from a guy in Jersey City!

#1

#2

#3

South Africa!

The first, outside a hospital close to my flat, which is also close to the local train station. Most of the staff walk from the station to the hospital past the corner where I put up the poster, and in the five minutes I was there, a nurse had already commented: "Yes, it's rough here."

The second poster is up on a DB box on a busy intersection. Our city is riddled with posters from "traditional healers" who promise to find/bring back lost lovers, penis enlargement, to put curses on your enemies etc., (even some promising safe abortions). 

The last poster is on our varsity campus, on a wall dedicated specifically to students who want to advertise or campaign something. The poster seems so small next to the large lettering advertising a local trance festival, but it's more in the line of sight of passers-by.

From Marie C 

Pretoria, South Africa 

!!!!!!

from Monmouth County, New Jersey

I live in Monmouth County, NJ, which was hit pretty damn hard by Sandy. The train line that has taken me to work in NYC for the past 8 years has been wrecked by flooding and is down indefinitely. 

A train commute which normally takes me approximately 3 hours/day has been replaced by an epic quest (car to bus to ferry then about 1 mile of walking) totaling 5 hours/day. It is just another mess in a series of messes brought on by Sandy. 

I posted this one on the last leg while riding on the Statue of Liberty ferry, which has been providing courtesy transportation of sad, tired, cold commuters from Jersey City, NJ to Battery Park, NY. This one was hung on the Ladies' Room wall, where I imagine many women have let a tear or two slip.

---
dear New Jersey: we are so grateful for that Statue of Liberty ferry! and you! thank you for this exhibition. we're so happy you are safe.

#sandy

—from Alix H

Iowa City!

Where do people cry? In the alleys—of which there are many for such a small town; in front of the bars, of which there are four or five per city block; in the library and at the bus stop. I cried in August in front of the air hose at the IC Pit Stop gas station because I couldn't figure out how to gauge the pressure in my tires and I was late.

I was only able to put up two: The first was placed outside Dave's Foxhead Tavern where writers are said to hang out. Writers are, as a rule, quite weepy. 

 

The second I placed in the alley near the entrance of Studio 13. The electrical pole seemed conducive to tears and nights of regret. 

 

The third I wanted to put in the Pedestrian Mall where many bars are and where the abyss of parties and people that is this college town congregate at 2am looking for love and gyros. But this proved impossible. My masking tape had failed me, newly bought it would still not come off itself. It had adhered together. There were no electrical poles and the places the city had designated for fliers seemed too pre-approved. I wanted it to be somewhere people cried. So I decided, better to wait than to place it in the wrong place. Tomorrow, I will go and return my failed masking tape to staples and instead by poster tape. Then I will place the last broadside in a secret place in the Pedestrian Mall.

 

Showing my curatorial assistant the sheets

 

Tacks and Tape

The alley where the club is

The masking tape has proved formidable and melted

Where smokers cry

Down the alley from Prarie Lights across from Studio 13

For poets and writers

If I had a hammer, my thumb wouldn't be black and blue

 

 

There was no place for the third. The tacks didn't work

 

Some videos

From Los Angelos, CA 

And, click here for a video from Madison, WI 

Albuquerque: a gas station

 

I posted this at a gas station tonight after I got off work.  This city is a crossroads for a lot of people.  

I've been here six years. I've just gone through a divorce and feel I'm at a big crossroads in my own life.  I don't cry in public, but have had a lot of reason to cry in private this year.  I've cried in parks. I've cried in my car driving past the home I once shared with my family. I've cried in my small apartment situated next to the cloverleaf of I-25 and I-40, about as close to the crossroads of New Mexico as you can get. I've cried for the collapse of my marriage, and the dream of all it represented. 

—Brent