Ever subject to the printed page I bought a copy of Daz Smith's Rebel Scum. It is coming across the Atlantic and across the country to me. I have always found those on the fringe more interesting than those of the ordinary world. Possibly from my youth when walking in Manhattan on 42nd. Street. Back then there were panhandlers, hustlers, derelicts and soap box exhorters. All in the short space of a few blocks. The soap box exhorters always had the "soap box", some box to stand on, and an American flag was displayed alongside. If they were selling religion there was a Bible, if it were politics it was The Daily Worker or similar. The audience was that of believers and jeerers, real NY, bare bones and out there. And maybe a few feet away a drunk asleep on the pavement lost in his alcoholic lethality.
Vivian Maier caught these folks. So did Robert Frank. My town has folks sleeping on the street in tarpaulin/poncho tent shelters in a town where ~100" of annual rainfall is not unknown. The lucky ones have places under streets and buildings in this weird town where they can shelter.
