Leaf Collection at the E. 4th Street Community Garden

Some call leaves "tree litter." You can too if you like! I suppose they could also be called soil if your clock is a fast one and you're thinking a few years ahead. If you are of that disposition then you might like to know that the E. 4th St. is encouraging you to bring your rakings over to their NYC leaf initiative heap. Information below. The E. 4th St. garden is East of Ft. Hamilton Parkway in Kensington.

East 4th street community garden is a designated drop off point for leaf recycling as part the the NYC leaves initiative. We invite you to bring us your bagged leaves during the dates and times posted below. Please use clear plastic or brown paper bags. No branches, twigs or trash.

Sunday 11/14: 12pm-2pm

Saturday 11/20: 11am-1pm
Sunday 11/21: 12pm-2pm

Saturday 11/27: 11am-1pm
Sunday 11/28: 12pm-2pm

mudra

Unrelated observation: I like very much what Jodi Dean wrote on her blog the other day, "Fullness suggests totalitarian capture. Split involves alienation. More alienation could be a good thing." A parallax ax is as dangerous as it sounds! Long live studied ambiguity and the vertigo of inconclusiveness in which we flail when reflective thought accepts complexity.

Sunday Sun

Going out to rake the leaves this morning I noticed the shrouded sun in the South East. Another grey day, and now, talk of light snow. In the leaves, that were mostly London Plane and Linden, I found an Almond Joy wrapper, pieces of shredded styrofoam from a Dunkin Donuts cup, celophane wrappers, brown paper bags, menus and some different sort of grungy wipes. No dope bags or condoms or cigarette butts in sight. I believe the leaves will be composted or made into mulch by the city, well, that's what I hope anyway.

The city didn't give us those free brown bags this year like they did last year so I used a clear plastic bag to gather the leaves. I love those brown bags, I guess I can buy my own somewhere. The ones we got last year we didn't wind up using for leaves for some reason. One became my son's best plaything for an afternoon, he kept standing it up and fighting it, he did this for about 2 hours. Finally he started crying, broken hearted because the bag wouldn't stand up on its own anymore.

Loud Leaves

On my list for the day: enjoy the sounds of the leaves while they are nice and dry and most acoustic. London Plane leaves seem to be more fibrous than others and curl into claws that drag their fingernails over the cement as they blow. They also make beautiful tent forms which I see in abundance because London Planes make popular street trees. I used to think they were Sycamores, which is a lovely word, but the name London Plane isn't bad either, kind of euro, sort of classy. These trees were first noticed in Spain, thought to be a hybrid of the Oriental and American Plane trees. Now it's leaf is the emblem of the NYC parks department. I always thought that leaf was a maple.

The rain in spain....

Maple on 18th: Morning Light Effect

This morning all the trees were rich in color, backlit by the sunlight we've been waiting for, and I felt like I was looking through stained glass. Almost crashed the car. Kept seeing the leaf flames as the tree's final prayer of gratitude for another year of life.

Mid-November Color

Novembuh Coluh

Expeditious Exfoliators

These trees on 11th Avenue between Windsor and Sherman lost the last of their leaves in the last week, while so many of the other trees were finally coming into full color. Shot on a gloomy Saturday morning they look so forboding, but it really is a nice block. Here's what the leaves looked like. The happy sweep of the little branch would translate into a perfect little graphic I think I've seen many times but would be happy to see again. What kind of trees are they, I wonder.