I had planned to walk from gate A5 to B16, about half a mile in PHX. However, my flight arrived at A5 scant moments before they closed the boarding door at B16. A frantic dash through the airport merely got me to the customer assistance counter a few minutes quicker than walking would have. Rebooked on a flight the next morning, I was going to be spending the night in the hotel version of tofu: soft, beige, tasteless, forgettable.
Urban #250417.0.
I don’t find Phoenix particularly pleasant. Too much sprawl. But I can enjoy spending an evening anywhere. And so N. 44th Street it was. Lots of cars, nondescript office buildings, more tofu hotels, empty lots, and gas stations. I passed some guy out for a late-night run, a guy sitting on a plastic bucket panhandling, and some teenagers in a parking lot. And lots and lots of cars.
Urban #250417.1.
It wasn’t a pretty walk, by any stretch of the imagination, but I enjoyed it. Why were there so many people driving and where were they going? Who thought an escape room would do well here? Why do you convert a gas station into a spa? And it’s hard to take seriously the Pat Tillman Middle School’s commitment to excellence and achievement when half their sign is burnt out.
Urban #250417.2.
I’m not sure I’m better for having seen N. 44th Street, and never need to see it again. But it was more fun than sitting in a bland hotel room.
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.
