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This guy is too cool. He's got it made
in the shade because he made his own shade. Saw him riding down west side
greenbelt after picking up my
Spencer Tunick
print at
I-20
in Chelsea with Michael Gates and John King. We were on our way to board
ferry across hudson to Jersey City--or was it Hoboken? Either way, Manhattan
is totally getting it together. There's a
walkable
waterfront greenway around the whole island! |
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Behind the scenes at
Children's Television Workshop
Sesame Street workshop (web and magazine division). As you can tell by the
gaily colored carpet squares and cubicle dividers, this was a supercreative
and fun place to toil. I lasted about 6 months, missed the overdue 1998 website
re-launch because I was at my first
Burning Man, where
I decided to quit and move to Seattle. I came back and gave several weeks
notice, and even continued to telecommute from Seattle for about 6 weeks
thereafter.
The people I worked with were talented, intelligent, and similarly disillusioned.
Most quit or got the ax not long after my departure. The idea of getting
kids to sit at computers did not sit well with most of us, except for the
programmers, who obviously embraced screen interaction. I guess I like it,
too, but don't advocate it for children any more than I do
television, which is one of the few things more evil
than institutional indoctrination (aka, public education). |
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Bird's eye view of good times in Jersey
City, New Jersey. A green outdoor carpet. Beer in red plastic cups, white
inside. I was visiting John
King and company. Jersey City was always pretty cool. Now it's gentrifying,
thanks in part to the new light rail. (It used to have great views of the
twin towers, too.) Jersey City was the first place I lived after college
in January 1992. It was a cute room in an old house next to Lincoln Park
with John King and Joe Weston sharing the rent, but I struggled finding a
job and soon moved back home where I quickly applied to Brooklyn College
for an MFA in poetry and got in. |
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"Here's to alcohol: The source of, and
answer to, all of life's problems."
--Homer Simpson |
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Crossing the
Verrazano
Narrows Bridge en route to Baltimore after visiting my cancer-ridden
mother on Long Island. I placed the camera pointing up on the dash of my
1986 120,000+ miles Honda Civic gold 2-door hatchback and hoped for the best.
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I like the idea of a St. No Ills--someone
to protect you from sickness. In this case it's just a damaged construction
barrier, POST NO BILLS stencils having been an obsession of mine for quite
a while. I don't know if it's unique to New York City, but the phrase "post
no bills" is nowhere to be seen in Seattle--except maybe on
this CD I
made. |
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Nothing like a bleary windshield on
a drunken taxi cab ride home in Manhattan, meter running but after 4 or 5
martinis you don't mind. (I still think the best true gin martinis were to
be found at the E 72nd St Hi-Life.) My best ride was from Michael Gates's
studio apartment down around East 2nd St and 1st Ave to 71st and 1st where
I lived--it was a nonstop flight! We caught a green wave and rode it all
the way, hardly anyone else out at 4 a.m., you could see the red lights way
up ahead turning green as we flew through intersection after intersection.
Another time, I asked a reckless cabbie to slow down. He said, "What? You
want me to drive Jersey-style?" I replied, "If that means safely, then yes."
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Manhattan is the place which gave birth to the concept 24/7. Twenty-four
hours a day, seven days a week, it's go go go. That *almost* holds true for
alcohol sales. You can buy a drink almost any time of day or night in New
York, except for Sundays between 4 am and noon. Other than that, there is
no official last call. |
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Central Park Sheep Meadow, looking south.
I lived on the upper east side, worked on the upper west side. My daily commute
took me across the park, usually on foot but sometimes by bike or inline
skates. One morning on my bicycle, I was pedaling through the park pretty
fast, one hand on the grip, the other holding 6-month old Kodak DC210 digital
camera for action photographs. I hit a soft spot on my shortcut and flew
over the handlebars, carefully cradling the camera at the expense of my face.
An old eastern European woman saw it and approached me in the good samaritan
way typical of New Yorkers: "You have to get a tet-a-noose shot," she kept
repeating. "Am I bleeding?" I asked. My face was raw and numb but there was
no blood there, though one knee was fairly shredded. I didn't go for a shot
cause I'd had one not long before that. I arrived at work a dirty bloody
mess, happy to introduce a taste of chaos and recklessness to the antiseptic
offices of Children's Television Workshop online group near Lincoln
Center. |
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