East Lake Street.

Now see these:

• in front of me from catherine buca
• november isn’t good enough from your waitress
• Soul Saving M.B. Church from Out of Contxt

El Largo Theater, East Lake Street.

RIP, Jon Hassler.

Now see these:

• Blue Mosque from Elaine
• untitled from 2038.cc

Italiani’s (formerly Lake Street Garage–this pizza gal has weathered several changes at this eatery), East Lake Street, Minneapolis

The 2008 Million Writers Award, Jason Sanford’s Internet answer to the O. Henry Prize and suchlike, is open for nominations. Look at the rules, check out the previous years’ winners, and find something good to nominate; nominations close March 31.

Now see these:

• THE SPACE BETWEEN from Wink
• feat from bighappyfunhouse
• blake’s from Electrolite

East Lake Street, Minneapolis

The 2008 Million Writers Award, Jason Sanford’s Internet answer to the O. Henry Prize and suchlike, is open for nominations. Look at the rules, check out the previous years’ winners, and find something good to nominate; nominations close March 31.

Now see these:

• The Forest from Aperture First
• Kilt from MONTMARTRE
• Gimme Some Tongue from a view from the 6oh lens

El Largo Theater, East Lake Street (now home to the Victory Christian Center).

The 2008 Million Writers Award, Jason Sanford’s Internet answer to the O. Henry Prize and suchlike, is open for nominations. Look at the rules, check out the previous years’ winners, and find something good to nominate; nominations close March 31.

On the side of Italiani’s/Lake Street Garage, East Lake Street.

The 2008 Million Writers Award, Jason Sanford’s Internet answer to the O. Henry Prize and suchlike, is open for nominations. Look at the rules, check out the previous years’ winners, and find something good to nominate; nominations close March 31.

Now see these:

• Red Rope from milou
• drying from BOXMAN

Victory Christian Center, located in the old El Largo Theater building, East Lake Street.

The 2008 Million Writers Award, Jason Sanford’s Internet answer to the O. Henry Prize and suchlike, is open for nominations. Look at the rules, check out the previous years’ winners, and find something good to nominate; nominations close March 31.

Now see these:

• K?fte from Elaine
• A little of both from Shutter Release
• Signs of spring from HELLO

Once Phidias stood, with hammer in his hand,
Carving Minerva from the breathing stone,
Tracing with love the winding of a hair,
A single hair upon her head, whereon
A youth of Athens cried, “O Phidias,
Why do you dally on a hidden hair?
When she is lifted to the lofty front
Of the Parthenon, no human eye will see.”
And Phidias thundered on him: “Silence, slave:
Men will not see, but the Immortals will!”

A Workman to the Gods by Edwin Markham

Statue of Minerva, goddess of wisdom, at the Minneapolis Central Library.

The 2008 Million Writers Award, Jason Sanford’s Internet answer to the O. Henry Prize and suchlike, is open for nominations. Look at the rules, check out the previous years’ winners, and find something good to nominate; nominations close March 31.

We pull off
to a road shack
in Massachusetts
to watch men walk

on the moon. We did
the same thing
for three two one
blast off, and now

we watch the same men
bounce in and out
of craters. I want
a Coke and a hamburger.

Because the men
are walking on the moon
which is now irrefutably
not green, not cheese,

not a shiny dime floating
in a cold blue,
the way I’d thought,
the road shack people don’t

notice we are a black
family not from there,
the way it mostly goes.
This talking through

static, bounces in space-
boots, tethered
to cords is much
stranger, stranger

even than we are.

Apollo, by Elizabeth Alexander

Brackett Park, Minneapolis–the old rocket slide transformed into art.

The 2008 Million Writers Award, Jason Sanford’s Internet answer to the O. Henry Prize and suchlike, is open for nominations. Look at the rules, check out the previous years’ winners, and find something good to nominate; nominations close March 31.

Now see these:

• A Brighter Tomorrow: 1942 from in Shorpy
• Famly tree from Mystery Me
• 101011 from Million-Year Picnic

East Lake Street, Minneapolis.

The 2008 Million Writers Award, Jason Sanford’s Internet answer to the O. Henry Prize and suchlike, is open for nominations. Like the last couple years, this one is being run with open nominations from readers and editors–any reader can submit a nomination for a single story published online in 2007, and editors of online publications can nominate up to three stories. Look at the rules, check out the previous years’ winners, and find something good to nominate; nominations close March 31.

Now see these:

• untitled from in absentia
• Stark II from Black and White Dreaming
• Lifted from No Traces

East Lake Street, Minneapolis.

Now see these:

• Winter Flowers Perspective Images
• Breakfast with Derek from Shutter Release
• Canoe Cub: 1924 from Shorpy

It’s been so cold here lately that I’ve neglected the poor dog’s walking needs, and I’ve also neglected my old box cameras, so last weekend I gave both the mutt and the Sawyer’s Nomad a big outing through the neighborhood. Here’s a bench at Brackett Park, looking forlornly out at the ball field, waiting for spring.

Now see these:

• three trees, blubberhouses from Absolutely Nothing
• Schuylkill County Farm, 5:45 p.m. from A Walk Through Durham Township

Outside Merlin’s Rest, East Lake Street’s pub-quiz central.

Landmark Center, St. Paul.

Now see these:

• Windows from Wood | Stone
• Gaudi Rooftop from Black and White Dreaming
• mariposa from Under the Amber Moon
• Pritts Pro hardware, Burnettesville from fourteen places to eat

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.

from The Waste Land, by T.S. Eliot

Two cullings for today:

• Persona from gallery(bea)
• Getting a haircut, Uncle Doug’s Barber Shop, Plymouth from fourteen places to eat

The cold earth slept below;
Above the cold sky shone;
And all around,
With a chilling sound,
From caves of ice and fields of snow
The breath of night like death did flow
Beneath the sinking moon.

Lines: The cold earth slept below, by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Three cullings for today:

• 2nd Weekend Free from Luminescent
• Clothing ##04 from BlackthornCreative’s Photoblog
• the dingy from DARKpx

In the dregs of the year, all steam and rain,
In the timid time of the heart again,
When indecision is bold and thorough,
And action dreams of a dawn in vain,

I saw high up over Bloxham vale
The ploughshare tilt to the next long trail,
And, spying a larder in every furrow,
The wagtails crowd like a dancing hail!

A second wonder there on the hill:
Beneath the hedge, I saw with a thrill
The budding primroses laugh good-morrow
From a deep cradle rocked by a rill!

Wagtail smart in his belted blue,
Primrose paying her gold ere due,—
(Out upon Winter! Down with Sorrow!)
These are the things that I know are true.

Firstlings (January 7, 1915), by Louise Imogen Guiney

It was 35 years ago today — January 7, 1972 — that John Berryman flung himself from the Washington Avenue bridge; Minnesota winters will do that to sensitive souls. I had planned to read some of The Dream Songs this weekend, but the poetry shelf at the Merriam Park Library had a gaping hole where Berryman should have been, even though the catalog said they should be there. Perhaps the ghost whose footsteps are sometimes heard on the bridge hides these books once a year. I had to schlep over to the Highland Park Library with Jack and Peter for the collected poems, which doesn’t include The Dream Songs (and for some Curious George stories, also sans Dream Songs).

But I did stumble across a Berryman poem about a little corner of my neighborhood, near Cedar on Lake Street, which has given me some ideas for a project. The only question now is which camera? Will the Holga‘s rough edges, the Hawkeye‘s eerie blur, or the Nomad‘s simple purity best capture Berryman’s Minneapolis?

Two cullings for today:

• Keep Out from serial photographer
• flowers from catherine buca photography

I would like to decorate this silence,
but my house grows only cleaner
and more plain. The glass chimes I hung
over the register ring a little
when the heat goes on.
I waited too long to drink my tea.
It was not hot. It was only warm.

Winter Love, by by Linda Gregg

Five cullings for today:

• Warm post II from milou
• with minnie from 1965 monochrome
• Allá que vamos from fijaciones
• Mums The Word from Jinky Art
• Memory from bighappyfunhouse

Among the Peanuts statues in Rice Park.

Four cullings this New Year’s Eve:

• The Edge from serial photographer
• untitled from catherine buca photography
• laundromat from Tyson Williams Photography
• Zen serie & best wishes from chambrenoire.fr

Athbhliain faoi mhaise doibh!

Skating at the Landmark Center in St. Paul. I’m on auto-pilot for a few days while we head to Chicago for a nerd fest (museums!) and to Wisconsin Dells for a winter splash.