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

Sunday, December 31, 2017

Sunday bird blogging


A common bird to close out the year -- you can see hundreds of white-throated sparrows on any walk through Central Park this time of year.


Saturday, December 30, 2017

Bonus Saturday reflections


Because it's only 20 degrees outside and even after two cups of coffee and reading more news than is good for me I still don't feel like getting dressed and going out in it, here's another picture: the Atlas statue in front of a triptych of cathedral reflections.

Wikipedia tells me that when this statue was first unveiled in 1937, people protested because it looked too much like Mussolini. “Later, painter James Montgomery Flagg said that Atlas looks too much as Mussolini thinks he looks.”

Saturday reflections



Resuming the usual blogging schedule after a bit of a holiday break, here's a black and white version of St Patrick's Cathedral reflected in the windows of the International Building on Fifth Avenue.

You can see the curves of the Atlas statue that sits in the courtyard in front of the building in the lower part of the window.

Monday, December 25, 2017

March of the Wooden Soldiers


And coming back home to New York, here's Rockefeller Center, where they change the flags to gold and silver for the season and life-size soldiers stand guard.

Sunday, December 24, 2017

Christmas star



And one more Christmas decoration from London: A star above Oxford Street.

God bless us every one!

Sunday bird blogging



This picture is a little blurry, so I had never posted it, but I went back to find it after posting the picture of the Eurasian coot in St James Park last week.

This is also an Eurasian coot, but I took this picture in Keoladeo National Park in India last January. These birds are also known as the common coot; I can't swear to the common part, but the Eurasian name definitely applies.

Saturday, December 23, 2017

Saturday reflections



This looks like another set of Christmas decorations, but it's actually just the everyday gilt of the Grand Place in Brussels, doubled and tripled by some obliging windows.

Friday, December 22, 2017

And across the Channel


Lights and stars and angel wings stretching across Regent Street in London.

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Christmas in Brussels



All of the streets in the old town in Brussels were full of lights and ornaments; some of them might be there year-round, but I'm pretty sure these ornaments are just for Christmas.

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

More windows at Les Galeries


Not everything for sale there was edible, but I have to admit most of the pictures I took were of sweets of one kind or another. Here are a few exceptions.

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Mary


The window display at this shop wasn't as over the top as some of the others, but they did sell the single best thing I ate in Brussels: see those large round chocolate objects in front? Up close they look sort of like Mallomars. And in fact, they are Mallomars -- that is, if Mallomars were made with butter cookies and homemade marshmallow and dipped in fine Belgian chocolate.

I bought a bag as a gift, and then an extra for myself just to try them, and the fact that I landed at Heathrow with the bag of cookies intact shows that I am capable of more self-discipline than I sometimes give myself credit for.

Also, that it was a very short flight.

Les delices de St-Hubert



Monday, December 18, 2017

Christmas shopping


For the last week before Christmas, I'm going to post some of the many pictures of Christmas windows and decorations I took in London and Brussels.

Les Galeries Royales St-Hubert in Brussels is supposed to be Europe's first shopping arcade. Since it is in Brussels, every other shop seemed to sell chocolate that was almost as expensive as the leather gloves and luxury handbags. Store windows to follow....

Sunday, December 17, 2017

Sunday bird blogging



A Eurasian coot in St James Park. 

Saturday, December 16, 2017

It's creepy and it's kooky, mysterious and spooky

The Museum of Musical Instruments from the outside -- the building was originally a department store, but I'm not sure that's an adequate explanation for the architecture.

Bonus reflections



Because when you wake up on a Saturday and you decide that screw it, you are NOT going into the office today, it feels like Christmas came early. I lazed around all afternoon, finished one book and started another, and went through the last of the Brussels pictures.

This accordion is from a delightful exhibit in the Museum of Musical Instruments, where I spent a few hours getting out of the rain my first day in Brussels. They had a collection of Estonian folk instruments in little tented cubicles, with motion sensors so that as you stood before each of the instruments, a recording of its music began to play. You'd move through the curtains to the next instrument and the new melody would start, overlapping the music from the previous room.

I somehow managed to hit myself in the eye with the laminated card they handed out as a museum guide, so I walked through much of the exhibit with tears rolling down my face, but I just pretended to be overcome by the music.

Saturday reflections



Here's another fun reflection from the Palais des Congrès in Brussels, this time with the sun shining.

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Urban poetry


Bonus urban poetry: colorful art hanging from the ceiling in Galerie Ravenstein in Brussels.

This was an arcade with shops and offices, not a gallery in the English sense of the word, but I was just cutting through on my way somewhere else and these pyramids made me smile.

And still do, on yet another snowy morning in New York. It's not even officially winter yet, but you'd never know it by the weather.

Urban poetry



The weather outside may be frightful, but nothing deters the hordes of tourists in Times Square.

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Astronomy Tuesday




Jupiter in blue -- another stunning image from the Juno probe.

Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Gerald Eichstädt/ Seán Doran

Monday, December 11, 2017

More snow



It was lovelier to look at than to trudge through: the Christmas tree lot up the street from my apartment Saturday evening.

Sunday, December 10, 2017

Snow



All those loverly autumnal views in St James Park suddenly feel like a lot more than two weeks ago.

Sunday bird blogging



One of the magnificent pelicans in St James Park.

Saturday, December 9, 2017

The queen of the night



Here's something different, and even older -- a Mesopotamian goddess, possibly Ishtar, created around the 18th century BC during the reign of Hammurabi in Babylon.

It's snowing, and I've converted all the documents I can manage today, so I'm heading home and leaving the blogging until tomorrow.

The lions



The wounded lions are rendered in such loving, respectful detail they brought tears to my eyes. How could creatures dead for more than 2000 years so bruise my heart?

The lion hunt


I must have seen these reliefs, from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal at Ninevah, before but I didn't remember them.

The royal seal of the Assyrian kings showed the king face to face with a lion, driving his sword through it, which symbolized his responsibility to protect his people from their enemies. In the mid-seventh century, the lions were more than just a symbolic threat. The records of Ashurbanipal report that “corpses of men, cattle and sheep lie in heaps as if the plague has killed them. Shepherds and herdsmen lament at what the lions have done. The villages are in mourning day and night.”

Clearly the king had to do something, and just as clearly it was more convenient, not to mention less risky, to have the lions brought to him. So this great lion hunt actually took place in an arena, where caged lions were released one at a time and the king killed them from a chariot.

While we're on the subject of lumasi



Versions of these are found in most of the ancient cultures of the Middle East -- here's a photo I never posted of the Gate of All Nations at Persepolis in Iran.

The damage here from millennia of exposure to the elements -- plus at least one angry army -- gives some weight to the British Museum's argument for keeping the Parthenon marbles. While actually walking through the ruins of Persepolis and seeing the stones in context was a once in a lifetime thrill, not that many of us get to go to Iran. And it's not likely that I'll ever go back.  But while I may never see the art of Persepolis again, I can take a bus uptown and see Assyrian art at the Metropolitan Museum any time I want.

When does protection become imperialism? Are they always the same thing?

It's complicated, obviously. Here's one more example: I knew that ancient Ninevah was somewhere in present-day Iraq, but I didn't realize until this last British Museum visit that it was on the outskirts of what is now Mosul.

Mosul was of course under the control of ISIS for much of the past several years. In addition to all the other havoc they created in the region, they destroyed all the statues of lumasi that had been left at the original site, as well as those in a local museum. So although I would have enjoyed visiting the ruins of Ninevah, the art would have been much safer outside of Iraq.

An ancient face



Here's a better look at the face.

The Assyrians were not a peaceful people, and the bulging eyes are a little creepy, but I'm always charmed by that faint smile.

The winged lions


A lamassu was an Assyrian protective deity, usually regarded as female even though they had the heads of human males. The body might be either a lion or a bull, but they were always winged. Pairs of these statues flanked the entranceways at palaces.

My fascination with these creatures goes back to childhood -- one of my favorite books was All About Archaeology, which I borrowed from the library over and over again (thanks to the miracle of Amazon, I now own my very own copy!) It tells the stories of Heinrich Schliemann and Troy, Howard Carter and the tomb of King Tut, and Leonard Woolley and Ur, and one of the illustrations shows a statue similar to this being dragged on a sledge during the excavation of Ninevah.

There are examples in many of the major museums of the world, and I've been lucky enough to see them in the Louvre and the Metropolitan and the Pergamon, but these were the first. And they're still my favorites.

This particular statue guarded the throne room of Ashurnasirpal in the 9th century BC. You can't really tell the size from the picture, but it's almost 12 feet tall. 

Saturday reflections



Near Leicester Square in London.

Friday, December 8, 2017

Urban poetry

Between a ridiculous workload and the news that bringing the wiring in my kitchen up to code is going to add another $7000 to the renovation costs, it has not been a great week. (It goes without saying that on a national and/or world level, it hasn't been a great week for a while now.)

On the other hand, I leave for Santiago five weeks from tomorrow. And there will be no wi-fi or phone service on the ship to Antarctica -- it will just be me and my fellow adventurers and some icebergs. It's as close as you can get to radio silence in this modern world and I'm looking forward to it.

In the meantime, here are some fun shadows on Buckingham Palace Road.



Thursday, December 7, 2017

Speaking of demented preening cockerels...


Let's head back to the British Museum, for an Assyrian relief of a cockerel that is probably not demented but definitely preening.

I was obsessed with the Assyrian collection during my first visits to the museum long ago; I remember writing what was probably a very bad poem about the winged lions and the irony of carving wings out of stone. It's still my favorite part of the museum -- one thing, at least, that hasn't changed.

I don't remember which particular palace this relief adorned, but it's probably about 2800 years old.

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

There'll always be an England


This is the Nova Building, a new monstrosity by Victoria Station. At first glance, I assumed it was still under construction and that the red was some kind of tarp, but upon closer inspection I realized that the building was in fact finished and occupied, and that it apparently, if improbably, looked like that on purpose.

I am not the only one who feels this way, as I learned when Googling “ugly red building near Victoria Station” to find out more about it. Its sheer awfulness has not gone unnoticed, and this being England, the commentary has been delightfully snarky. The phrase “hideous mess” turns up repeatedly; The Guardian called it a “particularly obnoxious 90-metre argyle sweater.”

The best description came from the judges at Building Design magazine, which awarded it the 2017 Carbuncle Cup as the ugliest building in the UK for its “bright red prows that adorn various points of the exterior like the inflamed protruding breasts of demented preening cockerels.”

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Astronomy Tuesday


I've been more than a little bit cranky since I returned from vacation and found myself in document conversion hell, but I've managed not to have any actual temper tantrums, being neither two years old nor the President of the United States.

Jupiter has no such inhibitions, and this storm last month, captured by the Juno probe, was bigger than many planets. Now, that's a tantrum!

Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SwRI, MSSS; Processing: Gerald Eichstädt and Seán Doran

Monday, December 4, 2017

One day I'll be famous, I'll be proper and prim, go to St James so often I will call it St Jim


I think Eliza Doolittle was actually referring to the Court of St James's, which is the official name of the court of the British sovereign, and not the very posh and proper neighborhood where I was staying my last few days in London, but I sang this every day anyway as I walked down St James Place to St James Street, then past St James's Palace, on my way to St James Park.  

These pictures are of the palace, which is the oldest royal palace and the official residence of the British monarchy, even though the kings and queens have actually lived up the street in Buckingham Palace since Victoria. Now it's the residence of minor royalty like the daughters of Prince Andrew and Fergie, though Charles and Camilla do live right next door in Clarence House.

I meant to get a better picture than the one on the left -- I was distracted by that plane -- but never did.

Bonus bird blogging for Monday morning



Another shot of one of the beautiful mute swans in St James Park, in a more traditional pose.

Sunday, December 3, 2017

Sunday bird blogging




Something a little different: the curve of the marble draperies in the statue below made me think of this image of a swan curving its neck into a figure eight to groom itself.

Also from St James Park in London.

Saturday, December 2, 2017

The Elgin Marbles

I neglected to mention that all of this art is from the Parthenon, in the British Museum, in case you hadn't already figured it out. 

The Parthenon collection, also known as the Elgin Marbles after the ambassador to the Ottoman Empire who removed them from the Parthenon and transported them to Britain at the beginning of the nineteenth century, are of course the subject of a long-running dispute with Greece. (The builders of the Acropolis Museum in Athens clearly expect to get them back some day; they have replicas of everything that's in London and make it obvious that they consider the fakes a temporary solution.)

The British Museum offers a pamphlet in the exhibit, explaining the history of the marbles and also making it clear that they have no intention of giving them to anyone. 

The [British] Museum is a unique resource for the world: the breadth and depth of its collection allows the world's public to re-examine cultural identities and explore the connections between them. Within the context of this unparalleled collection, the Parthenon sculptures are an important representation of the culture of ancient Athens. Millions of visitors admire the beauty of the sculptures each year -- free of charge....The Acropolis Museum allows the Parthenon sculptures that are in Athens to be appreciated against the backdrop of ancient Greek and Athenian history. This display does not alter the Trustees' view that the sculptures are part of everyone's shared heritage and transcend cultural boundaries.

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