I am a native in this world And think in it as a native thinks
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Astronomy Tuesday
Uranus, as seen by Hubbell in 2004.
This photo was taken with filters to enhance the detail -- seen in natural light, Uranus, like its sibling Neptune, is a dim blue globe. The angle of the photograph isn't an artistic choice; Uranus actually lies on its side relative to the rest of the solar system, so its axis of rotation is where less imaginative planets have their equators.
The brightness was also enhanced so the rings and satellites can be seen more clearly. Uranus has 27 moons, mostly named for characters in Shakespeare. The bright dot in the lower right is Ariel; the two bright moons closer to the rings are Puck and Portia.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Sunday, August 25, 2013
Sunday bird blogging
A jackdaw, in Stockholm (hard to believe that was almost a year ago now.)
I can't help thinking of jackdaws as the birds that will peck at my heart if I'm foolish enough to wear it upon my sleeve.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Friday, August 23, 2013
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Monday, August 19, 2013
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Summer after the fire

There have actually been several summers after the fire -- this lot, next door to my friend's house in Yonkers, has been a ruin for many years now.
It's bleak and empty in winter, but now, in the thick of summer, it looks like the setting for a romance novel or a treasure hunt. (If such things ever happen in Yonkers.)
I spent maybe ten minutes over there yesterday, wanting to capture the afternoon sun on the bricks, but that was long enough for some invisible species of greedy bloodsuckers to attack my ankles. I have several dozen bites, mostly on my lower legs, and today my ankles are twice their normal size, covered in big red lumps. Big red itchy lumps. I've tried a cold shower, calamine lotion and petroleum jelly, but nothing helps.
I tried reading. I try to distract myself. But eventually I have to give in, and once I've scratched whichever bite is itching the most at the moment, I can't stop until I've thoroughly scratched them all.
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Astronomy Tuesday
After the spooky beauty of Saturn, Mars not only is literally closer to home, but it possesses an actual surface and a sky, so it looks more like the kind of planet we're used to, more like Earth.
These gullies, huge fissures on the sides of a crater with a bed of sand far below, are a possible sign that liquid water once existed there. It's not that different from desert canyons on Earth, where water blasted the ground into curves and hollows before disappearing forever.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Sunday bird blogging
In a perfect world, all of us would spend August at the shore. Since it isn't and we don't, here's a beachy bird blog: the avian version of Sunday brunch, on the beach at Worthing.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Urban poetry
A row of lamps -- one of them glowing in the middle of a sunny afternoon -- on a block of brownstones in Chelsea.
You'd expect these lush front gardens on an old narrow street in Greenwich Village (or maybe in the other Chelsea, in London) but what I've left out of this charming scene is what's just to the right: a wide crowded sidewalk and even more crowded street. 23rd Street is one of the four-lane, two-way, crosstown throughways, most of it undistinguished urban monotony, so this little bit of old-fashioned civility is a little incongruous. But delightful.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Astronomy Tuesday
I often find photographs from our own solar system to be more, well, alien than those strange Hubbell images of unimaginably huge nebulae thousands of light years away.
This is another stunning image from Cassini, taken last August: the edge of Saturn's rings, their huge shadow on the planet surface, and Titan, Saturn's largest moon, in the foreground.
As an abstraction, I love the design and colors. As a representation of something actual, it has a chilly beauty so strange and eerie it gives me goosebumps.
Monday, August 5, 2013
Sunday, August 4, 2013
The filtered world
I'm doing a project for work that involves heavy photo processing and so I've been playing with filters I've never used before. I love the effect here, on what used to be ordinary vegetable stand roses.
Sunday bird blogging
Because it's been a long time since I posted one of these guys, here for your enjoyment is the adorableness that is the tufted titmouse.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
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