it’s hard to put a finger on but I know it when I see it
If I really did pull the plug on this site in 2012 and all I had to look back on was a few 3-ring binders full of paper print outs, it wouldn’t be the same. The photos of photos cut & pasted onto cardboard and dropped in the mail are inspiring me to go back and find the photos in the archives and hold them up side by side, back to back, end to end, top to bottom. Seeing things in a new way. Retrospect. Nostalgia. A crusty old man complaining about the price of coffee…
This photo is just about almost exactly 18 years old. That’s my cat Brad. He passed away 15 years ago. I sold that RB-2 to Brian O’niell shortly after that and he promptly stacked it up and destroyed the frame. But that top tube pad is still rolling, evoking fond memories of Mama’s Mexican Kitchen in a cheap festive tablecloth Belltown yesteryear kind of way. I’m not sure of the story of how those guys at DANK bags got their hands on this material. But it always reminds me of Mama’s and an Elvis burrito in the Elvis room with plenty of beer to wash it all down.
I wasn’t setting out to build a Nick Blades postcard triptych. It just worked out that way. A pattern emerging from the phantom nostalgia static.
Made one last week. And two more today. Then the triptych spoke to me, saying “one plus one plus one is three” and “take a picture it’ll last longer” A photo of a photo of a photo is a postcard somewhere in there.
Then I looked up Mr Nick Blades. As you may or may not know: baby’s in Reno with the vitamin D. In my nostalgia daze I forget that not everyone knows Nick Blades. And not everyone knows that Nick is Greg Lemond's nephew.
I’m going to mail the framed flip-off photo to Blades himself.
The Colonnades Blades & bike chatting up Buttercup will be mailed to Mr Wheel Fanatyk Ric Hjertberg. Because Ric knows Greg Lemond and it’s a small world afterall. It’s a small small world. Sincerely for real. Really.
The Blades seated at Monorail will be mailed to Ali because that’s 25 stage-left standing by near his Merckx eating noodles with chopsticks.
Yesterday I read in the NY Times about David Szalay’s book Flesh winning the Booker Prize. Then I checked the local library where I would be #397 in line if I wanted to put it on hold. And then I visited my local bookstore, bought myself a book and jumped on the Booker Prize bandwagon. Dumping some money into the local economy on something besides coffee and beer... ...books.
The University Bookstore is the largest and oldest independent bookstore in the state of Washington. Founded in 1900. The bookstore side of the operation is now run by Barnes & Noble. But the good news is it actually looks like a real bookstore again. Two full floors of books, fully racked, fully stocked, fully stacked.
read a book,
read a book,
read a Booker winning book
Today I was admiring this VDB graphic by Snake Hawk via Drunk Cyclist from 2009. It appealed to me then and still speaks to me now, inspiring me to reflect on VDB’s career and read a bit more about him. Which led me to this book. This time I didn’t even check the library. I went straight...
One of these kids is doing his own thing but 4 out of 5 of the recipients for today’s batch of phantom nostalgia syndrome postcards worked at ABC for at least a portion of their messenger careers:
Matt Face
Toothaker
Justin Littell
Jeffrey L. Kidder
Five out of twelve of the humans found in these old photos also worked at ABC. 5 of the 12 were Sonics Cheerleaders. The Venn diagram gets a bit more complicated. All four of the ABC cards were notarized. Not with some half-ass rubber stamp, but with my first-tour notary full-on fully embossed crimped crimps crimping gold seals just right in and for the State of Washington residing in Seattle almost exactly 23 years expired.
Go figure.
ABC Legal was not my intended theme this morning, however the pattern emerged from the static.
Much like Nathan Blum describes themes in his writing:
“To say that these patterns are “unintentional” seems wrong; a better word might be “emergent.” And emerge they did. When I read back, it appears that I could not for the life of me keep them down.”
