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.]

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.]

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.]

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.]

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.]

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.]

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.

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.]

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.]

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.]

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.]

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.]

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.]

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!

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.]

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.]

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.]

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.]

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.]

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.]

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 . . .

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.]

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.]

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.]

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.]

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.]

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

is the Citicorp Building.

[See more Skywatch pix here.]

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?

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.]

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.]

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.]