Gloomy.....sort of.....

We are having the most peculiar weather this year.....but so is almost everyone else -- like Weaver of Grass in England with horribly strong winds.

Very English to talk a lot about the weather. 

To back up.....Sunday was sunny (as per the last post....). Monday was......well......peculiar. We were told to expect a 'wintry mix' which basically seems to mean snow and sleet and rain. We went to Long Island anyway.

As you leave Penn Station there is all sorts of industrial stuff....

with little bits of snow on sidings.

Queens (on the whole) is better seen through a thick miasma of something.....here Forest Hills....

Then regular sorts of houses.

The trees in Cold Spring Harbor looked suitably witchy and skeletral.

By the time we got home, it had all turned to rain, and they had removed the top of the Empire State Building.

Biking was hazardous

and umbrellas de rigeur....

Tuesday dawned brightly

  I saw this glove locked and chained to a lamp post on the corner of 23rd St and 9th Avenue......

22nd Street. Haven't had a picture of a truck for ages

or a picture of people (on 22nd St) who look as if they have escaped from Brooklyn. (Yes, I had turned the camera by mistake to something called 'Effects' --'Effects' just makes things look slightly out of focus.

like this nice little bird.

Wednesday was astoundingly, unnaturally warm. Walked on the High Line with Paz.

There was almost no one about

except a pair of young people. 

(Bill Stankus, this is for you who wanted black and white!)

Thursday is windy. Power off in parts of Long Island. 

Next?.......

Bright Sunday Morning

On 22nd Street

Such bright sun

Looking up to the High Line (from underneath) at the new art installation where a wall mirrors the sky and creates wonderful illusions.

Cold, but the snow seems to be going....for now.

An Awful Warning

I really enjoy blogging which has brought me friends from all over the world. I love sharing the place I live and some of the things I see, which is why I was horrified yesterday morning to discover that this blog, Buster's blog and the old one about Marrakesh had been DELETED.

Here is the florist's window all steamy and fogged up. (When I was a child in England, before double glazing, lovely ferny ice pattens used to form inside the glass.)

Here is the coffee, bagel and donut truck exhibiting the same phenomena.

A very odd sighting --people wearing red coats at the bus stop. (I thought you were required by law to wear black!)

You can tell how cold it was by the fact that everyone is wearing a hat or hood --except the young woman in the foreground adopting the archetypal cold weather pose....

Steam was billowing up from the bowels of the earth.

Here is an accidental art work. A detail of the paper Robert uses to clean his brushes when he's doing a different kind of painting. He works at home. See below.

This is his airbrush and other brushes.....

and another accidental painting. I feel, at the moment, that my blogs are my accidental artwork, recording images and sharing them....

 So, to get back to the DELETED business.....I have been on Blogger since 2007 and never had a major problem before. But there were my blogs, GONE !
I spent much of the afternoon and evening typing into "Google Forums" --a most frustrating exercise, though someone seemed to be trying to help me......(you can't actually get to talk to a real person.) I started getting phone calls and emails  ---were we all right? had anything happened to us? We are fine, thank you for thinking of us. Where is Buster?
This morning I contacted my super helpful and lovely and pragmatic techie son who asked all sorts of questions.....but did say at one point, "Ma, you get what you pay for..." Then, lo and behold,  after 24 hours, the blogs miraculously re-appeared.
I'm just writing this for those of you who really value your blogs and put effort into them in case it happens to you. I think there is someway of 'backing-up' a blog --don't ask me how.

I close with some very lovely flowers. Happy blogging!
And consider Wordpress and Typepad.....

Hmm......or Stories.....

There really hasn't been too much going on lately. A gray time of year --post festivities. Of course, I wander around a lot, phone in hand to capture....

the descent to the subway

 the wait on the platform

 the roll right along in what looks like the interior of some spiny fish.

And then there's the bus. People getting on leave their cups behind on the bench. I think the dirty glass accounts for the brown ectoplasm.....maybe.

Smoke/steam is good for 'atmospheric' effects. If everything is very crisp and bright there isn't any mystery. A nice thick fog, smoke and mirrors, candles, shadows (weird filters!)

Things coming in and out of focus.... Each person has a story, of course....

Like  the woman passing the newsstand. Can you see the man on the right? I think he runs the news stand. 

You can see him better here. All these people rushing about 

and some sitting still

and Jasper the dog looking very blobby indeed.

Then there are the buildings -- London Terrace looking oddly Gatsbyesque...

and soaring loftily.

The leftover wreath's shadow very early in the morning cast sideways on 22nd Street.

On 22nd Street too they have been scraping the posters off the wall to reveal all sorts of layers of meaning...or not. 

I'm teaching a workshop with Seth Apter and Roxanne Evans Stout in March called The Need to Tell Stories,* but haven't yet decided what story I'm going to tell then, so am using old photos to generate ideas. So these are sort of lesson plans for myself. 

*currently fully subscribed.

Hudson/January

Took the dog for a walk by the Hudson this misty morning when New Jersey was barely visible on the far side.

Chelsea Piers reopened last month after a great deal of storm clean-up.

Other dog walkers were about.

A still life --sort of.

Grasses

and left over leaves

and a tree.