how cute….

In 1932, Albert Einstein, already world famous for his work in physics and mathematics, wrote a letter to another distinguished thinker, Sigmund Freud.  Einstein was deeply troubled by the memory of World War I, which had ended only fourteen years before.  Ten million men had died on the battlefields of Europe, for reasons that no one could logically explain.  Like many others who had lived through that war, Einstein was horrified by the thought that human life could be destroyed on such a massive scale and worried that there might be another war.  He considered that Freud, the world’s leading psychologist, might throw light on the question ‘Why do men make war?’

“Dear Professor Freud,” he wrote.  “Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?”  Einstein spoke of “that small but determined group, active in every nation, composed of individuals who …  regard warfare, the manufacture and sale of arms, simply as an occasion to advance their personal interests and enlarge their personal authority.”  And then he asked, “How is it possible for this small clique to bend the will of the majority, who stand to lose and suffer by a state of war, to the service of their ambitions?”

Einstein volunteered an answer, “Because man has within him a lust for hatred and destruction.”  And then he put his final question to Freud, “Is it possible to control a man’s mental evolution so as to make him proof against the psychoses of hate and destructiveness?”

Freud responded, “You surmise that man has in him an active instinct for hatred and destruction, amenable to such stimulations.  I entirely agree with you …. The most casual glance at world-history will show an unending series of conflicts between one community and another.”  Freud pointed to two fundamental instincts in human beings: the erotic, or love, instinct and its opposite, the destructive instinct.  But the only hope he could hold for the erotic triumphing over the destructive was in the cultural development of the human race, including “a strengthening of the intellect, which tends to master our instinctive life.”

But what is Freud’s evidence for the existence of such an instinct?  There is something curious in his argument.  He offers no proof from the field of his expertise, psychology.  His evidence is in “the most casual glance at world-history.”

- Howard Zinn – Declarations of Independence

Wondering what has changed? Read about it here.

With my first full year in the books, I’ve decided to try a new direction with this site for 2010. Basically, my idea is this: I read a lot of books. This year i read Howard Zinn’s Declarations of Independence about three times and I’ve decided to use some of his writings as the captions of my pictures (despite the fact that there will be very little relationships between the two). The point is – there is stuff going on that we just need to pay more attention to and we need to better understand our rights as citizens and as human beings.

Additionally, at least the first three months of the year will feature my travel photography, not for any reason other than I have a bunch and some of it is good. I’m definitely not tired of messing with local hipsters and their worship of subpar music and ill fashion senses, I’m just going to go a different way for a while.

You can read more about it in my updated ‘about’ section here: 2010

I’m just going to start off right now numbering pictures of the Good Foot.  I suspect that over time, I’ll publish several of them.  They are amazing performers, great people & not hipsters.

You should go see them.  Now.

I’ve taken picture of hipsters all over the world now, but I still cant forget my roots.

Get a job man.

When all else fails, go to Mattie Rhodes.  It’s a great place with great art & very few hipsters.

And mariachi music.

The best part of this picture is that immediately after he saw the camera, this guy started hipster-showing off, like showing off how his bike is a single speed without any brakes and could be stabilized in place without any hands.

Then he bit it!  Hard.  It was great….  Better than great actually because normally that would have been me showing off and biting it in front of a camera, but this time it wasnt.

Weather he can sing or rawk-and-roll anymore, Lemmy sure wears the shit outta skinny jeans.  I wonder if any hipsters know this?

This guy showed me the bottom of his shoes after we’d sat on a street corner on 18th and vine and drank beer for three hours.  They were pretty much non-existent.  It was more like he was just wearing foot covers.

Amazing.  That’s some hard core hipster shit.

I’m pretty sure this is a hipster.  It was outside of the Czar bar during a show.  But the shoes are pretty rough, even for a hipster.  Could be the hipster cook.