sad eyes and sustenance on 16th

snub nosed metropolitan

floating windmill

abandoned kraut

hot dog carts in new york now offer dogs in small, medium, and large sizes. when did this happen?

at the candy shop

the candy shop is an ancient little diner on lexington & 82nd. the food is forgettable but the place is like a museum of authentically decaying midcentury luncheonette decor. that's a borden's malted milk powder dispenser in the photo along with the industrial hamilton beech milk shake machine.

east 14th st

i just liked the old school, graphic nature of this sign. it seems like fewer and fewer places like this exist in the east village now.

burger nirvana

for my birthday this year my brother took me to the secret burger joint near his office in midtown manhattan. actually it's really not so secret; there were about 40 people in line ahead of us waiting to get in, but you do have to go through a hotel lobby to get there and there's no name or sign other than a neon burger with an arrow pointing thataway. inside is truly divey and wonderful -- fake wood paneling, cardboard signs preemptively scolding you for not ordering the right way, ugly light fixtures and a ramones poster in spanish (los ramones: wanted, vivos o muertos!). and the burger was the platonic ideal of what a burger should be. worth every minute of waiting for it.

low country, revisited

my baby brother in the best t-shirt ever. someone very classy must have given him that shirt. i'd hesitate to wear something like this in san francisco, but in south carolina meat is everywhere, including your breakfast cereal.



my parents are friends with a guy who details harleys for a living. this is a self-portait that was hanging in his bedroom.



my parents are retired. they keep their wits about them by betting their retirement funds on cutthroat bocce matches. exciting!


creepy tombstones in savannah, ga. for some reason it's really disturbing to me that i can't make out what george augustus clough died from at age 22. stranger's what? stranger's fate? what the hell does that mean??

some observations, and a fact

the observations:

1. it's hot in the south

2. it's hard to deny that your mom has cancer when you see her wearing one of those bald lady turbans.

3. it's much easier to deny that your mom has cancer when you see her wearing a wig that looks exactly like her old haircut.

4. retirement communities are essentially the social equivalent of college dorms, except that they're full of older people and instead of gossiping about who is hooking up with whom, everyone gossips about who is potentially sick with what kind of ailment.

and the fact:

high school education wasn't compulsory in south carolina until 1988. yikes.

moods

this is my "i'm leaving for a 2 week vacation during which time i'm going to eat lots of barbecue and then stay up for 5 nights straight while in new york" face.


this is my "i have to pack up all my shit before i leave because my office is moving from the mission to downtown while i'm gone" face.


this is my "nonprofit poverty sucks" face. no explanation necessary.

digger

someone on bernal hill has a sense of humor.

19th & guerrero

ps this sign was posted in the window of what used to be... a deli.

nyc circa 10/06

I told Claude months ago I would post his photo here. Claude, I hope this was worth the wait.

el verano escondido

you can rag on me all you want for romanticizing the northeast and its four seasons, but i am just so sick of the wind and the cold and the chill. in less than a week i'll be wrapped in eastern seaboard humidity, wearing t-shirts at night... and probably cursing it, wishing for the fog to roll in. has living in sf for a decade made me that thin-skinned? even worse -- it's made me nostalgic for wherever i'm not. sad.