Buddy II and Baudrillard.

Buddy II contemplates his place in Baudrillard's System of Objects. Pet: A domesticated animal that occupies the space between humans and objects.

El Pisto Restaurant

Originally, we were going to the L&J for dinner, but the place was too busy with no parking around the place for 3 or more blocks. We then decided to go to Overland Street near the convention cener and bus station. not too quiet, but great service and excellent food.

Discipline and Punish and the US Parking Slotted Pay Box

US Parking Slotted Pay Box
Originally uploaded by chacal la chaise.

Texas plated cars with expired state inspection stickers receive a ticket, while the owners receive a court date. If for some reason there is need to reschedule, due to unforeseen events, a form (from an attorney) will abate the court appearance. Either fax or take the form to the Municipal Courts building on Overland Street, and pay the clerk 10¢ for a copy (she’ll give you a receipt for the money.) Parking availability in front of the building is nil due to all the reserved spaces for police vehicles and consulate cars (the Mexican Consulate is around the corner on the not so ironically named San Antonio Street.) Therefore, if a member of the public has business to conduct within the courts building, they must park their car at the US Parking lot across the street.

In Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault explains how certain spaces work together to form areas which discipline, punish, and control public behaviors. These change and shift over time and by location. While a community designs their towns in certain ways over time, such collections of formations will create such barriers and constraints, which the public never sees or feels. The layers of buildings, torn down, others built in the same place, lanes widened, streets change to one-way, all result in outcomes never originally planned. In a painless but effective formation, such changes will punish and discipline. Whether these are designs and buildings situated to perform those particular outcomes, as with prisons and schools, there are also more subversive and invisible spaces that discipline those of us who willingly walk into a space and follow the implied or written instructions meted to us. I found one such space this week and was shocked when Foucault’s theory met with the place where I stood—in a parking lot across from the Municipal Courts building on Overland Street.

Most of the US Parking facilities are simple blacktop lots with diagonal lines and numbers to denote a space, along with a simple metal box at one entrance that accepts your coins and bills. In the case of this location, US Parking charges $4 to rent such spaces (0-12 hours). On a slow day, as this was, this means I paid for about 15 minutes of space rental time. What makes parking there so byzantine and punishing is not merely the amount you must pay, but how you pay. To pay for a space, put money into the corresponding slot cut into that red metal box attached to a signage pole. On the day I went, a pink piece of paper taped to the sign above the box politely asked people to pay in “cash, no checks please.” It is not so much the price of the parking lot space because this is America and the need and lack of choice drive space rental.

Yes, it is four dollars because hey, they want to see if you will pay with a $5 bill because you are in a rush or do not have change. It is also because the box with its slots work together with this location in a manner where you will pay; that is punish and discipline. The box disciplines by making you cram the money into that box, which you would not have had to do if you had had your car inspected on time. The slot punishes because you must stand and roll your bills so tight that you think about your grandfather rolling his own cigarettes with Bugler Tobacco. It punishes by making you remember that you miss him even though he died in 1975. Before you finish, you must make sure the money drops inside, so you cram the money into the box with a metal shive attached to the box with a chain. Overall, geography can and will discipline and punish, through this place, those spaces, and the box—across from the courts, as no parking is available on the street. Your money, the metal shive, the street, the courts, and the red box—that is discipline and punish.

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New images based on Kaleidic Lite - #1

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Mobile Post :: Prada Marfa reflections with child

The Judge at Prada Marfa the weekend after being vandalized following its public installation ceremonies, October 30, 2005.

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Stencils. MJ and his sister Ellen in the Maxwell Street house, El Paso, Texas.

Snows: Cotton candy sunset

Snows: Thursday morning and afternoon
Originally uploaded by chacal la chaise.

One of the things I love (and have to be ready for) is sundown after snowfall. From my home, the mountains face southwest and usually after it has snowed, the following evenings sundown will be as pink and rose colored as could ever be imagined. It is as if a carnival came to town and wrapped the mountains in a pink soft blanket confection. It does not look real. But you must be ready to grab your camera and run to the closest available vantage point. I was slow this time, but did capture a few shots from my backyard.

Snow day

Snow day
Originally uploaded by chacal la chaise.

Snow came and claimed its spot on the radar of all in town and beyond. The schools had to give it its due, even if this is the last week of regular classes. Schools, including UTEP, opened at 10:00 AM. At 10, the mountains were completely shrouded in a misty fog and rain mixed with snow continued until 1:00 or so.

Taking a break around 3:00, I drove up to the foothills to snag a few shots before running back home to work on a paper due tomorrow. (Like I should be writing this now, right?) No matter, I love the mountains and the time away from the screen was good for the soul and eyes.

Yesterday was a fine day for touring on Shadow Mountain Drive.

Yesterday was a fine day for touring on Shadow Mountain Drive.
Originally uploaded by chacal la chaise.

It isn't often I get the opportunity or the time to drive-by shoot images these days. Yet this drive-by was too good to pass up. On the way to class, I caught up to this antique Bentley (possibly from the mid- to late- 1930s) near Mesa Street on Shadow Mountain Drive. I photographed two images while we were stopped at the light. We started up again and It turned left, as did I. Although I tried to get another shot of the beast from my rear view door mirror, I soon lost it in traffic.

I've always thought Bentley's were supposed to be too "cool" for a hood ornament. I also heard a Bentley was a Rolls-Royce without the hood ornament. (These are myths because in the case of this beauty, it had the Bentley marque on the rear near the license and a winged "B ornament on the bonnet. In any case, it was a delight to see on such a beautiful day.

A moleskine page from The Judge's freshman year at MSU

MSU :: My notes for the "wants/needs" list
Originally uploaded by chacal la chaise.

Given FB cannot publish "notes" from more than one blog, I thought I would republish this entry originally posted to a new Moleskiners blog. To me, Moleskiners throws too much in its interface of multiple horizontal menus with a heinous orange and green default color scheme. 

That said, it did make me go and collect my thoughts and write about something that occurred recently. And although not specifically about El Paso nor was the image taken in El Paso, it was created by someone from here; it also tacitly covers issues concerned with education and parenting. 

We've been told that The Judge is not the only student from here who currently attends Michigan State, but sometimes it seems she is. However, there are many more students who do leave home every year to attend college away from El Paso. This is something from one parent with one student who has left home for the past four years.