Was there anything more harrowing and hopeless than watching one of our most cherished monuments burn violently this week? It led me to find and dig through so many rolls of film taken among the streets of Paris, within Notre Dame, and through so many other cathedrals, towns, cities, and sites that felt permanently preserved, at least in my memory, upon emulsion-coated paper. 

It was a feeling that sat so heavy with me, for hours watching so much history and beauty burn and just sending hopes out into the ether- stop. Please, just make it stop. 

And while there wasn’t any way to help from afar or near, at least all of these places can exist in our memories as long as we continue to go. 

We can never make it stop. We can only go. 

I hope that somehow these words help give you direction, ignition, intuition.

And the realization that no matter where we go, what we see, and how we hold onto it, I’ll be here (and there) to tell the story.

I’ve had this idea for a while now to create a bar that doesn’t exist. This bar would be called Willy Nilly’s! And it would only exist in the wild memories of people who are pretty sure they were there last night. To open the bar, I would only need to purchase a few rubber stamps that say “Willy Nilly’s!” and pass them out to people I trust, and people I trust who are usually around people who are drunk. Once said drunk people awake the next morning and see “Willy Nilly’s! stamped on their wrist, they’ll realize, holy shit. I was there.

The stamp would appear right before that feeling that things were about to get all Willy Nilly! The owner of said arm with said stamp would then proudly explain to anyone within earshot that yes, they were at Willy Nilly’s! last night.

“No Way! Where was it?”

“I mean, somewhere in North Brooklyn I’m sure.”

Everyone would want to be there. Everyone would have a different story about what happened. It would all sound and feel the same.

I think this idea is fucking hilarious, and also, rather philosophical. How much of a place is determined by the physicality of it, the reality of it, the believability of it? 

Most of my favorite places have been distinctly hard to believe. 

So as we all wander through this city and world in search of places, I hope that we are filled instead with the feeling of presence; of simply being there.

And all of my favorite places, I’ll keep making them exist forever in words as my solemn stamp of approval. 

Keep moving, Brooklyn. I’ll see you out there, somewhere.