northern nomad

I'm back!

2008-12-13T16:11:00.006-06:00

More blogging soon. In the meantime, a couple of photographs from the wonderful Musée Mécanique in San Francisco...

more mundane moments

2006-11-29T14:15:00.000-06:00

I've been out of action for a while. Here are a few more mundane moments from around my neighborhood. I find these kinds of everyday scenes and objects, ordinary as they are, to be thoroughly interesting. When we stop and look at them, they seem to tell stories. I wonder if Mark gets much handyman work from the ad.

anti-meth poster, University Avenue bus stop

2006-10-21T12:22:00.000-05:00

2006-10-19T14:44:00.000-05:00

Tower Grocery, University Avenue, today

2006-10-19T14:41:00.000-05:00

Dinkytown, today: Art of the Can

2006-10-18T20:22:00.000-05:00

sky dramas, 7pm (near Como-Snelling).

2006-10-01T22:21:00.000-05:00

More mundane dramas from the Como-Snelling billboards.

billboard photo essay number three: ephiphanies of consumer desire

2006-09-26T15:10:00.000-05:00

The billboard's territorialization of public space for the cultivation of consumer desire rests on an increasingly pithy symbolic vernacular. The consumer is hailed as a savvy interpreter of the symbolic universe who is able to recognize and decode the barrage of images and text that circulates around us. We become putative members of consumer society via our capacity for aesthetic proficiency. We could say that we are no longer "mere" consumers but active producers of the very apparatuses that guarantee our integration into consumer culture in the first place. This billboard poster seems to suggest that a visit to the Mall of America is a cultural event akin to visiting Museum of Modern Art or the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, cultural venues whose acronyms and modish appeal the MOA evokes here.

The epiphany here is the "realization that there is a sweet sale” at the Mall of America “on your day off." Hence, we find delectable personal reward if we realize that consuming can sweeten our leisure time (which is implied to be somehow empty otherwise, much like the sky that provides the backdrop for the poster).

One has epiphanies when encountering the profound. Are we being asked to contemplate an afternoon of trudging round the Mall of America as a profound activity?

Maco Theater, Virginia, Northern Minnesota

2006-09-21T22:46:00.000-05:00

The beautiful Maco Theater in Northern Virginia up on the Iron Range. It's simply beautiful. Neon. Glass brick. Original doors. What more could you want? It was built in 1938 and originally had statues depicting Native-Americans inside. It now houses the Cornerstone Family Church. We were up there last Sunday afternoon and went inside for a look. There were some young guitar hopefuls practicing their thing on the stage. They sounded rather like Low who hail from up the road in Duluth who frequently play the Twin Cities. The doors photographed here are a little to the side of the main entrance.

signage graveyard, Virginia, northern Minnesota

2006-09-18T21:32:00.000-05:00

Coming across this signage company's yard yesterday in Virginia, a town on the Iron Range in northern Minnesota, was an odd experience. I always imagined that gas stations and other companies stripped their stores themselves when they closed down but apparently, companies like the Mesabi Sign Co. provide that service. What happens to signs when they are dismantled, I wonder? There's a certain melancholy (to use a word that others have mentioned here recently) in the way that these once powerful symbols of consumerism are stacked together, awaiting their fate. There are lots of metaphors begging discussion here but I'll resist for now. I'll write more about Virginia and share some more photographs soon, though.

rust and neon: Midtown Cleaners and Tailors

2006-09-12T00:04:00.000-05:00

This is Midtown Cleaners and Tailors on Hamline and Larpenteur. I guess the owners have no plans to spruce up this lovely sign (it's been out of order for the five years that I've lived in the neighborhood). This isn't a particularly spectacular example of snazzy signage but I like it for its simplicity. I imagine that it used to look pretty cool when it was working. The little star is nice. Come on Midtown, get it fixed and I'll bring my suit in...

some more photographs of Morecambe desolation

2006-09-03T16:22:00.000-05:00

Well, I've been a bit distracted in the last week and so my photoblogging's slowed somewhat. In the meantime, and because the Minnesota State Fair brought it to mind, here are a few more photos of Morecambe, taken when I went back there in July. Piika's pairings of poetry and photography got me thinking about the American poet, Kenneth Fearing who wrote mainly in the 1930s and 1940s. I think that Piika got me thinking about Fearing because her pairings of poetry and photography bring to mind the strong visual element of his poems. Fearng also wrote about time in an interesting way. I think that it was he who described cameras as "clocks that take pictures." That's an idea that I think really speaks to the practice of photoblogging too, what with the extremely fast process of image reproduction that tends to occur. (Ironically, my laziness this week sort of contradicts that, but even so, I think it's often the case).

There's something about Morecambe's "in-process-ness" (if you know what I mean) that makes me think of time. The town seems to be changing (mainly decaying) as time ebbs away. The last three photos suggest ongoing decay, though there are things in Morecambe (that are less evident in these photographs) that suggest rejuvenation. Then again, perhaps decay is also a kind of rejuvenation if we see Morecambe’s declining tourist trade as a metaphor for a return to its pre-tourist resort past. The first photograph (inside Brucciani's cafe on the promenade) evokes a sense of stasis for me—time has pretty much stood still there in the sense that the owners have retained the gorgeous art deco and (thankfully) resisted implementing any major modernizations. For me, the near absence of people in the photographs also evokes Morecambe's odd relation to time. These scenes look both timeless and of their contemporary moment, I think. Photographs of the promenade created between the 1910s and the 1970s generally show large crowds of holidaymakers (let’s see if I can find some old postcards soon). That was before cheap flights made it possible for holidaymakers to go to the seaside resorts of Spain and other European locales.

Anyway, enjoy the desolate, yet strangely beautiful decay of Morecambe. Let's see if I can get out and photograph some interesting moments (ha! The time thing again!) in Saint Paul or Minneapolis soon.

the night before the fair

2006-08-24T16:06:00.000-05:00

I took a walk around the state fair entrance area on Snelling last night just as it was getting dark. I wanted to see--and capture--what it looked like the night before the fair opened. I like the way that these entrance booths look without anyone inside and before the crowds arrive. Sort of ghostly. I'm going tonight for the opening with the Flaming Lips and Sonic Youth. I guess it'll look a little different then. Bring on the cheese . . .

sky words: the mundane dramas of roadside signage

2006-08-23T15:19:00.000-05:00

On the face of it many of the areas that we walk through or (more often) drive past along highways and main road intersections in America are pretty dull and uneventful places. But the more that I look around, I find these places to be full of little dramas and stories. When we see the signage that occupies much of the skyline in those spaces, we're usually confronted by a dizzying array of advertising and billboards that seek to motivate various kinds of desires and behaviors (consume this, travel there, abstain from this and so forth). But the camera lets us slice those images and words up however we please, which I think can make for some interesting re-imaginings of those spaces. I also feel a perverse pleasure in being able to disassociate words and phrases from their original contexts and intended meanings. When I look at and photograph signage this way, it makes me think of these ostensibly mundane places as eerie, sinister, even. This is especially so when it begins to get darker and the experience of walking through these areas feels a little more ominous. I'm off to the State Fair tomorrow, so hopefully I'll have some photographs of various sorts of food on a stick (covered in cheese, of course) to show and talk about soon.

under the tracks: overnight whitewash

2006-08-18T13:13:00.000-05:00

thursday . . .

friday . . .

the Midway Motel: direct color TV in every room

2006-08-16T15:26:00.000-05:00

As promised, here are a few photos of the signage at the Midway Motel, Snelling's finest (well, only, I think) motel. The neon arrow is a real peach, especially when lit up at night. I must return after dark. The use of arrows is an interesting aspect of motel and other road signage, and serves the practical purpose of enticing weary drivers in from the road. The details that the signs offer about TV are really nice. Not only do the rooms have "DIRECT TV," they also have "COLOR TV," which was no doubt a plus back in the 1970s (color TV became widely available just about then, I believe). This sign would vie with the sign at the Turf Club (which I really must get out and photograph) as the best sign in the Snelling area. As the larger "MIDWAY MOTEL" sign indicates, there are currently vacancies at the Midway. I’ve never stayed there but having popped in to use the pop machine I can report that the workers there are really nice. I've seen the "No Vacancies" sign lit up several times in the past, usually when the state fair or the retro motor festival is on.

sauntering and photoblogging: a suspicious art

2006-08-15T15:11:00.000-05:00

Meg Nakagawa's recent discussion of copyright issues around photography and the use of photographs on blogs: http://notawomanoffewwords.blogspot.com/2006/08/copyrights-pros-and-cons.html
made me reflect on something that happened to me the other week. I tend to do a lot of photography in the alleyways in my neighborhood. As visitors to my blog will see, I photograph vehicles, incinerators, old tires and whatever else I find interesting. One night last week around 7pm I was approached by someone who asked me if I lived "on the block." When I replied that I didn't, he asked whether I was "looking to move" there. When I replied that I was just passing through he looked suspiciously at me and said, "we like to find out who new people are." I told him that I'd lived in the neighborhood for several years but this didn't seem to satisfy him much. Glancing up and down at me, he walked off.

That was pretty much it. While I understand that residents have good reason for keeping an eye on unfamiliar people in the alleyway, at the same time it seems to me that there's a general suspicion of people who saunter around (that's what I tend to do) whether taking photos or not. But in my case, there was a cynicism and sarcasm in the man's words that seemed disproportionate. I think that what bugged me was the feeling that one has to have some clear, "legitimate" purpose when walking through public space in order to be perceived as unthreatening. I'm not sure whether this man saw my camera but it got me thinking about both the issue of taking photographs in public spaces and also about walking through public space to do that. I wonder if folk are more suspicious about people taking photographs these days? None of this is directly related to Meg's discussion, which concerns copyright issues more than walking through public space, but her post made me reflect on these issues. Have other photobloggers had similar (or different) experiences?

saved by the holy dollar

2006-08-15T13:50:00.000-05:00

This is the window of a Dollar Store up on Snelling near University in Saint Paul. The emphasis on the spiritual nature of the dollar--that holiest of symbols in contemporary capitalist culture, to be sure--suggests all sorts of associations between religion and consumer desire.

What does it mean to be "saved" in today's culture? Amid the relentless faith in money and commodities in capitalist culture, salvation acquires an increasingly commercial character to the point where visual spectacles depicting consumerism as a route to personal salvation are entirely in keeping with the signs and symbols that structure our everyday environments.
Taken August 11.

don't miss the bus

2006-08-14T20:27:00.000-05:00

I stumbled across this the other day. The breeze was creating a ripple effect on the poster and the sun was creating ripply reflections, (it's made out of a plasticy canvas), each of which distorted the little girl's face. It's interesting when you can get close up to posters and billboards, and here, the plastic added another level of oddness.

Anti-Meth billboards

2006-08-14T17:12:00.000-05:00

Fatale Abstraction has an interesting piece on the anti-meth ("Extreme Makeover") billboards that I talked about in my first blog piece. See her discussion here:
http://phlegmfatale.blogspot.com/
Also, take a look at her other excellent blog, Dallas Diorama, (there's a link in my links section) which contains some great photos/commentary on modern design in Dallas--including some terrific signage.

Axman Surplus: commodities collide

2006-08-14T14:36:00.000-05:00

Some scenes from the wondrous Axman Surplus, the gem of the University/Snelling area. Need some doll parts? A spare shoe? A cockpit seat? You know where to go...

solutions for modern living: Falcon Heights, 7pm

2006-08-11T21:41:00.000-05:00

color tv!

black and white tv!

your socks go in here:

you can move in now!

suburban fire truck decay part 2

2006-08-11T21:11:00.001-05:00

I returned to the suburban fire truck and got some more photos including some of the interior. The spider webs are a nice touch:

atomic incinerator

2006-08-11T20:59:00.000-05:00

More interesting objects from the local alleyways. I like this incinerator for its vaguely atomic visual connotations. It's at the back of Shanghai Market.

crime prevention billboards: aesthetic discipline?

2006-08-08T10:33:00.000-05:00

The billboard at the Como-Snelling intersection has changed now. The "life or meth" billboard has finished its run, it seems (see my first post on the blog about that poster). Now we have a billboard warning people to lock their cars as theft prevention. It's interesting: Before I started the blog the other week I hadn't noticed this emphasis on crime prevention. I wonder whether the space is rented by the police or a crime prevention organization? If so, this raises the subject of how billboards are placed/used strategically as a form of aesthetic discipline. Then again, perhaps it's coincidence and the billboard is available to companies too (I'm sure I remember seeing billboards advertising products up there at some point). If anyone has insights, I'd be interested to hear them. And, aren't most of these owned by Viacom?