sopwith59

Henry and me in Central Park this afternoon...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:44:42 GMT

The light was especially beautiful. And Henry seemed to love this part of the park (near West 100th Street), all the flora and fauna...

Best laid plans, rearranged...

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:54:24 GMT

My brother just called to tell me the Guggenheim Museum is closed Thursdays!

I'd never have guessed that. So much for our plan.

But he said today he'll come uptown and let me treat him to lunch... and we can try the museum on Saturday, instead...

Kandinsky, see you in a couple of days...

A birthday cake for Henry

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:31:43 GMT

On November 5, Thursday, I'll be meeting my brother Henry to celebrate his 54th birthday.

How is that possible?

Weren't we just 17 and 21 years old, gallivanting around Europe together with our Eurail passes? (sigh.)

The tentative plan is that we'll go to the Guggenheim Museum to see the Kandinsky exhibit, admission will be my treat, and I'll give him some gifts I've carefully chosen and wrapped...

as well as cake!

Either I'll hand over a box containing the entire cake I baked today, or present only some portion of it--in the interests of helping his self-restraint (as he is borderline-diabetic, and baking sweets for him is not doing him the greatest favor). But this is a special occasion, after all...

Anyway, I enjoyed the elaborate cake-baking process this morning. I'd been thinking about a recipe from a blog written by my brilliant OB-GYN, Peggy Polaneczky, whose many interests include baking.

http://theblogthatatemanhattan.blogspot.com/2009/10/chocolate-chip-birthday-cake.html

Since I'd been considering this for a little while, I'd already bought the Presto self-rising cake flour and milk, but had to run out for more eggs (as this recipe calls for separating four and I didn't realize I was down to three).

Huff, puff! Back from the supermarket, ready to go... I decided to begin by whipping the egg whites into stiff peaks, then spooning them into another bowl, cleaning the stand mixer's bowl, and proceeding with the other steps: creaming butter and sugar, etc. I used the blender to grind the mini chocolate chips into a mix of chips-and-powder, as described on the blog.

I'd carefully sprinkled grated chocolate across the top, but after baking, what resulted was a central puddle. I guess the rising batter made all the small pieces of chocolate slide downhill.

Okay, I confess I cut myself a small piece tonight. I had to make sure the cake was a success!

My verdict: satisfactory!
Okay... even better than that. Very, very good.
Not to be conceited about this or anything...

A long, lurid tail...

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 18:23:38 GMT

...is what this scarf will be when it's finished.

Recently, browsing in one of the 99-cent discount stores in Kensington, Bruce's new neighborhood, I noticed an array of yarn hung on a back wall.

Only one skein remained of this bright orange acrylic, perhaps having been bought up for Halloween use--but in any case, in such circumstances I tend to pounce, as if the lone item were calling out, "My kind is very popular! See, I'm the only one left!"

Maybe I will have to nerve to wear this come Thanksgiving, or else it may be some unlucky friend's Christmas gift...

I have certainly been seeing a lot of orange lately, and even finding myself wearing the hue, at times--e.g. I have this jacket, an Icelandic brand called Cintamani, in "tangerine."

And I have this Patagonia top in "wild salmon":

I've always tended to wear a lot of gray, black, and neutral colors.
Huh. Maybe I'm reinventing myself... yeah, that's the ticket... as a pumpkin?

NYC Marathon Expo, inexorable vortex of hoopla, celeb sightings, and stuff!

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:11:04 GMT

I rose early yesterday and by ten o'clock had found my way to a desolate stretch of 11th Avenue. At 33rd Street I entered the belly of a vast glass and metal-beamed behemoth.

The Jacob Javits Center was full of nervous, lanky, sneaker-clad people--runners from all over the world soon to take part in the 40th running of the NYC Marathon (tomorrow morning).

O the ransacking of racks of shiny clothes, the flashing of bills and credit cards, the scuttle of fingers toward free samples, pens, memo pads, rubber bracelets, candy... I walked wide aisles named for the boroughs, between mountains of shoes, gloves, socks, caps, tops, shorts, tights, and gizmos, all claiming to hold innovative magic: windproof, odor-fighting, energy-boosting, spine-aligning...

The Marathon Expo brings out the avaricious consumer in everyone, including those who might have first embraced the sport for being simple, spartan, with no need for costly gear.

And I, who care nothing at all (ahem) about celebrities, ended up having my photo snapped with one.

While my friends Sharon and Bonnie approached the counter for their goodie bags and t-shirts, I spotted Anthony Edwards, the actor. (I used to watch "ER" now and then, over a decade ago.)

Edwards stood beside his friend Toby Tanser, a local running coach with whom I am slightly acquainted. (We've exchanged emails and most recently, compared notes on Iceland where Toby spent some of his youth.)

I summoned the nerve to tap Toby on the shoulder and say hi. I also found myself gushing to his friend.

"I've seen your video clip!" I told the probably-jaded-by-fan-adulation actor. (I meant the humorous video in the link below, which Toby had shared on facebook). "I'm a big fan. Can I take a photo of you guys?"

"Let me take one of you two," Toby said--hence the photo above, where I look a bit starstruck and Anthony Edwards a bit reluctant. (Later, though, the PA system announced the booth where he was appearing. I guess he's not that shy.)

"Good to see you!" Toby said finally, smiling, polite and charming as always.

I might add that Toby is a founder of Shoe4Africa, a charity to which I've donated, and which Anthony Edwards (his best buddy, I am told) helps to promote. AE is running the marathon this year, and has been interviewed about it in the NY Times and Runners World. The guy gets around.

He also made a funny video pretending to be a clueless jerk of an actor readying for the marathon, anticipating that it will be just like a "five-hour TV special!"

The clip is at Anthony Edwards returns to TV in the NYC Marathon from Anthony Edwards - Video

Later, I told my mother about the encounter. I know she thinks Anthony Edwards is cute.

"He's married, you know," she said.

Smörgås Chef

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:20:48 GMT

Yesterday was one of those rainy, windy days that could easily inspire a rain-check request... but Bruce and I met for lunch, my treat. We were celebrating his birthday (which was Monday the 26th) at Smörgås Chef West Village. It was our first time at this place: cozy, uncrowded, unpretentious. We were wet and a bit cranky, but we drippingly, appreciatively settled into a booth.

Bruce ordered a Bass beer and the gravlax sandwich; I had seafood chowder and a "Nordic Caesar salad" (though it didn't seem particularly Nordic to me).

I used the 15%-off discount coupon I'd received at the Norwegian Festival.

"I was there! Did you see me?" asked our server, Gabrielle, a pleasant, grinning girl in a very low-cut, abbreviated floral dress and boots. ("Her cleavage is fun," Bruce remarked as she bounced off.)

Gabrielle handed me two cards that offer future discounts if I go online, complete a survey, comment on her service (that's how I learned her name) and then receive a code.

Hmm. Should I complain about the fact that she foisted on us... I mean, heartily recommended a dessert as her favorite, riskrem, "rice cream with cherries and almonds"? Nah. Bruce admitted it was "chalky in texture" but pleasant in flavor.

As we were leaving, we were informed that the two men in the next booth had also used that discount coupon. "Did you run?" Bruce asked the two elderly fellows. "My roommate did," replied one man. (Roommate? Or is his unemployed grandson living with him, I wondered.)

We ventured back into the damp outdoors. Later, Bruce said he was running a fever. As I said, not the best day to be out and about.

Floored!

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:19 GMT

Bruce's new rug from Pottery Barn arrived a few days ago, and today I helped him move the sofa back, unroll the rug pad, put it in place, and unfurl the rug over that. The place is looking better and better... (His brother Jack and sister-in-law Hope will see the apartment for the first time tomorrow.)

One day soon, I'm sure we'll get around to watching a DVD on his new 46-inch flat-screen television. My vicarious enjoyment of modern conveniences continues apace...

Candy is dandy...

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:25:46 GMT

but wrappers are... dapper!? (Apologies to Ogden Nash.) Many thanks to Alphistia for the gift of these pulchritudinous confections

/

.

Continuing to help Bruce move...

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:33:55 GMT

We swept, tossed, gathered, toted...

Go Koong!

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:21:13 GMT

Today Alphistia (aka Tony) and I ate a hearty lunch, at a fairly new Korean restaurant across from his place. Go Koong ("Korean Well-Being Cuisine" per the business card) is at 41-16 Queens Boulevard in Sunnyside. Their website is http://www.gokoong.com

I hope they prosper. Based on our experience this afternoon, I'd say they have a lot going for them: wonderfully tasty food in abundant portions, attractive decor, and superbly attentive and generous service... for instance, we were given this complimentary hot egg-custard dish...

The appetizers of sea weed and kimchi, and hot broth, were fine... and hit the spot on this rainy day. Also, it helped that we were starved.

Alphistia's main course, beef bugolgi, was stirred by our friendly waiter:

My hot pot of seafood, vegetables and rice made me very happy.

We also received complimentary dessert beverages, a mysterious fruity concoction we guessed might contain raspberry juice.

I even liked their restroom.

Something to scarf at...

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:36:30 GMT

Here's a photo of just some of the scarves I've knitted over the past year. I don't have enough necks or lifetime of winter days to make this sensible.

But I was democratic in my choice of materials--or should I say, not too fussy. Mostly, I used cheap skeins dredged from a bin at the local 99-cent store... but sometimes treated myself to better yarns from Yarntopia (a shop-with-attitude on Amsterdam Avenue) and Icelandic wool from one of the Hand-knitters' Association shops in Reykjavik.

What next--tiny articles of neckwear for the plushren?

More of Kensington

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 01:28:11 GMT

We had lunch again today at Connie's Cafe, a decent diner around the corner from Bruce's new place.

Indifferent service: college girls, maybe.

For instance, I requested dry toast with my omelet, adding "No butter please" just to be explicit--and finally received it slathered in butter. Oh well.

I gave it to Bruce, decided to say nothing to the waitress.

When we got the bill, Bruce saw that it did read "DRY TOAST." Does this mean something else in the land of Kensington? ;)

Not to complain. The food there isn't bad at all.

Fortified, we then continued to explore the neighborhood. Mexican restaurants, Bangladeshi groceries...

Kabir's Bakery where I bought a strange confection called Cashew Burfee... all in all, quite a mix.

Also a hideous public school alongside a traditional-looking post office, some ugly brick rowhouses...

many lovely front gardens and some horrifying Halloween decorations.

Bruce's move to Kensington

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:44:40 GMT

Today was momentous for my dear friend Bruce (aka Adlai48 here on LiveJournal, and one of the few readers of this blog).

He made the move to a new apartment in Kensington, Brooklyn, about a mile and a half (i.e., two F train stops) from the Park Slope place (364 Twelfth Street) that he'd called home for seventeen years.

Bruce's landlady Dolly (may she rest in peace) had been a lover of plushren:

On Monday and Tuesday, I helped out, packing about 27 boxes of books, and then a few boxes of music CD's and miscellaneous stuff.

Today, movers from Santini Brothers arrived to transport those boxes and the furniture. The head of the crew had a brogue and told us he was from Belfast.

(Soon after, Bruce noted to me, he was finding himself adopting a slight Irish accent.)

At 135 Ocean Parkway, Apartment 17A:

The view from that top floor of the building is pretty nice:

Later, we explored the neighborhood a little, finding an eclectic ethnic mix (dare you to say that three times fast!): yeshivas and Catholic churches; shops of Indian, Chinese, Polish food... and of course, the indispensable potpourri of 99-cent discount stores...

A schoolyard around the corner:

(Bruce doesn't have computer access yet at his new place, so he won't see this entry right away. Hope he approves!)

Bernice Marashinsky Bergtraum

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:29:37 GMT

This morning I scanned some old photos of my mom. How I treasure them! Unfortunately, some have been a bit damaged. I want to look for more (to rescue and scan) sometime when I'm in the Connecticut apartment again, as that's where many of the old family albums are tucked away...

A Shakespeare Coloring Book, © 1970 by Bellerophon Books

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:10:48 GMT

At eleven, I must have believed that coloring very, very carefully within the lines would somehow ensure the safety and well-being of myself and all family members and friends. What other explanation for this?

surprise snapshot

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 16:38:17 GMT

A week or so ago, this photo arrived in the mail, sent by my brother. My estimate is that it's from the summer of 2003 or 2004, an evening when a bunch of us gathered to hear the Philharmonic in Central Park.

stupid hair tricks? smart hair?

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 11:23:19 GMT

No, I wasn't hanging upside down to achieve this effect. Just gave my hair a quick, vigorous brushing. At first I was aghast at the result but then noticed the resemblance to...

Probably a cousin.

blueberry cream cheese pie

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:12:55 GMT

Inspiration and guidelines came from Pat Willard's Pie Every Day (a book I'd never consulted before) and David Lebovitz's The Sweet Life in Paris (no one is more knowledgeable and expert than he):

I made the crust from melted butter, sugar, and "Anna's Pepparkakor" (spice cookies bought a week ago, at IKEA in Red Hook) pulverized in the food processor:

Batter (8 ounces of cream cheese at room temperature, 1/4 cup sugar, freshly grated lemon zest, vanilla extract, two eggs) also whipped up in the food processor:

Voila, after about a half-hour in the oven (at 375F):

A pint of blueberries, brought to a boil with 1/3 cup water (and sugar added to taste) and to thicken, just a bit of cornstarch (feh) dissolved in water:

I decided to toss in a few remaining uncooked berries:

Final steps:

Mmmmmmmmmm..........

"I don't want a pickle..."

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:12:03 GMT

Arlo Guthrie performed last night at Castle Clinton (Battery Park), a free concert that drew long lines. A good time was had by all...

A bit of his finale:

from "Beyond," Dan Graham exhibition at Whitney Museum

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:32:23 GMT

Letters.

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:18:35 GMT

...from Frank McCourt (to me at Yale).

__________________________________

73 Atlantic Ave. Bklyn 11201
2 July 80

Dear Lisa:

Ambitions. I will take out a subscription to the National Geographic and maybe Scientific Monthly. I will travel a bit someday because I want to meet (in person & living color) a(n) Ubangi, an Eskimo (I want to sleep betwixt naked blubber-smeared Eskimo wife & daughter), an Australian aborigine (Maori?), an English fisherman, a deposed European princeling. I will learn how to sail and just bum from port to port. I might have an ear pierced & let a beard sprout to hide my adam's apple. I will drink coffee in Verona & ouzo in Crete. I'll grow old awkwardly watching sunsets in the Seychelles Islands. I'll read P.G. Wodehouse & S.J. Pearlman [sic] and back issues of the Readers Digest. I'll fall to my knees every Sunday morning & pray for those who read the New York Times. I'll write long letters to my daughter & advise her against advice. I'll tell my ex-wife I'm very sorry and I have an appointment with routine.

I might do none of the above but I will keep some beer cans and bottle caps. I'll throw out textbooks & study garbage in Brooklyn Heights. I'll read Czech travel books because they're there and I will never read the New York Review of Books because it is there. I will read Alice in Wonderland for the ninth time and go camping in Bear Mountain. I will learn the names of things - trees, especially. I'm very weak in the tree department. Flowers, too. But I can tell the difference between Gauguin & Van Gogh although I beg you not to challenge me on Monet and Manet. Don't mention Picasso to me. Life is too short. Life is also too short for editorials, inflation, rights (all kinds of rights), baseball, skydiving.

I don't know the difference between one fish and another though I'm a fiend when it comes to dactyls & trochees. I still can't get direct & indirect objects straight though I do know cognate objects. I can tell you all about Deborah Kerr's early career but nothing about Marcello Mastroianni (sp?).

The juke box is thumping downstairs but I don't care. I'm drinking a can of McSorley's Cream Ale. It's a pleasant can: I'm thinking of hanging it on the wall when I'm finished.

I'm also thinking of your phone call tonight & how often I made calls like that myself - but to myself. Yale Lisa at one end, Brooklyn McCourt at the other. In between - cosmic cackles. Sense, sense, sense. There's no middle-class, no aristocracy. There is only the Staten Island ferry, the ruins of the World's Fair, people picking up dog shit, Protestant sports - jogging, tennis, swimming, rock climbing, wife swapping. Catholics run and avoid the English Channel.

28 July 80
I looked back over this, groaned, was ready to make a ball & throw it in the corner - to illustrate our common bondage - but I refrained & will forward it in all its pristine idiocy.

I was measuring - in retrospect, of course, what else? - my 21-yr.old misery against your 21 yr. old misery & I think I was ahead. Sorry, but I was definitely ahead. Definitely more miserable. Tangibly & concretely miserable. Scrawny shoulders, infected eyes, bad teeth, dandruff, no high school diploma, lousy job feeding birds in the Biltmore Hotel. It makes me feel jolly to know how desperate I was then. I wanted to be handsome (broad shoulders, wide, clean-toothed smile), gregarious, strong, irresistible to women. I wanted to go to college, read books, mope about the campus hand in hand with a honey blonde from Pierre, N. Dakota. We'd discuss Dylan Thomas & she'd admire my musical recitation - Oh, when I was young & easy etc."

I've hung two empty McSorley Ale Cans on my wall, an empty Almaden Chablis bottle (1/2 gal), empty litre of Soave, my one tie, a wrench. I'm going to make lists - then turn each item in each list into an epic novel. It won't take me long. I'm only a kid.

If you can get this book, grab it: The Best of Myles (Flann O'Brien). He'll keep you chuckling. (I've never mastered the chuckle - nor have I ever heard one, except when I was attacked by a tern at Breezy Pt. & he chuckled as he swooped by my ear.)

So, read The Best of Myles. Take it to bed & bath. And read his other stuff. Great relief from the Connecticut angst peddlers: Cheever, Updike, Beattie. A pox on that trinity.

Don't forget to wash your feet daily & dry them in your hair. Keep your underwear in the freezer, a la Marilyn Monroe. Imagine it's your first day at Stuyvesant. Eat codfish heads boiled in milk with onions. Develop a devotion to St. Sebastian (arrows) and St. Simon Stylites who was, in a sense, up the pole.

And pray, my child, for those who, in their merriment, never taste the sweetness of despair.

Two former students said to me: "Say something intimate." I've been thinkng about that & bejesus I'm at the crossroads.

Yours in the spleen of St. Barabbas,
Frank McC

____________________________________

248 Warren St.
Brooklyn NY 11201
5 Feb 79

Dear Lisa:

This is a "free" man writing: no punching in or out, no papers to mark, no "please excuse this interruption" on the PA, no "did you mark my story, my poem, my essay, my letter, my this, my that?"

No more, I hope, forever.

Now what do I do? Coffee in the morning. Moping. Poring over notes for, and from, the underground. I boil an egg. I think about long-distance ambling and other people's battles with cholesterol. I contemplate the hundreds gone & going to college. And what have you done to/for/with them, McCourt? Are you cursed in beer halls in Wisconsin, recalled tenderly at Cornell, reviled at Purchase, hymned at Harvard?

There was that afternoon - one drink - in a 14th Street bar. You and your silent friend. You and his whiskey sours. (How could you!) Whiskey sours. Marriage of corn and citrus.

And we still have a date hanging at Chumleys. Will they let me in? Oh, course they've forgotten the mad Celt overturning tables. Vichyssoise & onion soup in startled laps. Mad Mick howling maledictions, hurled into the night. But I'm quieter now - a little bit of cunning, blather, & bullshit. Silence, exile and...

I just noticed two of your letters: Nov 30, 77 and Nov 30, 78. (Remember? Swift's birthday?) Write me forever from wherever on Swift's birthday. I'll be here - or somewhere.

It would be a lovely thing to see you - or hear from you. When will you be back?

Love
Frank McC

__________________________________

248 Warren St.
Brooklyn NY 11201
Labor Day [1978]

Dear Lisa:

Bit of madness in the air today: cloudless sky, sun, winter nipping, papers to grade, tests to make up, five classes to face tomorrow, platitudes to polish, exhortations to burnish. And at a time like this what better than to dash off a few phrases to the scholar at Yale.

So you went to Europe? And you went to the west coast? And you went back to Yale? And I? Went neither east nor west but swung nevertheless from this to that and said to myself (discovery!!) that nothing is coming back. That's it. In life as in literature (opening phrase in Regents' literature questions) you know you've exhausted the mine when nothing is coming back. It's no one's fault. Stand before the class, talk to friends, hold forth at the party: there comes the time when you know you're talking into a void, pissing against wind or (God forgive me) voiding in a void. (Can you imagine some little bugger in high school raising his hand for the pass: "Hey, teach, I gotta go void?")

And that's what it is, children. Nothing's coming back. F. McCourt is empty. Has said it all. Now, opening your grammar books, we'll return to the usual world.

I wish I were an American. Or a Renaissance prelate with gold plate and an itch for incest.

I wish I were an Oregon trapper--setting up housekeeping with a bear.

Get me a job, will you? I'll do anything at Yale, for Yale. Surely they need a coordinator, a consultant. Anything. I'm very adaptable, clean, furtive. I'll agree to anything.

But, as modest epistolarians say, you don't want to hear about me. You want to hear about yourself - and, Christ knows, I'd tell you about yourself if I knew anything. By the way, did you ever get your money from Ince? When you do, we'll spend it on burgers at Chumleys.

I'll be out of Stuyvesant in the spring. I'm asking for a sabbatical. They may refuse. I'll ask for a leave of absence. They'll say they can't spare me. At that point I'll show how expendable I am.

Will you be in these parts at Christmas? (I'm devoted to the Immaculate Conception. Always have been. You, of indeterminate religious persuasion, will never understand the thrill of dogma, the sweetness of mystification.)

Someday I'll write you about the "real world." I promise I'll make sense. But I'm just holding on now. Putting on a face to meet the faces that I meet. Facing the faces that I face.

Book me into the Yale Theatre - or whatever it is. My brother & I do a show on our miserable childhood & our struggles with the American dream. (I'll be your agent if you'll be mine.)

Whisper: Is any verse streaming from the Bergtraum brain?

If you receive this on Yom Kippur be assured it was planned that way. I'll write again on the anniversary of Little Big Horn & Custer's last stand.

Love
Frank McC

__________________________________

248 Warren Street
Brooklyn N.Y. 11201
4 April 1978

Dear Lisa,

Did I mention the significance of the date of your letter (Nov. 30) when you dropped in at Christmas? Birthday of Jonathan Swift (my idol - if I have an idol though, God knows, idols just one [sic] stay put anymore, they keep taking vacations from their pedestals (and it's just as well because I get a crick in me (Irish) neck looking at them)) and Winston Churchill - not, needless to say, an idol though he did his bit to save that Western civilization in which we now flourish and have our being.

You slipped away betimes didn't you and all I knew of you was the top of your head as you slumbered on the last desk and the glimpse you gave me of your world in that stenographer's pad. I won't ask why (about the pad, I mean). As a matter of fact/fiction, I won't ask anything but there are a few who pass through and leave something. You were one of the few. Teacher learns from students - sometimes. Teacher did.

2

I did tell you how miraculous it was that your letter came on a day when I thought of closing the Stuyvesant door behind me - ever so quietly, bye, bye, Stuy, Frankie gettin' cranky here, Frankie tired of understanding and smiling and saying there, there, try again. You'll do better next time.

But a last look at the mailbox and there was the letter - all the way from Yale, bejesus, an omen, dated on Swift's birthday, from the lady with the Swiftian pizzazz, the sharp eye.

And I went and had a beer around the corner and read my letter (your letter) and had another beer and felt much better, thank you, for the moment anyway.

So you see what one little letter can do!

They visit occasionally. They come from Harvard and Swarthmore and Cornell and they say "The old place, old times, old teacher" till one feels like something stuffed in a museum. I'll charge admission, that's what I'll do. Stuffed teacher speaks. "How's college, Jonathan?" and Jonathan says, "Oh, foine."

3

Will you travel this summer, eat a peach, go south in the winter? Will you write, for Christ's sake, so that Judith Viorst will be put to shame? Will you be my official biographer? Someone has to do a multi-volume life of F. McCourt, Esquire, son of Angela and Malachy. Came to America in search of security and respectability, found it (them) and now twirls like an ant atop a blade of grass.

So, if you have an idle year or two, remember my biography. I'll babble into a tape recorder, your ear, anything. I live for my biographer. I don't take a step that won't occupy a chapter. I save my letters, bills, tickets, dandruff.

Everything.

And if you won't write my biography I'll do yours.

Save everything.

Especially yourself.

And I remain
Yours ever
Frank McC

P.S. Will you visit again?
If you are reluctant to come to
Stuyvesant I'll meet you at
McSorleys, Luchows, World Trade
Centre, Burger King, Le Champignon!

the real and the imitative

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 02:21:35 GMT

Sunflowers on West 100th Street:

Fake (woeful) sunflower in a furniture store:

But after a hard rain, the real sunflowers are a bit worse for wear:

Frank McCourt

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 12:57:11 GMT

From the 1976 issue of Caliper, Stuyvesant High School's literary magazine.

around my neighborhood

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:52:34 GMT

Today, near Riverside Park, pretty flowers...

and puzzling behavior on the playground below:

and sailboats:

and an intriguing sign near Broadway:

Fire Island sojourn

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 18:44:52 GMT

n July 10 and 11 (Thursday and Friday) I visited my wonderful friend Sharon in the Fair Harbor community on Fire Island.

(Sharon and her husband Asher took a place there for a week.)

Sharon's friend Steve also came out for the day; he's the guy in the photo below.