The entrance to the beach was on a switchback road just outside of Fort Bragg, California. It’s easy to miss it you don’t know it’s there. I’m sure the locals know it well. When I was there for the second time, I was surprised to see a horse on the beach tied to a trailer.…
Rubes in the City: Part 2
The sun was out in the Mission District in San Francisco. I had a cardigan on even though it was an early afternoon in summer, something I’d never have to do in August back home. Inside Alicia’s backpack was a notebook with the addresses of thrift shops we read about in an article online, and…
Adventures in Retail: Denial and the Magic Manager
I've been in retail over four years now. I've only worked in one particular store, but I notice certain behavioral patterns and suspect they are universal to this kind of setting. If you have worked in a job requiring customer service, you will understand. If you haven't, this will show you what it's like on…
Gardening (and Depression)
Plants and flowers fascinate me; the shapes of the leaves and petals, the colors, the textures, the names, and the forms. Recently, when walking through the nursery at a chain home improvement store, I stopped like I'd discovered treasure. The store was carrying hellebores. They're an uncommon find and I first noticed and liked hellebores…
Rubes in the City
When I first found out that there would be an exhibit in San Francisco featuring Gustav Klimt, I was excited because I had recently become more interested in his work. When I looked at his paintings online, the combination of realistic looking human figures with wild bouts of color and pattern were very appealing to…
What a YouTube Star Can Teach Us About “the ball and chain of the Internet”
“There’s been times when I have been hanging out with friends, acquaintances, family, and I have not given proper attention to the task at hand when it comes to enjoying life, like I said, seeing things with these (gestures to eyes) instead of through a…smart phone, or a DSLR or a zoom lens.” -Adam the…
Image Junkies
Long before the age of smartphones and social media, Susan Sontag wrote about photography in her essay “Plato’s Cave.” Even in 1974, when the essay was published, she was concerned about the way people felt the need to photograph whatever they saw. She says, “It would not be wrong to speak of people having a…
