Raw Data

The agents of the IBNB are interested in space, particularly the space no one lives in: so-called "public places." There's infinite detail in the world and we are infinitely curious about it. We collect urban detail, strange incidents, odd juxtapositions and overheard conversations, in order to express the experience of this place and time. In this section you will find field notes from an ongoing investigation into the hidden city of Fargo, North Dakota.

"To reveal our backstreets to the indifferent stars."                   -- Nelson Algren

June: "And all of this belongs to you and me...So let me take a ride and see what's mine." -- Iggy Pop Downtown Across the street from the library I discover, between a light pole and the curb, a swastika carved into the cement, like a child's initials. I must have walked past it a hundred times. When my head turns back to its normal scanning level, far down the block I see a guy walking who has been known to talk about white supremacy. The infrastructure is wire; the response is paper. The paper is translated back to wire. Walking down Broadway to a party I pass a storefront with a metal cutout of Idaho hanging down (compare to which other signs). It is a small rectangular space, painted white. A silvery metal boat hangs upside down from the ceiling. A chair sits next to the window, and on the narrow window ledge, there is a Bible, with a TV Guide on top of it, and a remote control on top of that. The chair faces a wall where three TV-shaped holes are cut in, each a little smaller than the other. Light flickers in the holes; the TVs are on, but only vague shapes of light are visible. (E. thinks they may be covered with wax paper).

I can't figure out where the back patio of Monte's, the fancy restaurant and cocktail lounge, would be. There's just an alleyway, some dumpsters, a parking lot. We go around the block and find it's been entirely enclosed in wicker, with a blue tarp-like slanted roof over the top, a crack visible. I think about movies I've seen with expensive restaurants in third world countries. When I see a loading dock, I see a stage. The one on the side of the old Northern School Supply finally got torn off. I loved the tacky signs on the brown outside walls: only the outlines are left, of the desk, the book and quill, the overhead projecter. When the side was torn out of the building, I loved how the built-in bookcases stood as if glued to the side of the wall, high in the air, pigeons sitting in the pigeonholes. Lemming Block In front of the Molar Barber College, two people are sitting on chairs set up on the sidewalk. One is in a silver beanbag.

The Main Ave. bridge is soon to be closed and torn down. Its green metal walls are like tall railroad spikes, alternating with thick lightpole pillars. On one of the pillars, the word "OR" painted on the side in blue over the green. Along the side, down the cement steps on the Fargo side: trees marked in pink Xs. A wood platform under the bridge: E. says "it's like someone decided to build a treehouse." Just visible, with craning, on the underside of the bridge, inside the treehouse, the phrase "Adios Amigos" (looks like magic marker) on the left side and the word "Rancid" (looks stenciled) on the right side. Next to the word "Rancid" is a drawing that looks like a cartoon owl. I used to walk across this bridge when I was an undergrad, and I wrote one of my first poems as a so-called "adult": "Every time I walk over the bridge/the batteries in my Walkman die./Not only isn't it red, but it's the greenest river I've ever seen." When E. and I were courting, he walked me home across this bridge many times. One day we got caught in a terrible thunderstorm while partway over; one still and quiet night he pointed out that the sides of the bridge were covered in cobwebs, drifting white between all the green spikes, all the way across. Tonight the news says that the bridge is “closed for construction,” when “destruction” is what they’re actually doing to it.

Home Page

Spectacular Optical