Grace Bauer

The Eye of the Beholder


by Grace Bauer


after Diane Arbus



All human beauty is
an aberration, a mirror
trick drawing us
into itself. Into what is not.


And what is desire? A lack
invented by belief,
a return to the thrill
of the unfamiliar we recognize
in an instant as ourselves.


I know this in sight.
In the click of a shutter
revealing the barely real.
Strip glamour of its thin
veneer and you find something
raw. Elegant. You find the part
in us we're all afraid of
staring straight in the face.


But I can't turn my back
or blink. I feel myself
connecting through captured light
to a darknss that beckons, a darkness
much less frightening than you fear.


My subjects appear calm
because they are. They compose
themselves before my lens
like hallucinations we have
all shared, metaphors that suspend
us between what we want
to be and what we become.


Try to picture yourself
beyond denial. Run your hands
across your average face,
your normal body. And tell me
how you differ from these
miracles that always make you
want to look away.



-from Bauer's book Beholding Eye 2006, CustomWords

Diane Arbus is the subject of the recent Nicole Kidman movie, Fur: an Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus

Click here for a sampling of Arbus' photos

King and Queen of a Senior Citizen's Dance, NYC 1970 by Diane Arbus

Oh, what a beautiful morning.....

These are all photos taken in and around my apartment. The red light in the first ones is what it really looks like at twilight because I have a pink shade over the window (came with the apartment), and it just creates these amazing lighting effects. These were really fun to take anyway.

All photographs taken by John Tilley, 2008

I started my new job this week at Planet Sub - yep, I'm a delivery driver, bitches! It's pretty much the best job ever because a) I only work 3 hours at a time b) I make bomb tips, yo! and c) MY MANAGER IS A GOD OF HOTNESS. He didn't even interview me he was just like, "can you drive, do you have a criminal record?" So I didn't tell him about my MIP, give me a fuckin break. Speaking of criminal offenses, I parked illegally because I'm a delivery driver now and that's what we do, and I was parked outside the store in this random driveway thing that was completely non-functional because it led to the windows of Buffalo Wild Wings, I think. Yeah, I got a $10 ticket for being parked there, and then I got a $100 ticket for expired plates. THEY EXPIRED IN FEBRUARY. I'm so pissed that the steam rising out of my ears has not only collected into a group of thunder clouds that are now ravishing my apartment and ruining my frickin carpet that was shitty even before I moved in, but I called my mom to bitch about it and she told me this illuminating story about how, when she'd first moved to Nebraska from Minnesota, she had expired plates and didn't pay the ticket, and the cops waited for her outside her apartment one day and took her to fuckin jail. She was so charming, though, that the cop didn't even put her in the holding cell, her friend was coming to bail her out, anyway. Yeah, pretty fucked up. I'm not as nice as my mom, and I feel like they would DEFINITELY hold me for another however many days just to curb my attitude. I'm a total bitch, so sue me.

Anyway, I thought I'd post some lame shit that everyone already knows about but might not, and if they don't they're missing out. First, bunny suicides, OBSERVE:These are only a few of the many creative suicides of many depressed bunnies. http://www.retrocomputing.net/racconti/umor/coniglio/pandora.beptuui.html
http://www.jimmyr.com/blog/Bunny_Suicide_Comic_Pics_226_2007.php
--Just a couple Bunny Suicide links.
Next on the list is Toothpaste for Dinner.com, which I only know about because Katie's RA in the dorms printed off like a billion of these comics and taped them by the bathroom door. It was really cool -- Katie had the nifty idea of making magnets out of them, which never happened but was still a good idea. SAMPLES:

Okay, this will be the last thing, I promise (I also promise hot guy pictures next time -- yeah, it'll fuckin rock). this last thing is a project I had to do for art history class recently about this architect, Sullivan, who actually did some really unique shit, take a look!

These first three are actually the same building, the Carson, Pirie, Scott and Co. building in Chicago. The first picture is the ironwork above the front doors. Sullivan's trademark was making iron look really organic and light and feminine, which isn't usually what you associate iron with. These last couple are from a church he designed - they're pretty neat lookin:

Click here to go to the site I got these from (if you're interested). It's actually a site that's run by the city of Chicago Planning, or some shit, and you can like, take a tour of the buildings that are made by certain architects. You should really fool around with the site if you're interested in architecture because it has some rad shit.

P.S. Check out my links under "Internet Adventures," most of them are other blogs I've randomly come across on blogspot that are either hilarious or really profound, or an interesting combination of both. Stay sexy!