MicroStories: A Venetian Screenplay
PHOTOGRAPH BY JC JOHNSON & STORY BY KAMI L. RICE
A tiny fictional tale inspired by a magically miniaturized photo of a real-life place.
Interacting With Art: A Catalog of Tourists in Italy
STORY BY JC JOHNSON
While it wasn’t officially an Anthrow Circus travel tour, the fact that our editor, Kami Rice, and I, Anthrow Circus’s creative director, were in Italy together made it nearly so. Fitting well with Anthrow Circus’s love of investing in burgeoning writers and photographers and artists, we embarked on a photography study tour as mentors to a group of my just-graduated high school students. Given their new status as legal “adults,” the goal was to give them access to sites, history, and art while also giving them a taste of responsibility as they explored and interacted with famous Italy.
But as our group tour of Italy continued, it became clearer to me that we were those tourists. We may have thought we were special, and in some ways, we were. But simultaneously, we were also them. We weren’t always the same type of tourist, in that we played different tourist roles, but still, at some point, we were those tourists.
ST AIRS
POEM BY VAGRANT MOON
PHOTO BY JC JOHNSON
CLICK. REFRESH.
WORDS AND PHOTO BY JC JOHNSON
$10,000 goal: Click. Refresh. $340.
One winter day, I was walking my dog when my neighbor invited me to sled with her and her friends. “Don’t worry, we are all over 30 and from the neighborhood, so take a turn. I’ll hold your dog’s leash while you go.” I was so excited to have a snow day and to finally have some pandemic-era human interaction, along with the chance to live my inner child.
MicroStories: Confinement
PHOTOGRAPH BY JC JOHNSON & STORY BY KAMI L. RICE
A tiny fictional tale inspired by a magically miniaturized photo of a real-life place.
How to View Art
TEXT AND IMAGES BY JC JOHNSON
Prior to the coronavirus pandemic’s disruption, the world had seen a surge in international travel and tourism, forcing many museums and other popular tourist destinations to take crowd control measures.
For example, the Louvre renovated the Mona Lisa’s exhibition space last year and improved traffic flow to better handle the painting’s many, many visitors, who largely view the painting through a sea of cell phones and cameras, let’s be honest.
MicroStories: Half-Full
PHOTOGRAPH BY JC JOHNSON & STORY BY KAMI L. RICE
A real life scene turned miniature through the magic of photography has inspired a tiny fictional tale that invites you to discover the other stories hiding in this image. Explore the world with us and let your imagination play along as you do.
MicroStories: Inishmore
PHOTOGRAPH BY JC JOHNSON & STORY BY KAMI L. RICE
A real life scene turned miniature through the magic of photography has inspired a tiny fictional tale that invites you to discover the other stories hiding in this image. Explore the world with us and let your imagination play along as you do.
Contextualizing France’s Yellow Vests Protests
COLLABORATION BY KAMI L. RICE AND JC JOHNSON
Since part of our Culture Keeper team is based in France, it seems appropriate to bring you a Culture Keeper take on one of France’s biggest news stories in the waning weeks of 2018: the Gilets Jaunes (“Yellow Vests” or “Yellow Jackets”) movement that made it into foreign news outlets when the protests turned violent in Paris. We’re not a breaking news outlet by any stretch of the imagination, but we are in the business of offering a bit of cultural context where we can. Which is what we seek to do here as we experiment with a new-to-us storytelling format that we hope to perfect over time.
MicroView: Chenonceaux, France
STORY AND PHOTOS BY JC JOHNSON
During a summer visit to France, JC Johnson toured a chateau that was the site of its fair share of intrigue – making it the perfect setting for the newest installment in our roving View From Here series.