Moving at the speed of billiards.

A friend linked to a blog of gorgeous aerial shots of cities around the world.  These human creations, these living machines of memory and steel, are resplendent.  The heights that people can build and the monuments we can create.

Source: Gadling

They tell you interesting things about places, things you may never expect.  From our mental images of Jerusalem, it's easy to think the entire nation of Israel is a dusty biblical archeology dig.  Then you see a picture of Tel Aviv and are reminded otherwise.

Source: Gadling

But they're as sanitized as the machine drawings in a patent application.  Beautiful and lifeless, little images of a model railroad set.  Over the years, I have become somewhat obsessed with images of Prypiat, the Russian city in Ukraine that served Chernobyl up to it's destruction, and was evacuated immediately after.  These beautiful stills remind me of Prypiat photos.

Source: Wikipedia

Cities are machines like we are machines, living throbbing things that move and grow.  These pictures are as lifeless as ancient religious icons, sapping the life out of the living machines and replacing the awe with sparking gilt.  While the glowing aerial shots make great Chamber of Commerce brochures, true pictures of cities happen at street level, just like the living city does.

Source: Shanghai Scrap

These are men playing carom, a Shanghai version of pool/billiards.  They are in the street of one of the world's busiest cities.  Life here does not happen at the speed of a plane or a car or a swift transfer of finances or the ledger of a ship.  It happens as fast as a checker pushed with a stick.