Seen in front of my house in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on June 8, 2011.

Part of the sculpture park at New York Mills, Minnesota. Photo taken June 28, 2002.

What are the odds that a guy with a bass drum walks past the Holcomb-Henry-Boom Funeral Home on Snelling Avenue in Saint Paul while I’m stuck at a stop light and happen to have a camera with me? One out of one, apparently.

There’s something Lee Friedlander-esque about this shot I snapped in a parking lot last September in St. Paul. Don’t remember what I was thinking when I shot it.

Spotted this curious little car in an amazing place called M. Schettl outside of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, back in 2009. It’s a Citicar, an all-electric vehicle made back in the seventies.

Not long after I saw this relic, I happened to be watching the television movie adaptation of Ursula LeGuin’s science fiction novel, The Lathe of Heaven, starring Bruce Davidson. It was made in 1980 and was set in the (then) near future. Of course, they needed some futuristic looking cars, and I guess the Citicar fit the bill. They used several of them for the film. I wouldn’t have known what they were if I hadn’t just seen this one in Oshkosh.

There’s something forlorn about seeing this little car rusting away among the other antiques they had there. The future is never quite what people think it will be.

Check out the logo on the dashboard and over the rear bumber: Amelia—the erstwhile number-one choice when you wanted to say “future” with a font.

Seen in downtown Seattle, June 18, 2011. At 1:18, I assume.