About the photo:

George Tames covered Washington D.C for four decades (1945-1985) and is best remembered for one, “The Loneliest Job,” a photograph of President John F. Kennedy looking out of the south window of the oval office. Tames took the photograph through the door of the Oval Office, after Kennedy thought he had left. From behind, it looks as if he is carrying the weight of the world. Kennedy – who had a bad back – simply was reading the newspapers standing up, as he often preferred to do.[…]

Although the photo was taken on Feb. 10, 1961 — just a few months into Kennedy administration — the image would later take on a more symbolic meaning as the Kennedy presidency waded into difficult waters. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the New York Times christened the photo, “The loneliest job in the world.” The photo was a favourite of President Clinton, who hang it in the Treaty Room, the presidential private office on the second floor of the White House. The West Wing recreated it for its opening segment (below). (more)

This photo is part of the George Tames Collection hosted by The New York Times Agency. George Tames was a photographer for The New York Times from 1945 to 1985.

Excerpt from the magazine:

The little red book which contains hightlights from The thought of Mao Tse-tung is the most influential volume in the world today. It is also extremely dull and entirely unmemorable. To resolve this paradox, we, a handful of editors in authority who follow the capitalist road, thought useful to illustrate certain key passages in such a way that they are more likely to stick in the mind. The visual aid is Sharon Tate and, to give credit where credit, God knows, is due, she will soon be seen in the Twentieth Century-Fox motion picture, Valley of the Dolls.

The Thought Experiment is a blog run by Elizabeth Lamanna:

This animal is a thought experiment. I will try to keep it upbeat and interesting, but it may occasionally swing through bat country, go off broadway, or veer into vapidity as I attempt to disentangle what feels like the crushing simultaneity of where my choices have lead my life.

I realized about a month from turning thirty that I had spent the past year acting like I was going to be audited, as if, casting my memory back through the past ten years, I panicked. Maybe not without reason. Throughout this last decade, I’ve jumped a few ships, burned a few bridges, worded up, partied down, hung loose, and obeyed my thirst, and been just about rolled under by the waves almost as many times as I deserved. The final countdown of my twenties suddenly woke me up to the fact that somewhere along the way, I’d lost track of myself. (more)

Metropolis: All New Restauration ― Behin The Scenes

Seldom has the rediscovery of a cache of lost footage ignited widespread curiosity as did the announcement, in July 2008, that an essentially complete copy of Fritz Lang’s METROPOLIS had been found. (more)

LIFE – Hosted by Google: “The Youth Communes; New way of living confronts the U.S.” July 18th, 1969. Photo by John Olson

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The Statue of Liberty as a female counterpart of Hobbes’ Leviathan (Lazarus’ poem is mentioned in Auster’s novel Leviathan); the United-States as the land of the “wretched refuse”. Is this the “community of those who are without community” (“all of us, from now on” writes Jean-Luc Nancy) ? Read more about Lazarus’ poem on wikipedia.

About the exhibition From Haven to Home:

From Haven to Home is a Library of Congress exhibition marking 350 years of Jewish life in America. The exhibition features more than two hundred treasures of American Judaica from the collections of the Library of Congress, augmented by a selection of important loans from other cooperating cultural institutions. (more)

David Vivó photostream on Flickr: personal project, Paul Auster’s “Leviathan” book cover / 120x185 mm

The New York Times: “In transit, Kyrgystan to Afghanistan, April 5: Soldiers in full gear on a C-17 military transport from the Transit Center at Manas to the Mazar-i-Sharif Airfield” by Damon Winter [click for full scale]

In “A Year at War,” The New York Times will trace the steps of the men and women of the First Battalion, 87th Infantry of the 10th Mountain Division during their yearlong deployment in northern Afghanistan. Damon Winter, the winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography, followed the battalion in late March and early April as it made its way from Fort Drum, N.Y., to Kunduz Province. Over the weekend, as the first installments of the series were published, he spoke about the project with James Estrin. Their conversation has been edited and condensed.