The World Examining Works

Seasonal

 

Orange cosmos from the tree pit outside the building. Added some cyclamen. The crysanthumums from last year were full of greenery ....but not a single flower. Removed them. 

A nosegay from the roof planters.

Ah, pumpkin love. Here in the bakery

here at Union Square.

Went out to buy lots of baby alpaca for the hat knitting season. My sister in law gave me a greeting card of a bundled up child saying: My life would be so much nicer if my mother would just stop knitting.

Birds taking a bath on a warm Friday

and leaves on the ground

and in the well of a building.

A friend's view on an overcast day. My favorite time of year.

 

Halloween

 

Late this afternoon.....

a most extraordinary collection of creatures

were rushing up the tall steps and begging on 22nd Street.

Even the tiniest children caught the spirit of the thing!

Such a flurry

and a hurry

as the season turns.

 

 

 

 November 1:  For a very touching post about the Day of the Dead go here

 

Besotted with the Season

 

 

You will have to forgive my pumpkin mania

I wander about looking at people's front stoops....

and, lo and behold, positive still lives.

These are I'm-not-quite-sure-what-Berries, chopped from the little garden next to our building. The colors quite suitable though.

Liisa, DCW: This is the whole trees/bush.  Rowan and Mountain Ash are the same thing according to omniscient Wikipedia .... and I'm pretty sure this is it!

 

 

Hints of Things to Come

 

I really like this time of year, a time of gentle decay.

The dog wasn't quite sure what to make of  Vincent Desiderio's paintings at Marlborough Chelsea. I rather enjoyed his dark sensibility with hints of Fellini, Goya and Courbet.

The diner on 23rd Street  has decorated its window

and as for this house near the Bohemian Hall in Astoria, Queens

well!

Wowsers! I'm a little frightened already.

 

Another Monday

 

 

The first pumpkin of the season on a stoop on 15th Street. Very elegantly, colorlessly New York. I have been having a field day with fancy filters like Instagram, Camerabag, Hipstermatic and Old PhotoPRO -- all either free or very inexpensive -- and have concluded  that, though terrific fun, they are something to add to the gigantic pile of stuff marked 'timesucks'.

So, back to looking out of the window with my regular camera to greet the chill clouds of fall.

A science experiment --sort of. Put drop of olive oil in avacado. Add drop of balsemic. Balsemic sinks through oil. Eat science experiment.

Continue endless scarf in alpaca.

Contemplate miniature garden in tree pit by building. Remove Snapple bottle from the same. Have another stab at the 700 page biography of Patricia Highsmith I may be able to discuss on Thursday. Hmm....Walk dog.

Repeat from top.

 

 

Acquainted with the Night

 

All photos taken on October 31st in Florence, Italy

The tower of the Palazzo Vecchio looms in the distance.

People listen to music as by the loggia in Piazza Signoria.

A photographer captures Perseo as Perseo captured Medusa.

I am making a collection of lions; this one looks pretty cheerful.

A putto on Or San Michele just floats along.

This lion in S.Croce looks a bit fiercer.

Too much rain lately......

....so we head towards the carousel.

 

 

To Market, to Market....

 

The last Saturday in October in the open market

lies a pig all ready for slicing...........

.....and a pumpkin sliced already.

The chestnuts and apples foretell a feast.

Not to mention the foccacia .....

.....and the sugar-glazed pears.

Definitely worth waiting for.

 

 

 

The Joys of Travel......

 

 

The Alps at dawn

.....approaching Milan.

The same.

Milan railway station in the early morning.

Milan railway station in the middle of the day. Note the traditional sister on the lower right, and the mural above the "Exit " sign. Such splendid Mussolini era architecture but imposssible to get a train out;  holiday weekend, strike, who knows what.

Evening.......in the same place

Me fallen down in despair behind the leather workshop behind S. Croce.

(in Florence at last.)

 

Happy Halloween

Leaf Peeping in Tappan

 

The ghouls are about in  Rockland County....

They have invaded a front yard near my son's house.

The heavy dew made the street look almost wet and the sun was a blessing.

Shakespeare's 'sere and yellow leaf'. No one says sere anymore in the same way they seldom use seldom and whilst.

Skeletons

 

 Halloween and Day of the Dead decorations abound of late.

The first three pictures are from Beads of Paradise near Union Square.

Here a little guy looks sort of stunned by the amount of shiny stuff that surrounds him.

Even dead divas favor pink feather boas....

It's all jolly and shiny and fun.

I was much more spooked by the window of a charity shop on 17th Street. Collections of other people's old stuff depress me no end.