multivalent cardboard

Under the Hoop Tree

It was too perfect really, to make a pilgrimage this morning in honor of Earthday to the tree into which someone had flung a hula hoop, and find a pile of old discarded books stacked on a chair under it, a pile that included the one above. Soaked and warped, that photo melted my heart, those vulnerable, wide eyes, despair, confusion, fear, wonder, surprise, love, longing. Somewhere, over the rainbow, skies are blue, even in April when umbrellas lie broken on the ground, even when the world seems to fall to pieces, even as we stand helpless in the face of the wrenching trials and tragedies we watch others go through or we go through ourselves.

One of my Buddhist friends associates pain with purification. I've learned enough to know that something can be horrible and sacred at the same time, like the truth. In Self-Reliance, Emerson wrote that even though something may look crooked from our close perspective, from far enough away, the line appears straight. Perhaps as impossibly straight as a mast pine. And perhaps from very far away, a broken hoop isn't broken.

Prospect Hand

Walking down the hill to the subway I picked up the hand I was dealt, or would have been dealt to anyone with the curiosity to pick up these cards dropped at various points on the long block between Vanderbilt and the subway station. I can tell you without a doubt someone in this neighborhood is not playing with a full deck, and I have the discards to prove it. The first I picked up was the 7 of Spades, which I found under the scaffolding for the condos they're building where the Elk's Club used to stand. The panels there are so tight you can't even peak through to see if they found dead bodies. Next came the 7 of Hearts, that's a little sweeter, and then I bowed down to pick up the Queen of Hearts. There was a run of 5 more, and as an exercise in lucidity I tried to remember the order in which I picked them up, but all I remember now is that the run ended with the Ace of Diamonds. I wonder, did it hurt when the stone was ground to its iconic geometry?

Mugging on Prospect Avenue

When I was out today around noon people were everywhere, out shoveling their walks, and I felt safer than I had a few moments before when a friend told me there'd been a mugging around the corner from her house on Seeley Street. Yesterday at 3pm a woman was mugged on Prospect Avenue by Seeley St., which is near the tunnel usually strewn with debris that is hard to identify. Anyway, a woman had witnessed the mugging from her kitchen window and the mugger was chased off but escaped by automobile.

I was all set to let my 11-year old walk to her friend's house 4 blocks away when I heard about the frightening incident. It was one of those grievous moments when one has to choose between fear and freedom. Advice appreciated. I suppose the first thing to remind myself is that vulnerability is unavoidable.

Happy Hanukkah/Marish

I snagged this from the living room floor in my search for Hanukkah material. I am so pissed off that after all this time I have to think really hard when I try to spell that word, I have to choose to go with the H or CH version, and try not to intermix them. My son didn't even try to spell Hanukkah, a wise boy. He portrayed evil holidays (the black snowman on the monster's arm) with good holidays (the snowman on the ground.) What Marish is I can't say.

What a day, train troubles (no Manhattan bound F train at 15th St. around 9:30 this morning), then more train troubles (the one we finally got went out of service at Jay.) Finally at work, I rode the elevator with one who said she had no heat or electricity last night, seems there was some kind of brown out on Bedford in Williamsburg last night, but the burger didn't look too frozen. I think there was one socket working so she plugged in a space heater. What a way to start the festival of lights!

My arm feels broken today, I slept wrong on it, the lens I used at work today is broken, my other camera isn't working right, the car was dead when I went to pick up the kiddos from school, and I dropped things all day long. It was one of those "no" days. I wonder when the next "yes" day will be.

This ruddy holy family on Prospect Avenue interests me. Strange how much Joseph looks like Vershinin as played in The Three Sisters production I saw on Friday. So maybe Jesus will look like a little Vershinin. I always wonder what the Rabbi of Nazareth really looked like. With a mother and father both rusty and blue eyed there's a 100% chance the baby will be a redhead. Just like great great ancestor King David.

Soon enough he'll be swaddled tightly and laid out for all to see on the manger filled with pine boughs. I'll miss it because I'll be in Rhode Island. I suppose they have mangers there too. I understand manger means "to eat," but no one uses that word except at Christmas.

twist

On the subway this morning I was daydreaming about the imagery of Maria Sabina, the Mexican curandera who became famous for introducing westerners to the mysteries of magic mushrooms, which she called her little angels. This morning it felt right to sit on the subway and revere the whirlwind of colors that is part of her poetic lexicon. Maybe because there's an abundance of beauty in the twists of mid summer, the swirl in the rose of sharon, the coil in the moon flower bud.

Also in the iron bars of the more distinguished fences, twisted, sometimes doubly.


















I didn't expect to see anything as twisted as this, though.


















I can't imagine what happened. Did the shining knight lose his duel with the safety pin? Perhaps dancing with lady pin, things started to go badly. If you are a close reader of this blog, you might suspect that I faked this. I didn't, and I want answers.

At work today, my young brilliant coworker was talking about 2 Darwin Award winners, a pair who fell from a rooftop while having a very very good time together. Perhaps that's how it was for the beetle and his silvery friend.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend

Some of the stars of this moment: lost soldiers, the Brooklyn Bridge and the fireworks over it (nice pictures, GL, OKBTB!) community leaders trying to alleviate hostilities in Crown Heights (luv you) and irises. Irises, irises, irises, like these beauties thriving in the most fabulously full tree pit on Prospect Avenue.

New Arrivals

Some say "as above, so below." I'm not sure what they really mean, but it certainly is true in the case of these star-shaped flowers that opened this week. What are they, I wonder?

Lower Prospect Avenue

Prospect Avenue between Reeve St. and Greenwood Ave. almost feels like a pedestrian zone. Car traffic is somewhat light on the wide road, the buildings are low so the area fills with light, and for some reason the houses seem like sets. It is the perfect location for street fairs.

It probably wasn't such a strange oasis before the Prospect Expressway was built, I'm sure there was more commerce there then. As Icky wrote, the Elk's Lodge was then the Venus theatre, and as Jane, the owner of Juice Box tells me, the strip housed many bars. The Cafe Crossroads is a welcome addition to the strip even though there's some irony in its name, considering more roads used to cross there before the Expressway made a dead end of Vanderbilt Street and Greenwood Avenue, among others. The funny thing about the Expressway is that it is fairly short, I suppose it's essentially a continuation of Ocean Parkway. Drag racers race it in the middle of the night.

Instead of bars we now have an abundance of daycares, Little Stars, Sunflowers and in September a new branch of Chai Tots will be opening in what was recently a pediatricians office. There are no bar/daycare hybrids there, although, as I've mentioned before, there is a new wine and spirits store, Juice Box, which contains a playhouse.

I'd like to know what will become of the Elk's Lodge, which is now surrounded by fairly impenetrable scaffolding painted slick blue. I'd like to know but I can't see into the future, or the scaffold, or the storefront that was Park Realty on account of the sagging mylar lining the door. I don't know about you, but sagging mylar does a lot for me. Tight mylar is really not my thing at all.

An office of Zone Books adjoins the lodge, I'm sure they'll have stories to tell about whatever is taking place behind that blue chrysalis.

asphalters

Asphalt is a strange weird. I just looked it up on Wikipedia, always a good idea...

It comes from a Greek word asphaltos which means to secure or make firm. I came across this image from Stieglitz in a book I found on 17th St. yesterday, Reading American Photographs, by Alan Trachtenberg, published in 1989. I should read the book but instead I simply look at the pictures.


















Today while scuttling down Prospect Avenue in our stupid amazing minivan we saw smoke in the distance which at first looked like a car on fire, but when we got close we saw it was asphalters at work in front of the nearly finished building called Le Parc Maison on the corner of Prospect and 11th Avenue. For synchronicity's sake we took our own asphalt pictures, my son and I. Well I took some and then he asked to, and his came out better than mine so that's the one you see above. I don't like to let him take pictures very often because it's already apparent that he will be a better photographer than I. Sadly, by the time we got there to take the shots, the obnoxious fumes had disapated and consequently our photo lacks drama.

A little later we passed by a truck of sod. Sod is compelling. It was a nice follow up to the asphalt, another compelling substance. The coolness and freshness of the grass and soil a nice refuge from the noxiousness and heat of the asphalt (called bitumen in other countries.) I read (guess where!) that it was used in the mummification process in Ancient Egypt.

The Juice Box Sign

One of the things I loved about Mexico was seeing signs hand-painted right on the buildings, on the cement spread over the cinder block. It was nice to get back and see what Juice Box had done for their sign. At first I thought it strange that Juice Box is a little hard to read, it's right on top of some of the juice drops. But now it seems nice to catch a break from all the overstated things in the world. And I want to like it because they didn't take the safe route and get a forest green or burgundy awning sign like many places would have. And they didn't go with one of the ultra slim and minimal fonts that seem to always turn up but trotted out these hefty letters sporting their chunky mojo.

The line of drops are what dominate the sign however, and you could almost imagine the sign with only the drops, I think it would still get the point across. They are painted with a contrast of blobbiness and delicacy I find compelling, and in my addled mind they plink like piano keys as my eyes run across them.

Thanks to Juice Box I've had the strange experience of actually enjoying a new sign. It is such an odd feeling because I'm so used to being disappointed. But Spitzer has more than made up for my little break.

Molded Ornaments on Prospect Avenue

Living in Brooklyn is like living in a museum. Details like this are common and yet rare and precious, you won't find them available at Home Depo. It's amazing how differently things were made in the past. I get the sense that builders' pride rested in the artisans' graceful hands. These pressed metal ornaments are lovely by today's standards but back in the day perhaps people saw them as inferior to the kind of carved stone ornamentation you see on brownstones North of this apartment building, which is on the corner of Prospect Avenue and 7th.

Pragmatism trumped Grace long ago. It confounds me. How is it that back when life was so much harder for people, the things they created had so much more appeal? I guess these days we are artists of convenience.

If anyone can give me a vocabulary lesson regarding these motifs or techniques please shout. I know I don't know the correct names for these materials.

Going..Going...

This old house on Prospect Avenue by 7th demands my attention whenever I pass it. Maybe it's the high chain link fence surrounding it, maybe it's the way it looks like a remnant of a ghost town. It's easy to imagine a gun toting cowboy with bowed legs strutting across that porch to his mount, ladies in big skirts and red lips waving goodbye.

There are very few houses like this around here. There's one near Prospect and PPW, which looks very different, the basic shape is the same but it's been covered with white siding and all the original details have been erased. This one still has it's original style even if much of it is partially decayed.

I wonder why the fence, has it been abandoned and dangerous for that long? What was going on in there? It's very unusual for a residence to be surrounded by chain link. We have many other more gracious kinds of fencing here in Brooklyn. The fence may have been put up by that demo company, Demo Deluxe, that used it to hang their sign. I wonder what makes their services deluxe, I can see it's not the style of fence their sign is mounted to. Maybe it comes with fries.

If you can see beyond the fence, it looks like this place has potential. But you never know how deep the rot has worked its way in.

John Rogers Fire Extinguishers

This fire extinguisher would not be the first one I'd turn to in case of emergency. This has been sitting in the window of the defunct fire extinguisher store, John Rogers Fire Extinguishers, on Prospect Ave. near 10th Ave., for as long as I've lived here, so that's at least 6 years. Not only does it look a little past ripe but that lampshade it's wearing suggests perhaps it had one too many across the street at Rhythm and Booze.

What goes on in that storefront now I have no idea. Perhaps someone lives there. I've never seen anyone coming and going and the spacious window area is bare except for the astro turf, the fire extinguisher and a washboard leaning all the way against the wall to the left. The store looks like it was large, and I wish I could have visited when it was in business to see the various shapes and sizes and designs of the extinguishers, which are not only useful but handsome items. The one on the awning always catches my eye.

So there it is, a rare sign of whimsy here in Windsor Terrace. There aren't many landmarks to whackiness to be found in these parts.