More Breuer

Negative space as an architectural element. Canon EOS Rebel 2000 with Ilford Pan-F.

Thrift Store Camera

Winter in Cleveland necessarily drives this photographer indoors. Polaroid Impulse with color 600 film. Richmond Town Center mall.

Cell Phone

Canon EOS Rebel 2000. Note doll-like phoner in lower right.

Photogenic

Did Marcel Breuer know how marvelous his Ameritrust Tower would look through a telephoto lens in the late afternoon sun?

Little pocket digital (Canon PowerShot A510).

Why we love the thrift store

Because it's where you find the "Mao Zedong - Man, Not God" deck of playing cards, of course.


Just $2 for the "inside story of China's dynamic leader and world statesman." Elsewhere on the box there is the injunction "NOT PLAYING CARDS," but who could resist the urge to combine learning about the Chinese revolution with a few exciting rounds of whist?


We also got a nice set of Greek ceramic coasters, flocked on the back. The flocking was moulting right off, so they got scrub-brushed in the kitchen sink.

There were also a number of books from the "five for a dollar" table: Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, purchased originally in Canada from the York University Bookstore (according to the old price sticker), Visions of Cody by Jack Kerouac, Dashiell Hammett: A Casebook by William F. Nolan, with an inscription on the flyleaf: "B--- H---, Gates Mills, Ohio, 1969 - Early Fall (J. C.)"; and a nice hardback edition of A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle.


A special note of thanks to the person who has been donating like-new Levi's 505's in exactly my size (31W, 32L) to this particular thrift store.

Look Up

West 25th Street, Cleveland. Little pocket digital (Canon PowerShot A510), through a slightly dirty car window.

Meanwhile, over in Tremont

The Olney Art Gallery still stands in surprisingly good condition. Yes, I know, there's a tree in the middle of it. Color me compositionally perverse.


The only public art gallery in Cleveland until the opening of the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1913.


Subsequently used as a hall for various ethnic organizations. Now boarded up and, presumably, empty. Still, it looks eminently ready for rehabilitation in some form or another.

Breuer in Context

Marcel Breuer's Ameritrust Tower as part of Cleveland's urban landscape. More than just an example of architecture will be lost if it comes down. Canon EOS Rebel 2000, with Ilford Pan-F (ISO 50).


From an alleyway that runs perpendicular to East 9th Street. Canon AF35ML.

Sugar Train

Sidetracked at the Pierre's Ice Cream Plant on Carnegie Ave.

Breuer

They say it might not come down after all. I don't buy it. Cleveland's Neronic tendencies are too well established to make that entirely believable. Read more here, and follow the many links in the text. A much more tangled tale of venality and hubris becomes evident.

Taken with a pocket-sized digital point-and-shoot, a Canon PowerShot A510 with a mere 3.2mp.

Decals

East 40th St., north of St. Clair Avenue.

Breakfast at Shay's

The interior's been recently painted and the heavy vinyl tablecloths are gone but the breakfast vibe at Shay's is still the best in the world. Be prepared for your order to come out nuclear hot from the kitchen in about five minutes.


A few years ago, Shay's made a brief appearance in the movie American Splendor, an indie film-fest product that told the non-story of Cleveland author Harvey Pekar. It's a tribute to the restaurant's indomitable character that it remained wholly unaffected by its moment of celluloid fame. Shay's is at East 40th and St. Clair. It's open for breakfast and lunch, closes at 2 pm. I tend to favor the He-Man Breakfast.

Holga Survivors

Cancer Survivors' Plaza, University Circle, Cleveland. Some people don't like this bizarre installation. I'm not one of them.

Holga 120, Ilford XP2 400.

Thrift Store Camera

Tiny Bell and Howell plastic camera 28mm focus-free lens. You find them in thrift stores everywhere, for a dollar, if that much. Smaller than a pack of cigarettes.

Beachwood City Park West. Ingenious and hugely successful re-use of fallow land between Shaker Boulevard's eastbound and westbound lanes. Formerly reserved for extension of rapid transit tracks.