Musings from the God of Cities

midtown manhattan, nyc. november 2006

if you look close, you can see a little plant growing out of the bits of dirt and grime growing on the side edge of a sewer grate. feel free to see that as a metaphor for any number of things.

"so we did hoist and topple a few, and newt's tongue was loosened enough to tell me some things about zinka, his russian midget dancer friend. their love nest, he told me, had been in his father's cottage in cape cod.

'i may not ever hava marriage, but at least i've had a honeymoon.'

he told me of idyllic hours he and his zinka had spent in each other's arms, cradled in felix hoenikker's old white wicker chair, the chair that faced the sea.

and zinka would dance for him. 'imagine a woman dancing just for me.'

'i can see you have no regrets.'

'she broke my heart. i didn't like that much. but that was the price. in this world, you get what you pay for.'

he proposed a gallant toast. 'sweethearts and wives,' he cried"

---from cat's cradle, by kurt vonnegut

shot on the upper east side of manhattan, early october, 2006.

Labels: vidja

i recently went through all the skillions of pictures i've taken over the years in order to clear up space on ye olde harde drive. since i haven't been taking very many pictures of late (stupid job! i hate it so much...) i figure for the foreseeable future i'll post random pictures from the recent past. a lot of pictures i used to take were taken by slyly holding my camera in my hand, and snapping away at people who don't notice me taking their picture. these are a few such pictures. i really like 'em 'cause people are frowning in them. it's funny when people are sad!







what's kinda weird is that i put all these pictures up on flickr a day or two ago, and the picture with the pregnant lady has already gotten 89 views and counting. the other two pictures in the set have gotten less than ten views each. the only two tags that the last picture doesn't have in common with the other two are "pregnant" and "gravid" which means that *at least* 80 people looked for pictures of pregnant women on flickr over the past two days. pregnancy? really? even though i uploaded much more interesting pictures that day? is pregnancy fetish the next big thing? will i get more hits off of google searches for "pregnancy fetish"? only time will tell, my friends.

i recently started a new job after a few months of unemployment. before starting, however, i decided to go on one last hurrah to washington d.c. what i enjoy most about our nation's capital are the many smithsonian museums, and the national zoo, all of which are absosmurfly free. being a bit of a nerd, and a bit of a cheapskate, i superlove d.c. and try to get out there every couple of years. even though i'd already seen most of the the stuff i saw in d.c., i still managed to learn many new things during this trip. allow me to elaborate

i learned there's a new native american museum (specifically, the national museum of the american indian) in d.c.


and i learned that they're pretty cavalier about displaying swastikas without much of an explanation of how they fit into native culture


i learned that pee and poo (besides being funny) are popular subjects at the smithsonian museums








i learned that pandas are hateful, and won't do a brother a solid and hang out in spots where they can be photographed easily...


...but that the same can't be said for iguanas


i learned that museum guards run away from cameras because they're scared of having their souls stolen


i learned that paleontologists can be kinda charming


i learned that pluto is gone,


but not forgotten




i learned that seeing naked people isn't dirty if it's art




i learned that d.c. has some interesting food


like the jumbo slices of pizza in adams morgan


and the fantastic chili-dogs and chili half-smoked sausage (bill cosby's favorite!) at ben's chili bowl.


however, i think the most important lesson i took away from my trip to washington d.c. is that rats have armored themselves, and will presumably soon be taking up arms, and enslaving mankind

don't say i didn't warn you!

curious to see what else i saw in d.c.? look no further than my flickr page.