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The (Un)Official Occupy Wall Street Photographer's 15 Favorite Frames

David Shankbone has been covering OWS since before the protests even started. These are his favorite moments.

By David Shankbone,
David Shankbone
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Cord Jefferson
Cord Jefferson
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Nov 08, 2011

Shankbone headshot courtesy of Billy Name

artphotographyoccupy wall streetdavid shankbone

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Nuns of Spokane, Washington make a habit of hitting the slopes.

Warren Miller Entertainment, @warrenmillerent: https://www.instagram.com/p/DIzf3-Xu7xG/

In a viral skiing video, nuns of Spokane, Washington make a habit of hitting the slopes

“Where's it written in the good book that it's wrong for nuns to break away from the strict disciplines of their daily lives and get out and experience some of the real beauty of God's creation?” This is the question Warren Miller Entertainment, a longstanding ski and snowboard film company, asks as the nuns from the Mary Immaculate Queen Order take to the slopes. “They’re nuns on the runs,” as it says in a video that’s now gone viral.

The sisters, clad in cozy, bright blue and white habits for skiing, carry their skis from the church after completing their Sunday tasks. Then they traverse the mountain with aplomb. Some wear goggles and one or two even take a spill into the fluffy snow. Their slopes of choice are at Idaho’s Schweitzer Basin, not far from their home near Spokane, Washington. At the Basin, as the video shares, they’re known as “The Flying Nuns of St. Michael’s Convent.”

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Pope Francis touched many lives, even by mail.

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'Humble people from Cleveland' invited Pope Francis to their wedding. They received a thoughtful response.

While many people around the world continue to mourn the passing of Pope Francis, some have also recounted their memories of him on social media. Among them was Reverend Ian Anderson, a Unitarian Universalist Minister-in-training in Cleveland, Ohio, who shared to Reddit. When Ian and his now-wife Ash were sending out their wedding invitations in 2023, they had a few extras. They decided to send them to some of their favorite celebrities, among them Jack Black, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Judge Judy, and Pope Francis, Newsweekshares.

Ian told Newsweek, "It was really just for fun." As "two humble people from Cleveland," they didn’t expect a response from anyone, but they did write a nice letter to the Pope in particular. "The invite we sent him was slightly more formal than the others," Ian noted. "We included much more formal language, referred to him as 'His Holiness,' and said we wanted to extend this invite because he is someone we admired. We also asked him to please pray for us.” Their response came the following month, in June 2023.

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The age of happiness

Images via theconversation.com

What age are people happiest? Research says it’s probably not what you think.

Would you go back to being 9, where your biggest worries were times tables and playground drama? Or maybe your early 20s, filled with endless possibilities, late-night adventures, and no back pain?

While pop culture tends to glorify youth, a recent survey found that people’s favorite age isn’t childhood or early adulthood. It’s 36.

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After suffering two tragic losses, Rush drummer Neil Peart grieved by hitting the open road.

Photo credit: Matt Becker via Wikimedia Commons (Neil Peart), Photo credit: Canva (motorcycle photo)

Rush's Neil Peart, after suffering two tragic losses, grieved during a profound motorcycle trip

Neil Peart, drummer and lyricist for iconic prog-rock band Rush, suffered two monumental losses in the late '90s, with his daughter and common-law wife dying less than a year apart. Overcome with grief, he gradually found some form of peace on the open road, traveling 55,000 miles on his motorcycle—and documenting the experience in his poignant 2002 memoir, Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road.

This turbulent period began in August 1997, when his 19-year-old daughter, Selena, was killed in a car accident. In his book, Peart referred to the subsequent months as a "waking nightmare," with he and his wife, Jacqueline Taylor, battling through immense despair. "It soon became apparent that Jackie’s world was completely shattered forever," the musician wrote. "She had fallen to pieces, and she never came back together again…If she couldn’t have Selena, she no longer wanted anything—she just wanted to die." Tragically, Taylor was diagnosed with terminal cancer ("of course it was a broken heart," Peart wrote) and passed away the following June, leaving a "second nightmare" to process.

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David Bowie once radically reworked his song "Dead Man Walking" on late-night TV.

Photo credit: YouTube screenshots from David Bowie performance

When David Bowie radically reworked 'Dead Man Walking' into a hypnotic acoustic anthem

David Bowie built his entire career around the concept of reinvention—his early baroque-pop sounds nothing like the brash glam of his Ziggy Stardust days or the experimental art-rock of the Berlin era. It makes total sense then that, during a 1997 episode of Late Night With Conan O’Brien, he delivered one of his most incredible live performances by radically transforming one of his own songs.

Appearing as a duo with longtime guitarist and collaborator Reeves Gabrels, Bowie stripped his recent single "Dead Man Walking" down to the studs. He removed all of the techno-rock chaos from the original recording (which appears on his album Earthling), leaving only a pair of acoustic guitars and a chilling lead vocal. The two versions hardly resemble each other, but that only makes the live version feel more special.

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Elton John didn't remember writing this track, until a former bandmate surprised him with a demo recording.

Photo credit: Gentle Giant YouTube (Derek Shulman), Elton John YouTube (Elton John)

Elton John didn't recall writing this '60s song, until a former bandmate gifted him the demo

In the late '60s, before Elton John officially became Elton John, immortal pop-rock superstar and one of music’s best-selling artists, he was simply Reginald Dwight: a young songwriter searching for his musical identity. During that pre-fame era, he was briefly bandmates with Derek Shulman in the psychedelic soul group Simon Dupree and the Big Sound. And while they lost touch over the years, the pair reconnected decades later through a kind gesture: Shulman gifting John a demo recording of a song the latter forgot he’d ever written.

That friendship formed when then-Dwight filled in as a touring member of Simon Dupree. "Elton was Reg at the time, and the keyboard player in my first group was sick," Shulman told this writer in an interview for Ultimate Classic Rock. "He was recruited by our manager, and he loved playing with us. He's a real muso. We went to his house, and this was around the time when [lyricist Bernie Taupin] came down from Lincoln. This was literally the start of his Elton John period and career."

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Canva

Grieving father makes an unbelievable discovery while cleaning out his deceased daughter's room

On May 28, 2014, 13-year-old Athena Orchard of Leicester, England, died of bone cancer. The disease began as a tumor in her head and eventually spread to her spine and left shoulder.

After her passing, Athena's parents and six siblings were completely devastated. In the days following her death, her father, Dean, had the difficult task of going through her belongings. But the spirits of the entire Orchard family got a huge boost when he uncovered a secret message written by Athena on the backside of a full-length mirror.

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When Danny DeVito made up goofy lyrics on 'It's Always Sunny,' they put them in a disco song

Danny DeVito is one of our boldest comedic improvisers, often elevating material with subtle—and sometimes strange—details that only he would think to try. One great example is from a 2006 episode of the long-running FX sitcomIt’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, when he added a seemingly random bit of dialogue that inspired his castmates to reverse-engineer a disco song. Well, sort of.

If you’re confused, so was Sunny creator Rob McElhenney, who appeared opposite DeVito in the aforementioned scene, a highlight from the Season Two episode "Mac Bangs Dennis’ Mom." At this point in the story, McElhenney’s Mac shows up to a nightclub as a reluctant wingman for DeVito’s Frank, who’s decked out in a garish toupee as he awkwardly tries to woo younger women. Frank launches into some hilarious dance moves and starts speak-singing the words "Go for it," the hook of a falsetto-heavy track playing in the background.

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