Bushwick, Brooklyn, Sept. 2007

When I was wandering around Bushwick a couple of weeks ago, I saw this bicycle leaning against a signpost and thought it was sort of picturesque against that stark wall. It wasn’t until I raised my camera that I noticed the red “sign” on the signpost. Definitely not a street sign -- but what was it?


It was a piece of street art painted by GoreB. Several New York artists produce “boards” like this that they bolt to signposts. Somehow the boards remain without getting stolen, which always amazes me - I guess it’s just hard to get them down. They’re always fun to find, though sometimes hard to photograph.

Last night I went to a meeting of gay Returned Peace Corps Volunteers - yes, there is such an organization here in NYC, though it seems pretty loose-knit. There were about seven guys there, and we just talked and compared notes on our Peace Corps experiences. I was shocked to find that one guy who had recently served found Peace Corps to be a homophobic environment - I think that's the exception rather than the rule. (I'm talking about the organization itself, not the people in the countries where volunteers work - in that case, it all depends on local culture.) I detected no homophobia within Peace Corps at all, but I did not come out to the Moroccans with whom I worked - only the Americans.

I just finished an excellent book: “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson. It’s about the creation of the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893, and a mass murderer who was on the loose at the same time. A great read!