What do the New York City Public Library, the New York City Grand Central Terminal, the Boston Public Library and the main Boulder Post Office (shown here and built in 1909) have in common? They are all examples of Beaux Arts architecture.
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The Truro Bear
By Mary Oliver, from Twelve Moons (1979)
There’s a bear in the Truro woods.
People have seen it - three or four,
or two, or one. I think
of the thickness of the serious woods
around the dark bowls of the Truro ponds;
I think of the blueberry fields, the blackberry tangles,
the cranberry bogs. And the sky
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A pimped out 1964 Ford F100 pickup might cost you anywhere from $11,000 to $20,000 or more. This one, painstakingly detailed in a lovely shade of rust, not so much.
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This cut in Dinosaur Ridge just west of Denver represents 45 million years of geologic time. I-70 blasted it's way through the ridge back in 1971.
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CAUTION: HULA HOOPING PEDESTRIANS (8.24.06) |
(
Hula hooping world records:
1 Mile - 7:47, Paul "Dizzy Hips" Blair
10 Km (men) - 1:06:35, Paul "Dizzy Hips" Blair
10 Km (women) - 1:43:11, Betty Hoops
More hula hoop world records.
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THIS MORNING I WATCHED THE DEER (8.23.06) |
This Morning I Watched the Deer
By Mary Oliver, from Why I Wake Early (2004)
This morning I watched the deer
with beautiful lips touching the tips
of the cranberries, setting their hooves down
in the dampness carelessly, isn’t it after all
the carpet of their house, their home, whose roof
is the sky?
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TEAR DOWN A PARKING LOT (8.22.06) |
In her 1969 classic Big Yellow Taxi, Joni Mitchell sang, "They paved paradise / And put up a parking lot." Here, they've torn down a parking lot to put up mixed-use buildings of boutique stores and high-end condos.
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804 children under the age of 12 were murdered across the United States in 1996, yet you probably only know the name of one - a certain 6-year-old beauty queen from Boulder, Colorado whose alleged killer has recently been arrrested. And thus the carnivorous media hordes begin their "vigil" outside the Boulder County Courthouse.
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DEAD LETTER OFFICE (8.18.06) |
Read a dead letter at the Dead Letter Office, which describes itself as "a storage space for wisdom, regret and guidance." Once on the website, click "Read a Letter" to read another one.
Photo of a postal unit once used to sort mail in Paris' Les Marais and Les Halles district.
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"CLOUDS WILL CLOUD" (8.17.06) |
the crunch
by Charles Bukowski
too much too little
too fat
too thin
or nobody.
laughter or
tears
haters
lovers
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The number of Bengal tigers surviving in the wild today is estimated to be around 4000, a 95-percent reduction in population compared to the beginning of this century. Amazingly, according to the WWF (formely known as the World Wildlife Fund), the endangered Bengal is still the most populous of all tigers. So basically tigers are having a pretty hard time all the way around due to loss of habitat and poaching. Want to help save them? Donate to the WWF or The David Shepard Wildlife Foundation, pass on buying those Bengal tiger fur-lined slippers, or even "adopt" a wild tiger through The Tiger Foundation. Otherwise, some day the only Bengals left may be like this "tiger" at FAO Schwarz, and it cost 350 bucks.
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CALDER IN THE RAIN (8.15.06) |
Ordinary, 1969
By Alexander Calder, renowned, groundbreaking artist and inventor of the mobile.
Backdrop: The Seagram Building, which was the world's most expensive skyscraper when it was completed in 1958.
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Sicis does amazing things with tile. Of course, they would also probably cringe at the use of the word tile. They would say, “It is mosaic art!” and throw their espresso in your face. Still, you can’t do the mosaic without the tile, right? Anyway, the history of mosaic art goes back around 4000 years, and now a place like Sicis creates such amazing pieces – and the pieces are pretty amazing – that they can afford to have a two-story showroom on a high-traffic corner in Soho. Who knew there was such big bucks to be made tiling, er, mosaic art?
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The following etymology of the word "pink" comes courtesy of The Word Detective, which has been offering witty, insightful commentary on word origins for the past ten years.
"Pink" is a very strange word, so strange that one usually staid
dictionary of etymology calls its evolution "a bizarre series of twists."
In the beginning, there was the old Dutch word "pinck," meaning "small."
The little finger is known in Dutch today as the "pink," which is indeed the
source of our modern "pinkie" finger, but bear with me for a moment because
there were some fairly odd steps 'twixt this Dutch "pink" and "pinkie."
The Dutch "pinck" was adopted into Scots (the language of Scotland)
sometime in the 16th century in the general sense of "small." Scots also
imported the Dutch phrase "pinck oogen," meaning "tiny eyes" or "half-closed
eyes." This in turn became the Scots and English phrase "pink eye," which
is now a colloquial name for conjunctivitis (an inflammation of the eye),
but which originally meant "half-closed or squinting eye."
By now you're probably wondering what all these eyes have to do with the
light reddish color we call "pink." A certain flower of the species of
Dianthus was known as "pink eye" (or "pink" for short) because it was
thought to resemble a half-closed eye. This flower was usually, you guessed
it, the color we now know as "pink," and by the early 18th century "pink"
had come into use as the name of the color itself. So the "color" pink
comes from an old Dutch phrase meaning "squinting eye," which is pretty
bizarre in my book. Be first to comment this article |
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GW BRIDGE CABLES (8.10.06) |
The George Washington Bridge opened to traffic:
Upper Level: October 25, 1931
Lower Level: August 29, 1962
Length of Bridge (btwn anchorages): 4,760 feet
Height of tower above water: 604 feet
Cost of original structure: $59,000,000
NY Port Authority investment as of December 31, 2005: $1,021,300,000
2005 Traffic Volumes:
Total eastbound traffic: 53,612,000 vehicles
Total traffic both directions: 107,224,000 vehicles
It's the world’s only 14-lane suspension bridge, which is kind of scary if you think about it.
Historical photos.
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HENRY AND DIZZY IN THEIR HOOD (8.9.06) |
"Hey, Dizzy?"
"Yeah, Henry."
"Why you always bombing* our 'hood with yellow chunks of Swiss cheese?"
"I love cheese, dog. Cheese is my favorite!"
LIIIICK!
*Graffiti Slang 101: Bomb - to paint prolifically.
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Six degress of separation. The hypothesis that everyone in the world can be connected to everyone else through a chain of six or less people originated in the 1929 short story "Chains," by Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy. Sixty-five years later it became a pop culture party phenomenon in Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Starting September 21st a new show called Six Degrees, which at some point will include the scene pictured here, will be hitting the TV screens of your ABC affiliate. The show will orchestrate how six unacquainted New Yorkers can screw up each other’s lives without even knowing it. Wacked drama will ensue! The actress on the right is Erika Christensen...I think.
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Does anyone else find it disconcerting to come across an abandoned mannequin lying face down in the street amid a pile of trash?
Anyway, a new mannequin similar to this life-sized “Ken doll” but named Mondo costs $400, while some mannequins, probably those with real hair versus Ken’s plastic coiffure, can set you back over a grand. But here in New York, where the axiom of one person’s trash is another’s treasure could not be truer, you can score one for free. Less than twenty minutes after this picture was taken someone had “adopted” Ken and he was gone.
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Photo taken on a foot bridge that goes over the Manhattan-side exit of the Holland Tunnel.
My mirror, My walkway
On summer evenings I go walking through the streets
Over my London Bridge, across the mississippi river
The place where I am to stay
When my beach is far away
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The police barrier had been laying on the sidewalk for weeks. Then Vans plastered their posters on the bare wall above them. The combination looks like a country's national flag...a very scary country. Be first to comment this article |
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fall which now drop who all dreamlike (im - e. e. cummings Photo taken at Trapeze School New York along the West Side Highway. Price per 2-hour class: $47. Be first to comment this article |
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