Brighton, c.1938

There seems to be fewer shops selling old photographs these days. These would be antique shops, not thrift shops.

The antique shop in Kerrisdale next to Economy Barbers on West Boulevard where I used to get my hair cut still has old photos for sale, but the last time I was there, I noticed more portraits than landscapes: fussy looking people who seem to resent paying so much to have their pictures taken.

A couple days ago I read a paragraph in Graham Greene's Brighton Rock (1938) that felt like I was looking through a handful of old photos. Those familiar with the book will recall how a photograph figures in the demise of Spicer.

Here's the handful-of-photos paragraph, with what feels to me like a photo taken (the punctum sentence, as it were) in bold:

"It was quite dark now: the coloured lights were on all down the Hove front. They walked slowly past Snow's, past the Cosmopolitan. An aeroplane flying low burred out to sea, a red light vanishing. In one of the glass shelters an old man struck a match to light his pipe and showed a man and girl cramped in the corner. A wall of music came off the sea. They returned up through Norfolk Square towards Montpellier Road: a blonde with Garbo cheeks paused to powder on the steps up to the Norfolk bar. A bell tolled somewhere for someone dead and a gramophone in a basement played a hymn. "Maybe," the Boy said, "after tonight we'll find some place to go." (179-180)