Women in Uniform

May 31

To Failure

BY PHILIP LARKIN

You do not come dramatically, with dragons

That rear up with my life between their paws

And dash me butchered down beside the wagons,

The horses panicking; nor as a clause

Clearly set out to warn what can be lost,

What out-of-pocket charges must be borne,

Expenses met; nor as a draughty ghost

That’s seen, some mornings, running down a lawn.

It is these sunless afternoons, I find,

Instal you at my elbow like a bore.

The chestnut trees are caked with silence. I’m

Aware the days pass quicker than before,

Smell staler too. And once they fall behind

They look like ruin. You have been here some time.

May 30

Pakistani military.

May 29

French army.

US Army medic.

US Air Force, I think, but it could be Navy as well.

Not sure which army, Afghanistan.

US Army, Afghanistan, I believe.

May 28

Swedish military.

US Marine.

Italian army. Courtesy of ragazzerasate.

“Carabiniere paracadutiste” according to my source, ragazzerasate.

US Marines.

[video]

May 05

“I try to photograph her beauty; with a man I try to show his character. Once I photographed a man with a big nose, and emphasized his nose, and he was very pleased with the picture. That could not happen with a woman. The most intelligent woman will reject a portrait if it doesn’t flatter her. Only once in my whole career did it happen that a blonde asked me, ‘Please make me look intelligent.’ Unfortunately it was impossible.” —

Philippe Halsman (via life)

What an appalling pile of misogynist horseshit.

May 03

The things I am good at, I am great at. I am terrible at everything else. Sometimes I hurt people I care about very much through my idiocy. It’s not whether they forgive me or not, or whether they understand what a mixed bag of a human I am, it’s that I can’t imagine anything worse than hurting a friend.

I appreciate your asking, though, and I hope whatever has been making you blue lately gets better.