Monday's Street in Naked Repose

Here are fourteen images from the Kinshasa street yesterday.

The photos remind me of what Walker Evans said about his time secretly capturing 1930's subway riders with a miniature camera inside his coat:

 “The guard is down and the mask is off,” he wrote, “even more than when in lone bedrooms (where there are mirrors). People’s faces are in naked repose down in the subway.”¹

I am also shocked by the number of eyes that seem to be looking directly at me and my camera, despite my best attempts at covert car-window-phone-photography.  I feel almost embarrassed looking at them.

Glad for Hipstamatic in all it's random filtered glory, but wishing I could just use my Canon without risking an angry earful or worse at every turn. Maybe Tchic can actually help me get that press pass this year...

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Friday List!

Sarah's List:

I love in-flight magazines! Remember this? Here's an article about how in-flight magazines trick their captive audiences into visiting war-torn countries. It's so true. We flew a lot this summer within the US and one of these magazines totally had me convinced that I must, MUST! visit Arkansas. I feel so deceived.

Compliments of Egypt Air.

Thinking about umbrellas and really, really wishing the rainy season would just start already. This dust is killer. How did we live in Egypt for two years?

  by  linh.ngan 

My favorite corner of the world, in watercolor. Find your favorite corner in watercolor too...

Can you guess where this is?

From Time Magazine this week: "Documenting the Democratic Republic of Congo with an iPhone". Or as I'd like to call it "Taking photos of Coltan miners so they can make your phone so you can take pictures of Coltan miners. Repeat."

  by  Jon Gosier 

I'm sorry, a recipe for ice cubes? Totally ridiculous. But check out the ratings and reviews.

Update: I know, I know you've seen the ice cube recipe a million times already. But with Jill as my witness, I had the recipe on the draft of this list 48 hours before it went viral. And Jill had already found such a beautiful ice cube picture...

A taste of the reviews: "This recipe is horrible! Maybe I should have left them in longer than two minutes (the recipe doesn't say how long to leave them in the freezer so I just kind of guessed) but mine came out all watery. I won't be making these again."

Got a few bored minutes? Check this out.


Jill's List:

Trying to find potting soil in Kinshasa.  Shoprite?  Brought back some herbs to try this.  Mupwa doesn't think it will work...

 
It can't be that hard to start an NGO...  Does Congo even need another NGO?  Are NGOs a good thing?

Neil the maintenance guy (among other titles) tells me that I might be able to get my hands on some extra shipping pallets left over from the summer work on campus.  New porch furniture!

 My kind of sewing.  And Mama Vida & Mama NouNou.  They never use patterns.  Here's my favorite top/tunic/dress. 

Because we love to write about hair.  For all of you who did not chop off all of your hair this summer:

At the Jack Bell gallery in London.  Kinshasa's own, Bandoma.

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