Le Lapin

The other day I was washing the plants, both the ones growing in soil, and then the plastic stemmed ones. In my head, I always called them fake flowers. That was acceptable. Or so I thought until I witnessed the world go in uproar over the flippant use of the words: real and fake. Moreover, the maelstrom of rhetoric created so much un-ease or dis-ease, the ability to access wholeness felt more dif...

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Photojournalism and art have historically remained separate entities. Photography gained acceptance as an art form during the 1940’s (Corydon Ireland). Meanwhile, the art world has pictured itself as a separate entity from photographic art, and unto Arthur Danto’s views, a realm made into its own ends. On the other axis, photographic art can seek distinction from the rest of the art world as well....

Navigating life today was supposed to become easier with technology. Yet finding the way really isn’t always easy. Generalised life advice without a clear context and knowledge of situations might suggest something like: simply go from point A to point B, or just shift your internal energy then everything around you will just change, or if any challenges are arising, everything in your life is up...

Sitting with it. Standing with it. Such phrases refer to a thingliness of being. Then there’s the figuring it out. So if a figure must be sorted out, then did it come from within? “Hey girlie, you think too much,” is a phrase I’ve heard more times than …would you expect to read or hear hands or toes to count on? or having more bills or dimes for each time someone said? Even the process of writing...

Time and date stamping has been a useful tool in detailing records for archives. The publishing process used to be arduous with duration and length, edited by a notion of a singular origin. Authors, artists, musicians are always working on constellations amongst groups-and this complex networking simplistically ascribed as a cooperation amongst psyches. Are the narratives measurable through the re...

Testing…testing…hello? nervous system? wowza! There are some things in life that last a long time and don’t stay a long time, and then there are some things that don’t last very long, yet remain with you a very long time. The burning pain of swollen red nuggets at the end of scorched, fire-building palms paled in comparison to the first time the word awesome really met its sensory match. Sure, I w...

Being, the act of doing nothing, is horrifying. Thankfully there is walking. Walking is a splendid act of faith. The bare practice of walking illuminates the visceral tones of action and movement-the basis of the unknowable, which is experienced through being in a body. Placing a foot on a surface presumably stable enough to launch forward from, to transfer the privilege of the support of the body...

Another cookie with a disclaimer: this is not intended nor should be used as medical advice. This essay was originally drafted in 2015. How many years does it take to work up the nerve to openly share a curiosity? Turns out quite a many. Disclaimery done, onward, or as one of my favourite friends says “anygo”: Birth control pills were supposed to equate to female empowerment and better life outcom...

Keeping the flowers alive a little longer, my mom always used worn bed sheets to protect the plants around the house from frost. I sometimes felt the weight of the cotton would break the stems, but instead they knew how to bow to accommodate the weight of protection. Dappled in twilight dew, the sheets I had seen for decades gave me pause. Because I've had this impulse to hug what I see, and like...

If I was glitter, I’d be made of matte paper If I was the her, you thought you dreamed, before What I can’t, and I won’t Cause I ain’t - All you see I never know which way to answer When they ask of me Who are you? Where you going? I wonder who are thee? For thirty years or so I’ve walked around Pretending to know But everythings’ been kinda strange Or at least we’re all Now on the same page One t...

Making Sense , is something humans are kinaesthetically made to do. So when it comes to the ways those senses work, how much trial and error is required to establish relationships between subjectivity and objectivity? As a thought experiment, how to establish intelligence? How does rationality and irrationality draw lines of tolerance and intolerance? These are the kind of questions I dove into du...

But I didn’t go blind; so why write about it? For one, to squelch the rhetorical rubbish of having to tell this story over and over. Next time it happens to pop up, I can get over the hiccup in conversation and send a link to right here. Further, the experience blew apart and confirmed the cliché about appreciating something before its’ gone. While I seriously doubt publishing the experience will...

Pain. Probably not the most favoured of topics. A sensation often sought to be avoided. Yet at some time, pain invades or strikes your body. The key I’d like to convey today is in developing a relationship with pain. Not as a way to attach and identify with the pain, but to process the signal as an invitation to come to know something about your body or yourself, that you hadn’t before. As new lif...

Celery makes my mouth itch. Particularly after I have eaten something sweet. Could there be some kind of science to justify my experience? Everyday I find someone has published some kind of study, that conflicts with the knowledge we thought we owned yesterday. This discovery seems to be infused of an energy akin to that of rushing metal filaments squealing toward magnets. Perhaps the lines betwee...

If you do not feel strong and courageous on your path, look within and around. Are you treating yourself and those around you with care and compassion? Are you being treated by those around you with care and compassion? Are people shouting? Are you succumbing to fears and doubts? Love has been marketed and mythologized as an elusive ghost that has to grace one’s life. Yet other cultural perspectiv...

Senses rely on developing, maintaining, and adapting levels of receptivity and perceptibility. The senses and our reliance on trusting them have long been under a subtle subversion module of trusting external agents. These agents could be clergy, gurus, institutions, laws, or Apple watches. These modules of social policy are not inherently corruption making methods, but continually lead attention...

social media makes personal universeswith walls permitting those who agreeto graffiti, erasing those who differan echo chamber of personal sovereigntyprivilege became an assault wordjoy became something to hidesomeone so over communingserving a discourse in fiery mindsa way of saying this way not thatno because I know betterwondering how communion breaks downthe gaze, the look, assumed empty embra...

Training bras are a soft way to introduce women to the world of having their bodies examined in public. The funny part about that any man walking around without a cup on will also have his parts examined in public. The less funny parts about these actual parts of being human grew to an offensible posture. Susan Sontag made evil out of the male gaze. It is not that her work was without merit; for m...

Mirror neurons, empathy, simpatico, compassion. All of these phenomena and perceptions of being human has suddenly been recognized by The Science as real. Somehow we have arrived at the moment in time where our experience of life must be reconfirmed and validated through an expert panel. This is not to demean the objective the Nobel Prize for Physiology offered this week to two scientists, David J...

First-off, one of my Italian friends told me that title: a bad truth is better than a good lie. Secondly, always site your sources is a guide, or code-of-conduct that scares some folks. The question I often wonder is: why? So let’s hang out with a foray into language for a few minutes today. Letting go of the emotional trigger valve the words “truth” and “lie” have in service of looking at a ballo...

Some cookies ago (if you’re new here, cookie is the lingo for newsletter), there was mention of The Cookie Jar’s roots . Not to get all anthropogenically obsessed, but instead to tie (or untie) a knot and cast off. Since this cookie is geared to think about the ways the past remains in the present, the audio includes a pretty concise taste of the sort of observations you’ll find here. There are a...

Work with all you have, from where you are, to create the most beauty of all you are. This motto, I am not sure where it came from, but it is what fuels my personal connection to the creative circuit. Where the writing comes from, I could not really say, but that the first draft is sometimes the best one. Sometimes the last of the 1000th time is the best take. Here in this recording is the first f...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lelapin.substack.com/subscribe

A summary just shy of two-minutes establishing two-decades of critical distance. Thank you for attuning to a fleeting fantasy of the creative tension between desire and excitement. The early 2000’s does not seem to long ago. P.S. The warmth of seeing action to subscribe is fueling my bravery. Thank you. The paid-only posts are coming soon. They are perhaps even a bit more weird. P.P.S. Questions a...