Skater's waltz

It's been coming down all day, but the furrow-browed, deeply concerned TV reporters reminding us every ten minutes to STAY INSIDE (while standing for no particular reason on various street corners and highway overpasses being snowed on) insist that the big blizzard hasn't actually started yet, and we won't be getting the real snow until later tonight, when the entire Eastern Seaboard will turn into the ice planet Hoth (tauntauns sold separately.)

In the meantime, here are a few more pictures from Friday, since it was apparently the last sunny day we'll have until well into February. There are always a few showoffs spinning and jumping at the Rockefeller Center ice rink, but I love to watch the novices, clinging desperately to the railings or their friends, and how delighted they look when they start to get the hang of it.

Sunday bird blogging

It may have been warmer than usual Friday, but it was still not exactly swimming weather.

But here's a pair of pigeons demonstrating that they are perhaps second only to cockroaches on the indestructibility scale. Brrr!

Sun dance

Here's another relief, part of the two sets on opposite sides of 30 Rock called, for some not very obvious reason, Radio and Television.

It was unexpectedly sunny Friday, and a relatively toasty 35 degrees, so these dancers seemed less interested in acting out cryptic metaphors about modern communications than in just soaking up some rays while they can.

Saturday reflections

The NBC building in Rockefeller Center.

There were originally a lot more windows in this picture, but I ended up cropping it down to get a better look at the Art Deco bas relief. There are many similar reliefs around Rockefeller Plaza, some allegorical, some less so. Like this one, which seems to suggest that not only was television widely known in the Classical world, but that ancient Greek cameramen did their jobs naked.

Urban poetry

I understand that I'm not their target audience, but I still think this storefront on West 50th Street is not the most promising spa I've ever seen.

Astronomy Tuesday

Happy birthday, Hubble!

In honor of its 25th anniversary (and upgraded optics) the Hubble team captured a larger, higher resolution version of one of its most famous subjects: the Pillars of Creation, in the Eagle Nebula (M16, for those who wonder whether our friend Monsieur Messier took note). While these columns are only a small section of the nebula, they are almost unfathomably huge. The leftmost pillar is about four light years tall, and those little fingers of gas poking out at the tops are each larger than our solar system.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI / AURA)

Sunday bird blogging

It's hard to resist a nice grackle.

They're actually quite annoying birds, loud and aggressive, but lovely to look at.

Saturday reflections

I love this taillight shot, with the red wall behind the car, and the black and red reflections in the car window.

It's almost a little too posed. Except that it wasn't.

Then I'm laying out my winter clothes and wishing I was gone

Wednesday night there was an event at the New York Times that for some reason my status as a premier subscriber allowed me to attend. Pamela Paul, the Book Review editor who created the By the Book feature, did a kind of live version with Francine Prose and Andrew Solomon and Mary Higgins Clark. What do you read? Where do you read? How do you read? I love By the Book -- it's one of the first thing I read on Saturday mornings when the new Book Review arrives, and the torn out page frequently ends up crumpled in the bottom of my purse because a book sounded interesting and I want to remember to buy it.

I have at least 20 or 30 books already waiting for me on my nightstand and my Kindle, but that never means I don't want to add 20 more. I like the abundance; I love being able to look through the piles, digital or analog, and think Which one next? It's one of the only things I can be greedy about without feeling guilty.

I took this picture of one of the coat racks on my way out.  New York in January -- I'd know those coats anywhere.

Urban poetry

These planks, stacked on a truck bed, were part of a construction scaffolding that was being taken down.

You would never have noticed them in place; they were just something to stand on. But piled up like this, they turn into a beautiful pattern of unexpected colors and textures.

Astronomy Tuesday

This was an easy choice -- NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day for today.

This is quite aptly called the Soap Bubble Nebula, discovered only a few years ago in the constellation Cygnus. It is probably a planetary nebula, the end of life for medium-sized stars like our own sun. I have to say that I find it somehow consoling that if our sun has to die -- and it does, and it will -- that it will do it beautifully.

Credit and Copyright: T. Rector (U. Alaska Anchorage), H. Schweiker (WIYN), NOAO, AURA, NSF

Sunday bird blogging

A red-bellied woodpecker graciously bestows some color on the wintry afternoon, in exchange for some seeds.