Innocent Bystander

The Story Behind the Banner (#7)...

We spared no expense to bring you today's new banner. In honor of the upcoming release of The Avengers...excuse me that's MARVEL'S The Avengers, like it's Disney's A Christmas Carol or Disney's The Bible (they taught them well once they bought them), we've commissioned a leading special effects (or as they say in the Industry, "SFX") to bring us this startling image from the film, which debuts in the US this Friday, May 4.

You may not see this actual image in the film, but trust me...it's just one of thousands of "SFX" shots that cost millions of dollars. We are pleased to give you this first look at this blockbuster film.

The Story Behind the Banner (#6)...

I know, I know...I have been neglecting both you, dear reader, and this blog for a while now. I had a very busy work-filled March, and now I blink and it's April--Easter Sunday to be exact, for all you chocolate egg and bunny eaters or good Christians--and I'm looking down the gun barrel of another busy period, culminating in that giant event in mid-July that seems to have become a matter of life and death for some people.

But here's a new banner. Today's photo was taken over on Coronado "Island," just west of downtown San Diego...in fact, as far west as you can go and still be in San Diego County, minus any geographical protuberances up or down the coast. This is right behind the fabled Hotel del Coronado. I sometimes think there's nothing lonelier than an empty lifeguard station on a deserted beach. Who will save us when the time comes?

That seems an appropriate sentiment for Easter, don't you think?

Here's the original photo...as you can probably tell the banner is a bit compressed to fit the format. My apology to the photographer (ME), who is probably pitching a fit right now. (Yes. I am.)

The Story Behind the Banner (#5)...

It's been a while since I've changed the banner on this site, something--in the flush of enthusiasm of "re-creating" this thing--I promised to do every week. It then became every other week...now it seems to be once a month. And let's face it, that heart thing above is soooo Feb. 14th. Time for a change.

This time we bring you another shot from San Francisco, just up Market Street when the neighborhood starts to become a little seedy. I love old movie theaters, but it's always sad to see them like this, decrepit and unused. Like a lot of theaters, the Strand sunk into porno oblivion, only to be finally shuttered in 2003. It's sat like this ever since, almost a decade. You can read more about the history of the theater by clicking here.

Me? Well, I like this photo a lot, specifically the color juxtaposition and the "intrusion" of nature with the trees popping in on both sides. The whole look of the theater is one of reckless abandon and the fact that the tree is working it's way in makes it seem like nature is claiming back this part of the city as its own. But then again, maybe I'm just overthinking the decline of aging theater.

The Story Behind the Banner (#4): I Left My Heart...

Lo and behold I plumb forgot I was changing out these banners every two weeks. I guess from now on it's "every two weeks or so."

This week's banner image comes from one of my favorite cities in the country: San Francisco. This heart graces one of the entrances to the city's fabled Union Square. This one is at Stockton and Geary; there's another heart at the other entrance at the corner of Powell and Post. The hearts are part of a charity fundraiser, called Hearts of San Francisco, which began in 2004. The hearts themselves are all created from uniform molds and then painted by individual artists and auctioned. New hearts are placed there every year. (This heart, in fact, may be gone, replaced by another at this point.)

For the life of me, I just can't seem to figure out why I thought this would be the perfect banner for the week of February 12...I guess I'm just getting old. Here's the original photo from which today's banner was taken.

 

The story behind the banner (#3)...

The story behind our new banner today is really very simple: It's the view outside my window.

I've lived in this building since 1998, when I first moved to San Diego. In the 13+ years I've lived here, I've lived in three different apartments. This one has slowly become my favorite. I'm kinda living the dream here. When I was younger my ambition for a home was an urban apartment with floor-to-ceiling windows and a wall full of books. Oh, and a movie collection would be nice, too. But in those days a movie collection meant a 16mm projector, a screen, and of course, prints of your favorite movies. Not very accessible.

I'm happy to say all that changed, partially due to technology (the movie part), and mainly due to having a decent job and finding a city to fall in love with. (And yes, I have the windows and the books, too.) Don't get me wrong...I've loved everywhere I've lived, from my hometown to Pittsburgh, but San Diego is really special. If you've ever been here, you know. The weather, the natural beauty of the place--including a bay and access to the largest body of water on the planet--all combine to make it a paradise.

But paradise is what you make it, whether it be a coal-mining town in eastern Pennsylvania or one of the last outposts on the West Coast before you hit a foreign country. I've dug in and carved out my own little corner of paradise here. This apartment is a large part of that. And although there are days when even paradise comes up short, all-in-all I know how damn lucky I am to be here.

The story behind the banner (#2)...

This week's banner features two things I dearly love: books and New York City.

I could not live without books. If someone--the president, God, a bankruptcy attorney--told me I had to cut spending and could buy only one "luxury" item per week, it would be a book. I've always loved books, ever since my first library book (Danny and the Dinosaur by Syd Hoff) as a kid. Over the past few years, my book love has grown even more. I'm not sure why, other than the fact that it's wonderful to escape into someone else's mind once for a few hours.

And then there's The Strand bookstore in New York, where this photo was taken. It's one of their outdoor carts, propped up against a wall, filled with books no one seems to want. I'm sure they restock them regularly, since one man's discarded book is another man's treasured read. The Strand is one of those "bring a lunch" bookstores, where you'll want to explore and camp out for a day or so. (Actually, don't bring a lunch...there's no food or drink allowed. It's a figure of speech, dammit, calculated to give you a sense of how much this store has to offer.) The store also embodies my deep love for bookstores, a dying destination in this Internet-oriented world, unfortunately.

You'll see another banner made from this photo at some point in time during the coming months. It's just a photo that lends itself to the banner format multiple times.

The story behind the banner (#1)...

That banner up top there? That's a photo by me. And each week (hopefully) I will be replacing it with a new banner based on a photo of mine, and running the complete photo here, with the story behind it. I know...this is kind of ambitious for someone who was whining the last few months about ending the blog, but what can I say? I mean besides the fact that I'm a Gemini...let's just look at it as the new version of "Friday Foto," but on Sunday. Okay?

That's the Nuart Theater in Los Angeles, on Santa Monica Blvd., just a stone's throw from the 405. This photo is of a more recent vintage, but the theater hasn't changed much, other than a paint job, some marquee repairs, and maybe the psychic is no longer there. I picked this photo in particular to start off my "new" blog and the banner feature because of the title of the film on the marquee. I really thought I'd be killing this blog on Dec. 31...all of this is very "unforeseen" for me.

The first time I photographed the Nuart was on my first-ever trip to the West Coast, in 1991. I was driving around Los Angeles on surface streets (the freeways terrified this kid from Pennsylvania, where a "big" road was 2 lanes in each direction) and stumbled across it. I came back just at dusk and snapped the photo below. I've never been inside the theater, but I love the outside neon on the marquee, the sunburst pavement below, and just the general feel and color of the place. Next door is a video store, around the corner, tucked away on a side street (Idaho Ave.) in what appears to be a little old house is a funky bookstore called Sideshow Rare Books, Art & Curiosities. In essence, this neck of the woods seems like a time portal in West L.A., able to take you back to an era when movie theaters existed in neighborhoods and had just one screen, paperbacks were fifty cents (and not collectibles) and a night at the movies was something really special. Both these photos have a certain "stardust" quality to me...something gone but not forgotten, longed for but rarely found. But maybe it's just me.