they lost, but it was still fun...

enjoy.

I spent Saturday at Coney Island with fellow photobloggers Keith, Go, Fredrick and Joe. It was interesting to see how differently everyone shot... Excellent time all around except that I have returned sunburned within an inch of my life. My face glows radioactive.

I've never gone out with other people to shoot. It was a bit weird and I think a bit intimidating for people caught in our sites. Think about it, one minute you're enjoying some sun with your fellow retirees and the next minute you're surrounded by a group of guys with long lenses. Only Go was nice enough to ask people if they would agree to be photographed. Go just got married last week so send him some congrats.

One thing about Coney Island I can't get out of my head. There was a carnival barker and all day long he shouted "Shoot the freak. Shoot the freak. Shoot the freak in the freakin' head. Shoot the freak, shoot the freak.. Shoot the freak in the freakin' head." It's been running nonstop in my brain. This is less than ideal.

Inevitably I ended up at the post office today trying to get my taxes off. Every year try as I might I always end up in long lines on the 15th. But today was a bit different.

I was at the Atlantic Avenue station (The one across from the "Islamic Fashions" shop offering books on fun headscarf ideas). The crowd was your normal Brooklyn multi-ethnic stew. Women and their girls in full chadors, West Indians in bright colors, and your basic yuppies. Only two glum slightly mustachioed Chinese ladies were attending to us. Progress was painfully slow. Inexplicably on The Sound of Music was playing on the television, sound cranked up. Everyone was fairly quiet resigned to the wait... Nobody paid attention to the television even when the first musical number started, and but I noticed the little girl in the chador was transfixed.

Doe a deer, a female deer, ray a drop of falling sun.... By the second verse the little girl in the chador started singing from under her robes. The post office went quiet. And it was as if someone filled the room with oxygen. Everyone, suddenly awake, looked at the girl and up at the TV. Before you knew it two other people joined in, a Jamacian man, and another young girl. Even the glum clerk squeaked out a slight grin.

I'm always been a fan of the little variations google does on it's logo. It's one of those little things that personalizes the company and makes it fun to visit every day.

Today's logo is particularly good:

I know virtually nothing about the Irish side of my family. My mother didn't talk about them much. When she was alive I didn't know enough to ask the right questions. The rich and complex history of the Mexican side of my family has been a life long project... unraveling their mysteries, tracking family traits physical and emotional through the generations, archiving pictures and letters... In all of this I never really considered the Irish and Americans who are half of my story. Today I found a small tin-type in one of my mom's photoalbums. I have seen it at least once before when I was a child and remember asking about it. I believe they are my great grandparents or great great grandparents... I'm not sure on whose part, nor do I know their names. Their faces are unfamiliar and try as I might I don't see reflections of my mother or myself or my brothers in the faces, but the image has started me wondering...

And so another project begins...

There are certain places - crowded malls, busy Kinkos, Walmarts, suburbia, that inspire in me intense feelings of panic. My wife named the syndrome "Raul's Costco Reaction". Upon entering a Costco I feel ill, suffocated and slightly crazy and have the strong urge to run away. Jenn on the other hand LOVES Costco. She deems shopping there 'thrilling' and can spend hours comparing/weighing/and figuring out how to get the best deal on a pound of butter. Normally this would not be a problem (I would simply stay home), but now with our #1, I'm forced into service. If you ever want to see a miserable Raul, picture me pushing a heavy shopping cart filled with giant tubs of random food, baby strapped to my chest, wife slowly going through her long list. That was me today. If I end up in hell, I'm pretty sure it will look like Costco. That or the old Kinko's on Lexington and 77th run by Samoans where the lines were always out the door, the heat always cranked to unbearable, and the toner cartridges always empty. After a few minutes in there I would find myself muttering, "Death of the soul, man. Death of the soul." Sigh.

. . .
p.s. To the nice lady reader of this blog who said hello while we were at Costco today. I hope I didn't seem abrupt or startled. See above for an explanation of the green tinge in my face.

Photobugs will appreciate this:

http://www.cameraquest.com/LeicaM4G.htm

I was scanning a children's book I picked up in Mongolia for some of the illustrations, when I began to notice that the images taken together give a portrait of a somewhat harsh life:

. . . .

Similarly:

Notes on the Bashgali Language by Colonel J. Davidson of the Indian Staff Corps, Calcutta 1901, a collection of 1,744 common Bashgali sentences with English translations. The sentences give a disturbing impression of life in Chitral at that time. I originally came across these in Eric Newby's excellent travel adventure A Short Walk in The Hindu Kush.. Chitral is in current day Pakistan/Afganistan.

Some of the sentences in Notes on the Bashgali Language

-If you have had diarrhoea many days you will surely die.

-Don't drink water; a snake will grow in your bowel.

-I saw a corpse in the field this morning.

-Thy father fell into the river.

-I have nine fingers, you have ten.

-The dwarf has come to ask for food.

-I had an intention to kill you.

-A gust of wind came and took off all my clothes.

-An eagle came down from the sky and took off my cock.

-You are a very jabbering man.

-Why do you kick my horse? I will kick you.

-Why do you push me? I will kill your son.

-I will sleep now. If you try to kill me I will curse your children's children.

-How long have you been a leper?

The book ends with a short section of dialogs. They also are slightly unsettling. An example:

-I have seen your yellow dog by the river.

-My dog is spotted and is scared of water.

-That spotted dog maimed my child.

-Your child is stupid and should not have provoked it.

Our kid likes it when you sing, so we sing. Songs are made up on the fly... things like:

He's a chubby chubby chubby bear
He doesn't have a single single hair.
He's a chubby chubby bear,
He doesn't have a hair,
He's a chubby chubby chubby chubby bear.

(it goes on but I will spare you)

Anyway once you start doing this EVERYTHING becomes a little ditty in your head.

It's time to write my blog.
My mind is in a fog.
I should be asleep.
Why am I a freak?
Time to, time to, time to write my blog.

Quite maddening really.

If you feel you feel the need for some concentrated visual eye candy, head over to Dumbo and check out a show of John Hinde's work at Wessel + O'Connor Fine Art at 111 Front Street. Hinde was apparently a postcard photographer for English Holiday resort camps. His deep focus minutely detailed images are gorgeous and weird and worth seeing blown up. The phrase that came to mind while viewing was "Hieronymus Bosch, but jolly and English, and at camp." A book of his work is available on Amazon, it's called Our True Intent Is All For Your Delight (a large sign at one of the resorts).

A review of Hinde's work can be found here. Many Hinde links can be found on I like John Hinde.

Has anyone noticed the odd little mosaic of the bat hat at the 23rd St. N & R? Does anyone know the story?

The station is decorated with blowing hats, an homage to a time when the Flatiron Building (which is just outside) was the one of the tallest buildings in town. Back then the building's triangular shape and exposure to 2 broad Avenues caused great gusts of wind to blow away hats (and blow ladies skirts up over their heads). The windiness gave rise to the term "23-skidoo" which described the hotfooting women covering their skirts and men chasing their hats. As the other buildings grew in size, the winds vanishished, but the term 23-skidoo stuck around until the 60's. But again, I digrees, so what's the deal with the bat hat?

I'm not sure what was going on here:

Tall skinny buildings like this, like frighten me a bit:

Always nice to see the Statue of Liberty on the way home:

. . .
Our baby is 4 months old today. He took his shots smiling. Literally. I felt proud. Tough little bastard.

My grandfather always sang this one to me:

Mira la luna
Comiendo su tuna;
Echando las cáscaras
En la laguna.

Aquel caracol
que va por el sol
en cada ramita
llevaba una flor
que viva la gala
que viva el amor
que viva la concha
de aquel caracol.

. . .

and while we're on the subject of the moon.... Luz de luna