Laughing Meme

Photos from waterbubblz, dgrubz, murdlebanks, so_phie, elton and picturesofthings

Jasmine has a set of photos up from the short road trip we took with my parents to southern Vermont to see the changing of the leaves.

Some of my earliest photos on Flickr are of going to see fall colors in VT and NH, with our friends Rob and Rima, in October 2004. (whose son Elias was a month old yesterday)

Took the bike out for a spin on what might be the last truly hot and sunny weekend of the year.

Head out in search of the fabled Red Hook ball field food vendors. For 30 years they’ve been congregating on the weekends in Red Hook to feed the hordes who show up to play and watch soccer. And its widely agreed to be the best Mexican and Latin American food in the 5 boroughs.

Last year they had a brush with extinction as the city, in its bid to clean up the neighborhood and make it yuppy/Ikea safe shut down the proceedings citing sanitation issues. Eventually a compromise was struck, and a handful of the vendors are back, now in plumbed trucks. The food is still very very good, but their numbers are reduced. My favorite was the pupusas loroco con queso.

But even before that a flat tire drove me into the The Bike Shop and the Coffee Den across the way, where they serve a decent cup of Gorilla. Need to get those kevlar tires.

From there we walked along the water front, dramatically changed from our last visit two years ago. And found to our glee that Steve’s was still serving their swingles, frozen chocolate dipped key lime pie on a stick.

On the ride back I wandered into Fort Greene park, and wondered if I’d found a portal back to Dolores Park. So startled I forgot to take a photo.

And then, at the end of the 13 mile loop, blocks from home, tripped over a fafi and Koralie piece, paint not quite dry.

dc offline, originally uploaded by bees.

Cal apparently has instrumented Washington. Somehow not surprised.

Historical landmark New York Central Railroad 69th Street Transfer Bridge, with Trump Towers looming in the background.

We tromped up to our roof with friends and neighbors to watch the fireworks in the rain.

IMG_3450, originally uploaded by curlyjazz.

A family ritual, originally uploaded by curlyjazz.

We go for coffee at Gayles every Saturday morning I’m in Santa Cruz.

George just announced about the coolest thing ever: the Commons. The Library of Congress has started sharing a fraction of their photo archive on Flickr under a special “no known restrictions” license.

You can tag, comment on, fave, and share these historical photos just like any other photo on Flickr.

And the collective wisdom will hopefully bubble up some great photos and metadata.

Jasmine and I headed to Los Angeles for the new year. And we had an amazing time. This is hard for me. As a native of Northern California I was raised to despise Los Angeles. (and really I’m more a Central/Southern California, but culturally we identified as NorCal.) Studies on environmentalism and conservation just reinforced the point.

Part of the deal for us going to LA was that I’d do a chunk of the driving as Jasmine’s wrist is sprained. This was problematic as I don’t drive, and didn’t have a license. So on Dec. 24th we spent some time driving, and on Dec. 26th I proved that CA will give a driver’s license to just about anyone. And Dec. 28th we drove the 350 miles to LA. And so ends a 15 year boycott of car culture.

The weather was great, we saw amazing art, we ate great food, we caught a good show, and saw good friends. We took a bunch of photos, I’ve got a small sampling of them, and Jasmine has a more complete set.

We drove down to Watts Tower.

The Smart House, Venice, CA

Shepard Fairey might be over saturated, but he is also at the top of his game. The execution on his new work, Imperfect Union, is flawless, and gorgeous. Also sold out. Literally. Every piece was sold. We tried to beg/borrow/steal anything with War by the Numbers on it. Without success.

The Murakami show was overwhelming. On paper doesn’t it look that large, but the live experience is different. Interesting to see his work all together, you realize how weak the painting is, and how amazing his sculpture is. The security presence was so intense, I almost felt like I was in a performance piece, the © in the show’s name being acted out as authoritarian dystopic future. Which is to say, we were only able to sneak a handful of photos. Or a plot to make you buy the catalog. (which we did)

We met up with Jasmine’s people from NYC at the Varla NYE party. The Dickies were the headliners, but the Airliner is a great funky dive bar, with 3 stages, which they kept busy that night, including our favorite act of the night, Vegas based “Objex”, the only one we got photos of.

More then any other year I can remember “Happy New Year!” congratulations seemed to roll in every hour on the hour all day long. This diversified geography thing is starting to look unscalable.

I’ve measured my life out in flickr uploads, originally uploaded by Laughing Squid.

An uncountable number of years and design revisions ago the masthead of this blog read, “I’ve measure out my life in coffee cups“. Maybe I should bring that back.

Though I was always tempted to replace it with, “Fuck this spoon business, I’m measing my life in cups thank you very much.”

Or rather they’ve been up for weeks, but I’ve given up on the idea that I’ll upload them, and am just pointing at Jasmine’s version. 429 photos in the set. (also as a slideshow)