Sister wives, originally uploaded by annafine.
If you’re ever wandering aimlessly around southern Utah, reading Under the Banner of Heaven and watching Big Love, go to the Walmart in Washington. Be amused by the groups of women roaming the superstore’s many departments, wearing matching pastel pioneer outfits. Be baffled by the blatant display of polygamy unfolding before your eyes.
Washington is right outside St. George, near the “Arizona Strip”–a hard-to-reach haven for polygamists. The biggest Mormon Fundamentalist sect is located on the Arizona-Utah border, in Hilldale, UT and Colorado City, AZ. These are the people you’ve seen on the news, embroiled in conflict with the feds again and again.
Legend has it (read: my guidebook I bought at Borders says) that outsiders are not welcome in these towns, so much so that the police will harass anyone who looks out of place. If you’re like me and you want to see their cool outfits in real life, know this: They do all their shopping at the Walmart in Washington.
This picture was taken in the afternoon, if I remember correctly. I’d imagine going during the day would allow you to see the most polygamists at once. I’m not sure but I have a feeling they don’t stay out late.
I wouldn’t recommend taking pictures of them, like I did, for a wide variety of reasons including the fact that it’s considered insanely rude to do such things by nearly all of mankind. I did it so you don’t have to. However, if you can get them to pose with you in a picture, I fully support you.
Good luck!
No Smorking, originally uploaded by annafine.
No smorking, and absolutely no tout. (Taken in Harajuku.)
I took these pictures inside an abandoned sugar mill near Paia in Maui, Hawaii. If you ever are in Maui, you need to visit this place before it disappears. The place was in the middle of a sugar cane plantation, completely quiet and empty–but full of graffiti, car skeletons, and empty pill bottles.
You can see a bunch of other pictures from the sugar mill on my Flickr, here.
Innocence
I looove finding things in my closet. I get to relive my early childhood years, writing poems about beer with my mother.
I clearly remember composing this masterpiece, but I couldn’t have been older than 7 or 8. Someone had to tell me which brand was superior. And help me type it up. Mom had no objection.
She was also always happy to play with me whenever I loaded my Barbies into their pink Corvette for a fatal car accident. We’d dress them up for a night on the town before we sent their vehicle flying down the long hallway and into the wall, killing everyone instantly. If I remember correctly the crashes were way more spectacular when she pushed the car…limbs getting severed and whatnot.
She let me have a bone collection and listen to Nine Inch Nails. To this day she sends me notes like this. She bought me tear gas for Christmas!
So what if that was the last time I graduated from anything?
Come Tweet it up with me…I have lots of exciting information in store for all of you via Twitter.
