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.

Invading the Wasteland: The Hugo Boss building

This is what I've been affectionately calling the Read More building. When I was a little girl, this used to be the Hugo Boss factory. We would drive past on the way home from church or school, and I wanted to live there. That is until anything resembling industry fled the Near West Side for Brookpark. Afterwards, some development company was trying to make condos out of it, and you can see how that turned out by the state of their torn apart by jackals sign. For years now it's been sitting empty, windows cracked out and graffiti growing faster than mold. This is where those people you see begging for change on the 41st/44th St exits probably live. I am a little jealous. No, I know, it's sad. But still, maybe just a little....

So J and I took a trip. I've tried to provide a taste of our experience here. Just go roll around in the dirt and get drunk on mojitos beforehand, for the full experience. And later, bite yourself in several small spots, to simulate the invisible insect bites you will not remember getting later.

Below is the first spot I wanted to try breaking in. Thank god J. promptly wisely patiently nixed that idea, because even if we hadn't disturbed some poor drunken psychotic, we would have entered in the basement. You'll see why that would have been a immensely horrible idea later.


So we walked around the sunny, very non-threatening outside until we found a nice hole in the wall that someone had very thoughtfully punched through. Which made it technically not breaking and entering, just entering.

At first, we were in a staircase, and every doorway was sunny and well decorated. Well decorated in lot of things designed to make us scared. Fuck that shit. I can draw on walls too, and also? I can spell.

Where we entered was actually the 2nd floor, which was nice sunny warehouse. See people used to have jobs here. Jobs that involved strange suspicious wires hanging from the ceiling. Ostensibly for garment bags maybe? Maybe. It's strange to think this building has only been abandoned for what? 20 years?


3rd floor: slightly darker, but still open. This would be the drug use with friends/raping dates room. This is where Jenny McKinney cut her boyfriend's older brother when he tried to take off her shirt, even though he'd already paid for it.

Then the 4th floor, which I dubbed the happy plant growing, gang initiating, campfires, slightly soggy floor room. I like the blue. It makes it seem like there should be community center dance-offs here. Only they would fall through the floor.

Finally the roof. Obviously the site of a violent standoff between the forces of good and evil.

I'm not sure if the skull means evil won or lost.

J. suggested we go down the staircase on the other side of the building. The one covered with ivy. Which meant it was much darker. Definitely the ambush staircase.

Which took us down to the actual first floor. The Abestos Floor. Where people go to hide.

And...the basement.
This is one area J had to take me by the hand and lead me in like a fucking mute sacrifice. The floor was pitted with canals, and pipes and large completely brilliantly black alleyways between gigantic machinery. I'm not sure if flashlights would have made this more or less scary. But it was mechanical monster cool. Maybe the dye works? Probably just the furnace.

That may or may not be a dead dog in the corner, or a plastic bag. It was hard to tell since all this light was coming from the camera flash. I don't know, sort of looks like some species of giant black beetle, doesn't it?

Here is J giving himself tetanus by climbing a rusty ladder to the rusty trap door that was filled with flesh eating spiders or murderous mutant rats, or treasure. I could not get a clear shot because I could hear the zombie dogs coming. I am not sure if he is giving himself a victory shout or maybe trying to shake a spider off his sleeve before it implants eggs in his forearm.

And thankfully gratefully, a little regretfully we made it back out to the now very welcoming, sunny, beautiful, childlike stairway. Even the PBR cans took on a new shade of innocence. The shotgun shell J picked up to give me as a souvenir seemed like a lucky penny, or at least a powerful potential totem object/cat toy/ evidence.



Lots more harrowing tales can be found here. Or just more pictures of things that may or may not be dead. That is a metaphor.