A walker in the city—who by definition has no destination except to get around—ends up a visual treasure seeker. Multitudes of streets hold the real, the beautiful, the unexpected, and the bizarre–sometimes all four at once. What to make of a black nude female torso hanging from a brass luggage rack above a stand of yellow daffodils? Or the guy who tries to shake me down for a few dollars after I laugh and grab a quick pic?

Slowly the puzzle resolves, aided by years of urban experience. I’ve run across the Department of Outlandish Found Objects, curated by a sidewalk book peddler. You might walk right by his shabby folding table, his thinking goes, but you can’t walk right by this. I don’t know where he gets his stacks of new and tattered books, his headless hanging nude or his crazy whimsical ideas. But if he had a book on Man Ray, I would need to buy it, wouldn’t you?