NEW YORK NEW YORK – This is my fourth anniversary. I’ve posted a picture every day since October 16, 2009. I’ve reproduced below my October 16, 2009 picture, a Jean DuBuffet sculpture, that was my first post. This is my 1461th consecutive daily post. (I’ve written a dozen or so posts more than 1461 because on one of our Africa trips I wrote more than one post a day.)
I’m planning on continuing until they bury me. There’s no point to this work other than the blog itself. I get occasional revenue from it as magazines ask for publication rights to images – this just about covers the cost of my hosting service. I have no plans for commercializing it.
For today we’re still at Schloss Elmau with perhaps one of the best pictures of our stay here. It’s a joint portrait of Maria and me.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – My college classmates here in New York annually celebrate everyone in the class’s birthday (on a arbitrary date). I’m part of a subgroup that brings better than OK wines. This year one of our colleagues brought four bottles of ’83 Lafitte. I brought a couple of magnums of ’97 Chablis “Les Clos”. One of our number served as our host at the Brook, a midtown club. Here’s a silver cup on our table given annually, judging from the inscriptions, for some achievement or other. I generally avoid in-focus people at affairs like this lest they be judged harshly for hanging out in such a stuffy-looking environment. This with my Leica Monochrom and 50mm Luxochron lens.
At the Brook
NEW YORK NEW YORK – We went to the opening of the New York Film Festival at Alice Tully Hall tonight – we saw Captain Phillips which is a sensation. Dinner before was at the Leopard, a long-time New York restaurant that has fairly recently located itself in the former Cafe des Artistes space. Still a remarkable place to enjoy a meal. Taken with my Leica Moncochrom and Luxochron lens. Two frames stitched.
Former Cafe des Artistes
NEW YORK NEW YORK – I shot a bunch of different cameras today. My iPhone, shooting an anniversary present: a silver Tiffany bowl from the early 1930s; the engraver misspelled Maria as “Marcia”; this would be hard to explain to Maria so I sent it back to be re-engraved; it won’t be ready for our actual anniversary on September 29. Tough luck. My Leica Monochrom with my Luxochrom lens on the street; I’m consistently getting my strongest images from this combination. My Sony RX100 II: the setup for an anniversary party (given by us for us) at the Knickerbocker Club. Same camera: an image of me and two friends at the party taken by one of our guests. I didn’t shoot at the party because I really did have to connect with everyone there and photography gets in the way. It’s the difference between being and observer and a participant. I’m usually happy to be an observer (delighted, actually, being an observer feeds my inner introvert) but tonight I need to participate.
Anniversary PresentPedestrianKnickerbocker ClubNot taken by me
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Here it is, Saturday on a gorgeous Fall weekend, and we’re not in Connecticut. What’s going on here? Well Laura and Alexander (our daughter-in-law and son) are having a baby shower today for the daughter they are expecting in five weeks. We started calling her “.2” in Laura’s 10th week of pregnancy and the name seems to have stuck for now. Probably spelled Point-Two. Anyway a lovely event and well worth missing a couple of leaves in rural New England. Take with my Sony RX100 II, which works well at events.
Baby showerBaby showerBaby Shower
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Forbidding gray day number two. This sucks.
A friend who restores quilts brought an example over for our consideration. It’s from 1910 or so and unusually has a detailed provenance. We’re interested so she’s going to finish the restoration and put a back on it. She should be done in time for Christmas.
Did you know that Mallomars have a season? (A Mallomar is a piece of graham cracker with some marshmallow goo on top; the whole thing is coated with a hard dark chocolate shell.) They have a real following. Witness this example of usage from the online Urban Dictionary:
Jane: “Tanner do you want to come over and bang?”
Tanner: ” No way it’s MALLOMAR SEASON!!”
Of course we would need to know more about Jane and Tanner’s relationship to assess how important Mallomar Season actually is to Tanner.
There’s a Mallomar Season because Nabisco doesn’t make them year-round. For example today is not Mallomar season; I haven’t been able to get a straight answer as to when it actually is. At our poker game tonight Marty attempted to synthesize a Mallomar (he’s a fan) by shooting Miracle Whip onto fragments of chocolate doughnuts. I believe that this gets the nutritional values right, but doesn’t actually taste much like a Mallomar.
The quilt taken with my Leica S2 and the Mallomar man with my Leica Monochrom.
QuiltMarty simulates a Mallomar
For some reason I had trouble linking to my image from a year ago. It wasn’t that good so we’ll skip “On this day last year” for today.
