The problem with movies is that happy endings aren’t real. Things don’t get resolved in two hours. You may go through your entire life without knowing who you are. You may never learn what you really want. Or you may find yourself unable to take it when it’s right there in front of your face. You may not even be the hero. Or worse, you might not even be the villain; you’re an extra in your own boring movie that you just want to walk out on.

Picture – N
Words – S

Mr. S was offered a cube beside a window and he turned it down. He wanted more desk space instead. He is very dedicated to his craft. Me, I can't get any work done because I sit in my cube thinking about how great it would be to have a window.

Words – N
Photo – S (N’s idea, though)

What makes a pet amazing is that one day, you didn’t know them. And the next, here is this little person, depending on you, sleeping at the foot of your bed, and when you look in her eyes, you see unconditional trust and love. There’s no human feeling that compares to when you reach down and rub a furry little head. To hear a murmur of contentment, to see the playfulness when they hit a full speed run, to witness the simple joy of devouring a can of food.

Photo – N
Words – S

The city exists in a seemingly endless cycle of destruction and aborted rebirths. Beeps, whistles, and loud smashing noises echo down block after empty block, heralding the smoky end of another landmark.

Photo – N
Words – S

We can copy anything.

Even what you use to make copies.



Nothing you own is original. Or yours.

Photos – S
Words – S

I don’t know where I’m going today. I feel like I’m falling down a hill, the kind of falling you get when you can’t stop running and the ground under your feet won’t slow you down. Reaching out for branches, hoping my feet can stay on the earth but knowing one of the next moves will propel me face first, then upside down, unable to stop.

Picture – N
Words – S

They say that if you light a red candle you are inviting love into your life. She lit the candle and waited. Time passed, minuets crawled into hours but still she waited. Fidgety in nature, she twiddled her thumbs, made some origami, and eventually rolled the hot wax in between her fingers. Little balls turned into little hands, little feet, until she had a little figure on the table. Now the sorts of people who believe that a red candle brings love are usually the types who believe that dolls and human likeness can be used to cast similar spells. The night slunk on and soon she found herself asleep on the table. She woke to find herself being carried in the arms of a very handsome man. Granted he was a firefighter, and she had burnt down the house by knocking over the candle, but wishes do come true.

Photo – S
Words – N

There used to be so many pay phones. Now, no one really has a need for one. Except me. I don’t want a cel phone. I don’t need to be easily acceptable and more to the point, I don’t want to be found. It’s kind of like the same reason I won’t take antibiotics. When the superflu comes, I alone will wander the vast wastelands of what was once called Earth. Kind of like Vincent Price in The Last Man on Earth or Charlton Heston in The Omega Man. They’re both based on the same story, after all. I was thinking, now that pay phones have fallen out of favor, I guess that the HIV addicted drug users in urban legends that dispose of their used needles by putting them into the coin slots (infecting unsuspecting victims) have to find something else to do.

Photo – S
Words - S

Most rubber ducks are made out of vinyl, not rubber. So right from the beginning, they may be comforting you, but they’re really liars.

Photo - N
Words - S

The Hidden Language of Coats

Your jacket has been everyone you have gone, but it never gets to have the fun you do. You throw it on the floor, you give it to the coat check person, you forget it on the back of a chair. Lying on a bed, intermingling with everyone else’s coat, sleeves inside one another, waiting for you to leave early. Or a couple to fall upon a canopy of overcoats and capes. Your coat keeps you warm and it doesn’t ask all that much of you; the least you could do is wear it inside once in awhile.

Photo – S
Words – S

Inside the walls of this city are secrets. Gargoyles, gods, and symbols do not litter your landscape without purpose. To paraphrase James Shelby Downard, “Never assume that the dead and deadening scenery of the American city-of-dreadful-night is so utterly sterile and devoid of mystery.” That is, to say, nothing exists without meaning. I don’t believe things are there simply to be aesthetically pleasing; there aren’t any coincidences. There are reasons for everything being there and everything that happens. It just depends on us to have an honest eye and the ability to see something for more than it is.

Photo – N
Words - S

She’s the kind of girl who doesn’t believe in margarine. She only worships at the altar of butter.

Photo - N
Words - S

Lately, I’ve been experiencing moments for which I have no words to describe them. Today, I felt like I was running and being pushed on every side. Someone left today and it felt like waiting in the hospital for some distant relation to finally die. And other times, I’m overcome by an overwhelming feeling of perfect lining up of facts, a kismet, a wonder that everything is all riding on this moment. It’s like I’m in a movie and the audience just wishes I’d make my move. But I don’t have words for these dramatic fugues that make up my life. I can only pour my heart into my keystrokes.

Photo – N
Words – S

I’ve never heard anyone swear at a bird so ruthlessly as Ms. N did when she took this photo. People having their eyes plucked by ravens are nicer to them. As the bird flew off, she screamed one last epithet, bounced, turned, hands at sides and then up to a clap, with a smile that overtook every image of her, and said, “Let’s eat some fried chicken!”

Photo - N
Words - S

The maw of the yellow bridge stares back at me, reminding me of the times that I had to ford across it. Crossing a bridge in the winter is unlike any other experience; it’s the farthest thing from pleasure that I can imagine. When I see the bridge, I’m reminded of the street it leads to and from. Where it goes, I don’t really have many good memories of. But the bridge is, at best, a marker of my bearings downtown. I measure everything in distance from the bridge; in terms of steps but mostly, in regard to where I am in life.

Photo - N
Words - S

Where we lived is being razed and taken down for something else. Maybe not something better. Just something else. Now, the sides of buildings go into nowhere and lead to anywhere, with doors that open to the open air and walls that just stop short. No one has any plan. Not even us. We just float from day to day, hoping our paths will cross. But most of the time, all that we see are letters burned into our screens.

Photo - N
Words - S

Three Miles

This patch is three miles
But it feels like forever
It always feels like I’ll never
Drive far enough or fast enough
I just keep coming back to these three miles

And you keep
Looking out that window
where there's nothing for days
I watch you watching
Nothing I can see
And your breath makes the window
Fog in the very worst ways

I thought I could
Maybe make the quiet shut up
Make the silence silent
But all I could ever hear was
The radio’s low din
Some song I never wanted to sing.

Picture - N
Words - S (with an assist from N)

The big experiment

Here’s a little behind the scenes on how we make it happen here at “ifthenwhat.” I, S, have some stupid little plan to be a rock star, so I’ve been writing a whole bunch of songs. They don’t have any music and they don’t rhyme, but I really could care less. Generally, N is the only person that gets to read these sketches of songs. Yesterday, I send her a few verses of one that I was working on with the idea that we switch it up and words came before the photo, as generally, the words are inspired by the photo. That’s why photo is listed first. If it’s the opposite, we’d list words first, but I believe this is the first time that this has happened. I could be wrong, as it’s just the two of us doing this and also trying to do our real jobs and e-mail one another to amuse ourselves throughout our exciting days of sitting at desks. My desk is much bigger and nicer. And I will never be allowed to forget that and the tears that it has caused. Also, many of these pictures were taken in traffic, while N was on the cel phone with me, so she risked her life to bring you all some fucking art, so you better respect that.

Without any further ado, our words first, then photos taken as they were inspired experiment.



Song #4



Spin your wheels
In fast forward
Slow motion
Waiting to wait
Meeting to meet
Broken chairs, twisted cords
Tired eyes staring



My fingers itch
and burn
sometimes
And the letters in my mind
end up being different on
cathode ray screen
And other times
I just stay dizzy



Styrofoam vessels of
brown foamy caffeine
whispered threats
and unseen hands
that grab my neck
throttle me to the ground
and someday inside it

Mmm, hmm, child.

Quote me on this one.

Just because you enjoy my gallows humor doesn't mean we're all not gonna die.

Picture - N
Words - S

Avenues are rivers and arties
Inside this ocean
My ship sails crewless
Buffeted by stale winds
Discarded phones ringing
No one to answer

My eyes closed
With hope
Those 20 minutes
Can get me through this

Boarded windows, closed for good
Small city masquerade

Words - S
Picture - N

Glasses cut
The side of my head
My penalty
For sight, constant throb

Scratched out
Lenses register barely
Image into fact
Faces I can’t remember

Every silver lining
Every grey cloud
Looks fuzzy from here
Far away might just be
Too close

Picture - N
Words - S

I have ten boxes of cake mix on top of my refrigerator.
And probably six things of frosting.
Every time a stranger comes into my house,
I get angry when they ask why.

Photo - N
Words - S

Can music save your life? When the snow coats your yard and your fingers burn from frost and it feels like the sun hasn’t said hello in so many days, the random spin of music reveals memories of laying in your parent’s closet, the one that had crazy 60s psychedelic patterns that covers woofers, tweeters, and speakers, spinning the wheel on the cover.

Photo - N
Words - S

She told him to move his car. He just didn’t believe the stories. But when they smashed his window out with a fire axe and dragged the hose through his priceless upholstery, all of the legends were proved truth.

Photo - N
Words - S

This is a picture of one of my comic books that I threw away.

It’s probably the best example of growing up I can show you.

I used to freak out of my comic books were not in bags. If someone bent them.

And now, it doesn’t seem like a big deal that this comic book was out in the snow for days, ripped and torn.

But now, I can remember things better. I don’t need physical items to remember things. The stories live on inside the country of me.

I just don’t have room for all of the paper, unless it’s in my head and heart.

Photo - S
Words - S

"You can combine anything you want, I'll be around."

When I was young, I used to be full of the religious fervor that now is only the providence of the faithful and the retarded.

Now, I go days without thinking about God. And then, my every thought was of Him.

Did I not have enough responsibilities then? Can I not put my faith into anything these days? Do you get dragged behind the car of the world so many times that you can’t see the miracle that you are simply here anymore?

I try and find the special in every corner that will have me. Is it the words of a jubilant crowd singing along? Is it the taste of smoke and alcohol? Does it have to be in an old building with graying parishioners saying the same prayers again and again? Why can’t I find that feeling I once had about God?

Supposedly, when my grandfather died, I said that I had just given up on God. That I was angry with Him. I don’t know if I even said that. It’s been said that I have, though, and I have less reasons to hate God than most people.

They say that hell is the lack of God. So why do I put God through the lack of me?

Photo - N
Words - S

Everyone at work is playing the lottery, which is another creation of the hidden government, much like the cartoon Dilbert. It forces people to work in jobs they hate, because according to the cartoon, it is like that everywhere. The sameness unites people to the point where they realize to fight against stupidity and boredom is ineffectual, so they settle inside their world of discussing how great American Idol was and dreaming of winning the lottery. Even my rich boss is playing the lottery. And I could care less. The more money that I’ve earned, the less it seems like I had. So if I got a few hundred million, I’d really have the same lifestyle, only I’d have more problems and people begging for my time and money. And the hidden masters of the world would get more money from me so that they could colonize Mars and create their one universe government. Alright, maybe, just maybe, I need a vacation. Or a hot dog.

Photo - S
Words - S

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day, which celebrates love, now, but really celebrates a martyr who lost his head for continuing to marry couples in Christian ceremonies. So really, if you had a bad one, you have no reason to complain because, look, it’s all been invented to sell cards and candy. If you’d like to look at the dark lining, that is. For others, it’s a day to celebrate love and happiness. Except for something I saw yesterday when I got off the train. It was a flower, an expensive rose, no less, placed inside the vase of a garbage can. Just sitting there. Someone took the time and energy to give someone this beautiful rose and that person cared enough to throw it away. Which makes me wonder, what was the story behind that? Was it two secret lovers, and the one trying in vain to reach out and make something more, and two train stops later past that confession, the flower hits the trash? Or was that love given back, and then, the flowers had to be hidden away in the dump? Or was it just an imperfect rose? Maybe I should have taken it out of the refuse and taken a better look.

Photo - N
Words - S

I read some where that its not illegal for landlords to put video cameras in their rental properties as long as there is no sound on the tape. It's truly amazing what you can get away with these days. Can you pass the popcorn and rewind to the part where he drops the soap?

Picture - N
Words - N

Walk Don't Walk

3 in the morning in Osaka.

I’m the only sober one.

Middle of Golden Week, created to celebrate the birth of Emperor Showa. Hardly anyone in Japan is working. We’ve all eaten a 4 hour shabu-shabu meal with a boiling hot pot of water in the middle of the table and trust me, no one could ever do that in the US, there’d be so many lawsuits.

Walking through the craziest parts of Osaka, being propositioned by Japanese prostitutes once they realize I speak English (Kawai tu, gaijin!). We come to a crosswalk, no cars are within miles but plenty of people.

My brother tries to walk against the do not walk sign, and someone stops him in a friendly way: “Please, sir, you will get hurt if you cross. Please wait with us for the walk sign.”

That’s why I love Japan.

Photo - S
Words - S

This slime has been sitting under the bridge for a year. It used to be green and slowly became other colors, but now, it’s iced over. It makes me realize that in the city, no one keeps anything clean and no one makes the sidewalks safe. Someday, someone is going to slide on the slime. And then, they will realize that it’s there. Like me. I think about the slime all of the time. It haunts me.

Photo – S
Words – S

Constant warfare is inside me.

My hand dipped in aluminum wrapped sickly sweetness, but I know I’ll regret it later, pat my belly and curse myself. Nougat, caramel, chocolate, you all call to my stomach’s ear with your plaintive sounds. Dark, rich, creamy, wrong. And I try and stop, say, please, one more, give me one more piece, and I know in hours I’ll be staring at the reflection I can’t bear and saying, one less.

Photo - S
Words - S

Some people find heaven when they die. And other people, they find it in a $4.75 three piece fried chicken dinner.

Photo – S
Words – S

The sign wants to tell you, “Don’t forget your dreams.” Even hidden in the grayest skies of the city, the neon pulses and screams out, hoping that someone will take it for its word, and head out into the next day, take this job and shove it, and take off for the open road, scratched up Gretsch across your back.

Photo - S
Words - S

These windows fogged, thick with the steam of spilling your guts out and everyone’s got a story. Like the prostitute that got shot upstairs in the roaring 20s. Sometimes, the busboys see her as they take a smoke upstairs and she beckons their attention with a crawl of a bony finger. They blink and she’s gone.

Photo - S
Words - S

Money is the root of all evil. That means I keep the seeds of immorality and wickedness in a jar in my bathroom.

Photo - N
Words - N

Then you said in a song that life was getting real tough, but hey I think that you're bluffing, what of it?

There is this guy I know, who weaves words together until they look like my photos. I wanted to introduce you, but he is shy and ran away. Here are some things that you should probably know about him. Of course, I have a habit of embellishing my stories so you will have to figure out for yourself which bits are true and which ones I fabricated.

He has 7 roommates (6 of them are feline and he married the other one)
Francis Ford Copolla and his father could be twins.
He loves Lemonheads.
He wears red cowboy boots.
We were separated at birth and now share a telepathic ability.
His part time job is as a wrestler.
His next job will be rock star.
He smells of beets.
Our last vacation together took place in a pack of Camel cigarettes.
He used to work at Toys R Us.
If he was a god, he would be Anasi.
Sleep is not his friend.
If you visit him at his home, he will make you sushi and sing karaoke.

Introduce Yourself, Right On!

We post all these images and ideas on this site and never tell you anything about ourselves. Therefore, in the next few days, we plan on solving that.

How do I introduce my partner-in-crime?

Telling you a mix of facts about her, some true and others untrue, seems to be the best way to start.

At cocktail parties, she wears a candy necklace instead of pearls.

She recommends really good books.

Her favorite mixed drink is Nyquil and Nyquil.

She grew up on a merchant marine ship.

She takes most of the pictures.

This was all half of her idea.

She enjoys being interviewed.

She was in the band “Shakespeare’s Sister”

She works for the same company as me, just across town.

Someday, she will own a cat.

She really should write a book someday.

In another reality, we are in a band together and on a lot of drugs.

Her first memory is riding on the back of a moped.

We did not go to the same high school; we went to the same college.

She took this photo. I wrote these words.

In other countries, carousels rotate from right to left, not left to right, like here in America. Here, they go counter-clockwise, so that traffic is in the same direction as one would walk past it. In England, it’s clockwise, which allows the potential rider to mount their animals in the proper way – left foot first, then swing the right leg over.

Why is it different here? We were more concerned with a brass ring, which hung just out of reach. As the carousel span round and round, people could “reach for the brass ring.” As most of us are right handed, the machine had to go in a counter-clockwise direction to enable the free right hand to reach for the ring.

The merry-go-round is much simpler. It just spins in circles. It’s democratic, too. It can spin this way or that. Either way, it makes plenty of people, both left and right handed, throw up.

Picture - N
Words - S

There are lots of ways to get a man out of your life, but no guarantees that he will stay out. Well, that is, all but one. You would think people with serious food allergies would pay closer attention to what they were eating. But to give him credit, it's hard to pick finely ground almonds out of meatballs. And even harder still to know the spaghetti noodles were cooked in fish broth.

Picture - N
Words - N

The gnome was home. The saying goes that home is wherever you hang your hat. For her it was where ever she placed the gnome. The gnome, with its red hat and smiling eyes, had been through 35 moves in 8 years. She had fought with several roommates about where to put him. They claimed that he should be outside and she always refused claiming that he was the microwave gnome and that was that. The gnome will probably get cancer from the microwave, but he doesn't care – he just keeps on smiling at her. Through the years, it went from being just the gnome to being the gnome and a whole lotta shit. The gnome now kept company with knick knacks, brick a brack, and assorted stuffed animals. But the gnome knows that if there was a fire that he and he alone would be saved. He scoffs at the smiling frog on the windowsill and outright laughs at the stuffed pig on the bed.

Photo - N
Words - N

These boots mean that she can be whoever she wants to be. When she’s wearing them, things could be falling apart, but her toes, at the very least, are secure inside them. They’re the kind of boots you run to your mother toting, begging for, who tells you they won’t go with any of your school outfits. And you stamp your feet and say, “When I get old enough, I’m buying these boots and wearing them every day.” And your mother looks at you and laughs, because you will forget that you said that. But she didn’t forget. She waited and plotted and yeah, maybe life isn’t perfect, but when you have on these boots, you can sure pretend.

Photo - N
Words - S

I Couldn’t Remember His Name Until Now

I’m a big believer that between the ages of birth and twelve years old, there are really over nine hundred real years inside there. Maybe not nine hundred years. But it seems like time has such a different passage. From the age that it took me to be sixteen, now I realize that was seventeen years ago and I’ve been rambling across this dusty bowl for much longer that any of us would like to admit.

The house I grew up in was on a hill. A big hill, higher than anything else in town. Above our house was another hill, but that was in the next town. This makes the last statement not a lie.

Next to the house I grew up in lived Mr. Johnson. His wife had died long before I was even born. He used to have lady callers, at one point, but it seemed that that was long ago, as well. He had settled into the role of small town widower, kindly old man, whichever. He had a really cute dog.

And looking back, I’d prefer to remember things like they were, when he walked his dog and all the kids played with it. This was before the time that the dog had to be taken away. This was before the time that he drunkenly steered his station wagon into every mailbox and garage door on the block.

I’d like to remember his well-manicured lawn. Not the lawn it became, the lawn that everyone on the block would talk about or just stare at and shake their heads.

I didn’t grow up with any other kids. Maybe this informs my misanthropy. Maybe I just relate better to old people. Maybe I’d like to remember the world as I saw it through seven year old eyes instead of growing up and seeing something fall apart across the street when I looked up the hill.

Sooner or later, they took him away, just like they took away his dog. And someone else lives there now. I can’t even look at his house.

Photo - N
Words - S

Greenwood Methodist

In my very early years, before even the age of 2, I somehow acquired the ability to memorize churches, what the sermon would be that week, who the minister was, and what the difference by faith were. I would cut out pictures of churches from the newspaper and dazzled people with my ecumenical knowledge. Somehow, I forgot it all, except for the Greenwood Methodist, because I even wrote a song about it that we used to sing in the car with my parents.

Twenty years later, I drove down Mile Hill every single night, as I was dating someone a few towns over. It’s called Mile Hill because, well, It’s a mile straight down. And down that hill I drove, so sure of my every 2 AM trek that I could and did drive home asleep. I’d always wake up near the Greenwood Methodist or the Tic Toc Market, because that meant I was at Mile Hill and once I got to the bottom, I’d be back home.

Most of the time, my travels down that road were questioning. I had no idea what or who I was going to be. I didn’t know why I was with who I was with. And all I wanted to do was keep driving down Mile Hill. I wish this curvy, winding road would never end, never take me past Park Lanes and the log cabin at the end.

Near the Greenwood Methodist, when I was younger, someone kept a gaudy neon pink Christmas tree up all year long. Some nights, late home from Ohio with my parents, it was the only light illuminating the road and comforted me.

Years now back into what would be the future and is now the past, eyes nearly teared from something said, I’d wish and pray that that Christmas tree would light back up, that I could remember what house it was at. I dreamed that inside the 2 AM night airs that I could see that pink beacon beckoning me, telling me what would make it all right. I could almost see it, close enough, white horses on each tinseled branch, but at the time, it was all I could do to keep my car on the road.

Photo - N
Words - S

A Call to Arms

We, the ones who stole all the miniature golf pencils, have agreed to ally ourselves with those who bend one wheel of the shopping carts and they who buy all of your favorite flavor of soda from the machine, as well as the person who broke the phone at the supermarket down on Wharton. Meet us at the usual place.

Photo - N
Words - S