everyday life | e v e r y d a y aperture

oh, the places you’ll go!

09/23/2012

Rufus Mangrove

sometimes, you have to take a deep breath and just dive in. yes, you might drown or encounter some kind of poisonous serpent or a new species of eel with sharp teeth. but imagine the excitement, the accomplishment, the pride you will feel when you find out that your lungs are actually gills and your hands are actually webbed tentacles. so get in there. get in there as fast as you can.

the thing about the moon is this

08/28/2012

Rufus Mangrove

all you haters out there can say this or that about space travel to the moon. sure, there were some inconsistencies with the pictures NASA was sending back. but come on, they were using hasselblads that were mounted to their chests. did you ever try shooting medium format? did you ever try loading one of those fucking cameras? and that’s just on earth. now imagine doing that in a highly radioactive environment with ten inch think gloves and a director yelling in your face. it’s almost near impossible. yeah, so what about the shadows in all the weird places and the flag blowing in the wind in space. it’s medium format. shit like that happens when you use cameras like that.

flying puffs

07/31/2012

Rufus Mangrove

if i had to fly, i don’t think i’d be a bird or even a plane. i want to be like a thin trail of smoke from some nag champa incense. i just wanna cascade upwards toward the sky and then dissipate all over the fucking earth.

the mothership

07/23/2012

Rufus Mangrove

even now, after everything i went through, i still get asked what it’s like to have a ten foot tail. i laugh to myself and just shake my head. you should see their expressions when i whisper, “i can fly motherfucker. what can you do?” i say it so fast and with a slight turkish accent that they’re not really sure what i said but are too embarrassed to ask me to repeat it. so they just smile and tip their head a little bit before walking away.

riding pretty

06/29/2012

Rufus Mangrove

you don’t need a skirt to be riding pretty.

tinker bell

06/24/2012

Rufus Mangrove

Every time someone says ‘I do not believe in fairies,’ somewhere there’s a fairy that falls down dead.

the next episode

06/20/2012

Rufus Mangrove

compton and long beach together now you know you in trouble

End Stop and Frisk

Project

Stop and Frisk Silent March down Fifth Avenue, from 110th to 78th Street. About 50,000 non-violent protestors stood together in silent protest against the NYPD’s “stop and frisk program”, which bears no resemblance to what People v. Debour 40 NY2d 210 (1976) envisioned for the Empire State. Perhaps the next step is to revisit that 1976 case, which New York chose to follow instead of the more lax “totality of the circumstances” federal standard under Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213 (1983). By doing so, New York specifically chose to give more protections to its citizenry, i.e., by putting more checks on the types of interactions police have with people on the street.

But the NYPD has taken the Debour standard and completely mutated it into something that bears no resemblance to the four step standard the court and its progeny articulated. As a former prosecutor for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, I can’t tell you how many times the police had no idea the requisite suspicion for a stop AND a frisk, which requires separate, articulated suspicions. And, of course, those are only the cases that came to me . . . not the thousands of others that never made it that far. It’s a shame that our D.A.’s offices and our New York courts stand silent as the NYPD issues its “justice” in such a clearly disparate fashion. While the NYPD may clamor back and forth on the “intent” issue of their racial profiling, the “effects” of the racial disparity are simply undeniable — so much so that it establishes the NYPD’s intent to stop people based on a discriminatory purpose. It is an institutional problem, not just the actions of a few officers.

For a state that that takes pride in taking a strong view toward protecting citizen’s rights, it’s a shame that the people are forced to go to federal court for redress. The NYPD doesn’t do this without a lot of help. And for whatever reason, the “help” — for example, the DA’s offices and the courts — are sickly silent.

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Tatiana Romanova on Flatbush Avenue

06/16/2012

Rufus Mangrove

She’ll help us get the fucking Lektor.

ballooned

06/15/2012

Rufus Mangrove

every now and then i give up balloons. it’s never really a planned thing. my body just tells me, “no more fucking balloons roy.” so i listen because i know if i don’t i can get into some deep trouble. when you deal with the kind of balloons i deal with, there is only so much your body can handle before it just shuts down on itself.