ku # 567/68 ~ you got eyes

Lichen • click to embiggenIf I were the king of photo education curricula for the entire world, every student and teacher would have to write a 1000 word essay - the former as their entrance exam, the latter as their job application - on this little bit of wisdom:

Anybody doesn’t like these pitchers don’t like poetry, see? Anybody don’t like poetry go home see television shots of big hatted cowboys being tolerated by kind horses. Robert Frank, Swiss, unobtrusive, nice, with that little camera that he raises and snaps with one hand he sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film, taking rank among the poets of the world. To Robert Frank I now give this message: You got eyes. - Jack Kerouac

Everything, good and bad, there is to know about the medium is contained in that short and sweet missive.

ku # 565/66 ~ singing in the rain

Grass tuffs in Spring rain • click to embiggenThere were several comments on yesterday's entry about my neighbor's $50K house which was in the picture. Mike even wanted to know if it was insulated - it is.

While I don't think that Mike is interested in buying the house - it's not for sale, I do think he was a bit surprised at the $50K price tag that it sold for about a year ago. The common (mis)perception is that a house of that size and apparent condition should command a much higher figure unless it is a "basket case". The house in question was not a basket case. In truth, it was not pristine either. But the family that purchased it moved right in and there has been a rather constant clamor of saw, hammer, and nails ever since.

That said, a pristine piece of real estate in our little village is most likely to be priced in the $90-120K range. Prices here have remained stable - we did not experience a bubble so there has not been a crash. La, la, how the life goes on.

But, while we're on the subject of houses and cars and just "letting the market work", photographer Kevin Bauman gives us a very disheartening look at the reality of the excesses and failures of the free market run amok in Detroit, Michigan.

I am deeply ashamed of and very angry at the country I live in which fosters the "market forces" that allow this to happen - in fact, that both encourages and worships it.