"It's Halloween...

... it's Halloween, time for tricks and time for treeeats, it's Halloween!"

Endless Mountains, endless

This time last week, we were winding through back roads past Scranton; slowly making our way to Nick's Dad's cabin in the Endless Mountains. Frustrated by intermittent rain and the cold, we couldn't help but think that our weekend was just not going the way we'd planned. As if the weather weren't disappointing enough, we were a week early for the annual haunted hay ride put on by the local high school - my personal favorite fall event in that neck of the woods.

When we finally arrived at the cabin it was by the extreme darkness of night, not a star was visible and by contrast, we were surprised by the colorful landscape that would greet us come morning.

Needless to say, we spent a couple of days trudging through wet woods, observing flora and fauna and most notably, huddled by the fire, failing to ever completely dry our wet socks. That said, I spent a good amount of time working on my first knit sweater. It's for a toddler. And I couldn't help but think, very much in line with Mother Nature's color scheme for the weekend.

All said, I would have liked to have spent another day in the woods: cold and wet, struggling to keep the fire lit. It looks like this weekend in New York will be damp, too. Maybe I'll finish that sweater and take a walk to see the foliage, all with the knowledge that I have a hearty stock of dry socks at home.

For Ella's mail art collection

But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more
- Hans Christian Andersen

I finally made it out to The Putting Lot — 9 locally-designed mini-golf holes — this afternoon.

Are you wet yet?, hole 3, by Openhop in the forefront.

Pachinko Putt-Putt by Meat Pallet, hole 7.

The Art Market by Skewville, hole 6.

The Living Lot by Interface Studio, hole 9.

Check it out should you happen to be in Bushwick.

The Putting Lot, 12 Wyckoff Ave., Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY

(Mon)tréal

Last weekend about this time, armed with a printed-out, step-by-step guide, I was embarking on a walking tour of Old Montreal.

Here's a link to some of the photos I took on said walking tour and around Montreal in general: http://www.flickr.com/photos/beebimbop/sets/72157621833069529/

Willaimsburg, the (a)bridge(d) version

Oy Vey, indeed! The sign for incoming traffic read, "Welcome to Brooklyn. You name it... we got it!" Conversely, at the other end of the Williamsburg Bridge, you're merely greeted by a sign reading, "Welcome to Manhattan." Yawn.

Stenciled by a hipster no doubt.

Iron Maiden Voyage

I went for a walk this evening through Hudson River Park to try out my new camera. I came across sunset vistas, warehouses and geese waddling around to the sounds of Matt and Kim playing on Pier 54.

Positively New Jersey.

Nick documented the learning curve.

I then made my way to The Village where I was pleased to find that construction in Washington Square Park is finally complete. Yay!

Camera phone holiday special from Queens

We're in Queens, mofos! Long Island City to be precise. DUQB or Down Under Queensboro Bridge. So, it's not as catchy as DUMBO. Give it time.

And as a bonus, from The Great Gatsby: "The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge, is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world" The following two shots were taken at Deitch Studios on the waterfront. You can see more photos of the current installation, Pig, here. Random mural showing an oddly angry-looking Queensboro Bridge monster. Manhattan skyline from the Pulaski Bridge. The most interesting thing about this bridge just might be that it is that it's the halfway point during the NYC Marathon. Taken on the Pulaski Bridge. Home, like no other place in the world! As much as I enjoy these camera phone round-ups, I'm pleased to announce that my new point-and-shot should be arriving in the mail any day. Yay! A little camera, that's only a camera!

camera phone round-up two

Here goes... and some of these go way back.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s installation Pulse Park at Madison Square from October 2008; Empire State building in the distance.

"Bill" assuring "Hillary" that she can still be the "President of New York." This one was taken at The 2008 Village Halloween Parade.

Rockaway Beach, surf's up!

Taken a few weeks ago at The Highline, love-love it!

Taken last weekend at Coney Island for the The Mermaid Parade.

More to come...

shameless self-p

Following a week of straight rain and generally dreary weather, today's meteorlogical perfection seems especially enjoyable. What an ideal day to stretch out like a cat in a warm, well-lit spot, which is what I plan to do. Only, unlike a cat, I'll be thumbing (oh, bad jokes) through a pile of records and will stretch out on the floor with a turntable to choose what I'll play next weekend at the Bust Spring Fling. I also like shameless self-promotion, so should you be in Williamsburg, Brooklyn next Sunday afternoon, drop by. I'm thinking 60s soul, girl group and yé-yé - all heavy on the girl, of course. It should be fun.

hangin' on the telephone

Camera phone round-up:

First, thank you, whoever sent the random text message complete with a surprise snap of Chicago's Mayor Daley. It was an obvious misdial, therefore I cannot credit you properly, but again, thank you. It made me smile.

As did this receipt from an obviously dimly-lit Thai restaurant in the West Village. Thank you, Pookie SexyGal!

In other camera-phone-captured news, I hosted Aneek for a 5-boroughs-in-5-days visit. And that's not counting the road trip we took out to the farthest tip of Long Island - which is indeed long! - through The Hamptons and out to Montauk Light House.

And with that, thank you, Nick for having a Zip Car membership and driving all day and while we're at it, for the use of your camera phone on this one. I'll be posting more camera phone photos from our road trip, so look out!

the future will be better tomorrow. indeed.

I don't have a Facebook account, but do have a soft spot for randomly generated memes. That said, you're looking at it. My band Sidora's album the future will be better tomorrow. [Drew] Sidora, of Disney fame, being my random Wikipedia entry and the infinitely wise words of ex-Vice President Dan Quayle being my random quote. The photo comes from R. Motti's Flickr pool. So, should I start working on some South American-influenced minimalist Electonica? That's what this album cover is says to me.

Hello, blog friends. It's been a while. And what have I been up to in the realworldosphere? Not a lot. I traveled to Los Angeles and was momentarily wowed by palm trees and Birds of Paradise before being shuttled off to the Mojave where it was all snow on Yucca fronds and threats of closed mountain passes. That said, I spent a week with family and friends, my favorite event being an impromtu dinner with my grandparents, assorted cousins, an adorable second-cousin and my high school b.f.f.

Otherwise, I am rejoicing about this extra hour of daylight, doing my laundry and baking muffins.

i lego n.y.

Ok, I hear this is all over the net, but it has yet to be all over this blog.

Christoph Niemann's I Lego N.Y.

It made me laugh a little.

be vewy quiet, i'm hunting wabbits

Erg, I'm a little hung-over. Not in the traditional sense, at least I don't see how that's possible, but, arg, that's how I feel. Maybe it was the Opera coupled with a whopper of a late-night glass of wine and a few fewer than usual hours of sleep. Maybe I'm not cut out for the bobo life? I jest, but really, maybe I'm not.

So, the Opera. I'd never gone, but you see, it was one of those inside jokes. For absolutely no reason, Nick and I, who knows how it started, had been la-la-la-la-la-la-ing the most famous song from Rigoletto for weeks. Well, we in honesty didn't know it was from Rigoletto at the time, we looked that up later and then, when we learned that Rigoletto was slated to play this week at The Met, Nick suggested we go as a sort of pre-birthday outing. Who's gonna' argue that, especially when $15 nose-bleed seats were still available.

We were sat in the benefactor-challenged top tier, in one of those boxes to the side of the stage. We crammed our seats up against the railing and veered our heads over the edge to see the action, and, boy, did Opera live up to it's reputation. There was womanizing, cursing, numerous revenge plots, PG-rated sexual content, murder... and just wrongness. I couldn't peel my eyes off that car wreck! All the while sneaking peeks at the small, individual screen feeding me a word-for-word translation. I was bleary eyed and made uncomfortably conscious of the fact that my body was crammed in an odd angle by the title character, Rigoletto - a hunchback! Man, and did I mention, this opera is three hours long?

island hopping

Not wanting my fatigue or the late afternoon hour to get in the way of my usual weekend exploration, I decided that it was time I ventured out to Staten Island. It is the only borough I have never visited and it operates a free ferry. When I arrived in lower Manhattan as the sun was setting, I thought, "This plan is really coming together: a free sunset cruise on the Bay and a return cruise after dark!" Thoughts of a glittering lower Manhattan danced in my head as the gates were open and we, the tired, cold and huddled masses, boarded our ferry.

Being a spontaneous, late in the day sort of thing, I hadn't beefed up on what's what or what's to do in Staten Island. Short of having seen Madonna's Papa Don't Preach video a hundred or so times and having heard that Staten Island is the most suburban of the five boroughs, I really didn't know what to expect. After disembarking the ferry, Nick and I walked up and down a few quaint, but lonesome streets, eventually stopping by a local bar where a bunch of 20-somethings were blowing up inflatable palm trees and wrapping buckets in bamboo-print material to make festive stands for tiki torches.

At this point, chilled and completely caught up on our 90s popular rock, we headed back to the ferry. And while I didn't see Madonna in her Italians Do It Better t-shirt, I did watch some French rapper shooting a video on the outer deck as we passed Ms. Liberty clutching her glowing torch.

It was a good day.

hace mucho frio

It's true, we're months from that foulest of Mid-Atlantic seasons - the season that is indeed "air conditioned by Satan" - but then again, we could just as well be smack in the middle? Depends on how you want to look at it.

Anyway, this one's from the taco truck parked behind the Union Pool in Brooklyn. Who, bless them, are open even while the rest of the city is grumbling about the brrr-cold weather.

More to come...

steam doesn't smell like burning

I was startled awake this morning by the sound of the smoke detector ringing throughout the building. For a second I was alarmed, but then I groaned; this is a normal occurrence around here. The high pitched beeping continued for a longer than usual, so I got out of bed just to make sure my apartment hadn't somehow engulfed itself in flames. Nope. I opened the front door to confirm my suspicions and was, as expected, hit in the face by the smell of burnt french toast.

I like my neighbors. I've found them to be a friendly lot and really, with the exception of the setting-off-the-smoke-alarm thing, respectful of noise levels and that sort of stuff. But, I have got a set of neighbors who are menaces in the kitchen. I wouldn't recognize them if I were to see them and I don't know their names, I only know they live on the second floor and cannot cook.

One night when they had set off the smoke alarm, after taking a moment to make sure Nick and I hadn't somehow started a fire, I opened the front door to hear the clanging of cookware and one of the budding chefs say, "I didn't think it was smoke. I thought it was steam!" Pretty classic, right? And if these young men honestly were not dangerous, I would have laughed, instead, I stopped myself from yelling, "Steam doesn't smell like burning, brainiac! Use the microwave from now on!" That said, I am for the first time considering rental insurance.

nostalgia train

When I first heard the city would be running a vintage subway train from 1931 - the Nostalgia Train - each Sunday during the holiday season and that each subway car features wicker seats and ceiling fans, you know, I was thinking rich earthy browns, plums and for some reason, decorative palms. Ok, I know, they're subway cars not luxury trains, but I think the wicker seats and ceiling fans just inspired a completely different image in my mind. Either way, I enjoyed wandering between cars during the ride from Lower East Side/2nd Avenue to Queens Plaza and listening to fellow passengers who rode these trains in their youth reminisce; the trains ran through the early 70s. Too bad there's little chance I'd wait an hour outside for a chance to ride the Nostalgia Bus.

Other riders captured festive and vivid subway car interiors; follow the link above.

An American Tail

Yesterday evening I came home and was compelled to wash my hands in the kitchen. So, I reached for the hot water knob and at that moment, a tiny, terrified mouse propelled himself into the air from somewhere inside the sink. This was a small mouse so he couldn't jump quite as high as the sink is deep; it seemed the little guy was trapped in there with a few glasses, some utensils and a baking dish filled with scummy-looking olive oil and lemon water.

At this point Nick entered the room. He'd come from the bathroom where he had just given his two favorite fish their last rites - they were two of the fish who traveled with us from Chicago in a water pitcher. Sad, I know. Anyway, I pointed out the mouse and Nick, fish net in hand, asked, "What should we do?" So, I said, "Catch him in your fish net!" Now, this is where the hilarity began, although I doubt the little mouse would agree.

Picture Nick trying to scoop up a tiny mouse, while the mouse is running circles around the sink, dodging the net, hiding under the lip of the glass baking dish, hopping up and down, squeaking... This went on for a few minutes and at some point, Nick accidentally doused the poor thing with the scummy olive oil and lemon water. What a mess!

Then Nick grabbed a plastic bag, hoping to pick-up the mouse dog-poo-style. After a few attempts, it worked, only then the greasy, little mouse squirmed out of Nick's hand on to the floor and under the refrigerator!

Needless to say, I'm now a girl with a mission. The little mouse was cute and to be honest, I wouldn't mind all that much if he stopped by from time to time, but I know it doesn't work that way. I pulled out my steel wool and started plugging the gaps around my pipes under the sink and behind the stove. I Googled and learned that mice hate peppermint, cloves, cayenne and oddly, Bounce drier sheets. I have cloves; I have cayenne. And that's about when I thought it'd be a good idea to dust the floor around the stove and refrigerator with cayenne. In theory, it was a great idea, only now, the following afternoon, my sinuses are still draining!

In other news, I'll post soon about what I've been up to and will put up a photo or two.

Tootles.

thanks

Frida Kahlo's Casa Azul

I guess we can start the official holiday countdown. Although we haven't had snow in the city, it is ungodly cold and I've started hearing Christmas music while out and about. I'm looking forward to a short work week and the days leading up to Thanksgiving should be quiet - ah, quiet and double-ah, short work week.

While eating a hearty helping of seitan asada at Papacitos in Green Point earlier, I was thinking about the past four holidays spent in Chicago and a pleasantly unaware Thanksgiving spent in Mexico City last year. It's weird being back on the east coast. I look forward to hopping a bus home, a heaping helping of sides and some promised Tofurkey. Happy Thanksgiving, all.