13th St., Sept. 21

Walking down 13th Street today Brooklyn became a southern place, a quiet street in New Orleans before Katrina. I don't know why this was, a quality of the heat that wasn't oppressive, and the quietness. It felt like a scene from a Bruno Schultz novel. No cars passed, and suddenly I could hear the sound of the air conditioners, standing in for the hum of nature you might hear elsewhere. It was deserted in such a soft friendly way, I can't explain why it didn't feel desolate. Maybe it was the happiness of all the thriving plants on that street, or the locust trees, their branches drooping with swollen glossy pods.

A block later I saw a man sleeping or meditating in his jazzy black and white sports car, don't ask me what kind, I don't know from cars. The door was hanging wide open. Given what I've already been thinking about regarding 13th street, this seemed especially compelling. It didn't occur to me to try to get in his car and curl up in the back seat at the time, or maybe I'd have paused for a minute before deciding that was a bad idea. The sleeper seemed so vulnerable and peaceful at the same time. Free and fearless. And very comfortable. He never knew I took a picture of him, but I didn't get the sense he cared much about his privacy. Is it mean to publish it? Well, at least I blurred his face in photoshop, make no mistake, his features were well articulated. But in that liminal space he found within his parked car, if he was lucky, he was peacefully dissolving. Right there in the street. Terrifying.