Coming back up

Soon.

Breaking

Been on a break for a little while (Okay, for July actually), and I'm still enjoying the sounds of waves.

We shall resume normal-ish broadcasting shortly.

Look, Q. A big one's coming. Get ready. Ready—



Meantime, feel free to revisit an earlier picture of what it's like to play with the ocean.

It's all a blur

Because this is how fast it goes.

Meanings in the meantime

I'm still coming back from California and 2008, but in the meantime, you might enjoy re-learning some definitions via the photographic dictionary.

You know, something like this would make a good project for us, what with my lovely wife's photog skills. For example:

f

future | fu ● ture [fyoo ch ər]
—noun
1. the time or a period of time following the moment of speaking or writing; time regarded as still to come.
—adjective
1. at a later time; going or likely to happen or exist.


r

resolute | res ● o ● lute [rez ə loot]
—adjective
1. admirably purposeful, determined, unwavering: she was resolute and unswerving.

Feel free to suggest your own contributions from your own libraries.

If you haven't seen these, you probably should

This election season has been a long one, nearly interminable at times. And even those who aren't political junkies (like me, I'm afraid) can't escape seeing and hearing the candidates.

It's easy to believe, I think, that we glimpse national politicians as they are, particularly in the cuts of video passed around the Internet or included in a nightly newscast. It's probably safer (and more accurate), though, to believe that we see packages more than people.

Enter the photographer. I'll admit right up front that I prefer both photography to video and Obama to McCain, so adjust your grains of salt accordingly. But if you, too, appreciate even one of the two, you really should have a look at the series of photos by Callie Shell. (A little background on it and her can be found here.)

Here are two of my favorites (click each for the full-size version):



and



Looking at these pictures (as she calls them), I get the feeling that I'm seeing him for the first time. And I keep finding hints of my grandfather in his face, which may not be that unusual since there's a fair amount of Kansas in both of us.

In any event, please do have a look at them all. (Note: You'll need to click "Show More Images" several times at the bottom to show the entire set.)

Because I like it

This picture is a little old (from around our wedding anniversary), but I couldn't find a swell spot to drop it in. I like it, though, so here's Q looking over our wedding album. (Afterward, we asked her if she was going to get married. Her response? "No.")

MoMA

After reading books with and about art with the kids for some time now, my wife suggested that we simply all go to the Museum of Modern Art here in New York.  And so yesterday we did.

Now that Q & The Boy have gotten older, they have the attention to give to museums where you can't touch things, and they very much enjoyed the little adventure.  The Boy says that his favorite painting was Van Gogh's Starry Night; Q says that she likes the Jackson Pollock drip paintings (probably because she's again into the Ian Falconer book Olivia, where a Pollock gets Olivia in trouble).

We tend to forget where we live, getting caught up in the business of living.  As e. e. cummings says (I think) somewhere, "Life is a matter of being born; but Art is a question of being alive."  Here's a little of what can happen when we remember that this is New York.

So this is why we live here

We spent both Saturday and Sunday at wonderful festivals. On Saturday, we hit nearly every tent at CultureFest in Battery Park. On Sunday we left our part of the island for the Upper West Side and Columbia University who were hosting The New York Times Great Children's Read. We took around a kajillion photos (as usual), but I've collected just 12 here to experiment with the embedded slide show feature.

A free festival on the campus of Columbia University in which Julie Andrews talks about which children's books she loved the most and where They Might Be Giants jazz up the strollered crowd—these kinds of things remind us why we put up with New York.

It's way past time that I admit this

The ladies

So I've crossed the 100 post mark (a little while ago), and my wife deserves a lot of credit for that. She encouraged me to start this little record in the first place and then keep it going when I start to flag. She's given me ideas for posts.

And she's been a great editor. I'm a tinkerer and supposedly an expert on writing, but she quite often has a sharper eye and a keener ear. In even the last little post on pumpkin summer, for example, I originally wrote "pumkin" all over the place. Embarrassing.

As with most things, she makes me better.

(Cute picture, too.)

86° + October = Pumpkins & Sundresses

The weather these days can only be described as freakish. It makes for odd pairings like the one in this photo taken amid the Union Square farmer's market this weekend.

If this keeps up, I'll have to go as a lifeguard or a UPS driver for Halloween.

Though you can't see my talented wife here, you can know she's there

[Please do click for the larger view of this photo; bigger is, um, beautifuler.]