A few photos from this year's annual National Geographic traveler photo contest. What a wonderful and strange world we live. Also these photos are a thousand times better than anything in yours or my Instagram feed.
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First, have a sense of the ironic. If you don't have that, nothing else is possible. Usually it's someone who, for one thing, thinks this is the only place in the world to be. Which is to say, you don't think of the other options one would have in life, you don't think of living in a retirement community in Mexico or a villa in Italy -- for better or worse you're here, and doomed to be here.
- Milton Glaser (Designer of the I <3 NY logo)
Nancy LeSage and Fleur Marks were strangers when their marriage announcements appeared side by side in The New York Times on Sunday, May 2, 1982. In an amazing coincidence their children who began dating each other as students at University of Vermont had their own wedding announcement in the New York Times just last month. This reads like something from the imagination of Nora Ephron.
I don't have a citation on this at all but I'm convinced that this photo of "Will Robertson of the Washington Bicycle Club riding an American Star Bicycle down the steps of the United States Capitol in 1885" is also the first photo of a BMX extreme rider.
CUNY's Center for Urban Research launched a project titled Welcome to 1940s New York for which they found the above artifact outlining the cost of rent in the West Village back then which ranged from $30 to $150 per month. I'll wait while your depression sets in.
I made 5,127 prototypes of my vacuum before I got it right. There were 5,126 failures. But I learned from each one. That’s how I came up with a solution. So I don’t mind failure. I’ve always thought that schoolchildren should be marked by the number of failures they’ve had. The child who tries strange things and experiences lots of failures to get there is probably more creative.
- Sir James Dyson
Biggest boom box ever.
Thoughts on love and relationships explicated via diagrams and charts.
I went for a bike ride after work today to enjoy the sunset.
Mike Keith created 
Phil Lanoue caught 
Underground New York Public Library is a fantastic Tumblr devoted to photos of NYC straphangers and their books. All the photos are snapped by Ourit Ben-Haim who does a wonderful job I think of capturing and framing each moment. The thing I miss most about not having to take the subway any more for my commute to work is devouring my books.
Relatedly, celebrities on the subway.
Same floor dorm friends!
Graduating seniors applauding the reunion class of 2002.
On the table at The Standard restaurant.