Ah, thank you. As I understand, a lot of their decisions are about publishing people they know or are in some innner circle/cabal. That can cut both ways.
Hey you, Dusty, creaky and ****ing beautiful as always. Sitting here in my kitchen with its cracked plaster, greasy window sills and that cabinet door that will never close (Stealing your tone here.) You’ve got me staring at my grandmother’s oak table. And Mom (Betty Anne Malarkey - yes Malarkey) sitting at it in the 1930 in the house on Grove Street. And a century of bacon and eggs. And incomplete sentences…Thanks.
Big thanks Ulrich! A century of bacon and eggs….sigh. Now you have me thinking of the glass bricks that were part of the Mars Bar. Talk about greasy.
I studied a lot of critical theory in college, and it often informs a piece like this. There was a book by Bachelard, The Poetics of Space. The guy could talk about drawers and doorways in such a wonderful way. This post was definitely a result of his ideas, filtered down so many decades later.
Reminds me of rummaging through Camden Market, although that's probably a lot posher than your dry bridge. (Is there also a wet bridge?) Still, I was amazed to find there, for example, a bin full of old, random b/w photographs for sale. Who'd buy that, I asked myself. Then, a year or so later, I was putting together a PowerPoint to teach one of my writing stories from family history workshops and found myself utilizing a lot of my old family pictures. Thus I realized that people who don't have old family photos might by them!
Anette - oh Camden Market is waaaaaaaaay more posh. So the dry bridge is indeed a bridge that goes over a street. There is no old river, just a few lanes of traffic. It is such a quirky name.
Old family pictures - there are whole groups of people obsessed with them, especially the smiles of complete strangers. Those pictures are truly disarming.
Aha! I was wondering whether "dry bridge" was referring to the goods being sold, similar to how in China they have wet markets and dry markets. But calling a bridge "dry" because it goes over lanes of traffic rather than a body of water kind of makes sense.
Annie - bless you and thank you. That line about the vacuums was on the "do I really need this one?" pile.
I adore being wrong.
For what it is worth, we visited this place on my very first visit some 15+ years ago and I felt so comfortable around such a perfect mess. I have taken many pictures there over the years and even coaxed a seller or two into a portrait. I did see one of them last Saturday, same cap, same expression. I cannot tell you how comforting that was.
Sadly jazz is more popular outside the US than in. At Variety we had a relationship with the jazz world. Herbie Hancock played our place every year around Christmas, McCoy Tyner every spring and we booked numerous ECM artists consistently. Variety is a thousand seat house. McCoy told us that when he tours Europe he plays stadiums and other large venues, but in America smaller houses are all he could sellout. It's a dang shame.
You're lucky to have that experience - Herbie! Wow. You know, in NY there are all these cramped little places and so many music students trying to make a buck, you could hear jazz quite often - of course not famous, but often fantastic.
Here, jazz is a weird holdover from the 50s. So, we have jazz, we have EDM and club music and almost zero singer songwriters. There is no folk scene here.
Hey Sunsolace, so glad you picked up on them! Yes, these are all shot with my trusty Leica M4-P, and a 35mm Summilux that I have had for...... thirty years now? The film stock is Agfa APX 100 on these. I try to post film images as much as possible on my weekly post. You must direct me towards some of your work.
That’s awesome! I shoot with some old Cmena cameras and a Zenit TTL + Helios 44M. I used to have a Minolta which I gave away to my brother (do I regret it? Yes, lol), probably my favourite analog camera that I’ve used so far. I’ll make an effort to post some more photos I made with them in the near future :)
Sunspace - oooooh Smena, Zenit and a classic Helios! That's the good stuff that rarely works (meaning, the cameras often do not function) good on you for having ones that got you results, And yes, a Minolta - my verrrry first camera was an Olympus OM1, so I know how that relationship between tool and ideas can play out.
The Transylvania images feel very natural, and well-observed. You have a clear sense of the moment, your personal moment as opposed to the moment we see all too often, the easier one. Well done, and keep going!
Here are carcasses of vacuums, without tubes or wheels or bags, naked and unshy in the afternoon sun. That line did something to me.....those empty vacuums just shone before my eyes - an image I could never have dreamed of seeing.
Some items are just dumped into shoe boxes that ambitious customers root through, fingering for diamonds in those mines. Evocative and amusing, too.
At the very edges, it is just broken dolls and used shoes, things people tend to leave next to a garbage can on any street but here it is next to some harsh-faced person, trying to make a few pennies. This sentence does so much. I feel a tad of amusement, some pity, a little fear....and a curiosity laced with gloom.
You don’t need to buy anything there to appreciate the circus. I have not bought anything at the dry bridge in ten years, but I still enjoy seeing the faces. As far as locals screwing over foreigners, that is something that happens in any given corner of the city every day - nothing unique about that phenomenon.
I read much lesser stuff in the New Yorker.
Ah, thank you. As I understand, a lot of their decisions are about publishing people they know or are in some innner circle/cabal. That can cut both ways.
Hey you, Dusty, creaky and ****ing beautiful as always. Sitting here in my kitchen with its cracked plaster, greasy window sills and that cabinet door that will never close (Stealing your tone here.) You’ve got me staring at my grandmother’s oak table. And Mom (Betty Anne Malarkey - yes Malarkey) sitting at it in the 1930 in the house on Grove Street. And a century of bacon and eggs. And incomplete sentences…Thanks.
Big thanks Ulrich! A century of bacon and eggs….sigh. Now you have me thinking of the glass bricks that were part of the Mars Bar. Talk about greasy.
I studied a lot of critical theory in college, and it often informs a piece like this. There was a book by Bachelard, The Poetics of Space. The guy could talk about drawers and doorways in such a wonderful way. This post was definitely a result of his ideas, filtered down so many decades later.
Reminds me of rummaging through Camden Market, although that's probably a lot posher than your dry bridge. (Is there also a wet bridge?) Still, I was amazed to find there, for example, a bin full of old, random b/w photographs for sale. Who'd buy that, I asked myself. Then, a year or so later, I was putting together a PowerPoint to teach one of my writing stories from family history workshops and found myself utilizing a lot of my old family pictures. Thus I realized that people who don't have old family photos might by them!
Anette - oh Camden Market is waaaaaaaaay more posh. So the dry bridge is indeed a bridge that goes over a street. There is no old river, just a few lanes of traffic. It is such a quirky name.
Old family pictures - there are whole groups of people obsessed with them, especially the smiles of complete strangers. Those pictures are truly disarming.
Aha! I was wondering whether "dry bridge" was referring to the goods being sold, similar to how in China they have wet markets and dry markets. But calling a bridge "dry" because it goes over lanes of traffic rather than a body of water kind of makes sense.
Yes, the name is such a perfect example of Georgian logic. It is wonky, kooky, silly logic but the name is terribly fitting to locals.
Meanwhile, there is a river that winds through the city and the bridges over that body of water are just plain old bridges.
Your writing is just magical!
Annie - bless you and thank you. That line about the vacuums was on the "do I really need this one?" pile.
I adore being wrong.
For what it is worth, we visited this place on my very first visit some 15+ years ago and I felt so comfortable around such a perfect mess. I have taken many pictures there over the years and even coaxed a seller or two into a portrait. I did see one of them last Saturday, same cap, same expression. I cannot tell you how comforting that was.
Music for the dry bridge-
https://youtu.be/cd7S6V5IaBg?si=GNGGB34eI7VDaQ4X
Oh that's one hell of a lineup!
You know, there is more jazz here than you might expect and this is truly in line with stuff you can hear on a Saturday night.
Sadly jazz is more popular outside the US than in. At Variety we had a relationship with the jazz world. Herbie Hancock played our place every year around Christmas, McCoy Tyner every spring and we booked numerous ECM artists consistently. Variety is a thousand seat house. McCoy told us that when he tours Europe he plays stadiums and other large venues, but in America smaller houses are all he could sellout. It's a dang shame.
You're lucky to have that experience - Herbie! Wow. You know, in NY there are all these cramped little places and so many music students trying to make a buck, you could hear jazz quite often - of course not famous, but often fantastic.
Here, jazz is a weird holdover from the 50s. So, we have jazz, we have EDM and club music and almost zero singer songwriters. There is no folk scene here.
I love the photos! Were they shot on film? They certainly look like it
Hey Sunsolace, so glad you picked up on them! Yes, these are all shot with my trusty Leica M4-P, and a 35mm Summilux that I have had for...... thirty years now? The film stock is Agfa APX 100 on these. I try to post film images as much as possible on my weekly post. You must direct me towards some of your work.
That’s awesome! I shoot with some old Cmena cameras and a Zenit TTL + Helios 44M. I used to have a Minolta which I gave away to my brother (do I regret it? Yes, lol), probably my favourite analog camera that I’ve used so far. I’ll make an effort to post some more photos I made with them in the near future :)
Edit: here’s some photos from Transylvania that I made with the old Minolta.. https://csillajakab.com/documentary-2-on-kodak
Sunspace - oooooh Smena, Zenit and a classic Helios! That's the good stuff that rarely works (meaning, the cameras often do not function) good on you for having ones that got you results, And yes, a Minolta - my verrrry first camera was an Olympus OM1, so I know how that relationship between tool and ideas can play out.
The Transylvania images feel very natural, and well-observed. You have a clear sense of the moment, your personal moment as opposed to the moment we see all too often, the easier one. Well done, and keep going!
Here are carcasses of vacuums, without tubes or wheels or bags, naked and unshy in the afternoon sun. That line did something to me.....those empty vacuums just shone before my eyes - an image I could never have dreamed of seeing.
Some items are just dumped into shoe boxes that ambitious customers root through, fingering for diamonds in those mines. Evocative and amusing, too.
At the very edges, it is just broken dolls and used shoes, things people tend to leave next to a garbage can on any street but here it is next to some harsh-faced person, trying to make a few pennies. This sentence does so much. I feel a tad of amusement, some pity, a little fear....and a curiosity laced with gloom.
You don’t need to buy anything there to appreciate the circus. I have not bought anything at the dry bridge in ten years, but I still enjoy seeing the faces. As far as locals screwing over foreigners, that is something that happens in any given corner of the city every day - nothing unique about that phenomenon.