1. walking back from the new kitchen today i looked at the immediate side street view. Just look at that cool snub nose Citroen Utility Vehicle.

Random Fact: The first commercial vehicle from Citroën was introduced at the end of 1921.






2. ok, perhaps not that interesting, but I just looked up at at these houses that I see everyday and the colors popped today. they are very strange looking houses to me.

Random Fact: The streets in Greenpoint are named alphabetically. Walking south along Manhattan Avenue, you will find Ash, Box, Clay, Dupont, Eagle, Freeman, Green, Huron, India, Java and Kent Streets. Then comes Greenpoint Avenue, formerly known as Lincoln Street. Further south one can find Milton, Noble and Oak Streets. All streets were originally designated by letters, not by name; A Street, B Street, etc. Calyer Street, coming after Oak Street, was formerly known as "P Street" and is followed by Quay Street. (thanks Wikipedia)



3. one of my favorite things that I see everyday in my neighborhood, the nasty neckface van. I dont know if neckface owns this van or what (somehow i dont imagine him living in boerem hill, but I could be wrong), but it adds a welcome flavor of in-your-face to the neighborhood.

Random Fact: Neckface is an anonymous graffiti writer from California, born 1984.

a haiku & a view from the street I work on

while some are muted
when its grey in the city
others come to life

nyc subway, a world of the past

http://24flinching.com/word/headline/subway-lifeblood/

these images are so beautiful. a completely different time in new york city's (and our country's) history. as a kid growing up in the 80s I went into the city from nearby new jersey - hanging onto my fathers pinky finger, small enough to be looking at street people eye level. It was colorful, exciting, frightening, and it provoked me on every level. it liberated me from mainstream america, and I distinctly remember the moment that I felt that beauty could be many many things, perfection came off of its alter and could be there for me to re-see and redefine. this moment happened in the car as I sifted through images. I remember how it felt, this discovery exploding inside of me. it brought a sense of private liberation in early childhood, it was mine. After this moment I see that I chose to try and understand the world through this lens.

and as I got older, i would go to surrender myself - to run straight into the sense of endless possibility that it offered, a place to become everything, to disappear into, and over and over, to be delivered to myself.

everything in me has always said yes to this city that has become the great love of my life, this place that stays with me wherever i go or live. I'm glad i got to see a little piece of it like it was then, a place with more color and soul than it has now.

by Dorian Laux


I couldn't name it, the sweet
sadness welling up in me for weeks.
So I cleaned, found myself standing
in a room with a rag in my hand,
the birds calling time-to-go, time-to-go.
And like an old woman near the end
of her life I could hear it, the voice
of a man I never loved who pressed
my breasts to his lips and whispered
"My little doves, my white, white lilies."
I could almost cry when I remember it.

I don't remember when I began
to call everyone "sweetie,"
as if they were my daughters,
my darlings, my little birds.
I have always loved too much,
or not enough. Last night
I read a poem about God and almost
believed it--God sipping coffee,
smoking cherry tobacco. I've arrived
at a time in my life when I could believe
almost anything.

Today, pumping gas into my old car, I stood
hatless in the rain and the whole world
went silent--cars on the wet street
sliding past without sound, the attendant's
mouth opening and closing on air
as he walked from pump to pump, his footsteps
erased in the rain--nothing
but the tiny numbers in their square windows
rolling by my shoulder, the unstoppable seconds
gliding by as I stood at the Chevron,
balanced evenly on my two feet, a gas nozzle
gripped in my hand, my hair gathering rain.

And I saw it didn't matter
who had loved me or who I loved. I was alone.
The black oily asphalt, the slick beauty
of the Iranian attendant, the thickening
clouds--nothing was mine. And I understood
finally, after a semester of philosophy,
a thousand books of poetry, after death
and childbirth and the startled cries of men
who called out my name as they entered me,
I finally believed I was alone, felt it
in my actual, visceral heart, heard it echo
like a thin bell. And the sounds
came back, the slish of tires
and footsteps, all the delicate cargo
they carried saying thank you
and yes. So I paid and climbed into my car
as if nothing had happened--
as if everything mattered--What else could I do?

I drove to the grocery store
and bought wheat bread and milk,
a candy bar wrapped in gold foil,
smiled at the teenaged cashier
with the pimpled face and the plastic
name plate pinned above her small breast,
and knew her secret, her sweet fear,
Little bird. Little darling. She handed me
my change, my brown bag, a torn receipt,
pushed the cash drawer in with her hip
and smiled back.

oh well for the vigilant brain,
a rushing train racing from or to, never knowing which.

emergency

people as dreams, as places
as unfixed landscapes lifted out of time, pages torn out of books.
and me, like tide, little exposed heart rolls in, rolls out.
us as us, us as sea,
us as noble dogs, loyal to our senses.