I am a native in this world And think in it as a native thinks

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Geometries




Nothing special about the view from my rear windows -- I seldom observe any murders or romances or, for that matter, humans -- except the way that the angle of the sun sometimes makes these odd geometries out of the fire escapes and their shadows.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Digital abstracts







Part of the great fun of digital photography is the ability to turn images into something else by cropping and rotating and distorting. I often end up deleting 90% of an image and keeping only a face, an object, a corner.

So this picture from last weekend becomes a splash of color I'd love to be able to paint on a canvas but lack the skills to create. And I spend yet another afternoon lost in Photoshop instead of doing my chores.























The source: the reflected rear end of a Canada goose swimming in Central Park.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Bird Blogging

Here's another picture from the park Sunday, a common grackle showing off its most uncommon coloring amid the wintry neutrals, like Lady Gaga at an Amish prayer meeting.

I love the names of birds almost as much as I love the birds themselves: kestrels, towhees, vireos. No one borrows those names for anything else; they mean what they mean. Their birds own them.

And then there are grackles. Grackle. It sounds like a symptom that you'd describe to your doctor: "And when I wake up in the morning I have this awful grackle." Or a new product at Home Depot, a combination of grout and spackle, something that you'd want to be very careful not to inhale or get on your bare skin. But it means a beautiful iridescent blackbird, and that's all it means, and it's such a blunt lumpy name I don't think anyone will ever be rushing to borrow it.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Spring Break, Manhattan style

No one really believes that winter is over. Just because it's officially the first weekend of spring and it's sunny and warm doesn't mean that two or three more mean blizzards aren't heading our way.

I thought I ought to spend the afternoon in Central Park conducting a more thorough investigation.

Robins? Check.



Crocuses? Check.


White winter skin uncovered and on display? Check.


Since it was only in the sixties -- nice for strolling in the park with several million of your friends and neighbors, but not exactly sunbathing weather -- I think the crowds and the bathing suits were just a reflection of what a miserable cold winter it's been. I'd almost forgotten what it was like to want to be outside.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Arroyo Seco, 1981 (Another Travel Flashback)


Because I so wish I were there, or somewhere like it, today.

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