Thursday, December 07, 2006

A Heap O' Imogen

I'm going on a cruise to Mexico today. If I die of a mysterious cruise ship illness, I leave you with this...



"Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap

Miami Urban Photo Safari

A lot of people consider San Francisco as the epicenter of different in America. It's stuffed full of established anti-establishment types, still tripping hippies and the Burning Man set. It seems like everyone in San Francisco is "alternative" in some way or another. I lived in San Francisco back in the early '90s and I can assure you that it is a weird place, full of weird people.

In 1994, I left the Left Coast and moved to Miami- South Beach to be exact. At first, I often felt sad that I wasn't a part of the progressive city any more, and it took me a while to feel at home here. And now, after 12 years, I've come to realize that San Francisco is weird - surfacely weird. Miami's weirdness is so much deeper. San Francisco is very, very conscious of its freak factor and loves to celebrate it, and display it, at every possible opportunity. Everyone in San Francisco wants to be weird. Miami thinks it's normal, and just goes about its daily business as if it were Colombus Ohio.

Back in the day - 2005 - me and my homey went on an urban photo safari in a couple of the more overlooked hoods in Miami, basically as an excuse to get out and explore the deep, hidden oddities of our city. Every couple of months, we pick a different neighborhood and try to capture it in 10 pictures, or less - and then research community history and publish it all at Okapi Visuals. The lastest expedition was in Little Haiti.