Modern Urban Ruins on E. 33rd St.

I walk past this vacant lot on East 33rd between 5th and Madison and it always catches my eye. Last week I saw a guy organizing garbage bags atop the fence, probably looping them on the unintentional hooks that form the top side of the fence. The bags hang on the inside, out of sight from the street.

Theory: he collects cans, glass, and plastics for recycling and stores the bags up there before redeeming. Here’s a view from inside the lot – bags in upper left corner. It reminds me of what a hiker would do with food to keep it out of reach of bears.

The rest of the lot from left to right, strewn with rubble and garbage, a modern urban ruin. Why not open this site to the public? Sure someone would invariably get some superficial injury and sue the city for millions, but why not…

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ESTRADCO, the YouGoGirl Building, hunger, protests

A few weeks ago I posted an update on the economy and talked about my many interviews with ESTRADCO. Early last week ESTRADCO made me an offer and I, following 3.2 seconds of negotiation, accepted. So  the economy has improved and I am again earning a paycheck after a gap of 15 months. Civilization may still be doomed, however, I can now buy an ipod.

The YouGoGirl building on the West Side Highway shows signs of recovery. If you focus on the right side of this photo, you might notice a guy in a third floor window with what appears to be a power tool, let’s call it a drill. This building also tells us bears the starkly obvious but largely ignored message, “Cars kill.”

Further south on the West Side Highway, this building, lonely, pre-abandoned, an arboreal takeover looming behind it, pleads for someone, anyone to lease it.

Vacant lot with posters, West Side Highway.

Even further south near the World Financial Center I accidentally found the Irish Hunger Memorial when swerving to avoid a string of wide-walkers, tourists oblivious to anything not in their 3″ LCD screens. There this was, this memorial sprouting wildflowers and grasses and stone walls.

Group of protesters with Iranian flags protesting near Battery Park during the recent UN sessions.

Other protests seen but not photographed during the past week: People wanting China out of Tibet making excellent use of a bullhorn for call and response. The Transport Workers Union deployed several large inflatable rats closing several streets in the east 40s along Madison Avenue.

Along Greenwich Ave.

Tiles For America covers a triangular fence enclosing a parking lot along Greenwich Avenue. It’s  an interesting juxtaposition of a memorial with outdoor advertising. At first I thought the androgynous head was staring at anyone passing, but on second thought she/he appears hypnotized and slightly nauseated.

And in this one, the face gazes out over barbed wire symbolizing how materialism both imprisons the mind and distracts. Deep, huh?

The Day-O on Greenwich, closed for “renovations” since 2007 was repossessed early this year by the landlord.

Just another ugly building.

The guy with the beard (not pictured) came up to me when I was taking pictures of this new building on Greenwich near its northern terminus. He said, “It’s better than the parking lot that it replaces.” You may know him – he’s retired from the publishing business and now gives walking tours of the Upper West Side and Greenwich Village.

“It’s not so bad,” I said. “It has curvy windows on the upper floors.”

“Not in this neighborhood,” he said. “It doesn’t belong here.”

Garden variety empty store.

TFW #2 Things to do while Writing

In the first TFW, we discussed how to prepare to write. And by now, you should be ready to put pen to paper, key to keyboard, gray to matter. Today’s article focuses on things you can do while  writing. This list, while exhaustive, is in no way complete or comprehensive. You may have thought of things to do while writing that is not on this list. Send your suggestions to thingstodowhilewriting@noonewilleverreadthis.org.

1. Chew your food deliberately.
2. Stare out the window, or wish you had a window from which to stare.
3. Look things up.
4. Check your phone for texts, tweets, voice messages.
5. Make eye contact with someone, then look away at the last second.
6. Mentally mock writing groups.
7. Back up your hard drive.
8. Listen to a “Moth” podcast.
9. Defy gravity.
10. Type with your eyes closed.
11. Tap your leg.
12. Spill coffee on your keyboard.
13. Boil spaghetti or linguine. Lay each piece carefully across your closed laptop, tying the ends together, creating a long single strand that wraps around your laptop. Wait overnight for the pieces to harden. Voila! You have a pasta laptop hard case that will amaze your friends.
14. Run your few remaining dollars through the shredder along with some plain ordinary paper. Tape the pieces together, mixing the plain paper with the dollar bills. Use a green sharpie fine point marker on the plain paper to connect the marks on the dollar paper. Voila! You have increased your spendable money by several dollars. Warning – your new money may no longer be accepted.
15. Sharpie your laptop screen, then clean it with Borax cleanser (this is in no way an endorsement for Borax, nor is it a condemnation of Borax. It’s just a brand that I know. I could just as easily have said Ajax cleanser. Also, any permanent marker will ruin your screen, not just Sharpie.) Kick yourself for doing something so stupid.

Temporary Ruins at Cathedral of St. John the Divine

In December, 2001, a five-alarm fire swept through the north transept of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Amsterdam Ave. You can see signs of reconstruction and restoration – building materials, scaffolding, large granite column sections – all along the north side of the Cathedral. Visit these grounds and you’ll see wide columns that abut the sky, light streaming in unglassed windows and stairs descending from total darkness.

To see updated blogs in real-time, go to http://alphainventions.com,
http://condron.us/, or http://blogiche.com/.

TFW #1 How to Prepare to Write

You know, I don’t just take stunning, blurry photos of business decay. I also write words in American English just like the ones you’re reading. I’ve been doing so for most of my life. Along the way, I’ve picked up a few tricks that I’d like to share with you. This is the first in what may be a never repeated feature: Tips for Writers (TFW).

Today’s article focuses on the often neglected practice of preparing to write. As important as it is to sit down and write, and then to edit and re-write, tear it up in frustration and start over, it is just as crucial to get ready. This article discusses simple strategies for preparation that writers new and experience can immediately use.

1. Location is everything
Find the perfect location. If you’re at home, leave. If you’re out, come home and then leave. If you’re at a Starbucks, go to another Starbucks. There’s probably one only a block or two away. Once you’ve done that, try another table. Covet the table by the window. You don’t want a place that’s too full, or too empty. It has to be just right or you’re writing will suffer, so spend as much time as you can finding that perfect space.

2. The medium is everything
As important as location is, the medium you choose for writing is even more importanter. If you like writing on lined paper, try quadrille. If you use a PC, switch to Mac. You’ll like Mac. The keyboard shortcuts are different and it will take you awhile to adapt.

Your computer is old. How could it not be: you’re a writer. Snow Leapord has been released. Windows 7 is coming. For god’s sake, man, you have yet to experience Linux. Your computer doesn’t have all the features you need for writing. WiFi, a decent graphics card, voice activation, thumbprint security: all essential to putting together the perfect story: your story. Start to comparison shop on the web. But to really have an idea of the kind of writing you’ll be able to crank out on your next machine, you have to try it out. Go to the local computer store.

Get the right keyboard: you can’t masterpiecify with a mushy keyboard. You need a clicky tactile response. Ask questions about RAM and ROM and furrow your brow. Abruptly leave because you feel inspired. Walk home quickly. Pass a homeless person and become annoyed. Enter into an inner dialog about why it’s OK to treat the homeless as if they didn’t exist, how your indifference is good for them. Feel bad about even thinking those thoughts. Arrive home dejected and stare morosely at the computer screen, the typewriter, the quadrille writing tablet and the Apple brochure.

Turn on the news for inspiration. After three well-spent research hours pass, pack up your laptop and head back to Starbucks. Eye the table in the window corner and order yourself a well-earned cup of coffee. But someone grabs that spot while you were in line. Go to the other Starbucks a few blocks away.

3. Formatting is everything
Once you have location and medium down for the day, you’re ready to move on to formatting. Whoever said that you should just write, get into the flow and worry about formatting later has not received proper schooling in formatting and simply doesn’t know any better. Pity them and smile.

OK, choose the right font. No one element, after location and medium, is more important than the right font. Maybe margins, spacing and headers, but no, those are all distant seconds, thirds, fourths and fifths. No matter. Concentrate on the typeface, or fontage, as it’s also known. Try out a few of the different fonts – first type a paragraph or two of nonsense text. Check the text carefully to see if you’ve written any actual words. Laugh if you did. Your default font is probably Times New Roman. This won’t do. Nor will Arial.

Go through the font list alphabetically one at a time, and imagine how your manuscript will look in that typeface, how an editor will respond to it. After about a half hour of this, wonder if there’s some kind of freeware tool out there that will print all the fonts on your computer so that you can save some time. Google font tools. Go to a minimum of eleven websites and download some tools. None of them really do exactly what you want. Write an e-mail complaining to the tool’s website. Involve your significant other.

Let’s assume you’ve found THE FONT, downloaded and installed it. Now put some thought into the other aspects of your printed page: margins, headers, footers, page numbering and so on. These are all very personal choices; there really aren’t any standards and editors appreciate creativity here. When in doubt, use lots of colors and visual elements and flourishes.

Final checklist
Now that you have your location chosen, your medium (computer), your font and formatting settled, take a break, you’ve earned it. Call your Significant Other or look up old high school friends. Write a few e-mails. Google some odd word combinations and see where that takes you. Put off as long as possible the typing of words on page – once you’ve done that, there’s no turning back and you don’t want that. You don’t want to get distracted. Sit back in your chair, put your feet up on your desk, take keyboard in hand. Now, you’re ready to write. Begin writing.

Next: things to do whilst writing.

Healthcare Demonstrators in Times Square

I emerged from the subway to a sound I hadn’t heard in many a long year: peaceful expression of first amendment rights. The echo of a man urging the crowd via bullhorn: “What do we want?!?” The crowd, many holding signs, replies: “Lunch, perhaps a nice pita sandwich and fizzy water.”
“With or without mayo?!?”
“With, and chips would be nice, too!”

I like peaceful demonstration, and even admire demonstration that gets slightly out of hand without involving any violence and afterward the police and the overly enthusiastic revelers settle it over root beer floats. It’s what makes reasonable America so darned interesting.

Does anyone know why the woman in the foreground in focus, but the rest of photo is not? I welcome your photography tips.

Man sitting on truckload of wood wondering whether his plan would cover him in the event of a catastrophic scaffolding collapse…

Mendenhall Glacier Closing

This blog isn’t about anything as serious as climate change or decimation of species diversity. And frankly, we don’t acknowledge the existence of anything as anything but the pure fabrication and continued hyperbole of the elitist media. Stop elitist media now! More newspapers, less stuff that I disagree with! There, Closed for Business has stated a position.

So our traipse around Alaska last month brought us to the shrinking Mendenhall Glacier. The lake in front of the glacier used to be the glacier. It has formed in the last few years. There are two waterfalls in the photo. One to the immediate right of the glacier, and another farther to the right pouring out of the mountain. Each is relatively recent. You can read all about the rise and fall of Mendenhall anywhere online. You know how to use a search engine…

The path leading to Mendenhall Glacier has occasional markers of its former edge, like the one pictured below. Our guide suggests that within our lifetimes Mendenhall will close for business, simply melting and receding into the distance.

A bald eagle, Mendenhall Glacier.

Moss on a roof, Juneau, AK.

Plywood in use in Juneau, AK.

Ship and wheelbarrow in the mist, Auke Bay, AK.

Economic update, civilization doomed

Economic Update. A new restaurant has opened nearby. I’m still out of work.

After four interviews over the last six weeks, I’m waiting to hear from Established Traditional Co., Inc. (ESTTRADCO), whose hiring manager has been on vacation but is now back. I would very much like to join ESTTRADCO, but each passing hour fills me with a sense of foreboding and doom. Each interview and presentation went very well. The security guard made small talk with me and told me he was certain that all of these visits were a very good sign. He looked forward to his vacation and thought my suit was very nice. Foreboding. Doom. And you, dear reader, expecting scinitalling photos of decaying economy get this depressing prognostication. Foredooming.

So two things happened yesterday that fuel my belief that civilization as we know it will end very soon. First, I’m standing at the bus stop. The bus pulls up right where I stand. The doors open. A girl, late teens, cuts directly in front of me and walks on as the doors open. Stock up on water, people; the end is near. I stare at the back of her head. The bus driver shakes his head to acknowledge the collapse of society sure to follow.

Second, I walk through a door at one of the seventeen banks within a two block radius. As my curmudgeonly father taught me to do, I hold the door for the person behind me. She’s on her cell phone because it’s very important that she have whatever conversation she’s having. It can’t wait. She does not reach out to take the door from me. She does not put up her arm. She walks through the open door very slowly while I hold it, not looking up. I think perhaps the electromagnetic waves emitted by her phone have rendered her arms useless – she’s holding the phone with hunched shoulder. Perhaps she thinks it is an automatic door. Perhaps she knows I will not let the door whack her. All you hunched shoulder phone talker non-door takers, you are on notice. If you’re behind me going through a door, you’d better take the door or it’s going to slam into you. My mother, rest her soul, would cringe. Then she’d fix us both a scotch on the rocks and we’d sit on the deck and watch the golfers hacking away on the 11th hole.

Finally, I caddied for a couple of weeks when I was in high school and I found out something. Everyone cheats. Even the kindly family doctor. To recap: new restaurant, me out of work, civilization is doomed any day now. No photos today.

The Mesa Grill, Juneau Alaska

The Mesa Grill, a tiny shack on an otherwise abandoned lot, downtown Juneau, AK. I ordered a cheeseburger and the woman in the shack thanked me. “All day long, I cook nothing but halibut.” It was as good a burger as I’ve had, better than most and the fries were crispy and fat. I recommend it, but try the halibut.

Outdoor seating is available.

Juneau seems to be doing OK. Cruise ships still dump more than 10,000 tourists a day in town and closed businesses are few and far between, at least as revealed on my unofficial and purely random inspection. A taxi driver told me that most of the shops along the water close when tourist season ends and reopen in the late spring.

The state capitol building in Juneau four days before Sarah Palin’s resignation went into effect. You can sense the anticipation fluttering in the 50th anniversary banner.

Totem pole in front of the Governor’s Mansion. The expression shows the prevailing anxiety that the governor would change her mind.

See updated blogs in real-time, go to http://alphainventions.com,
http://condron.us/, or http://blogiche.com/.