![\"Cigarette](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/2012-11-13-14.38.40.jpg?resize=1024%2C768&ssl=1\")
Cigarette Ooze. A Vernon Boulevard Payphone. 2012.<\/p><\/div>\n
My memory of this photo from November 13, 2012, is precise. This cigarette and liquid spill sat in a payphone enclosure at Vernon Boulevard and 34th Avenue, across from Rainey Park. From that payphone eight years earlier I spoke with a reporter from St. Pete Times<\/em>. I called her collect since, like most payphones, this one rejected incoming calls. The conversation led to more calls and e-mails, resulting in Random Brushed With Humanity<\/a><\/strong>, published in the July 20, 2004 edition of the paper.<\/p>\n It’s a fine article. Among the best I can remember. But I have no memory of saying that I gave up on the project when people started making specific connections. That does not even make sense given the trajectory of the site and my somewhat long-winded “Frequently Asked Question” essay explaining its existence.<\/p>\n Then again I have expressed ambivalence about the project, and the subject matter, many times over the years. She must have caught me on one of those days when I would rather have established myself as something other than a payphone guy.<\/p>\n I also moved here in 1990. Not 1980.<\/p>\n The above picture just kind of blobbed on to my screen. The digital hoarder is accustomed to unrepentant memories rising up in the silence of a photograph, or in the sound of a long-ago friend’s voice when a forgotten video is unexpectedly played back.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n\n