Bobbie Goldberg, rest in joy and love!

 

Eulogy by Richard Goldberg

Christ & St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church New York, NY

November 18, 2023

First my disclaimer: Those of you who know me know that I’m usually pretty good with words. Not so this time. This time it’s about the woman with whom—up till Tuesday night–I shared a life. 28 years of unimaginable bliss. What I’m going to say today may lack coherence or intelligence. That’s because it’s coming from my heart and not my mind.

It is comforting to know that when I read your emails and texts, heard the phone calls and the words of condolence spoken to me in the elevator or the street, I knew we all knew the same Bobbie. Of course we did. Bobbie Goldberg was unfailingly faithful to being her genuine self, that self so many of us loved.

*   *   *

I first saw Bobbie in September of 1957. I had been told that there was a new girl in our class at Hartford Public High School, a Barbara Kaminski. That she was somehow already in one of the sororities and was a cheerleader.

“Kaminski,” I thought. “With a Y or and I?”

I can tell from the laughter that many of you know the difference!” Whatever, I found myself peeking around a corner across from the vice-principal’s office where I was told I’d find her. Sure enough, there she was. She looked great, but soo tall and, of course, I wasn’t. Her a cheerleader and me a nerd, and, most important in Hartford Connecticut in 1957: Her a Polish Catholic and me a Jew. I turned back to my home room without saying a word to her. For the next three years we were never more than acquaintances, spending only one semester together in the same class.

After graduation we did not see, talk to or probably think of each other until meeting at our twentieth   reunion in 1980. This was the first reunion I’d attended. She was married with kids to the president of our senior class and I was involved in my life in New York City. Nonetheless we chatted and agreed to stay in touch. Letters and occasional phone calls and then, fifteen years later–and again prompted by a class reunion–but now each of us available, we began a yearlong long-distance relationship, culminating in her moving to New York in 1996.

(An aside: At uncounted times in my life have words come from my mouth without my brain’s prior knowledge. Three have mattered overwhelmingly. The first was hearing me ask her to move in with me. The second, again eavesdropping, heard, “Will you marry me?”. Third time marked the end of my five year opposition to traveling to Australia and New Zealand. More of that below.)

Just for a moment imagine me outside my building with flowers under my arm, expecting her to come up the street carrying two suitcases, a raincoat over her shoulder and pictures of the kids under her arm—and then the truck appeared! Later friends would visit, look around and smile. “Hmm,” I heard more than once, ” You finally furnished the place.”

Both our lives had changed. Most importantly, as time passed, she came to realize New York City as the great nurturing ground for her becoming far more than ever before her real self. To watch her grow into the City, to watch them become evermore a harmony thrilled me continuously for the next 27 years.

*   *   *

Bobbie Goldberg was a woman of love and compassion and joy. She’d never leave a check-out line without a pleasant exchange with the cashier. She’d always carry a few dollar bills in an easily accessible pocket to offer to those on the street in need. Not just the money, but always with time for conversation. (Last Sunday night when David and I were packing her coats and jackets for the coat drive at her church, we found folded dollar bills in a pocket of every single coat.)

• More than one neighbor has told me how much they enjoyed a simple ride in the elevator with her: How she brightened their day or how beautifully she related to their kids—especially at Halloween!)
• Every Superbowl for about ten years we’d join our great friend Luis Rosa then on 121^st Street for the game and enormous amounts of food, drink and laughter. She’d struggle up the steps to his 4th  floor apartment, resting but never complaining. There she’d be greeted by the all-male rest of the group.“Aw shit,” you’d hear maybe more than once in the laughter. “The Patriots Woman is here again.” She’d flash her Tom Brady shopping bags—filled, of course, with foods that meshed nicely with beer and tequila. Then massive hugs and she’d be ushered to the best seat in the house.

Bobbie was the star of the show!

*   *   *

Whether we’d walk in Central Park or travel the world or go to the supermarket, it was always exciting with Bobbie. Every trip, no matter how theoretically trivial, would always be filled with opportunities for participating in the world. She was a wonderful companion in China, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Nepal, Egypt, Western Europe, Ireland, Canada—we saw a lot together. In Bhutan she’d chat with storekeepers just as she did in New York. She’d ask if they had  pictures of their children, and they did. And then she’d showed them pictures of her children!

The best though, Bobbie’s  dream trip, a month in Australia and New Zealand. After 15 years of resisting, I finally caved in to that unnamed voice-manipulator for ;what turned out to be one of the best experiences we’ve shared. I still treasure the image of her holding a koala.

For all of that, the greatest experience we shared was without question, our everyday life.

• Walks in the neighborhood—a neighborhood that included Central Park and Riverside Park and the American Museum of Natural History among other delights. Over time the walks became shorter, so our viewing became more detailed and discussed.
• The Crab Shanty (a train and two buses away) on City Island in The Bronx was the go-to spot for birthdays and anniversaries. In later years Uber (courtesy of son David)  would bring us home.
• Whether it was Shadow, Kitty-Kitty, Tee-Fee or any of the others (When she moved in she brought Kitty-Kitty and two dogs with her.)

 

• She loved (and got me to love) the UCONN Women’s Basketball team and, eventually, the New York Liberty. We shared delight in watching women’s soccer.
• Monthly for 11 years we’d travel to Sideshow Goshko at the KGB Bar for storytelling. There we’d find a note writ large on a front-and-center table, “Reserved for Bobbie and Richard.”

• HD operas where we could see facial expressions and read subtitles.
• Playing Wordle.
• Together doing the New York Times crosswords Wednesday through Sunday.
• 4 pm  chess, cocktails and popcorn. The last time we played she won two out of three.

• Did I mention jigsaw puzzles of the 1500 piece variety?

• And cooking. Despite my having worked as a short-order cook and having preparing my own meals for decades, the best I could do with her was as sous chef and grill cook.
• And “The Look!” Ask her kids about this one.

• Boy, did she love ice cream!

We shared friends and families while maintaining substantial interests of our own. Hers were painting, collecting and improving recipes (after testing them on me,) cooking, canasta and knitting. Solitaire and Texas Hold ‘Um on the internet. Most of all, though, her kids. Phone calls and texts and FaceTime and visits all the time. Meanwhile I listened to jazz, rode a bike and took pictures.

*   *   *

The last night we spent together was the night before her death. We went down to the Astor Theater to see Blue Man Group. She’d seen it decades ago but resisted spoilers. (And you wanna know why I love her?). Of course, we were both knocked out.

When it over we found a quiet restaurant/bar for a drink or two. It was late, just three of us at the bar. Number three was at the far end behind his phone. Bobbie and the bartender immediately got into a spirited discussion of things drinkable. After a while, the waitress and even our one fellow customer came over to join in on the Bobbie-centered conversation.

As so often usual laughter dominated.

When we closed the place, we could have taken an Uber uptown. Not Bobbie. Not tonight! Bobbie had decided it’d be more fun and revealing of our city to take a coupla busses. She was ready to see the city after midnight through big bus windows, her head on my shoulder.  How pretty the city was. How happy she was. How happy  we were!

*   *   *

Bobbie believed that when she died, she’d be reunited with her parents and brothers Andy and Ron, those she lost here on earth. Her belief was so strong and utterly heartfelt that, I am quite sure, it has been realized.

May she rest in joy!

 

It’s been a while…

Things keep getting stranger re my relationship to the internet and all things high tech.

Enjoy, and feel free to forward it to others.

Goldberg

…last July actually. My Life, but for a tussle with E. coli, has really been very calm and so filled with the remarkable beauty of the everyday. With the world not so. So, rather than burden you with the world, let me just divert you with some smiles.

 

All of these snaps were made in midtown Manhattan—57th Street to be precise. 57 Street is a street that a great many New Yorkers regard with feelings that range anywhere from disdain to hatred. This is because it has become the home of the wealthiest and most fashionable of the international (what used to be called jet setting) crowd. Hi rise residences. Their ground floors featuring boutiques whose names are pronounceable only to those who’ve lived in Paris for more than half their lifetimes. Shadows cast across Central Park at mid day. Oh, fie on them who have created this in defiance of our desires.

Meanwhile. there is this:

A reality collage

 

Somebody’s fantasy

 

A ghost business

 

More reality rejection

 

Suggestions of  another century

 

A man who’s travelled thousands of miles to give you cavities

 

Ordinary stuff, right? The things we so often hurry past without noticing let alone seeing. A streetcorner, an empty desk, a guy surrounded by candy, the back of a wabi-sabi-ed building whose age and character register only after some prolonged viewing and, of course, displays of haute couture that most of us can’t afford and, most likely, wouldn’t wear.

Today we all have cameras and we all have opinions re what’s worthy of being photographed. My suggestion in all of this is to drop the opinions and just look! Forget opinions and value judgments. Just look at your world and let yourself be surprised by it.

And should you see a tree, give it a minute.

 

Maybe even more than a minute.

Imagine…

…walking past this at the American Museum of Natural History farmers market

along this path in Central Park’s Ramble

to be greeted by this

past these, still in Central, Park

to join them— whom you have never met before and almost, undoubtedly, never will again—

in viewing this!

Welcome to my afternoon!

Why is he showing me this stuff?

First a studio portrait of my great grandparents, Hiam Avraham and Milkah Goldberg. This was taken in Belarus probably in the 1870’s. I saw it for the first time just a few weeks ago at a reunion of the Goldberg Cousins. At this time I also discovered a whole contingent of Hiam and Milkah’s descendants who also fled the land of poverty and pogroms to settle in the New World. In their case it was Honduras. This, of course, has nothing to do with the photos which follow, although it might be argued that without them mine would never be made much less shown to you.

 

 

These next 3 were all done at the first Sideshow Goshko to be held since before the pandemic. Remember the pandemic? The panorama features Bobbie Goldberg at right observing the carrying-ons of Leslie Goshko at the podium and much of the packed house gathered at the KGB Bar for story-telling, booze and reconnection.

The evening goes on. Things get more abstract.

 

 

*   *   *

Now 4 from a recent trip to Brooklyn:

 

 

And finally from Brooklyn:

It is Brooklyn after all.

*   *   *

Back in Manhattan, one looking at the back of a Halal food cart thru a bus window:

 

*   *   *

And, in an endeavor to appear timely, looking out my window at the outpouring of 400 Québécois forest fires into Manhattan’s air at 1:34 in the afternoon:

*   *   *

This is my first blogpost since mid-December. All of winter and much of spring have passed. Lotsa pretty pictures made during that time: portraits and cityscapes and still lifes. Not here, though. These are all quite recent and, frankly, a little less obvious. They are not a “Best of…” They illustrate no all-embracing theme or some subversive “lesson.” Nope, they just jumped out at me at this particular moment. Here are a couple more:

 

This last one is kinda pretty.

Windows: clean and dirty and sometimes wet

Usually when I look through a window I think, pure and simple, I’m seeing what’s out there. ‘Truth is, what I’m seeing I’m actually seeing through the filter of the window: rain drops (and their intriguing slide-downs), dirt, smears, reflections, all that inhabit even the clearest and cleanest panes of optically neutral glass that fill the windows of my life.

No! This is not a metaphor for the mind as a filter busily re-identifying and evaluating what’s perceived by the senses–but it could be, I guess. Whatever, here are some photos made through glass. Enjoy!

                  Broadway and 86th Street from the bus shelter

 

                  Central Park from the 79th Street Transverse bus.

 

                   Manhattan Chinatown

 

                  Central Park South from the M7 bus.

 

                       Astoria from the #7 subway

 

              The corner of Flushing and Bushwick Avenues, Brooklyn

 

                    Jackson Heights, Queens

 

                   Upper West Side, Manhattan

 

                  Somewhere around Lincoln Center

 

                    Subway conductor

 

                                                   In a restaurant

 

                                                          From the #7 train

 

                                                Under the George Washington Bridge

 

Maybe Edward Hopper ate here

 

Back under the GWB

 

                                             Back in Manhattan Chinatown

 

Manchester Connecticut

The color is autumn

Sommer, she’s i’passin’ oot,

All sing g’bye.

Autumn he’s i’cumin’ in,

All sing “Haloo!”

 

Wabi sabi is a Japanese aesthetic paradigm meaning intentionally flawed beauty…referring to the imperfect, impermanent and incomplete. It’s not the kind of thing that sits well with our Western standards of beauty. It’s not young and fresh and energetic with big boobs or biceps or a Mercedes to die for. For me, wabi sabi is Autumn, and here I’d like you to look for a moment into your gut. It’s the feelings that accompany the movement of the seasons at this time of year that I’m carrying on about. Not talking about value judgments, mind you. Talking ’bout feelings–and I’m not going to suggest anything. This is about you. Those of you who are fortunate enough to be blessed with life in a climate hosting Autumn you know what Autumn is: cooler temps, clearer light, sharper shadows, brighter colors, cooler temps, faster moving air. Autumn is life recharged, ready or not.

 

For me as a photographer–There! I’ve called myself that! After decades of resisting the label, I’m right now in your presence, admitting to taking a portion of my identity from my pretty-much favorite activity–Autumn is the sublime expression of colors and the great burst of life preceding the quiet gray of winter. Autumn is wabi-sabi at its natural best.

So here come a dozen photos, all but the last actually made over the summer, yet all advertising the colors of Autumn. I say “advertising,” because that’s what I’m selling. Many are indoors made. A lot down in the subway, only theoretically distanced from the impact of seasonality. Lots involve looking up. The first one, the window with the rusted metal gate: after I took the snap, a woman approached me to ask what I was doing. My head overwhelmed by the reality of wabi-sabi, however I answered didn’t much matter. She didn’t call the cops and I got the snap.

These folks were involved each in their own worlds on the way to the beach. Their colors were those of joy.

 

And artwork from who knows how long ago as Pennsylvania Station continues moving west.

 

And the entrance to Coppola’s on West 79th Street, where for decades–yes, decades--Bobbie and I have shared a Ceasar salad and Grandpa Salvatore’s pizza and a couple of glasses of wine.

 

Canal Street’s #1 local station captures wabi sabi brilliantly when you’re ready to see it. What a gift when that happens. You overhear people complaining about it, that it’s not clean and shiny and so forth, and it reminds you of folks who’d like ice cream much better if it weren’t so damned cold.

 

 

I climb up out of the subway at 19th Street on my way to the Chelsea art galleries and I climb through and into the art of my city!

 

Right now there’s a whole load of folks who devote their waking hours to hating my city’s newest architecture. Their loss.

 

This remarkable interlacing of bamboo and steel lives in the Lower East Side on Essex Street. Behind it, in the midst of centuries of squalor, lives a little park. Check it out!

 

 

Sometimes, as it happened for me in this instance, you’re lucky enough to be hearing the music that’s just right for you. You You relax. Your eyes drift out a window and oooh, you discover that the perfectly ordinary is oddly magical.

 

My city is filled with windows which create magic no matter what they reflect.

 

And the coldest metal and cement become alive with–vu den?--life!

 

Finally, Snap # 12, taken through the window of a Metro-North commuter train from New York gliding along the Long Island Sound through southern Connecticut to New Haven. Autumn, real Autumn, is i’cummin’in.”

 

What’s Autumn to you? Inquiring minds want to know, and there’s a comments section below. Feel free to use it.

And now for some things somewhat different

After a hyper indulgence in the glories of Spring rain in Central Park I bring you a variety of snaps made around the city. True, one photo of rain covered cobblestones does continue the Spring rain tradition. The others… Root vegetables on sale in Inwood, geese in Riverside Park, Lower Manhattan from the Staten Island Ferry, a trash bag(!), a bus rider in black and white, spontaneous artwork in Chelsea, those wet cobblestones and, for the first time in a while, a haiga. In this case it’s my first consideration of age and aging, although you might not see it that way.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Central Park: spring rain

(I begin with a parenthetical remark having to do not with my topic but rather with my process. This is an experiment and a hope. After having been disconnected from my blog for a while now there is a chance that I have succeeded in reconnecting and will once again be able to post. Maybe not. The photograph above, residual raindrops and bright green leaves, was drafted before everything went wrong with my computer, my hard drive, and both my connection to and my relationship with the host of this blog, WordPress. Now, with the help of one of WordPress’ s technicians, I may be back in business. Let’s see what happens…)

WOO! Something’s working!

Bow Bridge is a wonderful place to start. No doubt you’re seen it many times no matter where you live and no matter if you’ve ever been to New York City. It is beautiful. And rainy days like it’s remarkably tranquil while in bright sunlight it’s so covered with people from all over the planet taking selfies that it’s almost impossible to walk across. Still there is an environment of genuine joy in that crowd that is unmistakable and inescapable, so you just slow down and bathe in it.

Moving right along to…



Oak Bridge. Oak Bridge is another favorite of visitors from all over, the perfect spot for a selfie showing the pond and, on a clear day, the high-rises of Midtown–most of which are hated by a large majority of New York City residents. Me, I like them.

Oak Bridge leads into The Ramble, the one area of Central Park in which I am still quite capable of getting lost. Getting lost in The Ramble is a real treat for somebody like me who thinks he knows much more than he actually does. It’s not just that it’s a refreshingly humbling experience, it is absolutely enlightening. At every turn there is something new to see, something new to appreciate and the opportunity for some new insight whether sought or not. Spots like this one:

or this one:

Come out of The Ramble and be greeted by this!

(Now I’m being told that I’ve run out of space and can add no more snaps.)

(Now wordPress says I can’t post the abbreviated post. I’m running out of parentheses, but don’t fret, I can handle it.)

An 80 year old looks at light

Just before my 80th birthday I posted this series on Facebook with the caption, “Five thoughts on the last night of my 79th year.” This was clearly about experiencing rather than articulating those thoughts. More and more

my photography is moving further away from my intellect and closer to my emotions. The joy of experiencing light is at the heart of this transition. Here’s what I mean:

9th & 33rd from the M 11

 

Across 5th from the Met

 

kitchen morning

 

Mulcahey’s

 

Empire State Building from 34th and 7th

 

And, of course, Central Park, this time just before sunset in winter.

I know we’ve got to be concerned about COVID-19 and the cold and slippery sidewalks and and people  with evil or simply broken minds out to do random others harm. I know first-hand about reckless automobile and bicycle and even scooter drivers. Still, you can’t let all that keep you away from the thousand manifestations of beauty available to you daily.

Be reckless yourself–enjoy!

Reality??? So much more so!!!

RSG On the train

Let’s start here by stating the simple, direct and utterly unmitigated truth:

I love New York City!

Don’t ask me “Why?” or tell me “That’s because…” Just look at the pictures!

 

This morning, having returned swiftly and joyfully by bicycle thru midtown traffic–including a spin around Columbus Circle– from the cardiologist’s with a glowing health report, it occurred to me yet again that my reality far surpasses anything I’m capable of imagining. My waking hours are filled with actually living in the city of my dreams two blocks from the park of those dreams and with the love of better than my dreams. I have an adequate bike and the perfect camera–it even has a phone and a jukebox inside–and I spend my time among the most varied and often delighting and–to be sure challenging–art, architecture and human beings more than imaginable right here in my actual, every day world.

Let me take you on a little tour.

First, in my world “glum” becomes mysterious and foreboding…

• 

…or downright scary.

 

• 

…Or who knows what in the bay of a truck.

Then dead white oaks appear fully grown and in profusion right where Broadway (the famous one) meets 5th Avenue (also the famous one.)

 

 

 

An empty hallway becomes an adventure.

The same for an empty room although, perhaps, a much more peaceful and meditative adventure.

 

An empty loading dock reveals itself as a work of art.

A neighborhood church becomes both a cathedral and an oasis.

•  

A rich man comes along and builds an island that emerges on cement pillars from the river flowing just two blocks away and turns it into a park and invites me to come enjoy!

•  

If that’s not enough, restaurants create outdoor shelters that I might celebrate with lobsters even in times of pandemic.

 

Even the Sanitation Department creates fantastical structures housing who-will-ever-know-what to delight my eyes and my fantasies. Of course, there might actually be an enormous dragon in there eating all the trash. As some folks would say, “Hey! You never know.”

The subway, the one everybody’s so busy bitching about, it not only goes wherever I want to go whenever I want to go there, it even ventures outdoors to create new realities in motion.

It even crosses over rivers to give me ever-changing images to pass on–in this case–to you.

There’s a memorial to a dead President that hosts sunsets and since 1964 The Jazzmobile with free real jazz for all of us.

 

And when it rains you can bet your ass it rains!

So, if you wanna to sing, there’s so much more than the tunes you already know:

 

https://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity/music/a11360/best-songs-about-new-york/

https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/best-songs/about-new-york-city-nyc/

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/songs-about-new-york#slide-1

Here’s Sinatra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr-cauL052I

And here’s Billy Joel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM4LzEcaTK0

 

Right now this one really gets me. It’s not Frank Sinatra or Billy Joel, but I’m not as old as I used to be.

26 Songs about New York https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TC02VaB1Rw

 

In response to a special request, here’s Alicia Keys singing Empire State of Mind solo with lyrics writ out large. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac7h25OBP6U

And another write-out of the lyrics and Jay-Z’s rap with all the references to them: https://genius.com/48735?

 

That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it. What’s yours? There’s a “comments” icon coming up. Click on it and let us know about you and NYC.

Nine Snaps and Then Three More

The first 8–all recent–photos were thrown up in random order by forces ruling technology. I thought of protesting, of diligently rearranging them according to some structure of chronology or location then decided that was just the voice of my New England schooling and it’s incessant demand for order. The last three though, I made sure to arrange so as to support my little bit of narration. Richie and I were both 23 in 1965 when I, mourning the death of my dad, dropped out of grad school and moved to New York to become a starving poet. Richie owned half a bar, a joint called The Annex on Avenue B between 10th and 11th, which was annexed to nothing beyond the whole incredible ethos of the East Village as it emerged from the Lower East Side.

When I checked “The Annex” in my blog look up, it produced four more entries:

• Coming of Age in New York City (https://goldberg.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/coming-of-age-in-new-york-city/)
• Dark Bar  (https://goldberg.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/dark-bar/)
• Joe D’s Memorial, Sort of  (https://goldberg.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/joe-ds-memorial-sort-of/)
• Fire and Rain (https://goldberg.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/fire-and-rain/)

Whatever, here’s some brief respite from concerns of pandemic, race, religious, political and gender hatreds.

Enjoy!

 

 

Outside MoMA

 

Under 103rd and Broadway

 

Amsterdam & 79th

 

Viewing the Alice Neel show at the Met Museum

 

Broadway at 125th

 

125th west of Broadway

 

125th west of Broadway

 

The Highline crossing 10th Avenue around 30th Street

 

Grafitto on the A train platform under 8th & 34th subway

*   *   *

And now the “Three More.” Think of these as a short story and, having done so, feel free to create your own plot. Should you actually do so, please continue feeling free and submit your creation as a comment. Rest assured it will be printed.

RSG, who in 1965 lived across East 11th Street, remarkably near Avenue B, from the Free Public Baths of the City of New York.

The very baths referenced in the caption above.

 

Richie V, the man who in 1965 gave the man who lived across from those

Baths his very first job in New York City and who now lives in the

self-same building occupied in 1965 by  the (I love this word!) self-same RSG.

In the Neighborhood!

Verdi Square-ish

Claude Monet said these things and Christie’s used them to narrate a video of his Waterloo Bridge paintings.

“A landscape does not exist since it’s appearance changes at every moment.”

“What I want to reproduce is what lies between the motif and me.”

“It is only the surrounding atmosphere that gives subjects their true value.”

“I want to grasp the intangible.”

“All I did was to look at what the universe showed me, to let my brush bear witness to it.”

What Monet saw depended on the place at which he stood and the moment at which he stood there: the angle, the light, the amount and quality and quantity of mist and smoke in the air between him and the bridge. What was intangible was the consciousness he brought to that place in that moment: his mood and intelligence and values and concerns, the totality of his unique and continually evolving self. So too is it with the photographer. Knowingly or not, fully aware or magnificently ignorant, spontaneous or studied, the photographer seeks to use his skill with the camera in harmony with his post-processing abilities to show to others not what was there but what he’d been shown as he saw it.

Amsterdam & W. 76

W. 72nd Street

76 and Amsterdam: light rain

Imagine in Central Park

West 67th

West 67th

Amsterdam Avenue

Messenger texting behind the Beacon

Amsterdam Avenue

Amsterdam Avenue

Amsterdam Avenue

Amsterdam Avenue

175 hallway

Central Park from Oak Bridge

CPW & 77th

Coney Island in times of Pandemic

Growing up in Hartford, Connecticut, Coney Island existed only in my mind and, somehow, in my heart. I had yet to see Island-born Harold Feinstein’s photos made in the 1950’s (https://www.haroldfeinstein.com/) or Reginald Marsh’s paintings from the ’30’s or Nathan Kensinger’s yet-to-be-made 2009 snaps from under the Boardwalk (http://kensinger.blogspot.com/2009/03/coney-island-under-boardwalk.html). Most likely it came as a fourteen year old’s extrapolation of a world he’d create each Saturday morning sitting in front of the Philco console listening to Alan Freed’s Top 50 hits of the week over WINS. In the mid ’60’s when I finally got to Nathan’s Famous, The Boardwalk, Steeplechase Park and the whole world under the Boardwalk–so much more than The Drifters sang about–Coney was far from it’s storybook past.

Now, January 21st, 2021, with the temperature in the 30’s and the continued raging of COVID-19 everywhere, with no carousel or tinny AM radios to add to the soundtrack of the waves and the wind, no chatter in any language, no lifeguard shouting instructions, a whole new world arose. For my Red Hook buddies, David and Denise, it wasn’t what it was. For me it was just this. 

Let’s start at–voo-den?–Nathan’s:

…and The Boardwalk…

 

 

 

 

…and the sun hides…

• 

•  
• Here’s Denise, Red Hook (basically) forever:

…and, yeah, me…

Central Park in Snow: a Gift!

Certainly a gift for me and good ol’ iPhone 6 walking around Central Park for a couple of hours  yesterday after the snow. Not a lot of snow, maybe 10 inches or so, but enough to on bring the beauty of winter. These snaps are one result, and they’re my gift to you.

Looking down onto Bethesda Fountain minus the usual crowds but nonetheless a source of delight for those who positioned themselves so perfectly for my snap.

The remarkable tree at the top of Naturalists Gate at Central Park West and 77th Street.

Four elves cleverly disguised as…what? I’m still not sure, but they are cute.

Back to Bethesda Fountain, this time it’s my shadow selfie moment.

The Pond with Bow Bridge in the background. Yes, I’ve several thousand more snaps of this bridge.

Same pond as above.

  And, yes, the same pond.

President Lincoln outside the New-York Historical Society.

And sometimes just looking down is reason enough to look down.

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WordPress has changed my world by changing the editing software I’ve been using since 2006. On top of that they’ve informed me that I’m about to use up my 3 gigs of free space and suggest I start paying them to continue being able to post Welcome! I’m trying hard to not believe that all this is not tied into COVID-19 or the right to carry an AK-47 into Dunkin’ Donuts or even the election of a Democrat President or the UCONN Women’s basketball schedule. Whatever and beliefs notwithstanding, I’ve figured out how to create and post using the new format and have applied for Federal funding to meet the $4 per month debt I’m about to incur. Let this be my close-to-last insight of 2020: It all works out—pretty much.

As for “Enable AMP,” I’ve no idea what AMP is, but I am now in position to engage or disable it as I choose.

And now the pictures!

#2 train socially isolated

Amsterdam Avenue in the rain

 

Henri’s rooftop on West 86th Street

Chelsea Piers

The Met empty enough to see the artwork

Halloween

Smoke break on E. 43rd near UN

Central Park pond

Amsterdam & 76th

Ghost in the subway

Living room shelf

The Highline

Dave

                                            Mr. Plow & Mr. Sun

 

 

 

From the Highline

And an afterthought: Some one of you who‘re reading this actually know what AMP stands for. Please use the “comments” section to tell me. Obviously it doesn’t enable me to get the desired spacing between the last snap and it’s caption.

Those of you who don’t know what it stands for, here’s your chance to get funny.

Central Park in the Time of COVID-19

“Autumn in New York, why does it seem so inviting…” Songwriter Vernon Duke wrote these words in 1934. The full lyrics go like this:

Autumn in New York, why does it seem so inviting?
Autumn in New York, it spells the thrill of first-nighting
Glittering crowds and shimmering clouds in canyons of steel
They’re making me feel I’m home

It’s autumn in New York that brings the promise of new love
Autumn in New York is often mingled with pain
Dreamers with empty hands may sigh for exotic lands
It’s autumn in New York
It’s good to live it again

Autumn in New York, the gleaming rooftops at sundown
Autumn in New York, it lifts you up when you’re let down
Jaded roués and gay divorces who lunch at the Ritz
Will tell you that it’s divine

It’s autumn in New York transforms the slums into Mayfair
Autumn in New York, you’ll need no castle in Spain
Lovers that bless the dark
On benches in Central Park
Greet autumn in New York
It’s good to live it again

The first thing to note after that first line: the rest of the song has nothing whatsoever to do with the Central Park snaps below. Not to deny the thrill of first-nighting or the glittering crowds and certainly not negating the jaded roués and gay divorcées who lunch at the Ritz–far be it from me to do such a thing. No, a significant part of the wonder of New York is the ease  with which it accommodates all our worlds.

For me the glory of New York and autumn centers on Central Park: the leaves and the paths through them, the Pond and the Meer and the reflections filling them. To live in the city that attracts 60,000,000 visitors annually is a gift and  blessing. Despite the pandemic’s restrictions on travel I am already here. I am free to roam this this city and this park by foot or bicycle to my heart’s content.

Truly a state of grace and cause for continual thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Harlem Meer

Quarantine

Kitchen door

The truth of it is I’ve been out of the apartment just about every day since the COVID-19 quarantine began. Not in a reckless, defiant, “I’ll show the bastids who’s the boss of me” way, but out nonetheless. Along with my walks and bike rides, there’s also been significant time spent at home, and yes, often with camera in hand. Look afresh, look with new eyes we teach in our meditation class. See the familiar for the first time. The photos below are the result of just that attitude.

 

Shadow

 

Kitchen sunlight

 

Living room in late daylight

 

Chair and floor

 

Earbuds

 

Knitting needle, the very one I dropped into our elevator shaft, recovered a month later by building staff with a fine eye and memory.

 

Cazadores, carrying with it memories of beloveds

 

Buddhists on the radiator

 

More late day sunight

 

My living room

I don’t know…

 

Thru the good graces of iTunes my phone and computer have developed a relationship which no longer includes me. When I turn them on, connect them and request certain CD’s be transferred from my library to the phone they just laugh and transfer whatever the hell they want to transfer. Whole albums, partial albums, single tunes-whatever-just not what I might have wanted to hear. Small stuff, I suppose.  After all I’m still getting tunes to bud into my ears while I bike a lap around a Central Park pretty much devoid of tourists and instead filled with unemployed homies. I am escaping the overwhelm of

• those “good people on both sides” who consistently and vehemently insist on their right to endanger the health and lives of others by not wearing face masks
• the racism–institutional and cultural and personal–that is vibrantly alive and all too often a matter of life and death
• Covid-19.

The above is me letting off some anger–my cover-up for fear and sadness and frustration–before showing you some new snaps. The pandemic has led me to places I’d pretty much avoided in the past, in this case the stairwells leading from my 8th floor apartment to our building’s lobby. Rather than take the elevator I’ve been walking those hundred-something steps up and down each morning to fetch the Daily News and the previous day’s collection of catalogs and money requests that fill the mailbox. Of course I carry the camera with me. Here are a few of my current favs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This last image, with it’s writing, was posted on Facebook in June. It is a message of hope.

 

Be well. Stay safe. Register and vote. Encourage others to do the same.

The time is now!

 

This photo shows  peeling paint in the back staircase of a perfectly respectable middle class building. Is it a metaphor for the ugly, murderous racism that underlies the American dream we so want to be real? Does it expose as does the video of an American police officer keeping his knee on the neck of an American Black Man until that man was dead exposes what we’ve been denying since the end of slavery? If so, then let it be an inspiration to all to find a way to join in the struggle to bring freedom and justice to all.

The Second Batch of Haigas

Four years ago I posted my first collection of haiga, introducing it with this definition from AHApoetry.com:

Haiga is a Japanese concept for simple pictures combined with poetry, usually meaning haiku…It can be watercolor paintings, photographs or collages with a poem of any genre that is integrated into the composition. Sometimes the poem is handwritten or it can be computer generated, depending on the artist’s taste.

Haiga is a combination of visual image and poetry, each to enrich the other and lead the readers/viewers beyond what is presented toward what their own life experience suggests. The goal here, overwhelmingly, is to make  those readers/viewers co-creators in a fusion of photo, poem and mind in what is ultimately theirs alone. Knowing that you have a responsibility to complete the creations I’ve begun, I offer my newest haiga.

The images were made while I was quarantined with family in an area of Ulster County New York called Lost Quarry.

Living on a dirt road surrounded by trees, only one other house visible and then only when trees were winter/early spring bare.

Concerns generated by this extraordinary time and place combined with whatever else of my own 78 years might show itself for my part in our co-creation. The rest is up to you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Canal Street: Night

During the day Canal Street just might be the most populous and energetic street in Manhattan, rivaling or even surpassing Times Square with it’s rush of locals, souvenir sellers, hustlers and knock-off hunting teens and tourists  from all over this world.

Intertwined odors of old and fresh fast food

   of dumplings and garlic

Old women chat

   pick through fresh fish and produce

     common in China

Men from Canton and Taiwan

   from Sierra Leone and Pakistan and Peru

   from Brooklyn and The Bronx

   spread their goods on folding tables or simply

     on blankets on the sidewalk

Younger women–not young

   wave laminated pictures of handbags

   and watches (“Gucci! Gucci! Rolex! Gucci!

      Pandora!”)

   and perfumes (“Dior, new Dior! White shoulders!

      Chanel!”)

They speak in urgent hushed tones

   point to unmarked doors

   make you feel special.

At night it’s different: dark, quiet, all but abandoned

   like rain threatens or has just passed

           Canal Street is yours

           Last Tuesday it was mine.

 

Here are some souvenirs from that Tuesday night.

Canal Street at Lafayette

 

Canal Street

 

Canal Street at Baxter thru a bakery window

 

Canal Street

 

Canal Street stairway to Heaven

Canal Street

Canal Street

 

Canal Street

 

Liusal fashion pop-up Canal Street

 

Canal Street

Some Spanish Harlem with Dave

So I say to my good buddy Dave (who most people call David), I say, “Dave, howzabout you and me, we go to El Museo del Barrio?” Dave, he’s the one on the left, Dave says, “I wanna walk around Spanish Harlem.” I say, “OK.” He says, “OK.”

Long story shortened, I show up early and wait across the street from El Museo in the Conservatory Garden, Central Park. While I wait, I snap this:

 

Dave shows. We check out the museum then hit the streets: Lexington thru First Avenues, 104th thru 118th Streets. Here’s what I snapped:

 

In a schoolyard around Park Avenue and 105th

Lex around 109

Lex and 104th not so much the way it looks much as the way it was meant to be seen.

Madison Avenue around 105th

Park Avenue and 106th

Park and 106th under the Metro North tracks

2nd Avenue and 102 where black & white still rates

 

 So here’s my question to you: What are the hot streets in your part of the world? I’m always open to suggestions for where to take my camera for a walk. Use the “Comments” option below to give me some direction.

Ten times thru glass

Back in  the city, looking thru glass. I don’t think that means anything…really.

 

St. Agnes Library

 

Admiring armor

 

Manhattan sunset from GWB

 

Coco-Mat Store, B’way & 78th

 

The Algonquin

 

East River & Koch Bridge

 

Columbus Avenue low 80’s

 

Brooklyn train

 

The Met

 

Hartford CT

 

An All-too-short Week in the Ozarks

The story of my recent trip to the Ozarks begins in 1950. The Korean war had brought a wealth of rural French Canadians both from the Maritimes and Maine down to my home town, Hartford Connecticut, to find work at Pratt and Whitney Aircraft supplying engines to our war effort. Along with them came their music. In what seemed to an eight year old boy no time at all, Hartford had country music! Call it old-timey or hillbilly or even bluegrass, there it was not only on the radio but on the shelves of Park Street’s Belmont Record Shop located appropriately enough in that section of Hartford known–and still known–affectionately as Frog Hollow. Maybe it was the storytelling, maybe it was the energy, maybe it was the voice-oriented range that my voice felt it could handle. One way or another, me, the eight year old in question, I was hooked immediately.

–Skip ahead sixty-nine years–

Drawn by the promise of live mountain music in actual mountains and with the guidance of Road Scholar, a touring company dedicated to taking us older folks out of our comfort zones to discover more of the world before leaving it, I spent about six days in and around the Ozark Folk Center State Park in north central Mountain View Arkansas. To cut to the chase: It was fantastic! We stayed in thoroughly modern cabins (floors, electricity, indoor plumbing, cable TV) in a forest setting which incorporated a traditional craft village of blacksmiths, potters,  leather crafters, doll makers, stained glass artists and jewelers. We walked through forests, rafted a peaceful, cliff-enclosed river, ate what the folks eat and, at seemingly every turn, heard music: bluegrass music, old timey music, folk music. A world of acoustic strings where everyone was participant. The folks we met were unfailingly welcoming and happy to be in conversation with us from off (the mountain.) I was eager to learn more about their world, and they showed it, lived it more than explaining it. As for me, an undoubtedly liberal Buddhist Jew from New York City, I’d never felt more comfortable among strangers than I did in this  all-white world of fundamentalist Protestants.

Here are some snaps from the trip. Not an attempt to document the experience, but rather a collection of revelations.

 

White River Arkansas coming out of the morning fog

 

White River Arkansas

 

White River near Chessman Ferry Arkansas

 

Museum at Calico Rock Arkansas

 

Calico Rock Museum, Arkansas

 

Abandoned Old Town, Calico Rock Arkansas

 

Blacksmith, Craft Village at Ozark Folk Center, Mountain View Arkansas

 

Potter, Craft Village at Ozark Folk Center, Mountain View Arkansas

 

Pre-historic rock at the Craft Village, Ozark Folk Center, Mountain View Arkansas

 

Broom making, Craft Village at Ozark Folk Center, Mountain View Arkansas

 

Made in Mountain View Arkansas

 

Mary Parker Group, Ozark Folk Center, Mountain View Arkansas

 

Ozark Highlands Radio Square Dancers live performance, Mountain View Arkansas

 

Blanchard Springs Caverns, Ozark-St. Francis National Forests, Arkansas

 

 

Published each Wednesday in Mountain View  Arkansas

Homer of Pet Partners, Little Rock Airport. Homer, with his handler to be sure, patrolled the departures areas of the airport to ease anxieties and entertain children waiting to board.

Things are looking down!

“Waddaya take pictures of,” she asks me.

“I dunno. Whatever.”

I used to hate that word, “whatever.” It seemed like a cop-out. (Do people still say cop-out? If you’re under a certain age is it a mystery? If you’re over another age is it an increasingly faded memory? Maybe from the time cop was a deprecating noun rather than an edgy  verb.)

Back to whatever: the older I get, the more it applies, but in a wonderfully perverse way. Let’s face it, I live in the most phenomenal city on the planet. I live two blocks from each of two fantastic parks. It’s a mile and a half walk to (big drum roll here) Times Square! When everything is extraordinary, it all becomes oddly equal. The perverse part is that this even applies to the parts that don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of ever being equal to anything. That’s why what I’m gonna show you now is about looking D O W N. The street, the sidewalk, whoever might be sitting in front of me when I’m standing on the train and not wishing I had a seat–which, BTW, doesn’t happen very often. Everywhere I look at this point in my life there’s something to see worth seeing.

And I know I can’t be alone in this.

What about you? What do you see? Keep in mind I’m not talking about the shit that makes you feel angry or sad or superior. Anybody can carry on about that crap. I want to know what delights you, what makes you smile when you hadn’t planned on smiling.

Here’s what works for me:

 

#2 train: getting off, staying on

 

Subway: something to stand back from

 

175 W. 76: just what it says

 

NYC, imagine, they told my grandparents, the streets are paved with gold.

 

Cafe Figaro: all that’s left of a great venue

 

E. 4th Street: at rush hour sometimes the shadows move faster than the traffic

 

Subway: meditation without music

 

Fuller Building lobby

 

My block! I live here!

 

Russian Tea Room

 

 

 

 

 

And finally, looking down on he who looks down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Found Around

 

Found Around is my newest collection of photographs. It’s one more testimony to my love of New York City and the technology which enables me to convert what the camera records to what it is l see when walking our streets. Ultimately it’s a celebration of being here. Please visit the Blurb website where it may be seen in it’s entirety.

Here’s the link:

https://www.blurb.com/b/9564615-found-around

Of course I’d appreciate  your sharing this with those who might find it interesting.

Thanks,

Richard

Each One Different!

When I was a kid it was a point of national pride that we were each one different yet all Americans. Sure, we didn’t practice that belief the way it’s now understood, but it was constantly preached and  reaffirmed as correct, as the ultimately right stuff.  In the course of my lifetime this purportedly universal and fundamental belief has been the cause of a constant intra-us struggle to either make or keep equality from becoming not just the law but also the reality of this land. Thus the moment was just that powerful, watching fireworks from the stands of the The Richmond County Bank Ballpark, home of the Staten Island Yankees, surrounded by the great variety of folks who make up lower middle class New York City. Ooh-ing and aah-ing in unconscious unison, we were for that moment one despite our differences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the last explosion echoed off into New York Harbor and the harmony of the moment passed in favor of the home-bound rush, my mind settled on other moments, those before and those to come in our period of conflict renewed.  In 1863 Abraham Lincoln spoke:

 

“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent,

a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that

all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war,

testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated,

can long endure…

…It is for us the living…to be dedicated here to the unfinished work

which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us

to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—

that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause

for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve

that these dead shall not have died in vain—

that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom,

and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

 

 

Whatever your cause this coming Independence Day, let it be in harmony with your values and not your fears.

Spring Rain

At night, happiness;

In the daytime, quietness–

Spring rain.

                      –Chora

 

Amsterdam & 79th

 

Amsterdam & 76th

 

Columbus & 73rd

 

Metropolitan Museum in the rain

 

Metropolitan Museum in the rain

 

Central Park: near the Great Lawn in the rain

 

Central Park: the Shakespeare Garden in the rain

 

Central Park: Oak Bridge in the rain

 

Central Park: Bow Bridge in the rain

 

Sky above Midtown from the Sheepmeadow

 

Spring rain:

Everything just grows

More beautiful.

             –Chiyo-Ni

By Popular Demand: 2018 Favorites book in a new format

Here it is!                                        

New Size!                            

New Soft Cover!

                      New low(er) Price!

                                    Same Paper!

                                                     Same Photos!

 

 

And here’s where to see it in its entirety and (ta da!)

actually buy a copy:

 

http://www.blurb.com/books/9363798-2018-favorites

 

 

                                                                           Of course he larger sized hard cover version is still available.

 

 

 

 

 

What’s this stuff about anyway?

Each of these images began with what the camera saw and ended up with what I’d seen.

Lady Gaga at the Grammys

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Far West 13th Street, Meatpacking District, NYC

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Afternoon at The Cottage

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6th Av & W 44th

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Terrence Cardinal Cooke Health Center across Harlem Meer

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79th & Broadway rain

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79th & Broadway rain

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79th & Broadway rain

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526 W. 26th Street

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W. 26th Street

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