It Says 'Antiques' in Crazy Scrawl on the Wall

There is a man who sits in a folding chair on the sidewalk of a zippy Brooklyn street. Zippy—it has twinges of old-school crappiness, but is mostly restaurant-laden, college-grad-heavy bar-full. There is, however, a kind of veterans' man-club right in the middle of it all.

Back to this old man.

He sits out almost every day, wearing these blind-man large, black coverall glasses. He is rotund. Behind him are objects. They rotate. They are often there against the wall even if he is not sitting among them. They are always dirty, probably broken: a filthy old stroller; a handcart, rusted. The thing is though, these are not free items. Black marker signs hang on each—"$20" (handcart), "$30" (cradle). I.e. these are the most highly priced, run-down, piece-of-shit things you've ever seen for sale.

The day I took these photos, the man was lumped out in his chair as usual, only he had strung up a line of orange tape around his "lot." And he was reading a newspaper with those blind-man glasses. I don't even know what to say about it. A barrier. He had strung up an orange barrier, as if he were the police and he were sitting in the middle of an investigation. Or he finally had realized that he should put himself on view like an animal in a zoo. Or he felt the need to protect his shitass items for sale. Or. Or Or. My head hurts suddenly. People are asshat bananas.


(Skeevy things for sale.)



(Asshat bananas.)