Creepy Halloween

The only thing
creepier
than a doll

is a clown doll.

Inimitable City

Just north of Seventh Avenue South and Carmine St. in the Inner Borough, the Woolworth Building can been seen lined up in the middle of the avenue. The other day, in the rain, the fog clouds were low, hiding the larger buildings behind the neo-Gothic tower, making it stand alone amid the soft white gray. Beautiful.

*
On the C train. PA chatter between the conductor and the driver at Canal Street:

“Let’s go, man.”
“Waiting on the express."
“We’re already late."
“It’s all about customer service."
(pause) "You’re a better man than I am.”

A little later, at 42nd, the conductor noted the usual connections and concluded, “Eight years is enough. Message!”

*
Sign in doorway of Union St. rowhouse: “Please do NOT take our pumpkins! Thanks.”

*
Couple of intimates of the criminal justice system at the 4th Ave R station, talking about someone else. “He got two class B felonies and an A misdemeanor.” But it sounds to me like he failed.

*
There was a guineafowl scratching around in a community garden on the corner of Wycoff and Bond on Wednesday evening. Nearby, a cat sat inside an overturned plastic bin. They seemed to be observing a detente.

Brooklyn Mammals

What species of mammals live in Brooklyn? I mean the non-domesticated variety. Norway and brown rats and the common house mouse, of course, but they’re all practically domesticated. We also have several species of bats. There are also field mice, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, and chipmunks. And yes, we have opossum. And, news to me, woodchucks! The City Birder goes undercover at a Green-Wood den.

What else have you heard about or seen?

(Confidential to OHS)

Bowdlerized!

At Saturday’s Cobble Hill Book Swamp, I traded in a paperback copy of Svevo’s Confessions of Zeno, which I’d found on the street and never read, for a hardback of Moby Dick. I already have a couple of editions of Melville's masterwork, but you can never have enough. This one was published by the Literary Guild in 1949 and illustrated by Anton Otto Fischer. Later in the day, it being a damp and drizzly October of the soul, I read aloud the first chapter to an appreciative audience of one. When I was done, I thought, well that’s not right; where's the part about the men pulled to the shores of Manhattan to gaze off longingly to the sea? I know that first chapter and this one was missing something. Luckily, OHS had a Penguin Classics paperback copy of it handy (after all, I am dating her). Sure enough, three full paragraphs were missing. Those bastards! Turns out the Literary Guild of America, Inc., was one of those national book clubs that have their own editions, making works palatable for the cud-chewers. There is no indication in the book that it's abridged, however. Anyway, now I'll have no qualms about trashing the book for the illustrations.


"[...] in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim)[...]"

More

I have been visiting Arainn Mhor, the largest of the three Aran Islands off the west of Ireland, in Galway Bay, courtesy of Tim Robinson, again. Known as Inishmore on National Geographic maps, and not to be confused with the Aran Island off the northwest coast of Ireland, nor the Scottish Arran Island, nor even the romanticized and fictionalized place in Robert Flaherty’s famous documentary Man of Aran, the Big Island (“more” is an Anglicization of mor/mhor, which is “big” in Irish, and inish is island) of the Arans is a rough limestone outcropping of some 12 square miles. Robinson, cartographer, painter, and mathematician, walked around the island and then across it, producing over one thousand pages in two volumes under the slightly confusing rubric Stones of Aran; the volumes are subtitled Pilgrimage and Labyrinth. It is an amazing work of geography, in the ancient sense of writing about the earth, albeit a postage-stamp bit of it in this case, and the people upon it

Tangentially, somewhat: the famous Aran sweaters. I’ll admit I’d never even heard of them, but they’re an item of note in the serious sweater world. The story has it that mothers have taught their daughters for generations the family stitches, but Robinson says that they are largely a 20th century invention, (and very few are made there today by hand). The reason this strikes my fancy as a ploughman’s lunch (the supposedly traditional English pub fare that turns out to have been the 1960s invention of PR flacks) is that I have a lot of connections to another island, Nantucket, where the lightship basket is a thing of serious fashion, too, much weighed with traditional trappings. And it really only became so after the 1920s, when a visiting Filipino wondered why the woven baskets made by the bored-out-of-their-gourds (you'll recall that masturbation was still illegal in those days) lightship crews didn’t have lids. Voila, a handbag for rich dames who winter in Florida!

The Aran islanders called sweaters geansai, or gansy; in other words, derived from Guernsey, the British Crown Dependency in the English Channel that is even more famous for its sweaters. Now, I’ve always thought the Channel Islands were part of the UK, but technically they are independent bailiwicks, last remnants of the Duchy of Normandy, to which Queen Elizabeth II is head; technically, she’s the Duke of Normandy, not to mention Lord of Mann and, antipodally, the Paramount Chief of Fiji, which somehow all doesn’t quite add up her great great grandmum’s title of “Empress of India.” I bring this up because my great great great grandmother Lucy Tracy Le Breton’s father John Le Breton was a Guernseyman. He was born there about 1782. How or why he was on St. Helena when Lucy was born there in 1815 (the year Napoleon was exiled there) are unknown to me, but chances are good he was with the British East India Company.

Consider that “John the Breton.” From Brittany, which was settled by Britons during the Late Roman/Early Middle Ages. Breton is a Brythonic, or British Celtic, language closely related to Welsh and more closely to Cornish. Cornwall is directly north of Brittany, about hundred miles as the whale swims. Cornwall is right next to Devon, ancestral homeland of the most well recorded shoots of my family tree. Devon and Cornwall were the major source of tin for the Western European Bronze (made of copper and tin) Age. Man, the joint was jumpin’ four thousand years ago.

Like a magpie, I just pile up the bits and pieces, making nests of history.

Raptors, sun dogs

Half a dozen crows were grazing in the fenced-in section of the baseball fields in Prospect Park this afternoon. (The City Birder has some good maps of the scene.) I saw an accipiter fly over, then swoop down to roil the crows. The accipiter, a Coopers hawk or Sharp-shinned hawk, I wasn’t sure which, went off to some trees by the wildflower meadow, and the crows followed. I was scanning the trees, watching the crows move about, the accipiter spinning around them, when I put down my binoculars for a minute. A merlin zoomed by at eye-level. The fenced area, free of dogs and idiots, has been a bonanza of grass-loving species, and so consequently, the bird-eating raptors have been having a good old time there, too. A little later, the merlin and the accipiter had a lengthy dogfight over the baseball fields around 3:40, the slightly smaller merlin being the aggressor. It was spectacular sight, not least because there were pieces of rainbow and sun dogs in the sky. At one point, the two raptors were passed by a commercial jet (much higher above them).

Sharecropper Doc

Skye MacLeod, of Columbia's Teachers College EdLab, has made a documentary about the Sharecropper project I took part in this year:

Part I
Part II
Part III

I play a role in Part II, but since I follow the adorable child calling out, "Peppers, where are you?" I am completely up-staged.

Down the Hudson

Bear Mountain Bridge and Anthony's Nose.

Sugarloaf.
The AT crosses the Bear Mt. Bridge.
Almost as soon as you are past the Tappen Zee Bridge you can see Oz in the distance. This photo is taken rather closer, of course, so that both ends of the GWB can be seen.

Up the Hudson

The Commodore and I went up the river today. It was the penultimate voyage for the season (the boat's being bought ashore on Wednesday) and it turned out to be glorious, utterly glorious, much to the chagrin, no doubt, of the three who decided not to join us. The weather was mild. The trees were turning. The Palisades were magnificent. I soaked my feet for the second day in a row.



Here in the Tappen Zee, the sail boats ruled. My feet were soused on Saturday in the rainstorm, and today, in the Zee, when I had to answer the call of nature, off the stern, on the swim deck -- which is a strange experience, the Metro North plowing south over there, the sailboats over here, the great bowl of sky above -- and the water was a little choppier than it should have been.

Museum of Blue

Spread out
All together now

350PPM

“To delimit a coastline is to delimit the land and simultaneously to indicate the illimitable ocean beating upon it; to show the limits of what can be said is to acknowledge the immensity of what Wittgenstein calls das Mystische, the transcendental and ineffable.”

--Tim Robinson, Connemara: The Last Pool of Darkness

Today is the 350 Action Day. These actions do not include Nike’s grotesquely entitled “Human Race,” which will be clogging up the park drive with narcissists.

Tonight's menu

Dinner for seven tonight. A couple of vegetarians in the mix.

Tomatillo salsa and chips
*
Carrot ginger soup
*
Ground nut stew with rice
*
Cornmeal pound cake, sour cherries, and Swedish cream

The order of battle: I didn’t make the chips. I put the sour cherries in the freezer earlier in the summer, the salsa a couple of weeks ago. The soup I made yesterday. The pound cake, stew, and rice I made today. I'll make the Swedish cream just before serving.

Burnt Earth

Surely one of the glories of the city's architecture is the terra cotta. From the subways to the high tops of buildings, with interiors in between, this form of ornament is a frosting upon stone. "Look-at-me" glass doesn't come close to the beauty, the outright gorgeousness of some of it. Of course, some it was humble and run of the mill, too...

This tile, which measures 2x4 inches, was found in the outwash of Dead Horse Bay. Haphazard innernet research reveals that the Federal Seaboard Terra Cotta Corp. was based in Perth Amboy, NJ, and had a manufacturing plant in Woodbridge, NJ. The original of the company goes back a century, when the Federal Terra Cotta Company was founded in Woodbridge in 1909. This merged with other ceramic manufactuers in 1928 to take on the Federal Seaboard name. FSTC closed down in 1968. Their work graces the Romanesque US Post Office and Courthouse (I always call it the General PO) here in Brooklyn, as well as many others in the metropolis (sadly, some have been destroyed by our modern Visigoths). All things terra cotta can be looked into here at the Friends of Terra Cotta's database.

The glaze on this is uninspiring, but I do wonder what it was for. Did they impress every single tile with their name? Or was this a model tile? The numbers stamped on it suggest to me that it may have been a sample.

There and back again

There was a smell of something baking with lots of vanilla in it on the east bank of the Gowanus this afternoon, right through the valley of death that is the Casket Block. It was the smell of breakfast and a new day. My salivary glands expressed themselves in optimism, admiration.

I returned on the G train and when I sat down and put my parcels before me I noticed a ladybug on my thumb. It immediately flew off, in that bumbly beetle way, to the ceiling of the train car. But then, as I was reading this fine article, I lost its coleopteric pilgrim’s progress. Had it flown out at Smith & 9th Street? Was it hunkering down to go towards Williamsburg or beyond into Queens? Where ever you are, little fare-jumper, go in peace.

Cobalt Blue

Latest addition to the collection of blues is this Brioschi bottle. The glass was made by the same manufacturers as the Bromo blues, the Maryland Glass Corporation. Like bromo-seltzer, Brioschi is an antacid, for upset tummies. (While my guts have been in an uproar on occasion, I've never taken an antacid in my life.) Brioschi is an Italian company started in 1907 to make chemicals, spirits, and "related products." Their American branch is in New Jersey, land of a thousand chemicals, and they still make the stuff, only now it comes in plastic bottles of an uninspired blue. Sic transit...

Fort Tilden Continued

Just for a second I wondered if this was hominid...

Fort Tilden was hoping with bird life yesterday. Off shore, I saw two surf scoters, first for the year; Peterson notes that these used to be called “skunkheads” by hunters, because of the male’s white stripe on the back of head, a handy ID in the low glare of sun. Our three species of gull and a small group of sanderlings policed the beach. Away from the sand, Eastern phoebes and palm warblers, both of whom wag their tails a lot, were all about, as were yellow-rumped warblers and tree swallows. Two house wrens whisper-chittered at me. A merlin made several passes overhead, and I finally got a good view of it when it perched. The sparrow complex was driving me crazy; I need some help with these guys, a dozen or so species in the 'hood these days. I walked across the Gil Hodges Bridge, which I had earlier seen raised for the first time. Five of the six bicyclists who passed me on the bridge walkway were riding, even though the sign says dismount and walk. Dead Horse Bay had a bunch of brant, a quartet of black-bellied plovers, eighteen American oystercatchers, and a northern harrier goosing everybody. Altogether I made 26 species for the day, the scoters making it 176 species for the year. Note to self: need sparrow tutorial.

On Dead Horse Bay, I met this guy and his assistant, who were setting up a photo shoot; he stitches multiple images together digitally to make enormous landscapes. Cool work, but obviously needs to be seen on the wall, not on the computer screen. Watch the "Beach" video for a look at the tide coming and going along the bay. "Sittin' on the side of the bay, watching the tide roll away." Twelve and a half hours well spent, if you ask me.

Fort Tilden

New exhibits

In the Museum of Coastal Erosion, Dead Horse Bay.

Birding Prospect

An excellent day to bird Prospect Park, where wintering species are showing up while migrants are still passing through. The black-throated blue warbler above got unusually close to me. I saw my first bluebird ever within the city boundaries. A young lark sparrow was also to be seen; I understand that this is the first one to shown up in Prospect in about a decade. Both lark sparrow and bluebird were in the recently fenced-in area at the north end of the Ballfields; the fences, for re-seeding the grass, are doing wonders for the birds: Eastern phoebes, yellow-rumped and palm warblers, several other sparrow species, and even meadowlark (unseen by me) are putting the space to good use. Here's my complete list from the Long Meadow and the Midwood:

Mallard, Wood duck, Merlin, Red-tailed hawk, Mourning dove, Eastern phoebe, Northern flicker, Blue-headed vireo, American crow, Black-capped chickadee, White-breasted nuthatch, Brown creeper, Carolina wren, Ruby-crowned kinglet, Golden-crowned kinglet, Eastern bluebird, Hermit thrush, Blue jay, American robin, Cray catbird, European starling, Black-throated blue warbler, Yellow-rumped warbler, Palm warbler, Chipping sparrow, Common yellowthroat, White-throated sparrow, Lark sparrow, Song sparrow, Swamp sparrow, Dark-eyed junco, Northern cardinal, Brown-headed cowbird.

Prospect Park Today

What a day!

These enormous mushrooms are over a foot long. I think they're chicken mushrooms, which are supposed to be delicious. These are both safe behind a fence and high up a tree.
You can't really see them here, but there are over a dozen wood ducks hanging out in the Pools.

Hamlet

People still line up for Phantom of Opera? 44th Street was chock-a-block with people waiting to get into that, Finian’s Rainbow, and a couple of other matinee shows, including Hamlet on Saturday. I guess that last one really isn’t a “show,” more of a play, and hence sure not to play for years on Broadway. In fact, it’s only there until December, and only there at all because of its marquee performer, Jude Law. Anyway, we saw it with a full house. I gather reviews have been decidedly mixed, but we all enjoyed it. Thanks to M & M, we had second row seats, right up under the actors, who were in fine spittle. The matinee idol performed admirably as the Dane. He wasn’t great, but like the rest of the cast, he knows how to speak the Bard’s English, so the words, the blessed words, were well spoken. However, like Mel Gibson and Kenneth Branagh, both of whom made movie versions of the play, Law is too old for the part, so the callowness doesn’t scan. The graveyard scene, however, was affecting; this is where the child becomes an adult (in our culture of adolescence, sometimes this never even happens anymore), where the face of death (the “to be or not to be” soliloquy is just theory, after all) becomes real.
*
As one of Fortune’s privates, I often walk through that block of Union Street where the workers of the South Brooklyn Casket Co. wheel the vanity boxes to and fro, and think of poor Yorick and his infinite, but not really, jest.

Brooklyn Bachelor Blue Plate Special

The food porn here at the BB is of the amateur sort. Yes, the plate looks crowded, but didn't seem to be all that much going down the hatch. Clockwise from the top, or at least one o'clock, we have a Quorn patty. I find this mushroom-based frozen food thingie, one of the few prepared foods I buy, much better than other fake-meat products that go under the rubric of "vegetarian patties." Next is my latest CSA piccalilli, made with summer squash, red peppers, green beans, & black eyed peas. One cup cider vinegar with 1/4th cup sugar was the ratio I essayed for this sweet and sour mix-up -- it's also flavored with onion, garlic, mustard seed, a mild chili pepper, and the usual s&p -- and next time I might go a little lighter on the sugar (recipes I based this on had a 1 cup v. to 1/2 cup s. ratio; too sweet). Then we have the leftover scalloped potatoes, with peas and ham and a bit of cheddar on top. I made this with whole milk instead of the called-for cream, so it wasn't as unctuous as it could be. But if did suffice....

Blenderwork orange

My blender broke yesterday. (Take that, Camus!) Right in the middle of pureeing butternut squash soup. Damn! I should have alerted the media, right? My six-year-old’s been lost in the blender! Bring cameras! Page CNN-clown Wolf Blitzer (and his idjit pals Donner and Dasher and Cupid and Prancer and Vixen)! It wasn’t a great blender, but I wasn’t complaining since it was a gift; the on-off knob had come off long since, but I could still make it work. Until yesterday, when the bit of plastic that the knob was connected to snapped. This felt terminal. I tried to take it apart, to see what I could see, but the fourth screw wasn’t a Phillips head like the others; it was a triskelion, or tri-winged! To the hell with Blitzer, call Pynchon....

As I said, this was right in the middle of the butternut squash soup. So I purchased a Waring to replace it. Very much like the one in the family kitchen for many years. It even smells the same. They must still use the same kind of motor oil.

From oil to soup. This was a very good batch. Cook’s Illustrated suggests sautéing the seeds and strings along with some shallots for flavor and extra color, adding the stock, then steaming the squash over this. Lacking a steaming basket, I did this in my pressure cooker, which of course reduced the cooking time. Then I gave the squash a whirl in the blender monster with the strained liquid. CI called for a touch of brown sugar, but it was already plenty sweet. I did, though -- being unable to leave well enough alone -- toss in a few strands of saffron to see what it would do to the color. Orange: a baby-food glossy orange that doesn’t translate to digital. We're eating this tonight with cornbread. Yellow and orange.

Speaking of orange-ness, this ain’t no way the weather for it, but a Sicilian Screwdriver is what I’m drinking now: vodka, OJ, and Solerno, a blood orange liqueur that kicks the culottes off Cointreau and Grand Marnier.

Balloons Away!

Already well-seasoned media-whores, the Colorado family planning to launch a balloon – was it to make contact with aliens? – called a local television station when one of their sons supposedly lifted off into the wild blue. Naturally. First thing I’d do, knowing how OJ white SUV style coverage gets the ratings. After all, the next best thing to a white kid trapped in a well is a white kid floating off in a balloon. Not having a television, I missed the hours of non-event, but I heard they found the sprat … in the family garage. (With the photogenic name of Falcon, he’d probably just discovered he’d been named after the female of the species – the male is a tiercel – and was understandably confused.) The county should bill the family for expenses; the state should think of prosecuting them for child abuse, or at least reckless endangerment; and the “reporters,” all those Harry Hairsprays, should go fall into a well.

Breathless details here at the Gray Tabloid.

UPDATE October 20: Now, having been accused by law enforcement of staging a hoax, the family claims to be "hounded" by the media!

Cold War Cheesecake

This is how Brooklyn won the Cold War. These are regional winners of the Miss Brooklyn pageant, 1951, flogging a Civil Defense recruitment rally. Standing: Miss Brownsville East New York, Miss Bensonhurst. Kneeling: Miss Heights-Downtown, Miss Coney Island.

Back Forty Bonanza

Hearing that we were expecting days of rain and colder temps, I spent some time cleaning out the Back Forty (inches) today. Posts below document the various life forms I encountered while doing so.

But the highlight of the day was certainly this katydid:



I can't really tell my katydids apart, but I think this may be an oblong-winged. I've emailed the Cricket Crawlers to see if they're still on the ball.

Back Forty Snail

This may be Haplotrema concavum, the gray-footed lancetooth.