Thursday, April 28, 2016

'Are You Insane?'


Too many ways to reply! 



What's The Point In Opening A Store Like This?


At the Last Stop Inconvenience Store, Woodlawn, The Bronx, NY.

At this store recently, I asked the assistant for a can of soda, and was rebuffed with the mind-bending reply, "we don't sell any drinks". It was like going into a shoe store and being told that they only stock shoes for left feet...

Cigars, cigarettes, hookahs — but no drinks. Snacks, candy, chips — but no cans of soda. Gum, aspirins, Imodium, alka seltzer — but no bottled soft drinks. Chocolate! Nuts, salted and unsalted! Welch's fruit snacks! Pretzels! Fluorescent things with less than 0% nutritional value! Heart-shaped confectionaries all year round! But no drinks of any kind. 

What is the point? 

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Equal Parts Boredom And Anxiety



A flower I painted. What I had intended this to be, ended up nothing like it, as usual


A face in the crowd, on a tree, on West 23rd Street. 


Dawn at South Ferry/Whitehall, lower Lower Manhattan. 


(Year of Our Lord, 1928).


Eighth Avenue in Harlem.


Me, thanks to the Harris Shutter. 


Bradhurst Avenue in Harlem. 

Again

In June 2013, I noticed a very odd little piece of self-referential art at the Nostrand Avenue A train stop in Brooklyn. It was a photograph of one of the mosaics that decorate the station walls at intervals, declaring the station name: NOSTRAND AVE. And it was glued to the tiled wall directly below one of the mosaics. In a sense it was like seeing a mirror reflected in another mirror.

I never did find out the origins of the photo of the Nostrand Avenue sign next to the same sign. A few days ago, a similar 'work' appeared at 23rd Street, on the uptown A, C and E lines: