good was harder than he’d guessed.
There was a young woman from Cancun
who knew all the phases of the moon.
She worked a nightclub,
slinging drinks and grub —
because the mid-day sun made her swoon.
First installment:
Taken in Gokarna in August of 2020.
We see beauty in nature, but we see more in nature reigned in — kept in check by the hand of man. Why should a fresh-cut patch of grass please the eye more than its shaggy state of nature?
What soul doesn’t sore at the sight of a Japanese garden? It’s nature, but micromanaged in the slightest details of distance, shape, light, and order. Not a leaflet out of place. Gravel pads equidistantly furrowed with great precision. A bonsai tree could be called grotesque in its gnarled, shriveled deformation, but — instead — the bonsai has a universal visual appeal. Is it because they are stunted and deformed in precisely the manner man has chosen?
We see beauty in the human form, as well — but too rarely in our own. We like them depilated — plucked to the point that not a hair stands out of place. Biology tells us our eyes should seek the figure capable of staying strong while chasing prey across the savanna or gathering nuts and berries through wastelands where those foods are sparse. But our eyes covet those leaner than that — that leanness expresses our beloved ordered angularity.
Pure nature is frisson-laden — ever uncontrollable, unpredictable, and disordered. Its beauty is never separated from the fear it inspires.
Manicured nature offers a pleasing feel of dominion — an illusion of control that puts the mind at ease.
clouds crawl in,
hiding whole mountains —
i await, “Ta-Da!”
sun comes out,
flash-boiling droplets —
steam breathing
life abounds, it’s
max. occupancy living;
yet, none are seen
plants grow from stone
wall becomes a hedgerow…
but shaggier
elephant ear
leaf is played by the rain
like a mad drummer
Introducing Kant: A Graphic Guide by Christopher Kul-Want
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This volume is part of a large series of guides that are put out by Icon Books with the goal of providing concise overviews on various topics. In this case, said topic is the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Kant was an eighteenth-century Prussian philosopher who greatly influenced modern and post-modern philosophy. Among the ideas that Kant shaped and influenced were skepticism, morality based in reason, and the need for an understanding of knowledge that was neither purely empiricist nor purely rationalist (but which acknowledged the strengths and limitations of each.)
The book largely follows a chronological approach in presenting Kant’s ideas as he came up with, and published, them. Along the way, there are sections that are biographical rather than being focused on the philosophical ideas. These sections are largely in the beginning, middle, and end as they discuss the philosopher’s entry into the field, the changes in the midst of his career, and the end of his life. I thought it was useful to gain a bit of insight into the man as a man (rather than just as a philosopher) because it helps one understand the nature of the mind that came up with those ideas. That said, if there were space constraints, I would have preferred more examples and narrative explanation of the ideas – which are intensely definitional and abstract, making them both dry and less effective than they could be – over that biographical information (much of which boils down to Kant being quirky and peculiar.) The bulk of the book follows the flow of ideas contained in the three publications that were the colonnade that undergirded Kant’s philosophy (“Critique of Pure Reason,” “Critique of Practical Reason,” and “Critique of Judgement.”)
Between the last biographical section and the book’s conclusion, there is a nice section that discusses Kant’s influence on other philosophers, including: Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, Lyotard, and Derrida. When I say “influence” I’m not just talking about those who paid homage to Kant, but also those who critiqued his work and advanced the discipline by way of critiquing Kant.
As the subtitle suggests, graphics are used throughout. The graphics are black-and-white and are a mix of diagrams and cartoon drawings. I thought the drawings were well-rendered, but weren’t necessarily arranged to gain the most explanatory power. As with other books in the series, many of these are cartoons that merely restate ideas from the text. Other graphics are diagrams that arrange ideas in a way that I’m sure made sense to whomever was putting them together, but whose immediate explanatory value (if any) was not always readily apparent to me. I have no way of knowing whether this was purely the illustrator, or (more likely) a collaboration between author, illustrator, and editor.
This is an okay overview of the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. I’d describe it as accurate but not as clear or interesting as I’d wish it to be. I will admit that if it hadn’t been available without extra cost via Amazon Prime, I probably would have obtained a different guide. There is loads of competition in this concise guide market (e.g. “Kant: A Very Short Introduction” by Oxford University Press.) You might benefit from shopping around a bit.
