Read more reader stories about exes.

Sharon Fishfeld is the co-editor of Smyles & Fish, available in many forms and functions.

Have you ever seen those couples who look so unbelievably, so shockingly, so fuckingly sad? Not in the way that implies they’re unhappy or frustrated or even unfulfilled with one another. But more in that way that resembles a heavy mood dripping down the both—the jointed—of them, from top to bottom, in to out. As if they are mourning the birth of the great true love they are right in the middle of. They are so close and so on, and so on, they just can’t stand it anymore.

Their eyes are red with tears of self-congratulation.

Do you ever see them when you’re walking along—just you. Maybe you’re returning home the morning after what finally proved itself as a one-night stand, or you’re on your way to work, or you’ve just had your heart shredded only a week before and it gets weak at any sign of perforation. I don’t know what state you’re in, but you’re not in their state—not right exactly then, of course, because you’re walking alone—but also because you’re in a general point of “alone-ness” in your life. Maybe you’re dating. Maybe you’re dating but don’t even want to be, but certainly, despite how many sticks in the oven, or logs on the fire, you are not connected or attached or lovey or dovey with any of these logs of late.

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It’s too early in the day for this, you think, as you approach their morosity on a neighborhood park bench, her head collapsed on his shoulder, her eyes peering around wide for their audience or admirers or—such as you—the innocently inevitable passersby. They’re hugging and kissing and obviously tender with each other so what could possibly be so wrong that they look two swipes away from slash-wristed double suicide?

They’re grasped tight. They’re young. It’s not that they’re resisting commitment to someone, that they hadn’t expected or wanted to do that. It really does not appear so. Even if anything had been unexpected between them, they’ve still embraced it all, as they now do each other, as if a tidal wave were approaching. You, you’d get carried off alone, you think, if it came in, and in some cases that might be better, you may be at an advantage not having another soul anchoring you down.

You approach them, adjust your skirt or tie or pants. Think about pulling out your phone. Any fidget to distract. You have other things going on besides passing them by, or feeling something for them. The sadness! Their sadness! But why?

They are caving the entire sidewalk in with their weight of reciprocal love.
“Is it so terrible that you’ve found each other?” You want to hiss at them; snap your jaw and be on your singular way.

Was it that the challenge or the hunt was over and they were comforting each other as they came down from prior highs of the dating scene and were now accepting their plateaud fate of future togetherness? “Yeah, doesn’t it just suck when you like realize you’re never gonna date again?” you think to quip at them—in that way, with that cadence that means you’re intending to communicate the exact opposite of what you’re saying. Because in truth you feel nothing for them, except nothing. Including frustration at the gloating gall of it all. Go droop on someone else’s time. You two look close enough, and even happy enough, to me. You’ve concluded and you continue on.

Then—there you are on another day, sitting in the park with your last love. You meet up on a sunny day, on a blanket on the ground, for conversation and books; it had been months and you were finally both ready to be around each other again, in theory. As the sun moves its way along the water, reflecting on alternating ripples, your bodies get closer to each other on the blanket, how it used to be in the park. Your body can’t help but smell familiarity, and is drawn. Drawn in close with a push and pull. Drawn on the page like some pre-determined event in your fated life. Drawn on your palm like a life line. All of a sudden your palm is pressed onto his back and his hand (or is it her hand?) is rubbing your hair and the space of skin behind your ear. You’re laying next to each other, closer and closer, your eyes meeting and darting away and daring to return for another look. Pins and needles thread their way through your heart and body; it’s unbelievable that here you are, back here, back in a gaze. It’s passing, it’s recollection. You’re both big enough to understand that. Still, of course, there is the fact of history, the fact of attraction and potential. It’s more than you’d thought you’d bare on this blanket, on this sunny day.

Everything feels weighted and keeps you close to the ground. Your eyes on him, your eyes to the grass, your eyes to the water, your eyes that pass over one person or another. Eyes wide and watery, floating in confusion. Regret, sadness, grief of this lost love. Did you just not get a good grip on it? What if you wore gloves next time? You know, the kind with the grooves in them? But are you really contemplating a “next time” together? Just because the sun is hitting just right and your hands feel just right as they rub and scratch and knead and need and apologize that they couldn’t have done more to keep you two together.

It’s relieving and frightening and comforting and depressing to be around each other, so close, your legs around his legs.

+++

And as a stranger walks by, and your eyes speak only exactly what you are going through in that moment on the blanket in the neighborhood park, when it must look like you are a couple snuggling in love, you wonder now whether this is what you’ve been bumping into when you have been the stranger, walking alone. Are you in fact encountering non-couples, past-couples, re-couples, two-somes reconsidering their end, revisiting their feelings towards one other?

Is this who everyone is? Because this is who you are now. And you can’t pipe in and clarify to the passing stranger who’s just noticed your ridiculous, begging eyes: “No, you don’t understand, we’re not together, we don’t work together, we tried, believe me we tried, we really wanted it to work out, and for so many reasons, but it just…it just never got there, we couldn’t ever figure it out either. Strange because we care for each other, are attracted to each other, admire each other. Believe me, we tried. This is not us trying again, either, by the way, this is just us in the park, after a pause after the defeat. This, this is not what it looks like. This actually is sadness.”

And the passing stranger would think, and maybe even say, “Look, whatever it is, you’re on a blanket with someone who’s touching you. Touching your hair, and your heart.” They might sigh right there, and continue. “It may be fleeting, it may be recollective, it may be confused sensory memories. It may be loneliness. It may even be rebirth—though you two seem pretty adamant to the contrary—but whatever it does amount to, is it not to be cherished? Is it not more than what I have at the same exact moment in time? This moment. Right now. Human love is yours right now, even if only right now, but right now. You’re in the middle of living it.

So, honestly, don’t even tell me, because I’m leaving, and I don’t care, but take the time to ask yourself if you can: Why is it that you have to look out, look around, and look so sad?

DJ Spooky is a revolutionary thinker, mixmaster and author of Rhythm Science. SMITH asked him for a list of personal media projects and passions that blew his mind in 2006.

I get asked to list my “best of” a lot. Considering there’s a glut of boring stuff in the world, my usual response is—why more? The main issue is that there’s a howling emptiness out there in the world, a vacuum left by so much of which that happens to be lame: people don’t get multi-culturalism in the digital media scene, they don’t get dynamic art, they don’t get the fact that digital culture has blurred the lines between creativity and participation to the point that the viewer is part of the process of creativity, the list goes on…

As America moves more and more into a world where truth and fiction have changed places, and become a blurred mirror reflection of one another, I hope my Best of 2006 can serve as something of a guide for the perplexed. My hope here is to play the role of “DJ as storyteller,” and talk about how we record collectors are story collectors, with some key updates of late. Forget the old school concept of the bard going from town to town singing songs, or the Griot in West Africa who would play the songs of the villages in his realm: this is the 21st Century rollover—count your cell phone minutes—flow with the flow, ’cause it’s good to go.

BEST MONTH
November 7th, 2006 was the day that set the U.S. on fire—the Republican reality distortion machine—the war in Iraq, the war at home, games they played with “cultural values,” the hypocrisy, lies, and flat out state of denial (to name a few)— led to massive election losses. That catapulted November onto my “best of” for 2006. Now watching the Republicans struggle with the fact that they had deceived themselves as well as the world has made the results all the more satisfying (and making the month of December a close runner-up).

BEST ART
The Taliban’s destruction of the Buddha’s of Bamiyan in Afghanistan was a world tragedy of historic proportions, highlighting the fact that religious conservatives everywhere are a real drag. One of my favorite projects of 2006 is the proposed reconstruction of the statues as laser projections by the Japanese artist Hiro Yamagata, who will be using a series of lights that will project multiple images of the Buddhas onto the cliffs where the statues once were. The lasers will be wind and solar powered, and the excess electricity will be diverted to help the small villages of the people of Bamiyan.

Yoko Ono’s speech for the Turner Award this year put it all in perspective—leave it to her to bring out the real meaning of so much of what is going on these days. Go Yoko, go! Tomma Abts is the first woman to receive the award. Can you believe its 2006?

Joseph Kosuth’s A Labyrinth into which I can venture (a play of works by guests and foreigners) exhibit at Sean Kelly Gallery. To understand this amazing installation, you need to think about the way that people process language and create stories. The show is a mix of bits and pieces taken from works that were given to Joseph, and woven into a gallery installation. Kosuth’s work is always lyrical, and this is one of those scenarios that seems to mirror the way we live now. It’s art as collective process, narrative of many, distilled by one.

Patti Smith’s The Pythagorean Traveller at Robert Miller Gallery. From visiting the graves of poets and philosophers, to actually making a bed of poetry, Patti Smith is one of my favorite artists working today. So many of us travel, but who actually observes? I’m in a different city almost every couple of days, and all I can say is: Patti, I can relate!

MOMA’s Dada Show speaks for itself.

Roselee Goldberg’s Performa Biennial. Art and culture aren’t just about objects, it’s about the people who activate and relate the whole scenario.

BEST BOOKS
Richard Dawkin’s The God Delusion reconstructs a healthy skepticism that I think humanity needs so desperately right now—it’s one of the best books of the year, if only for that. But it’s also an excellent read.

Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Read it and eat anything at your own risk.

Jonathan Lethem’s Promiscuous Materials Project. As usual, Letham is doing something cool and interesting. Here, you can remix and adapt storylines he’s made up and released under the Creative Commons banner. Smart, dynamic, and above all, hey, it’s from a writer who really embodies what Picasso said so long: minor artists copy, great artists steal! At $1 a piece, these stories are a real steal.

BEST FILM
Ian Inaba’s American Blackout looks at the vortex of race, politics and voter suppression that’s driven much of American history—and reminds us know that it’s still here, running strong. What was that phrase Santayana mentioned a while ago? Those who can’t really examine the past are doomed to repeat it.

BEST MUSIC
Lupe Fiasco. Yeah, yeah, I know he’s a protégé of Kanye West, but his debut album Food and Liquor has a couple of classic tracks: Daydreamin’ is slammin’, non-normal, non-boring hip-hop. On the other hand… Yo! Why is it that Young Jeezy has to rhyme about being a really good cocaine dealer? Hasn’t anyone read Thomas De Quincy’s Confessions of an English Opium Eater? If that’s too much to handle, I recommend the essay posted on AlterNet, Confessions of an eBay Opium Addict.

I also loved Trojan Records this year, a label for me which defined the year of dub. I have to admit I’m bored by most of the music coming out of the electronic art/experimental scene, and even a fart by Lee Scratch Perry or King Tubby is more creative than half the tracks you hear these days. The real art of sampling began with Jamaican style tape manipulation, loops, and cut up tracks, and yes, people like Steve Reich or Pierre Henri are white guys doing the same thing. But who do you think had the funk first?

BEST COMIC
From the first panel to the last, Anthony Lappé and Dan Goldman’s Shooting War (presented by SMITH, where I write this—but do so with no prompting) is a graphic novel that takes “cyberpunk” themes from William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, and spits them out into the near future—actually, Iraq about six years from now. Shooting War was the download of the year for me—a free online comic that was uploaded episode by episode. Sure beats Lonelygirl15.

AND THE BEST TV SHOW—AND MEDIA PERSON—OF THE YEAR IS…

Flava Flav!!! Flav Flav!!! Flava Flav!!!

The Flavor of Love, Flav’s TV show, just shows us how far we haven’t moved since the days of Bert Williams. Compare the two, and you can see how eerily Flav updates the minstrel show theme. After all, minstrel shows were America’s first pop culture. Check the vibe, and update the scenario, and—voila!—you have Flavor of Love. Flow with the flow ’cause you’re good to go!

Accidental hobby, budding fetish or personal media art piece? Call my pregnant women series what you want, but there’s no denying the beauty in the shots and the stories of the women here. I was lucky enough to see my friend Lara Swimmer, a Seattle-based photographer who was on the East Coast for a gig shooting the Philadelphia Naval Yards, during her eighth month. A few weeks later, she sent me these photos taken by her friend the artist Iole Alessandrini.

The shots of Swimmer here are part of a larger series called Shroud: Swimmer, and a subset of Alessandrini’s ongoing Shroud project. To model for these photos, Swimmer and her belly moved in and out of Alessandrini’s laser plane during time-exposed photos at the Western Bridge gallery space in Seattle. What you see is what the artist got: no editing tools were used to create these astounding pictures.

“In general, we perceive the physical world in a material way,” Alessandrini says via email. “In contrast, I invite people to physically immerse their bodies in a space made with and shaped by lasers. Through the creative manipulation of light, I create unique aesthetic phenomena, rather than mere illusions, that show, in Whitman’s words, how “much unseen is also here.” By playing with visual perception and direct participation, people see their material body as light itself.”

On November 30, 16 days after the photo shoot, Swimmer gave birth to Avery Dorian Zimmer.

Bonus baby! SMITH contributing editor and Treehuggable Meaghan O’Neill has given birth to nearly nine sweet pounds of Nicholas O’Neill Edenbach.

Each week, SMITH photo editor Audrie Lawrence scours the land of Flickr and finds someone doing highly personal, absolutely amazing photography that you, busy reader, probably wouldn’t have stumbled upon yourself.

This week’s treasure is Laura Kicey, a 29-year-old photographer and graphic designer living outside Philadelphia. Kicey says she was a shutterbug in college, falling in love with the black-and-white photography she took up as she worked toward her BFA in communication design. After graduation, she no longer had free access to a darkroom. “I promptly stopped taking photographs and then lost my camera,” she recalls. Luckily, in 2003 Santa brought Kicey an Olympus point-and-shoot, and a year later she discovered Flickr. “From then on, I couldn’t stop taking photos,” she says. “I don’t think anything will be stopping me anytime soon.”

When we found Kicey’s phenomenal self-portrait stream—192 photos of the photographer telling 192 stories about her life—we couldn’t stop looking. As a part of our Flickr Faves series, SMITH asked her about her life, her art, and her own mind-blowing Flickr faves.

Check out Kicey’s photoset, Kicey on Kicey: I Look Nothing Like Me.

What first attracted you to photography, and what motivated to do this self-portrait project?
I wouldn’t characterize self-portraiture as my primary interest, but I am as comfortable being in front of the camera as I am behind it. I use myself as a model because I am always here, I will always agree to do outrageous things, and I’ll work on a shot until I get it right. My self-portraits help me say things I otherwise cannot, recording my highest highs and lowest lows, so they are very much like a journal to me. For me, photography is about recording the sensory experience—reminders—and a way to transport the viewer to this same place or feeling.

Where do you get your ideas?
The sources for inspiration are varied. It might be a reaction to some event in my life (like the frenzy before my first show, dealing with heartbreak, a tribute to a friend (a photo gift for a tattooed friend’s birthday), stumbling upon an unlikely prop or piece of clothing (such as this flowery shower cap).

What’s the most important quality of a photo for you?
I think nothing conveys mood quite like color. I love throwing off white balance and shifting color temperatures to better convey the feelings I have attached to an idea, place, or thing.

Our Q&A with Laura Kicey continues here. (more…)

I love getting lost in the dreamy, streamy world of Flickr (many of the images that you see on SMITH are from Flickr photos marked as Creative Commons, which means the creators have allowed the public to showcase or use them, with certain restrictions depending on the creator’s wishes). Flickr’s a great way to get lost for hours, but few of us can spare the time … even though we love the art and randomness of the click click click.

That’s one of the many reasons that once a week SMITH photo editor Audrie Lawrence will be creating a stream of Flickr photos she’s marked as a “fave,” often around a theme. Although we at SMITH are no strangers to outsmarting ourselves, this week we’re playing it straight—and talking turkey. “Nothing is more essential to thanksgiving than the food,” Lawrence says. “So this week I’ve put together a set of my top 10 food pictures for Thanksgiving. Some are traditional, some are not. All are yummy.”

Happy Thanksgiving.

Still Life With Craigslist

Photography, one might argue, is the art of noticing and capturing what’s hidden, or fleeting, or merely often ignored. At least in part, it’s about seeing what other people don’t.

Take Craigslist. Most people would look at the site and see nothing but a sea of classified ads and a collection of discussion forums. But Steve Giralt saw something more there: a community of real people, all of them with stories. Indeed, the New York City-based photographer has relied on Craigslist in almost every aspect of his work—to find models and exhibition spaces, to promote his shows, and, as he puts it, to generally “entertain myself.”

Giralt’s idea was a simple one. Not long ago, he posted an ad on Craigslist seeking people who wished to have their portraits taken. He laid down one rule: The prospective model had to have seen the ad on Craigslist (or else needed to be brought to the studio by someone who had). “I didn’t turn anyone away,” says the 28-year-old Giralt, who hails from Miami and was recently named one of Photo District News magazine’s 30 emerging photographers to watch. “People could come dressed as they wished; my job was to try to capture their personality on film.”

Among those who answered the ad were college roommates, teachers, expectant couples, students, musicians, graphic designers, dancers, Cher impersonators, actors, and professional models. “Each and every person arrived with a story to tell, often one about Craigslist,” says Giralt. “One woman told me a tale about how she found her job, apartment, boyfriend, and furniture on the site.” In exchange for allowing Giralt to take the photographs, each person receives a free print of his or her choice.

“It’s amazing, really,” Giralt marvels. “I post an ad and then usually start receiving responses within 30 minutes. Most times, I have to take down the ad within 24 hours because I have more responses than I can handle. I’m intrigued by how this one corner of the Web has become such a huge part of so many different lives. Craigslist is a world unto itself, and I love photographing it.”

Jessica Jean Turner
Turner says she has “done pretty much everything on Craigslist.” She’s found jobs, apartments, her TV, friends, and “a few weirdos.” When Turner met Giralt earlier this year, she was living in Manhattan’s Lower East Side and “pretty confused on what I wanted to do in New York.” While she says she’s still uncertain about her future, experience in Giralt’s studio has made her less nervous about pursuing a career in face modeling. “I am having a marvelous time in the on the journey to figuring it out,” she says. “And Craigslist has just been absolutely terrific for me! I just don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have that and MySpace.”

Jacob J. King
A 20-year-old student at Pace University, King works at the Banana Republic in the World Financial Center and is pursuing modeling jobs on the side. He uses Craigslist to find paid modeling work and photo shoots that will help him build up his portfolio.

Carmen Shamwell
The oddest thing she’s found through Craiglist? A part-time gig scooping gelato at a maternity store in the summer of 2004. “Don’t ask,” says the 25-year-old Bronx resident. Shamwell wanted to have a nice photo to give to her boyfriend. “And she was very proud of her stomach,” says Giralt, “so she showed it to me for a few frames.”

A week after the shoot, she sent Giralt this email:
Please let me know if you ever need a muse, seriously. It is rare that I take a good picture, and you made me look so pretty. I’ve always wanted to get into modeling, but I just don’t have enough material to go on…with the pictures you just did, though, I am off to a good start! By just posting that ad on CL and asking people for your project, you don’t know how much you’ve done for me.

Jay Lafond and Stacey Alexander
Lafond and Alexander met on Craigslist, and they decided their first face-to-face meeting would be at Giralt’s studio, where they’d have their picture taken. “They were fun, and weren’t afraid to have fun in front of the camera,” says Giralt. “I’m waiting to hear if anything has happened with them since they met.”

Richard Wilson
Wilson is a 56-year-old photographer who began his career shooting babies in department stores, and is now pursuing his lifelong dream of acting in and directing films. “Ritchie was an interesting guy,” says Giralt. “He looks on Craigslist for opportunities to be photographed.”

Racheline Maltese
Maltese is an actor, writer, and media analyst living in Spanish Harlem with one roomie and two cats. She has used Craigslist for auditions; freelance writing jobs; telling people wondering if X, Y, or Z is an acting/modeling scam that it usually is; finding an apartment; buying and selling tickets to concerts and film festivals; trying (and failing) to find lodging in Sydney. She says she sends Giralt’s photos of her to casting agencies to show the range of both her look and her wardrobe. “Everyone says it makes her look like the boy Oscar Wilde wanted to be,” Giralt says, “which charms her to no end.”

Kim Domke
Domke wrote this note to Giralt after seeing the ad: “I’m interested in learning more about/participating in your project. I’m a 23 yr old female, 5′7″, blonde, who used to work in management consulting and recently has delved into sales, promotional ‘modeling’, and conventions. I’ve always been comfortable in front of the camera, but rarely worked w/pros. I’m also a dancer and used to direct a jazz&hiphop company.”

Christine Rubino
A dancer, choreographer, fitness professional, massage therapist, model, and designer, Rubino says she uses Craigslist to find jobs in all these areas of her professional life. Giralt was looking for an Elvis impersonator, and she wrote to him: “I don’t look like Elvis, but I am looking for someone to photograph me as a Cher impersonator. Interested?”

Shabbat Ruscioelli and Joel
Shabbat was seven months pregnant with twins when she and Joel answered the ad. They soon found themselves trudging through a record 26.9 inches of snow to get to the studio. A few months later, Giralt received this note (with photos, of course):

They came out on Easter at 12:40 & 1:10 p.m.
I had a beautiful drug free birth….
and they were absolutely huge!!
He (Theo) weighed 7lb 4oz.
She (Violet) weighed 6lb 8oz.
They were both the size and length
of full term singles!!! -Totally Amazing!

Can’t make it to New York City for the parade? We’ll take you there. SMITH photography editor Audrie Lawrence began a Flickr search for Halloween images and stumbled upon the work of Michael Smith, a 52-year-old photographer from Starrucca, PA, who only in the past few years started shooting digitally and whose birthday is in fact Halloween. “The moment I came across Michael’s image stream, I was transfixed,” says Lawrence. “His eerie and timeless images of the Halloween Parade transported me to the experience of the parade and the night of Halloween.”

SMITH asked Smith a few questions about himself and what inspires an aesthetic that one Flickr member calls “authentic echoes from old weird America.” View his stream here.

Name: Michael Reed Smith.

Camera: For these shots I used a Canon F1 with 24-, 35- and 85-mm lenses. My flash was an NVS-1 (a modified 283 Vivitar). Currently I still shoot with the F1, but also use a Fujica GW690, a Canon G5 digital and a Leica MP.

What first attracted you to photography?

I have always been interested in photographing people, and the street is the easiest way to do people pictures. I suppose the attraction to street photography comes from the photographers and photo books I admired most when I was young. The Farm Security Administration photographs come to mind, as well as photographers such as Robert Frank, Larry Clark, Danny Lyons, Phillip Jones Griffiths, and Susan Meiselas.

Is NYC’s Halloween parade something you attend and photograph every year, or are these images scenes you wanted to capture for the sake of recording them?
Actually, I only went to the NYC parade twice. The second time was with a camera.

What’s the most important quality of a photo for you?
My rule of thumb for any photograph, no matter what the subject, is whether it can hold my attention for more than five seconds.

What do you consider off-limits?
I don’t consider much off-limits as long as my subject is not overtly hostile to my picture taking.

Where do you derive inspiration?
A lot of photographers inspire me. Today I looked at some of Eugene Richards’s photos.

What are your other favorite Flickr streams?
John Brownlow is someone I discovered recently on Flickr. I think his street photography is amazing.

What are the sites, photocentric or not, that you most love online?
I’ve fallen in love with Joe Bageant’s writing lately. His site is called Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches From America’s Class War.

Does fighting in Iraq make you fit for office?
By Michael Slenske

Michael Slenske writes SMITH’s Back Home From Iraq column.

“You can’t tell me I don’t support the troops. I am the troops.”

Of the 1008 candidates running this election, six have a credential the others can’t match: they’ve served the U.S. armed forces in the war on terror. Among these, you’ll find an ex-Recon Marine whose unit rescued 31 wounded men during a firefight with Fedayeen militiamen, a Black Hawk helicopter pilot who lost both her legs to a rocket-propelled grenade, and a former vice admiral of the Navy. And if the “Iraq Factor” is as big a factor as the pundits and political strategists would have us believe, the incumbents facing these vets, none of whom have served in the military, should be hard-pressed to retain their seats in the midterm elections. But will serving on the front lines in the war on terror really offer anyone a political advantage this fall?

Clockwise from the top right: Van Taylor, Andrew Duck, and David Harris.

“Definitely,” says pioneering Netroots political strategist, Joe Trippi. “The Democrats have been positioned as soft on terror and weak on defense since 9/11. It takes the Republicans’ core argument and pulls the rug out from under it. I think they’ve got a huge advantage.” And with Iraq mired in civil war it would appear that Democrats own the “Vet Factor.” Why? According to Trippi, Republican vets—much like the president—simply can’t extract any more mileage from “stay the course” rhetoric. “There’s a combination of failed policy and things going badly in Iraq, so it doesn’t benefit a Republican to defend the president’s policies just because they’ve served in Iraq.”

Author and Iraq vet Nathaniel Fick isn’t so sure. “I’m not of the school that says you have to have served in uniform in order to be a good commander in chief,” says Fick, who wrote One Bullet Away, about the Marine Recon platoon he led in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003. “Look at Lincoln and FDR—both exceptional wartime presidents who didn’t serve in the military but made a point of surrounding themselves by people who had.” As a member of the board of advisers for the PAC VoteVets.org, Fick works to get vets elected from both parties, though he stresses that these candidates need to connect with voters on more than just the war if they want to win. “I think their constituents care more about jobs and health care than they do about Iraq. But combat service should mean something. Senior leaders are grown over decades—if we want to have people with credibility to stand up and make or question strategic decisions in twenty or thirty years, then we need to start grooming them now.”

SMITH wanted to find out how a politician’s personal war experience fuels his political philosophy, and desire to serve his country once again. We extended interview requests to every Iraq vet in the midterm elections. Maryland’s Andrew Duck, and Texas candidates Van Taylor and David Harris answered the call.

ANDREW DUCK (Maryland-6)
After serving over twenty years in the Army—including three tours in Bosnia and one in Iraq, where he acted as an intelligence liaison to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force—Democrat Andrew Duck, 43, returned to his hometown of Frederick to work as an adviser to the Pentagon on Army Intelligence issues for Northrop Grumman. He’s running against Republican incumbent Roscoe Bartlett.

How has your personal experience in Iraq shaped your political agenda as a Congressional candidate?
The fact that I served on the ground in Iraq gives me credibility and a great deal of latitude. You can’t tell me I don’t support the troops. I am the troops. I was the guy in the 120-degree heat. In the last year 14 years I’ve spent time in Bosnia, in Iraq, whereas the guy in office now spent the last 14 years behind a desk not getting things done. That presents a very stark choice.

What was the most surprising thing you saw at war?
The most surprising moment for me was when we first got word that we were not going to bring back the Iraqi regular army. I was in a tent in with a group of field grade Marines and we just looked at each other incredulous. We were told the Pentagon didn’t have a contractor to train them. That just doesn’t make sense to me. We have the greatest military instructors in the world, they’re called the Army Special Forces. In 2003, I also had a meeting with a guy from the Army Supply Board about getting up armored vehicles and he said the production line was full. I told him to build another production line, we’d use every one that came off the line and he just looked at me like I was crazy. That’s the level of corruption I personally witnessed.

What was the most surprising thing you saw when you came home?
I wouldn’t characterize much as being shocking. I came home and people were very supportive. You had people coming up to you at gas stations thanking you for your service. It’s America, there’s a bunch of different opinions.

Does being a veteran give you a better sense of the current political landscape?
Yes. And the gentleman I’m running against was of age during World War II and avoided service. The big question today is what can you do for national defense; I can speak not from a hypothetical-theoretical perspective, I can speak directly to the situation on the ground. I’ve looked into the eyes of Iraqis. There aren’t enough people with that body of knowledge. It’s unbelievable that the president signed a bill establishing one set of laws for enlisted men and another for the men in Washington, and the soldiers are being held accountable for the politicians’ decisions. It’s indefensible.

What is the most pressing issue facing vets in your district?
Health care. Providing access for vets who are already here and those coming back from Iraq. They’re creating thousands of more vets and Bush is cutting funding to the VA. How are we going to get by if we’re going to have an increasing need for these services? Right now, we screen every returning soldier for PTSD, but more than seventy percent of those who meet the criteria are not referred for treatment.

How do you plan to resolve that issue if you’re elected?
The first thing we need to do is adequately fund the VA and make sure they raise their requirement numbers. Right now, they’re saying Iraq and Afghanistan vets are an anomaly. We also need to have a more active screening program. Not only when they come home, but a six-month follow-up, a one-year follow-up, and we need to make sure that we’re paying these guys so they’re not losing money while they’re getting screened. And we need to build long-term care facilities for Vietnam and Korean vets alongside rehab centers for the young guys coming back. You’ve got two different patient populations, and they’d benefit each other—it’s a great synergy.

Would you go back to war if you were called up again? Why?
If my country needs me, of course. A large part of the reason I’m running is to not leave behind the guys I served with. We created a mess. America is about taking responsibility and that’s what we need to do in Iraq. I expect to get elected to Congress, and I expect to be over there [in Iraq] again, talking to people on the ground, which is what we need to be doing to get this thing fixed.

DAVID HARRIS (Texas-6)
Born in Swarthmore, Penn., Democrat David Harris enlisted in the Army in 1992 then transferred into the Reserves in 2002 just months before he was mobilized for Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. Harris served in Iraq for 14 months as a Logistics Officer and is now running against Republican incumbent Joe Barton.

How has your personal experience in Iraq shaped your political agenda as a Congressional candidate?
I’ve always been politically active, but seeing how we were treated, the lack of planning and resources across the board, I never want anyone else to go through that again. I want to make it better for those going to war. I want them to have the right tools in place before we send them out the door the next time.

What was the most surprising thing you saw at war?
The biggest surprise was the complete disparity between active duty and reserved forces in terms of training, equipment, quality of life. I served active duty for 12 years. When I was mobilized as a reservist we had to fight for everything we got—desert camo, uniforms—we were using twelve-year-old Humvees, which we were doing missions with alongside active duty units with new up-armored vehicles and night-vision goggles.

What was the most surprising thing you saw when you came home?
Again, how reservists and guards were treated when demobilizing. We got no medical evaluations, no dental or psychological evaluations—they just passed us off on the VA. We were one of the first units mobilized and one of the first to come home, and there was no plan for us—no counseling, no support groups for people having marital issues, no health concerns.

Does being a veteran give you a better sense of the current political landscape?
I don’t think me being in a uniform alone qualifies me for office, but I understand sacrifice, and I have a duty to my country to work for it. Those in Washington who have served are few and far between. I do think veterans in general have a better understanding, and they can ask the hard questions before going into a theater of war. We have been on the ground. We know that anything you do can set off a world event. I understand these consequences, and that the bills you sign in Congress are no different. They have an effect on not only people here, but around the world. I have traveled the world, led people, worked with all types of ethnic backgrounds, so I understand a lot of the issues normal people face—how to pay for health care, living on one income. These issues affect the military, as well as American families.

What is the most pressing issue facing vets in your district?
Health care. I’m an active believer that if you go and fight for this country, no matter whether you were wounded or not, you should have health care for life. People are still battling health concerns from Vietnam, Korea and as recent as the first Gulf War and these guys are still struggling to have their cases heard because there’s a backlash between the VA and the three branches. To this day, the VA is still refusing to admit there’s Gulf War Syndrome. Congress keeps cutting VA funding, but at the same time they’re pushing more guys out the door for Iraq.

How do you plan to resolve that issue if you’re elected?
The first thing is to prioritize where the money is being spent. Most of the money for defense is caught up in discretionary spending and gets sucked up by the war on terror. Only a small percentage of the $84 billion of Katrina aid was marked for emergency response—the rest was soaked up by Homeland Security. We need to lock up the money and allocate it accordingly, and it should be proportional throughout the country.

Would you go back to war if you were called up again? Why?
I would do everything in my power not to go, but until my resignation is approved I have a duty to go.

VAN TAYLOR (Texas-17)
The only Republican vet running for office this year, 34-year-old Van Taylor joined the Marines after graduating from Harvard. In Iraq, he led a Recon battalion with Task Force Tarawa’s first platoon and participated in the rescue of Jessica Lynch. He owns and operates a real estate company in Waco, where’s he running against Democratic incumbent Chet Edwards.

How has your personal experience in Iraq shaped your political agenda as a Congressional candidate?
Having served in Iraq I realize war is a terrible, but tyranny is worse. I realize we need to stop people who want to enslave and destroy us. One of the main reasons I got into running for office was to go and stop liberal Democrats from undercutting our will to defend ourselves.

What was the most surprising thing you saw at war?
Two things. One was the terrible price of freedom and how awful the human suffering is in war—how terrible war really is. The second thing is how awful tyranny is and how grateful the Iraqi people were about what we were doing over there. War is a bad thing, but tyranny is much worse.

What was the most surprising thing you saw when you came home?
Coming back, I had a really renewed respect for our country and our way of life.

Does being a veteran give you a better sense of the current political landscape?
There was a time in our country when most of our Congressmen were war veterans, but those days are behind us. Today, there’s not a single member of Congress who’s served in the front lines of the war on terror. There’s actually only 25 who’ve served in battle. And we need more people in office who can speak with a moral authority about the war on terror.

What is the most pressing issue facing vets in your district?
Clearly keeping the VA hospital open. That’s a key issue here in central Texas. It’s been in danger of closing, and it’s a center of excellence for treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and that takes a lot of time to work through. Iraq veterans are really going to need that hospital.

How do you plan to resolve that issue if you’re elected?
We need to send more people who are committed to veterans and have the moral authority to speak for them. As a combat veteran I’ll have a unique voice.

Would you go back to war if you were called up again? Why?
Absolutely. In a second. If my country needs me I’ll go, and I’ll go anywhere. It doesn’t matter.

By Jason Bitner, FOUND magazine

Davy Rothbart and I started FOUND back in 2001 as a collaborative project for people to share the hilarious, strange and heartbreaking stuff that they found as they went about their lives. It could be a grocery list on a Post-it note or a dirty drawing on the back of a spiral notebook - if it was interesting, it was fair game.

Not to play favorites, but we always had a special place in our hearts for Polaroids. It seems like everyone has had the pleasure of wielding that clunky camera and snapping a few shots, watching it spit the film back out, and smelling that Polaroid scent. Once the image finally (finally!) materialized after five minutes of impatient shaking, what were you left with? Instant nostalgia - framed and faded, a picture that already looked decades old.

With the advent of digital photography, all of that is fading fast. While the era of the Polaroid picture hasn’t entirely vanished, this expensive and temperamental medium is in its waning days. The digital age offers clearer shots at cheaper prices, while allowing the photographer more freedom to manipulate and improve the picture. But you know what? We’re still suckers for the Polaroid. How can you beat a well-weathered Polaroid photo with gravel actually embedded into the white borders? That’s beauty you can’t find anywhere else.

So at FOUND we want to celebrate the last days of Polaroid. Over the years we’ve received thousands of spellbinding Polaroids from around the world. In our new book, from which these and dozens of other shots have been unearthed, we showcase our absolute favorites. We think they’re some of our best finds ever.

CAPTION CONTEST!
Leave a caption after any of the Polaroids you see here. The writers of the best three (as deemed by FOUND creators Davy Rothbart and Jason Bitner) win a copy of FOUND Polaroids. Not too shabby.

Click to enlarge

#1. #2.

#3. #4.

#5. #6.

#7. #8.

#9. #10.

Pictured below and on this Flickr stream: incredible shots of signs taken from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast after Katrina.

The sum total is a self-published book by Eric Harvey Brown and Lori Baker, Signs of Life, and one of our favorite modern mashups. It goes something like this: Someone, or many people, picks up a camera,

finds a thread and through-line, uploads to Flickr, creates a book using a one-stop publishing shop like Lulu, sells it online to whoever’s interested, donates the proceeds to the source of the images when such a donation is appropriate, and gives out food and drink at a party to promote the book and/or cause where real people meet face to face. What’s better than that?

For our many readers in the tri-state area, that party is tonight, in Jersey City, at Bar Majestic, 6-8pm. More receptions follow later this fall. Click here for deets.