The World Examining Works

To the Lighthouse

The beach last Friday --overcast and deserted.....

The weatherman had said it would be almost ninety -- instead a damp mist enveloped everything and stuck to our hair.

Some tracks, but not very many, in the sand.

photo by Robert Schmid

The day reminded me of the other side of the Atlantic at Sidi Kauoki where the camels ( and the Rolex salesmen)  loomed up suddenly out of the mist.

Any bids on what bird the yellow feather came from? We were at a loss to know.

I always like a sand and vegetation combo....

 

News Extra: Book recommendation

I was lucky enough to go to a book talk by Edmund de Waal at the Jewish Museum on Monday. The Hare with Amber Eyes has everything I most relish in a book: lashings of history and art, spare elegant language, emotion rather held in check, not to mention Proust and Rilke. It is the stunningly erudite -- but profoundly moving -- sort of thing that WG Sebald did so well: meditiation, story, essay, history, not-quite-novel, memoir.I loved it.

Evening, then Noon on the First Day of Autumn

 

In the manner of an old fashioned sundial, it's possible to tell the seasons

by observing how the light falls across the room at different times of day. Here the light from the declining sun catches the dining table with its clutter of junk and paints the pepper mill  and the Hellman's mayo on the wall.

The light casts a shadow on a painting of a shadow -- and me with the camera too. Such tricks!  and how the putana's elbow jumps out at you!

At noon the slightly triste sight of a leaf fallen into the almost-too-cold-to-swim-in pool.

Summer and fall in the same moment. Gosh.

 

Fishy Trippy

 

Saturday afternoon on Long Island.

The pond in Heckscher park where I used to walk my children thirty years ago. The same rather scummy artificial pond that Everett Prime remembers being built. The camera manages to make it larger --like somewhere upstate.

A Canada goose, bane of every Long Islander's lawn, paddles in shallow water.

A swan and two turtles.

A swan and one turtle....

All of them together.....

...and a turtle with fish which you can see if you look carefully. It is mesmerizing looking down into the water and wonderfully encouraging to see all this life swirling and burgeoning.

 

 

Fame and Fortune

Well,.....

I think the bus is coming soon. My best guess is that these are not very famous people.

 

Perhaps they should worship at the little shrine that has popped up on 22nd Street.

It is a shrine to FAME something much worshiped in America --and probably other places too. It is not nearly so cool as the shrine from Udaipur below, but it is an attempt with the little candles and flowers and so forth.

 

But back to fame.....and anonymity (gosh, I spelled it right!) For some reason these workers reminded me of a renaissance painting......maybe something Piero della Francecsa. Anyway, they were chatting with each other companionably.

  Unlike the woman lunching alone, checking her purse for the right change, who made me feel a little bit sad.

Buster, who, as we all know, is astoundingly famous and doesn't know it (or care because he is a dog ) stands in front of Mr. FAT-RAT-CIGAR-CHOMPING-MONEYBAGS.

So without digressing into Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard, we have encompassed art, art history, money, religion, solitude, and so forth.

Gosh, I'm tired already.

P.S. Am going to Daphne Kalotay's book signing this evening at Barnes and Noble. Russian Winter sounds wonderful and it's always so thrilling when someone one knew when they were just starting out does wonderfully well.

Light

Union Square as usual, and evidence of a bountiful harvest.

I was wandering round there the other day with Liisa who lives and cooks in Finland but who makes Union Square one of her most important stops in New York.

The morning light transformed even nasty plastic crates into something exciting.

The arrival of the mini-pumpkins, gourds and squash is something to be celebrated -- at the same time it signals summer's end.

So a pretty summery-still bunch of pastel roses.

Eid Mubarek !

The Key to Life: or Sunday Morning

The morning began with our usual walk.

Then Buster discovered the key to life glued to the sidewalk. (22nd St at 9th Avenue). Something to think about.....

The artist known as ShinShin was busy adhering cut outs of fruit on an otherwise rather dark graffiti pile.

She added some grass to the multi-layered assemblage....

Here a weed grows up beneath a picture of the much graffited tomb of Jim Morrison. More to ponder.

Then

a vision of loveliness and her attendants appeared. "Would you like me to put up my parasol?" Yes, yes, of course....

So she did...

then hailed a cab

and vanished off in it to her wedding in Central Park.

A Red and Yellow Post

Heirloom tomatoes

aubergine and wildflowers at the green market.

Gosh!

The dog's head is rather pear shaped.

 

The Last Day of August

Exactly the sort of day one needs to go to the beach. The ladies below seem to agree. Lady #2 waved at me cheerfully.

We decided to get an umbrella since the temperature was 96F

This is the place you get the umbrellas from where the clerk, who wasn't there at first, writes your name, address and telephone number down in a ledger in case you try to abscond with it (the umbrella). I always like rather old fashioned, down at heels offices. Note the notice about ticks. Nature, as we all know, is very wonderful.....except for: bugs, typhoons, poison ivy etc etc.

I digress. Anyway, recent waves have altered the beach a little --for the better I think. Now there is the main ocean and the inletty bit.

Excellent for using as a surf board highway without the rip currents and all that stuff.

As the tide came in the inlet became deeper and deeper. Horse flies discovered R. (extreme top left under the umbrella!)

The whole day was lots of fun.

ps. the elusive Rauf has re-emerged into Blogland. He has a wonderful post here