Central Park after the First Snow of 2012

 

When I was growing up, my mother always did her best to explain the concept of life and death, trying to make it digestible and less abstract, so that when we encountered the passing of a pet or… Read full post »

^{A happy couple I saw one evening on the Subway}

_{The Bethesda Fountain in Central Park in Autumn} 

 

There is an air vent in the sidewalk just outside of the stairs on one of the subway exits of Penn Station at 34th Street which is situated in the shadow of Madison Square Garden. Droves o/… Read full post »

 _{Anonymous portrait, captured somewhere underneath New York City...}

I have said, on many occasions, that riding the Subways of New York is a much richer source of entertainment than one would ever find from cable television. Being that I do not have access to cable telev/… Read full post »

At the end of my street there is a little café on the corner complete with warm red-bricked walls, canvas awnings, a lovely wooden patio and windows that look in on candle-lit tables dressed… Read full post »

 

_{The mezzanine of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's modern collection, while closed to the public...}

Although I like to constantly remind myself (mainly because if I do not, then nobody will) that I am still both young AND fun, sometimes I need a little coaxing to actualize such/… Read full post »

_{One of the many beautiful windows in NYC, from the old Custom House} 

 My oldest sister, Sariah, had a fascination with windows and the world outside of them. From the time she was a baby, she was attracted to the things on the other side. There is a yellowed photograph… Read full post »

A small visual sampling of my awesome moves...

In retrospect, it seems that during the time of adolescence, there were at least three distinct genres of people: the people who were "cool," the people who were willing to do anything or die trying to "be cool" and those who had college/… Read full post »

The good doctor himself, looking down at the world from above...

As a child, my relationship with daily transportation was one wrought with toil and grief provided by a succession of partially-functioning automobiles my parents seemed to attract like lost kittens. Often, our Volkswagen Microbu… Read full post »

 Perhaps it's due to the fact that I'm somewhat of a curmudgeon at heart, but the autumn is my very favorite time of the year. Ever since childhood, I would look forward to the leaves changing colors and flying through the air in dancelike patterns until falling into the comm… Read full post »

My mother in Rockefeller Center absorbing the essence of Al Roker...
No matter how far one may roam, it seems like remnants of your past are never very far away. Now, nearly two thousand miles from the tiny rural town where I grew up, the first instance of my old life colliding/…

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Twenty years ago, I'm sure if a businessman (or woman) would have pitched an idea involving grown people paying lots of money to get together with groups of strangers, being forced to get into/…

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Figure 1.3: Study specimens ignore the idiot in the subway...

In my previous life before New York (which is what it now seems like), I would look forward to Thursday evenings in my studio with Gabriela, my very insightful drawing student. Gabriela was an Italian transplant finishing h…

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I'm pretty sure the tallest building in my rural hometown in Colorado was the hospital, which stood a whopping 4 stories in one of its small "wings." It was always exciting to visit sick or injured friends because of the… Read full post »

Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn: a really great way to make Southerners become awkward and defensive...

After the Civil War, I believe a council of boastful Yankees must have been formed solely for the purpose of erecting grandiose monuments in New York City intended to make all Southerners angry… Read full post »

One often can fantasize about fabulous New York apartments when reading magazines, watching movies and unrealistic TV shows (actually filmed in LA), and have a completely skewed view of the spaces New Yorkers actually inhabit. Reading such examples of journalistic excellenc/…

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Whenever I'm feeling like life is getting the best of me, which happens quite regularly, I often find myself wandering about the pathways in Central Park, avoiding sticky-fingered children and foreigners with/…

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Marilyn Monroe in a moment of divine revelation...

People often use the phrase "only in New York" to explain or pass off certain bizarre or peculiar things that, in any normal context, wouldn't happen. For instance, if you see a woman casually walking down the street wearing a pair of/… Read full post »

"Harlem Grandmothers" circa 1910, a decoration in the 125th St. & St. Nicholas Ave. subway station.

Harlem is a world unto itself, a world that is slowly becoming more and more familiar to me. I live just on the cusp of Harlem, in a strange little bubble that is created by/… Read full post »

Sometimes I like to walk down Fifth Avenue in the evenings, in moments of Holly Golightly-inspired nostalgia, and look at the window displays in all the magnificent shops lining the streets. Sometimes this can be ver/…

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In my relatively short time as a resident of New York, I have come to the conclusion that riding the Subway is better than having cable TV (which, for the record, I do not have). In no/…

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