WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS by Brian Scannell

There is a device in my head

like a battered levee

that provides my sole defense

in sanctity of mind

Inside its walls, ideas and principles

stretch out like rows of town homes

safe and secure,

yet painted with doubt

Outside these walls

the waves of an endless sea

relentlessly lap and surge,

lulling me to sleep

Empty wine bottles

and ill-conceived curiosities

function like embittered youth

taking pot-shots at helicopters

Days trudge quickly by

without nuance or intention

Respite finds me mocking doom and

watching gulls glide fearlessly toward eternity

SEMESTER AT SEA SPRING 2012

After a year of waiting, I was officially offered the position of photographer for the Spring 2012 voyage of Semester at Sea last night. Julie and I couldn't be more excited. The trip leaves in January 2012 from Nassau, Bahamas.

AL-HUSSEIN SOCIETY

As someone who has worked for years in the non-profit sector, I can speak for how self-absorbed and useless the vast majority of them are. Now that I've gone global, I can say the same to an even higher degree for a nasty little entity called the NGO. So it is with complete shock and admiration that I sing the praises of a organization here in Jordan named the Al-Hussein Society. They work with children with physical disabilities through rehabilitation, a school, a prothesis manufacturing plant, and even mobile clinics. It is a fantastic place where kids with a tough lot in life come to learn and laugh with each other. After graduating in the 5th grade, the students are mainstreamed into the public school system. Pretty progressive in the US, and downright amazing here. Visit the center's website by clicking here.

NEW ED CONLON ARTICLE

This is an article I wrote and photographed about American author and NYPD detective Ed Conlon, who happended to be living in Jordan until recently. He was here working with the Jordanian police and finishing his new book entitled, Red on Red. Check it out by clicking here. I actually took his author photo for the book while he was living here. Hellava nice guy!

AZIZ AMOURA (JORDAN ARTIST SERIES)

Aziz Amoura is an important player in the Jordanian art scene. He is well known here for his work doing portraits, but has also done some other really amazing work over his 35 year career, like the two pieces shown above. Amoura stopped painting several years ago and now teaches art at Yarmouk University. I can't vouch for whether he is a decent guy or not because he has blown off our appointment to have coffee. I'm leaning towards no.

KILLING FRANCIS BACON

This is a recent article I photographed and wrote for Viva magazine. It is about one of my favorite artists here in Jordan, Bader Mahasneh.

FOUAD MIMI (JORDAN ARTIST SERIES)

Fouad Mimi is an artist here in Jordan who never quite commited to his craft full-time (and admittedly regrets it from time to time). He has held jobs as a teacher, TV producer, and fashion designer over the past thirty years. All the while he painted, and rather well. The two painting shown here were done in the late 70's, the bottom one being a self-portrait. Like just about every artist from his generation here in Jordan, Mimi's style shifted toward the abstract as his reputation grew. He currently paints mostly colorful landscapes. Interestingly, one of his major collectors is famous American Presidential photographer David Hume Kennerly.

THE TEMPLES OF ANGKOR

My friend Bryce and I visited about eight of the countless temples of Angkor on a recent trip to Cambodia. As we both live in arid Amman, the humidity and heat of Cambodia damn near gave us heat stroke. After visiting each temple we would come back to our tuk-tuk bright red and drenched in sweat. Our wonderful driver, perhaps understanding our limited humidity adaptation ability, brought a cooler filled with ice, water, and cold rags. Those little rags were life-savers. The top two photos are of Preah Khan temple, and the bottom two are of Bayon (my favorite).

MEET VANN NATH

Vann Nath is a Cambodian painter who lived through the genocide there. His life story is one of the most incredible I've ever heard. Nath was arrested under the Khmer Rouge regime and imprisioned in the infamous S21 prison in Phnom Penh. Almost everyone who was sent there (roughly 20,000 people) was tortured until they confessed to crimes against the government, and then they were killed. When the Vietnamese forces liberated Phnom Penh in 1979, only seven inmates were left alive. Vann Nath was one of them. His life was originally spared because of his talents as a painter. During his year in jail he painted propaganda paintings of Pol Pot and made the statues of him shown in the bottom photo. A year after he escaped prison, he returned there to help convert it into a genocide museum. During the almost four years that the Khmer Rouge controlled Cambodia, approximatly two million people (or 1/4 of the population) died of starvation, exhaustion, or were murdered. Though it was unthinkably painful, Vann Nath spent two years painting scenes of what he witnessed inside the prison. About twenty large canvases of his are perhaps the most moving and horrific part of the museum. I met the artist on a recent trip to Cambodia, and interviewed him for a piece I'm working on (photos to come later). The top photo is Nath in front of a painting I commissioned from him. Below that is a recent painting he did featuring Duch, the man who ran the S21 prision, who is still alive and has yet to be brought to justice. The third photo is one of the more horrific ones from the museum. It shows pehaps the most barbaric act in the history of our species.