https://www.randykennedy.net/journal daily 0.75 2018-05-21 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5afaeeb196e76f8db170f828/1526917008512-ORHQI31E6E1OM1LZFMKQ/news-page.jpg News https://www.randykennedy.net/journal/2018/5/21/book-tour monthly 0.5 2018-05-21 https://www.randykennedy.net/book daily 0.75 2025-11-02 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5afaeeb196e76f8db170f828/1526591128364-CSUUO08LAZS8WV7K70YC/presidio-book-cover.jpg Books - Presidio Published by Simon & Schuster Set in the 1970s in the vast and arid landscape of the Texas panhandle, this darkly comic and stunningly mature literary debut tells the story of a car thief and his brother who set out to recover some stolen money and inadvertently kidnap a Mennonite girl who has her own reasons for being on the run. Troy Falconer returns home after years of working as a solitary car thief to help his younger brother, Harlan, search for his wife, who has run away with the little money he had. When they steal a station wagon for the journey, the brothers accidentally kidnap Martha Zacharias, a Mennonite girl asleep in the back of the car. Martha turns out to be a stubborn survivor who refuses to be sent home, so together these unlikely road companions attempt to escape across the Mexican border, pursued by the police and Martha’s vengeful father. The story is told partly through Troy’s journal, in which he chronicles his encounters with con artists, down-and-outers, and roadside philosophers, people looking for fast money, human connection, or a home long since vanished. The journal details a breakdown that has left Troy unable to function in conventional society; he is reduced to haunting motels, stealing from men roughly his size, living with their possessions in order to have none of his own and all but disappearing into their identities. With a page-turning plot about a kidnapped child, gorgeously written scenes that probe the soul of the American West, and an austere landscape as real as any character, Presidio packs a powerful punch of anomie, dark humor, pathos, and suspense. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5afaeeb196e76f8db170f828/1527096983885-9JFZMQ4SV43WBJW9QAAQ/subwayland-book-cover.jpg Books - Subwayland Published by St. Martin’s Griffin Since the doors of the first subway train opened in 1904, New Yorkers and tourists alike have been fascinated, amused, amazed, repelled and bewildered by the world-within-a-world that lies beneath the city. In Subwayland, the creator of The New York Times's award-winning "Tunnel Vision" column leads readers on an intrepid and unconventional tour of this storied subterranean land. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5afaeeb196e76f8db170f828/1c74956c-7dcb-425e-b606-06a631179dfb/24-HR-Locksmith.jpeg Books - 24-HR Locksmith A book of New York street photography Published by Hassla Books and The New York Ghost Edition of 250 Excerpt of a conversation included in the book between Randy Kennedy and Bob Nickas: BN: You’ve been photographing artist’s home and studio buzzers for years. How did this project begin? And one, I would suggest, only possible in New York. RK: In the winter of 2017, I took the subway to SoHo to see Vija Celmins, one of my favorite artists. Celmins rarely gives interviews, so I was excited and a little nervous. As I stood in front of her building waiting to be buzzed up, I noticed the name "V. Celmins” written behind the plastic protector on her building's door buzzer, and it appeared to be in Celmins’s own hand. I pulled out my phone and took a picture. There's always been something weirdly appealing to me about the old-fashioned New York building buzzer—names inscribed on the surface of the city in such an inconspicuous and functional way, like a little open secret. Once I had a phone with a camera ever within reach, I started wanting to take pictures of artists' names when I came across them. A few months later, waiting to be buzzed up to Roni Horn's studio, I took a shot of her name next to the buzzer. Then I got Ida Applebroog's. Then Dan Graham and John Wesley and Stanley Whitney and Vito Acconci. Pretty soon I'd become a full-on door-buzzer prowler. BN: That makes it sound unseemly, sneaky, and wrong. But the buzzers are right there, in public space, on the street. I have the feeling you must’ve gotten hooked pretty quickly. RK: It became a thing. I started venturing out specifically in search of good buzzers, guided by Google or artworld friends or artists themselves. It all felt a little silly but also like a good way, as Acconci once said of Following Piece, "to get myself off the writer's desk and into the city." It became a picture diary of artists I'd met or just admired. Also a funny flâneur's Baedeker, like a building inspector’s index of artist dispersion throughout New York in the early years of the 21st century. BN: It’s a good thing you started when you did, because nowadays we don’t always see a name on a buzzer. There’s often a system for scrolling down and dialing up, which I can barely figure out. It’s abstract, less human. RK: As time went on, I began to notice that. Analog door buzzers were slowly going the way of the payphone or yellow taxi, replaced by more efficient systems—the digital buzzer, the video buzzer, the dial-up buzzer, none of which have use for a physical name inscribed anywhere. I'm told that for years after his death, Duchamp's name at his former studio on 14th Street was still visible on the buzzer, a whispering farewell from the sly respirateur. BN: You have the beginning of an archive that also signals the end of an era. RK: As the analog recedes, the pictures gathered in a file on my phone seem more and more historical—a street-photographer's time capsule—which is why the idea of gathering them into a little book came about. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5afaeeb196e76f8db170f828/bdf0e299-c276-4bf8-9594-6bed0161880f/red-gap.jpeg Books - Red Gap A new American play based on a 1927 Texas bank robbery Published by Karma Books “Leopards break into the temple and drink the chalices empty; this happens repeatedly; eventually one can predict that it will happen again, and it becomes part of the ceremony.” —Kafka, “Leopards in the Temple” “It’s like I told you last night, son. The earth is mostly just a boneyard. But pretty in the sunlight.” —Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove “‘I am going on a long, long trip from which I shall never return,’ Henry Helms, leader of the bandit gang which last Friday robbed the First National Bank at Cisco and who is now in jail in Eastland, told Mrs. Francis Herron at her Wichita Falls home last Thursday night.” —Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Dec. 30, 1927 https://www.randykennedy.net/about-1 daily 0.75 2025-12-25 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5afaeeb196e76f8db170f828/1538423177358-FO1I52SFU1X0T3EUPA1K/randy-kennedy-new-page.jpg About https://www.randykennedy.net/writing daily 0.75 2025-10-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5afaeeb196e76f8db170f828/1538413323354-E064DQ6D097PKGSKDMPH/writing-page.jpg Writing https://www.randykennedy.net/news daily 0.75 2025-10-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5afaeeb196e76f8db170f828/1526917544401-YM6LETP768YUWKY95433/news-page.jpg News https://www.randykennedy.net/contact daily 0.75 2018-07-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5afaeeb196e76f8db170f828/1527097667321-EZ6EN8ZF1BTMFBKB8GJW/contact-page.jpg Contact https://www.randykennedy.net/home daily 1.0 2018-06-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5afaeeb196e76f8db170f828/1538503771474-S31RLOSIHG01000VV98F/empty-billboard-near-marfa-sg.jpg Home https://www.randykennedy.net/gallery-burke daily 0.75 2025-05-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/591a1b09bebafb6254a165a9/1494883617237-ZY9C3LXXT0BEWJRY7VLZ/5472460964_970bdc9788_b.jpg Gallery https://www.randykennedy.net/new-cover-page daily 0.75 2018-05-15 https://www.randykennedy.net/banner-2 daily 0.75 2018-05-16 https://www.randykennedy.net/about daily 0.75 2018-05-16 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/56cb3e0bf85082a807c001fe/1456173870380-G0H8OFF4AY384GZUX9RC/image-asset.jpeg About https://www.randykennedy.net/intro-banner-burke daily 0.75 2025-05-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/591a1b09bebafb6254a165a9/1494883179336-F3A1PFUFYGRCV3DN151S/5472462536_79320276cf_o.jpg Banner https://www.randykennedy.net/intro-burke daily 0.75 2025-05-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/591a1b09bebafb6254a165a9/1494885047320-72V1ZHK1B2K5AKP97DHI/5471868425_ccb0f494f7_o.jpg Intro https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/591a1b09bebafb6254a165a9/1494885061101-QMJ1IHKHTVML00HNEZN0/5472463172_36c0e1039b_o.jpg Intro https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/591a1b09bebafb6254a165a9/1494885076914-U1F43F414LKP96M7PZM0/5471872287_3fa4d5b9e9_o.jpg Intro https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/591a1b09bebafb6254a165a9/1494885047092-MNSEWZ1TAQJV8KD7VRCJ/5471867615_7f9841971b_o.jpg Intro https://www.randykennedy.net/story-burke daily 0.75 2025-05-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/591a1b09bebafb6254a165a9/1494885193472-XV3LBXC3QC7OTT1NHEDE/5472465380_08ff249208_o.jpg Story https://www.randykennedy.net/ride-burke daily 0.75 2025-05-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/591a1b09bebafb6254a165a9/1494885232204-0TXGNA5NML1SQ7RGJHX3/5471874971_36e0bbe35c_o.jpg Ride https://www.randykennedy.net/end-burke daily 0.75 2025-05-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/591a1b09bebafb6254a165a9/1494885496312-7DH6NP0X0JDGFVY6AWOZ/5472462808_eacd351e11_o.jpg End https://www.randykennedy.net/banner-burke daily 0.75 2025-05-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/591a1b09bebafb6254a165a9/1494886064477-Y6S5E3YUJ2IHNSV6KMA8/5471872905_bd0cb33b6c_o.jpg Banner https://www.randykennedy.net/contact-burke daily 0.75 2025-05-12 https://www.randykennedy.net/hike-burke daily 0.75 2025-05-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/591a1b09bebafb6254a165a9/1496327023953-BDAWLKX97UEEPTA052UH/5471873265_eec607acdf_o.jpg Hike