#274: Montréal Streetscape

The Plateau, Montréal

Two and half years ago, after convincing the Border Patrol that my novel-writing did not pose a threat to the Canadian labor market ("With all due respect, sir," I told the man with the badge, "it poses no threat to any market.") I took the summer off to live and write in Montréal. I pounded away at my laptop in grilled cheese cafés, went for long walks on Mont Royal, ice skated four days a week in a shopping mall, and spoke the language so poorly that I was actually heckled from a balcony by an elderly Québecois couple. So much for improving my French.

But I fell in love with the city, especially the streets of the Plateau. Though I slept in a tiny windowless room, my friend's place had a balcony overlooking the garden, and from the balcony I would sit with my morning coffee and watch the morning glories open and turn toward the sun, plotting my day's work, always leaving time for wandering.

This spray-painted #274 captures something of the spirit of a Montréal streetscape: it manages to be off-the-cuff and carefully crafted at the same time. Then there's that 7. Readers still are up on the air on what we should call the the slash through the middle (See the great "The Snick vs. the Euroslash" debate), but I do know the sight of it always puts a twinkle in my plain ol' U.S.A. eyes.

#282: East Village Mosaic Trail

St. Mark's Place, East Village, NYC

It's roughly the size of a bottle cap, sits at shin level, and was almost lost amid the swirl of eye candy on a busy, mosaic-clad street pole, but somehow this 282 got my attention. I found it years ago while waiting on the traffic island close to the giant rotating Astor Place cube where all the disaffected youth mope, and I doubt I'd have noticed the tiny number it if it weren't for the traffic light holding me up. Traipsing up and down Manhattan's sequential grid is one sure-fire way to find numbers, but it's the unexpected catch like this one that keeps things fresh.

If you've ever taken a stroll through the East Village, then you're probably already familiar with the artwork of Jim "Mosaic Man" Power. Maybe you've stumbled upon one of these colorful lamp post mosaics, too, noticing a sudden patch of beauty in the middle of a harried, ugly commute. Power, a Vietnam veteran and much-loved figure in the Village, has been steadily beautifying his 'hood shard by shard for over twenty-five years. The bits of colored glass, plates, mesh, marbles, and whatnot are part of the neighborhood street furniture. He's decorated close to a hundred street poles with his vibrant mosaics along a two mile stretch. But the last few years have seen these pieces endangered.

With the proposed so-called sleek redesign of Astor Place that included the removal some of his poles, Power began dismantling some of his own artworks out of protest. But community efforts to save his work sprang up. It's a conservation effort well worth it. Shards of mirrors, chunks of ceramics, wild patterns, and colorful lettering: once you start noticing his pieces, they're impossible to miss. And it's impossible to imagine the East Village without them.

Photographer Lara Elmayan at Untapped Cities has done a noble job of documenting Powers' work in its entirety, and you can read more about Power and the mosaic trail here. But the best way to see his stuff? Take a walk.

#307: Requiem for an Arcade

Garment District, NYC

Today's 307 marks a sort of requiem, a headstone if you will, for a pretty wonderful time in my life -- the time I played accordion and sang in the now-defunct punk-pop cabaret band known as Peacock's Penny Arcade.

The nostalgia in this photo lies not just in the word "ARCADE" on the facade, but also in the fact that we rehearsed inside this building on West 36th Street. I tend to only play in bands so big we bring our own entourage (it lessens the sting, I've found, when only three or four people show up for your gig), and this endeavor was no exception. While I'm certainly not short on things to do these days -- revising my novel with one hand, taking notes for my thesis with the other, waiting till weekends when I can grab my hockey stick and smash stuff up on the ice rink, and by "stuff" I mean "myself," mostly -- I do miss huddling in the poorly upholstered, lager-soaked internment cells practice rooms with six or seven of my closest friends, singing songs we'd written about Alexi Sayle, rust belt vampires, and Robert Mitchum.

Perhaps the best oddball gig we ever took was a spot playing on the Queen Mary 2 for the PEN World Voices kickoff party, which, for all its infinite weirdness, got written up here. Salman Rushdie, I should mention, was not in attendance at the event (neither was he in hiding), but his name was on the invitation, dammit, and I take great pride in being the house band -- and for being at least 1/7 responsible for Dale Peck and Jonathan Ames taking the stage armed with tambourines and kazoos to entertain our most illustrious audience.

I don't knock about the garment district too often these days, but when I do, the arcade is never very far from my heart.

#349: Sweetgum, Columbia Street, 3:49PM

Columbia Street, Brooklyn

A couple of weeks ago, I was walking with my garbage-picked wooden hockey stick -- lovingly wrapped in yellowed masking tape and just the right height -- over to the tennis courts on Columbia Street. My idea was to get in a little stick-handling practice to let off some steam. Writing novels is stressful, and hockey helps me deal. There's nothing the matter with this particular stretch of Columbia Street, but let's say its rugged beauty is best known to those who've never had to stand there waiting for the B61 bus. (It's also home to the famous salt pile menace, which has since been covered.)

It was a cold, sunny day, and as I was walking along, tossing my bright blue hockey ball in the air, I looked down and noticed a tree on the sidewalk. It was the shadow of a tree, to be specific, traced into the pavement. Just to the left of it stood the tree itself. A sweetgum tree, I thought to myself, because pretty much the only way most people in Brooklyn can identify a tree -- unless you're Francie from A Tree Grows a Brooklyn, who loved that Tree of Heaven that grew outside her window (alas, Francie, I shared such a love once) -- is to stick a label on it.

"Huh," I thought. "That's awesome. And a 349 on it, too." I made a resolution to come back and photograph the sweetgum on another sunny day, hoping that if I came around 3:49 PM, I might get the shadow of the tree lined up with the groove on the sidewalk. I did a few armchair astronomer's calculations -- about as foolproof as my knowledge of Brooklyn's indigenous trees -- and figured that the winter solstice almost split the difference between the date on the pavement (late November) and a mid-January afternoon pretty closely. In the meantime, I did some Google-sleuthing and learned the beautiful installation is part of a series by artist Nobuho Nagasawa called Timecast. There's a whole line of them! The trees were planted in anticipation for the project about eight years ago, and the unveiling was last May. I've been working on my novel for seven, which perspective gave me some comfort.

Life gets in the way, though, and the sample size of sunny January days where I was home around 3:49 PM dwindled. Enter today: a dreary, miserable sludge of an afternoon with drizzle trickling down the window all day as I worked on the Great Unfinished American Irish novel. I had only one opportunity left to capture the great photograph of the sweetgum tree for today's blog, and this was it. The rain dampened my spirits, and my plans to get in a bit of neighborhood stick-handling along with my number-hunting expedition looked bleak.

I resolved to still go at 3:49, even though there was no sun and therefore no shadow. I vowed to go at 3:49, even though the time function on my camera is wrong, so even if I timed it perfectly, no one would ever see the match. And I even brought my hockey stick with me, figuring that there's nothing like a crappy day of rain-snow forecast to scare away other people from the tennis courts. So I hurried down Columbia Street, thinking what an eejit I looked, carrying a camera and a hockey stick wearing nothing but sweatpants and a hoodie in the frigid weather. I snapped the sweetgum at the appointed time and put my camera away, thinking how this blog has indeed led me on strange expeditions, and how I wished I was still inside my warm apartment, sipping coffee and working on my book -- my real writing, I told myself.

And what should happen as I was strolling along that inhospitable stretch of Columbia Street at 3:51 PM but an old friend -- dressed more sensibly in a parka, warm hat, and gloves -- waved hello. Her name is Pamela. I hadn't seen her in over seven years. What was she doing in my neighborhood? Visiting a friend, who was about to move to Portland. It was probably the last time she'd make that stroll down Columbia Street. We had a lovely catch-up, exchanged emails, and I went off to have a decent run-around the wet tennis court, watching the city skyline mist in and out of view. And if I hadn't gone down that stretch to photograph a sweetgum at 3:49 PM, I would have missed it all.

New & Noteworthy: Dublin Invasion!

Right, so. A weekend trip to a place I frequent at least once a year hardly counts as an "invasion," but the news sounds much more salacious that way, don't you think?

There is news, readers, which is that the bane of my existence  the source of my drinking problem  my unpublished novel has been selected as one of the winners in the inaugural first novel contest sponsored by the Irish Writers' Centre. The centre received over 570 entries and I was honored to learn that my novel, Dear Dirty Dublin, was one of 20 selected for the honor. A full list of winners can be found here, as well as 15 writers selected for honorable mention. I'm flying myself out to Dublin next month to attend the Novel Fair, which will give me the opportunity to share my work with Irish publishers and agents. Whether or not I get any nibbles or offers remains to be seen, but I'm going into the weekend with great enthusiasm and curiosity. The novel's heart is in Dublin, and it feels fitting to return there. I would be very happy to find it a nice home.

To any of my Dublin friends, I hope you'll join me at Sweny's pharmacy the afternoon of Sunday, March 11, where I'll be reading from the novel and providing tea and goodies to celebrate the occasion. I realize it's unusual to give a reading in a pharmacy, but Sweny's (which prides itself on being "quite possibly Dublin's worst pharmacy") is a wonderful combination of used bookstore, historical diorama, soap mongers, and pilgrimage for James Joyce fans: Sweny's is where Leopold Bloom goes to buy Molly a cake of lemon soap in Ulysses. It's currently staffed by ridiculously friendly volunteers and kept alive by their generous spirit and shared love of literature. I can't think of a place I'd rather share my work.

The trip will be a swift one, but I'll be sure to fetch a few numbers while I'm over there -- and to raise a Guinness or two in sheer relief. Toiling in obscurity has its charm, but I'm ready to see what it's like to seek and find some fresh new readers. And naturally, should it find its way into glorious, pulpy, inky print, you'll be among the first to know. Till then, I think this sign says it all:

If this clock is broken, may it never be fixed.

#1: The Big Red One

Galway, Ireland

Ah, nothing like a few of my favorite things to close out 2011: an Irish setting, some nice hand-painted handiwork, an eye-popping color contrast, scenic bits of flaking rust, and an unexpected location (front of a Galway Dumpster, anyone?). Oh yes, and in the title, a reference to an old war movie, which I'm amazed I don't manage to work in more often considering how much time I spend watching them. I might have to spend all of next year tracking down pictures of Steve McQueen and writing about the typography in the credits of The Great Escape to get my fix. But then, I wouldn't dream of doing that to you, loyal readers...

So here we are: the end of the number line. Another year, another 365 numbers. Though sometimes the constant deadlines drove me mental, it's been so much fun picking through my collection and sharing the best and the brightest of the bunch. I've enjoyed having so many readers drop by and visit, whether you comment or just have a look over your morning coffee. I knew #1 was going to have to be special in a year filled with so many of them scattered about -- it was totally worth paying that bill late just so I could have an excuse to write 11/11/11 on that check -- and I hope this one does the year justice.

Those of you who followed along in 2009 know that even after reaching a big milestone such as this, I'm not terribly good at remaining quiet. There were the Helvetica postcards, the homages to Dublin dereliction, and the "hey-look-at-me-I'm-posting-unthematic-things-and-it's-making-me-uneasy" apologias. You can expect -- if not more of the same -- more meanderings and stabs in the dark in the new year as I continue to make disturbances in the blogosphere. But in the meantime, I want to wish you all a very happy new year and to say thank you for making Ampersand Seven one of my favorite shared obsessions ever.

#2: Two Cheers

Downtown Brooklyn

I found this weird and wonderful crew in a window display in the back roads behind Fulton Mall. The little fella with the #2 on his shirt is a charmer, and I'm guessing I'll be feeling something of his jubilation in two days when I make it to the end of the countdown. Scenes like this remind me of why I started this project in the first place -- because there's nothing quite like the covert thrill of discovering a cool number buried in the bustle and visual clutter of a busy street scene. This little guy is bringing the party. Now where's that bottle of champagne?

#6: Black Sand Six

Vík í Mýrdal, Iceland

Six days left to the countdown and if I wasn't so busy sitting in front of this Christmas tree, re-watching ridiculous hockey videos and polishing off this bottle of Pinot Noir and carton of Candy Cane gelato, I'd swear I'd be recapping the year by now.

'Tis the season for top-ten lists, best-ofs, and the urge to summarize on a project like this is hard to resist. While I love fresh beginnings, I'm allergic to endings, which is maybe a convincing argument against the whole "counting down" format. But I've devoted the whole year to it, so there'll be no turning back now.

This summer, I spent six days in Iceland, and at the time, I remember placing each pale stone on the black sand beach into the shape of a number six, thinking how far away the end of the year sounded -- that day in December when this "6" would find its place in the countdown. The thought of even a not-so-distant future was a stray thought, easily blown away by an Arctic gust. It was better -- easier -- to return to where I was and take in the details of that cold August evening as they unfolded: the soft roll of the ocean waves lapping up to the pitch black sand, the eerie walk at dusk back to the hotel with the faint lights of the tiny village twinkling through the haze, the young barman in round spectacles slowly wiping the cognac glass clean from its leftover coating of volcanic ash.

So while that inevitable year-end desire to summarize is here, when I sit down to write, strange, disconnected details are all that come out: black sand, twinkling village lights, the scrape of blades on ice. And though it pains my inner Witness Protection Program to reveal my whereabouts, maybe that's the place I've been hiding out for much of this year: the present. Spending less time tinkering with the collection and more time doing the collecting. Giving projects room to breathe. And when deadlines -- both real and imaginary -- loom, remembering that writing requires five senses and not just one.

As the year draws to a close, it's not a bad thing to look back. So long as it doesn't turn into a no-holds-barred, contact lens-drying staring contest. A glance will do.

#21: Dublin Drive Time

D'Olier Street, Dublin

While I have slowly surrendered some of my Luddite ways over the past few years, I still like to bemoan what I call the YouTube-ization of everyday life. Very few things in life are worth filming, and still fewer worth re-watching. This does not stop legions of so-called smartphone-wielding urbanites from whipping out their cameras to capture even slightly unusual events with the express intent of posting the clip online as quickly as possible: some dude breakdancing in Grand Central Station, or else the breathtaking magical holiday subway car -- an antique subway train fully restored to its past glory -- that unexpectedly pulled up today at the West 4th Street stop to take me on a rickety, surreal short trip back through time before dropping me off, bewildered, at 2nd Avenue. (Intrigued, New Yorkers? You can find out when to catch the vintage train here.)

Each to one's own, but I can't help pity these video vultures a bit. It's like they're ordering the fast food version of important moments: quality is of no object, only quickness, only grabbiness -- things must be captured at all cost. There's nothing worse than going to a great show where your view of the stage is obstructed by dozens of eager hands wielding so-called smart phones over their heads, the very LIVE show you are trying to watch getting its soul collectively sucked up by so many people out to document the moment. Recently, I reveled in watching the comic John Oliver cheerfully berate an audience member who was filming Oliver's stand-up routine on his iPhone. "What?" Oliver demanded, interrupting his routine to face the bright blue glowing light in the audience. "Is now not good enough for you?"

I confess I've been tempted to do the same, particularly when it comes to places I love. There are few things that make me happier than wandering the streets of Dublin, and once or twice I've been so taken with the view from the quays that I've filmed the length of the Liffey and the parade of blurry strangers tromping over the Ha'Penny Bridge, just so I could take a piece of the experience home with me. The re-watching, alas, is a poor copy of the real moment, and I find that my sketches and notes, with all their messiness and flaws, capture the feel of city better. (And nothing beats the moment itself.)

But I have to change my view on this a little after finding something cool on the interwebz: an interactive YouTube clip that takes you on a drive through the streets of Dublin. Driving in Dublin is not something I have any particular wish to do (give me feet or bicycle wheels any day), so maybe that's the salvation: I have no romantic notions to be quashed. Anyway, I found a neat little clip that takes you past D'Olier Street, where you can just barely make out the location of today's number (on your far left at :29). To my delight, the meandering route then snakes around to College Green, where you can see the bookstore where I used to work at the end of the street at 1:06. There's a whole bunch of videos in the series, and as you're watching you can click on the screen and go to other clips, essentially taking yourself on a mini drive through the dear dirty city.

Inevitably, more than five minutes of this sort of play would probably lead me into a depression (poor copies make me long for the real thing), but I still think it's a pretty cool concept. Curious? Go ahead and take the drive yourself.

#22: Playing the Building

Battery Marine Terminal, NYC

A few years ago, I got to participate in the half-art installation, half-mad scientist's experiment that was David Byrne's Playing the Building. For this piece of public art, Byrne (musician, urbanist, bike fanatic, and everyone's favorite Talking Head) infiltrated an abandoned maritime warehouse in lower Manhattan, then turned the building into a huge, clanging musical instrument -- all controlled by a single organ hooked up to various bits and pieces of the building itself. The space itself was haunting and beautiful: crumbling industrial pillars, concrete floors, high ceilings, and shafts of sunlight illuminating the room in great swathes of light and shadow.

Then I sat down at the control panel: a wooden organ rigged with cables and gauges that stretched out to all corners of the vast room. Press a middle C and a hammer clanged a distant radiator. Play an A chord and listen as a deep rumble filled the space. An experiment in sound-as-architecture, Playing the Building also had a deviously simple concept: invite anyone to walk in off the street and participate in the play. Today's 22 was snapped just outside the Battery Marine Terminal on the day I went to the exhibit. When I look at it, I can still hear clanging water pipes and humming ceiling beams.

An abandoned maritime warehouse as musical instrument? Yeah. I could get into that.

Why thank you! Don't mind if I do.

#33: Nuts!

The Liberties, Dublin

So every now and then when I'm out trawling for numbers, I turn a corner and happen upon one that actually makes me stop dead in my tracks, raise my sunglasses to my forehead, and say, out loud, "No effin' way." This squirrel-clad number (double threes, if you don't mind!) may be one of the best gifts the streets of Dublin has ever given me, and the dear knows Dublin has given me a great deal.

As for the scant verbal offerings lately, all I can say is, "Nuts!" I've been up to my collarbone in work and hope to re-surface more often in coming weeks to see you through the final stretch of &7 -- this year's version, anyway. Thanks to all who have commented on recent posts. I know it's late, but I'm replying to all your messages as I can. I always appreciate your stopping by.

#67: Extreme Makeover: DUMBO

Jay Street, Brooklyn, 2009

Jay Street, Brooklyn, 2011

Today's &7 Extreme Makeover takes us to DUMBO, that gritty hipster-magnet 'hood with the ponderous acronym. DUMBO happens to be home to Saltmines, where I've spent many a night stomping about and making noise in the Balthrop, Alabama rehearsal space. There's also Saltlands studio, where we like to go when we feel like eating bags of cookies, then having someone hit "record" and twiddle some knobs to make us sound good. This 67 is just across the street from the space, so I've spent a good amount of time gazing out at it during breaks as if I were a weathered cowboy squinting off in the sunset.

It's rare that you'll see one unique, hand-painted number painted over to make for a different unique, hand-painted number -- generally, twee little arts-and-crafty things are painted over to make way for Big Ugly Mass-Produced Manufacturing stuff -- but that's exactly what went down here. Then again, it's a strange place, given to artistic shifts. I haven't quite parsed the meaning of the myriad objects I see on display around this building near the waterfront -- one appears to be some kind of chihuahua shrine, if that gives you some idea. I do know that 67 used to be the home of Jay East, an Asian antiques and collectibles store, before high rent shut it down.

So what's the verdict on the change? I don't like to play favorites with my subjects (all right, I do), but I have to say, my loyalties rest with the original 67. Those jaunty serifs, that boastful I'm-bigger-than-a-venti posturing, that lovable combo of peeling paint chips -- it's a great look.

And speaking of the band, guess who's gearing up to hit the road again? The van is packed and my band mates have already heaved off, but I'll be joining them in Jacksonville for a stretch of beautiful autumn days of music-making and air mattress surfing. Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania: If you know what's good for you, keep your numbers locked up at home. It's open season, and the bounty hunter will be after 'em.

#73: Lou Reed's Traffic Signal

Soho, NYC

It's practically a law of science that those used "HELLO MY NAME IS" stickers never seem to end up in the trash where they belong. There they are, completely useless now that the meeting is adjourned, the crappy Au Bon Pain coffee has been drunk, and the mingling with insufferable colleagues is a thing of the past. What's a worn-out sticker to do but affix itself to random inappropriate surfaces? I've seen them all over the city on desks, traffic light posts, mailboxes, and sidewalks, you name it. Mostly, it's litter and I find it merely irritating. But I confess there is one I have developed a soft spot for.

On a traffic light near Chelsea Piers, there is a crosswalk signal along the West Side Highway that bears this mysterious instruction, courtesy a used sticker: TO CROSS STREET, PUSH LOU REED AND WAIT FOR SIGNAL.

It's a long traffic light, so I have plenty of time to contemplate it every week, so much so that it has almost taken on some religious, Zen-like quality, a koan if you will. It never fails to elicit a smile. Up till now I haven't seen anyone obey the sign, but surely it's only a matter of time? If Lou Reed is pushed onto the West Side Highway and no one sees it, does it make a sound?

#77: Union 77

Smithfield, Dublin

The iconography of this may not resonate in the same way with my Dublin friends, but to my American eye, this 77 immediately stood out. With its bright red-orange circle and cobalt numbers, it's a dead ringer for the Union 76 logo. Where I grew up, this giant orange orb at gas stations was as unmistakable an image as fast food's golden arches, a familiar and well-loved sight on road trips. (The best of them actually lit up and rotated.)

This was real ooh-ahh 1962 World's Fair technology, state-of-the-art stuff back then, and why anyone in the year 2011 still gets excited about a giant rotating orange ball is a little puzzling. But apparently I'm not alone. There's enough of a cult following that a "Save the 76 Ball" campaign made sure that ConocoPhillips (as they are now re-branded) donated a couple to museums. They even put up a few new rotating balls to wow the oh-so-jaded public -- who, frankly, are probably more concerned with paying 4 dollars a gallon for gas than they are about "saving" some dinky old orange sign.

I like this one quite a bit. It's like if the Union 76 logo ate a Pac Man, went to Smithfield, and found a nice, industrial gray wall to settle down with. I wish it luck in its future endeavors. Should anyone ever want to tear it down, they'll face some stiff opposition from the "Save the 77 Ball" campaign. While I probably won't get the Irish Georgian Society behind me, I can probably pull a couple strings at An Taisce. Those folks will object to anything.

#78: Nostalgia Kills

Galway, Ireland

My Nostalgia 2011 tour of Galway didn't go so well, at least on certain counts -- I now remember the day trip mostly for the rain and how I spent an entire lunch copying down, verbatim, the certificate on the wall from a 1989 Soviet fleet in praise of McDonagh's fish and chips. But I did stumble upon some good numbers when I wasn't being all interior n' pensive, and this is one that actually made me stop in my tracks it was so friendly and welcoming. In this age of mass production and commercial uglification, I'm a sucker for stuff done by hand, and I will do my best to document any and all such numbers I come across in my travels. It was back to near-empty pubs, soaking wet socks, and tables-for-one not long after, but at least I have this reminder that sometimes the joy isn't in re-visiting what used to be, it's in being open to surprises you didn't even know were there.

I sometimes wonder if the person who drew this address on their door had any idea that their unassuming piece of handiwork would one day, however briefly, brighten the spirits of a water-logged girl in from New York City. (Look -- it even has a snick in it!) But it did, and I'm grateful. The best promise I can make to myself is to never, ever go back to Galway and try to look for it again.

#79: Fresh Delivery, But No Threes

Red Hook, Brooklyn

I know land lines and traditional phones are going the way of the dodo, but have we really fallen so far as to be unable to even cobble together an accurate rendering of what one looks like? Look at this phone. Now look at the numbers encased in its aw-shucks, folksy little grid. Notice anything amiss? Yep. This is either the work of a revisionist 3-hater or the work of the world's worst Sudoku player. Either way, I have to stand up for chronology here -- sure somebody has to. I will, however, bestow a few crumbs of brownie points on this deli sign for charm -- the more I try to work myself into an indignant state over its inaccuracy, the more the wonky telephone grows on me.

By the way, when was the last time you really looked at the keypad of a phone? (Oh, right. About five minutes ago, when you were crossing the street, sending that text message.) And did you ever notice how telephones have the numbers 1, 2, 3 at the top while calculators have 7, 8, 9 at the top and 1, 2, 3 at the bottom? (Let's not even bring this hand-painted phone into the picture -- it's complicated enough already.) And if you're scratching your head now, wondering why they're arranged differently, then fortunately, I've tracked down the answer for you.

Actually, it was my friend Kristopher who first pointed this curiosity out to me. He's one of those friends who spikes your punch, plays all your favorite New Order records, and then tells you all sorts of engineering trivia, which believe me, if you don't have a friend like this, you need to get one.

#87: Luquer Street Special

Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn

NOTE: This is a re-post, mostly because I love this 87 too much to replace it with anything new. Long live Luquer Street!

On the edge of Red Hook, just beyond the point where the Prospect Expressway twists into Hamilton Avenue and not far from the Sunoco gas station with the flashing sign that misspells its own name, two bright, Vaudevillian beacons blink out a bright 87 in lights of green and yellow. The numbers are mismatched in size but perfect partners in crime plastered against the stark charcoal gray of their brick building. Driving late at night along the featureless expressway, one's eyes can't help but be diverted by the sight. It's as if a piece of Times Square fell off the delivery truck on the way to Manhattan. But as soon as you notice it – blink, and it's gone. I had noticed it before – usually late at night, usually on the way back from some band practice or gig – but it was some time before I ventured on foot to see the iconic numbers from street level.

Luquer Street in Brooklyn is a quiet 4-block street that stretches along the border of Carroll Gardens and Red Hook. As much as I always want to say it with a hard "Q" sound (as in "liquor", on which many of my decisions are based), residents pronounce it "Lu-QUEER". The always fruitful Forgotten New York ("Celebrating 10 Years of Forgotenning") launched a full investigation into the Luquer name based on the evidence of maps, including some dating back to 1866, that show the spelling as "Luqueer." Who knows why or when precisely the second "E" was dropped, though the correct spelling (based on the Luqueer family, who owned a good deal of Brooklyn's Twelfth Ward) is in fact with two "E"s.

This particular portrait was snapped during a snowstorm, one of several we've had here in New York this winter. Somehow the sight of this slightly gaudy, lovable 87 in the whitewashed scene brought me a feeling of great joy. Unlike some other neighbors I could mention who seem to shove their ugliness uniqueness down your throat, this 87 always strikes the right balance of blatantly bizarre and charmingly homespun. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

#89: Oklahoma, O-K!

Oklahoma City, OK

My first photo from Oklahoma, y'all. I haven't given this state much love, but it's time to change all that. Who cares that neighboring Texas is home to the Largest Cross in the Western Hemisphere? Oklahoma is home to the tallest spiral slide in America. And since it's AMERICA, that's real BIG.

But enough bragging. This brightly colored 89 comes from outside The Conservatory, this fun dive bar venue in Oklahoma City where we played on tour a couple of summers back and I think I lost about 8 decibels of hearing. (Give me a shout if they happen to turn up.) I do remember feeling pretty thrilled that outside the club, sandwiched in between Fox Valley Motors and the record shop, there it was on a rickety cracked sign for the club: our name in lights! Well worth it after driving past endless signs for hardware, liquor, and loans.

As for the record shop employees next door, all I can say is this: the kids are all right. I picked up a nice stack of Handsome Family, The Fall, and Kurt Weill CDs at The Conservatory, which is the last time I think I've done such an old-fashioned thing. Oklahoma brought that out in me, I guess.

My notes from our gig at The Conservatory are pretty brief, but I think you'll get the idea: "Venue a big concrete box w/ bright graffiti outside. Cheap theatre seats inside, a bar behind velvet rope, no soap in the bathrooms and free beer." Smells like tour to me.

#90: 90 Paces, Collins Barracks

Collins Barracks, Arbour Hill, Dublin

All throughout the courtyard of the Collins Barracks, you'll see these hand-painted numbers on the walls. Near the entrance, the signs on either side read 100 PACES, and the numbers count backwards from there: 90, 80, 70, and so on. Back when the barracks was occupied by the British army, the numbers were used to train soldiers in rote military drills, but after the fight for Irish independence, some prescient soul must've tipped them off that Ampersand Seven was coming 'cause they vacated the barracks but left me the numbers. Thanks, Irish army!

The Collins Barracks now holds the decorative arts wing of the National Museum, but it's also a pretty good place to sit in a courtyard, take a couple pictures, and eat a croissant smuggled from your hotel, just in case you were wondering.

The barracks, built starting in 1701 with bits and bobs getting added on throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, is just about the oldest building in Dublin, second only to the Royal Hospital Kilmainham. If you've ever seen the film Michael Collins, or anything else about the history of Dublin and the fight for Irish independence, then -- well, let's be real here. You can probably barely see any of these old buildings through all the continuous gun smoke and heavy whiff of history.

In 2006-2007, the courtyard of the barracks was also home to a site-specific art piece by Sean Taylor called 100 Paces, which invoked the long-past military drills and filled the square with sound and choreography. I wasn't there to see it, but through the magic of the internet, a little morsel of this public art remains.

It's definitely worth a look around. I'm usually too busy haunting the courtyard to remember to ever go inside. But next time I'll have to take those extra 90 paces.

#92: Grünlich Grau

Red Hook, Brooklyn

Some time ago, I happened upon a head-scratcher of a cultural relic: a series of commercials for the German DIY home improvement store, Hornbach, featuring Blixa Bargeld of the experimental German noise band, Einstürzende Neubauten -- a band perhaps best known for making their instruments out of scrap metal and banging them on whatever happened to be laying about. In these ads, Mr. Bargeld, dressed like a walk-in on a Wim Wenders film, his dark hair slicked down, sits at various desks and reads from the Hornbach catalog with aplomb. His manner is so dramatic, his finger pointing so intimidating, and his consonants so violent he might be reading an angry political manifesto. But he isn't. He's describing furniture. If you can imagine, say, Marilyn Manson reading the IKEA catalog out loud, you might be prepared for some of the cognitive dissonance I experienced on first watching.

Then there's the deadpan ending of each thirty-second commercial, which involves him invoking a sort of cowboy's yodel, German expressionist style. I really don't know what to make of it.

My favorite of these videos -- though it's hard to pick just one -- is the one where Blixa, reading from the Hornbach catalog, is worked up in a fever pitch as he utters the words grünlich grau, which simply translate as "greenish gray." I happen to like this color in real life, so the sound byte from the commercial always goes off in my head each time I see it. Today's number, though a little more grau than grünlich, is a good example. If you want to see the commercial in full dramatic action, I highly recommend thirty seconds of your time to watch this clip. You will never see greenish gray in the same way again.

I've been waiting for this 92 to roll around, if only because every time I pass it in Red Hook on my way to Rocky Sullivan's, I think again of Blixa. And I hear his German growl spitting out each fierce syllable like he could cut your throat with it. And while it doesn't make me want to buy any home improvement items, it does make me smile.