Patrick Inglis is a doctoral candidate in sociology at the City University of New York. He lives in Brooklyn.Tumblr (3.0; @patrickinglis)http://patrickinglis.com/From Sunil Khilnani&#8217;s &#8220;Why India is at a crossroads,&#8221; published today at the BBC...http://patrickinglis.com/post/13155768233http://patrickinglis.com/post/13155768233Tue, 22 Nov 2011 07:39:16 -0500Ezra Klein points to an analysis of Herman Cain&#8217;s preposterous 9-9-9 tax plan by the Tax...http://patrickinglis.com/post/11652094670http://patrickinglis.com/post/11652094670Wed, 19 Oct 2011 09:25:11 -0400About as accurate a summation as I think you&#8217;re going to find regarding Obama&#8217;s...http://patrickinglis.com/post/11004886329http://patrickinglis.com/post/11004886329Mon, 03 Oct 2011 21:48:55 -0400This afternoon, I&#8217;ve asked my introduction to sociology students at BMCC to join me at...http://patrickinglis.com/post/10980375441http://patrickinglis.com/post/10980375441Mon, 03 Oct 2011 10:49:50 -0400<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lsgogt7WoN1qa2y0jo1_500.jpg"/><br/><br/><p>Day 14 & 15 #occupywallstreet <a target="_blank" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/patrickinglis/sets/72157627803375882/">photos</a>. </p>http://patrickinglis.com/post/10956142677http://patrickinglis.com/post/10956142677Sun, 02 Oct 2011 19:12:28 -0400<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://assets.tumblr.com/swf/audio_player_black.swf?audio_file=http://www.tumblr.com/audio_file/10729669868/tumblr_ls6vw3f84G1qa2y0j&color=FFFFFF" height="27" width="207" quality="best" wmode="opaque"></embed><br/><br/><p>Beats from #occupywallstreet</p>http://patrickinglis.com/post/10729669868http://patrickinglis.com/post/10729669868Tue, 27 Sep 2011 12:16:51 -0400<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ls5kojEWGe1qa2y0jo1_500.jpg"/><br/><br/><blockquote> <p>“[Thomas Struth’s]<em> monumental (fifty-seven by seventy-four inches) portrait of the eight members of the Ayvar family, in Lima, is a rare encounter with poverty. That the family is poor may be inferred from the room in which they sit—a piece of plasterboard with cracks in it appears behind the group, the foreground shows part of a patterned velvet sofa over which a sheet has been thrown to hide something torn or ruined, a dark muddy linoleum covers the floor, a small cheap religious print hangs high on the wall. Clearly the spareness of the room is an object not of advanced taste but of want, of not having the things that advanced taste keeps at bay. The family members—a tiny, dark-haired mother, a gray-haired father, and six children, ranging in age from a seven- or eight-year-old boy to a grown son and daughter—sit at a small table facing the photographer. A current sympathy runs between the subjects and the photographer that brings to mind the sympathy that flowed between Walker Evans and the sharecropper family he <a target="_blank" href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pnp/ppmsc/00200/00234r.jpg">photographed</a> in Dust Bowl Alabama, in the nineteen-thirties. But with this difference: Evans’s black-and-white photographs are heavyhearted pictures. They show the hopelessness of the struggle of the people they dignify and beautify. The smell of poverty wafts out of them. If any smell wafts out of the photograph of the Ayvars, it is that of laundry detergent. The father’s crisply ironed short-sleeved dress shirt, the children’s neat white and pastel-colored T-shirts, decorated with cartoons, and, most conspicuously, the bleached white cloth draped over the table, every stitch of whose green-and-red cross-stitched border is made visible, you could almost say celebrated, by the oversized print’s magnification—all this creates a gestalt that is far removed from that of the rueful Evans’s homage to the dirt-poor. As with all Struth’s photographs, it is hard to say what ‘statement’ it makes, but its note is characteristically cheering, even elating. The dazzling white cross-stitched tablecloth (to which the eye is drawn as if to a central figure) emblematizes the work’s optimism, like that of an Easter Sunday service—or an encounter with a friendly photographer.</em>”</p> </blockquote> <p>-Janet Malcolm, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/09/26/110926fa_fact_malcolm">“Depth of Field”</a></p>http://patrickinglis.com/post/10704237044http://patrickinglis.com/post/10704237044Mon, 26 Sep 2011 19:17:00 -0400“Why are people occupying Wall Street? Why has the occupation – despite the latest police...http://patrickinglis.com/post/10652936268http://patrickinglis.com/post/10652936268Sun, 25 Sep 2011 15:09:05 -0400<iframe width="400" height="225" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/NYqiLJBXbss?wmode=transparent&autohide=1&egm=0&hd=1&iv_load_policy=3&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&showsearch=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br/><br/><p><p class="p1">I’ve been meaning to watch <em>Bill Cunningham New York </em>for ages, but finally decided today would be the day—spurred by a tweet from development specialist <a target="_blank" href="http://chrisblattman.com">Chris Blattman</a>. There’s a lot to take from the film, and so much here to comment on, especially from a sociological perspective: style, stratification, hierarchy, presentation of self, among many, many other things. For me, though, the themes of work and craft are what stand out. As the film documents, Cunningham still lives in a tiny studio apartment at Carnegie Hall. He doesn’t have many material possessions. He’s never owned a television set. But he’s the luckiest man in the world, it seems, with the freedom to photograph who he wants, when he wants, as he sees fit, without much oversight from the <em>New York Times</em>. And what amazing work he churns out. A great film. Highly recommended. </p></p>http://patrickinglis.com/post/10605608613http://patrickinglis.com/post/10605608613Sat, 24 Sep 2011 14:18:58 -0400Amid the bickering over Obama&#8217;s real and perceived faults, Bill Keller in an op-ed published...http://patrickinglis.com/post/10403014002http://patrickinglis.com/post/10403014002Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:30:08 -0400<img src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lrmecmZVmn1qa2y0jo1_500.png"/><br/><br/><p>Crown Heights, Brooklyn, 2011</p>http://patrickinglis.com/post/10277148826http://patrickinglis.com/post/10277148826Fri, 16 Sep 2011 10:45:00 -0400Story here. Now, if only we can get the NYPD to properly regulate the bike lanes. Presumably, bike...http://patrickinglis.com/post/10207418068http://patrickinglis.com/post/10207418068Wed, 14 Sep 2011 14:20:25 -0400From a New Yorker blog post by Naresh Fernandes: It suddenly became clear this morning that the...http://patrickinglis.com/post/7654351997http://patrickinglis.com/post/7654351997Fri, 15 Jul 2011 12:11:25 -0400In making a case for Breaking Bad as the best show of the past decade, Chuck Klosterman offers fans...http://patrickinglis.com/post/7622649518http://patrickinglis.com/post/7622649518Thu, 14 Jul 2011 15:16:17 -0400<iframe width="400" height="249" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/r5Jy_MW23b0?wmode=transparent&autohide=1&egm=0&hd=1&iv_load_policy=3&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&showsearch=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br/><br/><p>Arundhati Roy talks about her new book on India, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Republic-Essays-Arundhati-Roy/dp/0670085693/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1310564722&sr=8-1"><em>Broken Republic</em></a>. Her brave essay on rebels in the northeast of the country previously appeared in <a target="_blank" href="http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264738"><em>Outlook</em></a>. To be sure, I don’t always agree with her perspective on things—to say, as she does, for example, that India’s poor are no better off in the present reform era than before ignores not only facts on the ground but also the experiences of the people she purports to speak on behalf of. That being said, her writing on India stands as a necessary counterweight to pro-globalization evangelists in the mainstream English press.</p>http://patrickinglis.com/post/7572620476http://patrickinglis.com/post/7572620476Wed, 13 Jul 2011 10:02:45 -0400Has it really been three months and two days since I last posted here? My, it does seem so. Now...http://patrickinglis.com/post/7457672078http://patrickinglis.com/post/7457672078Sun, 10 Jul 2011 12:29:28 -0400Paul Tough gets tough (pun intended; cute, no?) on education reformers. The best lines come near the...http://patrickinglis.com/post/7457597130http://patrickinglis.com/post/7457597130Sun, 10 Jul 2011 12:26:36 -0400<img src="http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ljc2a7S7cv1qa2y0jo1_500.jpg"/><br/><br/><p>Stack of Yellow Pages dropped on the steps outside my building’s front door. A little twentieth century, no?</p>http://patrickinglis.com/post/4439551690http://patrickinglis.com/post/4439551690Fri, 08 Apr 2011 08:18:44 -0400A few choice quotes from a recently published Financial Times interview with Napster founder and...http://patrickinglis.com/post/3723651074http://patrickinglis.com/post/3723651074Tue, 08 Mar 2011 11:15:00 -0500“Religion is not a rational enterprise. Its metaphysical claims cannot be proven; either one...http://patrickinglis.com/post/3308418597http://patrickinglis.com/post/3308418597Tue, 15 Feb 2011 07:31:40 -0500