Happy New Year from the staff of Scholars & Rogues.

We have some out of control Christmas light freaks in my general neighborhood – I suspect the same is true for you, as well. A few days ago we heard about an absolutely epic display, although the description didn’t come with actual directions. “Somewhere off of 136th near the big water towers.” Given the sheer number of streets, subdivisions and rampant cul-de-saccery within a mile of those towers, well, directions would have helped.

But we drove around for awhile and eventually came upon a minor traffic jam clotting a cul. A retirement home bus was trying to escape without driving down a legion of pedestrians. “This must be it,” we concluded.

And so we found ourselves in front of the home at 13941 Tincup Circle. I apologize in advance – all I had was my Blackberry (good biz phone, underwhelming camera) – and even if I’d had the greatest camera ever made I couldn’t have done justice to the excruciating detail of this spectacle. If you search your Google on that address you’ll probably find better than this. But hey, I’ll post what I have. Enjoy.

I wish I could have gotten some better shots through the window, because the inside of the house is probably more elaborately decked than the outside.

As we were leaving a stretch Hummer limo was trying to maneuver in, so please understand that, my lame photos aside, this is a destination event around here.

Daylight and streetlight
do a slow crossfade
as the clock tower
counts to six.
December raindrops grow sluggish
at 33 Fahrenheit,
like eyelids thinking
of long, cold sleep.

Their frozen dreams must be like prayer,
the faith in a sunburst eternal morning
and the silvergreen ricochet
from one crystal minaret
to another,
purple, gold,
and the trumpetfall of water
on water;

or maybe,
in that last degree before dark,
they sing the litany of falling,
of rising to fall again,

a hymn in the throats of the celebrants,
a benediction like the sea…

For our readers everywhere, we at Scholars & Rogues wish you a Happy Solstice.

Happy holidays!

It has been my honor to host these weekly Wednesday gatherings for nearly a year.

I arrived at S&R with a simple goal – I just wanted you to look. You all rose to the task every week with imagination, curiosity and humor.

You made my job easy.

These weekly photos explored the daily objects in my world. I revolve in a very small piece of this amazing planet and there is so much more to explore. After considerable thought I have decided to step aside in hopes that someone else may take up this banner. Art evolves because of the artist and I really want you to keep looking!

Thank you for sharing your Wednesdays with me. So rather than say farewell – I’ll just catch you all somewhere down the road… Dawn

Cass of the Dead

Dan of the Dead

Crystal as “Heaven”

Tilt-shifted Raver Yeti

Eddie Van Gogh

El Noro

Mar as Jesus on a Dinosaur (reference link)

Matt of the Dead

Tonight, tomorrow you will see people dressed up in their Halloween finest.  For your viewing pleasure I present others who are dressed up in their, well, regular party clothes.  But it might as well be for Halloween, right?

The following content is NSFP/W (what does NSFP mean?).  Click below for more….

Eden Muse in rainbow fashions!

Allen Faulkner.  And yes, those are hooks holding that metal contraption in place.

Ms. Easy sparks it up!

Quill the Clown as a barcode

This is my back deck. The actual measurement is 20 inches.

Some of the trees are having a hard time coping.

And our maple hadn’t gotten around to losing its leaves yet. It will probably lose some branches instead.

Another tree has lost its leaves and the snow on the branches is simply stunning.

Make a little birdhouse in your soul:

Even the trucks were having a tough time:

But the real trouble was that my minivan was parked in the driveway. It’s tall. I’m short. It was not fun to clear off.

Here is my next entry in the “Phone Artwork” series.  Again, the theme here is that everything from start to finish (including taking the original picture) was done on a mobile device.  And by mobile device I mean the device you use, amongst other things,  as a telephone.

The other day our friend MentalSwitch offered up a delightful little post entitled “Hello Nurse!” It featured a photo of an attractive model dressed as … well, hell, rather than me trying to describe the shot and failing miserably, why don’t you just click on over there and see for yourself. But before you do, please be forewarned that the photo is NOT SAFE FOR WORK!!!!

Ahem. Well, actually, its worksafeness (or unworksafeness thereof) became the topic of some discussion here. Initially the pic was posted without a cut, meaning that the image itself would appear on the front page of S&R. Later, after some complaint and brief deliberations, we moved it behind a cut with the dreaded “NSFW” tag, indicating that the content would most certainly get you fired if it were accidentally viewed by any decent, God-Fearing American^® co-worker. And since way too many of our readers work in places where others might be looking over their shoulders, this was a practical concern. As one colleague put it – and we’ll let that colleague name himself if he wants to – “if the wrong person had walked behind me with that image up on my screen, I could have been walked out the door that day, no appeal.”

Such is the reality for millions and millions and millions of people living here in the Land of the Free^®, the Home of the Brave^® and the Birthplace of the Religious Freedom^®.

As badly as it griped me to see such a fine, artistic photo hidden behind a cut like some tawdry porno you’d pay a Times Square carney a dollar to see (price adjusted for inflation), I also had no interest in seeing any of our intelligent, hard-working readers escorted out of their places of employment at gunpoint.

However, my colleague Dr. Slammy suggested that the all-too-standard NSFW tag – the Modern American Internet’s version of the Scarlet Letter – was a lingering stain on the credibility of the artist, and in due course I (apparently being ill of will and sharp of tongue) was enlisted to pen what you may take as an official Scholars & Rogues policy position.

Briefly stated, when you put an artist behind the Scarlet NSFW, you convey a general social verdict that shame should be attached to the work. It is not fit for general viewing; it is likely to be deemed offensive to some people; and those who choose to click the link, well, that’s between them and Jesus.

It does not matter whether such a judgment is reasonable. For instance, in the case of “Hello Nurse,” what really is there to be scadalized by? Let’s take a close look:

What is the supposed objection? The subject is of consenting age. No aberrant sexual acts are depicted. Hell, she’s not even partially naked. No vajayjay showing. No boobies. She’s not fondling herself (at the moment, anyway). There is an aspect of the erotic in her pose, of course, but let’s be clear here: whatever obscenity might arise from the communication of this image lies entirely within the mind of the viewer.

Goddammit, people, you can see more NSFWing imagery any goddamned night of the week on any goddamned channel on television during goddamned prime time. If this is NSFW, then the publishers of every fashion magazine available in America need to be hung in the public square right fucking now!!!

Oh, I’m sorry – is my invective NSFW?

It is true, as another of my unnamed colleagues pointed out, that good art seeks to provoke. MentalSwitch isn’t an especially in-your-face artist, but it is also true that his work routinely challenges convention in ways that are guaranteed to provoke, and it’s not hard to conclude who the targets of his critiques are. As he explains in the notes accompanying a portrait of “Lizzy”:

If all Christians were like this guy then the world would be a better place. On the other hand, if all Christians were like this guy we wouldn’t even recognize Christianity anymore….

Well played, that.

Welcome to 17th Century Salem, folks. Welcome to neo-Puritan America, a land where dismemberments and flying body parts and mushroom clouds and elected officials intentionally and strategically lying to their constituents are cool but a woman wearing four times more clothing than every teenaged girl around every swimming pool in the United States is NSFW. Because she looks suspiciously like she might enjoy sex in a non-missionary position. And sex is not to be imagined. Pictures that might make us think of sex are not to be condoned.

In neo-Puritan America, millions of people wake up every morning praying that the Lord will afford them an opportunity during the day to be offended. Hypocritical offense is next to godliness and the Constitution apparently has a clause about the right not to be exposed to anything you don’t like. Lawyers will be summoned. Human Resources policies will be invoked. Sinners will be terminated. And Hester Prynne will have a red NSFW branded on her twitchy, hellbound little ass, BY GOD!

In case the theme of my rant hasn’t yet made itself apparent, the Scarlet NSFW brands the wrong person. Those whose visions challenge are to be positioned behind the screen of shame, while those who are afraid of ideas have their narrow prejudices reinforced by official policies and unspoken self-righteous bullying.

We will know America has finally attained a measure of enlightenment when the reverse of those statements is true.

In the meantime, I mentioned something about a policy, so here it is. Since, as I noted above, we have no interest in damaging the careers of our readers, and since we’re smart enough to know the reality of many workplaces, we’ll be placing things that we believe might offend the average granny-panty neo-Puritan behind a cut. But when we do, understand that it is not the artist whom we are indicting. It’s the Scarlet Letter crowd.

In addition, don’t be surprised to see NSFW replaced by NSFP – Not Safe For Puritans. (My original idea, Not Safe For Repressive Puritan Asshat Jesus Nazis, was deemed a bit unwieldy.)

At Scholars & Rogues, we don’t shrink from challenges. We’re not kept up at night by the unconventional. And we are absolutely, positively not afraid of ideas.

And we will not quietly pander to those who are.

ArtsWeek continues.  Halloween is in the air. So is health care reform. Maybe you can imagine this dedicated health care professional extracting the deductible from your wallet with a hemostat!

[Semi-NSFW]

• mentalswitch.com
• About mentalswitch

The Scurlock Studio and Black Washington: Picturing the Promise a photo exhibition currently at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture Gallery. The exhibition runs through November 2009.

In our time they are a brand: three artistic African Americans from one family, who captured Washington, the District, this community of freedmen. Their images spoke clearly: here are our efforts, our military men, our debutantes, our ministers, our friends, our tuxedos, our cotillions, our geniuses, our great minds, our children. Our lights, our cameras, our work. – A.J. Verdelle

Verdelle is speaking about Addison Scurlock and his two sons George and Robert Scurlock of Washington, D.C. Addison Scurlock’s photography has been called the visual record of W.E.B.Du Bois’ strategy to uplift Black America by the “Talented Tenth.” Du Bois’ vision included an active and successful middle class whose behaviors and practices effectively countered prevailing racial stereotypes about African Americans. The images created in the Scurlock Studios inspired optimism in the African American community of Washington. The images were more than a response to racial stereotypes but a testament to the dreams and hopes of those pictured. These portraits were about how the person wished to be known and remembered.

There was a special “Scurlock look” – dignified, mature and sophisticated. Addison understood how to light the beautiful variety of African American skin tones. The son George Scurlock attributed the Scurlock style to three qualities – posing, lighting, and retouching – with the final image being fine-tuned on the negative itself. The Scurlocks used a large-format five-by-seven inch view camera with five-by-seven film backs. This yielded large enough negatives to permit retouching.

For nearly ninety years Howard University retained the Scurlock Studios as its official photographer. The resulting body of work presents Howard University as a vibrant institution of diversity and intellectual vigor. Those many decades saw visiting dignitaries such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Marion Anderson, the Roosevelts and the Kennedys, Mary McLeod Bethune and Jackie Robinson. Their work not only graced the University but the press as well.

In 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Washington erupted in waves of violence and riots. In response George Scurlock took his camera outside their U Street studio and recorded the neighborhood reaction. His images capture the National Guardsman with rifles and firefighters battling a blaze a few doors down from the studio. One of the images remaining from that period was a sign the Scurlocks displayed in their exterior display case that said “Soul Brothers All the Way.”

Addison retired in 1963 and sold the business to his two sons. He died the following year at the age of eighty-one. His work became known outside the African American community only after his death. Towards the end of Robert Scurlock’s life the vast collection of Scurlock Studio work was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution. The collection includes more than 250,000 negatives and 10,000 photographic prints along with cameras, studio and darkroom equipment, nearly a century of business records. Much of the collection has been digitized and is available to research on-line.

Here are a few of my favorites from this gorgeous collection.

Addison and Mamie Scurlock 1910-20

Charles Tignor Duncan 1930 – as an adult he went on to work on the landmark Brown vs Board of Education, first general counsel of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Dean of Howard University School of Law and advisor to Walter Washington during his tenure as mayor of the District of Columbia.

Lt. Alma Jackson 1945

Flappers at Griffith Stadium 1928/29

Howard University Baseball

The curator of the collection adds his thoughts here.

by Kelly Bearden

Eastern State Penitentiary was built in the early 1800s in Philadelphia on a Quaker ideal of actual penitence – the prisoners were in solitary confinement for the duration of their sentences, not allowed to read anything other than the bible (not even letters), or speak or make a sound at all.  Originally built about a mile from the original center of Philadelphia, the prison walls were soon surrounded by a thriving neighborhood.  The last prisoner was moved out and the doors were finally shut for good in 1972, leaving the huge structure to fall into ruin.  In the 1990s, the doors were reopened, this time for tours, and ESP is now a thriving museum and tourist destination.

The prison has not been refurbished, but simply stabilized – the museum itself considers the place a “preserved ruin.”

This is truly one the most beautiful and haunting places I have ever had the privilege of visiting.  The cellblocks were filled with the space of cathedrals, skylights replacing stained glass… As a photographer, the light streaming through the “Eye of God” (pictured above – each original cell had a small, private exercise yard and was lit entirely from a slitted sky-light) was something that I was aching to capture on film.  The idea stuck in my head that for these prisoners – not being allowed to speak or hum or communicate in any way, never seeing another soul beyond the guards – who were not allowed to speak to them – the Eye of God was their only companion, the light from the sky the only thing to ground them in their humanity….it was both a beacon of hope that something existed outside of their limbo, and a taunt that life existed without them.

Cellblock – Cathedral

Death Row Shower

Even here, the Eye of God is on you…

Cell interiors

Camera: Canon Rebel EOS Digital SLR

Location: Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, PA

For more work by Kelly Bearden, visit her personal blog.