A few days ago a friend doubted my childhood East Texas accent. How wrong you are my friend. How very wrong you are: Recording dated December 28, 1977 (mp3 format)

My brother-in-law Paul pointed me to a page with about 50 images of Korean village life in the 1930's. You don't see images like this much... I thought they were cool. (note page loads slowly)

As I was reminded today.

Q: Why did you leave LA?
Answer 1: In an entire year of LA dinners with friends, acquaintences, and business people my wife and I never had single meal in which the conversation did not eventually turn to diets, celebrities, or hit movies (often all 3). I am happy to note that in the last year our NY dinner conversations almost never end up being about diets, celebrities, or hit movies... Real estate is the pornography of this city, but even real estate never seems to dominate. People talk about things that actually matter.

Answer 2: In LA you have to schedule friends. Months go by between the times you hang out and even your closest friends will often break out of a lunch to discuss a deal on the cellphone. In NY people drop by and I have never once had someone run out of a lunch for an "important call".

Answer 3: I like seasons.

Answer 4: Earthquakes scare me more than terrorists.

Answer 5: Walking is fun.

I don't miss LA much, but just a moment ago I had a flashback to driving my 53 Caddy up a winding road up to Muholland Drive in the early evening. Windows down. This song on the radio. Smell of damp honeysuckle and palms and I full body missed the place.

Blogging can sometimes be a seemingly thankless endeavor. Even reading reports of x number of visitors from this country or that, the task of posting images or words sometimes feel like something we do for ourselves rather than some theoretical audience on the other side of the screen, but recently I installed a bit of code from gvisit onto my site which plots out ip addresses on a google map and gives you an rss feed of the actual cities of your visitors. Put that feed into a ticker and suddenly you feel a bit more connected to the world. Hello Long Beach, Dubai, Istanbul, and Chino. Yo yo yo Ruesselsheim, Tblisi, Chicago, and Brooklyn. A shout out to Perth, Malaga, Herdon, Berlin, Jersey City, and the scores of other places that scroll by all day. If you are a blogger yourself I recommend this.

I've been looking forward to this interview with Mark Powell ever since I got wind of it a few weeks ago. Both Michael David Murphy's questions and Mr. Powell's answers do not dissapoint. Mark is one of the rare photographers whose words are as compelling as his images.

As a tonic to the somewhat purple prose of many of my late night ramblings, my wife proposes I start a new blog titled Heading Into the East River with actual quotes from our daily lives.

Some samples:

While throwing a ball across the kitchen:
"Jenn watch it because if you miss, I bean the kid."
. . .
As I lotion the baby after a bath:
Jenn: What's that smell.
Me: Lotion.
Jenn: You're lotioning our child with soap.
. . .
Jenn: Your son is peeing on the carpet.
. . .
Me: Your son just punched me in the adam's apple.
. . .
Jenn: Your son shoved a Japanese kid to the ground.
. . .
Me: Your son is eating leaves.
. . .
Jenn: Your son is eating toilet paper.
. . .
Jenn: Arh.. Argr. Argh.
Me (from the other room): What is it, speak up woman.
Jenn: Arhh. Grrrr. Barrby.
Me: What?!
Jenn: Baby vomit. My face.

Do you have a metaphor for sleep? For most of my life I thought of sleep as a dark flowing river. I would often dream of being swept far and fast in the powerful enveloping current eventually finding myself on the banks of some foreign land always a moment before waking.

But last year my wife introduced me to a new metaphor. When our son was falling to sleep she would say she imagined tucking him into a small boat and pushing him out to sea. This is the shorthand we use around the house: "Has the boat launched?" I will ask, and then she will shush me and say, "The boat is on shore, but the tide is coming in and we can walk it to the deep water."

My wife's image took hold and I dream of rivers no longer, now I see a starlit sea with groups of parents standing in pairs on the beaches gently pushing sailboats, kayaks, and canoes into the inky depths.

Sleep is one of the unspoken fears of new parents. When our children sleep we put our hands to their chests to check their breathing. Night is when sickness strikes. And there is always the terror that one day you will wake and your child will be gone. In my new dreams the sight of the boats disappearing into the night is chilling, but I know it is a fear we must accept. Then in my dream, stars fall from the sky and in the shadows we parents hold each other and sleep on the beach waiting for dawn. By morning the children are back from their night's journey, changed by degrees, poking us, and watching us stir. And that's where the dream pushes into the reality of the new day.

I wake up each morning and look at my son and wonder if this is a day he will remember. For a long time, I found it unspeakably sad knowing none of days of the last year would hold. He would not remember the unfettered joy of playing ball for the first time, he would not remember the discovery of oranges, and if something were to happen to his mother or myself, he would not remember us.

Each night we push him out into the deep and each morning he returns a slightly more complex human being. Our relationship changes as his personality grows. He is learning to say "no". One day something we do will disappoint him and he us. Things will change. And I've realized that these first years without memory are for us, the parents. The utter sweetness of these days is necessary not only to face the dread of that dark sea but because love is an abyss, and these days give us the courage to dive in.

If a certain someone on an impromptu valentine weekend in Paris happens to read this, it's pouring snow back here in New York. Your flight is probably delayed if not cancelled. Check your flight. You guys might get an extra day or two. :)

8:30, Borough Hall Subway Station
A toddler with a spiderman costume visible under his winter coat hopping up and down as his mother, oblivious reads the newspaper.

9:45 72nd and 5th
My elderly doctor standing inside a tiny lead nook and peering out of a small window as he x-rayed me.

10:15 The Frick
A group of uniformed schoolgirls on their tiptoes straining to see Girl Interupted at her Music, one of my favorite Vermeers. One girl in the group, uninterested and staring out the window.

1:20 Cadman Plaza Post Office
My son cracking up with my wife across the hall as I wait at the passport window. Everybody else in the room grey and deadpan.

2:40 In front of the State Supreme Court
A very old man with coal black skin holding a small red paper valentine to his chest against the breeze.

3:20 Atlantic Avenue
A woman walking out of a dry cleaners holding 2 translucent bags of clothing up near her shoulders. Her shadow like an angel with gossamer wings flying behind her.

6:20 Somewhere in Cobble Hill
Boys playing baseball in the cold evening on a quiet street. The sun has set, the streetlights are not on, the sky is turning deep blue. They are shadows. I only see the ball.

10:30 Deli on Atlantic
Two Pakistani guys play rock scissors paper behind the counter.

Two Worlds

In air heavy
with odor of crocuses,

sensual smell of crocuses,
I watch a lemon sun disappear,

a sea change blue
to olive black.

I watch lightning leap from Asia as
sleeping,

my love stirs and breathes and
sleeps again,

part of this world and yet
part that.

-Raymond Carver