Zines and Blogs

The Dagger started as a zine, a little self-published, low cost publication that would come out irregularly in editions of 500 to 1000, and be sent off to a mailing list and given to friends and acquaintances. It featured work by regular contributors and new writers as well. There were nine editions in the mid-90s, and then it morphed into its web-only form, thedagger.com.

Now we are hearing a lot about blogs, and it seems to me that blogs and zines are similar in that they take advantage of communications technology to enable freelance and independent journalism.

The term "blog" comes from "web log," and it refers to a log or journal maintained on the web. It may be interesting; it may be narcissistic. You can judge. If this interests you, welcome. In the meantime, it allows me to archive my most interesting pictures.

"And this was really the way that my whole road experience began, and the things that were to come are too fantastic not to tell."

Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Filters and Frames

"Ordinary language fixes the difference between handmade images like Goya's and photographs by the convention that artists 'make' drawings and paintings while photographers 'take' photographs. But the photographic image...cannot be simply a transparency of something that happened. It is always the image that someone chose; to photograph is to frame, and to frame is to exclude."

— Susan Sontag
Regarding the Pain of Others

December 2005 - Baltimore

Shot Tower, Ft. McHenry, Fells Point, Maryland Museum of African American Culture and History

Visit from Xochi, trip to Mojave Desert

Ranch House Inn, dressed up date trees, Joshua trees, Kelso Station.

December 2005 - Los Angeles

The Pines, driving north on I-5, Santa Rosa

November 2005 - Los Angeles

Not a Cornfield, Orcas at Manhattan Beach, Compton Creek bike trail

October 2005 - Salem, OR

Baskett Slough, ocean beach, Silver Falls, Haloween, the Four Freedoms

October 2005 - Calhan, CO

Rancho Cabron, Paint Mines, Garden of the Gods, rope making

August - September 2005 - Santa Rosa

Also, Shawn's concerts

August 2005 - Lake Tahoe

Also Nevada State Capital (Carson City), The Old Prospector

July 2005 - Visit from Anna

Anna, Manhattan Beach, angels of Carson

June 2005 - Visit from Xochi

Long Beach, Echo Park,
Xochi's cat portraits, California geography

June 2005 - Farmer John

Farmer John packing plant, Coyote Canyon Regional Park, folksinger Adam Miller, Manhattan Beach, Whitey Ford, LA and environs

May 2005 - Seattle

Space Needle, Seattle Labor Chorus at the Folkways Festival, Anna and her folks. Weapons of mass destruction.

May 2005 - LA and environs

Kayaking in Marina del Rey, garden, cats

Apr 2005 - El Cerritos, Ennis-Brown House

El Cerritos (near Berkeley), Los Feliz, Ennis-Brown House, my yard

Mar 2005 - LA and environs

Downtown LA, Manhattan Beach.

 

Mar 2005 - Central California

Wildflowers. Birds at the Carmel River Mouth. Chumash cave paintings. Carrizo Plain National Monument.

Feb 2005 - Chicago

Visit with anarchists at Emma Goldman's grave, Chinatown, Museum of Contemporary Art, Millennium Park.

Feb 2005 - New York

Christo's Gates, Staten Island Ferry, the Eighth Wonder of the world.

Essay: On Susan Sontag On Photography.

Feb 08, 2005

Silverlake: TVs. "Ask Why."
Yachting with Clifford.
Manhattan Beach with Herschel.

Jan 18-23, 2005

Seattle. Anna-baby, Children''s Museum, Japanese Garden.

Photos and text by Peter Rashkin