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.