It's happened again

44th and 8th Avenue, 2010

I was talking with a friend about the writing workshop I am involved in, and told her that I was working with memories of my days in New York City.

And as I told her I wanted to go back to revisit the places in lower Manhattan I remember, with a shock, I just realized.

It's happened again.

For the third time in my lifetime, a great American city that I thought was invulnerable and would be there forever, has been devastated and totally changed by disaster.

New York, 2001. New Orleans, 2005. New York, 2012.  The Jersey shore, 2012. These are the places I know. I realize that in my lifetime other great cities - not my own -  have also been devastated. Detroit, for one.

New York will recover, so too will the shore. But it is frightening to realize that in our lifetime, these irreversible changes have taken place.

Hold fast to your memories, and cherish them. Work to preserve the infrastructure of our great cities. Our libraries, our historical buildings. These cities are the repositories of our American culture. Let's not let them die.

Moon and mountain

This morning as Jack and I took our walk, the full moon was setting in the west beyond Saddle Peak, while the morning sun came from the east to ruddy the cliffs.

Click any photo to "embiggen."

Only in LA

When you key in your card to the ATM at the Nikkei Credit Union in the Japanese-American district on Sawtelle Boulevard in Los Angeles, it offers you the choice of language for conducting your transaction.

English or Spanish.

Blow-out birthday!

Masks, Olvera Street

October 31 is my friend Marvin's 65th birthday. Last year, he and Karen were in L.A. and we all went to the Dia de Los Muertos celebration at El Pueblo de Los Angeles at Olvera Street.

He and Karen were planning to fly west to celebrate - and get away from New York and Hurricane Sandy. But as it turns out, flights out of NYC are cancelled, and they are hunkering down in their house on the Hudson River.

After laying in a good supply of batteries, candles, chain saws and booze, there's nothing left to do but party.

"I was born in a cross-fire hurricane
And I howled at my ma in the driving rain,
But it's all right now, in fact, it's a gas!
But it's all right. I'm Jumpin Jack Flash,
Its a gas! gas! gas!"

Wishing Marvin a happy birthday. Have a real blow-out!

Prime directive met

 Tonight I was in the same room as Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner.

Needs and wants

Bottle tree, Hillsborough, NC

A story I heard today, which I may be telling badly:

A noted artist came to speak with a class of art students. When she arrived, the instructor asked the students to go around the room and tell her two things off the top of their heads.

What they need as artists.

What they want as artists.

But before they got started, one of the students asked the artist what her response to the question was.

A moment passed, and then the artist said, "I'm disturbed."

The room fell silent.

"I'm disturbed to hear that students who are so young and at the beginning of their lives are already being instructed to divide up the things they need from the things they want. If you want to live your lives fully as artists - what you want should be indistinguishable from what compels you - you can't separate them."

Thematic Photographic - Travel Travel

Carmi at Written, Inc. posts a weekly photo challenge caled Thematic Photographic. This week's theme is TRAVEL TRAVEL.

Post a photo you've taken while traveling.

Click to "embiggen"

Ah, my heart is still in Venice!  Here, a lone gondolier rows on the Grand Canal at evening. The setting sun gleams off the polished iron ferro at the prow.

Bibliophilia

"Diagnosis" - installation by Jena Priebe and David Lovejoy

Book lovers, rejoice. Here is your Mecca.

We just happened to stumble upon The Last Bookstore when we were taking a post-brunch walk through the historic financial district in downtown Los Angeles.

Weekend update

I should explain why I haven't been posting as much lately. I've joined a writing group, and I've been spending a lot of time on my assignments. It's a three-session group; last weekend was the first session, and I'm about to attend the second one. I've already submitted my piece for today's session by email.

The teacher, or leader - it's kind of hard to figure out what the hierarchy is - is a noted local newspaper columnist, now retired. The group is small, yet diverse. People are working on fiction, non-fiction, memoirs - a variety of works.

If I like it and find it useful, I can sign up to continue on. To be totally honest here, I'm not really sure whether I like it and find it useful - but I'm certainly going to participate in the first three sessions enthusiastically.

So - pardon the temporary light posting. And maybe I'll share some things later.