More Harris Shutter

That strange little photo app on my phone, Harris Shutter, continues to perplex me. I'm trying to find an ideal light/dark situation in which I can use it to maximum effect. A Christmas window (above), transformed (below).

Times Square: Silent

What lies beneath: I have often taken people to visit the "audio sculpture" called Times Square: New York (listen here) that is located under some metal grills at the very center of Times Square, the traffic island at 46th Street right where Seventh Avenue and Broadway overlap.

It's a mysterious but harmonious constantly-playing chord, that emanates upwards from beneath your feet. The artist, the late Max Neuhaus, created it back in 1977, from the cacophony of trucks, trains, clunks, clanks, yells and screams which he recorded one day in and around Times Square: out of the strong came forth sweetness; out of the  of Times Square comes forth harmony. And it plays 24 hours a day... except that last week, I took someone to hear it, experience it, and.... silence. We stared down at the metal grill, and no sound was to be heard.

I wonder why? Will it return? I hope so!

"...and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father"

This is not a sparrow, but it has most definitely 'fallen on the ground', to quote from the Book of Matthew. 

I don't know what kind of bird it is, but I am going to guess it is a type of swallow...? I saw it today lying on a street in Astoria. It may have come to grief by hitting a car window, reflecting today's bright, sunny sky. 

Concluding with some more verses from Matthew, chapter 10:

30 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.31 Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.32 Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.33 But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. 34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

"I Can Hear Angels Singing..."

I don't care if Lou Reed approved this advertisement, currently plastered around New York City's subway system, before he died, it still seems disgusting to use him, his long career in music, and his recent death, to flog crappy headphones.

They Have 30 -hour days in Thailand?

Overhyped and Overdone, Attys at Law

Please make them stop. 

Please make them stop. 

Edward

Edward Haiduk, 1949—2013

My dear friend Ed died this morning, peacefully in his sleep. Rest easy.

Eye

Rant! Rave!

[Begin angry rant] Am I the only person who thinks that skateboarding is stupid, and stupid specifically, because, as a means of transit from point A to point B, one is required to put in laborious effort to propel oneself along, while experiencing a high risk of personal injury. And so, it was with a strange feeling of glee that I spotted the above and took a photo. [End angry rant]

Get a job? But he just did! Finally, New York City has gotten the 6', 5" tall, left-wing liberal mayor (and family) that it always seems to have deserved. And the Bloomberg era has come to an end. Let's not forget its many high points: 

1.

2..

3...

But it's too soon to say much about Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio (and family!), and I wish him all the luck in the world, remembering that, as Albert Camus said: "luck is the residue of design..." 

In his victory speech, de Blasio thanked his wife for her uniquely important support, and said that she and he made decisions collectively, and that this would continue to be the case now that he will be our mayor. But the people elected Bill as mayor, not his wife... Also, though his victory was indeed a gratifying landslide, and gives him a clear mandate for change, the record low voter turnout (24% of eligible voters) ought to temper that, somewhat. In New York magazine, Chris Smith summed up things crisply:

The risk of a Bill de Blasio mayoralty is that it sputters with politically correct incompetence. But the great promise is that he might turn out to be a complicated, highly unusual mix of ideologue and operative.

It's Christmas season, of course. And I can't help it, and you may accuse me of Grinchian tendencies, of failing to enter into any of the holiday spirit, or my lacking the ability to see that 'it's for the children, really'... but really, here we go again:

          ...That vast moth-eaten musical brocade 
         Created to pretend we never die,
         And specious stuff that says No rational being 
         Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing 
         That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound, 
         No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with, 
         Nothing to love or link with, 
         The anaesthetic from which none come round.  

From which none come round...now that's an eggnog recipe I wish I had. And anyone who says Christmas is really all about and for children...it's precisely because of that attitude, that ¢hristma$ is handed on, generation after generation after generation, meaning nothing.

New York City can, on occasion, give one a visual that seems precise to the sentiment of the moment. And so:

At the bottom of the subway stairs, I saw... a rat tucking into a pile of vomit.

Eeeewwwww!

Movies, movies: I saw Brad Pitt as a heel, playing Achilles, in Troy...

And I saw O Henry's Full House, a retelling of five of his short stories for the movies:

This is a scene from The Gift of the Magi, in which boy meets girl, they fall in love; it's Christmas, so she sells her beautiful hair to buy a chain for his gold watch, while he sells his watch to buy her a comb for her hair...

Turn To Me... I See Eternity

Downtown Brooklyn. 

What's in the Back of the Car in Front?

It's...a cow. In the back of a Citroën. In Norn Iron. 

Creepy Sunnyside Railroad Yard Glows in the Dark

At night, I took a recent walk away from Queensboro Plaza, towards the Sunnyside Rail Yards...

Access is forbidden to this vast marshalling area for commuter and freight trains, to all but those who

by authorization, can punch in the numbers on this foreboding red keypad...

which controls the locking and unlocking of this turnstile...

As I stood and watched through chain link fencing, a train swished into the yard beneath my feet.

A big, noisy locomotive was pushing from the rear...

...Amtrak.

It finally disappeared into the haze of Halogen lights, sodium vapor....

And I turned to glance one final time through the chain

 

link fence at the distant, lowering glow. 

  

link fence, at the distant glow.

Faux Cuss

CREWMAN #1 Holy shit, Mel is out of Focus! CREWMAN #2 That's what I said, genius, he's out of focus.

CREWMAN #1

Let me see...get the hell out of here...you're right, Mel himself is out of focus.

Ah! Much better...

After They Were Kidnaped... They Were Rapped!

I found this hilarious old 78rpm record on Second Avenue yesterday. It's "an adventure story in sound"...and in bad spelling, too! Yes, misprinted on the cover is the title of R L Stevenson's piratical thriller, 'Kidnaped'! The spelling of the title is correct on the back of the record sleeve: 

Whoever approved the front cover ought to have been made to... Wawk The Plank! Then Slep with the Fisshes! 

UPDATE: Today. a so-called friend sought to undermine this post by calling my attention to the fact that Dictionary.com's definition of kidnap allows both of the above spellings for the past tense of the verb. But I have no memory of ever seeing kidnaped in print, and another web site, Future-Perfect, notes that a few verbs in English require one to double the last letter when spelling the past participle:

‘worship’, ‘handicap’ and ‘kidnap’ become ‘worshipping/worshipped’, ‘handicapping/handicapped’ and ‘kidnapping/kidnapped’ in standard received British English.

Paper Whites

I've been looking for Autumn Crocuses this fall, without any success. These are Paper Whites...

Sticky

In a 99 cent store in Harlem, two days ago... Woman to adult son:

"Go get the fuckin' tape Lavon! You're never. Never. Gonna have anything!"

Pelham Bay Park

Overheard on Eighth Avenue

Two middle-aged gents, barreling their way down the avenue...

Gent 1: Hey, so what happened to your cousin that died...?

Gent 2: ...

I felt like shouting after them: "They had a funeral!" 

Primarily a Good Day

Tuesday, September 10th was Primary Day in New York City, with a variety of local elections being held around town.

The most powerful man in New York City is seen above, with Superman in the foreground... Who is the most powerful man? -- that would be the suit-wearing jackass who promotes the Lotto...

I had concluded that Bill Thompson (above), would steal the day by coming from behind to win the Democratic mayoral primary. He did not win, but he did come close. The winner was Bill de Blasio, who may in fact now easily win the general election, to be held in about a month or so...

Speaking of jackasses... I can't even be bothered to explain why There Shalt Never Be A Mayor Weiner...

This was a primary day with a wide field of strong candidates, some with hard-to-pronounce names (above). My favorite, for the conspiracy-minded, was the Astoria, Queens, candidate for city council: John Ciafone. C.I.A. Fone?! Click-click! Tap-tap!

On Fulton Street in Brooklyn, the brightly-lit office for John Liu, candidate for mayor, who did not prevail. 

And in the Bronx, clearly someone with a bright red felt-tip marker wants you to know something about Hector Ramirez!

UPDATE: Bill de Blasio (above right), who won the Democratic primary election, wants the entire city to know something about his family; in fact, his son Dante (left) featured in a TV ad, revealing of course that although de Blasio senior may resemble so many other tall, slightly patrician white males who have ruled and ruled and scored and scored, his wife Chirlane (above, second right) is black, and his kids Dante and Chiara are, like President Obama, half black, half white. There can be no doubt that this has been part of de Blasio's appeal to the electorate. He will face Republican candidate Joe Lhota in the general election for NYC mayor in November.

Ah! indeed...

Spotted today on Herkimer Place in Brooklyn.

Ah, Sun-flower!

By William Blake

Ah Sun-flower! weary of time, 

Who countest the steps of the Sun: 

Seeking after that sweet golden clime 

Where the travellers journey is done. 

Where the Youth pined away with desire, 

And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow: 

Arise from their graves and aspire, 

Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.

Sigh

Isn't it funny, how after stealing all the headlines for months, braying about the heavy hand of government, the Tea Party faction of the Republican Party had nothing to say about Edward Snowden's  revelations that the federal government of the U.S.A. vacuums up each, every and all communication that Americans make via the Internet? Is it possible that this was too heavy for them to resist?

I've come to realize that things, events, life itself, do not get worse as time goes by. They get heavier. There was a time, when candidate Barack Obama generated web sites like the one above — remember it? It was called Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle.

Nowadays, it would probably be called The President is Busier Than You Thought Possible. There's a movie called Les Girls, in which the three main characters, who are in a sort of business dispute/two guys fighting over the girl, are seated in a cafe. The waiter comes to take their orders. What would they like?

Man # 1: "Tea?"
Man # 2: "Champagne!"
The woman: "An aspirin."

Harris Shutter...

...is the name of the odd little app I used to take this photo. The app lets you take three photos, each of a different (primary?) color. Once you have taken all three, it puts them altogether...

The Naked Ant

Professor Tiddles of Liverpool University (left)...

Scenes from the Summer, 2013

Click-click, tap-tap: except in the future, you won't even hear a mouse-click when the government reads your mind...

But the flowers are still beautiful...

And some of them don't even have petals! 

So very. Very. Hot. At times.