I don't want to live in a city where the only cultural advantage is that you can make a right turn on a red light.

los angeles, california.
"so glad to meet you, angeles."
elliott smith

when the wind would blow with rain and snow

rome, italy.
"postcards from italy"
beirut

i should have come over.

london, england.
"much too blind to see the damage he's done,
sometimes a man must awake to find
he really has no one."
jeff buckley

all the good that won't come out of me

standing out here on this frozen lake, somewhere.
"you say i choose sadness, that it never once has chosen me.
maybe you're right."
rilo kiley

in strange ideas in stranger times

detroit, michigan.
"i've no idea what's right sometimes
i lost my mind i lost my life
i lost my job i lost my wife."
sufjan

sleight of hand and twist of fate

paris, france.
you gave it all but i wanted more

la panamericana

nuns in peru

melissa farlow

"though my language is dead,

still the shapes fill my head"

- arcade fire

pinch to snub that restless nerve, knock the wind from one last urge

seattle, washington.

"i want to live where the soul meets body"

- death cab for cutie

and i looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who i was for fifteen strange seconds

denver, colorado.

"we had finally found the magic land at the end of the road

and we never dreamed the extent of the magic."

- on the road by jack kerouac

ay tu primo colorado

colorado springs, colorado.

"and the watchers beware, lest they see it fall,

and paradise might laugh when at last it falls."

- sufjan stevens

brooklyn, we go hard

brooklyn, nyc.

"Verb: When you make your area look like shit.

Yeah that kid is trying to brooklyn up this area. Let's go get him."

- urban dictionary

in the tower above the earth, there is a view that reaches far.

madrid, spain.

"'i like to see a man standing at the foot of a skyscraper,' he said. 'it makes him no bigger than an ant--isn't that the correct bromide for the occasion? the god-damn fools! it's man who made it--the whole incredible mass of stone and steel. it doesn't dwarf him, it makes him greater than the structure. it reveals the true dimensions to the world. what we love about these buildings, dominique, is the creative faculty, the heroic in man.'"

the fountainhead, ayn rand

there is no beginning to the story

philadelphia, pennsylvania

"i long, as every human being does,

to be at home wherever i find myself"

maya angelou.

the mind that knows itself, is a mind that knows much more

chicago, illinois.

"we slept in parking lots,

i don't mind, i don't mind,

i was in love with the place,

in my mind, in my mind"

sufjan stevens.

i want to wake up in a city that never sleeps.

nyc, ny.

"chapter one: he was as tough and romantic as the city he loved.

beneath his black-rimmed glasses was the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat.

i love this. new york was his town, and it always would be."

manhattan, 1979

santiago de chile

santiago de chile.

"how is it possible to feel nostalgia for a world i never knew?"

diaros de motocicleta

vancouver

vancouver, british columbia.

"Canada is a place of infinite promise.

We like people, and if one ever had to emigrate,

this would be the destination."

john maynard keynes.