An idea for a zine from America

I caught a train from Worcester to Boston, then another from Boston to Philadelphia that went via New York. I am thinking of putting together a zine called Photos from trains across America. I am catching trains to Richmond, to Washington, then Chicago and finally to New York City. I’ll see if I remember to do it when I get back to Australia. For now here are some of the images I have taken and really liked.

This looks a very lonely house, I wonder if anyone uses this house, this area looks like it would flood.

Empty train stations that appear to be in the middle of nowhere. Who uses this one? Do they go to work or school? What do they like to eat and do they eat it on the train? Did the person who rode the bike parked in this photo get on the train alone with something they like to eat?

On most of the train crossings I have seen there are no barricades. That worries me. In Philadelphia I saw a footpath to a train line. The footpath just started in an empty lot and led straight to an open train line. There was no path on the other side of the train line. Nor anything at the train line that would indicate the utility of the path.

Industrial landscapes are my favourite. I was discussing with a stranger that I would be walking across the north of Spain. The person said go to the coast and walk because there are beaches and water, and it is nicer than the run-down industry of Spain. I am looking forward to run-down industry and landscapes that people have built over generations of work and ideas, even failed or completed ideas. The above photo was taken while entering New York City.

This photo makes me wish people hadn’t parked their cars in it.

I like all the boxes you see around train yards. I imagine each is integral to the functioning of the yard.

Beside the door is written Staten Island, and some words I could not read. I figure this may be the train to Staten Island.

Boston, MA, 19 April

I’m sitting in a diner having eaten ham and eggs where an abusive teddy bear was filmed with Marky Mark. 

On the fast walk here a phalanx of twelve cops on motorbikes had glided down the one-way street, the area was otherwise empty of people, just bags of uncollected garbage everywhere and me paranoid about wearing a backpack, but I figure it’s a New Zealand backpack so I’m safe. My phone hasn't worked properly since late last night. 

The diner is full of people seated at a long counter and five small tables. As I’d walked in the Bostonian cook joked Kim Jong-un must be upset because North Korea is no longer on the front pages. I really wanted to find the internet here. 

Yesterday I saw the occasional duo of black vehicles, each pair was an SUV followed by a short black truck with discrete three-pronged antenna on the roof— the last pair I’d seen had the driver of the SUV so pissed with traffic that he drove up the gutter and followed by the truck went along the sidewalk of Colombus Avenue (it was like watching a movie). A Bostonian heading outside says “I’m not gunnah find ah bus, am I?” he’s hopping on crutches “I don’t wannah waste money on ah cab.” 

The diner isn't playing any news. I’d read a headline this morning of one dead police officer and one dead suspect. At my table is a guy who has just finished eating. He tells me with his English accent that a cop was ambushed and killed, three other cops have died. That a guy is on the run, they’d like to take him alive, “but you don’t kill children or cops and it’s hard to hit people in the leg.” I think about the people posting conspiracy theories and passing on photos from sites claiming to “think”, some people’ll believe anything the internet tells them. 

A French couple at the counter ask the cook if he thinks the Freedom Trail tours will be on, he says he doesn't think so. I remember yesterday as I turned a corner in the Central Business District of Boston that I’d run into a SWAT team of ten standing at the back of their armoured car, of single officers with suppressor equipped assault weapons standing on all the street corners, of the unarmed Marines walking everywhere, and of possies of transit cops armed with handguns and staring at commuters. 

And despite all this it really is beautiful outside in Boston today, hopefully this will be over soon.

The view from Boston, MA

I’ve been in the United States for over a week now and have managed to visit a number of museums and galleries in Fort Worth, Texas— including the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth where I saw this work. 

I walked all around Fort Worth, despite being told you can't walk all around Fort Worth. 

And camped for four days at the Texas Motor Speedway where I watched two NASCAR races and a number of qualifying and practice circuits by both Sprint Cup and Nationwide cars. There I had pork and beans cooked for me on a camp-fire by a Texan oil-man (like we were cowboys) while his construction-worker nephew gave me crap for having been to University not jail.

But before I get too far into this trip covering the United States, United Kingdom and Spain, I want to cover off on two things I was involved in prior to flying out.

First, a while back Canberra's Pilcrow Press put out a call for submissions to their new journal Prowlings, with the requirement that submissions be short. I sent two pieces, the first is in their inaugural issue that you can download free here.

 

I am pretty happy about being in this journal, my favourite piece in there is by M. Quinn. And don't confuse this Pilcrow Press with the one publishing literature justifying violence.

Second, while taking part in the YouAreHere 2013 festival I spoke with Luke McGrath regarding an idea for recording my first video poem. It involved fusing a performance of Bruce Schneier cracks lamb leg with the band Fuzzsucker in the back seat of the car where Canberra’s Slimer Sessions have been recorded. The Slimer Sessions are recorded for Canberra’s LocalnLive music organisation. Luke and Fuzzsucker agreed and this piece is the result.

This is my first effort at filming a poem, and with Luke’s skills and the charisma of Fuzzsucker I think we pulled off something worthwhile.

Well I am now in Boston, I have tickets to Fenway Park for a baseball game to get my yank on, to the Boston Comicon to get my geek on, and to Kevin Smith’s Groovy Movie because I am a member of Gen X and when he makes Clerks III I am going to watch it and you will not understand.