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

Jenn and I snuck out to watch Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story at the Angelica tonight. Perhaps we were just in the right mood, but we were both cracking up throughout (much more so than the rest of the people in the audience). The movie doesn't add up to much, and you have to be a fan of a certain type of English humor, but I recommend it nonetheless. How often do you actually guffaw? At one point I almost did a spit take. That's worth the admission price for me. Jenn's summary while walking out, 'I think Michael Winterbaum started shooting and at some point just said, "You know what, I've got nothin'... let's wing it", and you know what I don't hold it against him.'

Adendum: To the person who emailed me that "snuck" is not proper English. Not exactly proper, but popular.

1. Don't do much research.

2. Leave kind of late in the day.

3. Annoy your wife.

4. Drive 3 hours north away from sunny weather into cloudy weather.

5. Arrive to find the place you were going to visit closed.

6. Have your kid play on a rock before realizing your kid doesn't want to play on a rock.

7. Decide to make the best of it by taking a walk down a country road.

8. Have the country road lead to a garbage dump.

9. Get your wife carsick on winding roads.

10. Drive 3 hours back.

Photo find of the day: Polar Inertia: a journal of nomadic and popular culture. This site reminds me of Colors Magazine before it's change of editorial regime. Happily an archive of the old great Colors Magazine is now online (including my favorite issue #58.

Mark Powell aka locaburg on flickr now has a proper photoblog. His images of Detroit and Mexico City are some of my favorites anywhere. You can view them at locaburg.com and markalor.com.

Landscapes generally don't have much impact on me, but Sze Tsung Leong's work is something special.

This pdf file (found via digg) has a good technical explanation of the creation and structure of a RAW file. If you don't know what a RAW file is, please ignore this post.

Leon Bittick a man who worked for our family as a yardman for almost 20 years died last week. He was almost 90 and insisted on working right up to the end. Leon was a humble man who spoke with a honey-rich East Texas accent untempered by exposure to the outside world. His language indeed the world he lived in is fast dissapearing. A few Leonisms:

Lick by lick, that there cow ate the grindstone (nothing is impossible)

We've howdyed but we ain't shook. ( I know you but we're not friends)

He's studyin' to be a half-wit and I'm afraid he ain't gonna make it

There's something seldom about that ol' boy (the kid is a bit weird)

It's still as a pig a wettin'. (very very quiet)

He'd brag about the number of holes in his outhouse

We used her biscuits to chunk the dog. (bad cook)

He walks too slow to catch a cold.

Oh it was tasty. Tasty as day old lard.

Still as a bowl of spit. (calm)

When she says frog, he jumps. (man run around by his wife)

She buys crutches for lame ducks. (spendthrift)

Figures don't lie, liars sure can figure

That fella would drown a widow woman's hen. (mean)

Talk is cheap, but money buys whiskey.

She's so ugly she has to sneak up on the mirror

What in cornbread hell is going on?

Photobooth Fun

I've always wanted to do a photobooth project with my wife in which we go from frame to frame across two strips. But sometimes Jenn has no patience for me and my photobooth projects so it has never happened. All was not lost though because today I got a chance to realize the idea and art directed this set of shots for my friends Mike and Rion on their wedding day. If I do say so myself, it looks great.

Congrats guys. Exciting times.