Hell's Kitchen

Walking home from where the bus dropped me off on Fifth Avenue a few days ago, I passed through the Theatre District, and the sign for Hell's Kitchen: the Musical was a nice signpost reassuring me that I was almost home.

The perfect setting for a ghost story

I chose to write a ghost story for the final presentation for my class. Sleeping in a 14th century building, with this light outside my bedroom window, it was easy to think Gothic.

I did have a strange experience one night—I got up to use the bathroom, which was a small, windowless room next to the bedroom. The toilet paper was on the back of the door so I usually pulled it closed or almost closed, and so the room was very dark, with a slightly less dark strip around the door. As I was sitting on the toilet a light swooped across the room in front of me, reflecting on the walls. I thought it was my Fitbit; the screen lights up when I turn my wrist, and in a dark room it's bright enough to reflect off the walls.

Then it happened again. The light swooped in front of me and circled back, and I was pretty sure I hadn't moved my arm. When it happened a third time, I knew I hadn't moved. But I just thought, Well, that's weird, finished my business, and went back to bed.

I looked at my wrist to see what time it was and realized I wasn't even wearing my Fitbit—it was in the charger in the sitting room. I don't have any idea what made those lights, but I found it more puzzling than scary. It never happened again.

Random interiors

And I do mean random -- going through pictures and finding some I'd never processed, much less posted.

On the left, a curve of ramp and staircase and the deep blue sky of a winter's afternoon, at the Musée national des beaux-arts in Quebec. On the right, a nondescript hallway in an office building in Chelsea. I just liked those strange winged light fixtures.

O Holy Night

I took these pictures on my way to Mass Christmas Eve.

Silent night

These are some of my favorite pictures -- evening streets in Quebec City.

Lights, camera, action

I was going to call this urban poetry, but it isn't really, even by my very loose definition.

I went to a television taping last week -- one of the perks of being retired in New York -- and these are the lights on the ceiling of the studio.

It was fun, and they gave everyone in the audience a huge bag of L'Oreal products, so I won't be running out of shampoo any time in the next year.

Urban poetry

A house in Albany, seen across the back garden at night.

Merry Christmas

A different kind of twinkle for this Tuesday's posting: Christmastime in the city.

Hoping that however you're spending the day, wherever you are, your travels may be happy ones.

Urban poetry

When I was small, I never wanted to step in puddles. Not because of any fear of drowned worms or wet stockings; I was by and large a grubby child, with a blissful disregard for filth of any kind.

It was because I couldn't bring myself to believe that that perfect smooth expanse was no more than a thin film of water over solid earth. I believed it was an opening into some fathomless space. Sometimes, seeing the tiny ripples caused by my approach, I thought the puddle impossibly deep, a bottomless sea in which the lazy coil of tentacle and gleam of scale lay hidden, with the threat of huge bodies and sharp teeth adrift and and silent in the far-down depths.

And then, looking down into reflection, I would see my own round face and frizzled hair against a featureless blue sweep and think instead that the puddle was the entrance to another sky. If I stepped in there, I would drop at once, and keep on falling, on and on, into blue space.

-- Diana Gabaldon, Voyager

This is my last week at my job of 23 years, so I do feel on the brink of -- something. At the moment the anxiety about the huge changes coming is almost overwhelming, but there's excitement and anticipation as well. I'm going to be jumping into my puddles with both feet, fingers crossed, and hoping that if I do get soaked to the skin, it will be worth it.

Geometries

A sidewalk on Broome Street in SoHo. 

The glass circles are vault lights; they allow light into the basements, which extend under the sidewalks and were used for factories and living space.

Just one more way canny New Yorkers have squeezed every last usable inch out of a crowded city.

Two more

The light wasn't great for photographers in a hurry -- the building was only open for another fifteen minutes when I got there -- but you can at least see those luxurious Art Deco shapes.

The Bridges of Isfahan County

One of the things Isfahan is famous for is the many bridges crossing the Zayandeh River.

We walked down to the river after dinner to enjoy this view, the Si-o-seh bridge by night.

And so this is Christmas

Dublin is already decorated for Christmas, with trees and ornaments and sparkling lights everywhere, and it took me a while to realize that the lampposts aren't part of the holiday scheme -- they're dressed for Christmas all year round.

Below, the lights on Grafton Street at dusk.