A little over a year ago, I was driving around near Touro Infirmary, looking for a parking space. In a wooded vacant lot, I spied an elegant purple leather camelback sofa missing one leg, plunked down in the middle of arboreal desolation.
I snapped a pic and tossed it on my Facebook page with the oft-used note, "Today's apropos of nothing."
A couple of days later, I saw a pretentious brown wing chair under a tree by an abandoned building. The next day a disco-era white armchair by the highway.
Soon my posts started coming every day, with the tag line, "Your Abandoned Furniture Shot of the Day." Before long, the hobby-cum-obsession got its own FB page, with a fast-growing following nearly as obsessed as I with the once-loved furnishings we jettison.
Some months back, I was photographing a huge, shattered china hutch leaning against an old oak when the piece's discarder came out of his house and asked what I was doing.
"Photographing abandoned furniture," I replied.
"Why you wanna do that?" he asked.
I didn't really know how to answer his altogether reasonable question, so I said, "I guess it's kind of my gig now."
"It pay?"
Soon, others began asking why i would follow such a bizarre muse unless there were some monetization angle. No one seemed to accept the "Because It's There" rationale, so I figured I'd have to cook up some commercial angle, if only to shut them up so I could photograph furniture in peace.
Hence, this year's strangest Christmas offering: the 2016 Your Abandoned Furniture Shot of the Day Calendar. Every month a new treasure, plus a hot shot centerfold of more than 30 bonus images.
Before you ask, yes, I know it's crazy. I've never pretended otherwise. It's just that, if I hadn't come up with some commercial angle, people wouldn't stop reminding me it's crazy and I'd never have time to actually go out into the habitat and capture the stock.
So, here it is, likely the oddest addition to this year's Katalog and the most culturally pure New Orleans-themed holiday gift, guaranteed no fleur-de-lis.
The calendar can be purchased at bookstores, record stores and gift shops 'round my way, online at my own site, at Amazon and soon, I'm hoping at B&N as well.
There is, of course, a budding website, a Twitter account (I'm told one must do these things) and, every day, a new find at the original Facebook page.
Some have predicted that, among all the crazy things I've done, this could actually find a wider audience.
Perhaps, but don't worry. I won't let success spoil me. I'll still be driving around looking for parking spaces.
And finding new, faded, treasures.
Stunned update: Wow, y'all weren't kidding. With the orders that came in last night, the first printing has broken even! Thanks to all for the Abandoned Furniture love.