Cloudburst

Rain increasingly comes in concentrated bursts like this...

Twilight colors

Painterly clouds tonight...

Dark

Moist

Shower

Winter lights

Solitary motorcycle, doubtless a delivery, braves newly fallen snow.

Groundhog day

A lot going on

Frigid

Bone-chilling cold this morning - there's even ice on the Hudson!

Mourning in America

Break of a frigid day. But it's also MLK Day, a day to recommit to working to help bend the moral arc of the universe toward justice.

Saturated colors

First rain in over a month makes the remaining fall colors pop!

Election day morning!

Early morning light

Shadow play!

Pinking

Nuages

Cloudful skies from west in the morning via north in the early afternoon (from the West Village) to east and west again back in Manhattanville...

Biden his time

Excuse the iPhone reflection in the window, but this burst of sun through what had been dark clouds demands to be posted! For this is the day Joe Biden proved himself truly presidential by bowing out of the 2024 race. While he mulled the decision, the future seemed pretty bleak. I could imagine his dudgeon - one of the most effective presidents in a very long time, aided by a remarkably stable and competent cabinet, receiving no thanks from anyone, including members of his own party. And did I mention that he came into a country in economic and medical free-fall, with no help in the transition from his coup-coveting predecessor, who has spent the intervening years persuading a significant proportion of the electorate that the 2020 election was stolen? "I get no respect!" I pictured Biden thinking, and then, because he's capable of thinking beyond that, making the difficult but right choice. Americans, used to the endless campaign, may think 100 days too little to build a campaign, but most countries conduct their elections in this shorter time-frame. Perils remain in plenty from the coup plotters' side but the sun's out again. Thank you, Joe. Keep up the good work, and may we see it continue.

Dying light

Clearing

Happy Pride!

Skylines

Not too long after we moved into the neighborhood, construction began on a big residential tower in what had been the northern quad of Union Theological Seminary. Completed last year, residents have now moved in - including the faculty of Union, accommodated on lower floors. They get access to a northwest-facing roofdeck on their eighth floor which allows dramatic views of Riverside Church. Friends took us to see it today. To the northeast, you could see our complex, with funny little ziggurats on the top you can't see from below. 

Westward view

New York City has too much light for us to be able to see stars so I make do with the stars gleaming through the dark canopy of Georgia O'Keeffe's "The Lawrence Tree," my long-time favorite poster. A little sun faded in its first place in this apartment balcony, it's placed to complement our city sky now. I think I picked it up forty years ago, in Santa Fe, only five years ago learning that the painting can be placed any-which-way-up, and perhaps best the inverse of what's on the poster. This poster shows what you might observe standing, looking up a tree. But the inverse is the view when you're lying beneath a tree with your head touching the trunk, rising with its energy skyward.

Very excited I'll have a chance to reacquaint myself with such vertiginous glories this summer, as my high school class will be celebrating our 40th (sic!) graduation anniversary. I'm going!