Coast Lining

Posting from the confines of a thoroughly Floridian hotel suite, so luxuriant in its layout that there are literally no stairs available to guests to ambulate between floors. The one stairwell I found ended in a dim cavern with moths flitting about and a dusty “EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY” sign on the door.

But en route to Miami. By holy double super extraordinary jove himself I must say. Not only some of the best clouds I’ve ever seen, but perhaps one of the most beautiful (in the natural-world sense) hours of my dear life.

Biblical would be an understatement. Terrifyingly apocalyptic, or pre-civilizatic, as if on the turbulent surface of Jupiter. And I was free to observe it all from my throne at 36,000 feet.

Cuba landfall tomorrow.

Across the Street

A final night in America, most pleasantly spent over drinks and cheesecake with a dear friend. Tomorrow morning (Friday), the bulk of my net worth will be piled into bags, arranged, rearranged, shouldered, and eventually placed in the hold of a south-bound aircraft.

Miami tomorrow, Cuba Saturday. Posts here may be severely limited until mid-June. Uncertainty looms about internet connectivity in the isle off the Floridian coast. Feel free to check in at www.NEUtoCUBA.com where my fellow TA and I will hopefully be regularly updating the daily happenings.

Cameras, walks, and hopefully some excellent work awaits. Descending into another culture, but always able to return to the hotel which will likely turn into something of an American stronghold, much like what happened in Shanghai. Outside is them, but inside is (unfortunately, in my humble opinion) Disney, celebrity gossip blogs, and … we’ll see.

Into the sky.

Sans Arms

Couldn’t let the entirety of this idea slip away without at least one post for posterity. I found myself shooting into the windows of dry cleaners after hours during some evening walks on the West Side.

Most of the shots were full of reflection and complex depth, but the reflections here look more to be smudges of brightness here and there, merely illuminating the fact that there is indeed a glass separation.

Whatever the case, what we’ve got here should in some small way reflect the current fashion, or at least the look of about a week ago from whenever they were worn. They mostly seem tame, conservative enough to last at least another week (or decade).

Off to a sleeveless month.

Steel & Rivets

The departing glance here, whilst sunk into the fleeting comfort of the Chinatown-bus seat. A couple of really excellent days, desserts and drinks and all. And a cheap pair of knockoff sunglasses on the way out.

Yeesh. I sure do love it there. $2750 studio apartments and all. Apparently there’s a trend of condo owners buying additional units in their buildings as rental property investments, and as a result of various supply/demand trends, it’s a great time to buy.

That Sunday NYTimes edition (source of the aforementioned real estate investment insights) will bring me through many a breakfast in the coming days. But the days before heading to a different island are numbered.

A spring of island hopping.

Perhaps a very short post today, the borrowed internet is begrudging at best. But what a pleasant day it was.

Street Ladders

Another day of island transversal, sandwich seeking, and an ominously creaky knee. And possibly swollen hands. For reasons I know not of. Absolutely nothing comes to mind as to why my hands feel as thick as they do. Preparing for the summer?

New walking shoes may be in order for Cuba. There will be much walking there. And throughout a ninety minute walk today, half of it – mentally – must’ve been given over to worries about my right foot and left knee. Very difficult to think about composing the beating heart of the world into cute rectangles when pain accompanies every step.

But of course not all was distraction. Plenty of excellent sights throughout the city. Grabbing slices of the entirely ordinary (by Manhattan standards) and relegating them to immortality, if they can just make the cut past the first swipe of deletion.

Another day.

Streets of Paradise

Adrift in the busy fluidity that runs between the towering built environment on the island. Wheels and feet, the mobile hordes. An occasional slap of pigeon wing in liftoff.

I found myself shooting into dry cleaners’ windows, layering lines of shirts with reflected city streets on the windows. The swift and packed business of renewing dress clothes to their desired glory.

But alas, it’ll take another few attempts in that vein to really nail it. In the mean time we’ve got the Manhattan-style underground parking garage. And that’s that.

More days to come.

Bins and Vinyl

Another striking sense of perfection. A revelation whilst browsing through the work that’s been piling up in my self-created photo-inbox. Nothing less than a stunning silence here, a hushed observance of something so mundane as to be unnoticeable.

Were I more attuned to art speak and best practices relating to effective usage of compositional terminology I might be able to put into words what it is that causes my brain to latch so firmly onto this.

Interestingly, I am drawn to photography largely because I never had a knack for turning a blank canvas into something, rather preferring to take everything in existence and reduce it to a curated rectangle. Yet here I am, blathering away in a text box, creating content from thin air (or brain mush).

NYC tomorrow.

Tunnel & Train

Another day of circuitous ambulation. With occasional dives into the space beneath, descending past the topsoil, past some other eluviation, maybe even into the subsoilian region. Hard to know.

The walk is tomorrow (Friday), the walk to end all undergraduate walks. But it might just be a stand. I haven’t looked far enough into it to know. I am not one for ceremony, generally.

Terribly conscious of buildings these days given my post-college employment in enterprise software dealing directly with human-built space in all its myriad nooks and crannies.

Walking to the train to walk.

Defended Footage

Everything in its right place, parceled into definitive and highly geometric plots. There may be perhaps more fence than ground that the fence is designed to contain.

Somerville is undoubtedly a land of fence enthusiasts. There are those that flaunt their decidedly upscale fences. There are those that have unquestionably gone with the lowest bidder, and their perhaps year-old wobbly plastic fences are already in tatters. A casual chain-link is thrown into the mix here and there.

I have heard distant barks that hint at fences as functional facilital components. As containment infrastructure that does something more than depreciate and require yearly maintenance and otherwise serve as a total money pit.

No fence for me.