SomedayMaybe

tourisme

2006-09-03T20:05:00.000-04:00

I don't often get the chance to be a tourist in my own city, so it's fun to do it now & then.

One more day before school starts; it doesn't seem to matter since the weather is not the kind you'd stare at longingly out of classroom windows.

I am sure we'll all be feeling much differently about the fall grind when it actually hits, though. I can't believe the summer is over. I spent it mostly by giving myself a huge break from worrying about the things I usually worry about. I really enjoyed it. And, now it's over.

I think I could count on two hands

2006-08-31T20:00:00.000-04:00

how many times I got out of the city this summer... you would have to include going to a rest stop off of the Mass Pike as one of those times. And the two times I went one town over to go to a friend's for dinner. But we made those few times count.

(for the record: Somerville is considered Urban Core in my database)

2006-08-30T06:36:00.000-04:00

Here is a photo from yesterday's commute. I was on the Gilmore Bridge going to Charlestown. There is a new condo development going up next to the bridge to the right of the picture (matching a big luxury condo development in the godforsaken patch of land on the other side of the bridge). To the left are commuter rail tracks and the purple building is some kind of train maintenance shed. I have often seen a black & white cat patrolling the edges of the big puddles.

Back to it

2006-08-29T07:18:00.000-04:00

I've had an alternately tiring and restful summer. I took some time off from blogging because I was working on portrait projects with kids that I couldn't post, but we did have an exhibit that I was very proud of. Here's a sample from that project:

Also did some traveling, had some intense family-of-origin time, maintained my home a little bit and did double workouts while Sidekick was away with her grandparents.

And did lots & lots of biking in very unphotogenic places.

Getting back into taking pictures & blogging, slowly.

New View

2006-06-03T19:45:00.000-04:00

It has stomped on my will to take pictures. The suburbans at the office find the view a curious novelty. This is the good side on a good day.

This is turning toward the bad side on a bad but interesting day. Most days the sky is as flat as a tub of gray cool whip. The bad side overlooks a long stretch of the main north/south highway. Lots and lots of cars and trucks going by all the time. It sucks the good chi right away.

We did get this epic green ship in a couple of days last week. It's hard to take pictures through the windows of the office building, but you can see almost all of it in almost all of its green glory. Imagine how many hours on the high seas it took all the junior ship staff to paint every inch of it that color.

Fortunately, when I get into a creative drought, I can hijack the afterschool kids to do a project to get the ideas flowing again.

Cormorants

2006-05-24T06:31:00.000-04:00

My springtime migratory route has taken me along the river for the last couple of weeks. It's a longer route and a better workout than riding straight through the middle of the city, and the first time I rode it I thought "what's that noise?" and realized it was my breath... when you're stopping for red lights you don't get such an aerobic workout.

In another month or so I think the night herons will return to the spot where you could always find them in years past. Right now the cormorants are occupying that territory.

When I first came here I couldn't figure out what these weird birds were. They don't really float above the water... they float on the same level with the water, kind of, and Wikipedia just told me that their feathers are not waterproof so maybe that's why. The other weird thing is you can be looking at this oily-looking, low-riding bird in the water and the next minute it's not there. They dive for fish, and they stay under a long time and come up somewhere else. I was fascinated with this when I first got to Boston. I had only heard of cormorants because of a book I read as a kid, about an Eskimo girl who got left behind on her own and survived by eating cormorants among other things. While they're above water, cormorants gaze upwards into the middle distance like aloof movie stars. After they dive, they hold open their wings to dry them... makes them look a little ominous, like vultures, but they're still gazing into the middle distance, as if nothing above the water can possibly interest them.

Cormorants don't surprise me anymore, but it surprises me that they're just part of the landscape. They are strange birds.

Can't wait til the night herons come back.

p.s. that yellow floaty is a boom to keep runoff from the road confined. No one who ever rides next to a big road could ever thing there is any such thing as a clean car or a green car. Cars shed black grime and grease, and it pollutes the river. It's easy to think if you've got a nice shiny car in a suburban garage that that shit don't stink, but it does.

Wrong

2006-05-17T12:10:00.000-04:00

I have a talent for doing things wrong. I say the wrong things, interpret things the wrong way, zig when it's zag time, and even if I do the right thing I do it at the wrong time. It's at the point where I feel like I *have* to do things wrong before I can do them right. I'm like the Watership Down bunnies, tharn in the road because I can't escape the oncoming wrongness.

So the challenge becomes: how can wrongness be rehabilitated? Like when you pull a muscle and can walk upstairs fine but it hurts like heck to walk downstairs, or your handlebars get knocked askew and you have to steer right to go straight, how do you compensate? I still want to get to where all the people who do things right end up.

(p.s. this is a firefish)

Nature's Jewelry

2006-05-16T06:55:00.000-04:00

I am not a big fan of insects or jewelry, but if they came together in one cool package I would be up for it. If I could design earrings they would look something like this. The London Zoo has a fascinating bug exhibit and a great butterfly tent. These are some kind of butterfly about to burst forth... I don't know if they hatch or if they just start unfolding from here.

Goodbye, Navy Yard

2006-05-14T07:17:00.000-04:00

Friday we packed up the offices and said goodbye. I will miss the Navy Yard. We are moving to a building that I haven't seen up close yet. From a distance it looks like a soul-crushing industrial megalith. What kills me is I hear you can't walk to it unless you want to risk your life on a busy highway off-ramp rotary. Who wants to be anywhere you can't walk to? What kind of pasty pod people are we going to turn into?

(private note to Change: Yes, I do fear you. How did you guess?)

I am sick, so forgive me

2006-05-11T07:12:00.000-04:00

for this fluffy kitty shot:

You think she's cute? Look at that intense yellow eye: she's the bitchiest, most demanding, most loyal & affectionate cat in the world. Fifi is no nonsense. "Get over here and start petting me now. My predetermined place is in your lap, so sit down & fold 'em." She's also a fierce watchcat. In the evenings she sits on my lap a bit and when she's had enough cat massage, she positions herself on the rug facing the door to protect her territory and her people.

and this flower shot (whee! (hands clapping))

I like lilacs; lilacs are my favorite. In this photo they're not open yet, which means they're not almost already gone.

Is there anything as sapping as a full blown cold? I made it all the way to May before getting one. My head feels packed in styrofoam. I sneeze. Food is tasteless. My guts feel like they're processing cement. I want to stay in bed with blankets over my head. But I can't. My employer doesn't hand out sick time. If you take time off to be sick, you're paying in vacation time. So I take it one step at a time; I don't think of it as going to work. I think of it as getting out of bed. Then I think only about showering. Then I think only about getting Sidekick on her way. Then I think only of standing at the bus stop. I wear enough layers that I don't feel the cold and the rain. One foot in front of the other. Pick 'em up and lay 'em down. Repeat.

Guest shot

2006-05-01T06:43:00.000-04:00

Sidekick doesn't often shoot pictures, but she caught this one.

Ever since I found out that it's very likely I was feasting on lard in England, I don't think of the pastries quite as fondly.

A Sense of Place

2006-04-28T06:48:00.000-04:00

When I first moved to Boston I used to walk around looking for clues that I was actually in Boston and nowhere else. This move came after a confused run of moving around, then a good while in the middle of nowhere in Ohio. I would walk down the street and read the manhole covers and police cars. When I woke up in the morning during the first year (when things were not going all that well) I'd be absolutely convinced I was in my bedroom back in Ohio and I'd open my eyes to yellow walls and curtains and morning sunshine. Then I'd wake up and see my drab little Boston room, and go read the manhole covers once I headed out for the day.

In London you don't need visual clues which literally spell out where you are. This was what we saw out of our window the first night in London:

I guess in the US you might need to read manhole covers to figure out where you are sometimes, but when you travel to places with more history and more engrained historical identity you don't. There was little doubt we were in London no matter where we went. Now, for research purposes, I'll have to go to Paris and see if and how you can tell one European city from another.

This is what we saw out of our window in Yorkshire:

Aside from the quaint village buildings, you could tell you were in Yorkshire by the pervasive greenness, the lumpy moors visible from the edge of town, the way people would call you "love" even if you never met them before, and the smell of coal fires and manure (depending on which way the wind was blowing, and how cold it was). When the sky was overcast, the gray clouds seemed different from the way the clouds blow off the ocean and hit the continent here... more leisurely, less solid, more lumpy. The mist that often hung between the hills was different, too. The rain was finer. When it was sunny, though, it had the same nuclear intensity as the sun has here.

As I was riding to work this morning I was looking for clues that I was in Cambridge and not Boston... the only one that struck me was that every third car was a Prius. But I don't ride in Boston traffic enough to know if that's a difference.

Monkeys and big naked men, and flower gardens

2006-04-26T06:38:00.000-04:00

The V&A is all about the cast room... I am impressed by size, I guess. It's awesome to be surrounded and overwhelmed by the art of centuries.

My next goal in life is to go someplace where there are wild monkeys... we came close to monkeys in London, but there was still that one pane of glass. We were so close we could examine this monkey's fingernails.

I like flowers. I know, it's very simple-minded. Flowers and monkeys, and I'm clapping with glee.

there are 8 billion statues of men in London

2006-04-24T06:10:00.000-04:00

You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a statue of a dead man in London; but other than Queen Victoria, the one monument to women we came across features empty clothes hanging on a wall. WTF???

2006-04-22T10:53:00.000-04:00

2006-04-22T10:50:00.000-04:00

2006-04-12T06:27:00.000-04:00

SomedayMaybe hasn't had a day off yet this year. SomedayMaybe will be back soon with lots of cool new photos.

Rainy Day

2006-04-06T20:26:00.000-04:00

2006-04-05T06:49:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was like wool socks you take off after sledding... damp, gray, chunks of snow clinging to it, not likely to be dry anytime soon.

yes, this is a NEW picture of the locks. No matter what the weather, the great thing about walking across the locks is you can sing along to your iPod and there's no one around to hear, and if there's someone who has snuck up behind you, they still probably can't hear because of the noise from the traffic on the Zakim Bridge. I don't think you could even say that of my house; if you sing, walk around, take a shower, turn on your heat, etc., chances are someone's going to hear you do so. But there's this one spot in the middle of the city where you can walk for 15 minutes and be alone.

Happily, the weather has perked up.

The daffodils in Paul Revere Park are really out now. I think the only people who enjoy them are the crazy locks-singers, and people walking their dogs in the park.

Spring, finally

2006-04-03T06:50:00.000-04:00

I haven't been photographing much recently. Spring flowers seem so cliche. I know I need to turn my camera on people, so I'm working on figuring out how to do that. And I'm going on a trip next week, and just like all the best vacations, my mind is already on the road. Anticipation is the longest-lasting part of the trip so it might as well be enjoyed. I'm wondering if I can still use my torn old money from the last trip, and I'm searching for the perfect pants which will have lots of pockets, dry fast and be presentable in a country where people don't wear playclothes all the time.

On Friday, after a rough day at work I found myself behind the old jail. The new bars looked really cool in the evening sunlight.

Yesterday I finally finished my taxes. I'm really pissed off to find that the tax rate for Married Filing Jointly is lower than that for Head of Household. Maybe I should get myself a non-working accessory spouse for tax purposes. Not only would my tax rate be lower but I'd have another deduction. And maybe then I wouldn't have to do all the housework myself, and maybe there would be someone who could muster up the energy & motivation for cooking meals. I hope there is some complex reason for MFJ getting a lower tax rate that my befuddled & overworked mind can't figure out.

Multimodal photography

2006-03-28T19:38:00.000-05:00

It is scary when your kid becomes your spitting image. You can tell this is not me because a) she's about a foot and a half too short; b) I never wear powder blue (and she wears it almost all the time), and c) she is riding a mountain bike with shocks (and I think shocks are for wimps as a general rule, although if you're younger than 12 it's probably OK).

This picture I took while driving. It doesn't do justice to the bilious yellow that this building was painted. I wanted to take a picture while driving (waiting at a light actually) and this mustard yellow house was the most noteworthy thing in sight. There is always at least one apartment for sale in this building. I wonder if the exterior color somehow causes residents to become dissatisfied with life. Stucco looks good painted yellow; I know half the world lives in yellow stucco. But there's a world of yellow.

I meant to come here to talk about taking photos on wheels, but I guess I ended up talking about two colors I find pretty repellant, although I only find powder blue repellant when I wear it. It makes me feel fuzzy and sleepy. I don't feel sharp in powder blue.

Juxtaposition

2006-03-25T18:09:00.000-05:00

I am listening to "On the Road" on audiobook. I am not good at reading books since it requires sitting and not doing other things for long stretches of time. If I'm reading a great book during my train commute time it kills me to have to stop when it's time to get off the train. If I'm listening to a book, I can listen during my bus ride, during my train ride (whether there's room to hold a book or not), during the walk to the office. This audiobook is read by Matt Dillon, who has a great voice but doesn't do as much as he could with it. He could be like the hot boyfriend reading to you in bed, but he's not and it's OK because I bet Kerouac had a voice like this-- lots to say and not lots of expression. Anyway, so I had some time today to listen but I also needed to find a place to listen. The problem with listening to an audiobook is I can do it while walking or going somewhere but not while reading something else or working at my job. Also, if you're holding a book and reading you've got something to look at. I'm not comfortable just sitting on a bench somewhere and listening to an audiobook-- it's kind of like one of those lunatic people on the bus wearing an earplug cellphone and yacking away to someone who's not even there while looking at other people.

So, I had this time, but had to be out & about while Sidekick was otherwise occupied. I couldn't just sit on a bench, and didn't want to sit alone in a coffee shop staring at nothing or other people while On the Road. I had a couple of errands to do so I spent a half hour walking, listening and buying the only pens I like to write with. Then I went back to the Museum of Fine Arts to spend the rest of my two hours of alone time. I went into the big front doors for the first time ever-- back when I used to go more frequently I don't think the front doors were ever open. The museum was just opening so there was a line and lots of people coming in. I took the first left after passing the cute ticket guy and found myself in the old stuff; Greek, Egyptian, Etruscan antiquities. Still listening to On the Road. Sal was in Bakersfield with his Mexican girlfriend while I was checking out the sexy carvings and eyes off of coffins that rotted away long ago.

Then I tried to find the rest of the antiquities, took a wrong turn and found the hordes of tourists looking at paintings. Back the other way, crossed behind cute ticket guy again and found the Indian art. But there was a big exhibit of modern Japanese textiles and clay in the same space.

The last time I was there, last week, I looked at the Sargents and other paintings because I had just finished reading a book about Sargent and Madame X. (An actual paper book!) I wanted to avoid paintings as much as possible today.

I also wanted to sit and draw some of the Egyptian wall carvings because I like the flatness and use of space and patterns. I don't know the MFA's policy on drawing materials (I know that the Harvard museums allow only pens) and I didn't want to have to make the guards work any harder than they already work (hee). Also, I was listening to the book and like I said before it's hard to listen and read. I had to pause every time I wanted to read the story of a particular work, and I wanted to read a lot of the stories behind a lot of the work. I figured I would have to shut down OTR entirely if I was going to draw.

Then I got tired, headed to the bookstore and looked at a couple of books while sitting at the weird desk that the art freaks use to study obscure details of stuff in massive, expensive books. I found a good book for Sidekick entitled "Angry Little Girls." Sidekick and books are like opposite ends of magnets so I try everything I can to find a book to shatter those laws of physics. (Sidekick actually likes this book.) The reason I mention it is because I got back to Sidekick's locale with a half hour to spare, and was still listening to OTR, and in order not to look like I was sitting on a bench ogling people and possibly making eye contact and inviting conversation (shudder!) I pretended to read "Angry Little Girls." Then found I was reading it for real and had to keep rolling back OTR to catch what I had missed. I was sitting under a wall clock that seemed to be moving really slowly. After about 20 minutes I figured out that it was stopped.

Jack is now back on the east coast and finally met up with Dean again so I think we're back into the action.

I bought a guidebook to the museum (another paper book!) so I could look at stuff, draw stuff and read stories about stuff at my leisure.

Then I got mad because I shouldn't be spending money since I am going on vacation in 2 weeks.

On the long walk between our next errands I took this picture:

I really like that Sidekick's class is drawing us back into Boston on a regular basis.

bite me, world

2006-03-23T06:10:00.000-05:00

iTunes is taunting me by repeatedly spitting out "Sometimes It Snows in April" and Blogger won't let me upload my pictures today.

The great thing about having a blog is you can have all kinds of conspiracy theories and whine all you want.

I am currently looking for a mask to do a "Tribute to Meatyard" series. I think I can't avoid having human figures in my photos anymore.

very far off in the distance I can smell the thaw coming

2006-03-22T09:36:00.000-05:00

Smells are starting to unfreeze. Yesterday as I walked across the locks I smelled ocean. This morning I smelled dirt on the air. I am not getting my hopes up because the way things are going this could be the year without a springtime.

It would be cool if there were smell-blogs, though.

Ignoring the outdoors until further notice

2006-03-21T06:15:00.000-05:00

Sick of the cold already. This week is like last week, only colder. I am going to pretend it's not cold for a while.

I know soon it will be a bit warmer and I will think "what was I whining about, here is the warm weather and all is well." Is it wrong to wish that it was warmer NOW? I know it was warm for a while last week; am I being greedy? This will be the warmest day of the whole week according to the five day forecast.

Today I wore so many layers I don't even know how cold it really is. I am wearing: double layer long underwear pants, jeans, Smartwool socks, high suede boots (under the jeans.... tall boots are a very warm layer). On top: long sleeved sports synthetic-fiber shirt, t-shirt, turtleneck, tweed jacket (because I was still cold in the house), and a winter coat that someone who wants me never to mate again bought me but I wear anyway when I need a functional winter coat. Plus, wool scarf, and I have ski gloves and a fleece hat on standby. I was actually not miserable this morning.

Looking forward to the day I'm not wearing a scarf and hat in my house. We are dealing with high gas heating bills by only heating the 3 feet immediately surrounding us with space heaters while we are home & awake. We have blankets everywhere. I usually have a warm furry cat sitting on my lap (I wonder if they are being affectionate, or if they are cold too).

I would move south, if I could only take my entire city with me.

Feather Sky and Broken Steps

2006-03-18T17:01:00.000-05:00

Today I took many pictures of trees covered with golden buds and none worked out. They were either out of focus or just not right. When I was heading back home I got this shot of a blue sky with feathery clouds. Now the sun is going down and the sky is full of clouds that look like rolls of cat hair & lint that blow across the floor if your house is drafty and you don't sweep for a year. (and you have a cat like mine :)

On Thursday I walked over the Charlestown Bridge looking for this specific bit of decay. I held the camera through the holes in an old wire fence and aimed it down so I could get the right angle to make it seem dangerous & despairing (although the bright sun kind of blows that mood). It still looks good but it doesn't look like it's going to suck you down if you don't back away because it'll be just a few moment until the metal under your feet follows the steps. From here the water looks green; it doesn't usually. I wonder if someone actually fell through the steps and that's how they broke, or if they gave way in a strong wind, or if they just dropped off.

Yesterday I didn't leave the house at all... I think that's something that happens maybe only once a year. I really wanted to go out; I had been planning to go out, but Sidekick refused. I made her put it in writing. We had nearly nothing to eat in the house and I knew we'd both be bouncing off the walls by 8 p.m., so I made her sign her statement. It kills me to not walk anywhere in a whole day.

Snow & wind

2006-03-16T07:50:00.000-05:00

You really can't tell in this picture but I took it because there was an intense snow squall going on. One of these days I'm going to figure out how to capture snow. I may need to go outside with professional quality lights and figure it out but I will. It may need to wait until next year, because I'm hoping that this is the LAST snow we'll see this winter.

Yesterday started out lovely-- I think you could have called it mild. I decided to bike into work, starting with biking with my daughter to school. We figured we'd have to leave our bikes there overnight because we'd be coming home after dark, but she elected to ride anyway and that was fine with me.

I've been a very cautious rider lately for a couple of reasons, but my route to work is pretty simple and not too trafficky. As with most routes, if you study the lights & traffic you can usually come up with a reliable strategy for avoiding most potential conflicts. My ride in was lovely-- it could have been a vacation week, the traffic was so light. There are a couple of places where I am extra cautious, like the place where I cross over 4 lanes of traffic to make a left turn onto a bridge. I know that the traffic often gets stopped further up the road long enough for me have the whole 4 lanes to myself for the whole amount of time it takes me to ride that block, so I drifted leisurely across the 4 lanes and it was absolutely fine, even with extra caution. Then there's a part where I have to go down a narrow one-way street with cars parked on both sides and then take a left onto another narrow one-way street; this often requires caution if cars behind me are being aggressive. Today, the cars behind me were being freakishly polite and stayed well back so I took my left easily.

I passed the place where I crashed last year without incident, but with memories. I rode along the dock a bit to see if I could get a new & interesting angle on my favorite scene. Parked my bike, walked into work like the Environmental Superhero that I am, changed into work clothes.

The way back: during the day it started to snow; not a lot but little maddening snowflakes. It was 38 degrees, how did the sky manage to make and maintain snowflakes above freezing? Clearly it was a day to defy laws of nature. I tried to head out a little bit early for no other reason than I wanted to, but kept getting delayed in conversations with coworkers. I hit the road at 5 p.m. I had 45 minutes to make a ride that usually takes 25 minutes or so.

Immediately the wind slammed me like a wall of styrofoam. I rode by my usual bus stop full of the usual people and could barely stay upright and make forward progress, the wind was so awful. I was pedaling maniacally. By the time I went two blocks I felt like I was abusing my cardiovascular system. I pressed on, though, knowing that the real test was yet to come. I ride up this big ugly highway feeder road, then across a long ugly bridge which usually has a lot of road debris. On the bridge, the wind kept coming around and slamming first from straight on and then from the side. It seemed like a real possibility I could get hit with a powerful gust and get tossed sideways into a car. I kept powering on. It was an incredible workout. I wondered if I was going to have a cardiac incident-- it's been months since I've biked any significant amount. How out of shape was I? I was happy to see every red light for the chance to gather up some oxygen & red blood cells and make sure they were getting along all right.

There are two problems with biking in strong wind besides having to ride 3 times harder over the same distance. One is the hazard of objects being blown into you. We have trees, there's lots of sand on the roads, and people are often not careful with their junk. Every part of town has its trash day; when it's windy it can be a disaster. Then there's the risk of old houses just falling apart in the wind. I know my house rocks in the wind; eventually something's going to shake off. I picked up a weird metal band that got stuck in my spokes; after I pulled it out I thought I heard something else going on somewhere around my tires but I didn't want to stop to explore too long. I know I've shown this picture off a lot in real life, but this is what I picked up the last time we had lovely weather back in January; this stupid nail ended up costing me $60 in repairs. Then the bike shop discovered lots of other perilous mechanical problems (broken spoke, worn out chain & chain rings, broken pedal, etc. etc... it's always been my philosophy that urban bikes are made to be pounded on) so I dropped another $200 to make my bike run like a well-oiled, not-worn-out-at-all machine. I couldn't bear the thought of something else tearing through my bike (and if I'm perfectly honest, costing me more money!).

The other problem with biking in wind is the noise. I rely a lot on listening to what's behind me. I can tell if there's a vehicle, what kind of vehicle it's likely to be, how fast it's coming up behind me. I would never wear an iPod in traffic because I need to hear. Strong wind can drown out the sound of cars or bikes coming up behind. I don't like being startled. For me not being able to hear is like wearing blinders.

Once I hit Broadway, things got better. The ride up the feeder road and across the bridge didn't have any shelter from the wind at all, but here the buildings on either side blocked the wind a little bit. There was more risk of stuff blowing around and tree branches falling, but traffic was backed up so I didn't have to worry about cars moving, I could blow right past them. There's a slight hill that I was worried about-- it always gets to me in the heat of summer, but it was nothing after being slammed by wind. Finally I made it to the stretch of road that I walk if I don't ride and it was lovely to ride it instead of walking. Some days walking seems excruciatingly slow.

Made it to my destination, dropped off my stuff, changed out of my clownish tights & shorty-pants into jeans, then went back out for coffee. That's when the snow started flying. It was crazy.

Fast forward a couple of hours; we finally got out of the school event and people were hanging around outside so I didn't feel the bikes were completely safe. Also, we were dead tired and wanted to be home as soon as possible. We decided to bike carefully on the sidewalks & bike lanes. I was freezing; don't know how the kid wasn't freezing, but we made it home.

I didn't ride today. It's back to under freezing. Whenever I'm on foot & I see the flocks of people who bike in all weather around here I think "lucky!" in my best Napoleon Dynamite inner voice. On Wednesday I am pretty sure people were thinking other things when they saw bikers struggling to move forward in that wind.

2006-03-13T07:52:00.000-05:00

Monday & Tuesday... not good shooting days, not because of weather conditions (from thunderstorms to warm & sunny) but because of just general lack of motivation & inspiration... well, not inspiration necessarily. Two days lost to unresolved grumpiness.

This is a shot of the tide running out of the harbor on Sunday evening.

Not a great shot, I just think it's funny. In photo school, use of full-frame images was a matter of pride so everyone developed a sense of "what's going on at the edges." I was trying to get a shot of the two girls (not for art purposes but for personal memories). I couldn't catch them turned to the camera and I lost control of the bottom edge... hee.

Here is an authetic Tuesday photo that is neither a good shot nor particularly expressive... it is what it is, a weird tree in an unexplored corner of the park under the bridge. I accidentally walked on daffodil shoots to get here. The weird beach grass is a pretty color in the rain.

The gorgeous day

2006-03-11T20:19:00.000-05:00

Yesterday began as a gray day. I was out looking for lights & colors to photograph. The pavement wasn't wet so nothing was reflecting; the light had to stand all on its own.

As it cleared up, I got some shots of faded paint:

Definitely urban ruin. There are three boxcars around this building. There are no longer any railroad tracks leading to this building. How are these boxcars ever going to leave?

It drives me nuts how my camera curves shapes if you're not way far away. Still working on the cube.

What is cool about shooting in winter: no leaves.

The shell of the jail

2006-03-11T07:41:00.000-05:00

Now that the weather is warming up I can wander farther without physical suffering. I've been watching the transformation of the Charles Street Jail. It's been stripped down to a shell... no floors, no walls, just the stone exterior which is looking really good. I'm not sure if it's going to be a hotel or a medical building. The proportions are great.

That torchiere-looking streetlight really bugs me.

It started out overcast yesterday but cleared up by noon. The sky was bright with finely drawn clouds. I was out earlier in the evening than usual, and practiced shooting from the hip. Here is another homeward bound shot. If I turned around from this point I'd be looking at the jail.

In the afternoon, when it was warm and sunny and everyone was happy, I got a couple of great shots from new perspectives. I'm all about the jail right now, though. The other shots deserve their own post.

My overcast skills need work

2006-03-10T06:17:00.000-05:00

Seriously. I came up empty yesterday. I like this shot because the bridge cables are white against the gray sky. I compared it with a blue sky day photo and the cables are white against the sky when it's blue, too. I am a person who frequently needs to have the obvious spelled out. I like the teeny tiny bus against the leg of the bridge. The scale is insane.

Yesterday I bought a Gorey-a-day calendar. Even though it's March something with two digits already, I wanted 365 little Gorey drawings. I am hopelessly calendar impaired and even having a calendar won't help... we'll forget to pull days off until we're 6 weeks behind, then we'll jump ahead to something good... a particularly gory Gashlycrumb Tinies death, maybe. The calendars were really cheap (being well into 2006 by now). I just wanted the pictures. I got myself a Gustav Klimt daybook which will embarrass my boss, and my sidekick picked up a Bad-Cat-a-day calendar.

The reason I bring up Gorey here is the guy could render anything in pen & ink, a skill I really envy. This photo is so black & white it would be good pen & ink practice. Hmmm, wonder if I could design a photo effect that rendered photos in pen & ink lines. (if something like that already exists, hooray... I don't have photoshop.)

This is not a great photo, but when I looked at it I discovered a pleasing arrangement of birds at the top left. Thanks for the assist, my avian friends!

I shot this block. I love old weathered paint. I know someone who always draws very solid shapes... everything is square and you know you could never tip it over no matter how strong you were, that's how solidly built his drawings are. The navy yard is full of cement blocks. I'm trying to capture the solidness and the shading. This is an example of how not to do it. I'm hoping my next effort will be more successful.

I had another opportunity at overcast shooting today. I think time of day is probably important. I also looked for lights, like neon (thanks for the tip!)

I'm guessing you wouldn't want Bill Napoli or Mike Rounds to get you pregnant

2006-03-09T11:39:00.000-05:00

So why would you let them keep you pregnant?

No one wants to force you to have an abortion. But if these guys decided to rape you, you would have to carry their babies (unless, of course, as Bill Napoli specified, if they did so violently and performed certain unspeakable acts which I wonder if they even KNOW wouldn't get a woman pregnant).

These guys think that someone might want to adopt that baby. How many children have these leaders adopted themselves? You have to guess if they're so pro-adoption and are such powerful men, adoption would be within their means. How many exactly have they adopted? Don't be fooled. There are more adoptable children already than there are prospective adoptive parents. These men who want all pregnancies brought to term are not going to share directly in the responsibility of raising these children.

They are taking away a choice and not offering any help in dealing with the inevitable outcomes.

No one ever wants to get backed into a difficult decision. But having no legal, reasonable, or workable options is worse.

This is not a woman's issue. This is an issue that has serious implications for both men & women. Please keep the right to make this decision in your own hands. Please do not try to make this decision for other people.

Now back to our usual programming.

Starting the day above freezing

2006-03-09T06:38:00.000-05:00

The temperature's going up but we're going to pay for it in wind tomorrow. I'm getting a jump on the day... it looks like today will have a wet newspaper sky so I'm posting from my wet newspaper sky archives. (note: it's not exactly wet newspaper sky... less textured, more opaque) We did have the light band at the edge of the sky like in the photo today.

I'm happy that the seasons are changing but you always gotta worry about what's coming up. If I expect weeks & weeks of cold rain and strong winds, hopefully there will be no unhappy surprises. At least it's not finger-achingly cold indoors without the heat on anymore.

As I was walking I was trying to think of what kinds of things can be photographed well under an overcast sky. No glare, no shadows, no bright reflections. It can't be the end of the line for a shadow photographer. I came up with colors. I looked for bright colors or subtle colors which would wash out in contrasty conditions. It's not easy considering the environment. It's very easy to take black & white pictures without black & white film (or digital effect) around here. Let's see if I have any success.

Still cracked

2006-03-08T19:30:00.000-05:00

I love these falling down buildings. We are surrounded by urban ruins. I grew up in a place where there were few solid old things. Nothing aged beautifully. Here, the outside layers have fallen away and we can see the patterns of bricks inside. Where there are holes in this layer, you can see the sky on the other side from the right angle.

The land we have occupied will likely never be restored to its natural state, so the decision to build should be made very carefully. What has been paved will likely never be unpaved. Who would want to clear away thousands of fallen bricks?

These buildings must have some terrible problems aside from neglect. Other buildings nearby have been restored or rebuilt into offices or condos.

The Navy Yard is a national park. A lot of the parks around here feature fallen down buildings; in other places, like the harbor islands, people are welcome to test the safety of the buildings by walking through.

I can't guess why there's an old wooden gate in the water here. I can guess why there's a floating boom.

cracks in the icing

2006-03-07T07:11:00.000-05:00

Doesn't everyone feel this way sometimes?

In other news, it appears that a passage under the Zakim Bridge has been opened up. Here is a view of the opening between the locks and North Station. Maybe this is the location for the skate park? Could pedestrian and bike access be opening up through the whole mess between the locks and the pedestrian/bikeways further west?

Patterns

2006-03-05T09:45:00.000-05:00

The gorgeous clear blue sky would get boring if it only wasn't too cold to admire it much.

Today in one part of town at one particular moment in the afternoon, the clouds arranged themselves into a fishscale pattern. I didn't get a clear shot of it; in this picture the tree is obscuring the pattern.

I find patterns comforting. If you're drawing a pattern, once you begin you're never at a loss about what comes next. Any decisions about altering the pattern are only simple variations; the groundwork is already in place. There are some patterns that are not boring. Escher was a pattern-maker, for example. You could argue that Jackson Pollack was as well.

I read an article recently about how wealthy people think choice = freedom and people who have fewer resources think choice = a burden. As I was making my 20th major decision yesterday at about 10 a.m., I wished I didn't have to make decisions all day. Decision-making can be a burden, even the small choices, when you have a lot of them to make. Having money seems to gives you an escape hatch or the ability to delegate your choices or the situations that call for choices. It's also less likely that one of the options is going to cause you physical discomfort or hardship. Like, if the weather is cold, if you have money you have to decide what temperature to turn the thermostat to. If you don't, you have to decide whether to turn the heat on or not, and if you do you know it's going to bite your ass when you get the gas bill. So, the choice is physical discomfort now, or financial hardship later? It's not "should I set it so I have to drape a cardigan around my shoulders, or should I set it so my daughter can wear a tank top indoors?" When you don't have money, your choice is be screwed now or be screwed later.

I think artists have to be decisive. You have to put what you have out there and can't waffle & cater to much to the opinions of others or your vision gets diluted. You make a choice to put the canvas on the easel and to open the tube of paint containing the color you want. Once you're done you often have the choice of whether to revise, ditch or leave it as it is.

If your threshhold of freedom-to-burden decisions is say 25 major decisions a day, then you better have a simple life that allows you to save your decisions for your work. If you don't have that freedom and can't purchase it, what will you be able to create?

Patterns?

I like patterns. They give me a moment of autodrive so I can postpone the shift from freedom to burden just a little longer. I like knowing what time to get up in the morning. I hate it if I have to make a new decision on what time to get up every morning. When I don't have to get up, I get up anyway so the mornings that I do have to get up are easier. I don't mind eating the same thing for breakfast every day and I could go for weeks eating the same dinner everyday. I don't care. I even like Starbucks, because the drinks always taste the same. You can spend the same $3 at another place but you may end up wondering when the last time they cleaned the espresso basket was or whether they were using it as an ashtray. Independent places may be charming, but if I'm spending $3 I want to know what I'm buying, plus I'm happy that Starbucks at least makes health insurance available to its employees. If I could toss away money on a risky espresso and if I never knew what choices the uninsured have to make, maybe I'd be more of a fan of charming coffeeshops.

I like to save my decision-making for things that do matter. Right now the ground is shifting below our feet and I don't like it. I can't make decisions until I know how things will turn out. Some decisions now are experimental in nature. How will this work? Of course you hope it will work well, but if it doesn't you have more big decisions to make and more work to make the right choice. And you never know if you've made the right choice because you don't know what would have happened if you chose the other direction. It's hard too when people are very willing to criticize your choices from the outside especially if you know if those critics were on the inside playing your hand, their opinions would change.

As for the Big Choice, let it be made clear that I am completely pro-choice.

Artistically though I believe I'm entering a period of really enjoying patterns.

Missed Opportunity

2006-03-03T10:17:00.000-05:00

This morning the sun was intense and the sky was deep blue except for a few skimpy fugitive clouds. I passed up the opportunity to shoot before getting on the train. Got out at Park Street to look for something to shoot... back on the train, decided to get the sunlight bouncing off the Haymarket stalls. The train was running at slower than walking speed between Park & Haymarket. It took long enough to go that quarter mile or so for the sky to produce some huge lumpy gray-bottomed clouds to blur the light.

I could've waited to see if the sun came back but it didn't look all that bright anymore, plus it was really cold so I started walking. I walked over the Charlestown Bridge today.

What is interesting about the water under the Charlestown Bridge, the one made of metal mesh, is that the waves look more like vibrations coming from different directions.

Snow is expected later so the clouds will pack in more solidly before long.

Blanketed Sky

2006-03-02T12:53:00.000-05:00

Today the sky was blanketed with a layer of clouds that were light and insulating rather than oppressive. As a result it has warmed up to just about freezing. The clouds were fluffy & variated gray/blue changing to lemon yellow at the edges. This photo is of the blanket sky on December 5; I failed to get a shot of today's sky. The moon made an appearance on the walk home as the snow finally started to fall. It was just a tiny, blurry sliver behind the light clouds.

The ice that I photographed a couple of days ago in the harbor is all gone. I'm not sure where it went... I don't think it melted. It must have gone out with the tide. There is still slushy ice in the river channels leading to the locks.

It's March. Spring can't be far! It should be about 6 weeks of gray rain and wet cold. Then the air will smell like worms and thawing mud.

Day of Rest

2006-03-01T17:27:00.000-05:00

I think what I like about these sky photos is that you get a sense that the sky is wide and the sun is strong and everything is floating past you while the earth spins. It makes me feel small. Not in a bad way.

I took a day off from commuting to grapple with some stuff and to rest. This shot is from Sunday; today's sky was clear, and the sun is setting in the west in a plain old yellow/orange fade. On most days, today included, I see daylight from start to finish. If I can see what time it is when I wake up, I've overslept. I sit in this spot while the light brightens until the sunlight starts sliding down the tower across the street. Now the light is fading, backwards: the sun is on the other side of the tower, the sun slid up the house across the street, and soon the streetlights will take over. The moon is dark, so no moonrise or moonset and no moonlight coming through the bedroom window at night. Here is the moon when it was at its brightest, a couple weeks back:

Bridge & Ropewalk

2006-02-28T19:32:00.000-05:00

The first time I saw the Tobin Bridge out of the back of the Navy Yard, I was enthralled. It's so big & green and when the sky is blue and bright, it's really striking. I don't think this photo does it justice. Who picked Tobin Green? Wouldn't it be cool if it was painted blue?

The building in the foreground is the Ropewalk. There's a Longfellow poem about a ropewalk. This wasn't the only ropewalk in town; there used to be several of them at the foot of Beacon Hill. This one was a steam-powered ropewalk and it was in use until 1971. It's a quarter mile long. If I had the money I'd buy it just to be able to run a quarter of a mile in a straight line indoors. But the bridge is really bad feng shui, so I wouldn't really buy it. Or maybe I'd buy it, run back & forth for a while, use it for a really great haunted house in the fall, and then sell it back. It's probably full of asbestos anyway.

THE ROPEWALK

IN that building, long and low,
With its windows all a-row,
Like the port-holes of a hulk,
Human spiders spin and spin,
Backward down their threads so thin
Dropping, each a hempen bulk.

At the end, an open door;
Squares of sunshine on the floor
Light the long and dusky lane;
And the whirring of a wheel,
Dull and drowsy, makes me feel
All its spokes are in my brain.

As the spinners to the end
Downward go and reascend,
Gleam the long threads in the sun;
While within this brain of mine
Cobwebs brighter and more fine
By the busy wheel are spun.

etc. etc.

and a pile of displaced snow:

So, I was really uncomfortable standing with my back to the sun for the bridge photo, and I've been watching this snowpile for weeks now. I figured I'd document it. This snowpile is now located on a chained-off piece of tarmac beside an unused warehouse. It used to be located in the middle of the Navy Yard. Backhoes have been carting off the big Navy Yard snowpile. I thought they were dumping it in the harbor-- that's what they did last year, but they were just moving the pile. In this photo, the chunks look like they're all peering expectantly back towards the Navy Yard. "Can we go back now? What about our friends and relatives? Hello? Can we go for another ride?" I like the way the sun models the chunks. It snowed again since the pile was moved, so there's old snow and new snow. Snowpile, in a month you will be a film of gray sludge in a place no one ever goes, but I will remember you. You were a heroic snowpile fighting an epic battle against the forces of backhoe and sunlight. There is no overblown Longfellow poem to you.

More Ice

2006-02-27T14:39:00.000-05:00

The ice at the edges of the harbor has cracked into a swirly pattern and each piece has a little fringe of shattered bits and new ice. I like the way it all moves up and down. It's an ice collage. The lines are kind of like the Hockney pool water lines. The MFA would have you believe the whole town is Hockney-mad right now, but I'm not sure we'll be seeing middle-aged women running around town with Hockney reproductions on tote bags. He's got a bit too much of an edge... an uncomfortable unblinking gaze, improbably bright colors and strange fashion preserved for history.

Over on the other side of the locks, it looks like bits of litter in the river have collected ice around their midpoints. It's very strange to see an old coffee cup wearing an ice tutu and bobbing in the water. I didn't get a good shot because it is really brutally cold today, and I felt a little self-conscious about taking pictures of litter bobbing in dirty water.

The locks collect a nasty assortment at the corners in every season. Maybe I will get a shot of it to deter would-be litterers. On the other hand, maybe litterers are immune to a purely aesthetic argument if you look at the kinds of things they throw away-- fast food cups, chip bags, styrofoam.

Ice

2006-02-26T17:59:00.000-05:00

Thanks to some wicked cold temperatures lately, the pond is about half frozen. Part is covered with snow, part is scrubbed smooth, and part is still liquid.

The water that was liquid was deep navy blue at midday.

It's hard to capture the blue of the sky when you've got the sun in the frame. Here is how blue the sky was today:

Snow

2006-02-25T19:13:00.000-05:00

falling

on

gargoyles.

Today was the wet cotton sky. What can you do with such flat light... no reflections, no shadows, nothing defined in the sky. Wet cotton is useless for many things, including taking pictures of dramatic light. Today's sky was a tough one to work with. I enjoyed it the tiniest bit because it was different. It was some consolation to see the snowflakes change size & intensity.

I knew it was supposed to snow today but I didn't recognize it as a snow-filled sky right away. This morning I was sitting near a bright window reading, and I looked up to see really small snowflakes falling. It hasn't been that long since it last snowed, but snow is an odd enough thing (bits of solid stuff falling all over the place) that it's always a bit surprising, and the ground didn't look particularly wintery to receive it. First it was talcum powder snow. Then it got fewer in number but larger in size. Then it took a break, and later it came back with the kind of big puffy flakes that one might call christmas snow.

It's still snowing, but now it's dark. I can't report on the current volume & intensity.

Zakim

2006-02-25T07:00:00.000-05:00

The area around the bridge is so complicated. I think it seems less so for drivers on this and other bridges. There is still a lot of construction activity around the ends of the bridge. I know at one point plans called for Paul Revere Park and the Museum of Science to be connected by a bike path but I'm not sure where exactly it is supposed to go. Last year there were machines that did the same thing as wrecking balls but under the water and I was hoping they were clearing the way for the bike path supports to go in, if the path will go over the water like the one under the BU bridge.

On the Boston side between North Station and the Charlestown Bridge, the empty gray, dusty & concretey area above the tunnel has been fenced off forever. Yesterday I was surprised to see workers installing huge granite blocks-- to me granite means people might be having a close look at the area, even though it seems very perilous to be venturing close to the point where the Big Dig takes a steep turn underground. I have heard that it might be the location of the new skate park. That would be awesome. What would be even more awesome is if the whole Zakim/underground artery thing could be closed to traffic for a day so skateboards and bikes could ride it. Hey, we want our turn on the eighty bazillion dollar project! I would love to ride this part of the roadway. Downhill, at least.

Here is something you need to know about me

2006-02-24T20:02:00.000-05:00

It seems I'm unable to hold a camera straight to save my life.

But I like these backlit clouds. This little park looks so clean. I think it's because there was a brutal wind this morning-- everything without roots or not made of stone was swept away. Later on, the light faded and the sky became more uniformly overcast, until just before sunset... the clouds were no match for the wind that was twice as strong near evening. Plus, I'm sure a few of them froze in place and fell to the earth as microscopic ice crystals.

Another thing about this picture is that the city looks deserted. I believe there was a normal amount of traffic on the Charlestown Bridge: buses, trucks, cars, bikes, people. The sidewalk & roadway near the middle of the bridge are made of metal mesh, so while you're walking you can look down and see the water. This photo, however, looks like the dawn of a day when everyone stayed planted indoors in their beds so the wind could blow really hard and not inconvenience anyone.

From looking at this picture I'm sure you're wondering why I walk to work. Why not kayak? It was my intention to do that at least once, but kayaks and canoes and stuff like that are not allowed near the spillways by the Museum of Science dam and the locks. Some nonsense about being sucked into the current or something. How cool would it be if you could, though? You'd have to bug the parking office about where to park your boat.

The glowering sky

2006-02-23T18:34:00.000-05:00

This was this morning. I was really trying to get a picture of the digging machine and had to wait until it turned sideways. Then I realized I could get the sun in the frame too. So once the digger turned sideways, I had to wait for crowds of people to pass to get a clear shot. But when the people cleared the street, the traffic would start moving again. I have a whole series: digger turned frontways so you couldn't see the elbow. People in the street blocking the digger. Cars driving along the street. And as it turns out you can just barely detect the digger.

All the while, I didn't notice the clouds changing across the sun. I'm going to add a sun series.

Now I'm really going to stop the camera back up. This is not a black and white shot. I know it's dark.

ain't no sunshine

2006-02-23T06:10:00.000-05:00

when she's gone.....

but she's coming back today, hooray!

Sunny day

2006-02-22T20:53:00.000-05:00

This picture was not taken today, but today was a sunny day so I'm serving leftovers. The sun in this picture is a lot brighter even though today was cloudless too. It seems the sun shines harder when it's cold, but is it just less S02? I saw yellow haze on the horizon; I had a 2 hour meeting in a skyscraper and had all the time in the world to look at it. I wanted to get a bridge picture today, but I had to wait until the shadows formed angles and it didn't work out.

I love the shadow of the bus stop sign; it makes the light seem so theatrical. I love the reflection on the road. I like having the sun in the frame. As the winter wears on, the sun is higher & higher in the sky in the morning and it's harder to include it in the frame.

I see this scene every day and never get tired of it.

I could drive to work. I choose not to.

Evening picture

2006-02-22T05:44:00.000-05:00

The last was a morning picture; this is an evening picture. The ride home is often a treat... for the eyes, for other parts it's windy and cold and you just wanna get home and the train can take way too long to get there.

Capturing the colors of a sunset has always been a challenge for me. Yesterday I stopped the camera down by -7 and the colors came out pretty well. I really wanted to remember the bright line above the clouds. A moment later the sun was melting into the cloudline below like an eggyolk.

I've painted this scene, too, from a wider angle & photo taken on a different day. It may be one of those scenes that appeals to only one person, by means of familiarity or association. For me there's a lot going on. It looks homeward. There are people standing around casually, impatiently & anonymously. There are lights from the cars below, and reflections on the river. It's a bit Hopperesque because everyone is in their own little boxes. You're staring at them (what else are you going to look at-- you're lined up across from them maybe 20 feet away) but they still appear unobserved.

Note to MBTA: love the new windows at this stop.

Step One: Write Something

2006-02-21T18:34:00.000-05:00

I'm starting a blog... for the second time, the first effort was abandoned but hopefully this one will take. I'm not sure I can produce the number of words and assortments of thoughts that are necessary. I'm actually kind of muddleheaded about stuff like chronology and facts. We'll give it a try, anyway.

I take photos on the way to work. I'm going to post some here. I don't have a particularly visually striking commute, I love to see the way the sky changes and the way the pavement changes. Sometimes it's like a birthday present on a non-birthday. This evening on the way home, the sky was so beautiful it made me want to cry (admittedly, I was somewhat weepy for other reasons). The sun was on its way down, but still high enough to make a white blaze in a pale yellow field, fading into bruised-looking gray clouds. Despite the sun, there was a fine layer of gray haze, as if it was snowing just a little bit nearby. I didn't get a photo of it, but it made me think of Mark Rothko, whose biography I was reading just yesterday. He claimed his work was not about color, when most people think his work is about nothing BUT color. I'm not sure if Rothko ever did a pale yellow/gray over blue painting. He did work a lot with white paint mixed into colors. Usually I don't like white mixed into colors; I prefer to layer colors instead. If I was painting this sky, though, it would definitely be yellow mixed with white. I'm trying to think of what feeling the pale yellow conveyed, to me at least. I think it had to be comfort. The nearest concrete thing I can compare it to is a gender-neutral baby blanket, and you're a mother with a new baby and you're exhausted & drained & just want to sink your face into the yellow blanket.

This is not from the pale yellow sunset, this is a picture of the pearly sheen of the frozen harbor. This was this morning.