This is where I am. Solo bike rides in 30 degree weather just for the view.

Upon arriving in BeanTown (at North Station), my traveling companion and myself walked along Summer Street across Fort Point Channel which gave a great view of the bridges on Congress Street and Seaport Boulevard, along with the Boston Children’s Museum and the giant Hood Milk Bottle.  Having no idea how pervasive the Hood Dairy Company is on the East Coast, the epically phallic monument to cow lactate had me aghast.

Upon dropping bags off at a custom framing gallery owned by my partner in travel, we headed back in to downtown Boston.  My Hipster-Sense kicked in immediately (it’s a lot like a Spidey-Sense) and I promptly found the most indie of cafés in a 6-block radius to aid my caffeine-stained brain: the Boston Common Coffee Co.

Left on my own to wander historic, downtown Boston, I made my way over to Boston Common.  I assume it’s only famous because of Anthony Clark’s stunning and cut-short sitcom by the same name.  Who cancels a new TV show that ranked 8th in yearly ratings… and who can resist the stunningly engaging Anthony Clark as a down-home Virginia outsider making his way through the big city in the Northeast?

I then made my way to the Massachusetts State House, whose sole historical significance is that of a symbol for antagonist Collin Sullivan’s ambition in Scorsese’s The Departed.

And what visit to historical Boston wouldn’t be complete without a Ben Franklin impersonator.  While he responded to my question about his syphilis ailment with much guffaw and accuracy, I, much like Dwight Schrute, am 99% sure that it was not the real Ben Franklin… 98.

Later on in my meanderings about town, I walked through most of the (expensive) Beacon Hill neighborhood – where the amount of perfectly-coiffed trees and historical homes were only outnumbered by the number of trust funders wearing Ugg boots and perfectly-bent baseball caps.

Rounding out my day on my train ride out to Wenham, MA (where I was staying in a secluded house in a forest), I partook in a cup of Bean Town’s finest coffee: Dunkin’ Donuts.  Rich, steaming, satisfyingly robust with a hint of burn, it was great to end the day with a coffee that didn’t cost three dollars while utterly lacking any sort of quality (Starbuck’s).

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing with friends, drinks, Old Fashioneds that I prepared for my hosts, and helping a kid who was tripping on acid out of jail.  All in all, a complete success.

p.s. all photos except the milk bottle taken with my iPhone.  Apologies for the lack of quality.

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that I’d moved into a new apartment.  It’s a proper den of idiocy near the Lorimer stop on the L train.  A converted warehouse where I reside on the top floor with two roommates.  We have roof access and we’re steadily doing our part to up the awesome factor.  Incidentally, this also entails upping the amount of wine we drink while looking at Manhattan from our spectacular view.  Enjoy the video tour (and more) after the jump.  Continue Reading »

It’s true.  It’s been twelve long years and, for some strange reason, I still skate.  I’ve broken my wrists and ankles multiple times, gotten a few concussions, been ticketed far too many times to count, and had to deal with condescending security guards and police more times than my ego will let me remember.

But even at age twenty-five, something compels me to go out and throw my body around.  I’m coming out of a period where I actively tried to resist skating so that I could concentrate on my studies (grad school), but I now have a modicum of free time.  Again, I find myself drawn to skating.  Somehow, going out and exploring the city I live in while attempting to change the way I view everyday structures (as obstacles, not as objects) still has some sort of hold over me. Continue Reading »

Today, I am flying from here:

To a location 2,158 miles away, where things should be different.  Au contraire.  I will likely see and walk on this:

Replicas of things always creep me out.  Replicas of the place I call home with the inclusion of neon lights?  Well, we’ll see how this goes…

My brain is already feeling more fractal than a Derrida hypothesis and I can feel the spirits of DeLillo, Pynchon, Wallace, and Thompson descending upon me.

Wish me luck.

That last post was a little harsh.  Anyway.  This is what’s really been happening:

On Thursday, I rode the subway all the way through Brooklyn, to the AirTrain, straight to the ever-festive, newly remodeled Terminal 5 at JFK.  I fly in and out of this terminal quite often, as I’m building JetBlue points for free trips to such charmingly demure locales as Bogota, Colombia soon.  Nonetheless, it never ceases to amaze me.  This place makes me feel like Schaumburg, Illinois took a Woodfield Mall-sized dump on Queens and JetBlue decided to jump on the shitstorm that ensued and open shop.  What results is an airport terminal complete with fountains, skylights, plants, a LaCoste store, numerous places to get drunk and eat Buffalo wings, and a food court:

A quick vid of Terminal 5:

Continue Reading »

I’m currently in Illinois, in the suburbs of Chicago, and I just got done paying all of my medical bills.

I think this is about how I should be feeling.

Laced and happy, seething underneath.  Where is Brooklyn?  Where is cheap coffee?  Why is it that I have to drive a car everywhere in this town?

I was turned on to this project by my friend, Anna.

21 Maps of New York, real and imagined by amazing artists.  It really draws out the idea that this place, where I am, where you are, wherever we go, is just as much experiential as it is the numbers on the buildings on the labeled streets.  It makes all this asphalt animated.

My favorite: Lordy Rodriguez re-imagines Manhattan in an almost Blade Runner mindset.  Fragmented, angry, outposts of calm, a downtown financial district fortified by a wall and extensive security.

See the entire project here.

I’ve been having flashbacks.

Download a full wallpaper size here.

There is a hole in Midtown Manhattan.  Not Central Park.  That is an honest park.  Between 40th and 42nd Streets, and between 5th and 6th Avenues, there is a hole called Bryant Park and it is the strangest place I’ve experienced in this town so far.  It’s a place that changes just as fast as all the ghosts that pass over it, underneath it (it’s a hub for five subway lines), walk through the always-lush grass everyday in the summer.

Six months ago I laid in that grass with a pair of jean shorts on and sunglasses, surrounded by friends.  We drank wine straight from the bottle and joined nearly three-thousand other people in cheering as Paul Newman was projected on a giant screen at the West end of the park.  We all sighed together as his character, Hud, mourned the brutal murder of his herd of cows, the only family he had.  We all strangely moved together.

Right now, it’s completely different.  There are construction crews carting off sections of an ice rink that lived atop the hole in Manhattan all winter.  Unlike after the movie, I won’t be riding a bike through the city back to my apartment.  Like the ferocious building and changing of the winter wonderland due to uncontrollable weather change and the city’s ability to sell something everywhere, a doctor recently cut into my knee in three places and pulled a wayward meniscus from where it had been lodged in the joint.  A limp, slightly slower than normal walking pace is the maximum speed that I can move at.  These days, I am forced to walk alone.

But there are times, in this exact spot, when everything is perfectly all right.  Every once in a while, usually with a stiff autumn wind at your back, you’ll find yourself walking towards a friend you’d given up on.  She’s sitting at a table and she sees you from one-hundred feet away, her gaze never breaks from you, nor does her smile.  She hands you a coffee as you sit down, she’s been waiting.  Nothing remarkable has happened, just a normal day that she’s wanted to share with you.  And that’s when you realize that you can’t keep it all straight.  The constant crowds, the maze-like building interiors, the absurd address system that has you crossing the same block three times before finding your destination, the advertising bombardment.  All the changes always happening faster and fasterfaster.

And that’s when she’ll ask how your day was.  You’ll realize that here, now, in this park, with these ghosts moving around you, this is really okay.