This is a sketchbook study of Ben Shahn's "Trouble" (1947)

Crime Rates

Can crime be beautiful? Yes, if it is stylishly rendered in fiery reds and anxious yellows. (and as long as i'm not the victim)

the Dali Lama realized the beauty of destruction. Artist Losang Samten(former personal assistant to the Dali Lama) dismantled his sand mandala and poured the remains in Colby's Johnson Pond, an action in keeping with the principle of impermanence.


What about those Memphis Crime stats? Well, back in the middle of July memphis hit 100 homicides for the year! C'mon ya'll let's go for a walk in Frayser at night!

"It used to be that I couldn't even walk out of my door," says Mary Bratton, referring to the environment of her Frayser neighborhood. She has been broken into twice. As a young woman she was raped twice, once with a gun to her head. She says for years she was never the same, "I was afraid. ... He messed up my mind."
Remembering my near-death experience in Frayser = I was at my first job in Memphis over at the mega-office store - my hour lunch break came and I jumped in the car to "ride around" - Ignorantly, I drove north into a group of 15+ hardcore gangstaz with shiny guns and color coordinating outfits. Several of the young men were beating a man to death in the street. I drove up in my bone white 93 honda civic, squinting my stigmatic bad eyes, then sweatily dropping my jaw, as my life flashed before my eyes. "Liks like wee gat urs a hotboy hur" - a gun resting on my left temple as they threw the one guy up against the front left tire of the car. I stepped all the way on the gas and pulled the wheel to the right.
i decided it didnt matter to hit someone. I escaped unscathed, crying all the way back to work. I couldn't even eat my apple.

The extra laws that oppressed my childhood Mississippi.