Four Legs Good

Brighton Beach + cell phone = videos

2009-11-05T20:04:00.008-05:00

Yes, I have an old cell phone, so the videos are pixellated and grey, but I love them precisely because of that. And besides, I just realized recently that my phone has a video option, so I have to use it as much as possible!
Brighton Beach and Coney Island are mellow in early November, and it's not too cold yet to take a nice stroll along the beach. Some hardy Russians were swimming that day, too.

New York, Inside and Out (plus one photo from Upstate in Rhinecliff)

2009-10-29T06:50:00.010-04:00

The cell phone is allowing me to take pictures without being noticed, so I notice even more than I did before. Everything is subject. The subway platform, above, and the supermarket below, where the workers are wheeling out the old refrigeration unit because the new ones have been installed. I suppose that's a good day at work, if you work there - something new and different to do. The old unit was completely filthy, by the way. Did they never clean it? Even once?

Looking into Katz's Deli on Houston Street, Lower East Side.

Park Place, Brooklyn, in the early evening hours.

The table is set at Chavella's for a little outdoor dining on Classon St., Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
The next two photos were taken from the Express Line (15 items or less) at the Park Slope Food Co-op on Union Street. I think taking these photos and putting them online might be enough reason for them to suspend my membership, but I hope not. That place has a lot of rules but I love it just the same.

On the platform of the No. 4 Train, Yankee Stadium stop, in the Bronx.
And the two below taken from the Q-Train window as it rolls over the Manhattan Bridge at sunset. The cell phone camera completely abstracts certain types of image, which I like.

Pizza parlor on Houston Street, above, and a Metropolitan Transit Authority sign for subway users on the F-Train from Williamsburg.

Looking out on the morning sun...

On the Chinatown Bus from NYC to Baltimore.
And in Baltimore, a bed awaits.

The view from the platform at the Rhinecliff, New York, Amtrak station - the mighty Hudson River.

Unidentified Red Objects.

Only the flag stands still at Grand Central Station.

It's been a rough week, but the cell phone delivers - out 'n about in bklyn

2009-10-28T10:49:00.009-04:00

All around Prospect Park, Grand Army Plaza and Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn

The new Richard Meyer building - dusk at No. 1 Eastern Parkway

General Grant, the reluctant leader, as depicted on the Civil War Monument, Grand Army Plaza.

Yankee Stadium, The Bronx - for me it's a tough one because in my heart I want the Phillies to Win! but I love the Yankees, too!

Apartment building lobby, Park Place, Brooklyn

Sunset Park industrial zone, above, and brownstone staircase, below.

Sunset Park - a peaceful but noir-ish kinda night.

New Media Department - Cell Phone Photography

2009-10-19T09:41:00.008-04:00

More from the digital depths - Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the wilds of Connecticut ...and some paprika

2009-10-13T08:13:00.012-04:00

Footnotes from the underground.

Say cheese! Everyone's taking snaps on Wall Street.

I'll have two of everything...

And the misty wilds of Connecticut, as promised.

Back in Manhattan - the audience is the show at the Guggenheim.

And in Brooklyn, another lonely walk home.

Another lonely random workplace - the security station of an apartment building as viewed from the street.

Ever look deeply into one of those subway grates? Well, don't...
then home again to think good thoughts - yoga with Rodney Yee and Mariel Hemingway will make everything go away.Except the paprika.

Mining the Digital Archive - New Old Photos - Manhattan, Brooklyn, Vermont, and views from a plane

2009-10-11T08:18:00.010-04:00

Looking into the Franklin Avenue Shuttle station at Park Place and Franklin Ave, Brooklyn
Then onward to Grand Central Station...

and onward still further...on a propeller plane from New York to Burlington, Vermont on a snowy winter day

Once in Vermont, a meal at the New England Culinary Academy. I'm not sure what this particular dish is called, but it's quite inedible.

My room at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Spare, in a New England kinda way.

And the 19th century main building, College Hall, on the Vermont College of Fine Arts Campus, Montpelier.

A short trip it was, then back to New York, a night flight, and aerial views of Manhattan and Brooklyn as our plane comes in to La Guardia. This view shows the Brooklyn Bridge in the center, lower Manhattan on the right, and Brooklyn on the left. It all makes sense.

Other shots, other winter scenes - sparrows having a quick bite at the bird feeder on the fire-escape, Brooklyn.

And this would be Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, from the window near the elevators.

New York, New York - the intimate and the grand

And the old Rhinecliff train station with the Hudson River just beyond those windows - the passageway to the tracks looks like an airplane hangar - they used to really know how to build things a hundred years ago. Lots of space for floods of passengers.

And myself in shadow, interpreted through what looks like a spray of Fruit Loops on the sidewalk, Brooklyn.

Last Call for my Nikon Coolpix, which I used for the photos on this blog, and which I dropped and broke a few days ago. Still in denial...

2009-10-05T19:13:00.018-04:00

I broke my camera after taking this set of photos, so am saying goodbye to the Nikon Coolpix, which I was very attached to (loved?) and used everyday. After this posting, I'm going back through my photographs and uploading some that didn't make the first cut. Should be an interesting and eclectic mix. Then, of course, I'll start posting my cell phone pics.

I don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello.

Getting out of the subway at Astor Place and on the way to an art opening at Cooper Union, I walked past a bank - Bank of America? Citibank? does it make any difference? - and snapped three nearly identical work stations that were on display, on the other side of a plate glass window, for all the world to see. There's something sad about the cool indifference of the workplace here to the needs of the workers, and the public aspect of being at work imposed on those who sit at these desks.

Brave new architecture by Thom Mayne at Cooper Union. The art opening was fine, some good and some bad work as usual, but it was the building itself that was kinda distracting in almost every way.

Later in Prospect Heights, things looking a little strange at night - and then trails of three lights on nose and wings of an airplane as is passes overhead.

Sometimes things look a little bleak in Brooklyn, and Atlantic Avenue can be a real scary road to cross. It seemed that everywhere I looked someone had wrapped up a part of a building.

My lady love, at a tailor's shop on Washington Ave.

One last walk around Prospect Heights with my Nikon.

And then off to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens to the local flora garden - the plants of the American East Coast, which, even though they are not the most dramatic or beautiful, make me feel the most at home and at peace.

Chinatown from above - a walk over the East River on the Manhattan Bridge

2009-09-06T10:00:00.004-04:00

Roof garden, Chinatown

Chinatown graffiti artists are hard at work. The graffiti landscape only truly visible from high above street level.

About halfway across the Manhattan Bridge one sees the graceful span of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The mighty metal span; and a secret garden on the other side in DUMBO, Brooklyn.

Late summer incantation

2009-09-01T20:24:00.006-04:00

Out of the subway, walking down the street, seeing what's on offer, and then catching the F Train at 4th and 9th, Brooklyn

2009-08-31T15:01:00.006-04:00

Back in Brooklyn, where I belong

2009-08-30T12:47:00.003-04:00

Sometimes one has to go to Baltimore and Northern Virginia

2009-08-29T09:15:00.003-04:00

The wisdom of trees and other items on no particular list

2009-08-29T09:04:00.005-04:00

The neat green trash of trendy Soho.

The grand gate - entrance to the Manhattan Bridge, Chinatown

At the Atlantic Avenue subway station a pretty lady exits the scene.

Where am I and how did I end up here?

Aboard the Bolt Bus to Baltimore. $15. from NY, wireless and seat belts.

Milk, in another form, quite monstrous

2009-08-29T09:00:00.004-04:00

Walking after midnight

2009-08-29T08:55:00.004-04:00

Walking home from the subway after a weekend in New Haven

2009-08-17T17:59:00.006-04:00

Turn on the fan! It's 93 degrees out there...

2009-08-17T15:40:00.002-04:00

Sky over Annandale-on-Hudson

2009-08-10T18:09:00.002-04:00

Summer in Annandale-on-Hudson

2009-08-10T15:28:00.013-04:00

This is a wonderful meal of organic corn, organic eggs, and what's left of an organic cucumber - all a bit on the yellow and white side of the food chain, but delicious, as it's a product of Community Supported Agriculture in the Hudson Valley.

And below, a couple of lawn sculptures by the excellent Rachel Harrison, outside the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College.

And inside the Student Center at Bard College - no one in sight. The MFA program is over for the summer.

A walk down the lane brings one to the Fisher Center for Performing Arts designed by Frank Gehry, also known as the potato chip building.

And across the road, a kind of disaster by Olafur Eliasson - a walkway to a bridge to a pond to a middle area - great for kids, right?

Then the oppression of parking lots in the middle of the country on a hot day...and walkways to more parking lots.

Back to the film/video department for some finishing up...meetings, take-out junk food, the dept. in-house coffee station, and the general look of the film/video department at the end of a long summer session.

The gold bike, by Ephraim Asili.

Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY - Dorm Life and Thunderstorms Storms Brewing

2009-07-25T08:49:00.006-04:00

Ways of Seeing New York

2009-07-25T08:36:00.010-04:00

Some pictorial notes from here, there, and elsewhere

2009-07-12T09:37:00.015-04:00

Coming into the evening from below the terrain - leaving the No. 2/3 train subway station and exiting onto Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn

Stately Eastern Parkway. Costs a bundle these days to live here.

Bland food from Switzerland: macaroni and cheese with potatoes, and potato-leek soup.

Macaroni and cheese with potatoes and ketchup.

Stairway to the stars - or, stairway at Rafik's video dubbing house, Broadway, Manhattan

The lobby of the Spanish Museum, Morningside Heights, on a rainy day.

Moving day. From the window of the Chinatown bus, before we depart for Philadelphia. Round-trip to Philly: $15.00. Cannot beat that.

An offer for gentlemen from a lady - a discreet message on the top of a taxi. Chinatown bus heads to the Holland Tunnel.

All too soon, we're in Philadelphia. Where there's still room to grow, apparently.

Ok. That was Philly, and now the bus is heading back to Chinatown through the streets of New York.

Then off to Coney Island on the Fourth of July.

The Collection of Silence - A Project by Eileen Myles, Tuesdays on the Terrace, Dia at the Hispanic Society of America

2009-07-02T17:02:00.002-04:00

Back in Brooklyn, feelin' that NYC was kinda crummy...until I took a serious look skywards

2009-06-28T09:34:00.011-04:00

On the road in Milan, Trento and Bolzano...

2009-06-27T15:39:00.020-04:00

Trento, the Palace of the Archbishop, a musem...and other pics from Trento follow...

And on to Bolzano. On a bridge above the Adige River, bikes cut loose, but locks remain.

Then an education in Fascist-era Architecture. Not pretty, nor graceful - compare to the few images of Renaissance Architecture from Trento, above.

Then on to Milan, where one does one's penance at the Duomo.

The Flayed San Bartolomeo by artist Marco d’Agrate dates from 1562. A truly remarkable statue, as the Saint appears with his skin draped around him.

Then on to more of the details, the artwork and the architecture of the cathedral.

A sarcophagus of the De Medici's, and below, a confessional.

The Baptismal font

A reliquary of St. Sebastian, and then the cathedral's exterior.

La Scala...then from the sublime to the sublimely ordinary - shop windows of a door store on the Viale Lombardia, Milan.

On the Metropolitana.