Michelle

Sadly, I woke up to some heartbreaking news this morning here in Baton Rouge , Louisiana. Someone broke into my van overnight, shattered two windows, stole a lawnmower, and ransacked everything inside. It’s honestly heartbreaking and deflating, especially when you’re simply trying to do good and make a difference. I can’t understand why someone would do something like this. I’ve contacted the police, and I’m currently waiting for them to arrive and process the van for fingerprints. Unfortunately, this means I won’t be able to attend the Louisiana Book Festival today as planned. I was really looking forward to meeting everyone and sharing my books, but right now, I’m just trying to process everything that happened.

I took this photograph 20 years ago, in the French Quarter in April 2006, eight months after Katrina. Two girls in a slow moving pickup kept yelling, take our picture, take our picture. One of them got shy and turned away, so her friend pushed her face back towards my camera. Snap. The truck was gone in an instant. As far as I know, neither of them has ever seen this photograph. I wrote that the girl on the left embodies the joie de vivre New Orleanians have, that even the people hardest hit by life here carry a spirit about them. Twenty years of photographing cities later, I still believe that. Tennessee Williams said America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland. San Francisco is home. I have spent half my life photographing New York and New Orleans. There is a lot of truth in that quote, and some days, standing on a corner in the Quarter, I believe every word of it. But I am also in the middle of photographing the 100 largest cities in America, with albums published for 60 of them, and the project has ruined the quote for me a little. Detroit has a grit and a dignity all its own. So does Pittsburgh. So does Memphis, and El Paso, and a dozen other places Williams would have waved off as Cleveland. And of course Chicago has that pizza. And don't you dare try to say Lou Malnati's deep dish is not pizza. Every great city has its own charm. You just have to walk it with a camera until it shows you. So no, I will not take the Williams quote as religion. But back here in New Orleans this weekend, with the food and the music and the art and the people. I understand exactly why he said it. My 100 Largest American Cities collection: flickr.com/photos/thomashawk… Now the part I actually care about. Somewhere out there are two women who were girls in a truck in the Quarter in 2006. Were they sisters? Friends? I would love to take their portrait again, 20 years later. How awesome would it be if this found them? And Cleveland, defend yourself. Tell me why your city belongs on the list. You are one of the hundred American cities I still need to photograph.

insane ask, but does anyone know anyone who could help me get my dad to the world series?

The horse carriage industry is coming to an end in New York City. Our administration will make sure workers and owners are protected and the horses are safe.

The Beatles biopics producer explains the idea behind releasing all four movies at once in 2028: "We want people to be able to experience them in the cinema during the same period. Now that doesn't necessarily mean we're thinking that people will go and see all four films on the same day, but you know within the same month you might see one a week, or you might see one one weekend to the next, one the next. However you you see it, I think our hope is that people will see all four films. You know they they stand alone as individual stories of each of those four men, but they they have a cumulative power, which I think is is greater than the sum of the parts. You know, the Beatles are simply the I think the greatest band in in history, and you know we're trying trying to do our best to do them justice, so hence the four films. I don't think there's probably another band that you could legitimately say you wanted to see four films for." variety.com/2026/more/news/t…

They filmed the Super Bowl Shuffle before they won it. Sunglasses, fog machine, linemen on sax. Ditka let them do it and they still blew out New England 46–10. Rest in peace, Mike Ditka. Nobody’s shuffling like that again.

Unfortunately became a victim of the AC. Woke up yesterday feeling like an ice cube and the result is that I’m sick today… Still, we drove to New Orleans today. My friends are on their way to a nature reserve to walk around and look for alligators while I’m staying in the hotel to take a nap and recover. If I feel better tomorrow we‘ll do a swamp tour.

This Sombr guy is not doing George Michael justice AT ALL #vma

I AM SITTING NEXT TO A CAT ON THIS AIRPLANE

In my eulogy yesterday for my mother, who died last week, among the things I talked about was the Bristol foam party and how she accepted things she didn't always understand lol. ... I am headed to Bristol today for what hopefully is a fun and exciting weekend for fans.