why i love photography.

Ed Clark, LIFE Photographer 1958
Senator John F. Kennedy playing peek-a-boo with his daughter Caroline in her crib.

Ed Clark, LIFE Photographer 1946
A farmer posing in his wheat field.

Ed Clark, LIFE Photographer 1954
World's youngest swimmer, Julie Sheldon, 9 weeks old, swimming underwater next to her grandmother Mrs. Jen Loven, a children's swimming instructor.

Ed Clark, LIFE Photographer 1946
Young artist paints Sacre-Coeur from the ancient Rue Narvins.

dark was the night.

I'm just going to say this bluntly: I hate most music reviews. I hate that people say that this new artist sounds like someone plus so and so with a hint of that person from twenty years ago. I hate when they breakdown every single track and label it as sensational or a deviation from their earlier stuff. If the music is good, it's good. And that's all there is to it, in my eyes.

That said, I gave this compilation a shot because I recognized some of my favorite names on the track list, and I wasn't disappointed. Dark Was the Night, a two disc, thirty-one track compilation produced by Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National, was released on February 17th. Its executive producer was John Carlin, founder of the Red Hot Organization. This organization has been producing albums for the sole purpose of raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS for twenty years. According to Wikipedia, they have donated more than seven million dollars so far.

Dark Was the Night is their latest compilation and features the following artists and many more: Sufjan Stevens, Feist, Bon Iver, Ben Gibbard, Iron & Wine, Cat Power, and Conor Oberst. If you'd like a preview, I got a snazzy little widget on the side with three of my favorites. Hopefully you'll like it as much as I do, and contribute to this worthwhile cause. Enjoy!

extremely loud & incredibly close.

When I finished this book, not only was I in tears, but I suddenly needed to let everyone in the entire world know exactly how much I loved them. I tried to refrain from the latter, seeing as it was a bit crazy, but I was still amazed at the strength of the emotions that I felt. Written by Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a book that if nothing else, will make you feel. You will feel happiness, triumph, depression, frustration, and heartache. You will cry. You will need someone near you to hug the moment that you finish. And if you're me, you will develop an extremely irrational fear of losing the people you love too early...

Find this book. Read it. You won't regret it.

blog birthday. (#3)

So, originally I had hoped to create a blog to write about sports. Primarily, hockey. I wanted to get experience here, but that's not really working out for me. (I never write anything.) So I think I'm going to write about sports... and stuff. Basically whatever I want. And that might be selfish, but maybe someone will actually read it. We'll see...