and then it stopped

Yesterday it finally stopped. a week long onslaught of miserable weather that seemed it would never end. I woke to a sunny saturday morning with not a cloud in the sky. the air was warm and fresh to the nose, there were farmer's markets and hipsters on bicycles. there were art shows and funnel cakes.

just a few days ago, it seemed like Ole New YoNk was in a nose dive of depravity which could not be recovered from. it wasn't really raining, but more a cold pissing that seemed it might never end. Umbrellas were being slaughtered by the hundreds, their broken bodies lying in silent puddles, nothing more than cheap nylon and twisted recycled metals. Face down, limp and lifeless, these are the fallen heros. the umbrellas that were there for you when you needed them, although they were so poorly made, they could never withstand the debut of new york city's first taste of the coming months. Still they stood proudly over your heads, and protected you from the elements as best they could.

Some were fashionable, others were plain and understated in true new york fashion. They are the derbies of today, and many, countless many were left to fend for themselves, hand-less, inverted, broken and wet amidst the rubbish and chewing gum, and dog piss on the sidewalks. discarded like a chicken bone on the C-Train on a thursday night, long about midnight.

I saw them. Many of them. Some were little families. Sometimes two and three of them at a time, huddled in their crumpled desecration against sign posts, chain link fences, and jammed heavily into black trash bags filled with the waste of a city under siege.

I tried to look the other way. To pretend it wasn't really happening. that these weren't American Umbrellas. No true american would leave the one who sheltered him from the rain in a twisted heap on the sidewalk... or would they?!

today's update isn't so much exciting, as a testament to the capacity of mother nature to cause mankind to lose all sense of responsibility. the feelings of, "cover your own ass!" and "make a break for it" never expressed more clearly than they are expressed in these images today.

please take time with today's images. understand that each umbrella brought a certain level of joy to their owner. Sure, there were disagreements, and like any relationship, sure there were hard times. But in the end, it is always the umbrella, not the owner, who is kicked to the curb and left to rot amongst the fallen leaves and fermenting urine of new york's homeless and four legged. Each umbrella had a story of its own. a purse it loved to be tucked away in, or stories of the different swanky lobbies it had been parked in while their owner was off to a meeting or a day of work for the man. Each umbrella was once just an idea in a man's head, and then a quota to be met in a sweat shop overseas, and after the long journey to the states, it was just one of many being sold on a fold out table, like emergency rations for those less prepared.

Some of these umbrellas were back stage at the coolest concerts. Leaning by the door faithfully while the owner tried his best moves on some girl in a bar, or on a casting couch in midtown... or some guy in his dorm room at NYU. Through it all the umbrella never complained. It was always there for you, the end user, until one day, under nearly apocalyptic conditions, the poor little guy couldn't live up to the reputation of the newer, cheaper umbrellas readily available and all but begging for a shot at the big time.

and like so many of us, after a lifetime of dedicated service and commitment to the cause, the old was kicked to the curb and left to its own devices, to fend for itself on the cold and lonely rain soaked streets of new york.

god bless them. Every last broken and dejected one of them.