a sizzle of bacon and sausages swimming in grease in a cast iron pan on an outdoor griddle and bagels and fresh fruit.......cheated and bought tea at the beach stand.. a coffee maker might have been nice...
however
there was a multi- tailed kite
a thoughtful placement of seashells....
waves to be studied seriously
a green flag to be hefted aloft.....
and last, an ambiguous message from a politician
luckily rather far off so we won't bother with it
Very decadent and exotic cupcakes that begged to have their photo taken.
A chain gang of very small children taken to Union Square to look at the fruit.
The dining table with the usual collection of stuff on it.
Stepping back, the same with a painting by Robert that has the same colors in (sort of) as the picture of the children. A tacked up drawing, by me, of some of the things on the table. I haven't done any drawing or painting for ages, so this set me thinking, in no particular order, of : how very much more difficult drawing is than taking a photo how much more one has to concentrate that brown is a very dreary color and that water color is very unforgiving and of how photos distort things and how art differs from life lots of stuff from EH Gombrich's wonderful Art and Illusion.... and so on and so on All this makes picture #1 so very much more appealing.
The John J. Harvey, a rust-bucket of a fireboat,
had lots of people drinking pretty cheerfully on it.
A very gray evening on the Hudson with the requisite seagull.
Then the little boat set sail.
It rained at last -- just when we needed it not to. So we went to the Museum of Natural History.
Much too much going on lately and very little time to contemplate nothing. Here some complicated ropes and wires and railings and things at Chelsea Piers.
Here a disconcerting sight at the dog run. A solitary, autumnal leaf on the bench. Oh dear!
More mid-summery are a blaze of zinnias from the greenmarket this morning -- so wonderfully bright that they are almost too much....
Photos of people and paint. Very complicated too......
So rosemary and purple basil are needed as balm. Much too hot here and 'they' (TV weather people) have been telling us for three weeks that it is going to rain and rain and it doesn't.....
So we finally got to Robert Moses beach where the water was wonderfully warm....
...and the shells were suitably glittery wet and
the sand looked like the sort of raw sugar that makes cookies crunchy.
All these photos were taken today but could have been taken last year or the year before or, if one changed the swimsuits a little, any time since sea bathing became fashionable. I find this rather comforting.
I expect something important depends upon the green bucket
and the shadow that looks a little like a turtle.
This is the High Line's second summer and what was raw and tentative last year is really coming into its own. Urban meets meadow/Europe meets downtown Manhattan
The grasses suitably swirly against the chic gray metal.
For some reason, sitting watching the traffic on 10th Avenue proves popular.
Weaver recently wrote a post about how wildflowers artfully/artlessly arrange themselves in quiet perfection. Here Piet Oudolf achieved rather the same feat. It looks natural but it isn't.
Rusty cone-flowers and
white daisies bloom amongst the grasses.
Bicycles on 22nd Street about 7:30 in the morning when the shadows are sharp.
Swiss chard is a dull sort of vegetable (I'm sure lots of people would disagree), but what wonderful stalks it has!
It is the season for sun flowers those obedient girasole, who turn their heads in unison.
This is my pathetic and miniscule garden planted round a tree on 23rd Street. I have fun watering it and removing cigarette butts. I am amazed it has lasted a whole month without being utterly destroyed and stomped and peed on.
This is the windowsill with all sorts of useful things on it. Outside the window workers discuss what fossil- fuel powered tools they will play with today.
A lot of people wandering about --photographed in early evening light. The photo of the photo and painting was taken in very bright morning light. I think this is something called meta, about which I know nothing.
The back yard . Henry in a dress and wearing a ring from 1923. Cousins.
The service itself with two splendid poems.
Then lunch in the garden under a tent.
And what point is a party without ice cream cake and presents?
Once upon a time I was writing a poetry curriculum and thought I had better look up the definition of poetry in the dictionary. #2 suggestion was the products of a poet. This did not seem entirely useful to me.
But it's a loose enough definition to cover pretty much anything.........by that token: art is the product of an artist.........
People have spent all sorts of time and energy discussing the question: WHAT IS ART?
If you look amazingly closely at the picture above --through the doors of the Gargosian Gallery on W.21st Street -- you will see some of Monet's Waterlilies. Stunning and glorious, and gosh how much running back and forth he must have done to produce these very abstracty paintings that form images from a distance.
This is not art at all, but fun nonetheless. On 23rd Street.....and not a lily in sight.
This is the work of my chum BERCH who decorates local diners for every possible celebration.
The canoe looks something like a banana and the young woman is all alone on the Hudson. After the lunacy of Coney Island, this seems like an excellent idea.
This rather serious little girl would, perhaps, be happy
all alone in a garden where an old chair sits in the shade
hydrangeas are glimpsed off the porch
blueberries wait to ripen
sunlight bursts in sparkles through the leaves
igniting the blaze of the clivia.
Photos #3,5,6,7,8 were all shot in the garden of Jarvis House on Long Island.
The Mermaid Parade at Coney Island brings out the strangest of creatures -- a peacock with peacock colored tights......
Neptune and his rather I Dream of Jeannie better half
a creature with an awful lot of ribs
and a perfect vision in pink tulle.
There are all sorts of other people too...
and, of course, someone has to clean up.
Photos by Robert Schmid. My photos of the same event are here
"I think I know whose house this is," Lori said.
I used to drive past it every day.
Here is Helena Fourment on the porch on the porch amidst all the other things that are being sold off before the house itself is sold.
The wall paper is spectacularly dated. I hazard the fifties but the daughter of the house --the one who swears the house will not be torn down -- claims much later.
I wonder who stitched the chicken and chick and where they will end up.
Lori loves these sort of things and wanders round buying stuff. (A picture of Martha Washington for $3.....) She says, "Do whatever you do." So I wander around and take a lot of pictures. I stand under the linden tree and inhale.
I wander on the porch and look into the house.....
and am perfectly certain that three years from now a McMansion will replace its elegant decay.
The bike path down the Hudson provides views of plenty of water; here it churns merrily from the exhausts of the ferries.
Here a ferry arrives from New Jersey.
There is a sailing school by the Trade Center and fancy boats in the boat basin .........
...all overshadowed by very tall buildings......
Here is the perfect little show house that they have built there --all pre-fab and recycled and eco friendly and green and totally charming. I was not allowed to take photos inside because it is being featured in the November issue of Country Homes.
photo courtesy of denizblog
It started out quite well.
The sea looked suitable sea-like and Connecticut was visible in the distance. Very few people were there.
We ended up on the north shore of Long Island because when we looked south.....
Much too chilly to swim, though I paddled as the flag was batted by the wind.
Then the dark cloud came nearer and nearer...........
We want new things: at the same time we delight in same old, same old . I keep thinking I ought to photograph new stuff. Then I remember that Morandi painted the same things over and over. Who can possibly count the number of Elizabethan sonnets written in praise of the beloved's unique charms? So, lemons it is.
And roses, as ever. Then I remembered I had taken almost exactly the same photo two Junes ago in another country. This photo was taken yesterday in New York.
This one was taken outdoors in the courtyard in Morocco.
A left over photo from a morning spent wandering in the City of London.
I was reminded of it yesterday afternoon as the thunder clouds were reflected in a new building on 7th Avenue. It was humid but the big billowing clouds came to nothing.
Taking photos of reflections is very odd indeed. What you see and what the camera sees are quite different things.
Among all the other places I would like to live (you will have gathered that there are quite a lot of them....) is a house in the Seminary Garden on 20th Street. So ivy-covered and garlanded with roses....
.....instead I content myself with mint and sage which are very excellent herbs.
I hadn't been into the Trade Center for years but marveled at the re-done marble steps.
Outside the water sculpture captivated children --and me.
A sparrow wanted part of my hot dog bun. He was so polite I obliged.
And there, under the towering buildings, was a charming little house. A perfect little house being constructed for an exhibition of green building and prefabs and all that sort of thing. Remove the little turret and the shutters. Purchase an acre of land somewhere.......pick it up, and voila! Show house opens on Friday so I will get on my bike........and dream.
Scissors, tracing paper, atop the Indian fabric that the dog made a hole in and which Deniz took to be mended in Turkey.
A very giant hosta after the rain. My friend Lori has documented all the hostas in her yard. A fascinating post.
and a maple leaf landed on top of it.
I always like the industrious ants...
and repetition of pattern.
Karen, Stacy and Stephanie find much to delight them in flea markets; rather a lot of it gives me the heebie-jeebies. (I fear for the health of this woman. The painting of Paris makes me shudder.) Oh, well......
Such cherubic children -- so sadly detached from their bodies.
This one looks rather haunted.
The iconography here makes one's head spin. How did poor Henry VIII get tangled up with this lot? -- You can rather see why he might want to distance himself from Rome.
Words fail me.....
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