very simple

This squirrel was sitting, happy as a clam in union square, eating away at a piece of bread as big as his head. surprisingly cute for what is essentially a rat with a bushy tail.

I decided to head down to the high line today, before another snowstorm hits this week, since I haven’t been down there since last year. For those who don’t know, the high line was an elevated railway in the meatpacking district that allowed trains (particularly stock cars) to pull up on sidings either right next to or inside the big meatpacking plants. The combination of trucking and the fact that most of those plants are now fancy designer showrooms left the high line to rust away. But now, it’s a fancy elevated park, with pretty cool views. It’s much prettier in the summer, when there are actual flowers in place of snow, but it’s still neat.

Today’s walk got pics of weird classic-modern architectural hybrid buildings, stairwells, rooftops, a menagerie of snow sculptures, doorways, sky bridges, fire escapes, super long-term parking, scooters trapped in the snow and the high line itself.

click on the thumbnail to get the full image.

I wish profound amounts of luck to the person who owns this bicycle. At least this lowers the chance that it will get stolen.

A little fuzzy, but yet another clock on the upper west side. at least this one appears to be accurate, unlike the one at the other end of the block, which is 40 minutes fast on one side and sort of accurate on the other.

So, we had another ridiculous snow day today, with over another foot of snow dumping itself on us overnight. Schools were actually cancelled today (which almost never happens in NYC, because it creates massive problems for parents who still need to go to work). Despite my cold, I got myself out of my apartment for a few hours, and went to central park to take some pictures (and to catch up on the 365 project, since I had fallen a few days behind). Only the first 6 photos are technically part of the 365 project, since that’s how many days I’m missing, but I’m uploading a few more that I liked.

Click on the photos to view the full images.

Port Mortuary by Patricia Cornwell

Book 18 in Cornwell’s continuing saga of Kay Scarpetta. I’ve mentioned this before, but I started reading this series when it was one of the few available in the english-language section of the nearby bookstore while I was living in Milan. Since then, I’ve felt compelled to continue, even though, in literary terms, these are the written equivalent of CSI. I’m not sure what to make of this one. First, Cornwell goes back to the narrative first person, where the entire story is told in Scarpetta’s voice. She had moved away from this device in recent books, giving more of an omniscient reader perspective. Going back to knowing only what Scarpetta knows certainly helped hold the suspense longer. Unfortunately, this was because Scarpetta herself was largely outside of the loop for much of the book. Most of the “suspense” was dependent on Scarpetta’s friends and associates deliberately keeping information from her until the last minute (sure, they all had seemingly legitimate reasons, but those reasons disappeared as soon as it was convenient for Scarpetta to actually find something out). In any event, Scarpetta is basically dropped into the situation after everything has happened, becomes an incredibly unpleasant person for a few hours due to the fact that she hasn’t slept, becomes unreasonably suspicious of everyone, including her husband, and then solves the crime after pretty much everyone else has gotten there as well.

Not loving this one.

I’ve been seeing a lot of folks posting pictures using the hipstamatic iphone app, but only now got around to downloading it. As someone who actually owns a classic magimatic camera, I can really appreciate the concept. It’s certainly worth experimenting with, particularly when only that old-school crappy film grittiness will do, like while waiting forever for the train in the morning.

Went to a wedding last night for a very good friend from law school, which was pretty fantastic. Didn’t take too many pictures, because I was actually having a good time, and most of the ones that I did take came out poorly because I was just using my point-and-shoot in very low light, but I got close enough to the cake to get one that wasn’t so bad. As a bonus, it was quite delicious.

They did a beautiful job on the renovations at Lincoln Center, but in the dead of winter, without the green of the “lawn” or the leaves on the trees, and the apparent use of the fountain as a snow storage/melting center, it’s still pretty dreary. It didn’t help that I trekked through the slush and ridiculous curb puddles, and there were no tickets available to tonight’s show (we were hoping the snow would force some cancellations). Oh well. My feet are still thawing out.

Back when I was in high school, we would periodically sneak into the city to go dancing here. Not very often, because I was (of course) a big nerd, but we thought we were the coolest for doing this. Of course, in hindsight, I realize that we only went to the limelight because it let you in at 18, rather than 21, so it was much easier to get past the bouncer. But as much as we were actually lacking in cool back then, we were much cooler than turning a long-standing, famous nightclub into a very tiny mall. Which is what is now inside this dilapidated church, rechristened “limelight marketplace”. Ugh.