#1: Birth

My First Blog!  

One of the great things about riding the New York subway is coming across these ad posters that have been altered by who knows who to make them funny.  Of course, this is a "criminal" act, defacing public property... but it's FUNNY!!!  I've always been fascinated by these things in human culture that naturally make people laugh.  Like a fart.  A fart always makes people laugh.  The proverbial banana peel slip, that's always funny.  Painting a mustache and a black tooth on a picture of someones face, that's funny!  

After my first year in New York, I realized I had become a fan of these creatively defaced images.  I looked forward to passing by this or that train station to see that one face in that poster with a black tooth I had seen the other day.  And I was always saddened to find that a favorite one had been taken down, replaced by the next poster promoting the next boring product.  I soon became aware that somebody had to keep some kind of record of this ephemeral street art.  Since I always carry my digital point-and-shoot with me wherever I go, one day I said "fuck it, that someone's gonna be me".  

A few weeks ago, I told a friend about my odd collection of photos and I mentioned that I wanted to do something with them at some point, but I wasn't sure what.  She said, "make a blog".  And light came out of my body like Amelie when she had an epiphany.

So here it is.   Again, it's my first blog, so forgive the initial mistakes while I figure things out.  I probably won't be writing that much.  This is more about the pictures themselves.  

The posters might date the moment they were captured, specially when the one getting the curly mustache is a celebrity in a movie poster.  I began collecting these in the spring of 2006.