Author: Usry

  • Looking up in Oakland, March 31, 2025

    Looking up at the buildings near the corner of Telegraph and Broadway in Oakland. The rotunda inside of Frank Ogawa building in downtown Oakland.

  • March 27, 2025

    A “tent” home next to gas meters outside of an apartment building on College Avenue in Berkeley. Wet roads, windows and lights.

  • March 26, 2025

    Looking in the mirror near Sunshine Smoke Shop. Waiting next to Sunshine Smoke Shop in Berkeley, CA. I rarely ever truly wait without doing anything. So while I wait for orders, I draw, take pictures, record sound or journal. A tree without green leaves on university Avenue in Berkeley in front of Goodwill.

  • March 24, 2025, Oakland, CA

    March 24, 2025, Oakland, CA

    I wondered if is daycare in downtown Oakland had any kids today. All the curtains were drawn and it was dark and quiet. Across the street, I picked up food from Blue Nile Ethiopian to be delivered to someone 10 miles away in San Leandro.  I didn’t notice the straight edge of the tree on…

  • Home Down Under

    Home Down Under

    If global financial theocracy continues their current level of domination, I feel these accommodations are manifest destiny for all but the rich. It makes me want to be rich but I fear that upon stepping over the golden threshold in to the domain of the endowed, I will lose all my empathy. Empathy is the…

  • Gas Prices

    Gas Prices

    Sometimes it seems as if life is run on two molecules; methanol to fuel or cars and ethanol to shut off brain cells. Both however, can have deleterious effects when used in excess. These days, I’m very careful when using either on to alter the state of my life. 

  • Backboard

    Backboard

    I try not to cling too tightly to illuminations from my past because they often lack details and context, and I’m not done seeing yet. The pigment in my eyes is graying with age but I don’t want my insights to grow old. Backlit subjects can always benefit from a bit of light in the…

  • Glowing Tree

    Glowing Tree

    This tree caught my eye because the branches glowed and tree branches only glow in stories. Before a certain age my imagination was off limits because there were no magical glowing trees or benevolent tricksters. It’s fertile ground now and I intend to spend the rest of my existence growing as many things there as…

  • Crown of Lights

    Crown of Lights

    For someone who doesn’t enjoy shopping, I derive a decent amount of pleasure from shopping for groceries for others. I tend to harbor very low expectations which can be easily satisfied when met. 

  • Light in the Tunnel

    Light in the Tunnel

    When it’s dark outside, the light is in the tunnel instead of at the end. Someone, because of my preference for sad music, called me a sad sack while I was 18 working at a liquor store in New Jersey. Even though they were using the term incorrectly, I knew what they meant. I was…