Sticks and Stones

He Said:

She has the face of an angel, and when she gets mad I need to leave the room. Her anger scares me. She says things that are mocking and cruel and make me want to gag her, strangle her just to shut her up. I don't know this person dripping venom, I don't want to know her, and I don't want to be the guy who inspires that. I can feel it coming. The change in the air when I've done or said something "stupid". The hostile tone. The disapproving stony stare. The ice cold greeting and the passive aggressive f@*# you kiss hello. The hairs on my skin rise, my neck tenses and before I know it, I grab my coat and I'm out of the door. I don't like her when she's angry. I don't recognize her face.

She Said:

My arm. He said, ‘it tastes like a peach’. Then he kissed it before sinking his teeth in. Playfully. He ran his hand though my sandy hair, wrapping strands of blonde around his tanned thumb. I looked up from the dirty sawdust floor. A towel hung on the rail. A ribbon around my neck came undone. He said, ‘marry me’. I laughed. Then he hummed. If you leave me now, you’ll take away the biggest part of me. And wrote imaginary words along the width of my back. I said, ‘I love you’, and meant it. Until the words died. Until I didn’t mean it anymore. Until the boredom set in. Until I changed my mind.

Judgement

Brassai's "Rue Quincampoix"

I suppose if you ask anyone how they got to where they are in their life, they can’t give a clear answer. Maybe the actor got a lucky break, the lawyer won a major case and the housewife simply got married. But for most of us, it’s all a bit murky. So if you ask me how it is that I am stood on this cold dark Parisian allée at one in the morning, I can tell you that I am here because of my work. But why, why I am here right now - I cannot answer.

I lead a lonely existence. Maybe it’s difficult to understand – I spend so much of my time with people. Yet these are no friends. Logistically, it is an arduous task to maintain friends and nigh on impossible to have a relationship. My work means I am awake for much of the night, thus I sleep throughout the day. And I hardly have a respectable, steady job.

My friends are the ladies and gentlemen of the underworld. Opium-smoking artists and writers, voluptuous whores, smooth-talking gang members. I’m not even sure I want to be a part of the “real world”. I would dread to pay taxes and hold polite conversation about politics and society. Though I do care about what you think of me. What do you think? That I am nugatory? Have you judged me already? You must be a little intrigued, a little bit interested in my world? For this subculture fascinates me – everyone is interesting. Everyone I meet has a story to tell.

I have my story to tell. Of how I meet women on dark corners in Parisian passages, how I enter brothels and know almost every Madame in Montmartre. But I am a photographer – and my photographs tell this story far better than I ever could with words.

"Flâneuse"

Tyger

Tyger by Guilherme Marcondes

This is a timeless mix media work by an amazing Brazilian filmmaker featuring the Japanese art of Bunraku puppetry blended with photographic images, CGI, and 2D flat art; it is his interpretation of William Blake’s poem “The Tiger”.

We are delusional in believing in our superiority in this plane. Stripped down to our primal selves, we are just another serving in the vast food chain of existence.

In portraying the ultimate power of this film “the Tiger” as another course to this universal meal, manipulated and controlled by something greater, feels hauntingly beautiful.

It humbles me to know I am part of something greater. Whether your outlook on this is religious, scientific, or whatever, we can't deny that in the big picture we are significantly, insignificant.

So to those egocentric, self-indulgent, vain-wastes-of-oxygen out there, all I have to say is:

You’ve been served.

"The Not-So-Silent Observer"

Another addition to the family

It is our deepest pleasure to introduce, the newest addition to the ARTSHARKS blogging family "The Not-So-Silent Observer":

Growing up in a world filled with fairytales and dragons and where Tinkerbell was her best friend, she used to look at the world from behind a looking glass.

After years of silent observation, she feel its time to say what she thinks about everything she sees.

Its time to end the silence.