The Winds of War – Freedom x 4 (New York, USA)
To the west, lay a somehow insignificant cityscape: the stacked steel and glass profile of a floating Manhattan. We’re among 7700 tonnes of precision-cut gleaming white stone taken from 12,100 tonnes of quarried granite: an architect’s melding of modern imagination...
Towers, Castles and Kane – the lord of all things (New York, USA)
It’s Citizen Kane that brings me here, just south of Columbus Circle; to a castle of a place built in 1928 for William Randolph Hearst’s publishing empire. Hearst was a powerful man – with a thing about castles it seems – his newspapers read by 1 in 4 Americans and at...
Fabled Gates – Aesop in the big Apple (New York, USA)
A small green plaque reads `Ancient Playground’, the entrance a pair of black cast-bronze gates set between tall rectangular pillars of polished pink granite; topped by bears on the left – one upright – three deer on the other. The pillars are engraved in gold...
The Beat Goes On – pure poetry (New York, USA)
It's New Year’s Day, and Joe Strummer – poet of the streets – looks down from a giant mural facing Tompkins Park. From here I walk west with my girlfriend towards St Marks church-in-the-Bowery, past webs of winding fire escapes; hands deep in our pockets, wrapped...
Happy New Year Frank – a friend indeed (New York, USA)
A guy has fallen on hard times, huddled under gentrified tenement stairs; on one side his clapped-out shopping trolley bound by trash bins and black cast iron pickets. The stairs span from streetside pavement up to an ornate doorway, moulded guardian face glowering...
Longing and Leftovers – the final reckoning (Farmington, USA)
We fly from Melbourne to New York, continuing on to Pittsburgh. We're in this part of the country to see the `best example of American architecture', the iconic creation of Frank Lloyd Wright. The hire car attendant is astounded anyone would travel this far, handing...
A Bhutan Christmas – an ode to Sandy Hook
Sometimes I sit and think, pondering the luxury of an unquestionable faith in something; to know that innocent kids killed in a pre-Christmas tragedy will somehow find a better place. From a cathedral of sticks I gaze across at the towering neo-Gothic spires of St...
Black Top Road – of Piedmont Blues
Upright sleeves of vinyl records – Mayall, Joplin and Bloomfield – sit above a dishevelled shelf of seventy assorted blues CDs, and these days an under-used turntable. I read the CD titles from left to right, tucking in a Broonzy and dusting off a Burnside. I grab...
The Ghost Dance – mixing memories
"I have sent for you and I am glad to see you. I am going to talk to you after awhile about your relatives who are dead and gone.’" – Wovoka, Paiute American Indian prophet From Pierre I catch the first available flight to Los...