#123: Sidewalk Noir

Clinton Street, Brooklyn

Sometimes I have to go searching, sometimes the numbers find me first.

#124: Along the Strand Road, Dublin

Sandymount, Dublin

Looking at this photo is like holding a conch shell up to my ear: it's so close to the water I swear I can hear the ocean. And it makes me homesick for a place that is not, strictly speaking, my home.

#125: Treasure Chest

Lunenberg, Nova Scotia

#126: Spot On

Galway, Ireland

This rather large #126 -- painted on the shuttered gate of a Galway art gallery -- actually made me gasp when I turned the corner and spied it. Hunting for numbers, you get used to squinting at far-off mailboxes, zooming in on obscure awnings, and crouching over manhole covers for glimpses of miniscule numbers that when the streets hand you something like this, you feel like someone's handed you a giant lollipop.

#127: The Font, the Girl, and the Bicycle Wheel

Brooklyn Heights

#128: Intrepid Wheelie Bin Series: Gowanus Edition

Gowanus, Brooklyn

Sure, we call 'em trash cans or Dumpsters here in Brooklyn, but I so liked the phrase "intrepid wheelie bins" when I first coined it that I shan't go changing horses in midstream.

#129: Ad Nauseum

East Village, NYC

One of the many things I loved about being in Iceland for a week was the refreshing lack of ads and billboards. The roads were beautifully unobstructed. The glaciers were vast and litter-free. Even Reykjavik, that pulsing urban center governed by a friendly anarcho-surrealist mayor, seemed to get on just fine without sticking up signs every few yards telling me what to buy and why I should buy it. Sure, there were a few tasteful ads in Keflavik airport for the clothing line 66 Degrees North, the models looking all ruddy and healthy in their fur-lined hoods and wind-proof jackets, but that was about it. When I stepped off the plane and realized I was no longer being ambushed with ads and bombarded by shouty visual clutter, I could feel my rods and cones actually start to unclench. Ten minutes on the road and I was in a prehistoric daydream. Even as a writer, it felt wonderful for a few days to escape from so much type.

Naturally, this unsullied condition is harder to replicate in America, where the billboard is king and crap is OK as long as it is keeps the wheels of capitalism greased. New York is so over-saturated with visual data as it is that I hardly even notice the billboards anymore. At every turn there are window displays, awnings, t-shirts, bumper stickers, flyers, menus, all vying for my attention. When I'm on my font-hunting expeditions, I naturally try to avoid the ads, treating them as one does the screaming subway preacher, going on my quiet way as if nothing at all were amiss. It takes some training. But it's possible.

That said, I must confess I cadged this #129 from a Sunkist ad, though I think it's been weathered beyond recognition. (Thanks, East Village! Keep up the good work.) So! We continue the number line both ad- and guilt-free. Now if only I could figure out why I'm feeling so thirsty...

#130: Special Remnant Dep't

Lower East Side, NYC

#131: Spider!

West Village, NYC

It happens to be missing some of the requisite eight legs, but I'm fairly sure my spidey-sense is correct in identifying this one. It could be artistic license, this leaving out of the limbs. Then again, maybe the poor thing is after auditioning for that ill-fated Broadway play. Ah, forgive me. I really should "turn off the snark."

#132: Hellcab to Drumcondra

Drumcondra, Dublin

Having just shaken the dirt off my hiking boots after a trek to Iceland -- yes, that is Iceland this time and not Ireland -- I've been reminded how much fun it is to keep travel journals. For someone who loves to sketch, I sure don't do much of it at home. Seems the only time I remember to scribble pictures is when I've got a new Moleskine in my hand and my eyes and ears are roaming some faraway city, taking in its skyscrapers and streets and citizens. At the moment, I'm hard at work glue-sticking bits and bobs into my new Iceland book, but here's one from the archives I thought I'd share since I drew it the same day I snatched this #132.

It was cold January of last year, and I was in the back seat of a taxicab, being whisked up to Drumcondra to meet the writer of several books I admire. It was absolute misery outside and as the car drove north through the slantwise rain, I found myself the captive audience -- emphasis here on captive -- of a typically garrulous Dub who was regaling me with a mini-lesson in criminology. His story involved a psychological study about the motives of some woman's murder, and while it was probably lifted straight from drivetime radio, he reported it with such chilling and loving detail that it was a tad unnerving. I found myself transfixed by the man's tale, though equally eager when the cab pulled up to the Skylon Hotel to pay my fare and tiptoe out with one wary eye over my shoulder.

He knew an awful lot about murderers, did this driver.