THE ARTIST

August 12, 2017 / Benn Bell / 8 Comments

A poem by William Carlos Williams

Illustrated by Benn Bell

Dedicated to Ginger Peacock Jones

Mr T. bareheaded in a soiled undershirt

his hair standing out on all sides

stood on his toes heels together

arms gracefully for the moment curled above his head.

Then he whirled about bounded into the air

and with an entrechat perfectly achieved
completed the figure.

My mother
taken by surprise
where she sat
in her invalid’s chair
was left speechless.

Bravo! she cried at last
and clapped her hands.

The man’s wife came from the kitchen: What goes on here? she said.

But the show was over.

LUST

August 1, 2017 / Benn Bell / 6 Comments

The editors of WordPress have chosen “Lust” as the word of the day for my daily inspiration. I am happy to accommodate them with my own interpretation and inspired rendering of this volatile, combustible, and knocked out loaded word.

I take you to the lust capitals of the world, two sister cites really, which gives an extra added dimension to the word lust, if you catch my meaning.

So here we have visual evidence of the lusty nature of these two great cities: Philadelphia and Paris.

A Philly stripper goes into the Candy Store for stripper supplies.

“Of all the worldly Passions, lust is the most intense.”

-Buddha

Purple Orchid, Philadelphia

“She was perfect, pure maddening sex, and she knew it, and she played on it, dripped it, and allowed you to suffer for it.”
– Charles Bukowski

Ozz Gentleman’s Club, Philadelphia

“Lust is the source of all our actions, and humanity.”
― Blaise Pascal

Club Ozz, Philadelphia

“I live for sex. I celebrate it, and relish the electricity of it, with every fibre of my being. I can see no better reason for being alive.”
― Fiona Thrust

Sex Shop on South Street in Philly

“The world is divided into those who screw and those who do not. He distrusted those who did not—when they strayed from the straight and narrow it was something so unusual for them that they bragged about love as if they had just invented it.”
― Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

Leather and Latex, Philly

“Lust’s Passion will be served; it demands, it militates, it tyrannizes.”

-Marquis de Sade

Moulin Rouge in Paris where girls who can Cancan

“Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life; it supports them all, lends strength to them all ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust.”
– Marquis de Sade

Pussy’s Gentleman’s Club, Paris

“I can resit anything but temptation.”

– Oscar Wilde

Sex Shop, Paris

“There’s something here, my dear boy, that you don’t understand yet. A man will fall in love with some beauty, with a woman’s body, or even a part of a woman’s body (a sensualist can understand that) and he’ll abandon his own children for her, sell his father and mother, and his country, Russia, too. If he’s honest, he’ll steal; if he’s humane, he’ll murder; if he’s faithful, he’ll deceive.”

-Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

La Diva, Paris

“Only the united beat of sex and the heart can create ecstasy.”

-Anais Nin

New Girl’s, Paris

“To have her here in bed with me, breathing on me, her hair in my mouth – I count that as something of a miracle.”

-Henry Miller

Paris Museum of Erotic Art

All photos by me.

The Gates of Hell

July 23, 2017 / Benn Bell / 10 Comments

“Abandon hope all ye who enter here.”

Th Gates of Hell, Auguste Rodin

The Gates of hell is a sculpture by Auguste Rodin that depicts a scene from Dante’s The Divine Comedy. There were three bronze casts made; they reside in The Musee Rodin in Paris, The Rodin Museum in Philadelphia, and the National Museum of Western Art in Ueno Park, Tokyo.

This photo was taken in Philadelphia.

Bury

July 12, 2017 / Benn Bell / 4 Comments

“I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.”

-William Shakespeare, from Julius Caesar

Of Cell Phones, Lap Tops, and Books

July 11, 2017 / Benn Bell / 13 Comments

Young Parisian couple, about a generation apart, one reading a book the other a cell phone.

Before there were cell phones there were laptops. Before there were laptops there were TV screens. Before there were TV screens there were books. I’m reading a book right now, which is what I am usually doing. You would be surprised how much trouble I used to get into just for reading books. I have been called anti-social. Bosses didn’t like it. One of my wives tossed my books out into the backyard into a mud puddle. And my own mother come into my room one day, and tipped my bookcase over, spilling my books out onto the floor. What was a poor boy to do?

Most of the time nowadays people don’t seem to care much if I am reading a book. They are too busy with their own noses stuck into their cell phones.

Next time you get a chance, try reading a book. Remember, Mark Twain once said, those who do not read have no advantage over those who can’t read.

Five Things My Grand Pappy Used to Say

July 7, 2017July 7, 2017 / Benn Bell / 4 Comments

It’s not what you used to be that counts, it’s what you are now.
I’m as independent as a hog on ice.
Boy, you need to take that camera and throw it in the river.
Don’t make the other fella’s living for him.
Huh? Pigs say huh! Pinch their tails they uh huh!

Bridge

July 6, 2017 / Benn Bell / Leave a comment

Benjamin Franklin Bridge, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

I have always loved bridges….I have been photographing them my whole life. This in one of my all time favorite bridges in the world which spans the Delaware River between Philadelphia and Camden. Informally it is known as the Ben Franklin Bridge. Work began on January 6, 1922. At the peak of construction, 1,300 people worked on the bridge, and 15 died during its construction. The bridge opened to traffic on July 1, 1926, three days ahead of its scheduled opening on the nation’s 150th anniversary. At completion, its 1,750-foot span was the world’s longest suspension bridge.