DEAD PORCUPINE
SHIFTLESS
«Shiftless is a two year photographic work in the places around the disused nuclear plant of Garigliano in Italy, which takes the name from the important river running along before going all the way to the sea. Closed for maintenance in 1982, the plant doesn’t show on the maps because it turned out to be “unauthorized” since raised on agricultural land. Nowadays it contains 3000 cubic meters of nuclear wastes inside concrete blocks, part of them stocked underground in plastic bags. The nuclear presence is in everything, in the empty houses, in the vegetation, in the carcasses lying in the fields, in the waters and in those barely visible human life efforts. The atmosphere is of a nuclearized, deserted place, witness of a past which, as invisible as the plant, lingers in the present. Staring at the broken caravans windows, the withered palms, the swinging neon lights from the knocked down walls, gives you a sense of inertia, of shiftlessness. A beautiful land full of potential, victim of man’s carelessness. The river gets into the sea, the waves retracting show on the shore an impressive mass of wastes of any kind. They are symbols that “nature always gives back what received”.»
© All copyright remains with photographer Dead Porcupine
“The people who were better than us were comfortable. They lived in painted houses with flush toilets. Drove cars whose year and make were recognizable. The ones worse off were sorry and didn't work. Their strange cars sat on blocks in dusty yards. The years go by and everything and everyone gets replaced. But this much is still true-I never liked work. My goal was always to be shiftless. I saw the merit in that. I liked the idea of sitting in a chair in front of your house for hours, doing nothing but wearing a hat and drinking cola. What's wrong with that? Drawing on a cigarette from time to time. Spitting. Making things out of wood with a knife. Where's the harm there? Now and then calling the dogs to hunt rabbits. Try it sometime. Once in a while hailing a fat, blond kid like me and saying, 'Don't I know you?' Not, 'What are you going to be when you grow up?' ”
—Raymond Carver
lines exploring feeling lost, from The Jade Mountain
p.83: …A lantern’s cold gleam, lonely in the night,
…The ruined wall of a neighboring monastery. (Ma Tai)
…the vanished Queens of the Clouds leave me
Sad with autumn all night long.
p 84:…A spirit like water in a timeless well…(Meng Chiao)
p 85:…But now I remember the night, the storm…(Meng Hao-jan)
…I should like to cross, but I can find no boat…
I sit here and watch a fisherman casting
And emptily envy him his catch.
p 86: …The monument of Yang remains;
And we have wept, reading the words.
p87:We watch the green trees that circle your village
p89: …I see a sail in the far sky,
Where is the ferry? Will somebody tell me?
It’s growing rough. It’s growing dark.
…as I climb this mountain to see you
High with the wildgeese flies my heart…
…The quiet dusk might seem a little sad
If this autumn weather were not so brisk and clear;
…I look down at the river bank, with homeward-bound villagers
Resting on the sand till the ferry returns;
p89: …I would take up my lute and I would play…
p91: I hear people at the fishing-town stumble aboard the ferry,
While others follow the sandbank to their homes along the river.
p92: She can hear the others singing through the night. (po chu-yi)
excerpt from “Shiftless” by Raymond Carver
“But this much is still true-I never liked work.
My goal was always to be shiftless.
I saw the merit in that.
I liked the idea of sitting in a chair in front of your house
for hours,
doing nothing but wearing a hat and drinking cola.
What’s wrong with that?
Drawing on a cigarette from time to time.
Spitting.
Making things out of wood with a knife.
Where’s the harm there?
Now and then calling the dogs to hunt rabbits.
Try it sometime. Once in a while hailing a fat, blond kid like me and saying,
‘Don’t I know you?’
Not, ‘What are you going to be when you grow up?’”
Liberty
ShiftlessAlso, since Tumblr apparently does not give a damn about how many music posts pulled from external sources I make in succession, I’m declaring this Camomille Appreciation Night.
This here is an album I find sounding something like a Bass Communion / Stars of the Lid collaboration might…
Shiftless on Dude Magazine #1
Our work Shiftless published on Dude Magazine #1
Many thanks to all the dudes around!
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