A Hamburger Today, my favorite hamburger blog (yes there are several), interviews NY Times critic Frank Bruni on his burger preferences. Interview here.

I found a copy of Sweet Flypaper of Life by photographed by Roy DeCarava and written by Langston Hughes in a used bookstore yesterday for $3. I've always wanted a copy, but have never found one in good shape at a decent price. It's a picture book marrying an imagined story by a woman in Harlem to images...poetic fiction. I couldn't think of many other examples of this kind of collaboration, (Photobook text even when it is written by poets and famous authors is usually simple description, and when photographers do create imagined narratives they usually write the text themselves). Anyway, beautiful and fascinating book. My guess is in this case the words came first and they were illustrated by DeCarava but somehow it would please me more if it were the other way around.

The day has been so politicized, the consequences so damaging to us as a nation, it has become almost gauche to talk about it. Especially here in New York. But if you don't have to look very hard to see reminders of it everywhere. Cheap Chinese restaurants always have a poster or two. Middle Eastern restaurants do them one better with a poster and a flag. And of course there are the memorials... at every fire station and at seemingly random spots all around the city. On the promenade here in Brooklyn tourists invariably scrunch up their faces trying imagine where the buildings stood and how high they rose. I still see holes in the sky. The unpunctuated skyline is still foreign. But I don't think about the buildings much, I remember my friend who was on the 103rd floor who didn't have a chance. Sometimes I imagine her jumping...one of those tiny tragic figures etched in our memory. Perhaps that is my perverse wish: that she did jump and in jumping she was able make a final choice about her destiny and maybe in the long moments of terror that followed there was some flicker of hope, a primal dream of flight, that sustained her as she fell through the firmament to face whatever it is that comes next.

I'm not sure how I landed on their distribution list but in today's mail I received a slim booklet on Mexican Monographias from Pentagram Design, and it's one of the best things I've received by mail in years. Monographias are posters made up of comic book-like panels that teach lessons. The lessons cover just about anything you can think of from astronomy, to famous wrestlers, to world dictators, to social evils. There have been popular in Mexico since I was a kid and are very similar to Indian educational posters which serve the same purpose [they are so similar that you wonder whether there was some cross pollination or whether there was a third source that both are imitating...or perhaps it just has to do with the types of presses used and the respective levels of development/social education needs.].

I used to collect these posters as a boy when visiting Mexico and was always looking for obscure subjects published by small time vendors. My favorite was a collection of martyrs who died by crucifixion. I was also partial to the "Animales Peligrosos" which featured a little boy being devoured by a lion. The booklet I received today was published by the design firm Pentagram as part of their Pentagram Papers series, a set if personal design projects put together by Pentagram's partners. The booklet features a thoughtful intro by partner Armin Vit titled "The World on a page at Five Pesos a Piece." I hope they put the whole thing online so all of you can enjoy it. In the meantime you can find a few reproductions of Monographias showing social evils on this site, a book on the Indian versions is available on Amazon (review, postersfor sale).

Armin Vit's essay ends with this, "Today in our information-heavy environment, I long for those simpler days when research, information and, ultimately, education on any given topic involed only a single, double-sided page."

. . .
as an addendum: another example of a Pentagram partner doing inspiring work.

1 Fortune cookie fortune: "Live the Dream"
1 Fortune cookie fortune: "Fly away. Go far."
1 Snapshot of Raul Andres at 6 months
1 Torn photobooth strip of a woman in chador (found on Atlantic Avenue near Court)
3 Credit Cards (each was used within an hour of the theft to purchase multiple $60 subway passes)
1 Rubber band
1 Paper Clip
1 Bandaid, transparent
Texas Driver's License
Several expired subway cards.
1 pencil drawing of a monster with three eyes and a unibrow made while waiting for someone to show up for dinner
1 partial blog entry written on torn hotel stationary titled "What's happening in room 312"
On the back of said stationary another partial blog entry titled "Why I would make a lousy aristocrat."
Assorted business cards, most with doodles of sea monsters on the back.
1 business card from a cabdriver in New Orleans with a "Places I must visit" list on the back in tiny handwriting.
A few dollars from the cash machine
2 business cards with cars drawn on them so I can play cars with my son any time.
2 wheat head pennies
1 buffalo nickel
A gift certificate to Barnes and Noble with 8 dollars left on it.
My secret—only in case of emergency—hundred dollar bill
1 lottery ticket from a few months ago, never checked

Alec Soth's child had inspired him to blog. (via a tip from Eliot.)

Update: In a few short weeks this blog has moved up to the top of my daily read list. Soth is every bit as sensitive and intelligent a writer as he is a photographer.

Does anyone happen to know the story behind the little building on 3rd Avenue and 3rd street. All the buildings around it have been torn down and it remains marooned and forlorn looking... As an aside apparently Rooftop Films has a venue across the street at the Old American Can Factory. Why did I not know this? (If you live in New York and don't know about Rooftop Films, you probably should. Only a few films left in the season.)


Ever wonder about the Kentile Floors sign which so defines Gowanus? Kevin Walsh of Forgotten New York has done the research: "Kentile was founded by Arthur Kennedy in 1898 and once billed itself as "America's largest manufacturers of super-resilient floor tile." Kentile hung in there till just a couple of years ago following a series of strikes and costly asbestos lawsuits. It's purple neon sign no longer burns brightly but it reminds folks for miles around that there was once a Kentile." (more) Scores of pictures of the Kentile sign (most taken from the F train) can be found on flickr.

A must read: Lisa in Austin investigates the fates of the Mandrell Sisters.

Travels Without Maps: 
Images from China's Western Frontiers

"Nelson Hancock Gallery
111 Front St. #204 (Dumbo)
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Opening Reception September 14, 6-8PM
Show continues through October 14th.

I hope you can excuse me for being a bit self promotional, but I wanted to let everyone know about my upcoming show. If you're in the New York area on September 14th, please stop the opening by and say hello.

Brian Lesterberg's photographs from North Dakota strike me as unmistakably and viscerally American. I love the clarity and sensitivity of his vision.

I'm sure I had taken other photographs before especially with our little 110 camera, but this is the first one I remember. It was 1974 and I was 7. Morning. A school day. My brothers were still asleep and my dad was trying read the previous night's paper before heading to work. I entered the kitchen with his Pentax around my neck having just figured out the light meter... Focus. Click. So satisfying. My mom said, "You shouldn't be playing with that," and I replied, "I'm not playing mom, I just took your picture."

Just the other day I said I don't believe in lucky talismans, but two ladybugs landing on your hand on the third floor of a Brooklyn apartment at 3:14am (and an apartment with closed windows at that) must mean something right? I just opened the window and let them free.

everyday
A few weeks ago I urged Noah to turn his 6 years worth of photo-a-day's into a movie...now he's done it. The results are hypnotic...and a little bit sad. The video covers January 11, 2000 - July 31, 2006.

These are the original stills and this is Noah's excellent portfolio site.

When I was 14 I wrote this: "truth, emotion, technique, beauty. A good photograph has 2 of these. A great photograph 3. A photograph you never forget has all 4."

A bit pompous perhaps, but it still basically works for me.

A few days ago I noticed the front door of 135 Joralemon was open. As I've been fascinated with this house for a while, I poked my head inside. The door opened onto a stairway/parlor completely blackened with heavy layers of smoke. There were still pictures on the walls, but they were black with oily soot. I could hear someone upstairs dragging something. I was about to shout out a hello when a voice yelled, "Hey, what the hell are you doing?"

From the upstairs emerged a tall gentleman probably in his 70's. He was wearing soot covered undershirt and thick dirty gloves. I explained myself and my fascination with the house and he softened. "I was born in this house," he said, "I lived my whole life here and it's been in my family a long time. You don't know how wonderful this street used to be." He talked about the neighborhood and told me who used to live in this house and that house and how everyone knew everyone else.

He explained he was in court with ConEdison who he blamed for the New Years Eve fire. "I'm going to win and restore this house exactly as it was." And he started to give me some of the details... walnut staircase, brass hardware, etc. But he noticed my camera again and suddenly became suspicious. "Why are you here?" he asked, "Why are you asking these questions? Nobody cares about this house except people who want to steal it." I explained that I lived around the corner that that everyone on the street cared about the place. Trying to show sympathy I told him how Hurricane Rita had destroyed a portion of my childhood home. "Was anything left?" he asked. Without waiting for the reply he continued, "I lost everything. Everything was burned up. Do you know what that's like? To see your house burned up like this?" Wordless he turned to go back up the stairs. I watched him vanish into the dark and knew it was my time to go.