“I will not vote one penny for that war”
Yesterday I was speaking with Congressman John Lewis of Georgia by phone, mostly personal talk. Then I said; “How do you feel about what we are doing in Afghanistan?” And my old friend answered, “I will not vote one penny for that war”. How many other members of congress are non-violent? Why doesn’t the media … Continue reading
From New Mexico — Cambio means Change
Cambio means change — nickels and dimes for dollars, or centavos for pesos. Change happens slowly. Change is hard to see. Young people make change, but old people recognize it first. That is because old people remember the past. The way to change Amerika is to change the Media. Today on the radio here in … Continue reading
The Digital Dark Age
Trying to read Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel’s new Booker Prize winning novel I noticed the text was not centered on the page. On every page, there was at least an eighth of an inch of white space on the right side of the page, above the text, than there was on the left. In other … Continue reading
Google and the Narrowing of Knowledge
I am reading The Wilderness Warrior, Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America by Douglas Brinkley, a real page turner if you like to spend time in the American wilderness. You almost wish Teddy was president today. He’d take care of Global Warming. Probably shoot a couple people driving Hummers, and demolish a coal burning … Continue reading
“America the beautiful”
The best way to learn anything about America is to talk to someone else. Having breakfast in a diner in Greenport, Long Island, I talked to the cook. After making the eggs, he was outside to wash the windows. The young Latino’s teeth were spaced and crooked, his right arm covered with some fine Aztec … Continue reading
Google vs The Bikeriders
The Bikeriders 1968, The Destruction of Lower Manhattan 1969, and Conversations with the Dead 1971, were all out of print within two years of their publications. They had all been remaindered by their publishers and would remain out of print for at least twenty years each. “Conversations” is still out of print. Under Google’s new … Continue reading
Walter Cronkite RIP
Recently there was a ceremony to honor Walter Cronkite, who has passed away. “Everyone” was there, including our President Obama. Obama? What was he doing there? Walter is held up as an example for all journalists. I must have missed something. By the nineteen seventies, as I tried to understand what was happening to our … Continue reading
Memories of Myself, Photo Essays by Danny Lyon
http://www.amazon.com/Danny-Lyon-Memories-Myself/dp/0714848514
Memories of Myself, the Photo Essays of Danny Lyon. This new book from Phaidon, is ready after two years of work. Copies will reach Amerika in April, 2009.
Photojournalism from 1964 through 2002.
From “The Fisherman”, an unpublished excerpt
He sat in a Virginia jail cell, blood running down his head. Christ his head hurt. Was it the stitches? Or the fact that he had been knocked unconscious by long wooden baton. That morning they had walked the bridge that crossed the Potomac. He and Mark and Rachel, Mark holding the B&W home made … Continue reading
President Obama — SNCC’s Victory
Victory, after forty six years. This happened last night. This is for the children. It is for the grand children. This is the victory of the Movement. This is the victory of SNCC. What were they fighting for? Not just integration. Not even justice and the right to vote. They did not use the word … Continue reading
Grace Under Fire Part One — Zoriah at War
Zoriah war photographer Zoriah Miller, age 32, has done what few Americans ever do. He has put his principles before his future ability to earn a living. He was “dis-embedded” with the Marines in Iraq because he first refused to give up the pictures he made of dead US Marines, and then refused to remove … Continue reading
“Freedom is what I’m doin’ right now. ”
““Freedom is what I’m doin’ right now. Sittin’ down and talkin’ to you,” says Jesse Ruiz, one subject of MURDERERS, a man who had just spent eight and a half years in penitentiary for beating another man to death in Alphabet City with a Louisville Slugger. “Outside prison; this is freedom.” Freedom has perhaps never … Continue reading
Time will Tell, Part Two
Atlanta is an historic town. Sherman burned it before he began his march to the sea. Gardner photographed the ruins, still smoking. In New York the General’s gilded statue sits astride his gilded horse on 58th street at Central Park. Today, as you enter the city at the Atlanta airport, there are large photographs on … Continue reading
Time will Tell, Part One
“There is a new world being formed, we just don’t know what it is yet.” Vaclav Havel published this idea quite a few years ago. Can we see it now? Is it here? Do blogs replace literature? Would a young Faulkner write a zine? Will there and should there ever be another Faulkner like presence … Continue reading
Where goes the Empire now?
Its interesting to speculate about what the Empire will look like under President Obama. Last year talking with a friend, a former Attorney General of the State of New Mexico, we described Amerika as a great ocean liner, going through the ocean. “And its going over the edge of the earth, right?” I said as … Continue reading
Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the Land of the Free
In the May 29th, New York Review of Books, there is a long piece based on a book by Anthony Lewis “Americans are freer to think what we will and say what we think than another other people.” Perhaps, but as Rousseau would know, we are not free. (I am reading Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Restless … Continue reading
Its good to be alive in Obama time
This is a wonderful moment to be alive in Amerika. I say this after sixty years or so of watching elections. I recall going to sleep in 1948 after repeating ad nauseum “Doodie on Dewey”, only see my youthful dreams (I was six) come true! Harry Truman was elected President. It was only later in … Continue reading
Danny Lyon is a photo-journalist, writer and filmmaker. His website is bleakbeauty.com Among his many books are The Bikeriders, Conversations with the Dead, and Knave of Hearts. His latest non-fiction book is Like A Thief’s Dream, PowerHouse Books. Daniel Joseph Lyon was born in Brooklyn , New York on March 16, 1942. Roosevelt was President. … Continue reading
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