I’ve been reading Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins: The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund It’s a biography and art collection by Caitlin McGurk celebrating the pioneering cartoonist Barbara Shermund who drew for The New Yorker and Esquire. More on that anon. Here’s a seasonal cartoon from Barbara Shermund from 1958 I won’t be eating turkey…
Category: City and Country
September Round-Up
We’ve been lucky with the weather in NYC this September. Many bright, warm days The aftermath of the powerful hurricane that has devastated areas of the South East is now giving us a little rain. Not so lucky there where hurricane Helene was deadly across five states after making landfall on Thursday. Some of the worst flooding the South has…
City Summer Strolling
OK – so this image is misleading. My photo app tells me this is from last year when – on this date – our stroll took us to the beach at Towd Point in Southampton. But all the rest are either the immediate neighborhood or Wave Hill in the Bronx. The community garden at W.91st Street in Riverside Park…
The Hard Way
I received a book in the mail this week. Nothing unusual about that even though I do try to buy my books from my local shop. What is unusual is that this book lists my name in the back. I am among the scores of people who help crowd-source the costs. The book’s subject appealed to me and I was…
Columbia, Cats, Cass, and a Spring Stickybeak
Before decamping to Brooklyn for the month I saw this on a utility box on Riverside Drive. Someone had gone to considerable trouble to share thoughts about Columbia University. But the daffs were out and there were others busy stamping their ideas on the sidewalk by the park. These were presumably inspired by Jonathan Haidt’s new book – The Anxious…
Art and the Garden
If you are in New York City and looking for a outing here’s a suggestion: Wave Hill Garden in the Bronx. We were there on a bright morning this week and it was glorious. It really is one of the world’s great outdoor works of art with 28 acres of gardens, and woodlands. And with the view out over the…
The View From Here: Signs of the Times and Chickens
I’ve been thinking about how we need to stop using the word “gender” to refer to people and why we should not use it for anything other than linguistics. Meanwhile, as I contemplate world improvement, Scotland has just passed an ill-conceived law that will have the effect of tossing women and children under the bus. All this in order to…
Making Change
On a daily neighborhood soodle a while back I saw this single golden sandal on a stoop on W112th Street. I wondered about the backstory. Was it lost or abandoned and was it missed? And I took a photograph. Sue did the same. Sometime later that child’s shoe was transformed. You can check out Sue’s additional transformations at Prufrock’sDilemma and …
New York City and Free Speech Not Welcome
Yesterday I took my stickybeaking self downtown to City Hall Park where Standing for Women was holding an event. You can read more about it elsewhere, but the basic idea of these events is a public setup with loudspeakers and the opportunity for any woman who wants to say something about issues affecting women to take the mike. Because many…
Summers and Adventure
It’s all a long time ago now but I spent the summer of 1969 playing. With a shiny new degree in Eng.Lit and headed to London University in September to qualify as a teacher. I saw this notice in the college student handout. I went up to London for the weekend, met Rhaune Laslett, spent time on the playground and…
Summer in the City: Parks, Pocket Parks and Patches
Summer in the City Hot town, summer in the city Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty Been down, isn’t it a pity? Doesn’t seem to be a shadow in the city All around, people looking half dead Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head …
A Cabinet of Curiosities
Raw, cold, and damp but it’s still good to get out. Thanks to the ongoing lurgy there are no social gatherings, visits, or events to distract us from what is on the doorstep. Like stickybeaking tourists clogging up the sidewalks of a foreign city, we’ve been out and about spotting the everyday marvels and quotidian wonders of the neighborhood. Here’s…
The Sun Like a Force-Ripe Orange
The sun shining … just there in the sky like a force-ripe orange That striking image is from Samuel Selvon’s novel The Lonely Londoners. Henry Oliver, who earns the nickname Sir Galahad for his bravado, has just arrived from Trinidad. Here he is on that first morning in the big city – in Westbourne Grove – suddenly realizing he is…
Simple Pleasures and Stickybeaking
Stickybeak NOUN: an intrusive, meddlesome, busybody, nosy parker who sticks their nose (beak) into other people’s business. The act of stickybeaking. VERB: to snoop or pry into other’s people’s business. This was a delightful new word for me this week although it’s clearly common currency in Australia and New Zealand. I came across it first in one of a series…
Attention at Poughkeepsie
“Attention at Poughkeepsie” is how announcements begin over the sound system at Poughkeepsie station. Trains and stations have nothing at all to do with this post although Poughkeepsie has an extremely nice station – built into a rockface and designed by the same people who gave us New York’s Grand Central. No, this post has to do with the signs…