The World Examining Works

New Jersey

I rather liked this photo I took from the bus the other day until Robert said, "It looks like a Hallmark card and should say Sorry for your Loss",  and Deniz said, "Isn't that where they dump the bodies in The Sopranos?" 

Oh, well....

 

An Unexpected Snowfall

 

Yesterday it was mild enough to go for a walk and to tentatively think of spring. 

This morning it snowed. And such a pretty snow -- light and fluffy, coating everything so delicately.

It covered the delivery people's bicycles outside the diner whose windows are already decorated for Valentine's day.

It covered the sidewalks

where a man pushed a stroller

and a woman walked back from the park with her dog.    

Exciting

Yesterday was unnaturally warm; a wild wind blew up from the south bringing torrential rain, 

blowing branches from the trees and scattering building debris all over the place.

It felt a little dangerous wandering about. During all this excitement, a number of fire trucks were summoned to the road behind our apartment, I'm not quite sure why. They went away fairly soon.

I like these stencils from Robert's painting. I think the mother is probably taking the little girl to school. People seem to be rushing about anyway. (People in  New York always are.)

I think the  green person ( middle bottom) is trying to escape all this foolishness.    

Chelsea Hotel

The Chelsea Hotel is a mixture of the exotic and the dumpy. So much has been written about it that I won't bother here. When my brother and his wife stayed here they were shooting an exotic lingerie catalog on the stairs. 

When my friend Mary stayed there, a closet door fell on her head. The lobby has a gloriously ornate fireplace...

...and a mantlepiece covered with interesting artifacts.

In fact the the whole lobby is awash with paintings and sculptures and people taking photos of them.

We are observed by the plump woman on the swing. 

   

Vivid

Morning light. 22nd St and 10th Avenue. 

Same place. Barbed wire and posters about Vegas.

Pouring concrete. Something to do with sewers. 

While I am having a perfectly dull life here in New York, (see above), my dear friend Maryam has just returned from Afghanistan to Morocco . Her blog My Marrakech is full of exotic and amazing photos. Her recent posts from Kabul and Herat were very moving indeed. Definitely worth seeing.

Gratuitous movie review.

The Young Victoria was a delight. Emily Blunt looked uncannily like the late Princess Margaret. No explosions or car chases or apocalypses. One gunshot. Excellent characterization.

Domestic

I'm rather fond of still-lives. I often make them on the dining table when I have nothing better to do. When I was at art school, we used to paint fruit very often, and the great god was Cezanne. 

Pears and lemons are very splendid to look at. Better than apples really. The tangerine leaves are a bit dried up, but better than no leaves at all.

Behind these brown gingham curtains is someone else's kitchen.

Someone else lives in this fortified basement.

In the afternoons, the light reflected from the building north of us pings off their windows and into our kitchen. Memo to self: in future fold tea towels before taking photos.

The color of the tea is almost the same color as the paint water. Hm....

Such clouds on a sunny cool afternoon. 

Untitled: or Figures in Space

A very beady eyed bird observes us on our walk. Paz, he is looking at you!

Anyway, in the 20's, between 7th and 6th Avenues.....

we come upon shops selling the most astounding artifacts. The fish are artificial. The halos glitter like mad. I am amazed.

Then we come upon a shop where I actually like things. A real deco pierrot.

Naked mannequins are always slightly spooky. They are weird with their clothes on too.

Here they seem to be having some sort of conference. The have turned away from the black-armed man.

At the Port Authority bus terminal, a sculpture by George Segal captures the patient look of "Commuters".

ShadowShotSunday

The Typepad homepage says post what interests you. What interests me is probably beyond dull to most people. Herewith a yellow cloth hanging from under the High Line. Does it signify anything? It is eye candy of a sort -- like William Carlos Williams' enigmatic red wheelbarrow.

For an interesting post about what makes a good blog, visit Sarah Laurence.

Such an avalanche of yellow lately and patterns that repeat themselves.

This is an example of something that doesn't interest me in the least -- except to look at. They are doing complicated things to the traffic lights with cables and wires. I have absolutely zero interest in knowing how these work-- but how awful it would be if they didn't work and all these systems fell apart. (See Haiti) So I look at all this and feel guilty. Bee had an excellent recent post about being a Luddite and slow to learn tecchie stuff. Anyway...

This man was washing the windows of Dallas Barbecue. I'm sure he didn't have the least idea that his sweater echoes the color of the chairs inside.

For lots of other Shadowshots go here  

A Curious Tale

An escapee from one of R's paintings, sans foot and looking a little like Mary Poppins 

 

went to Penn station and ordered a pizza at 10:30 in the morning.

The ice cream did not look really inviting.

Unlike everyone else, he did not check his cell phone.

In the late afternoon, returning to New York, he watched the blue sky

turn alarmingly pink.    

Monday

The workers' truck has hot tar in it. The heat from the tar forms a sort of fog in the cold morning air. 23rd Street under what will be an extension of the High Line.

The very apotheosis of taxi-ness. Same place as above.

The shadow more interesting than the bench really....Dog Run on 23rd Street.

This young man was handing out flyers for a company that fills out tax returns. His hat is wonderfully Liberty-esque. Corner of 23rd Street and 8th Avenue.

I'm not quite sure what happened to his colleague on the next block. Corner of 23rd Street and 9th Avenue