The Trouble with Mannequins

Window Mannequins | Mark Lindsay

Window mannequins have always seemed creepy to me. Actually, all mannequins give me the willies—but the ones in windows are especially scary. They stare back at me with that frozen smile and those cold, cold eyes. It’s as if they all share some secret, mannequin-world joke that they’d never reveal to flesh-and-blood humans. I don’t know why shop owners resort to using them. Who wants customers coming into stores shivering with goosebumps?

Click to read more ...

Tony is Here

Tony is Here | Mark Lindsay

Barbershops have changed a lot over the years. For example, back in the old days you’d never get a shampoo at one—that just wouldn’t happen. You dealt with the little bits of cut hair like a man—by scratching your neck and back until it was red. I still remember the day when they started to put sinks into my hometown barbershop. It was downhill from there. The scented shampoos replaced all the good stuff; the talcum powder, the scalp tonic, and most importantly, the straight-edge razor along with the leather sharpening strap. Now barbershops are like women’s salons except they still stick a barber’s pole outside so that men will go into them. Most barber’s poles don’t even rotate like they once did. It’s all fake now.

Click to read more ...

Suburbia: Mundane and Monumental

Suburban Sign | Mark Lindsay

It is a grand notion to think of suburbia as being monumental. Normally perceived in daily life, it seems like a monotonous parade of one block after another, one lawn after the next. If one is attracted to the grandiose, suburbia can often be numbing.

Click to read more ...

Unintended Treasures

Woman and Sign, San Francisco | Mark Lindsay

The city, San Francisco or most any city, is full of small, fleeting treasures. Riches are everywhere—little vignettes of joy, intrigue, and ephemeral pleasure that compel me to click the shutter of my camera. Many are haphazard collections of life’s serendipity. Most affirm my belief that the cosmic powers that run this universe of ours have a very good sense of humor.

Click to read more ...

A Drainpipe in Spring

The Corte Madera Drainpipe | Mark Lindsay

The well-worn path is like a college dorm room. Old wall posters become invisible after a couple of years, even the ugliest of them. So too do the homely sights along my daily walks. Telephone poles, street signs—even abandoned tires in the local flood canal—they all melt away with repeated sightings. Mostly this is a good thing. When I was in college, there were some truly butt-ugly posters around. Grateful Dead fans, you know what I mean. And along with that omnipresent Deadhead skull of my youth, my selective vision has made a few power transformers simply disappear from sight. The human mind is a wondrous thing.

Click to read more ...