NYC is ushering in the end times.

Now, for some of my readers hailing from or currently residing in America's midsection, a region whose moral pants are securely being held up by the dependable, panic-inducing constriction of its Bible Belt, the title of this post is an obvious and uncontested fact. Is the sky blue? Is New York the devil's playground? The Big Apple has been ushering in the end times for decades and will continue to do so until God torches it Sodom & Gomorrah style in order to provide lesson material for Sunday School classes across the nation. Because of this, one of the absolute worst insults to be smacked with in my hometown is the slanderous "East Coast liberal" label, and nothing says over-intellectualized, godless, effeminate, spineless-due-to-their-not-eating-meat, suspiciously French "East Coast liberal" like a New Yorker.

Last summer I was back in Texas working with my dad. We stopped by a local, family-owned meat processing plant, efficiently ran by a Mennonite husband-and-wife duo, for a service call. Dad looked over a new project with the husband, and, since my general ignorance regarding all things electrical would contribute nothing to the early planning stages, I was freed up to talk to the wife who was manning the storefront. She is a wonderful woman, quick to laugh, possessing a vigorous life energy and perhaps a slight bawdiness. She was bewildered and somewhat horrified to discover that I was moving to NYC.

"But there are so many sinners there...and in California."

"It's not like we don't have sin here in the Panhandle."

"Yes. But I guess there it's just more obvious."

And all this after she told me one of her sons could very easily be a Calvin Klein model. Could there be a secret stash of People magazines hidden behind those church cookbooks in the home of this particular world wise Mennonite?

Because today I picked up the first roll of film I've had developed in about three months, I thought I should post some of my favorite shots in a tribute to New York City, Home of Obvious Sinners. Disclaimer: I'm still getting to know my computer and all-in-one printer/scanner/copier - Why won't you print? Oh, why won't you ever print!? - and I'm not entirely content with the image quality here.

But don't feel neglected, Texas. I have close to twenty-five rolls of film waiting to be developed in a shoe box on my closet shelf, rolls containing nothing but pit barbecue, rodeos, tractors, Rocky Mountain jeans, and dirt roads.

New York City: Home of Obvious Sinners

This is a tight shot of the shop window for the Louis Vuitton store on 5th Avenue before the holiday exhibit went up. I like pulling a thing out of its contextual surroundings to make it appear unfamiliar, strange, abstract:

(Left) An autumnal view of Central Park as I walk from the N,R,W subway stop along Central Park South on my way to work.
(Right) From the same vantage point, The Sherry-Netherland and the GM Building side-by-side but with a palpable generation gap. The GM Building (on the right) is home to my glorious, bewitching, kinda tacky, debt-inducing FAO Schwarz:

Really love this one. I caught one of my more interesting coworkers in all his tightly groomed fierceness and showing hints of those unsettling and dangerous undertones which sometimes violently jerk out from underneath his pert, calculated composure releasing rushes of profanity and indignant anger.

These two Midtown shots were probably taken from Park or Madison Avenue. When the architecture is so similar, sometimes the divisional lines between buildings can blur in a mirage of reflective glass, concrete, steel, and upward motion:

A close-up of the floor levels for one of the elevators in the GM lobby. I couldn't get the picture to scan without the faint line crossing the upper half:


Windows at Bergdorf Goodman.
(Left) An unfocused look into a window at the men's store displaying clothing items by Burberry (on 2) and Jil Sander (on 3). I tried flirting with both the white lettering and the clothes inside, giving neither my full attention. The scan for this one isn't very satisfying.
(Center, Right): Street scenes reflected on windows at the women's store across 5th Avenue.

REAL LIVE NEW YORKERS!!!!!:

The Cascade Laundry facility on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn. I pass this everyday on the walk to and from the G line. I already associate the harsh smell of the chemical cleaners with those workdays which require me to wake up before even the Good Lord. If we were supposed to get up before noon, God himself would have created alarm clocks. Oh, you blasphemous hordes!:

And finally, meat...somewhere. It must have been a street festival. Definitely not a protest march:

Wishing everyone a wonderfully unnerving new year. I feel that mine can't be anything less than spectacular, but in what manner? Finding myself ringing in 2007 at an outrageous party attended by Michael Musto, Johnny Weir, Amanda Lepore, and both old and new friends must entail either fantastic success or unyielding doom. I wonder which one of these strangers next to me on the N train is Lot. It might do me some good to introduce myself. I hear he has connections you wouldn't believe.