Wednesday, March 31, 2010

abc wednesday - K is for "kayak"



Not usually what you see on the Grand Canal.
Actually, I'm not sure the serious folks manning the 
vaporetti, traghetti, gondole, etc. were all
that thrilled to be sharing their "Main Street"
with such a small craft—I think maybe it's 
the Venetian version of riding a bicycle down the
middle of the Ventura Freeway.

[See more abc wednesday shots here.]

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Flatiron Building



Can't believe I haven't shown you this one
before.  Again, it's my old neighborhood, but 
I think I'll let Wikipedia tell you all
about it—because, you know that if it says
so on Wikipedia, it must be true! :~}

[This post is part of My World Tuesday. See more here.]

Monday, March 29, 2010

Mellow Yellow Monday



Cupcakes are VERY big here in NYC.
Found these in the Chelsea Market at
Ruthie's Bakery.  The minute I left Chelsea and
moved to Brooklyn, all the cool stores moved in.
It's almost like they said, "Okay, she's 
gone.  Now—let's gentrify!"

[See more Mellow Yellow shots here.]

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Shadow Shot Sunday



The Lone Sharks (my brother's band for
those of you who haven't heard me go
on about them ad nauseum) played a gig out
in East Hampton—and look what I saw!

[See more Shadow Shots here.]

Saturday, March 27, 2010

photo Hunter — "fresh"




Fish fresh from the lagoon and tomatoes
fresh from Sicily—both for sale at the
Rialto (a really super) market, in Venice.
I bought some of these tomatoes—they
tasted like the earth and the sun!

[Catch more "fresh" photos here.]

Friday, March 26, 2010

Skywatch Friday



Took this while my daughter Lila and I were
strolling the boardwalk at Coney Island.
Someone started feeding the seagulls, and
they began to flock. I thought "Hitchcock" and
Lila (who suffers somewhat from ornithophobia
and has been known to cross the street to
avoid pigeons) was actually very brave as we
walked past slowly so as not to stir them up.
Do you have any phobias? (Mine is fear of driving,
for which there is apparently no specific name.)

[See more Skywatch here.]

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Buon Compleanno, Venezia



Here's another birthday (even more impressive
than my mom's 90th). Today La Serenissima
celebrates her 1,589th! I think she's looking as 
beautiful as ever, and I wish her many, many more.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

abc wednesday - J is for "Jean"



A couple of weeks ago, we celebrated my mom's
90th birthday (that's her about 65 years ago, in
a photo taken by my father). Her brother, children,
daughter-in-law, and grandchildren all contributed
to the list and I made the book on my trusty Mac.
And, yes, we made her cry.

[See more abc wednesday here.]

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

New York at Night (5)



These beautiful old globe lamps belong to the
New Victory Theater, on 42nd Street just
off Times Square. And right across the street,
our all-time favorite nanny (and king of the jungle). 
 When I think about what this block used to 
be like—a total sleaze fest—what a turnaround!

[This post is part of That's My World Tuesday.
See more here.]

Monday, March 22, 2010

Mellow Yellow Monday



Back in the garden, there are at least a
couple of things in bloom: the crocuses (croci?) 
and this: Chinese witch hazel.  Here's 
where I really wish we had the Internet 
version of "smellovision," because these yellow
 blooms smell amazing! What's your favorite fragrance?

[See more Mellow Yellow here.]

Sunday, March 21, 2010

shadow Shot Sunday



In my "backyard" (i.e., the Brooklyn Botanic Garden), 
pretty much everything has been cut back. 
 But spring is officially here and between now and 
say, April/May, there will be an explosion of 
bloom in this place.  Meanwhile, I'm enjoying the 
shadows cast by the structures that support 
my fave wisteria vines.

[See more Shadow Shots here.]

Saturday, March 20, 2010

photo Hunter — "three"



This is a little trick I like to do on the
vernal equinox. Have you ever tried
it? As you can see, it works!
A physicist (and spoilsport) friend of mine 
insists that you could actually
balance an egg on its end on any day
of the year, but I still prefer to reserve this 
exercise in concentration and
patience for the 1st day of spring.
(Yay—finally, it's here!)

[See more interpretations of "3" here.]

Friday, March 19, 2010

Skywatch Friday



Not sure I could ever live in a place that didn't
have some kind of water nearby, and that
includes the Seine, Arno, Tiber, and Thames
Rivers, and the Grand or any other canal.
Right now I'm making do with the East, Hudson, 
and Harlem Rivers, Long Island Sound, 
soon-to-be-cleaned-up-using-federal-money 
Gowanus Canal, and . . . oh yeah, the Atlantic Ocean. 
This shot's courtesy of my daughter 
Lila, a fellow water sign.

[See more Skywatch pics here.]

Thursday, March 18, 2010

apartment envy



I've had my beady little eye on this place in
DUMBO for a looong time. The top three floors 
of the building are one apartment—
with slammin' views of lower Manhattan, and 
the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges.
Someone told me that the current owner
paid $12 million.  If true: a bargain!

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

abc wednesday - I is for "Irish"



On St. Patrick's Day here in NYC (well,
actually, this is Brooklyn: the courthouse and 
my subway station), it doesn't matter
whether your family is from Dublin or
Dubai, County Cork or Cancun—on this one day, 
we're all Irish.  Erin go bragh from
English-Scots-French-Polish-Danish me!

[See more abc wednesday here.]

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

New York Then and Now




I found a cool new website that features
old pictures of New York (and other cities too, 
including Paris and London). When I
saw this shot of Union Square, taken in 1893, 
I remembered one I had taken from more or less 
the same vantage point (looking northeast) last summer

[This post is part of That's My World Tuesday. See more here.]

Monday, March 15, 2010

Mellow Yellow Monday



Again, not exactly mellow, this yellow.
Spent the weekend out on Long Island and, man—
did we ever have some weather!
Rain, hail, high winds—everything but snow,
and thank goodness because they said that if the 
rain we got had been snow there would
have been at least 4 feet!  Power was out all over 
the place, and I was up early to check out
the damage.  You can see two of them here, but trees 
were down the length of this street—and all 
over the area.  Many were much bigger even than these.

[See more Mellow Yellow here.]

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Shadow Shot Sunday



Okay, I'll admit it—I've always wanted to get
one of these metal detectors and stroll the beach 
in search of buried treasure.  This is
a good time of year to do this, because in
summer, Coney Island still tends to look
like this.  Wonder if he found anything.

[See more Shadow Shots here.]

Saturday, March 13, 2010

photo Hunter — "spiral"



In the middle is the altar of the beautiful
18th-century church of Santa Maria Assunta (aka, 
the Gesuiti), in Venice; it's flanked by two 
plants I saw last Sunday. Wonder where 
Fra Giuseppe Pozzo got the idea for his altar. 
 (Well, he probably got it from Bernini's
17th-century baldachino in St. Peter's, which is 
also supported by spiral-shaped
pillars)—but they were both clearly inspired
by nature, the ultimate source of all beauty.

[Find more spirals here.]

Friday, March 12, 2010

skywatch Friday



This beautiful blue sky was over Venice, and 
the elegant roofline of Santa Maria
Gloriosa dei Frari—the Frari, for short.

[See more Skywatch posts here.]

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Congrats to Eric!



In honor of the 5th anniversary of Paris Daily Photo
(the original and still the best daily photo blog!)
today, here's a shot taken from the "famous Tenin
perspective."  We all know it's not easy to keep it
up all the time, and I really, really hope PDP keeps
marchin' on for a very long time!  Merci bien, Eric . . .

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

abc wednesday - H is for "horizon"



Admittedly, the horizon is probably not the first
thing you notice in this shot of the beautiful
village of Vernazza, in Italy's Cinque Terre.
But there it is out there (and even without a
ship disappearing over it I can see how
Columbus came to his correct conclusion).

[See more ABC posts here.]

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Together



I'll bet these Russian ladies have been
meeting here every sunny day to chat and 
stroll on the boardwalk at Coney
Island since it looked like this
 They look a lot alike; maybe they're sisters.

[See more of That's My World here.]

Monday, March 8, 2010

Mellow Yellow Monday




Here we are back at Tom's. I'm really lucky
to have this cheap, friendly place right
in my neighborhood, for those times when
I simply must have more than my quota 
of protein, carbs, and . . . butter!

[See more Mellow Yellow here.]

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Shadow Shot Sunday



There are several war memorials in Battery Park, 
at the tip of Manhattan. These stone
slabs (part of the East Coast Memorial) are
inscribed with the names of all those lost in
the Atlantic during WWII.
You kind of have to be there to appreciate
just how dramatic it is, but blowing it up helps.

[See more Shadow Shots here.]

Saturday, March 6, 2010

photo Hunter — "foreign"



I have plenty of "foreign" pictures, but
I chose this one (a Parisian citron pressé:
nothing but fresh lemon juice, water, and
sugar) because it takes me back to
Paris in July and far, far away from
New York in March.

[You can see more foreign things here.]

Friday, March 5, 2010

Skywatch Friday



I'm still in the same neighborhood
 as yesterday's post—this time looking east 
from Park Avenue. The building
with the interesting slanted roofline

[See more Skywatch pix here.]

Thursday, March 4, 2010

signs of the times?



Not that this affects me in the slightest
(and I rarely find myself here on Park
Avenue, where the Ferrari and Mercedes
dealerships are), but I might have to
return to see if they actually did "re-open soon." 
 So, what kind of car do you drive?

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

abc wednesday - G is for "goldfish"



You know (or should) that I love to
photograph fish—dead or alive.
These guys are, fortunately, very
much alive. Right now, they're
hybernating (as I wish I was)—but
with any luck we'll all be back in
business come spring.

[See more "G" posts for ABC Wednesday here.]

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Snow Job



I keep posting pictures of snow and saying this 
is the last of it. Maybe this time it's true.
Some of us (mainly grown-ups) are pretty sick
of the white stuff, but it did make for 
some fine sledding and snow-fort-building 
in Prospect Park this past weekend.

[This post is part of That's My World Tuesday—
see more here.]

Monday, March 1, 2010

Mellow Yellow Monday



Went to a screening of this film at the
Italian Cultural Institute last week. It
was totally charming. Lidia Bastianich was 
there, so I introduced myself. She'd
mentioned that her mother is 89. Mine will be 90 
soon, and when I told Lidia what we're 
giving Mom for her b-day, she asked if she could
 borrow the idea for her own mother's birthday. There's 
one thing wrong with this poster, though—no
one drank anything but white wine (and a lot of it!) 
in the entire film. It's a Roman thing, I was told.

[See more Mellow Yellow here.]