Author: Usry
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Smoke Shop
I wonder if cities would be a lot darker and less visually appealing at night if stores, like this one, with numerous LED signs didn’t exist? From my casual observations, East Bay suburban downtowns, are often dark and empty, and despite aspirations of safety, feel less hospitable.
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LED Moon
Many of the streets in San Leandro are narrow with buildings packed tightly next to each other. People put things where they want and make changes to structures as needed. There is an unplanned organic elegance to the city. Many of the homes have barred windows and police patrol cars are in frequent.
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Tiny Lenses
It can be restful to sit and watch drops of rain running down a window and I have no reason why. Maybe it’s the unpredictability of when the drops will run and the patterns paths they make? Maybe it’s the thousands of little lenses refracting the refracted images of the background? Maybe it’s just a…
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Surveillance
When I was a hyper self-conscious teenager, I wouldn’t dare adjust any part of my clothing in public. Now, half a century later, I couldn’t care less who is looking at me and why. Self-consciousness means something else and feeling embarrassed faded when I became a parent. I also think, sidestepping electronic surveillance, we are…
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Power Lines
Despite all of the visual stimulation we live with in a city, things still catch my eye. This time, it was the red and white power lines, above me, at this traffic light. Power lines are never red and white so I had to stop and look.
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Yellow Wall
I resemble this man and many of the other black men, standing outside of restaurants and stores in the Bay Area, who rely on acts of kindness from strangers to eat. He, and the other man on the other side of the drive-through, are silently hoping for Generosity to motivate someone to share. A man…
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Corrugated Pizza
Corrugated steel will always represent affordable shelter to me. It’s a material that I saw frequently used for the roofs and walls of modest rural homes of in Guyana. My mind traveled back in time, and thousands of miles away when I saw this piece of metal in downtown Oakland. Instead of a roof and…
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Wheelchair & Red Car
With is each revolution of the Earth, I lose a a tiny bit of life. From birth, I was told to believe that morality, and merit would protect me from sickness, exploitation, loneliness, and even death. My mother also told me I had “hard ears”. Sometimes the lack of compliance is a signal of healthy…
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Man with Red Bike
I see a lot of men standing outside of convenience, stores at night as I work. Sometimes they ask for money, other times they ask for food, and sometimes they just seem to be standing there because there’s a light on other people around.
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Freeway Lights
I’m going to miss the rain when summer arrives in the East Bay. How light interacts, refracts and reflects off of mist, is always a wonder to observe. Mist is like sugar in the air; it reduces details but adds sweetness to whatever passes through it.
