A prisoner’s view at the Château de Duras in southwest France. Marguerite Donnadieu wrote her first novel here, adopting Duras as her nom de plume in homage. And maybe even literally here, in this crumbling cage, when the words didn’t come and this was exactly where she was anyway, in a prison of language that despite its bars, offered a vision of escape where those same words could lead.

An X-ray view into not only a building, but its past: stonemasons rough in the cornerstone of Eliot Hall before the actual ceremony in May, 1912. And is that Buster Keaton supervising?

The sign says "Launch here," but to where? Back to earth? It sure looks awful far away from here, on the frigid shores of an icy lake on a distant planet.

Pier post, Sunset Key, Florida

In a small gallery off the Rotunde du Glacier, an eddy of calm in the visual torrent that is the Palais Garnier.

One of the most humbling things to realize about the Palais is that every last flourish and ornament and joint was done by hand. The ironwork skeleton of the building is no exception: Because they're hand cast, drilled and set, rivets dance up a beam supporting the cupola crowning Palais Garnier.

(i'm writing this caption in lower case and inside parentheses because we have to be quiet: we're in the south reference room in the reed college hauser memorial library circa 1930, when it was Brand Spanking SHHHHHH! er, just after it opened. sorry, ms. unger (the librarian in this picture) SHHH! I can't even say "reed" a little louder? because...? right: this is a library, not a snooker hall. but gee-willikers, it's smoky enough to be one, know what i mean?! i know, take it outside... )

Like Icarus, the St Louis Arch soars into the sky, kisses it, and falls to earth.