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Coffee & Computers

These are a few of my favorite things...

Shape of Things to Come

Are they clouds? Are they tombstones? Are they hats, fingers, mountaintops?

Look deeper than the surface, add some context, add some depth.


Ghosts--floating forward, rising upward, toward me. Gritty grey faces emerging from gritty grey ground.

What do you see?

__________________

words: croaker72

image: otilius

The Dakota

Built in 1880, THE DAKOTA is said to have been so-named because at the time it was built, its location was considered as remote as the Dakota Territory out in the Wild West. Here we see the entrance on 72nd Street where John Lennon was killed in December of 1980.

SUPER

overheard: "makes me think 'shallow' for some reason"

SEINFELD Coffee Shop

You may remember Tom's Restaurant even though you have never been to 112th Street & Broadway or never visited NYC. The reason? The tremendously successful television show SEINFELD used exterior shots of Tom's to pass for "Monk's", the favorite coffee shop of Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine.

Give or Take

Simple and complex, familiar yet unfamiliar, the play of light and shadow can give comfort or haunt. [Images "caught" cause a double joy: the first seeing and then the having for the future.] We enjoy the give and take between the scene, the eyes, and the mind. We may not understand the given "what" but we can take pleasure in the "how" on our way beyond "why".

HOTEL

Looking more like something from The West rather than the West Side Highway, this hotel sign always catches my eye. I can only hope that, when the buiding goes the luxury condo route, someone will decide to keep the sign in place.

Monday Extra

I hope you enjoyed Earth Day. (Scroll down for more fun)

Budding Tree

Spring has arrived for sure and so have the buds on the trees...

Looking

Here's to all the walls of the city that look right back--cheers!

I could have lied I'm such a fool
My eyes could never never never
Keep their cool
I could never change
Just what I feel
My face will never show
What is not real

[all apologies to Red Hot Chili Peppers - I COULD HAVE LIED]

NYC Truck

You can't help it but you were born without a heart. At least you tried to believe what the people with hearts believed--so you were a good man just the same.

JAILBIRD
(Kurt Vonnegut, November 11, 1922 - April 11, 2007)

Keith Hernandez

Have you seen this? Perhaps you thought like I did, when I first saw the posters, that it riffed on the SEINFELD episodes featuring former Mets first baseman, Keith Hernandez.

Nope! It's for a MOVIE.

Streetlight Base

On St Marks Place in Manhattan...You know that I often look toward the top of the streetlights around town but this one rewards us for looking at the bottom.

Eric's Door

To whom it may concern: It is springtime. It is late afternoon.

[Kurt Vonnegut , November 11, 1922 - April 11, 2007]

Bridge View

A view from and of the Williamsburg Bridge which connects Brooklyn and Manhattan...

Rainy Canal Street

Rain or shine, you can always find something happening down on Canal Street. Yesterday, NYC received the second-highest amount of rain ever in its recorded history--over 8 inches! Reminds me of some of the days back home in the rain forest. Well, except we didn't have all the Canal Street stuff. ;]

Malled ESB, Revisited

With the different weather and so on, I couldn't resist revisiting the scene of This Shot. Enjoy the differences!

Special thanks to Kees and Tucker for phoning me from Paris (the one in France) yesterday. Good to hear from you guys. You know, it has been too long.

Against The Wind

I began to find myself searching, searching for shelter again and again--against the wind, a little something against the wind.

I found myself seeking shelter against the wind. Well those drifters days are past me now. I've got so much more to think about--Deadlines and commitments--What to leave in, what to leave out.

Against the wind, I'm still runnin against the wind. Well I'm older now and still against the wind.

[apologies to Bob Seger, AGAINST THE WIND]

Black Cat ON

Did you see this guy yesterday? Did you turn around? Do you think superstitious thoughts?

"Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things--trees and grass and sun and moon and stars...Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones."
C.S. Lewis
THE SILVER CHAIR

Scraping ESB

The Empire State Building still scrapes the sky (above), as seen from Madison Square Garden.




...and reflects in this puddle below...

figment

The lesson I myself learned over and over again when teaching at the college and then the prison was the uselessness of information to most people, except as entertainment. If facts weren’t funny or scary, or couldn’t make you rich, the heck with them.

Kurt Vonnegut, November 11, 1922 - April 11, 2007
HOCUS POCUS

51 & Lex

Looking up from the steps of the subway station at 51st Street and Lexington...We keep getting these great spring days lately.

Heart for Liberty

A heart-shaped stone on the bank of the Hudson River at Liberty State Park in New Jersey, looking toward Liberty Island and Brooklyn in the distance...

Parking Lot Gulls

The gulls here are so jaded, they don't move for just anything.

Abstract Monday

Window Shadow

Guard Dogs & A-Rod

A couple of "oldies" for you today. The first (above) from last week on that really rainy day in Brooklyn.




The second from Saturday's Yankee game. This one shows Alex Rodriguez rounding the bases after hitting his game-winning grand slam home run.

Home Run

Down 7-6 in the bottom of the 9th inning, 2 outs, bases full of Yankees, the much-maligned Alex Rodriguez hit a Grand Slam home run (into The Black!) and the Yankees won the game, 10-7, over the Baltimore Orioles. He homered earlier in the game, too, a 1st inning 2-run bomb into the left field seats. [click photo for larger version]

You have to love getting tickets to a game at the last minute from friends of friends.

Happy Easter!

Passing Through

Passing through, passing through.
Sometimes happy, sometimes blue,
Glad that I ran into you.
Tell the people that you saw me passing through.

[ Leonard Cohen PASSING THROUGH ]

Puddle

"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting."
e.e. cummings

Graffiti Puddle

A rainy corner of Williamsburg, Brooklyn...

Sunset Puddle

Overpass Holes

I'm just lookin' to see what I'm missing,
You startin' the riot,
Ten green bottles fly down from the hillside,
You're too young to stay quiet.
Count me in because I don't wanna work,
In no place in the whole universe.
I'm just lookin' to see what I'm missing...


[all apologies to Charlatans UK - JUST LOOKIN ]

Remember: New York Nitty-Gritty has been nominated for
The 2006 Best of Blogs Awards - Best Hobby Blog
Voting ends April 13th.

HOURS

Have a nice day...

City Clean

Sometimes it makes me wonder how we keep from going under...

April Fool

My shoe untied itself and I could not post a photo until now (9 PM). What do shoes and posting photos online have to do with each other you ask? Everything.


April Fool!!!

No fooling--New York Nitty-Gritty has been nominated for The 2006 Best of Blogs Awards - Best Hobby Blog
They don't have a photo category, so, this will have to do. Be sure to go there and show your support (early and often!). Voting ends April 13th.