Note: All photos shown basically in the order they were shot. All coincidences are just coincidences.

I walk into the Galleria deli on 24th and 10th and say hi to a fly in one of the seats, who seems to be waiting for the lunch rush to form. 

Can I have a chicken salad wrap with cheddar cheese, lettuce, and light honey mustard, and a medium latte. I have been working too hard, too stressed (for obvious reasons), and needed a day to focus. A real day.

The first stop is the Gladstone Gallery in Chelsea for the Carrie Mae Weems The Shape of Things exhibit.

Since my legs have been extra shot from work, I allow myself one Uber to make the day logistically and physically work, especially since it was a convenient highway drive to the gallery versus multiple trains (the irony is not lost on me of taking an expensive Uber to a Weems exhibit). $40.78 Uber + $7.19 tip (tip your Uber drivers), 27-minute trip; New York prices have become insane. I listen to Pete Buttigieg talk to Hasan Minaj about infrastructure, even though I could have used the 20-minute nap.

To give you a sense of what $47.97 in New York is, it’s the equivalent of a $20.76 ride in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. NYC is 131% more expensive.

I wonder Can I write this off? It’s for my legs. And this column.

As I arrive, I notice a large class of students walking towards me on the empty street, clearly headed to the show. So I decide to get an early lunch at the deli. I get my food and walk to the other side to sit, so as not to disturb the fly.

“At first, I encountered the streets as an incessant loudness, a shock after the day’s focus and relative tranquillity, as though someone had shattered the calm of a silent private chapel with the blare of a TV set. I wove my way through crowds of shoppers and workers, through road constructions and the horns of taxicabs. Walking through busy parts of town meant I laid eyes on more people, hundreds more, thousands even, than I was accustomed to seeing in the course of a day, but the impress of these countless faces did nothing to assuage my feelings of isolation; if anything, it intensified them. I became more tired, too, after the walks began, an exhaustion unlike any I had known since the first months of internship, three years earlier. One night, I simply went on and on, walking all the way down to Houston Street, a distance of some seven miles, and found myself in a state of disorienting fatigue, laboring to remain on my feet. That night I took the subway home, and instead of falling asleep immediately, I lay in bed, too tired to release myself from wakefulness, and I rehearsed in the dark the numerous incidents and sights I had encountered while roaming, sorting each encounter like a child playing with wooden blocks, trying to figure out which belonged where, which responded to which. Each neighborhood of the city appeared to be made of a different substance, each seemed to have a different air pressure, a different psychic weight: the bright lights and shuttered shops, the housing projects and luxury hotels, the fire escapes and city parks. My futile task of sorting went on until the forms began to morph into each other and assume abstract shapes unrelated to the real city, and only then did my hectic mind finally show some pity and still itself, only then did dreamless sleep arrive.”

Teju Cole, Open City.

Usually, I like to read in quiet, but as the caffeine hit me, I read each paragraph slowly, typically twice because of the lunch chaos. I take breaks to watch out the corner windows and listen to the growing crowd behind me.

I notice a strange stone. My anxiety makes me wonder if I’m taking up too much space; I’m not.

Warhol, Kahlo, Haring, Basquiat.

A dead bee sleeps in the warmth of the frosted glass.

I notice another strange stone.

Double denim is in, as are the big Apple headphones, some Onitsuka Tigers and Converse, an expensive leather backpack, a bunch of men in nice t-shirts with black sunglasses. An Amazon deliveryperson in a Metallica sweatshirt. A million other things.

Out of the eastern window, I notice more denim, expensive clogs with high socks, an empty storefront for rent, and I wonder about the percentage of Saucony sneakers in the LGBTQ+ community.

More people seem to be staring at their phones in Chelsea than other neighborhoods. Or maybe it’s just because of the election.

This quote briefly makes me think about the election, and I close the book.

I pack my things and say goodbye to the fly, who seems to have sat next to me.

Gladstone Gallery.

Dark blue light glows heavily with the moment. Four large textured prints make it look as if you are staring at real walls.

“From her series Painting the Town (2021) created after a visit to her native city of Portland, Oregon where, in response to the Black Lives Matter protests against the murder of George Floyd, the local authorities covered up anti-racist graffiti on boarded-up windows with broad swathes of paint. An act of erasure over an already eclipsed view, the painted surfaces read as obdurate blocks of color, abstract paintings with tragic undertones.”

“In her epic video cyclorama The Shape of Things, currently on view at Gladstone, Carrie Mae Weems has envisioned the last eight years of American politics as a circus. That three-ring extravaganza comes full circle literally and figuratively on November 5^th when America goes to the polls to decide its very future.  On that day, The Shape of Things will come to life as an agora, a public sphere where people will join to collectively witness what transpires, sharing in an atmosphere shaped by the autonomy of creativity.”

I sit for the dark and immersive main event, a 40-minute 360-degree show. I wonder what the font above is (Monotype Engravers).

The juxtapositions are as subtle as their target.

Tens of identical photos of a blurry Black man in a hoodie surround you in varying sizes.

I wonder about the infrastructure for the show.

I leave the show, inspired and rested, and photograph a slow couple-mile walk to the Lower East Side.

“Headphoned woman with nice clothes and Amazon package, 2024.”

Cats for Harris.

Cleaners for Harris.

I love fake flowers, for some reason.

Also love construction plans.

I wonder about the connection between sneaker and dog breed choices. “Hokas and Weiner Dog, 2024.”

Even though I don’t want to speak to anyone, I ask for a portrait. She had just picked up Bertie for the first time. I give her my info, walk half a block, and realize I took a lazy photo so I go back and apologize, should she want a decent one. I take this new photo.

Who tf buys beds here?

I feel self-conscious.

I usually don’t photograph fallout shelter signs… you don’t need to be a shrink to figure out why I felt inclined this time.

WNBA advertising. Screw IG though.

Palestinean Flag.

Reminded me of the Weems exhibit.

I should have kissed a friend here 20-years ago but didn’t have the nerve.

Housing Works display.

“Sambas and Bison Frise, 2024”

Don’t know what happened, but don’t think this man was the focus.

Another strange rock.

Cars for Kamala.

More stones at 14th Street. I raise my ISO.

Old-couples-getting-their-phones-fixed for Kamala.

The Jordan 1 Kamala’s.

Dusty Tesla.

A Koons in a corporate highrise nicknamed “The Death Star” by East Village residents.

It could be a long winter, I think.

Mosaic man at Astor.

Pigeon watching us all eat each other in our nice clothes.

The window exhibit in Cooper Union sits empty, except for a jar of pee and plastic bag.

One of the best schools in the country, funded by Peter Cooper to be free in perpetuity.

I try to take a photo of a pigeon.

Peter, of Peter Cooper.

The $166 million engineering building, built at the cusp of the 2008 financial crisis, and a financial debacle that caused the historically free university to start charging tuition in 2013, leading to massive student protests. The university is currently back to half-free and free for seniors, with a plan to be completely free again by the 2028-29 school year.

Nearby at NYU’s Cooper Square Gallery is a smaller window-side exhibit with large, powerful photographs.

“Created by Hank Willis Thomas and Emily Shur (TSOA ’98), in collaboration with Eric Gottesman and Wyatt Gallery in 2018, the Four Freedoms Photographs are reinterpretations of American artist Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms paintings; representing the eponymous Four Freedoms coined by former President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his 1941 State of the Union Address —freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. By framing artists, activists, community organizers, and friends within these iconic works, For Freedoms modernized American imagery and sparked civic engagement by declaring diversity an essential and undeniable component of freedom.”

A woman, who I assume is a teacher or curator, shows her favorite of the photographs, chosen because the woman in the back is breaking from the mold and subtly acknowledging the camera. It’s a choice of someone who spends a lot of time amongst the prints.

I make a pilgrimage to the site of the bar where my wife and I met, and where she asked me to pretend to be her boyfriend to scare off an ex-date. I’m not that scary.

Basquiat’s final New York studio, now renting for $60,000 a month.

I go to check out one of my favorite cast-iron buildings on the Bowery. Two men enjoy the sun. 

$750 Amiri bone runner sneakers. From doing research for my Hype project, I now have the strange ability to know how expensive people’s sneakers are.

Kith, the sneaker and streetwear mecca, where it looks like an event is happening.

New Balance, Nike, Golden Goose, Converse, Nike Air Jordan 2 Low x Off-White™ White and Varsity Red ($923), Taylor Swift boots, Asiics, Nike Air Jordan 1 Low Travis Scott Reverse Mocha ($2,163). I’m more shocked by the twelve and nine-word Nike shoe titles than the prices (not really).

The man with $923 sneakers gets into a Navigator.

I sit in the subway on the way home and think something cheesy about the floor looking like the universe.

Statue of Liberty!

The train stops while the windows glow beautifully.

I get back to the Speedway near my home.

And ground myself on a rock in the sun for a minute.

Note: Obviously, this is a bit of a political piece. I chose to share it today not just because of its political content, but because it’s about photography and coping—to indulge in the act of being present. And I want to share what it’s like in my bubble as well. While we’re all sitting today refreshing the news and not being able to think straight, I hope this helps some of you cope. And others probably to just delete. Stay strong.

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