Photos

Photo Galleries and Essays


Calle Sin Salida: Flamenco Beach

Sun, 21 Jan 2024

Flamenco Flamenco Beach, on the tiny Puerto Rican island of Culebra, is difficult to get to from pretty much anywhere. But, by my second visit, I had decreed it my all-time favorite beach. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

The Band That Techno Left Behind: Tangerine Dream

Sun, 01 Oct 2023

Tangerine These guys are so historic that they should play in a natural history museum. Before electronica, techno, house music, Skrillex and Mija, the Pet Shop Boys, Moby, the Flock of Seagulls, OMD, Gary Numan and even Kraftwerk, there was Tangerine Dream, making electronic music with analog synths, big-ass sequencing machines and various reverb boxes, all sans drummer. A bit more beat-centric these days (probably a good thing), Tangerine Dream overall has remarkably changed little in the last 50 years, a pristine specimen from the heady days of 1970s progressive rock music. You stillcan not dance to Tangerine Dream, but you can most certainly still space out to them. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

The Mystery of John Henry

Sat, 30 Sep 2023

The The legend of John Henry has been passed down now, for centuries. But what is he well known for? And did he ever exist? The more you look, the more he disappears behind his own legend. His is a tale of man against machine. The man wins, but even though he is the mightiest of men, dies. The machine, slower than the man, will nonetheless just keep chugging away. The descendants of that steam drill will finish the tunnel, then finish a much larger tunnel, rendering the one that killed John Henry obsolete. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

A Colossi of Vanishing America

Tue, 15 Aug 2023

The In general it is highly inadvisable to roll up on the private property in West Virginia without prior approval (obtained usually by phone), especially for a place as nestled deeply in the Appalachian Mountains as this farmhouse, affectionately named the Farnham Colossi. But they disconnected their phone and no longer answer the door when strangers call, maybe tired from the endless requests to wander the grounds, and admire their collection of gigantic fiber-glass figures, and other strange bits of commercial flotsam. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Dead T00th at the Rogue Festival, Bushwick

Tue, 18 Jul 2023

Dead Bands come into the world kicking and screaming and from this they must learn to communicate with the rest of us. I remember seeing the Bushwick band Dead T00th several years back when the then-still toothy Zach the Silver Spaceman, so affable offstage, would jolt and contort such when playing his songs, it was as if he - or something else - were trying to break out from his body. Now, the band all aspire, in unison no less, to this frenzied rock n roll, and results can be glorious, as I witnessed at the first-ever Rogue Festival, at the Sultan Room, Bushwick NYC... Click to Read More...

		
		
		

At Least We Enjoyed the Ride...

Fri, 24 Feb 2023

Photos Before Burning Man, there was the Grateful Dead parking lot scene. The show was usually at night but we would still try to get there as early in the morning as possible, for a full day of hanging out and partying. Here are the photos from one such show, March 17, 1991, at the Capital Centre, outside Washington D.C. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Tripping: The Fabulous Suitcases of Machine Dazzle

Sun, 29 Jan 2023

The The New York Museum of Arts and Design is holding a retrospective of costume designer and performance artist Machine Dazzle, in an exhibit entitled Queer Maximalism. While his over-the-top outfits filled the exhibit with color and sparkles, it was the accompanying suitcases that really caught my eye. There was one for each planet of Solar System, plus ones for the Sun and Moon, and for the galaxy. Which one would you rock for your next journey? Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Dining Along Death Highway

Thu, 01 Sep 2022

Diners A photojournal of diners alongside I-81 and I-78, including stops in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. There is the Blue Mountain Diner, with the Turkey and Dutch filling; The Clinton Hill Diner with the huge slices of banana cream pies; the breakfast-only Midway Diner, with the sausage and gravy (cheese and onions extra); and more. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

The Desert Sculpture of Donald Judd

Tue, 22 Mar 2022

Donald Millions of years from now, after humans eradicated themselves from the planet, alien creatures will wonder about the meaning of the large concrete blocks lined up across a Chihuahuan Desert plateau, created by Donald Judd. Arranged into small stand-alone clusters, each set of boxes is a unique and mysterious configuration. A Stonehenge of our own. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Who is Up for Some Grinding? 19th Century Tennessee AgTech

Tue, 15 Mar 2022

The Just south of Nashville, the Tennessee Agriculture Museum is housed, understandably enough, in a barn. The main level is well-stocked with AgTech wonders from years gone by: mills, mechanical harvesters, a covered wagon and even a sheep treadmill. But like any barn, the upper level is the place for the best rummaging. Here, they stashed the gear they have not gotten around to fully displaying or even figuring out what to do yet, a bric-a-brac of primitive, discarded agricultural technology. The showcases of plows and cultivators alone are worth the climb. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Where The Plane Went Down

Tue, 01 Mar 2022

Lynyrd The Lynyrd Skynyrd Memorial, Gillsburg, Mississippi: These are the woods where the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane went down in the late evening of Oct 20, 1977, just short of a field where it could have more-or-less landed safely. The pilot hoped to make it to a nearby airfield but when the engine finally sputtered out, the plane slowly and silently glided over the deep Mississippi woods before descending into the trees with a large crash... Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Nyla Showed Me Around The Abita Mystery House

Thu, 24 Feb 2022

The Just north of New Orleans, in Abita Springs, Louisiana, The Abita Mystery House is a museum of sorts, a fascinating collection of southern folk art housed on a compound fronted by a vintage gas station. It is the creation of artist John Preble. Here is where you will find the 32 foot alligator, a spaceship and a robot, miniature cityscapes of old sordid New Orleans, dysfunctional arcade games and a friendly cat, who accompanied me from building to building. Perhaps most fascinating were the dioramas: One depicted a tornado ripping through a trailer park. Another portrayed the death of the dinosaurs. A third depicted dancing skeletons. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

A Visit to the Home of William Faulkner

Tue, 22 Feb 2022

A Here are some photos from the Oxford Mississippi home of William Faulkner. He purchased this 1848 primitive Greek revival house in 1930, right before writing Light in August, a Southern Gothic novel that cemented his reputation as a literary writer. He named the home Rowan Oak, after the rowan tree, long a symbol of security and peace, and this place definitely has a calming feel about it. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Low Cut Connie: The Last Great Rock n Roll Band in America?

Mon, 31 Jan 2022

Low Rode out a snowstorm last weekend to see this band and it was so worth it. The Philadelphia-based Low Cut Connie has my vote for best Rock n Roll band in America, a rightful heir to the gritty likes of the Iron City Houserockers or the J. Geils Band. Front man Adam Weiner is a hyperactive force of nature, a barroom Elton John and a friend to no piano. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Railroads of My Youth

Mon, 09 Aug 2021

Photos If you were trainwatching in the late 1970s, especially in the northeast U.S., you never knew quite what you would see, thanks to the all bankruptcy-related railroad mergers at the time. It was an exciting time to be a railfan, it turns out, truly the twilight of the railroads as a major force in the country. The U.S. industrial era was drawing to a close. The great amounts of coal mined from the mountains were no longer needed to serve the factories in the Midwest. And the railroads were shrinking, fast. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Bushwick Friday Dinner: Birria Tacos and an Elote

Sat, 07 Aug 2021

Birria Friday night, I made dinner ($18) with a couple of offerings from Bushwick street vendors. The Red Tacos, or Birria Tacos, are a Mexican dish that seem to be catching on quickly in NYC, or at least in my neighborhood of Bushwick. The red tortillas for the fried birria tacos, quesabirrias and mulitas get their flavor from the drippings of the barbecued carnitas prepared for the dish. The accompanying consomme, into which you can dip your tacos, is also made from the drippings. So good. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Scotch and Fig Newtons

Sat, 22 May 2021

A I got a tip, from the checkout cashier at the Queens Trader Joes, that Fig Newtons go really, really well with Scotch, of all things. Who would have guessed? I vowed to try this, but I do not drink Scotch. I mean, who drinks Scotch? This rattled around in my head for a bit, until I ended up in a favorite Bushwick watering hole, with a favorite Bushwick bartender, Lucille, who put it to the empirical test. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

HARRY: Not For a Long Time, Just a Good Time

Sun, 04 Apr 2021

My I started my journalism/writing career 30 years ago with HARRY,the original underground hippie newspaper of Baltimore. Of course, HARRY was around way before I came along in 1991. First rolling off the presses in 1969, HARRY was serious hippie stuff. It was the newspaper of the streets, of the revolution. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Nepantla: Esteban Cabeza de Baca

Sun, 07 Mar 2021

Esteban The Nahuatl (Mexicano) word Nepantla means the thresholds between worlds. This Garth Greenan (NYC) exhibit explores the complex spiritual potential of this space with the paintings (and sculpture) of Esteban Cabeza de Baca. Cabeza de Baca grew up in San Ysidro, the border town between San Diego and Tijuana. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Op Art Messes with Your Head

Thu, 04 Mar 2021

The Op Art from the 1960s was not what a painting was about, but how the painting could fuck with your head, using sly tricks of perception. The new Mary Dill Henry exhibit, Love Jazz, at Berry Campbell Gallery, collects paintings this Op Art pioneer completed between 1965-70. In her 50s by this time, she had reached her signature style, one of oscillating shapes that formed kinetic patterns and optical illusions. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Audrey Stone, Marking Time

Wed, 20 Jan 2021

Audrey Painter Audrey Stone uses color gradients to mark time, each color signifying a slow, methodical labor. According to the gallery, Stone would sometimes devote an entire day to painting a single color band. She worked on this series of 18 paintings following the death of her mother. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Beverly Fishman, I Dream of Sleep

Sat, 26 Dec 2020

The The clean geometric abstractions of Beverly Fishman are a brightly-colored, high-finish attack on the system, the pharmaceutical industry in particular. She borrows all the marketing from this field -- the colors, forms, materials, even the way surfaces are handled. It is a subtle form of cultural subversion that has been taking place at least since the 1980s. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Jo Yeh, a Rainy Day

Sat, 19 Dec 2020

The Here are few pages taken from the NYC zines of Jo Yeh. Yeh is an illustrator currently living in Taipei. We met her when she moved to New York. In series of spare but poignant byte-sized books, she captured all the confusion, loneliness and moments of compassion that everybody experiences living in NYC as a newcomer. My friend Jess and I interviewed her a few years back for Bushwick Nation. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Ghost Cinema

Thu, 19 Nov 2020

Korakrit Before phones, the internet and television even, people stared into the fire, endlessly examining the shape-shifting flames, searching for meaning. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military beamed swaths of light into the jungle, hoping nearby villagers would be frightened off by the appearance of ghosts. Monks in Thailand repurposed this technique to give people a way to communicate with their dead, a practice now known as Ghost Cinema. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

...And a Rug to Tie the Whole Thing Together

Tue, 17 Nov 2020

A So my friend Steve had this freakishly good idea of bringing a blow-up couch to the Dark Star Orchestra Halloween show at the Frederick (MD) fairground. Keeping with social distancing guidelines for the pandemic, the organizations sold tickets by the car. Each car got two spaces in a field facing the stage, the second of which the car's group occupy in some form. In addition to the couch, Steve also brought a fold-up table, an LED lamp and a $30 rug from Amazon to tie it all together. I can not explain how surreal it felt watching the show from this vantage. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Harvey Fite's Quarry

Mon, 26 Oct 2020

The Opus 40, a sculpture garden located between Saugerties and Woodstock, NY, was created from an abandoned bluestone quarry that was purchased by a popular actor of the day, actor Harvey Fite. Originally, Fite purchased the land just for the stone, which he wanted to use for his sculpture. After visiting some Mayan ruins in Honduras, however, he returned resolved to learn to work with the bluestone, adopting the techniques of the Mayans. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Optical Abstract Expression of the 1960s

Sun, 27 Sep 2020

A In the 1960s, Edward Avedisian was one of a number of abstract artists who moved beyond the tactility of abstract expressionism to focus instead on the optical experience of the painting, according to the Barry Campbell gallery, Soho, New York, which recently presented an exhibit of Avedisian works from that period. His style mixed freshness of pop art with the more measured properties of color field painting. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Airbnb: End of a New York City Era

Wed, 26 Aug 2020

My Been a few years since we hung out, but news of my Airbnb mentor departing the city for greener pastures made me realize that NYC, the vibrant one I knew anyway, is fading into the past. The day I met Ginger is the day I learned how New York operated. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Color Without Symbolism

Thu, 23 Apr 2020

The Ominous storm clouds rolled in the Saturday afternoon, March 7, when I went to the 2020 Armory Show, a NYC trade show-like gathering of galleries to display their artists. Here is some of the art that caught my eye, along with some more info about the artists I found, from around the Web. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Better Life Through Medicine

Wed, 08 Apr 2020

Photos As a teenage fuck-up who had recently (and barely) graduated high school, I, of limited opportunities, joined the U.S. Army in the summer of 1983. I had never been outside the northeast U.S., and after advanced training, was first assigned to Fort Lee, New Jersey. Cool, I thought, I would be close to my girlfriend, who lived not too far away in Harrisburg, Pa. But then, in would I would later understand to be in true U.S. Army fashion, a last minute phone call came in: I would be instead be dispatched to South Korea, a place that seemed for my lovelorn heart to be on the other side of the planet. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Fortune Favours the Brave

Thu, 12 Mar 2020

Wire, "Fortune favours the brave" Wire bassist-co-vocalist Graham Lewis promised the virus-wary audience in NYC's Music Hall of Williamsburg, March 11, 2020, days before the city would formally go into lockdown for COVID-19. The show reminded me that this English band was post-punk pretty much from the beginning of punk rock itself. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Robots Will Kill

Fri, 06 Mar 2020

A For street artist ChrisRWK himself, the phrase "Robots Will Kill" is a reminder not to get into a rut, not to let routine kill creativity, not to be owned by your own processes. Robots Will Kill. Here is his latest at the 212 Gallery in the Lower East Side of New York City. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

The Electric Body

Sun, 16 Feb 2020

The The human body is moved by electricity, both emotionally and physically. Cells spark electrical pulses, which align to form movements, thoughts, behaviors, in a way that is not fully understood. And just as people are moved by internal electricity, they are also affected by external sources of energy as well. In his latest exhibit at the Perrotin NYC gallery, Danish artist Jesper Just looked how the electricity of the individual intersects with that generated from the outside. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Our Venmo History

Wed, 15 Jan 2020

My Life in New York City: My friend Jess and I have basically been trading the same $100 back and forth across Venmo for the past three years now. Here is a visual accounting...



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The Murmur Trestle

Mon, 09 Dec 2019

Photos The city of Athens, Georgia, USA is at a loss as to what to do with this decrepit wooden railroad trestle, as it is sort of famous for being on the back cover of the 1983 R.E.M debut album Murmur, a murkily haunting album that has elegantly and stubbornly outlived its era -- much like the bridge itself. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Forlorn Folks in Hotel Rooms

Sun, 01 Dec 2019

Edward American painter Edward Hopper was a painter of light, the real painter of light. He was also a painter of loneliness. In many of his paintings, there are few people milling about. Or if they are present, they appear solitaire, not communicating with one another. They look sad, wistful, or they look away. Both themes play heavily in the current exhibit his his work at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, which focuses on his career-spanning focus of people in hotels and travel lodges. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

The Private Bus Lines of Lima, Peru

Tue, 12 Nov 2019

The Although the sprawling city of Lima (pop: 7.6 million) has a gridwork of city-run public buses, called the Metropolitano, with dedicated lanes along the major highway routes cutting through the city, most people use the private bus companies, the activities of which are not coordinated. Indeed, these companies compete fiercely, sometimes literally, with their buses racing furiously with one another--destinations painted colorfully on the sides--to reach the next stop with potential riders. There is no unified timetable, and if a route is not making any money, a bus will sometimes just switch a journey to another, more popular, destination, leaving riders stranded. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Dave Navarro Playing in Vegas Cover Band

Wed, 30 Oct 2019

Dave I did not know this but guitarist Dave Navarro moonlights with a sort of all-star cover band, Royal Machines, to play corporate events and whatnot. As it happened, I caught Royal Machines at a NetApp user conference in Las Vegas in October 2019. I dunno if I would pay to see Red Hot Chili Peppers but I would certainly move to front of the bar to watch Navarro rip thru some hard rock and punk nuggets. The fucker is still spry as fuck, and plays the electric guitar as if it were a natural extension of his self. Even at this late date, he remains the embodiment of rock and roll. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Find Your Angle

Sun, 20 Oct 2019

Some The Storm King Art Center is all about finding your angle. Not THE angle, because so much of the sculpture there has no ONE angle that gets the whole picture, just a perspective that makes sense to you. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

The Week No One Knew Where I Was (Saugerties)

Mon, 30 Sep 2019

A To be fair, people routinely had no idea where I would be on any given week (those were the days). But for the lovely month of September 2019, I had intentionally double-booked myself out of my own Brooklyn Airbnb apartment. I could go some place different. As long as it did not cost more than $250 for a week. I am a bold introvert. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Walking into Yorklyn for a Beer

Tue, 23 Jul 2019

A Here is a photo journal of my recent walk to a brewpub in the tiny town of Yorklyn, Delaware, from the family farm just a few hills over and across the state line in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, I had not hiked this route in decades. So I caught it all as an Instagram story. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Pete Ham's Prophetic Guitar Pick

Sat, 15 Jun 2019

The Here is solid silver guitar pick, designed in 1971 by May Pang for the Pete Ham, lead singer of Badfinger. After the Beatles broke up, the hippie underground swirled with rumors that Badfinger were the Beatles in disguise. Four years after Pang forged this pick, Ham hung himself. Funny she oriented it like a gravestone. Or maybe she saw into his troubled soul. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Flatbush Caribbean Vibes

Sun, 31 Mar 2019

Caribbean I had spied this take-out two blocks down, Caribbean Vibes, that just exuded warmth and promised real yard-style cooking. Why should check this place out, I suggested after she clocked out from her dancing gig. You may have to wait a minute if you want to get that real Caribbean Yard-Style cooking in Flatbush, unless you can learn how to hustle your order through. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Tags on the WillieB

Sun, 10 Mar 2019

A One of the hottest pieces of NYC graffiti property in New York City is the nameplate of the Williamsburg Bridge in New York. The bridge spans the Lower East Side in Manhattan and the Williamsburg in Brooklyn. The sign, along the pedestrian walkway towards the Manhattan side, gets a lot of eyeballs from passing walkers, skaters, and bikers. So, not surprisingly, the WillieB also gets a lot of attention from street artists, and is adorned with a fresh tag every few weeks or so. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Ladies of the Pinball Machine

Sun, 24 Feb 2019

A Like any artifact of pop culture, pinball machines reflected the mores of the era. So is it a victory of feminist thought that the sexy ladies depicted on the backdrops of these machines -- to titillate coins from their owners pockets -- have evolved over the decades, from dude eye candy to rock stars championing their own journeys? Notes from our visit to the Silverball Museum Arcade in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Something Good is Worth Finding

Wed, 16 Jan 2019

Opening City street art offers free entertainment for those who wander about a lot by foot. Having spent a fair amount of time walking around New York City, I could not help but start to notice all the work of the street and graffiti artists -- who they are, what their styles are, and even how they evolve over time. Street art enlivens dull spaces, uniting communities in the process.Perambulation is how I have gotten to know PhoebeNewYork, who is the mixed-media alter-ego of street artist Libby Schoettle. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Never Get Out of this World Alive

Wed, 02 Jan 2019

Highlights No matter the year, January 1 always feels dreary. Everyone is hungover. It is usually cloudy and cold. No one feels like doing much of anything. Fitting then, that such a dire day claimed the life of one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century, Hank Williams. He died January 1, 1951 in the backseat of his car somewhere on a West Virginia back road, on his way to a show to Ohio. He was only 29, but alcohol and an addiction to pain killers had left him a shell of a man by then.

But on each January 1, in honor of ole Hank and his tremendous legacy of classic country songs, musicians get together in New York to pay homage, in a show called Hank-O-Rama. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Christians and the Unicorn

Fri, 21 Dec 2018

Early What I learned today: Early Christians had a complex love/hate relationship with the mythical unicorn. Unicorns showed up in the King James and some Catholic interpretations of the Bible. Some churches would even stash away what pastors assumed were unicorn horns (narwhal tusks sold to them by traders, evidently). They coveted the supposed water-purifying properties of the horn, but while dreaming of finding a unicorn, they also spent much artistic energy depicting the capture and slaughter of the unicorn, as this 15th Century artwork at the NYC Met Cloisters museum show Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Down at the Crossroads, Where the Pecan Pie is Warm

Mon, 30 Apr 2018

Highways When I heard the legend of blues man Robert Johnson going to the crossroads at midnight to make a deal with The Devil, somehow I got the idea that the crossroads themselves would be barren and desolate, shrouded in darkness. So I never figured that Mr. Johnson could stop in right after his meeting and enjoy some tasty barbecue. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Friends of John Sargent

Wed, 26 Aug 2015

The Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray remained young while his portrait aged in an attic. John Sargent (1856-1925), in a way, pulled off the opposite trick, preserving on oiled canvas the full beauty and animism of people who are now all long deceased.

Sargent painted portraits of his friends, often trading a payment for freedom of artistic direction, which allowed him to more accurately capture their personalities. Tight with Claude Monet, Sargent often borrowed techniques from impressionism to make his work more dynamic and subtle. The results remain almost eerily vivacious over a century later. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Open Studios: Bushwick Christmas

Fri, 12 Jun 2015

A "Bushwick Christmas" is how my pal Tania describes Bushwick Open Studios, which takes place in early June in Brooklyn NYC (June 6-7 this year).

Visitors throng the hood, seeking out art, drink, and camaraderie. The artists get their work noticed, the locals see a shit-ton of eye candy, and the bar staff pull their largest paychecks for the season. Everyone hits a roof-top party to watch the sun set on Manhattan. Celebrate!

Like any holiday, participants make elaborate plans in the months before, only to rush around in the hours prior assembling something, anything, for their soon-to-arrive visitors. This year especially so, it seemed. BOS2015 could have been called the seat-of-our-pants year, to hear a few artists describe their last-minute frantic preparations. Still there was a lot of cool art to check out. After all, something is new if you haven't seen it before... Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Waiting For The Sun

Sat, 30 May 2015

Onlookers Even during the apocalypse, people will still check their smart phones, I bet.

Here, westward-facing onlookers wait for the sun to descend between the two columns of New York City skyscrapers along 42nd Street, Friday, May 29, 2015, 8:10 PM. The urban equinox. ManhattanHenge. You can blame Neil deGrasse Tyson. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Call This Number, Buy This Car

Wed, 27 May 2015

A Go on and call on your telephone. The number is right there on the For-Sale sign under the windshield 350-9801 all seven digits ask the guy who answers how much for the blue Chevy Impala with the 400 ci V8. He will tell you its a Historic Car. I bet he tries to sell it for $800 but you could talk him down to $600. It runs too. Do not believe him when he tells you it gets more than 8 mpg. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

From Monsters to Ghosts

Sat, 21 Mar 2015

The Street art is like television for urban perambulators. A secret channel open to anyone who just tunes in, it tells stories and captures your attention with brash spectacles of color and form.

When I first started walking about New York City five years ago, Roycer700 was one of the first street artists whose works I'd come to recognize. I'd see his monsters about town, everywhere. On neglected walls, hidden into industrial crevices, on anonymous post boxes, on the Williamsburg bridge. The man clearly got around.

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Bleak, Beautiful Roadwork

Sun, 15 Mar 2015

Margaret America is a vast country. Even today, there is probably too much land for the people who inhabit the place, and we lay much of it to waste. The tangles of roadway connecting our homes and points of interest are rarely scenic; they are littered on each side with hastily erected fast food joints, strip malls, scrub land.

Which is why Margaret Morrison's latest series of oils, shown by the Woodward Gallery in NYC, are so fascinating. She draws beauty from these ravaged wastelands, using not only the colors they exude, but also the promises they hold. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Welcome to the Machine

Thu, 05 Mar 2015

The I don't know much about art, but one thing I do know a little bit about is LP covers. I grew up before MTV, which is to say before music came with visual accompaniment. Those days, when you bought an album, you took it home, put it on the record player and just listened. If you wanted visuals, you scanned the LP cover.

Which is why, at this year's Pulse NYC contemporary art fair, I gravitated to the oil paintings of J.P. Roy. His work reminded me of those album covers from progressive rock-era British bands of the 1970s, especially those from Roger Dean and the Hipgnosis studio. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Street Art Banished by Instagram

Fri, 30 Jan 2015

Instagram I am not entirely sure how many cultures this image could piss off, really. It is a quick camera phone capture of some rain-washed paste-up street art in Williamsburg. A veiled, topless woman, rife with religious symbols, gives the viewer a heavily tattooed finger, with what appears to be 'thug' tattooed across her stomach. But it was probably the nips that got it taken down from Instagram. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Strong Enough to Bend

Thu, 01 Jan 2015

/ This is Cassie, Karaoking in Laddies, a neighborhood bar in Hedgesville, a small West Virginia town just outside of Martinsburg. When I came in, on New Years Eve, Cas was singing a frisky Dolly Parton song. Over the following few hours, she proved to be the best singer in the joint, with the possible exception of a guy who looked like Garth Brooks and proclaimed every song he sang to be his favorite. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Farewell Smile

Mon, 29 Dec 2014

Korn/ When I first heard of the passing of New York City street/graffiti artist Jeffrey Gamblero, AKA Korn, I was bummed I didn't have any shots on hand to share. After all, I've seen his wicked creations all over the city, and followed his progress on Instagram, but somehow neglected to post a few good photographs from my about-the-town ramblings. Then today, I was walking, pretty much at random, down a side street in deep industrial Bushwick, and, lo, this delivery truck decked out by Korn just rolled up and stopped momentarily right in front of me. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Proctor Plantation

Mon, 15 Dec 2014

Henricus In whatever abode you currently dwell, it is probably a damn McMansion compared to the modest quarters inhabited by the middle-class residents of an 1611-era Henricus settlement, a replica of which is maintained at the Henricus Historical Park, just south of Richmond, Virginia. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Live Blogging the Accidental Marathon

Sun, 30 Nov 2014

Running I accidently signed up for a full Richmond, Va. 2014 Anthem marathon, thinking I would run the half. At first I figured I'd just jog as much as possible, taking breaks every mile or so to snap pictures. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Your Crap Goes Here

Sun, 12 Oct 2014

Gowanus Whenever it rains heavily, New York City's East Harbor sewage treatment facilities spill their excess waste water into the Gowanus Canal. So when in NYC try not to flush when it rains. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Meet the Mayor of Williamsburg

Sun, 28 Sep 2014

The Whenever a situation needs to be goosed a bit, Tania calls in the Mayor of Williamsburg (Not an actual elected official). He's on the right in this photo, the handsome gent with the dreadlocks and top hat. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Ron English, Circus Babies

Sun, 21 Sep 2014

Ron Culture-jamming we used to call it, back in the day. Ron English is one of the artists currently working to subvert the images and messages we get from corporations paying to get them in front of us. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Alabama Haybale Art

Sat, 09 Aug 2014

Jim We found Bird's Farm more or less by accident, driving Alabama Route 43 south from Eutaw, as a scenic diversion off the highway, to New Orleans. Not a lot happening in those back-country parts, so it can be a bit unsettling to suddenly see a row of surreal creatures lined up in a field, all fashioned from hay bails and assorted junk. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Cern's Succulent Balloon Monsters

Sun, 30 Mar 2014

Succulent What better way of demonstrating the depthly volume of your new gallery space than by having large, sometimes menacing, balloon creatures loom over everything? The rain outside was torrential, and mighty cold, but worth sloshing through last Friday eve for the debut of Succulent, a Greenpoint gallery, run by street artists Cern and Sek3, that had plenty to gaze enjoyably upon. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Art on the Williamsburg Bridge

Sun, 23 Mar 2014

Williamsburg Of the five major bridges crossing into Manhattan over the East River, the Williamsburg Bridge is the one most adorned by graffiti/street artists. It connects two artistic-minded NYC communities, the Lower East Side in Manhattan and Williamsburg on the Brooklyn side. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Life in Lakeside

Thu, 06 Mar 2014

		
		
		

Hawthorne, California

Sun, 20 Jun 2004

Hawthorne Hawthorne, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, was the birthplace of The Beach Boys. The Wilson family lived at 3701 W 119th St. When I visited, in June 2004, the house was demolished for a highway (the landmark had not yet been built there). But the reputed favorite pizza parlor of Brian Wilson was still there. The owner told me that the young Beach Boys would sing there on Friday nights. So I got a pizza. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

Railroads Of My Youth: Emory Grove, MD. (Western Maryland)

Thu, 01 Jan 1981

Photos These crude photos, shot in the late 1970s on a point-and-shoot 126 camera, were taken along the Western Maryland Railroad (then recently rolled into a giant merger with B&O/C&O merger for what was called then Chessie System and now known as CSX). This route went from Baltimore to Hagerstown and Cumberland, via Hanover, Pa. Click to Read More...

		
		
		

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