5-6-08 (supplemental)

A black man on the subway dressed in sweats and straight brimmed baseball cap wears a chain around his neck. On the chain are two real twenty dollar bills folded and knotted, each end of the bill waving like a wing, and seemingly daring anyone with the guts to try and take them. It's ballsy, and I can't help but stare a little.

Also, as much as people may hate the French, you gotta love how, when they're pissed about something, they fuckin' well do something.

4-12-08 One block this morning in Crown Heights

An older, glasses-wearing black man in a natty tan suit stands holding a bible next to a woman in a similarly colored dress on the corner, the man in a heated conversation with a thin man in a yellow, black and green dread tam. The dread says to the bible-holder, in a thick accent, "You can't tell me nothin', because whom God blesses, none can curse, and you don't know me from Adam!"

A fat, balding white man lies on the ground in front of an apartment building, passed out, his pate covered in sores, still breathing, so I observe him for a moment and move on. Not ten yards away, the well-dressed folks in their Eddie Bauer sweats line up in front of the newest hip restaurant in the neighborhood, waiting to get in for brunch.