Monthly Archives: November 2011

5 Felines Faceoff For Thanksgiving

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Queen AliceNewton

Prince Pinot

Olivia & John brought their 2 extremely well behaved cats. Bossy Queen Alice fled to the basement to tell timid Hermes. Prince Pinot was left to defend the palace. Newton’s evil eye above is only a flash reflection. If I half press the shutter and wait a second the green eye goes away, but so do the cats.

Nutmeg behaved perfectly – watching everything.

After 3 days Alice finally took over & cornered Newton & Nutmeg under the bed just in time for us to pull them out and carry them to the car for the 10 hour drive home to NYC. Looks like one at least has a seat belt.

Once they were gone, Hermes who has lived shyly in the basement for months, decided to come upstairs and see what really happens at 341.

Later:  In La Guardia,  while awaiting my flight to Abu Dhabi, I hear that Alice & Pinot are exhausted too.

Airport Art

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So many people with so much time to spare, at least while awaiting their planes, gives airports an unrivaled audience. I think Calgary started it with exquisite native artifacts.  Some of my favorite NA airport art today follows:

This huge bronze Haida canoe, speaking to all travelers (especially those tall people squeezed into ever smaller seats on ever longer flights), catches my imagination every time I pass  through Vancouver.

More sailors are in Amsterdam’s excellent small sampling of their Reijksmuseum (sp?) where I found these youngsters.

A little South, in Seattle, the suspended flocks of birds is an oft repeated idea (Remember large flock of geese in the Eaton Center, Toronto 35 years ago? Was that the first?) which I’ve yet to see done to perfection.

Seattle  has other excellent pieces, some a little hidden

Last week, in Philadelphia, these ornate shoes by Sharon Taffet  raised the spirits of jaded travelers delayed by fog and bad weather from off-shore tropical storm “Sean”.

And in Minneapolis there is a great dynamic image of an insurance company’s umbrella which shatters into myriad small umbrellas as you walk by, and then reassembles. A good future project to photograph and link to YouTube – Any volunteers going to MN soon?

Away from the airport, in a New Jersey glass fabrication shop, I stumbled on this just approved mock-up section for the 185 ft. tall facade of the base of the nearly completed (2013 est.) World Trade Center tower, NYC, replacing those so sadly lost on 9-11.  Interesting to see this grey evening image and try to imagine how dramatic it will surely appear when installed with lights, etc.  Architects must have great imagination.

Indiana Images Last Weekend

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The Indianapolis Art Museum has a travelling treasure show of 700 year old exquisite Ife copper cast heads found only 70 years ago in the grounds of a Nigerian royal palace. They left no written record at all – not to be missed if they come to your local museum:

Ife Copper Casting

Dashing out to get to the Norville wedding we passed an eyecatching sculpture and I neglected to note the artist’s name.No problem – back in Ohio my free “Google Goggles” ap for my phone scanned my photo and in no time at all told me it’s “Mobius Ship” by Tim Hawkinson from CA. A good play on “Moby Dick” and “Mobius Strip”.  Technology gets better all the time.

And then back by night on US highway 24 just in time for deer hunting season. They suddenly appear out of the dark. I’m still recovering from the shock. This one was worth $3000 damage to our insurance company. Quick braking and a small swerve right probably brought the impact speed down to around 55 mph and perhaps prevented it coming in the window.  Everyone in Ohio and Michigan has their similar story. Worst is when it comes in the window and is still kicking!Even though the road was wide open with no trees it was very hard to see until a large head appears trotting across front of you. The only answer I can imagine is to restrict our driving to daylight hours, or at night at least use high beam lights as much as possible.