The Quietest Place

Is up in the sky.

Is in between the canyons.

Is in a place out of time.

Like how you use to imagine the neighborhood houses talked to each other, only now you understand that they are not actually talking, but communicating on the level that only rocks understand. Flighty chatter from the fast moving glass. Low infrequent murmurs from the concrete. Superiority complexes from the quarried quarters.

Downtown was empty when I took these, their cars sitting like dead weight on the streets while they stuffed themselves in the stadium for a football game. I had to pay to park, which made it even more apocalyptic. But I wandered around alone and perfectly happy for an hour, looking at all the pretty colors and shiny windows.

I was taking this shot when the game started to let out, and like lake monsters, they crawled onto dry land and invaded the city. All oranges and brown gimmicks. I thought it was kinda cute as I saw them swarming towards me, very, you know, game day. I can't get into crowd sports. But I can understand the appeal, the festivity and military brotherhood of it. Getting drunk and cheering for stuff is good! But then the wave hit, and I became a barrier to them. It started with sullen petulant looks, distaste that I would just be standing there on the sidewalk taking pictures, of what? Buildings? Some guy, as I was trying to frame this, actually said to me "there's no point in taking a picture of that, they should just knock it down." Are you fucking serious?

Every time I stopped, I could hear people in the crowd talking about me. "What is she doing?" "Why would anyone do that?" "No, stay away from her, I don't know what she's doing." I was floored. Fine, so you don't wander around Cleveland thinking how pretty it is. But are you so barren that you can't even comprehend why someone else might take a picture of it? You just come down here for games, complain about the walk, stare at the sidewalks and girls' tits at packed bars, then clog up the highways with your fucking Hummers and Lexus (oh my god, when I left, every goddamn car I got stuck behind was a Lexus crossover, and none of them knew how to merge) and at not a single point do you look up or around and have any ghost of appreciation for the monuments around you? I cannot even comprehend how someone like that functions on a day to day basis, and frankly, it's so ugly a thought I don't even want to. That's not a person. That's a thing. That's a cog.

Maybe people only exist to build things and then they should disappear into the ground, and let the rocks talk to themselves. But it doesn't matter. A couple of asshole Browns fans can't stop things from being beautiful and scary. Did you know the BP building is a tiger shark? It's true.



more photos here.