Lampposts #6

[Capitol Hill, Saint Paul.]

[Saint Paul cathedral. Note the different globe style in the background.]

[State capitol grounds.]

[Location forgotten.]

[Salem, MA.]

[Medford, MA.]

[South Saint Paul.]

[Newport.]

[Saint Anthony Park, Saint Paul.]

Why Lampposts?

[Different shades of green on Saint Paul lampposts, c. 2004.]

The first time I got my hands on a digital camera  was back in 2004.  My sister, an early adopter, was visiting home and had brought one with her. “Hey, let me borrow that,” I demanded in a typical older brother move, and for the next two days I found myself taking pictures of lampposts.

I don’t quite know why. I’d been intrigued by lampposts ever since I’d worked as a accounts receivable drone at a small film company in Hell’s Kitchen. Wandering over lunch hour, I found myself drawn to a particular lamppost in the Southwest corner of Central Park. I’d sit with my sandwich and sketch its curves. Central Park lampposts resemble a Venn diagram in black iron, a pattern like waves. The quietude of the lamppost, surrounded by trees surrounded by skyscrapers, was one of those closely guarded city secrets, an island of privacy in an ocean of people.

Returning to Saint Paul, the paint caught my eye. The city has a distinct style of lamppost, an old fashioned stamp, but the varieties of paint were a constantly surprise. Occasionally yellow, often faded olive green, a block or two of robin’s egg blue, drab grey or solid black, there seemed to be no real pattern to how the city’s lampposts were painted. Who was responsible for this subtle madness? What city crew repainted the posts, and did they simply use leftovers from the Public Works supply stores?

[Some of the many lampposts of Minneapolis.]

Saint Paul’s rainbow of lampposts were one of those urban curiosities too marginal for most eyes, but once you began to notice them, the lampposts carried you forward like clues in a detective story. (Central Park's lampposts, in fact, are embedded with a secret code.) I like noticing the details and differences, the way that the globes twin themselves along Grand Avenue, or the subtle period transmutations in the city’s historic districts. When you stop and notice, the variety of city lampposts presents a bewildering euphoria. Minneapolis has a few distinct styles, everything from faux-Gothic posts like the crown of a evil Disney queen to odd concrete assemblages that remind me of a handmade grotto to the ultra-modernist globes shedding light on the University campus.

Why lampposts?

They surround us, the most ubiquitous sidewalk ornament, practical architecture. So look at lampposts as they light the way. Even when they don’t, they can cast beautiful shadows.

[See also: Why Sidewalk Closed Signs?]

[A beautiful forest lamppost on Portland's Mount Tabor.]

Sidewalk Dogs #13

[Saint Paul. Taken by a friend.]

Booklets Now Available Exclusively at Boneshaker Books

[A tandem boneshaker. Note the cobblestone street.]

I'm happy to report that you can now purchase guide booklets, written by me, at an actual bricks-and-mortar bookstore. Boneshaker Books in Minneapolis' Seward neighborhood reminds me most of the awesome bookstore I happened across in Milwaukee's River West neighborhood, also an explicitly political place that relies on volunteers and community engagement as a foundation for their "business." For years, Boneshaker been the go-to place for radical books, unconventional politics, and self-published bits and pieces of printed matter. I couldn't be happier to have my weird little booklets on their shelves.

It also doesn't hurt that Boneshaker are named after early bicycles. The term "boneshaker" was slang for the "ordinary" or "pennyfarthing" bicycle, those early crazy-looking fixed-pedal bikes with the giant front wheel. The term comes from the undoubtedly jarring feeling that accompanied riding a bicycle on early cobblestone or brick streets. (If you want to relieve this experience, ride your bike along the one block of blocky old cobbles on the Northeast side of the Stone Arch Bridge. It feels like being on one of those 80s-era coin-operated motel massage beds )

I'm quite proud of these booklets, which are also available online. They're all based on tours I've done over the years. Each is full of occasionally accurate speculation and sporadically factual anecdata. Right now there are only two of them available -- Noteworthy Dive Bars of South Minneapolis and Noteworthy Dive Bars of the Midway -- but I will rectify this shortcoming as soon as possible. In the meantime, feel free to stop by Boneshaker Books browse my booklets or any of the other amazing literature they have for your perusal. They are open daily from 11am to 8pm, just off Franklin Avenue next to the little coffee shop, a block down from idyllic Milwaukee Avenue.

Please note: there is no dedicated parking available. Walk, ride your bike, or park on the street like a real urban adult.

[You don't have to be mad about dive bars.]

*** 25 Weekend Sidewalk Links! ***

Sidewalk Rating: Impending

Gros’s larger theory of walking, abstracted from all the abstractions, is that there are three essential kinds. There is the root case of contemplative walking (what you do to clear your head). There is “cynical” walking (the term referring to the Cynics of ancient Greece, homeless hippies who scorned conventions, customs, clothes). And then there is the composite contemplative-cynic, the modern city walker (what is often called the “flâneur”). Gros’s thesis is that the three kinds, developed over time, can now coexist, although, no surprise, the commodifications of capitalism make that coexistence hard.

[Adam Gopnik.]

[Crex Meadows, Wisconsin, during the sandhill crane migration.]

*** CLIK ON THE IMAGES FOR LINKS TO STUFF ***

 

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Perhaps that’s redundant. The tragedy of the leaf blower is that it makes assholes of us all, users and neighbors alike.

[this.]

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Free public transport is not the no-brainer everyone might initially think it to be. “The idea still faces political opposition and visitors who use public transport are less satisfied with having to pay more for it than locals.” But in the case of Tallinn it is almost exclusively used by residents, not tourists – who rely on private buses, taxis and most recently Uber.

[this.]

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