Saturday, February 19, 2011

Violin

Where I went to High School was strange. It was connected to the Middle School, and set back from the street. There was no real direct way in or out, by car or on foot.

After I graduated, I still drove by everyday during my commute to college. I had heard the Middle School may be closing, with a new one to be built in its place. I figured they were only rumors.

One day I drove by on my way to class, and the Middle School was there. When I returned that evening it was gone. Nothing left, only rubble. In a little under six hours.


Saturday, February 12, 2011

No Way to Know



New places, new scenes. Stepping outside of places that have already been explored thoroughly, these are outside the neighborhood. Outside the city. These are new.









New ground, new scenes. Memories still exist, as do ideas of gentrification and decay, but these are different. These memories are not specific, not mine.









New buildings, new scenes. What memories we have as people are not contained to one life, person or place. They spill over into others spaces, internal and external, and become part of the collective unconscious. It is a beginning.












Friday, February 4, 2011

No Milk Today

So, I used to have a backyard. It was set in the tow yard that is behind my house, and it was about six feet higher than the rest of the yard.

There was a big tree in it. I came home one day and the tree was gone. I figured "Well, I guess if it was dangerous then it's better to cut it down than have it fall on the house." Whatever.

The next day I came home, and the backyard was gone. I went in the house and asked my mother who had taken the backyard, and she didn't seem to know.

Come to find out, the landlord needed more space for his tow yard, so he cut off my backyard to make more spaces for cars. He ended up renting it to a landscaping and masonry company, and that is where all of the construction looking debris comes from.

The company would gear up for a big job, and flood the yard with things like large stones, manure and palettes of bricks - all of the masonry and landscaping materials one would expect to see in a stockyard - piled around my house. The yard would then empty out as they used the materials for their jobs.

As the economy has started to fail, the tide has slowed to a stop. Instead of waves that roll in and roll out, it has become a sort of graveyard in which everything is just sitting, stagnating. It is no longer a sign of any sort of growth or even change. Its just sort of entropy hell.