Previously a tree stood on either side of this bench. Modest trees. Occasionally somebody would sit on the bench and look out over the park. I don’t recall when, but one day I noticed that one of the trees was gone. Just a small stump remained. Sometime later, the second tree was cut down. Nobody sits on the bench these days.
Urban #25031418.
Now flanked by two stumps, the bench slowly decays. Weather takes its toll on the wood and metal. It seems tired. Before long it will fall into ruin, another victim of neglect. Perhaps somebody will remove the broken slats and rusted metal. Then only the small, easily missed plaque will remain, stuck in the ground marking a small stump: “In memory of William B. …”
Date: 25 January 2025 Time: 4:34 pm Location: Metal Bench on Preston Field Knoll
suv rolls stop sign, doesn’t speed off but continues casually to next stop sign. seems to be in no hurry. brake lights flash, then it rolls that next sign too.
crows, three, land in a tree.
nobody in park. crows make a racket. squirrel digs in the snow.
woman with curly-haired dog enters far side of park, passes merry-go-round, continues clockwise around path past tennis court, walks between playground equipment and swings, crosses basketball court, leaves park.
nobody to be seen.
sound of bus in distance.
nondescript suburban noise.
school bus stops at stop sign. chains gangle as it slows and again as it speeds away. only a few kids still on bus.
car door slams shut.
sound of bells (fake) at haverford school. it is 4:45 pm.
jeep parks by stop sign. young woman gets out, carries bag to house on corner, enters.
nondescript suburban noise.
wm. henderson heating van turns at stop sign, drives up street.
three cars in a row slow at stop sign.
crow flies overhead.
gray car pulls into drive. person gets out, goes to passenger side, carries bags of groceries (?) into house.
woman jogs along sidewalk.
postal truck stops as stop sign, turns right.
squirrel hops through snow, stops, digs, continues hopping.
woman with large black dog crosses street, walks along path to corner of park, crosses street again, walks away from park.
two boys cut across field.
group of runners (from haverford college?) talk loudly as they run down street.
wm. henderson heating van (same one?) drives down street, turns at stop sign.
black car hardly slows at stop sign. hardly slows at next one.
blue subaru stops in front of house. man gets out. carrying nothing, he goes into house.
more crows land in a tree. caw loudly.
school bus driving other direction, stops at stop sign. but for the driver, it is empty.
When I reach the ridge, I see the scattering of utility poles. Their diminutive size, their construction, and the material all contribute to a sense of old. They bring power to a handful of houses, now owned by wealthy people who want to pretend they are also important. Signs all over the place screaming “Private Property” and “Do Not Enter” and “Private Road.” All five of the guys from that ’60s electrical band would be angry.
Urban #250222.
These hills and trails and firebreaks used to be open to the public, though not many people bothered to come up here. They weren’t maintained, weren’t sanitized. I don’t know if that was the draw, but it added to the attraction. You wandered up into these mountains because they differed from the paved streets below. And you wandered, following this game trail or that path, or climbed up that firebreak.
City planning and isolationist residents have tried to funnel people onto a single main trail. The traffic is destroying the trail (thanks in large part to mountain bike riders who insist on cutting the trails and dragging their rear tire down the steep sections). Before long the entire distance will be little more than a graded dirt road.
Urban #240105.
I sit up here in the evening and enjoy the quiet. The past was not better than the present, just different. It’s hard to imagine that one day somebody will look back longingly at this present and see it as the past. Will that person here the incessant “ding ding ding” of the bell on a mountain bike as it and rider careen down the trail?
I had an hour to waste, so I walked around the block, a bunch of times. I looked in the various windows as I circled Castle Green. I had crashed a wedding there once, years ago. I was promptly thrown out. The old women talking in the sitting room looked disapprovingly at me as if they recognized me as the wedding crasher. The woman arranging wedding dresses stood out starkly in her no-nonsense all black outfit moving amongst the elegant white and ivory dresses. One time around she had left her soda can in the window, a garish splash of color. By my next pass, it was gone.
The violin shop caught my attention — I hadn’t expected to see a violin repair shop. Each time I passed the windows I noticed something else. I was fascinated by the evidence of craftsmanship — the tools, the disheveled workbench, the repurposed shampoo.
Urban #250228.1.
One time I passed and saw the man working. I watched for a few minutes, a master at his trade. I wonder how much work he has these days. His shop was packed with instruments, if that means anything.
Urban #250228.2
My afternoon with Castle Green will surely become a zine.
The trains pass slowly through town. I could probably run alongside and climb on. I wonder where I would end up. Years ago, when a freight line still ran through the local town, I did climb on. Hours later it stopped outside some dusty town. I got off and went in search of a phone. Today I resisted the urge to go for a ride. Instead, I watched and imagined where this train loaded with freight was headed.
Urban #250207.1.
Flatcar after flatcar each carrying two combat vehicles. Hundreds of them rumbled slowly by. Millions of dollars of sophisticated military equipment. And yet, how banal: a “packing list” duck-taped to each one, as if they are nothing more than typical Amazon packages.
Urban #250207.2.
I wonder if there’s a return shipping label inside too?
One day I saw an oil painting of corner in some quotidian street corner in an unnamed (and unremarkable) Dutch town. I was struck by the vivid blue sky and the bold orange and red of the buildings. Two figures stood at the corner. Corners, I thought.
Urban #250109.
What can I do with corners? There are remarkably few corners in suburbia, and fewer people walking — one of the many features/flaws of suburbia. If I were more creative, I would find some way to make the Land Rovers and Teslas interesting subjects. But I’m not. So into the city I went in search of interesting corners.
Urban #250201.1.
Chilly winter days, bright blue sky, pedestrians bundled up to stay warm. Just what I was looking for.
I like making things. Little things. Big things. Lately, I’ve been having fun with an 8-page zine. Printed from one piece of paper, folded, and cut, it is to me the ideal format for a short outing, or for a case study of a place. Or, I can look back through photographs I’ve taken to find a group of 8 that make a good theme.
Some of the zines I have been making lately.
They are easy and relatively quick to print and to fold. I use 11″x17″ sheets of paper, so that each page is about 4″x5″, large enough to showcase the photographs but not so large as to be bulky. I tweaked the layout a bit so that the cover image wraps around the front and back covers.
The “Vienna at Night” zine before I folded and cut it.
This format also gives a place to print a large photograph on the back side. It’s sort of a surprise for the person looking at the zine, and a puzzle — it seems unfolding and refolding the zine presents something of a challenge for people, which I didn’t expect.
A picture of the Glorietta that is the central image of the zine “Vienna at Night”
When it is all done, trimmed, folded, and cut, the zine is the perfect size for my guerrilla art projects. I have given them to friends and handed them to people I don’t know, left them on tables and shelves in coffeeshops, stuffed them between books in libraries and bookstores, and left them on seats in buses.
The cover of the “Vienna at Night” zine.
I don’t know what happens to those I abandon in the world. And I don’t really care. The point, for me, is in the making and giving away (not, I stress, “sharing” which has become an essential part of the economy of likes, has become entirely transactional, and depends on knowing what happens to whatever you make).
Two of the pages in the “Vienna at Night” zine, after I folded, cut, and pressed it flat.
Sometimes I leave the house, camera in hand, looking for a coherent set of images that work well together. That was the case with the “Walking in Sacramento” or the “Alone in Philadelphia” zines — I knew an afternoon’s walk would produce at least 8 scenes I could cobble together into a zine. Other times, I draw from a few trips out and about, as in the “Vienna at Night” zines (there are two of these zines, gathering together the photographs from a few nights wandering the city late at night). In other cases, a zine emerges when I’m looking back through photos I’ve taken over a number of trips out. “Alone in Jefferson” is that type — the central image is part of a collection of photographs I’ve taken usually in Jefferson Station that highlight the loneliness of the modern world.
The central image for the “Alone in Jefferson” zine.
Any group of 8 photographs that cohere can become one of these little zines. Inspired by Alexey Titarenko, I took a bunch of photographs of people in a local cafe (see Ghosts in the Cafe). Turns out I have 8 that work well together, so I printed them as a zine. Seems appropriate that I left a handful in that cafe.
A spread from the “Ephemeral” zine.
Like all of my projects, this one will last as long as I find it amusing or interesting. I will continue to print copies of these zines, and cast them into the world. If you’d like to receive a few, send me $10 and your address. I will send you three random zines. Or, offer something in exchange.
Increasingly it seems we live in an Edward Hopper painting. We are always alone, even in busy places. Whether we have surrendered to the glowing screen in our hand or staring down at the ground, too much of modern life is profoundly isolated and isolating.
Lately I have been inspired by the long-exposure photos of Alexey Titarenko. I think his “City of Shadows” is beautiful and haunting. To be sure, some of my fascination comes from my fascination with 1990s St. Petersburg. Nonetheless, I find the images lovely. So I thought I would try some long or, in this case, multiple exposures
Urban #230911.
The local café is convenient and has reasonable coffee, so I am practicing there. I like the look, but need to find a better location. I should head into the city one night. Maybe if we get snow this winter. I have some places in mind that will, I hope, look good.
I often think of photographs in collections or series, linked to a single subject (e.g., an idea, place, time, experience). Given my preference for printed, physical photographs, I increasingly try to imagine a project in the form of an artist’s book. Artist’s books are not restricted by the format of a traditional book, sequential pages glued (or sewn) together. Instead, an artist’s book gives me the chance to play with form (accordion books, folding books, etc.). By taking advantage of these different forms, I can encourage people to imagine different ways to think about the relationship between photographs.
PBα #0.
Recently I was playing with what I’ll call a “panel book” (“flap book” or “flag book” might be good terms as well, but let’s not dwell). In this initial experiment, three series of eight photograph-sentence pairs are arranged so that the reader can flip through each panel individually. The reader creates the series by flipping between photograph-sentence panels.
PBα #1.
The book is an unusual shape, very narrow and tall at 2.75″x16″. The pages are stitched together inside a heavy stock cover. The paper I used for the pages was a bit thick (fortunately, I have since purchased some thinner paper). It took some planning to get the layout correct so that the printed pages would be in the correct order when folded and sewn. But now that I’ve figured it out, I’ll certainly be making more — I’ve already got PBβ planned.
