Spanish Gold: Treasure Left Unburried

Onion (half): Found: January 6, 2011, 10:15AM: Brooklyn, New York.

It's gotten cold out, and it seems that the chill has invaded the hearts of even the warmest of New Yorkers. It takes a man by surprise to such see clear evidence of such bitter violence. Perhaps the rings of former life had been left exposed as a warning, perhaps the fragmented skin had been strewn with care, somehow dear readers, I doubt it, this was thoughtlessness at its essence. No effort had been made to conceal the identity of the halved better third of a Brooklyn Mirepoix. Makes you want to cry dear readers, makes you want to cry. 

Smoked Pork: Officer Down

Bacon (smoked & fried): Found: August 16, 2010, 5:34PM: Brooklyn, New York.

It was hot, real hot. The kind of hot you don't even want to hear about: the kind of sticky, heavy, sound deadening heat that transforms asphalt into cast iron. I won't say you could fry an egg on the sidewalk, that would be crass, but you could, oh dear readers, you most certainly could fry and egg on the sidewalk.

Now I've always been a man who's careful where he puts his cigarette butts when he's done smoking, a hangon from a stint overseas I guess, you never know who's looking for a Malborough man in Redhook. It's hard for me to say, but it wasn't the greased porker that I noticed first, it wasn't the smell of the sizzling law that grabbed me, it was the sawed-off menthol 100 carelessly strewn gutterside that stopped me in my tracks. How could such cool disregard have been be perpetrated in such heat?

It was then that I saw the assaulted pork victim, stripped, smoked, greased, and left out to dry, and then the sidewalk, peppered with clues of a young vegan perp. Disgusting. There is no justice in this world, dear readers but there is revenge. Goodnight.

Court of Banana Peels

Banana Peel (multiple, stacked): Found: July 3, 2010, 11:00AM: New York, New York.

Neatly stacked and empty, perfectly ripened shells of their former selves. There was little waste to be found, the job had been neatly and delicately done. Electrolitic Overindulgence they said, but I didn't buy it, some vitamin K fiend is on the loose in Washington Square Park I thought, loading up for the holiday weekend. Careful not to step on my subjects, I had to smile as I photographed them: there was sometime appealing about the neatly piled mass grave. Perhaps they had lived, loved and fed together, and now, still together, would unknowingly pursue a new life in the harsh world of low-brow comedy; dear readers, we can only hope.

For Whom the Bell Tolls (Guest Submission)

Dear readers, I am proud to announce our first Guest Submission: "For Whom the Bell Tolls" has been sent our way by fellow meal mourner, David Cieri, pianist and composer, gentleman and scholar, artist, and friend.

Bell Pepper (red): Photo Submitted by D. Cieri: August 14, 2010: [time unknown]: New York, NY.

It was getting late, things seemed out of place. It was the kind of night when anything could happen and you might not find yourself surprised if it did. The smell of stale urine was everywhere. My shoes were new and they looked like black puddles or holes to God-knows-where waiting for something at the end of my legs. Then I saw what they had all been talking about at the Regular: then I knew. She was gone, and there was nothing I could do about it.

It was too dark to see clearly but I knew Bell when I saw her, chopped and strewn, like cattle feed to the empty streets, I'd know a belle like this anywhere. Then, everything was red, orange, gold-red, and it all was that color, all of it, the filling, the possessing, the having, all of that color, all in a blindness of that color, it was almost too much to walk away from. I knew what had happened, I even understood why it had happened, but with or without God, I think it is a sin to kill. To take the life of another is to me very grave.

[Photo: David Cieri: 2010, Text: Dumois (& Hemingway): 2010]

Live Fast, Die Young

Take-out (fast food): Found: May 14, 2010, 2:15PM: New York, NY.

I think sadly, gang violence is the only answer here. So soon after the glory of a fallen hero, so soon after its promised speed of service, so many empty calories gone to waste.

Found between meetings on Broadway, most certainly off Bond St., I was carrying some freshly acquired art supplies. As I write it all seems so fresh. The smell of grease was in the air, and I knew what I had to do immediately. I waited for the sidewalk to clear, and framed up my subject, a killer, doubtless, but one that had come to an untimely end just the same, and that's never easy to see.

Creamed Corn: Treat gets Tricked

Creamed Corn (candy variety): Found: November 2, 2009, 3:30PM: New York, NY.

Long before the appearance of the Fallen Hero, Dubs and I came across this little train wreck somewhere on 4th Ave. above Union Square, I knew I had to document it. I said surely it had slipped from the torn corner of a stuffed pillowcase carried by a costumed youth two nights prior to our discovery. We agreed, there was a story here.

As we drew nearer to the squashed candy kernel, I felt as young Gordie LaChance ("Stand By Me") must have felt as he and his came-of-age gang finally reached Ray Brower's mutilated-train-struck body. (Except my older brother wasn't dead, I wasn't packing massive heat, and I'd never had a leech in my underpants. Also, I would never tell Kiefer Sutherland to suck my fat one.) This formerly conical candy corn had been run down, indeed made nearly one with the asphalt by some passing automobile, an automobile, dear readers, that like a freight train in the night, did not stop.

We headed home and although many thoughts raced thorough our minds, we barely spoke. we'd only been gone for two days but somehow the town seemed different, smaller. 

Fallen Hero: The Sandwich that Started it all

Fallen Hero (meatball variety): Found: May 10, 2010, 6:13PM: New York, NY.

I came across it one breezy Spring evening in the West Village of New York City. I myself do not eat meat, but for those that do, and indeed for one carnivore in particular, this photograph represents a great tragedy. This is the sandwich that set inside me the need to create this blog, the sandwich that started it all. Though this late-lunch be not our own, this hero is indeed our very own Hero, Fallen untimely to the rough streets of of the City that doesn't sleep. This ground-beef ball magazine, dear readers, is our mascot.