Last week I wrote about the occasional frustration of seeing a scene that would make a perfect photograph, and not being able to capture it (can’t stop the car somewhere, etc.). I remembered, after I wrote that—this is why “newslettering” is so fun, you can go back and amend or expand an idea easily—that I once wrote in my notes, “a writer captures photographs of the mind.” That is, the mental or intellectual equivalent of a photograph. (I also once jotted down “a writer is like a prostitute, but it’s his mind he sells,” so not all my analogies are great.)

But I like this one. These images, sometimes visually captured and sometimes not, seem like they do or could tell a whole story; little things that somehow break through the day-to-day; tiny landmarks.

The other day, out walking, I passed this street sign which had become overgrown with ivy, or some other vine, and I just stopped and looked at it for a minute...