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

I stepped outside this morning for a short walk and had the strangest sensation... couldn't put my finger on it... and then about halfway down the block I realized, for the first time in months I'm outside in a t-shirt without a coat on. Trees were budding. Birds singing. All the cliches. After years in LA, a city without weather, I was experiencing spring and it felt almost too good to be true.

need I say more...

Do you like photography and dogs? The first issue of Snaps magazine is for you: http://www.snapsmagazine.com/

I noticed a couple of weeks ago that flickr was rotating in my favorites on their homepage (favorites are images from other photographers that I have marked). My guess was that they rotated in people's favs at random, but someone emailed me today (asking if I had done anything to be featured. [answer = no]) and I was surprised to see my favs still up. Apparently there are about 6 versions of the homepage which they rotate each time you click. My picks are on one of the 6. The current set of pages has been up about a month. Pretty cool. So check out some of my favorite photographers. You won't be sad.

For some reason all this talk of the conclave electing a new pope has reminded me of a book I read in high school. Set in the time of Frederick Barbarosa the Holy Roman Emperor when there were rival popes, it follows a group of Robber Knights (unlanded German knights, who preyed on merchant travelers) on an adventure north where they encounter a group of Asian barbarians. The thing about the book that struck me is that these Robber Knights all thought of themselves as ruthless characters (they would often leave merchants nude and penniless by the side of the road), but the barbarians were infinitely more cruel. They would castrate their enemies and leave them nailed to a tree by their tongues. There is this great shift in the book as the hunters become the hunted. Anyway I don't remember the title, so it's neither here nor there.

As an aside, I always found it amusing that Frederick Barbarosa managed to unite the German tribes, captured Rome, and brokered the peace of Constance but drown in a river after he fell off his horse while wearing full armor.

Just when you thought google maps was almost perfect, they went and added something else totally cool: Satellite photography. And of course google being google, you can drag the sat images just like you can the maps. Unlike Microsoft owned Terraserver which is arcane/buggy/ugly, this just works.

Super super cool. And it was all done using good old DHTML and not some proprietary MS garbage. Blogger Joel Webber did an excellent job figuring out how they did it.

This is image of our old house in LA (the dot is actually on the corner, the house and pool are behind it). The detail is fantastic. Nice to see the old pool again and the shadow of the palm tree across the road. Gosh what I would give to have one of Jenn's organic meals made from vegetables from our garden.... Or a plum from our wonderful old tree... but I digress.

Michael Chertoff scares me.

Also why does a military jet keep flying in circles over Brooklyn.

Le Grand Voyage- A spectacular film the kind you wish they made in Hollywood and never do. Deeply funny and moving (so moving an audience member died. No really, he was quite dead).

Junebug-Southern, sexy & mildly funny.

The Devil and Daniel Johnston- top notch documentary, also really moving (I got choked up), but I'm biased, I love Daniel Johnston and the director is a cool guy.

South of the Clouds- WTF? Maybe I'm too dumb to understand but this film seemed like a meaningless mish-mosh. Couldn't wait for it to finish.

Starlit High Noon- This film obviously influenced by Wong Kar Wai is slow and beautiful . 3 people in love with the wrong person.

. . .