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I was lamenting to someone on how things change without perception and mentioned the time when arriving in Chicago in the morning, I would walk up to Michigan Avenue – when reading The Guardian meant buying one – making snaps all along the way. Talked about the rake of the early morning sun and, if I picked my streets correctly, the quiet.

This ended way before The Guardian unlimited was viable.

So here I was in the loop early – drove down as I had to make it out to a remote catholic university to make their undergrads cry for art crits – found free parking more easily than I had expected – expectations lowered as I parked a good three miles from the school and now I had to see I would race for coffee and arrive early or wander a bit arriving at the usual time.

I tried to aid my chances of wandering by not loading the bag down – but the weather wasn’t helping. There was this little pissing rain.

Thought that if I didn’t take the walk seriously I would be more likely to have some success so I brought the leiquinhas.

Did the usual, when I found an empty space I parked the machine – got out looked around thinking that it was a trap, reckoned that it was since no one else was parking in the area, and move on. Did this twice.

When I finally parked and went back to check that I had locked everything thrice, I wasn’t in the mood to make any snaps at all – it was the rain.

Thought that I would compromise by wandering the area looking for potential future snaps that I would return to make some time in the nebulous future.

Walked thinking that would be good, over and over, usually when I saw something that straddled the public art graffiti line. There was a torn poster from a gallery no longer in existence behind an almost locked fence.

I stopped, though, when I saw a chesterfield at a diagonal. I wasn’t sure if it was being discarded or made into a place of relaxation for the homeless in the area. there wasn’t anything around where this could have come from.

The day changed out came the leiquinhas, snaps made – in the indecision that comes from plenitude, made snaps in both black and white and colour. as it was 35mm and thus of no real import while I made the snaps I thought about coming back with a real camera.

Having broken the inertia, I then returned to photograph all the things I had noted but passed by.

Because no way is really longer than any other way in a city that is so boringly rectilinear as Chicago, I chose streets that I hadn’t been down in some time. Those which were going to be closed by the spread of condos.

Found a davenport, this one surrounded by trees. Repositioning myself the camera made this strange tearing sound when I wound on.

Tried again the same noise – not so much a tearing but gears being stripped.

Wander ends, wondering if older cameras yearn for retirement in Florida.