Other people’s lives. My Modern Met via This Isn’t Happiness.

Don’t get it twisted.

The artist is Matteo Pericoli. The book is City Out of My Window: 63 Views on New York.  It is a treat.

Also check out Pericoli’s Manhattan Unfurled.

Both are books worth owning.

Couple of weeks ago I walked past an electronics store on my way to work in midtown and saw a sign in the window: Going out of Business. I didn’t pay it any mind because that’s the kind of sign you always see in those store windows. Except then the place closed. And it got me thinking, you don’t see rip-off electronic/camera shops around much anymore, do you?

[Photo Via: Retro New York]

Supposed to rain all day. Sometimes that’s not a bad thing, right?

[Photo Via Tig Tag]

Upstate counts, right? Sure it does.

Well, I’ve never been to Binghamton but I saw this picture by Bruce Wrighton in the New Yorker this week and had to share it. It was taken in 1986 and is featured in a show called “Man Made Color” over at the Lawrence Miller gallery.

I went to the Statue of Liberty once when I was a kid. Was it with school or did my mom take us? Dag, I don’t remember which is reason enough to go again.

[Photo Credit: Juan Pablo Cambariere via This Isn’t Happiness; Gnarly3 via The Absolute Best Photography Posts]

Over at Retronaut, dig NYC circa 1900: In Living Colorization.

My twin sister loved Marilyn when we were growing up. As much as I loved David Bowie or the Stones or Woody or anyone else I ever loved.

Sam had Marilyn posters on her wall, had Marilyn books, and of course, saw all of her movies, or at least the ones we could find on videotape. I remember going with her to a double feature of Gentleman Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire  at the old Regency Theater on 67th Street and Broadway. This must have been in the mid-80s sometime. I pretended not to care about Marilyn or worse, put her down because Sam dug her, but I remember that day, sitting in the balcony watching those two movies and enjoying Marilyn just fine.

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of Monroe’s death.

Through August 24th, check out this show of Herb Ritts’ photographs titled “Women” at the Staley-Wise Gallery in SoHo.

Spencer Tunick’s Everyday Peoples…

[Photo Gallery via The Atlantic]

The Shades of Grey books made their way around my vicinity at work. A co-worker gave the first one to me, said The Wife might like it. What do I know? I took it home. And just like Mikey, she liked it, she liked it! (and in a roundabout way, so did I, Hell-to-the-Yes).

Now, I notice women reading these books on the subway all the time. I smile to myself and fight the urge to say, “Hey, my wife is reading that, too. She loves it. Let’s discuss.”

[Image Via This Isn’t Happiness]

I’ve talked a lot about The Ginger Man, my old man’s bar of cherce when I was a kid. Well, one of the coolest things about that block, 64th Street just off of Broadway, was this:

I found this picture at The Time Machine, a cool, though defunct site by Neil J. Murphy. Worth poking around.

Thanks to the consistently stellar Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York for the tip.

Man, oh, man.

Via Laughing Squid.

Sometimes I’d just rather be at the MET. Hanging out here.

Or maybe looking at this:

[Photo Credit: Retro New York]

There used to be a cop that stood on the corner of 103rd Street and West End Avenue when I was a kid. Early 1970s. His name was Wallace. He had a nightstick. We stopped and said hello to him every time we saw him. He always had a smile and it never dawned on me that cops were just cops, men without names, because of Wallace.

[Photo Credit: Dick Leonhardt]

Baseball and the city via Ephemeral New York.

[Photo Credit: New York Times]

Over at Capital New York, check out this documentary about the final days of Bleecker Bob’s.

Sigh.

Rain Pryor and Kelly Carlin talk about comedy and growing up funny.

[Photo Credit: Kelly Carlin]

Last night I sat in a barber’s chair in the Bronx. The rain had stopped. There was one customer in the place, the sound of an electric razor buzzing filled the room. So did the voice of one of the barbers. He sat in his chair, feet propped and talked into his cell phone.

My barber smiled and looked at me in the mirror. Maybe he thought I understood Spanish better than I do but I didn’t need to know what was being said to understand he was arguing with a woman.

“His girlfriend?” I said?

“Maybe,” my barber said. “Maybe her boyfriend.”

We both grinned.

While the buzzing and the arguing continued to the right of me, I heard Vin Scully’s voice coming from the television set to the left of me. The Dodgers and Phillies were in extra innings and the game was on the MLB Network. Vin sounded tired. So did the crowd. I remembered The Simpsons episode when Homer goes to a game and doesn’t drink: “I never knew baseball was so boring.”

But it was boring in a soothing way. Soon, the buzzing stopped and so did the arguing. The room felt still in that heightened way of quiet that occurs sometimes just before you fall into a deep sleep. The only sound was Vin’s voice. I felt calm and happy.

[Photo Credit: Flick River]