Clear packing tape. Level positioning. Very professional.

What makes flyers so amusing is that in this city cluttered with bullshit advertising, flyers actually mean something. People text crap all day. Ramble on their cell phones about the crack head stumbling in front of them. Twitter about cold French fries. Email each other photos of kittens with your grandfather’s teeth. But flyers, even and perhaps especially the crazy ones, are sincere and require time, money, and effort—dodging neighborhood traffic with a roll of tape and pile of recently printed flyers, leaning over trashcans in the rain so New Yorkers can see what you have to offer.

HilariousNYC.com takes flyers seriously, particularly—of course—the ones that induce a smile. This flyer is an advertisement for a blog, dubblexblogspot.com, by Dubblex. It’s an artful, sexy, sometimes revolutionary blog complete with original poetry and engaging photos. Unfortunately, the url on the bottom flyer isn’t discernable, but it is made from the same sturdy, yellowish paper and features creative fonts with a similar underground tone in its message.  Clearly, Dubblex is double dipping, but that’s all right. The man has passion. We know because the flyer says so.

Delivery bike parking lot.

New Yorkers can get anything—yes, anything—delivered to their doors, and it usually arrives via bicycle. This tangle of bicycles on a Sunday afternoon offers a glimpse into the lives of the people—typically immigrants here by some circumstance—who make a living from pedaling food through the city’s traffic. This pile of bikes demonstrates a sense of ingenuity, collaboration, grittiness, and humor. It’s a funny sight, but the reality of the heavy chains and the clever answer to lack of space make it all New York City.

Follow up: Check out this article about sidewalk bike repair ventures in “City Room,” a blog sponsored by the New York Times.

Unplugged and unpacked.

Someone’s life has changed. A hand used to grasp the handle of that coffee maker. There were good mornings. And certainly bad ones. The crumbs in that toaster were part of a breakfast, perhaps a bagel or rye bread, after someone woke up in the morning and thought about the day ahead. This person pulled their socks from a plastic storage drawer, thought about the day ahead some more, and walked out the door. For that person, those days are gone forever.

This crowd has more maps than Google.

It’s easy for resident New Yorkers to hate Times Square because it’s the pretty, slutty sister of the other neighborhoods—the popular one who gets all of the attention and love for being dazzling, showy, and great at giving hand jobs. But family is family, and New York City wouldn’t be complete without Times Square. Sure, many New Yorkers miss the seedy, squalid, black-veined Times Square of the 1970s—before it was rehabbed by Disney characters and illuminated chain stores—but those people are probably airbrushing muddled memories that remind them of being young and full of life. Now Times Square is commercialized and teeming with tourists—and btw, it incredulously has the most BORING sidewalk trash—but on the other hand there is nothing cool about being robbed. Times Square is safe and unfortunately, unless the Japanese bride in this photo has a penis, had to compromise some of its unruly and hedonistic character in exchange for the governed common good. Still, keep an eye on your wallet.

Want to know what is going on in Times Square right now? Well, check out the Times Square live cam!

Eins: an artist who sees more than sunlight and shadows.

Stefan Eins, an Austrian-born local artist, is profiled by the New York Times is this quirky article characterizing the personality behind Fashion Moda and a visionary interpretation of sidewalks, streets, and the nature of paint. A man with a powerful and hungry imagination, Eins sees in sidewalk cracks what others can only see in clouds.

Photo by calm a llama down

Thanks to modern laws, no trans fats.

This trash can offers the three foods groups for many New Yorkers: pizza, McDonald’s, and bottled water—all garnished, of course, with $4 splash of Starbucks. This culinary ensemble is found in many trash cans lining New York’s sidewalks. Yet, like fingerprints, every trash can is unique, and this one features a nuance of mystery stemming from an empty white envelope and a colorful dabble of green in the center—which successfully brings the surrounding, more drab elements together—from what appears to be a pudding container.

Ready, aim, fire.

What is the story here? Is this dog fighting back after almost ending up in a batch of pork fried rice, or did he just see his haircut reflected in the bicycle rim?

Have you seen this Iranian leader?

This flyer posted all over the Lower East Side touts Leviticus as being the “World’s most famous artist.” It offers a low-tech, poorly photocopied look that perhaps is a creative choice, or more likely, an economic choice. In a city where every pizza joint and bagel place claims to have the “World’s most famous” food, no one is buying Leviticus’s claims. Does anyone out there know this dude? Or his art? What’s the verdict?

New Yorkers dream of a good night's sleep. Without bed bugs.

There is nothing more thought provoking than a discarded mattress in New York City. Each and every sidewalk mattress was either bought in or shipped to the city, bent and twisted up narrow staircases, then slept on, had sex on, laughed on, cried on, masturbated on, and days or years later wound up being bent and twisted down that same staircase, only to be dumped on a dirty sidewalk among heaps of smelly trash. This particular mattress undoubtedly has a great story.

This mattress, however, has an additional level to its story thanks to talented local artist James de la Vega. This mattress, being a symbol of life for the person or people who owned it—and those who see something of themselves when they pass by it—was given another level of meaning by being a canvass for the vision of de la Vega. People employ art to explain and understand the world around them. This is one of those sublime cases where art and the world converge into a single expression of coexistence defining who we are and where we are.