afternoons of dark

It's December already, and one-third gone to boot! The fishes and I have moved house again since last I made an entry here-- with more space for all! They've gained about 7 gallons in their flash new tank, and I have gained what will be a dedicated analogue-style art room, free of all things digital! Once the renovations are complete and the New Year has begun, the creation of new artworks shall commence.

VOTE TODAY!!!

in November

Here I am again; it's November, and time to find a new place to live! And, on a deadline of course, so I've not had a chance to go see any apartments this week so far.

In more disturbing news, however: A few months ago, I received one of these printed mailers informing me of my polling location for voting day. Then, about a month later, I received anothoer one- this one had an entirely different locations cited. Both of these mailers had my Name and accurate addresss on them, but with polling places at opposite ends of the neighborhood. To clarify, I went online to nyc.gov to look up the accurate location, which corresponded to NEITHER of the mailers I received (and was the closest one to where I live). Call me a consiracy theorist, but I just don't believe this was a clerical error. There are many tactics which could be useful to limit the number of voters on the upcoming extremely important November 7th. I'd say that one could be very effective if perpetrated on a large scale. Oof.

autumn.

Sad to rport, but not only did my pumpkin vine yield no female flowers (and there for no fruit-- nothing to pollinate), but during the heavy rains of late, it seems to have acquired some sort of leaf-mold. That's what it looks like anyway. It's dying. It put up a good fight, but something like a vine which bears large orange heads for carving simply cannot sustain life in a 15" square container on a balcony five stories up in Brooklyn.

Once they start having them at the delis, I figure I'll get a couple of those small evergreen bushes that are meant to pass as xmas trees for the yard-less and small-of-apartment-- the kind that are still alive, in dirt. I'll put them in a couple of large planters and put string lights. For the winow boxes: plastic flowers, perhaps. Or branches fallen from trees, with little glittering things hanging off.

The basil did well, but as I haven't a food processor, I'll not be making any pesto!
Ha!

"uniter"

In the introduction to his book "How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime", Sidney Blumenthal recalls one of Bush's absurd recurring statements made during election campaigning: "I'm a uniter, not a divider". Sadly, that promise has been kept-- by way of his ability to UNITE the rest of the world in its feelings of ill-will toward the United States.

Ugh.

One Solution...

This article by Garrison Keillor on Salon.com is brilliant. I know he's one of those people you tend to love or hate, but this article is brilliant either way. (Article "America Eats Its Young")

Autumn has been making a seak preview recently in these boroughs of brownstones. Oh, and i may have lied about the calendar. I'm pretty certain there will still be one, but it may instead by a series fo only 4 (but larger and more interesting...?), containing 3 small month-Grids at bottom.

[edit:] Or... Something, at any rate.

We'll see.

teeth

Well, it appears that Snapfish requires a login to view photo albums. Apologies.
This afternoon I shall return to a dentist for the second time in a month to try to get m'damn choppers clean and some cavities filled. Not looking forward to it.

This summer has been been speeding past; it's been interesting and, on the whole, a good one. Done a bit of traveling, had some beach time; had a good amount of freelance work; but haven't been doing as much drawing or artwork in general. As seems to be the way of life in general, it's been a season after the style of the sparkling sidewalk: mostly made up of concrete, but with glittering moments mixed in at varying intervals, and of course the occasional wad of gum. I'm happy to say it's been much more glitter than gum, so that's a thing to be thankful for.

I become aware more and more of my need for travel. I am an addict. Non-linear though the postmodern world (and the postmodern mind) may be, I find a great solace and excitement in the linear-ness of travel-- the way it makes each day feel purposeful in some unexpected way, and full of forward momentum. Discovery. The awareness of how little "stuff' one really needs, at least on a day-to-day basis. I'd like to find a way (or ways) to incorporate much more travel time into my life.

photos

Here is a link to several photo albums, including some selects from the drive across country, and my time in Rochester, including a day at Niagara Falls...

highways

Thursay August third I flew out to New Mexico to meet up with Beth in anticipation of driving across the country to Rochester, New York, where both our families reside. Below is where I found Beth and Chris, at their desert compound south of Santa Fe.


The barn that is Beth & Chris's cozy house in New Mexico


Beth and Chris with Pork Chop and Olive Loaf

We Drove a southernly route, cutting across the Texas panhandle, a very flat land and less picturesque than the New Mexican desert. We stopped at the Cadillac Ranch for photo ops.


Beth and I at the Cadillac Ranch in Texas


Our delightful tiny traveling mascot, Lupita

The trip across the country was great fun, as was my week in Rochester which inclided a day trip to Niagara Falls (Canandian side). I'll upload many more photos at some point in the next week, so check back here later for the link.


The Northernernmost point of my trip: Nagara

two days : 100

It's air conditioner season, full stop.

heat

A little drawing from my sketchbook.

Today is day two of our little "heat wave" here in NYC. Yesterday the heat index was over a hundred. Luckily for me, I was kidnapped in the late afternoon by friends, and whisked off to Jacob Riis park, where there is a lovely beach.
Upon returning home, my little fifth floor apartment was resembling toaster oven. I'm very happy to finally count myself among the air-conditioned, if only in one room. Genius invention!

The pumpkin vines, on the other hand, are not so lucky. They wither in this heat.

A Shetland in Brooklyn

Independence Day, a hot and sunny wander to the other end of Prospect Park; finally seeing the Kensington Satbles, and surprised. I admit, I did expect there to be some green space (at least some dirt!), only to find a shockingly urban home for these horses, with the usual sidewalks and streets surrounding. Not surprising that they are utterly unperturbed by traffic and other city things the likes of which would terrify the horses with whom I grew up. The stable was a run-of-the-mill city building, converted for this unexpected use- the lack of windows and places for air to get in was disheartening. Having grown up on a farm where the animals had so much space, it is hard for me to see the way that some city animals live, but I suppose a lot of people think the same about the ways we city people live.

more green.

pumpkin flowers


wildflowers

Although the vines suffered a bit from my being out of town last weekend (and unable to water them- they were shriveled when I returned!), they are still going strong, and several pumpkin flowers have appeared! So exciting. I thin by autumn there will be no room for me out there at all; I've had to bring them back from hanging over the edge before they become too large and inflexible.

the green monster

The pumpkin vines have been busy converting rain into massive leaves this past week, and have climbed over the edge of their own accord. I shall have to restrain them once the pumpkins themselves begin to appear. Imagine the lawsuits I could be subjected to were one of the gourds to fall on the head of an unexpected passerby.



view from below

Cthulu

So. I looked up this Cthulu on the (incredibly erudite) world wide web, and he was a sort of octopus-looking thing; an evil god. (I knew he was some bizarre confection from the mind of H.P. Lovecraft, but that's about it). As it happens, in the dream he was a man; an extremely diminutive man (around ten inches tall), in a brown suit.

rain.

I've been out walking, and have gotten thoroughly, pleasantly soaked. A circuitous route around the Slope, some of it through the park on this wet blue evening, and it felt so great to ignore the rain and be drenched. Even my hat, whose office it is to keep my head dry, was soaked clean though like that day back in the winter, freezing in lower Manhattan. The rain this day reminded me of Edinburgh, though, beginning as a mist, then effecting a long slanted crescendo.

The pumpkin vines are creeping over the edge; flirting with gravity, testing their limits.

There was a dark biological thing in a dream this morning, inside of which resided a tiny living Cthulu (?). The thing had the power to latch onto living things (it was a beast of some unfamiliar sort in the dream)- sort of latch on and insert a rigid tentacle into the spine of the beast, thus becoming a controlling parasitic addition, like a pilot or a puppeteer.

I told Ben about it and he said, "There's an interpretation for that dream... what was it? Oh, yeah-- it means you're a FREAK." I'm pretty sure he's right about that.

first flowers!

First wildflowers have just appeared since yesterday! Very exciting. Basil is gorwing nicely, if slowl ( little does it know it will one day be delicious pesto...) And, of course, the pumkin vines are monsters. When first they began growing, there were nine of them! I uprooted some, but the rest continued to grow ravenously. Last week I cut away all but these two. They must battle it out to see who will be the remaining vine, as there isn't room for two in this town.

month of may.

Today and yesterday had beautiful weather, and me stuck in front of a computer. Work.

Memorial Day weekend has arrived.
I've begun work on a new book. Book number two. A book is a more interesting project than a calendar, but much more challenging, to say the least. This one shall have more writing than A Collection of Surmised Grotesques did.

I have also done some work toward the end of redesigning the electrofork site. Much preparation must be done though- there is a lot to do, really, as it will be nearly completely new.

I've really nothing much to type about right now. Not in the mood.

so fast

Now, with furniture! In the large planter little pumpkin leaves can be spied coming through the dirt...!


green onions growing

So here we are arriving at the end of another month- madness! The sproutlings out on the veranda are doing nicely, and finally the pumpkin vines have made an entrance. *yay*

eloquent surrealism.

Spam, on the whole, is one of the more irritating aspects of being digitally connected, but this is pretty entertaining (especially as it wasn't pushing knockoff pharmaceuticals or cheap software):

"Now and then, the secretly overpriced particle accelerator requires assistance from a lazily temporal skyscraper. When you see a grizzly bear defined by an eggplant, it means that a spider takes a coffee break. A cantankerous sandwich has a change of heart about the globule about an anomaly, but the deficit of a chestnut tries to seduce a mastadon. Some ball bearing self-flagellates, and the tattered parking lot rejoices; however, an infected apartment building brainwashes the polar bear."

green things growing

wheat grass


wildflowers


green onions

Front garden at five storeys. You should see it at sunset.

tenth april

Monday again. Yesterday during the newly extended sunshine hours, I spent some time on the "veranda" (read: the roof of the bay window belonging to the apartment on the floor below), planting things in window boxes and wee terra cotta pots. The roster of hopefuls: one window box wildflowers, one pot basil, a handful of small pots of green onions, and the piece de resistance: one large box planted with what shall hopefully grow into a mad pumpkin vine. The wildflowers are largely non-native (tsk tsk), so perhaps they shall become cuttings for vases before allowed to go to seed and spread their insidious foreignness amongst the foliage in the park... And lastly, one window box wheat grass; by this evening the lazy seeds had finally exerted enough strength to muster sprouts, so they went into the soil as well.

Whilst out on said precipice yestereve, I washed the exteriors of the windows, greatly enhancing the view at sunset. Unfortunately, being an impatient 'tard, I pulled one of the screens down to get at the top glass -down too far!- thus locking me out of my own living room. Brilliant. The screen had to suffer some damage (bent frame) in order for me to get back in.

As things begin to show green tendrils, I will begin collecting photographic evidence of progress.

flaky weather

April Showers

Yesterday's morning: bright sun and pleasant. Sky, at length, darkened and unleashed a half-hearted sort of rain. Then, in an instant, the rain (having become bored of its own properties perhaps) turned to snow-- BIG SNOW. Lasting only a couple of hours, by afternoon it was seemingly Springtime again: sunny and dry.

escape from digital

Overpass in rain

Catharsis. A charcoal drawing, 18"x24". Haven't used the medium in over a decade; forgotten how blackened the hands get. My eraser is indistinguishable from the bits of charcoal now as well, save by its shape.

here it is.

The Table

Buncha' stuff; two type cabinet drawers; 5.5 gallons of resin. Voila! Just add pedestal base (conveniently found on a curb in Park Slope a few years back). A table to vindicate years of insane pack-rat behavior.

Cartography of Time.

time, quantified.

This afternoon I have been largely absorbed in the interpretation of three weeks' worth of collected data into a visual key. It represents [my] time, (which can be a slippery thing when one works as a freelancer), and how it is spent. The goal of this exercise was to find where the largest chunks of ill-used time tend to exist, with the hopes of repurposing said chunks into more creative (non-client oriented) time. Basically, it has been a quest in search of an answer to the question, "Where does all the time go?" Damn interesting experiment, and I think I shall continue it for a time. Namely becuase this small cross-section is not enough data to really answer the question, but also becuase I'd like to see a whole year of it charted. (In fact I wish now I'd begun it on 01.01) More time, larger patterns; and intricate ones within those. Cycles and cirles. But I should like to add some more categories, or markers perhaps; signifiers of things like time indoors v. time outdoors; health issues (eg: a mark for days when one has a cold, or when the knee is acting up!); good days v. bad days (as relates to emotions, productivity, etc). Possibly add in the moon cycle as well-- why not?

Of course, the answer this day to the question posed is: I've used up many hours charting hours. (I think that may categorically fall under the heading "Irony")

Notes on the language: Each morning begins at the bottom of the column, and the day works its way up from there. Mornings were begun at 07:00, as it's extremely unlikely for me to wake earlier than that, save by sheer accident. Anything less than 15 minutes gets rounded ("less or up!") for the purposes of this experiment. Part billable/part social basically implies either (A) a meeting that ran long by meandering into a non-work-related discussion, or (B) a work-related meeting with a client who also happens to be a friend. Many hours of walking have been absorbed into "free time, elsewhere" due the fact that this is extremely unscientific.

Oh!

Yes, oh! The FINAL LAYER OF RESIN (have I jinxed again?) has been poured, not two hours ago. By 5:00 Friday a full 72 hours shall have passed, and the table will (at long last) be USABLE. With luck, that is. I have sealed it over with a thin coat of the alternate resin coating known as Envirotex Lite, and thus far looks glassy and splendid, unlike the final surface of the less expensive (and, not surprisingly, inferior) resin. The proverbial fingers are crossed, in hopes of success after much toil and frustration (not to mention the death of many poor little grey cells)!

(If none of this makes a lick of sense, read backwards in time; somewhere in November it all began...)

rusticity, urbanity.

The Rustic City

A series of new photographs taken, printed (and in some cases altered subtley) by e. daggar are now on display at Bonnie's Grill. They have been appropriately rustically (though expertly) framed by The Mad Framer, and are available for purchase. The show will be up through sometime in May, so go and have a look; have some dinner while you're there.

*the madness of spring george*

Weather has been unseasonably warm, or what has become unseasonable in NY, anyway, March generally being pretty miserable. And so it shall return to its inclement self within a day or two, but it has been enjoyable-- outside in short pants on Firday!

Today has been the 13th of the month, coinciding with a full moon. This is the sort of thing that affects certain things. (Whether they go noticed or unnoticed is a different tale altogether.)

That is all.

Ides and such

But more to the point, the calendar has already passed the first week mark in this the third month of 2006. Madness! Soon a whole quarter of the year will have gone the way of the snow from the blizzard.

Time is relative, to be sure. As are most things. My recent start at keeping track of it in the form of a study, an exercise, is not helping it to pass any the more slowly. I am hoping, however, to get some insight as to where exactly it goes; what mine gets spent on, at any rate. (It leads me to wonder how I managed to get so much done in an apartment with a television and cable, but then I did do a lot while the TV was on.)

The fishes prosper in their tank, a new piece of lovely furniture has been stripped of decades-old paint, and the resin in the table still takes impressions from objects set upon it, which means one final layer with a more high-quality resin shall be required. Not a big deal, as I've not much been inclined to sit in the kitchen; I think that will be more likely once weather gets warm, and the window in there is wide on sunny days.

Dehydration has a taste, and it's metallic. It's hard to remember to drink lots of water in colder weather, even though the function of heaters makes it pretty damn important.

Below is a card I made for my mother's birthday. I rarely work with cut paper, but there is something substantial about it; I shall have to do more of it. (More of everything, as far as I'm concerned).


floral

Gebäude und bier an "Loreley"

der Aufsatz von Pommes-Frites

tuesday.

06:00 am : to the Land of Nod™ at long last (long night of work)
10:00 am : wake!
10:20 am : coffee. strong. delicious. coffee! (several)
10:30 am : commence design work. Also: emails, phone calls, etc. (being responsible type stuff)
03:00 pm : application of paint remover to secretary-hutch-desk thing.
03:30 pm : lunch : turkey on crusty bread.
04:00 pm : drop stuff at Salvation Army™ on the way along Flatbush Ave. to walk across The Bridge
06:00 pm : back home from errands in city and in the 'hood (having taken the subway back)
06:20 pm : coffee! and cigarettes. washing of dishes, etc.
07:00 - 09:30 pm : scraping, brushing, and more scraping of aforementioned furniture item.
09:40 pm : dinner : leftovers from Scottadito, pappardelle a la wild boar.
now : post dinner ciggy & typing of nonsense before heading to the 'Milk* for drinks. Mmmm... beer.

Non-stop! (Had rather thought I'd get in a disco nap, but nothing doing.) Oh- also in there somewhere repaired spine of the Baedeker. The furniture task time-burgled more than expected (with still much toil remaining-- for another day-- or three...), so waking early tomorrow to resume proper paying work on designing things.


* Buttermilk; a "local watering hole". Well, relatively local. Local enough.

That's right!

Tomorrow marks end of third week of this odd little month.
Dang!

Coldness in New York these past few days, but only the rarest specks of last weekend's blizzard remain.

If tomorrow goes productively early on, it may be a bridge-crossing day. If not-- well, movement can be scarce in winter, particularly when one is busy clacking and clicking productively away before the great glowing screen.

Found a 1937 Baedeker's Great Britain in the "shelf filler" stacks at the Strand-- brilliant! In need of some repair, and even more delicate than my 1900 Central Italy copy, but still-- for six bucks-- Nice! The old ones are so beautiful.

Hmmm. As always, ideas for art projects and inspiration to work on other things coincide with lists, work and obligation. So frustrating- where were these notions a month ago? Oh, right! Obscured by the building and refinishing of various and sundry furniture for the no-longer-quite-new apartment. (Still, there is much fine-tuning to arrive at a truly efficient and comfortable space. And still purging to be done, I think. It seems that one is more likely to get busy about the work of making things when one simply has fewer things. Particularly as relates to things on walls.)

Well, it is nearly five o' the wee hours, now. Long night of work, but can't crash into sleep immediately upon finishing; I can't anyway-- need some decompression time, so I guess that's what this nonsense counts as.

They're alive!!

snowmen!


Prospect Park

Well, my camera and I did make it to the park briefly yesternoon, and had I not worn sunglasses I'd have been blinded. So sunny and bright. However, not a single square meter of snow remained un-trounced-upon! Shards of sleds lay about, of both store-bought and improvised varieties. I imagine it must have been teeming in there on Sunday. A number of snowmen were still holding tight, though their original identities appeared to be slipping fast.

post blizzard

It was beautiful.
Interesting that it was the record amount of snow dumped upon this mad metropolis; I'm sure a qualifier is in order: "...in a 24 hour period", or "... all in one fell swoop". But a fair swoop it was! Unless, I suppose, you were needing to drive somewhere, or had an aversion to snow.

It began so slowly- barely visible bits of snow on a wind in the afternoon, and such a gradual crescendo until finally by around midnight it had really begun to stick-- even on the streets-- and then came the near white-out visibility and some very slow going in a cab over the Brooklyn Bridge, as the Manhattan Bridge was already held up by accidents. (For example.)

But Sunday was just beautiful. The wind had largely ceased by early afternoon and the city was blanketed, bright, and almost as quiet as it ever gets. (Almost no vehicles, and few walkers, but in such a city as this one can still simply walk down the street or around a corner and enjoy a leisurely and civilized brunch in the midst of a record snowfall-- brilliant!) The sound absorption quality of so many cars-turned-marshmallows, bare trees draped luxuriously in endless white boas, sidewalks disguised as winding cross-country paths-- and all things become utterly softened and deformed of silhouette. The peaked and turreted brick house across the way from my windows took on a decidedly Moomin-esque appeal; great swooping drifts of snow having obscured the true shape of the architecture, rendering it whimsical and unrealistic in aspect.

And now, second day of sun without further precipitation, elegant and amorphous shapes have all but disappeared, leaving only shoveled and plowed mounds between structures, walkways and motorways. Much of the accumulation has gone slushy and brown with agitation and melting.

In hopes of finding some of the remaining shapes, I must take the camera into the Park this afternoon.

one quarter gone

Well not surprising, as this month always goes fast; strange what the lack of only a few days can do for the velocity of the air escaping a month. (One regrettable fact of February, of course, is that next rent day arrives earlier than ever.)

Have I mentioned that the great behemoth of TABLE is finished? Well, 99% so. One more day and it will be usable, I think. (The last layer (fourth in this case-- or third?) requires fewer drops of catalyst per ounce of resin, so the "degassing" phase is slower, thus the solidifying process takes longer. There are some imperfect areas on the surface, but I'm just glad the toxic part of the project has finished.

Photos of this and other things to come.

Oh! And in other news, the Roman-style bust that has resided in front of my new building since my opwn arrival has gone missing! Observe.

repetition

Hmmm.
(Just wondering if there is some way that I can work the word "epic" into a third entry, in a wholly new exciting way. This seems unlikely. )

pinprick diarama

From beneath the thin canopy of trees, walking up Union Street, the number of stars visible this evening is epic! Previously unreckoned save on such nights as of blackouts!

Is the apparent brightness of them due to a notable decrease in light pollution caused by the frugal populous of a nation in energy crisis? (This seems unlikely...) Does it relate to the freaky weather of our greenhouse planet? Or have they simply got less shy around cities? Gone bold in a new milennium (as defined by we tiny things so many many light years away...)

These and other questions remain unanswered.
Perhaps the city will get snow in addition to these pinpricks of glitter, and the park will transform into a new landscape altogether. This is what my cameras are hoping for.

second month begins

I neither watched nor listened to the man commonly referred to as the President last night. Can't bear it. (I suppose I ought to at least read about it somewhere. Perhaps in the Onion...)

The resinating of the Table has grown epic and tiresome, taking entirely too much material and time. It wouldn't be so bad save for the fact that every time I have to pour another layer, the greater portion of the apartment becomes toxic. Not to mention cold, as at least one window must be left open for a day or so. (Have to try and save some brain cells.)

Have gotten some great and decidedly dark photographs of Brooklyn and its surrounds over the past few weeks, some of which will be appearing in several cd packages upcoming... Others (less dark) will be appearing in *frames* at Bonnie's Grill (5th Avenue in Brooklyn) during the month of March.

New fish number three (absurdly and French-ly dubbed Tres) is flourishing in the tank with Pi. They get along very well (so far as can be determined among fishes in boxes at any rate) and have become avid beggars. (It appears that begging for food is a team sport when it comes to aquatic pets.) Tres is , like Pi, a red and white Comet, and has a marvelous tail. Dreadfully cute.

of summer, and of night

Here is something I found while rummaging through digital files of words, a collection covering several years. Something from the heat of a summer I think.

dense-packed places

In places
more frequented by stars
Night is a vast and velvet thing-
An arcing mass, abyss
from which the wisps
of dreams are rent
or born -- to which
their unreckoned ellipses return
at first light
or break of day-
Gifts to the morning star, forgotten.

But here in dense-packed places,
glowing gases trapped
Diffuse the spark of Heaven’s light
And night’s song
is not the breath of trees
nor sinuous tale
of crickets’ Morse
But an iron drone-
the hum of shapes
forged, not born
And nighttime, in dense places
closes in- a binding
in dust-filled quarters, corners
of space, repressed
In sleeplessness-

From which blurred dreams
at length release-
to memories- of light
sonorous blurs,
subconsciousness- and colors
that dissipate
And have no names,
In waking, nor in words.


© 2005 Elizabeth Daggar

shiny streets under lamplight

Had a mind to take some long-exposure photographs of rain-glittering streets earlier this evening, but a recommendation to visit friendly faces at the wine bar distracted and stole time. Pleasantly.

There is a Chinese proverb: "May you live in interesting times." A blessing and a curse, quite possibly perpetrated in some way upon every generation of humans since its coinage; probably earlier. So here we are. Interesting includes both sides of any coin, alas and alack! But, there you go. Do not the myths such as that of the garden of Eden (and all the many preceding it) speak of the doom of boredom? Is it not the very same reason that curiosity was both the thrill and demise of some fabled feline? (What, really, is the opposite of interesting? Something to think about-)

Where does all this come from?
Well, largely from reading and catching up on the news after several weeks' deprivation of mass media. (Deprivation may be the wrong word there.) These are interesting times, are they not? Horrifying is another word. Thrilling, nervous-making and death-defying too! Madness! And so civilized, too.

I'll say this much: things going as they have been, I do tend to worry less about my debts. (They may outlast us all!)

Each of our lives is an ongoing puzzle, as is the 'greater' picture. (still so small a picture if one could long-exposure the universe. Which, in fact, may turn out to be a multiverse... yikes! and brilliant!)

Sometimes it is about fitting one's own piece into the larger puzzle-of-puzzles. Sometimes it is about figuring out the pieces within one's own insular mini-puzzle. Always the shapes, colors, textures (and other maths) of the world are shifting-- If you've ever worked a standard, static puzzle, well-- Just imagine all those jigsaw'd edges -and the images upon them- shifting constantly! Impossible!
Seemingly.

Darwin: Adapt or Die.

Constants do change, and parallel lines do converge, eventually- it's only a matter of perspective. Sometimes, things are only unbelievable because the formulae have yet to be worked out.

springtime in january

Yes, two days of mild sunny weather here in Brooklyn. This afternoon I took advantage by forgoing public transport to get into Manhattan. Well, technically. I would say a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge should count as public transport as well, albeit self-propelled.

Gorgeous toxic sunset over Jersey around 4:50; my trek was perfectly timed for maximum viewing pleasure; sun waning in pinks and golds as the nighttime city came awake. Passed more than one solitary walker sporting wide eyes and a smile; amazement at the vision provided by the bridge, and to be in such a singular place. That kind of day. That is a great reason to avoid the subway; to re-connect with why one is here in the first place. To be amazed anew. (That can be pretty challenging to do in rush-hour a subway car. Not so on the bridge, especially during a fiery sunset.)

Mission on the island: a visitation upon Blick Studio for casting resin; two gallons-- hopefully enough to fill the top of the coolest table in the world. The elements of its frame wait patiently to be transformed into furniture, out in the hallway. Soon.

Very soon.

really interesting article

The Rebel Sell

23

= degrees of the tilt of the earth's axis.*

This, combined with the position in yearly revolution, determine the angle of the shadows of daylight hours. The angles of winter are distinct. They speak of wind and dry heat; cracked skin; long darknesses.

There's a girl I know -The curious Miss K; a great fan of winter and of stripey things, so I call her Too-Ticky. A Moomin reference. But we are not moomins, and winter will not ride away on the back of a horse made of ice.

The year seems off to a slow start. I'm sure it's too soon to even say such a thing, but I can be impatient and am not good at slowing down. Don't like the slowed-downness of winter. As for today, there is sunshine and it is milder than yesterday, so perhaps I should be outside.

*23.45 to be exact


sunshine and steam in the city

Cold day, seventh of the year

chicken breasts?

Incidentally, the little new fish did die, later the very same day that I (apparently) jinxed him here. Poor Pi.

tamarind

Bell Hollow played at Southpaw last evening; they sounded great. The newer stuff they played (not yet recorded) was really good.

The Curious Miss K shall be arriving in town tomorrow evening. She and I have much catching up to do. (understatement) Not seen her since the summer, and that seems a long time ago.

There is a new fish in Pi's tank; a wee Koi of silvery and black scales. I am having doubts about his health, however. He seems to have a weak sense of balance, or something. And a foolish fish, as well. He has got himself caught behind the filter tube twice already. Pi may be doomed to a solitary existence! I don't know. They just don't seem to be making fishes the way they used to. Where is a stout and hardy little fish of Serial's ilk? They are few, it seems, but Pi is one at least.

Today feels like it may be a day of a very long walk. Photographs and observations; meditation. There's a whole year with a brand new number spread out before me. Surely some thinking on what to make of it couldn't hurt.

a brief backward glance

(excerpt from trip book)

11 October 2005.
On a high-speed train ride from London King's Cross to Edinburgh.

The train is traveling close to the coastline now-- we are almost there.
There are parts where cliff walls rise up steeply from the sea, and there are parts where the hills gently turn to beaches. It looks cold.
Sometimes the green atop the cliffs is dotted with sheep.
(with sleep.)

There are trees every so often -out in the fields, in hedgerows- that remind me of the umbrella pines of Rome.

This country is punctuated with sheep like little tufts of wool growing out of the very ground; these rocky, angular hills. The Firth is an estuary; a vast grey-blue stretch that makes this feel like the edge of the world.

The train is slower now, we're on the scenic part of the route; specifically labeled as such on the map. It drizzles out there.

Up here, the countryside ceases to look familiar; it looks both harsh and lovely. Everything is gold or green or brown, save the steely blue sea which disappears into the fog.

Here there is a great block of a factory, almost the same pale grey as the canopy of clouds- it looks like a grey box on the landscape; no windows. It interrupts the coastline suddenly, and strangely.

Here there are gravel pits.

Here, a cluster of stone red-roofed cottages, and more of those umbrella pine sort of trees. (they have those same Art Nouveau-minded branches.)

There is a great rock -huge!- out, away from the shore. It looks like a great fat sleeping bear. The mist hangs above the land and sea in swaths, like smoke hanging still in the air at a pub.

Some beautiful old stonework houses with white wood trim. Fairytale. Fairy story houses. A patchwork land. A hilly autumn country of greens and golds, rich brown soil-tilled fields that roll and dip.

2 0 0 6

Happy New Year.


the farm in winter

Spent Thanksgiving and Xmas upstate at the farm. Sunny and freezing in November, as illustrated in the photo. December was milder. The New Year, as it begins here in Brooklyn, is drenched with rain and blanketed with fog. Sort of weather makes the knees ache and inspires reading more than venturing.

Mid-December Pi and I successfully moved house and settled into the new digs. Amidst work, errand-running and holidays, swift unpacking and driving of holes into plaster-and-lathe to decorate newly-painted walls!




painted walls