"Man in Abstract Suit"

A week or so ago Kathy and I went down to Uniondale to visit our lawyer.  Her office is located in RXR Plaza which is a set of two giant 15-story shining glass towers of office space on Hempstead Turnpike. The lobby of the building is huge - 22,000 square feet!  When we walked in the front door the first thing I saw was this ceramic sculpture in brilliant colors.  I was really taken by it, and I can't tell you why, but I spent a bit of time looking at it closely before I photographed it.  I thought maybe it looked like Richard Nixon!  I asked the guard at the desk if there was a text block that told who the artist was and what this was called.  He said "No, there is not sign."  How weird is that, to have a serious work of art in a building like this, with no information about it.  Then I got a brilliant idea!  I would send this to Google Images because it is astounding what it can tell you about an item in a photo. And the answer is:  "This sculpture appears to be Man in Abstract Suit (1988) by the renowned American ceramic artist Viola Frey.  It features a larger-than-life, monumental figurative style crafted from ceramic and vivid, multi-layered glazes."  So there you go!  Thank you Google!  So do you like this sculpture? By the way, It was so frustrating that those three stanchions and black webbing were in front of the sculpture!

Fresh Tomatos

How do these look as fresh tomatos?  They are really delicious!  Last year our friend Larry gave us a tomato plant and we put it in the ground and got a few fresh tomatoes.  This year Kathy said "Don't pull that up it is not a weed" when the plant re-emerged from the ground.  We were not paying attention and It grew crazy fast and took over the entire herb garden and was growing out over the lawn.  I finally added a couple of stakes and tied the tomato plant up some.  These are unbelievably delicious.  They are only as large as a kid's glass marble but they taste like REAL tomatoes! And they smell wonderful as well.  How unusual given what store bought tomatoes tase like these days!

Maybe if you click on this you can begin to separate the tomato plant growing out over the lawn.  It is just growing gangbusters all over the place!

I was looking closely into the plant and found these green tomatoes down inside.  If you click on this photo you will see some astounding detail in the tomatoes, especially the green, star-shaped part at the top of a tomato which is called the calyx.  There are very tiny hairs on the calyx and on the stalk the tomatoes are growing on.  You will not believe the detail!

 

I'm Not Done With Stellafane

I had so many things going on when I got home that I didn't have much time to post any more Stellafane photographs after I posted that one of the memorial with all the lights.  So this is late in the day, before it gets dark enough to observe.  I love how strange this looks.  What are all those silver ghosts doing on the observing field?  These are all telescopes which need to cool down before observing.  They are covered with this aluminized mylar because the telescopes sit out in this field all day and the mylar keeps the sun from warming them up.

 

Wow! A Corvette!

I saw what looked like a brand new, bright blue Corvette, driving home from Stop & Shop in Glen Cove.  it was moving slower than the rest of the traffic so I had time to look at it as I slowly went by.  I was stunned to see the driver, and his pet dog!  If you've got it, flaunt it!

As we neared a red light, I got out my cellphone and did two quick shots without looking at what I was pointing at, and I was lucky and got these two photographs.  I was surprised at the age of the driver, for some reason, but to see him with his dog was so cute.  The whole thing was just so surprising and I thought it worth a photograph or two!

 

The Bright Star in the West after Sunset

Take a look outside just after sunset and you will see a bright "star" shining brilliantly, even when the sky is still light.  That "star" is not a star at all, but the planet Venus!  It is beautiful to see something this bright shining in a fairly bright sky.  I started photographing this scene when it was still light out but decided this photograph, taken long after sunset was more interesting and that Venus stood out better than in the bright sky.  It will be fun for you to keep an eye on it and see how its position changes each day at the same time.

So after posting the first photograph and writing about it and how pretty it was I realized that I should have posted this photograph, because it is brighter and has more color.  This photograph was taken before the first one, and I like it better.  Duh!

 

The Garden at Pezzi's

We have been going to this Pizza Shop for years. Back when Kathy had an office just down the street from this restaurant, we would eat dinner there from time to time.  But we have always bought our Pizza from them.  There are two brothers and their father started this restaurant and then they gradually took over the business from him.  I think it was this year, for the first time, that flowers were planted along the edge of the parking lot and it was such a nice addition and dressed the parking lot up.  I asked them who did that and they said one of the workers at the restaurant was doing it.  I really love what he did with only a one foot depth to the garden.  Today I saw this, and although it is not really a traditional garden photograph I was attracted to the textures and the patterns of the leaves and felt this was an interesting photograph, even thought the flowers are fading.

 

"Technologies of Relation"

These are three photographs from a large exhibition with work from 12 artists. From the catalog:  "Technologies of Relation" examines how we relate to each other, to the world around us and to the technologies that often mediate those relationships.  The artists in the exhibition embrace how technology can connect us, but also acknowledge how it harms us."  There is a lot more text about these exhibits but I didn't understand much of it.  So here is the crazy thing - they have booklets available to take, with detailed informaton and photographs, about all the different exhibitions on display.  I have the booklet for this exhibition, but I neglected to photograph the text on the wall for this particular part of the exhibition.  I have read the book and searched the Mass MoCA website and there is no mention at all, that I can find of what is going on in this room with pink light!  But it was so interesting to feel the mood created by these objects and the pink light.  I will leave it up to you to see what you think this might be about.

So this is a kitchen and was created by five artists and is titled "One Who Looks at the Cup" and harkens back to family traditions of the art of tasseography, a predictive technology that interprets patterns and symbols in coffee grounds at the bottom of a cup.  The box on the table, which was not working, unfortunately, would normally produce a cup of coffee and leave you with grounds which the device reads after using AI on which it was trained on transcripts and images from coffee readings from the past.  The fabrics are traditional Armenian designs.  It was, in some way, a beautiful room that seemed so cheery and was nice to be in.

This is only part of an exhibit that shows a film "Speculations on Capture" about the pioneering technological advancements made in the 1200's in Iran, while mourning the acquisition of instruments by Western museums.  The artist speaks of storage rooms where astrolabes, celestial globes, ephemeris and talismanic bowls from Persia and Pakistan, are "held captive" having been separated from the peoples who created them.  I did not see the film but I was taken by this "architectural sculpture" which is inspired by the Maragha Observatory, a site of significant scientific discovery in the Islamic world and beyond, founded in 1259 in Northwest Iran.  This also functions as seating for those who want to watch the film.