Casey Downing

Casey Downing grew up in Colorado, received his BA in English from Colorado State University and has not stayed put since. He has lived and worked in California, Wyoming, Ireland, Argentina, New York and India. Casey spent the past two years in New York working as an NGO consultant on economic, social and human rights issues at the United Nations. He currently lives in southern India, working for a human rights organization that fights human trafficking and modern-day slavery. Still, he thinks poetry is probably more important than lawmaking.

Broken Wheels in Need of Fixing

Social Justice

January 21, 2011

Several weeks ago, I rode in a Toyota Qualis to a small conference center just outside of Bangalore, India to interview several former slaves. All had come to Bangalore months or years earlier with the promise of work, leaving their families behind and promising to send their earnings home. But there would be no earnings to send.

So Much Depends on Photography

Visual Art

Tags: Chennai, photography, Susan Sontag, William Carlos Williams

November 26, 2010

Every surface of every object in Chennai seemed to be like this wall: faded paint, crumbling, pockmarked, rusted – a whole universe of texture and color.

What it is About Twenty-Somethings

Humanity

September 17, 2010

Perhaps my generation is accidentally rediscovering something meaningful by stepping off society’s ladder and returning to live with our parents, unmarried and unable to find our way in the world.

The Great Matter That Still Matters

Film & Television

July 30, 2010

Henry VII’s actions – recounted and sometimes embellished in the recently-ended series, The Tudors – changed the world more than he could have dreamed.

Notes on Leaving the City

Cities

May 28, 2010

Everyone can tell you how to move to New York, how to dress, where to shop, where to get a cocktail. But almost no one will tell you how to leave.

The Lost City of Z

Cities / Literature

April 2, 2010

The urges that led us to explore are impulses that have been felt by all people who live among ruins.

Football as Art

Music & Performing Arts / Sports

February 5, 2010

Football, like music, like dance, like much of life, is a study of chaos and disorder that men strive and plan and work to overcome, doing so only in moments, in glimpses of something more.