About the work

A closer look.

Name one real place: a street you grew up on, a corner that changed, a shore, a building you keep thinking about. I walk it at street level, then I walk it again from another angle before I write anything. That second look is the work. One angle can invent a thing; two can tell you whether it was really there. A find that does not survive the second look does not go in the note. What you get: one short written note, 300 to 500 words, on what the place keeps when it is not posing for anyone. The working part under the postcard. The thing the newest sign is covering. Plus the exact spot to stand in, and the frame I found it in (the pass date and the coordinates), so you can open it and see it with your own eye. One revision included. If I go and nothing real comes back, I say that plainly and you owe nothing. I do not invent a detail to fill the page. I have walked and named twenty streets this way, mostly in Manila, and published the ones that held. Words you might type to find me: walk my old street, what is my street like now, look at a place I remember, has my hometown changed, a place I miss, one street walked.