Art Culture Politics
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Paintings by Zane York
“An oyster speaks to a loaf of bread, an apple to a piece of cloth, a carnation to a clock.” ~ John Berger The French phrase for what we call a still life is nature morte. How else would it stay still long enough to paint? And yet Berger has these inanimate objects in conversation…
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Museum of Extinct Birds
The Carolina Parakeet, Conuropsis carolinensis, was the only parrot species native to the eastern U.S. It ranged from the Gulf of Mexico to the Ohio River Valley, and as far west as Colorado; it sometimes made it as far north as Ontario. The last wild bird was thought to have been shot in 1904. The…
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Let my people go!
Dead trees in bondage, Neptune Avenue, Coney Island. This time of year, the Ents are pissed. While I very much encourage the worship of trees, dead ones are a grotesque fetish. I don’t care if they’re farmed. I like my paganism unadulterated, not cryptically incorporated into, and co-opted by, monotheism. Updated 12/10: A friend who…
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Botany City
My friend Kristine is now “documenting the ways in which we urbanites cohabitate with the plant world, both indoors and out.” Check out her posts. She and other nature-oriented bloggers are listed in my ‘roll of honor to the right (scroll down). Although organized alphabetically, the listing has a hierarchy that runs something like this:…
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Here, there, and everywhere
I agree with David Attenborough’s lament about the growing divid between people and nature. But I take a bit of exception to his notion that it’s urbanization, a fact of life for most humans today and even more tomorrow, that cuts us off from the wild. I wouldn’t be blogging if I agreed with that.…
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Maple Leaf Wow
Among the remarkable artifacts found with the “Iceman” in northern Italy in 1991 was this maple leaf. It is 5,300 years old. The man used it to wrap and preserve the embers of his fires. Like the rest of his gear, and himself, it was freeze-dried on the mountain where he was murdered (ah, humanity!).…
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Tono-Bungay!
If we build it, we will trash it. The recently redone track bed at the 4th Avenue F & G station. I recently read H.G. Wells’ novel Tono-Bungay (1909). It is named for a product that makes the protagonist and his uncle a fortune. The stuff is “mediated water,” pure bunkum, of course, a patent…
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Ranger Robin Sez
The uninhibited Ranger Robin Action Figure, no longer serving the Parks Department, tells it like it is:“Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux are turning over in their graves, thanks to Richard Meier, and the developers he whored out to, for spoiling the Long Meadow viewshed. Meanwhile, James S.T. Stranahan doesn’t just roll, he wants to…
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Lace Effect
It’s Halloween, which many now use as an excuse to bring out the lace, mesh, and fishnet. Who am I to not jump on the bandwagon?
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Four Sparrow’s Pay-to-Play Played Out?
The plan to despoil Four Sparrow Marsh has been withdrawn. I’ve written a lot about this unique corner of the borough and why it’s so special, so I’m glad to hear this wretched idea has been shelved. (For how long, for what reason, I don’t know.) While the wheels of environmental impact statements and economic…
Backyard and Beyond 