Snow Bound

Yes, that's a car in there.

Where am I? #14

Here

Out West

I was born in New England and have always had a fondness for the scenery there. But the stark beauty of the terrain out here in the West can be breathtaking.


Photo: Looking southwest from Victorville, a belt of fog silhouettes Joshua trees in the desert below the snow covered Mt. Waterman and the Angeles National Forest. Credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Snow Caps

View of the San Gabriel Mountains from our roof

Where am I #13

Here (no. 12)

Where am I? #12

Here

Where am I? #11

Here

The depths

In 2004, Parisian police were assigned to do a training exercise in a previously uncharted part of the Catacombs of Paris beneath the Palais de Chaillot. Entering the catacombs through a drain, officers first came across a sign that read "Building site, no access," and a bit further in, a camera that actively recorded images of those who passed. As the officers approached the camera, a recording of dogs barking was triggered.

What they discovered next took them completely by surprise . . .

Huntington stained glass

Mission Heliographique – The Patrimony of Paris in Photos

In 1851, the Commission de Monuments Historiques embarked on an unprecedented survey of the French landscape. Five photographers traveled to the far reaches of France. Their targets would be the buildings that made up the heritage of France – the “architectural patrimony” of the country. It was to be known as a Mission Heliographique, and the photographers returned with plates and prints portraying buildings – many of which no longer exist. Sadly, upon return, their negatives remained largely unpublished for over a century.

Until now.

McDistance

The place in the contiguous United States where you can get farthest away from a McDonald’s is in remote northwestern South Dakota, a visual artist and mapmaker figures.

If you could design a city

There’s an old joke that you know you're in heaven if the cooks are Italian and the engineering is German. If it's the other way around you're in hell. In an attempt to conjure up a perfect city, I imagine a place that is a mash-up of the best qualities of a host of cities. The permutations are endless. Maybe I'd take the nightlife of New York in a setting like Sydney's with bars like those in Barcelona and cuisine from Singapore served in outdoor restaurants like those in Mexico City. Or I could layer the sense of humor in Spain over the civic accommodation and elegance of Kyoto. Of course, it's not really possible to cherry pick like this—mainly because a city's qualities cannot thrive out of context. A place's cuisine and architecture and language are all somehow interwoven. But one can dream.

- More from Gabriel Byrne here.

I am now American and Ladonian

You heard it here first. More information about my new country here.

Join us.

Some of the saddest photos I've ever seen

More photos by James D. Griffieon

This was the building where Detroit's deeply-troubled public school system once stored its supplies, and then one day walked away from it all, allowing everything to go to waste. The interior has been ravaged by fires and the supplies that haven't burned have been subjected to 20 years of Michigan weather. This city's school district is so impoverished that students are not allowed to take their textbooks home to do homework, and many of its administrators are so corrupt that every few months the newspapers report more of their scandals, sweetheart-deals, and expensive trips made at the expense of a population of children who can no longer rely on a public education to help lift them from the cycle of violence and poverty that has made Detroit the most dangerous city in America. To walk through this ruin, more than any other, I think, is to obliquely experience the real tragedy of this city: not some sentimental tragedy of brick and plaster, but one of people.

Where am I? #13

Here

Where am I? #12

Here.

Where am I? #11

here and here




Photos by:
Code Poet & Jon Atkinson

Where am I? #10

Here

Where am I? #9

Here

Where am I? #8

Here