West Village

I'm living a tiny 2 room apartment on West 8th Street. The woman's apartment is filled with photos of her - don't you think it's weird to leave that stuff lying around? It's a cute place though.

The WV is apparently where everyone wants to live. Surrounded by tiny trattorias, wine bars, and show shops. It's like a slightly run-down Connie version of heaven! Plus I get to see the NYPD up close and personal - there's definitely something strange going on outside my window in the wee hours.

There's this little parking lot just down the road where locals have painted tiles with what they love about New York. Another post-9/11 gesture no doubt. It's quite sweet.

Eastsayeed

From the Fin ancial District up. George Washington now seems a little crowded in by all the money.

A visit to the Whitney. Some amazing early de Kooning's. Second best was the foyer lighting. Especially because it can be hard to catch the sun in New York.

First forst

Freezing puddles - the beginning of the end. Enter the ugly footwear.

Thanksgiving going gone

Spent a few days up in Massachusetts with the family. Nothing changed there, other than no memory. Same smells, sounds, snapshots. And the basement - always my favourite part of the house - has gone mouldy.

On the edge

I arrived in New York 2 days ago. One day I worked; one day I didn't. As I was walking around the West Village today - which will be my post-Thanksgiving home - I caught a glimpse of water and the view across to Jersey (pictured). Wow, what an amazing city I'm in - I have already fallen for it, despite the temperature dipping below 45F. And there is so much food I want to eat, it's difficult to breathe. Luckily tomorrow I go 'home' for Thanksgiving, so there'll be no shortage of that.

Fush

Meet Tiger and Bones. Keeping Julian company during the cold winter months. Complete with Spongebob pineapple house.

Loo paper brings town together

My last weekend in Auburn happily coincided with Auburn's college football team winning the final game of the season, against arch rivals Alabama State. Needlesss to say I was stoked. So we went to check out the ritual papering of the town. People yell alot in a messy mixture of drunk frat boys and family togetherness, grown men dress like spooky orange clowns and people are allowed to climb all over everything with an unusual disregard for the litigious circumstances they might be putting themselves in. Kind of like New Years in Sydney.

Gumbo

First stop, Creole & Seafood Shack. Eating dinner in somone's modified loungeroom with 6 courses of fry. 1. Fried green tomoatoes 2. Fried okra 3. Fried crab claws 4. Fried oysters 5. Stir fried shrimp 6. Crispy fried onions. Oh, and a side of gumbo just to break it up. Second stop, ill.

Tornado!

The air raid sirens are going off in Alabama. That means the county has issued a tornado and flash flood warning for Auburn. You're supposed to stay indoors and away from windows until the warning is downgraded. Doesn't look like tornado weather to me - just a consistent heavy rain and some big rumbles which shake the window frames. But apparently we can expect hail the size of golf balls - lucky our truck already has hail damage, because we have no undercover place to put it. COOL!!!!

Local flavour

Has anyone else noticed how much worse I've become at editing my images down to a tight little narrative? This has to stop. So one last purge and then done.

Always good to start with a pork theme, when you have to live with Julian. Look at him in that cute little football jersey. Now let's EAT HIM! This place does plates of 'chipped' pork in weird tangy sauce, either between a bun, or piled on a polystyrene plate with some tater salad, beans and two slices of sweet white bread.

I could go into detail about how they make an eagle fly around at each football game until people weep patriot tears, but I'll save that story for another time. War Eagle is a greeting around these parts - if someone says "war eagle" to you, you're supposed to respond with clenched fist shaking in front of you, "WAR DAMN EAGLE!" And that's just being polite.

There are these big ol' water towers everywhere (at least I think they're water towers). This one is around the corner, next to a beautiful old cemetery.

Main street in town - nothing much of particular interest here. All the bars look the same, inside and out.

Toomer's Corner - where a feast of toilet paper takes place every Saturday. Wait for full details, when accompanying photographic evidence can be provided.

Auburn University campus - all designed in the same style as this, the first building on campus. Auburn University was first a Methodist men's college, then an army boot camp for the Civil War, then a hospital for the Civil War injured and dying, then briefly a college again, army camp again, uni again.

Alabamians celebrate their proud history of hanging. Halloween decorations, of course.

Mmmm, you mean I can have Chinese AND Thai AND Japanese all together, right now? More cool road signs will be featured here soon.

Part of the local real estate agent's office - no shit. Target market?

They turn the traffic lights off in town when there's a football game on. And that causes less chaos, apparently. The more enterprising Southerners also rent a parking space on their front lawn to gamegoers, for $30 a pop. Most American front yards can fit 10-20 cars, so we know Capitalism is still alive and well.

Downtown Montgomery (the capital of Bammy) is definitely expired. It's like it's made of those cardboard facades you see in Westerns, but instead of swinging bars there are blindingly white monolithic structures propped up by tree-hugging Doric columns. But I like the 60's leftovers, like these parking meters.

Most cities in America are dead. First rich people move to the suburbs to escape to big back yards. Then businesses move to be closer to their employees, leaving the poor and disenfranchised to man the streets. Then they, too move out - for wont of work, public services and shops.

Made you laugh (Gut).

Providence

With a dramatic shift in voter satisfaction now a semi-permanent feature of the political landscape in the US, I thought I'd throw my hat in to support 'bringing our boys home' (plus, eveyone keeps sending me emails about it in Australia). And boys is definitely what they are around here. At Atlanta airport, you see them coming and going - joking and swinging there rucksacks through the air - and I reckon 99% of them couldn't be more than 20.

Julian has this framed relic hanging in his 'straight-out-of-the-50's' office... seemed appropriate.

Double (no triple) crossed

When I'm not in Walmart, I choose to spend my spare time in church. Or rather outside churches, trying to work out what makes Episcopal, Pentecostal, Baptist, Neo-revolutionary, or the Church for Everyone conceptually different. I'll report back when I have it sussed, but in the meantime let me know what you think of this. Semiotic interpretations abound... I think it's just plain cool. First, it's a cross. No wait, a dove flying into the bible on a lecturn. No, I've got it now... a bishops robe being engulfed by the fires of Hell.

I don't know if this monument to the power of graphic design is a purely local affair, or if the world is being taken over on 3 fronts. And I don't care - I love it. It's aspirational, and makes your pants wet with fear at the same time. 10/10

My first redneck

How long does a girl have to be in the South before she stumbles across the real deal? 6 days exactly. In Walmart - I know I seem to be spending alot of time there right now. Gramma had a black and blue face from breaking her nose in what appeared to be a traffic accident. Grampa was too scary to look at directly - big and hunched. Ma looked remarkably like a Kings X smackie, with that kind of forward propulsion walk/run, and Pa just kind of stood around in his flannel and mullet gulping lazily. I would have taken a picture if I wasn't standing right next to the Gun section of 'Sporting goods', or if Grampa weren't about to get his gun out of the jalopy and shoot someone to get some decent service around here.

You know you want 'em

The long-awaited first glimpse of Julian's rambling Alabama shack. Not so rambling, and not so shack. I am very jealous of the porches of our neighbours and will be collecting shots of some of my foot-swinging favourites over the next little while. So sit back, pour yourself some kind of whisky and whistle as each photo goes by.

The ubiquitous US letterbox - mail delivered and picked up by car 6 days a week.

Front door right. Back door left. Everyone takes the back door in Bammy.

The back 'stoop'. Can't miss an opportunity to show off the foldy.

It's a 70's Formica kitchen with Turkish copper features - what more could you ask for? I think the rest needs no explanation.

Rooms may be darker than they appear.

5 with a .22

It's autumn and the air is crisp; the hunting section of Walmart is the size of a basketball court; and the best number plate I've seen was today, with HNTDCKS. It was matched to a yellow bumper sticker that said "Every day I haven't been hunting was a day wasted". And being election day today, I'm surprised I could even see that bumper sticker with all the mud being thrown. From homophobia to corruption and criminal convictions, an election couldn't be more personal or less about politics. And the candidates are seriously slick - I went to listen to Bob Reilly rally on his soapbox. God could never be far away - and when I find out how to get video on here watch out!

Ranger Raylene

This weekend we took a desperate drive to Montgomery for fried eggs and 50's style used car salesmen - richly rewarding on both fronts. And the result? We are now the proud owners of a '96 Ford Ranger XLT V6 in a loverly shade of maroon, with fold down seats for passengers 3 and 4 in the 'saloon' (1 and 2 fit on the bench seat next to your driver - yeah!). So it's not the classic American car we wanted, the key doesn't work every time and there are a few broken bits and pieces, but so far she goes! All the way to Atlanta Ikea and back.

And it's manual, which makes it virtually unstealable, or drivable (Julian has to learn before I leave for NYC). We've called it Raylene, in the fine Southern tradition of turning blokey names into girls names.

Raylene - fully loaded.

Biker madness

You can't ride a bike on the road here. Imagine a 19 year old (probably drunk) behind the wheel of a monster truck going at double the (already high) speed limit, while talking on a mobile phone. So all the workout Julian's little foldy is getting is on the footpath - did someone say sidewalk? Check out my tomato box - that's how I carried the groceries home today.

A car is more than a necessity here; it's your armour for going anywhere near the road. And then there's the miles you clock up trying to pick up bread and milk. So it's important that you eat enough carbs to give you the energy to press that accelorator all day long. Personally, I prefer Hunts' Manwich® brand products for gut-sticking goodness.

Sweet home sweet

Driving in late Tuesday night through rain, the bus dropped us outside Julian's house (that's local service for you). This place is about as quiet as it gets. The only sound that night was the sound of us bouncing around in an empty house. No furniture. No car. Nowhere to go. The bed is a bonus. And the train whistle I can hear blowing the whole way through town is possibly the only way you know time is passing.

LALA

We made it half way to Hollywood aboard a bus full of Cleopatras, gay lifeguards, mad witches, naked-underneath-the-overcoat Indian girls, some Mexican derivation of C.H.I.P.S and people drinking fluorescent drinks from MinuteMaid bottles.

Monster plane rides aside, LA is a flat freak show. And Halloween night doesn't make it any less (kids trick-or-treat in shops here!). Some people love this city, but I just don't get it. Explanations welcome.