“Tell me what a police state looks like!” “This is what a police state looks like!”
Sky Blue live streams OLA “Tell me what a police state looks like!” “This is what a police state looks like!” This journalist has spent many moments of his life crossing the line of the law…. I have been either detained or arrested for entering the United States with marijuana, speeding twice at 100 mph … Continue reading
Occupy LA, Ola!
The last two weeks have seen a successful coordinated national suppression of the Occupy camps using massive police force, with help from helicopters, firemen and Homeland Security. The powers at be, have shredded the first amendment of the Bill of Rights, which for those of us that do not remember it, states the government cannot … Continue reading
Occupy Journalism
1) Hold your ground. You are the press and the frontline of truth. 2) Refuse to join and oppose the formation of pools. Pools are being used to control the truth at its source, which is the most effective means of censorship. You are the journalist. You have a right and it is your duty … Continue reading
@bleakbeautyblog is live on Twitter
seeking links to Occupy LA et al
Occupy Thanksgiving 2011
In fifty years of traveling, of talking with, of photographing people I have often wondered “Is America a Country?” The disparity of culture, of wealth, of a people often at odds with each other makes me wonder what is it that unites us, if anything?
Our history is divided between the 16th … Read more
Occupy
The credo of bleakbeauty.com, which was created twelve years ago, includes the words “Is this what we have done with our freedom? Our greatest surviving value is greed”. On July 24 this blog praised NYC as “the finest definition of our Democracy.” One month later, in NYC Occupy Wall Street created a living heart in … Read more
“Blood in the Streets” – Live Audio
“Blood in the Streets” As Danny Lyon made a brief speech upon receiving the Missouri Honor Medal in Journalism, an award also given that night to David Fanning of Frontline, and previously to Winston Churchill, Walter Cronkite and Christine Amanpour, Lyon paused and drifted from his prepared text called “What is the Truth?” “I just … Continue reading
Definitions of Democracy Part One
Greetings from New York If our civilization should come to and end, and it may, and in the future another intelligent life form would look back at the history of human accomplishments, than New York City, as it exists right now at this moment, would stand as the finest definition of our Democracy. In a … Continue reading
What is Journalism?
It has been announced that the writer of bleak beauty has received the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism. Previous recipients include Christiane Amanapour, Tom Brokaw, Walter Chronkite and Winston Churchill. When the award prompted thoughts of making a speech entitled “What is Journalism?” the recipient was told he had only two or … Continue reading
New Mexico is burning
Albuquerque, 5,000 feet high, settled by the Spanish five hundred years ago. All around this valley, a mile of green clinging to the edge of the trickle they call the Rio Grande, fires have been raging, and on many evenings the smoke blows across the desert and settles down here in the valley. The six … Continue reading
The End of the Age of Photography (Pt. III)
The Girl with the Rolleiflex meets the Homeless Man. A young woman was walking down a wide Chicago street looking for something to photograph, hanging at her side, held in her fist, was a Rolleiflex with a 2.8, 80mm lens. She held it this way, partly to hide it and partly to have it ready … Continue reading
The End of the Age of Photography (Pt. II)
The Digi and The End of the World as We Have Known and Loved it. These Digis are very attractive little buggers. The cameras have made “photography” as ubiquitous as mosquitoes, they are everywhere. It’s hard to believe they are part of the collapse of our civilization. I was just riding the PATH from Jersey … Continue reading
The End of the Age of Photography (Pt. I)
The End of the Age of Photography (Part One) Many years ago I was being driven along central park west in a NYC Taxi and talking with Robert Frank whom I sat beside. When I spoke of using words with photography, texts, as part of what were then called “photography books”, Robert said, “well, then … Continue reading
SNCC 50th Anniversary, Raleigh, NC
My name is Danny Lyon. In the summer of 1962 I hitch hiked to Cairo Illinois where I met John Lewis, and saw and photographed my first demonstrations. Within days I reached Albany, Georgia where I met James Forman. When Forman understood that I had come from Chicago to photograph the Movement, he sent me … Continue reading
Report from Bernalillo, New Mexico, August, 2001
Detail of mural on the Lady of Sorrows Gymnasium, Bernalillo By Danny Lyon Willie Jaramillo lies buried in the Lady of Sorrows cemetery. The graveyard is nestled in the corner of the exit ramp of Interstate 25 and the Cuba exit West. Johnnie Sanchez lies here too — Johnnie who spoke so eloquently about Willie … Continue reading
Danny Lyon – Like A Thief’s Dream, signed copies for sale
“I do not know of a book that cuts into and reveals the prison system and the subtle strange fates and characters of the guys. Not Mailer or Capote. Like your pictures you have a way of just letting the reality do the talking eloquently. “ Peter di Lissovoy “Like a Thief’s Dream” The amazing … Continue reading
“The Innocent Man”
This letter was written to Dinker (Harold Davey Cassell#73885) by Helen Vanlandingham. The story of McLaughlin and Jimmy Renton’s murder of an Arkansas policeman is told in “Like a Thief’s Dream”.Copies are available direclty from bleakbeauty.com. Dinker has just filed his last appeal. Helen is Don McLaughlin’s sister. Dinker has been in prison for thirty … Continue reading
Proud Daddy
My daughter, Gabrielle Lyon is Executive Director of Project Exploration which is located in Chicago. She created the organization along with her husband Dr. Paul Sereno in order to radically change how science is taught to young people. Much of Project X’s work involves working with inner city children, some of whom they take to … Continue reading
Bleak Beauty Blog 