Prisons & the Middle East—“What’s Your Next Project?”

Skip Schiel in Dheheshe refugee camp, Bethlehem, 2003, photo by Mark Dahoud
On the morning of September 11, 2001, the attacks on the US, I was writing the following. I found the timing auspicious.
People ask me, what’s your next project? Could be prisons, could be the Middle East. But, as plausibly, it might be huge trucks, [...]

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Musing on Love: Ache

I ache, I ache, I ache—for what, for whom? For M primarily, thinking now about visiting her during my layover in Amsterdam on my return to Palestine/Israel in 1 month. I clearly ache for M and for others, some unnamed, not yet identified, the nameless faceless partner of my dreams. My yearning: irrepressible, absurd, human. [...]

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A Friendly Conversation Between Allan Kohrman and Skip Schiel about Quakers and Palestine/Israel

KOHRMAN: These days the Israeli-Palestinian dilemma is an example of “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” We have witnessed some reasonably important events within the last few years, including Israel’s withdrawal of its settlements in Gaza and Israel’s war with Hezbollah. But little of major consequence has transpired since the refusal [...]

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Do not talk about the conflict in Israel and Palestine!

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.
 
—Gospel of Thomas

Since 2004 I’ve been working on a photography project about Palestine/Israel. Friends Meeting at Cambridge, my monthly meeting, has been [...]

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Musing on Love—part 3

Old City Wall, Jerusalem, Mary 2006
From M:
I also want to thank you for the beautiful time spent together. Hard to find the words… “you gave me such a treasure and I love you so”.
You were in my dream this night! You were still in Palestine, saying goodbye to a huge amount of people, under [...]

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Musing on Love—part 2

Caribbean Festival, Cambridge MA, August 2007
To M:
You are young (and unusually mature), I am older, so I—and you possibly—might ask, how does this difference work? What are its advantages and what are its disadvantages. I’ll only write about one possible advantage.
You are in the stage of exploration, discovery, risk taking, adventure, experimentation, a most vital [...]

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Musing on Love—part 1

Peace Center, Dorchester, April 2007
amour
a secret or illicit love affair or lover.
Middle English (originally in the sense of love or affection): via Old French from Latin amor ‘love.’ The current sense dates from the late 16th century.
eros
1 Greek Mythology the god of love, son of Aphrodite. Roman equivalent Cupid .
sexual love or desire.
(in Freudian [...]

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We Might Inquire

The body of Omar Abu Daher being lifted into a Palestinian ambulance.
From a Friend on May 30, 2007:
I must speak up: Your email [about an assassination in Ramallah by Israel military forces] has deeply offended me. If you’re going to send around articles with a view that is so clearly slanted from [...]

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Big Trucks

Recently, with massive construction projects ensuing at Harvard University just down the street from my home, I’ve noticed a plethora–a veritable swarming–of large trucks, pickup trucks, mostly massive, heavy duty and full size, once called 1-ton and up. I counted some 25 in a two-block span, parked for the day, as their often-burly drivers build [...]

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Anger (on the 6th anniversary of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks

In April 2007 I was photographing along the Boston harbor, walking around the so-called World Trade Center—how many centers of world travel can there be?—Wharf, otherwise known as Commercial Wharf I think, making use of it as a camera platform. After coffee and a muffin, I strolled the entire length, made a few photos [...]

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