Water Everywhere

My favorite duck pond with lotus and lilies near the Irish Hunger Memorial.
The pool reflects the towering buildings but retains a human scale.


The ducks, like ducks anywhere, are very greedy.



In Battery Park a play area with a sprinkler.
In the very far distance you can see the Statue of Liberty.



Rotting wooden pilings in the Hudson in Chelsea. I'm always attracted to elegant and picturesque decay.



On 9th Avenue the playground sprinklers make a star design.
Sprinklers rule in August.

Shadow Shot Sunday/What lies Beneath

Shadow Shot Sunday again. See Hey Harriet for details and super collages.
24th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues. Saturday morning.



As above with chewing gum and the photographer's shadow.



I walked up to 5th Avenue visit blogger Frances this morning, and was astounded to discover the whole sidewalk ripped up revealing girders and a whole subterranean world.



Another view of the same thing.
So New York goes down as well as up. There is a whole other city beneath us..........

Presents for Babies

Passemeteries had very good news from Paris yesterday which got me thinking of all the passemeteries for babies one can buy.
Theses pictures are from a glory-hole of delight called ABC Carpet which will be familiar to most New Yorkers.
However, if you are not, you have excitement in store (pun?!)



It is a huge building on 19th Street and Broadway filled like an Alladin's cave with artifacts from all round the world.
Sort of like Anthropologie plus a billion.
If I were ever to become stupidly rich and had no conscience whatsoever, I would buy almost everything here and then have lunch at their restaurant.



Anyway this is a little glimpse at the toy selection. No plastic! No Fisher-Price! Just the dream contents of your mad grandmother's attic full of toys loved for generations of your terribly artistic family. Jumping off places for vivid flights of the imagination.
Sarah, you have much to look forward to. The things being only the tiniest bit of it.

Pool/Sky/Float

This morning the sun shines on the pool.



Reflecting the tall oak trees which surround it.



This particular float is very comfortable.
The dog jumps off the side of the pool and uses it as his boat.
I lie on it and look at the clouds.



Yesterday evening this cloud, catching the evening light, was astounding.
Such movement bubbling and boiling inside it.

Books

This post isn't about New York at all; it's about books.
The first image is one of my photos of the Bahia Palace from when we lived in Morocco. In the recent movie version of Brideshead Revisited, this courtyard was where Charles and Sebastian encountered each other in Marrakech. It made me think I should re-read Waugh.
Vile Bodies is good too (what a title!) and almost as sad as Brideshead.
Movies of novels very rarely begin to capture the complexities and richness of the books themselves.
An exception The House of Sand and Fog. Both book and movie were stunning.



Beware! Commercial to follow.
Lots of my blogging friends read a lot. I read a lot. Always have.
So, a treat in store.
Go to PERSEPHONE BOOKS immediately.
These charming mid-20th century end papers have been snagged from their website.



I found my first Persephone book quite by chance at Cafe du Livre in Gueliz. A small neatly designed book, a delight to hold.
Then fellow bibliophile Sarah of Passementeries Diary told me more about them.
She recommended The Making of a Marchioness
and several others.



There are 78 books all by mid twentieth century women authors - almost all British and a few American.
Almost all fascinating and utterly readable.
I wanted to do the deal where you send off for the whole set at once, but settled for 3 to start off with:
Cheerful Weather for the Wedding by Julia Strachey
Wartime Stories by Mollie Panter Down
and
From the Other Side - letters written from Hamburg during the Second World War.
This last I will mine for details, since I'm working on a WWII book.



I have read a few before but if you don't know the work of Mollie Panter-Down you are in for a treat.
I have happy memories of reading Marianna by Monica Dickens years ago.
There is also a deal where they send you one each month.
They are such beautifully made books they would make super presents too.
Their whole list brings out the part of me which is very greedy and very extravagant...............

Prized Possessions

I'm dog/ house/ pool sitting on Long Island.
It's quite fascinating living in some one else's home and trying to understand how they live.
This is a very wonderful, comfortable house full of visual delights.



It makes me think I should polish up my silver because you get such lovely reflections in it.



Other people's things, both animate and inanimate, need a great deal of care and attention.
The picture above is of Joba (pronounced Jabba) who was named after Joba Chamberlain, the Yankees pitcher whom he does not resemble in the least.
The Yankees pitcher is bold and stocky..........which Joba is not.
Because he is my son and daughter-in-law's dog, I am reduced to a jibbering wreck of anxiety when looking after him.
"No, Joba, you cannot eat that quarter......"
Haha. I run round the house after him, frightened that he will swallow it.
What is that odd bit of chewed up red plastic?
Spit it out now before you choke on it!
How much more fun to have me running round the house in hot pursuit.........

Shadow Shot Sunday/Keeping Busy

Shadow Shot Sunday. (See Hey Harriet for details and other participants) The first two pictures anyway.
An amazingly stormy Saturday with torrential rains and thunder.



Whereas the day before was sunny and bright. Tall buildings make one look upwards so you get to see a lot of clouds.
As regards keeping busy, my new computer can do fancy things - see the vignettes above.
Not sure if they are a good idea but fun to play with.
This keeps me busy.




We had two young visitors from Marrakech who arrived just after the thunderstorm. They are wonderfully creative and immediately set about making things.
I wish I had their energy.

Why We Go To The Beach

These somewhat Soviet-Ear looking apartments in Penn South near where we live are actually well-managed and surrounded by trees.
But even so.........



In summer the delights of the urban landscape are few.



The new "MUNIMETER" which is in use instead of individual meters. I have not yet had to work out how they work - or don't work - since we do not own a car.
We rent one when we have to go out to the Island.



This little beach house is where the life guards shower and generally hang out when not on duty.



I think I will move in for the next month.



Looks like a cool place to me.
And the view is terrific.

Back to Nature

It is good to escape from the hot city and go back to look at nature.
Here a friend's garden on Long Island.



She collects all sorts of things -- including garden furniture........



In due course of time, the said furniture blends in with its surroundings.......


..... as it lives in the woods.



This almost-vanished chair is actually one of a pair of ours.
We were thinking of having it stripped and painted and all sorts of complicated things .
At the moment we are letting it enjoy its ten year country vacation.

File under Batty and Bizarre/ ABC Wednesday

This is the second letter of Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesdays.
This young lady with a notice on her forehead lives on West Broadway heading south from Spring Street.



This poor dead bicycle lives just north of Houston Street. It has been decorated beautifully and almost rises to the level of art.



Just across the street from the bicycle is an Egyptian cafe which was closed early on Sunday morning.
When I took the next two photos, I didn't realise how much reflection was going to appear in them.
Hm.........very mysterious and spooky indeed.



Gods of ancient Egypt and a tower block of not very interesting apartments - something to do with housing for NYU I think.



Artifacts and reflections in a tobacco shop window on West Broadway.



A metal gate to a townhouse in Chelsea.
This image is from the silent movie they made of H.G. Wells' First Man on the Moon. Someone - not sure who - shot a bolt in to eye of ( I think) the man in the moon.
Obviously, not a useful or comforable thing to do
It looks a bit scary anyway, and, no doubt, led to trouble.



Reflections in a hot dog truck parked by South Street Seaport on Sunday morning.
Yes, we had a most energetic bike ride!



Eventually we sat and looked across the East River at Brooklyn.
I'm not quite sure if Brooklyn is batty and bizarre but it does begin with B........