WATCH THIS SPACE

 I’ve been a bad blogger the last few years, but look, I’ve been very busy. At least I shared photos! But then I was heartbroken to discover that somehow this little blog has become unlinked from the Instagram account I was using to update it. That’s why my last several years of posts are all just ghost posts now. I’m trying to figure out how to fix it, but I am a bad blogger, not a web-internaught, so - you know - this process is going to be terrible.

In the meantime, just know to watch this space, because we’re living through a pandemic and possibly the last democratic election America will ever get to have. It seems like someone should be writing about all this shit as it happens. And not on your social media, which is so ephemeral and combative that it doesn’t even ever feel like anything but anger bubblegum. 

In the weeks and months to come, I’ll be here. I’m not promising to be helpful or useful or enlightening or - let’s be honest - even interesting, but I’ll be here. And maybe I’ll even figure out where the hell all my pictures went. It’s like my past has disappeared. I’m basically the boringest version of Jason Bourne.

Watch this space.

P.S. Have you listened to Fiona Apple’s latest album. You outta.

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On Instagram (Again).

I have posted this before, but it has been on my mind alot lately because I am working on a project that I think will end up being part photobook and part fictional narrative. I’m imagining something is like a coffee table book of photography that is filled with lies. In my head it is the kind of cool little book you would buy at Urban Outfitters, but - you know - good.

Anyway, this is what I posted before:

On Instagram.

I’m not suggesting that you actually read this article by Neil Shea, as it is like 5,000 words too long, but it does contain this paragraph, which I quite like:

I came to understand the Instagram experience, with its constant flow of images and text boxes, presented an alternative story geometry that demanded from me new things. Shorter stories, sure, but also the app asks for a deeper consideration of photographs and the rich, nuanced ways that words and pictures work together. Over time I realized that beneath the selfie surface, Instagram provided a powerful, unexpected, and mostly underutilized storytelling tool.

On Instagram.

I’m not suggesting that you actually read this article by Neil Shea, as it is like 5,000 words too long, but it does contain this paragraph, which I quite like:

I came to understand the Instagram experience, with its constant flow of images and text boxes, presented an alternative story geometry that demanded from me new things. Shorter stories, sure, but also the app asks for a deeper consideration of photographs and the rich, nuanced ways that words and pictures work together. Over time I realized that beneath the selfie surface, Instagram provided a powerful, unexpected, and mostly underutilized storytelling tool.

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Grandiose!

I think I just figured out how to post TWO pictures at once! (It turns out you just click the button again.) So now I am basically the master of all the Internet! Or is that too grandiose a statement?

Anyway, here is a wall I saw earlier that I think kind of looks like a face.

This is a weird yellow hill I found last month when I got lost on the way to a wedding somewhere outside of Filmore.

I'm a genius!

I have been trying to figure out an easy way to link my Instagram account to this blog (because I'm an Instagram whore), but it just occurred to me that I can just post pictures manually through the app on my phone. I'm a genius for realizing this and an idiot for not realizing it previously.

Anyway - as a test - here's a picture I took yesterday in downtown LA.

NYC Photography.

A couple of weeks ago I was in New York City. I love New York City and New York City loves me. Below are a few of my pictures. If you follow my Instagram (jjbezerra) then you have already seen a few of these. If you don’t follow my Instagram, why the hell not? I’m fascinating.

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This is a picture of a trash compactor I saw at JFK airport. The trash compactor was on his way to a family reunion in Queens.

This is the view from the back seat of a cab on the way to Queens (the trash compactor and I split the fare).

This is a ballerina in Central Park. She was quite graceful and I was sad when the trash compactor compacted her, but that is what trash compactors do.

This is a noseless bust on the first floor of the Met. We made fun of his deformity. You could say that the compactor and I trash talked him. (That was a trash compactor-related pun.)

One from Monet’s series of haystack paintings. (Pssst … the one at The Getty is better. GO LA!) 

A bunch of Met day pass stickers.

This is a super cool picture I took while riding the super cool tram out to Roosevelt Island (which is cool, but not super cool). The compactor did not get to come because apparently you’re not allowed to bring trash compactors on trams. Because the New York MTA is obviously run by racists. Or at the very least, Luddites.

Happy graffiti with a power plant in the background.

Brazen New York City thieves!

A blurry picture taken while tripping over my own feet in Central Park.

If you stay on the subway while it turns around, then you too can swing around like this.

A black and white cookie which I ate and did not even offer to share with you.

I really like how this picture came out. This is Saint Thomas Church reflected in a window across the street and then I messed with the filters until it looked like the this.

The sailboat pond in Central Park.

A cocktail napkin. Upper Eastside. 2014.

Your humble author. Look how sad I am on my way back to the airport. It’s because the trash compactor did not meet me on the observation deck of the Empire State Building like he had promised.

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