r/AccidentalWesAnderson

📍 South Sardinia, Italy | Photo by: Matteo Battiston

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"By the time the Ancient Romans were constructing vast mines in Sardinia in 226 BC, mining had already taken place on the mineral-rich island for thousands of years. Cutting into the ore-laden rock, miners for centuries supplied Europe and beyond with coal, zinc, and silver. The process of getting the fresh rock transported across empires had always been difficult—until 1924..."

Allan Gardens

📍 Minneapolis, Minnesota | Photo by: Adam Schulz

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"When six mosaic artisans finished a commission at the Vatican in 1909, they didn’t retire. Designer Charles Lamb recruited them to spend the next three years fabricating, then installing, 10 million tesserae inside a cemetery chapel in Minneapolis: a Byzantine masterpiece that experts say couldn’t be replicated today..."

Ten years ago this week, I boarded a plane in San Francisco, vacationed for a bit in Japan, and eventually made my way to a container ship in the port of Hong Kong. The CMA-CGM Gemini then faithfully returned me home, passing under the Golden Gate Bridge nineteen days later, 40 years to the hour since I was born. It’s my favorite thing I’ve ever done, and I’d enjoy telling yall more about it if you’re curious.

Here’s a short video I made along the way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qidGAcEIkb8

I just got back from celebrating my 50th with a dozen of my closest friends. It was so much fun, but a very different trip. On my voyage from HKHKG to USOAK, there were 24 people total: 23 crew members and me. I picked that route specifically because I wanted to be alone. If I could do it again, I swear to god in a heartbeat I would. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss the clarity of mind I had on that trip. The pandemic recalibrated a lot of things though, and global shipping was one of them. All of the major carriers that used to take civilian passengers no longer do.

I always feel weird talking about this trip in a positive light, when I know so many seamen are on the water out of necessity. The U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln is obviously in the news a lot these days. But in addition to military personnel, there are over one million merchant marines currently underway. The messman on my ship frequently had tours of 9 months. His father is a seaman as well. Due to mismatched schedules, it had been two years since they even had the possibility of seeing each other in person. So, yeah, I get it. My entire perspective was/is colored by the knowledge that I would be in my own bed, with my stable salary and my friends and family and walks in the park and favorite restaurants and everything else when my short excursion was over.

And yet, as much as I can visualize myself in different lives, I think for one of them, I would like to be an officer on a container ship. The days I spent on the bridge of that vessel staring out onto a vast world of nothing and everything were cathartic. I miss them so much.

📍 Sierra Madre, Califronia | Photo by: Holly O'Callaghan

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"Before audiences swooned over silent film stars, the building housed the Burgien Brothers’ furniture emporium..."

Łódź, Poland

Sony A7IV & Sigma 24-70 2.8 II

📍 Venice, Italy | Photo by: Alex Galmeanu 

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"In a city where most palaces emerge from water without pavement, Palazzo Tetta stands at the fork where Rio de Santa Marina splits into two canals, quite literally getting more canal than it bargained for. Three sides of water. In Venice. Where most everyone else only gets one. Consider it the overachiever of Venetian real estate..."