(Roughly) Daily

3.28 Renminbi (about 49 cents)-- the per capita poverty line in China-- in peanuts

Beijing-based photographer Stefen Chow has produced an arresting series of photos illustrating the tangible reality of poverty:

This body of work explores a simple question. What is the poverty line in a country?

We decided to generally calculate a per-person, per-day rate of a national poverty line, and to create a visual portrayal of items found in that country that could be bought by a person living at the poverty line.

 This is not an emotional analysis of what it means to be poor. It is an examination of the choices one would face being poor. This is an ongoing project, with the first series understanding China, Japan, Nepal and Thailand. We have since expanded this project and have gone to five continents. We are not trying to compare different countries’ poverty, but rather to have a starting point to understand poverty within a country’s context.

Everything else is left up to interpretation.

… though the viewer notes that the local newspapers that provide the background for each shot (and their enticing advertisements) offer an ironic counterpoint to the sparse reality of life on the poverty line.

See samples of the collection here. And then check out  Jonathan Blaustein’s similar project, Value of a Dollar.

[TotH to GOOD]

As we count our pennies blessings, we might recall that it was on this date in 1972 that Richard M. Nixon arrived in China to begin the historic 8-day visit that ended 25 years of separation between the two countries; it was the first time a U.S. president had visited the PRC.

 Mao Zedong and Nixon (source)

Readers may well have seen this photo, which has been making its way across the web:

If the irony seems too perfect, it’s because it is… It is a crop of this photo:

… one of Steve Ullathorne‘s “Restyles of the Dead and Famous,” a collection of subtly– and pointedly– altered photos.

So, if the image isn’t, after all, an “actual” evocation of Orwell’s Oceania, it is a pretty powerful portrait of “Big Brother”…

Still, it may be that Orwell’s worries, while all-too-prescient, were less valent than Huxley’s– that our challenge isn’t so much the fear-infected world of 1984 as it is the soma-laced, desire-driven future of Brave New World:

Orwell was almost exactly wrong in a strange way. He thought the world would end with Big Brother watching us, but it ended with us watching Big Brother.

- Alan Moore

As we practice our newspeak, we might recall that it was on this date in 1943 that the “White Rose,” a student protest group, painted ”Freedom” and “Down with Hitler” on the walls of the University of Munich. The leaders of the group were arrested two days later, and beheaded on February 22.

 Hans Scholl, his sister Sophie Scholl, and Christoph Probst- leaders of the White Rose (source)

A portrait series by by Tim Mantoani features now-famous photographers holding the iconic photos that made them famous: “Behind Photographs.”  See the behind-the-scenes video; page through the series in a photo book.

[TotH to Laughing Squid]

As we frame our thoughts, we might recall the cautionary tale of Ruth Pierce (of whom there is no photo):

On Thursday the 25th of January 1753, Ruth Pierce of Potterne in this County, agreed with three other women to buy a sack of wheat in the market, each paying her due proportion towards the same. One of these women, in collecting the several quotas of money, discovered a deficiency, and demanded of Ruth Pierce the sum which was wanting to make good the amount. Ruth Pierce protested that she had paid her share, and said, “She wished she might drop down dead if she had not.” She rashly repeated this awful wish; when to the consternation and terror of the surrounding multitude, she instantly fell down and expired, having the money concealed in her hand.

- Inscribed on the Market Cross in Devizes (England), the site of a grain exchange in Ruth’s time

The Market Cross in Devizes (source)

A city is the pulsating product of the human hand and mind, reflecting man’s history, his struggle for freedom, creativity, genius-and his selfishness and errors.
- Charles Abrams

Beijing-based photographer Jasper James travelled Asia to create his series “City Silhouettes,” an entrancing examination of urbanization (literally) through the eyes of the individual…

[TotH to Feature Shoot]

As we re-read Jane Jacobs, we might recall that it was on this date in 1899 that the rubber heel was patented by Humphrey O’Sullivan.  O’Sullivan, a printer, began by nailing a piece of rubber floor mat to his own shoes; after developing the product and patenting it, he launched a company to market his podiatric progress– in a way aimed at pedestrians pounding the pavement in America’s growing cities.

source

Magnum photographer Martin Parr takes and collects photos of Boring…

BORING, Ore.—2000

..and photos that are boring…

A postcard from Martin Parr’s Collection: "Traveling on Beautiful Interstate 35," 2000

…and photos of the bored…

KOTKA, Finland—From the series "Bored Couples," 1991

See them all at Slate’s “Boring!” (photos, © Martin Parr / Magnum Photos)

As we meditate on the mundane, we might console ourselves that it was on this date in 1955– five months before Elvis Presley’s first appearance– that Ellas Otha Bates, better known as Bo Diddley, made his television debut on The Ed Sullivan Show… and introduced the mainstream American audience to the 4/4 wonder we would come to know as Rock and Roll.  He performed his signature tune, “Bo Diddley”– which prefigured such classics as Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” and the Stangeloves’ “I Want Candy,” among countless others. In the kinescope of the show (below), the studio audience can be heard clapping heartily along.

Diddley later recalled that Ed Sullivan had expected him to perform only a cover version of “Tennessee” Ernie Ford’s “Sixteen Tons” and was furious with him for opening with “Bo Diddley”– so furious that Sullivan banned him from future appearances on his show.  But the damage was done:  as George Thorogood told Rolling Stone: “[Chuck Berry's] ‘Maybellene’ is a country song sped up… ‘Johnny B. Goode’ is blues sped up.  But you listen to ‘Bo Diddley,’ and you say, ‘What in the Jesus is that?’”