Wednesday, June 30, 2010

July 1, 2010



Quote of the Day
Wisdom is knowing when you can't be wise.
Paul Engle

Image ... Japanese garden, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

June 30, 2010



Quote of the Day
After all is said and done, more is said than done.
Aesop

Image ... Back Bay garden, Boston.

Monday, June 28, 2010

June 29, 2010



Quote of the Day
Democracy is a process by which people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.
Laurence J. Peter

Image ... Sky over city.

June 28, 2010



Robins nested in our grapevine and hatched three very ugly babies looking like miniature plucked chickens, sightless with gaping yellow mouths the color and shape of stop signs endlessly begging for food.



Image ... Robin nestlings. Fenway Victory Gardens, Boston.

June 27, 2010



Who else would name check Ford Maddox Ford - or Jacqueline Susann? A deliciously demented tune from the Pernice Brothers' new album. Joyce, in one of her raunchy, rambling dearest friend emails says that the song is about a stalker. That sounds about right. Got a great review in a recent Phoenix. Said that the album is a palate cleanser, but that Joe's appetizers are more substantial than most musicians main courses. Or something silly like that. And of course, the video features bicycles. Watch her walk.

Quote of the Day
Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.
Vince Lombardi

Saturday, June 26, 2010

June 26, 2010



Snapping turtles have been appearing in the gardens. I looked up from my book the other day and a snapper was trying to get through the wire fencing a foot from my bare toes. She was having no luck, backed off and later waddled by me in the small garden with a look of grim determination on her face. They favor a sunny spot in loose garden loam for laying their clutches of eggs.





Image ... Snapping turtle laying eggs, snapping turtle eggs.

Friday, June 25, 2010

June 25, 2010



Quote of the Day
History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
Alexis de Tocqueville

Image ... Infinity Gallery. Boston.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Juen 24, 2010



Quote of the Day
Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
Malcolm Forbes

Image ... Blue fence. South End, Boston.

June 23, 2010



Quote of the Day
Ability is a poor man's wealth.
John Wooden

Image ... Seat sculpture. South End, Boston.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

June 22, 2010



Quote of the Day
A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.
Nelson Mandela

Image ... Barbershop window. Beacon Hill, Boston.

Monday, June 21, 2010

June 21, 2010



Image ... Lawn chair. Fenway Victory Gardens, Boston.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

June 20, 2010



Image ... Footbridge.

June 19, 2010



Image ... Boston Blow-up.

Friday, June 18, 2010

June 18, 2010



Saw a chipmunk in the garden for the first time ever. They're common enough out in the countryside, but they don't seem to be city mice. At least I've never seen one until now.

The one I saw was scampering up, down and through a shrub in Ron's garden snatching mouthfuls of ripe berries in competition with birds.



Image ... Chipmunk (Tamias minimus). Avalanche Lake, Glacier National Park, USA. Phil Armitage. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

June 17, 2010



Quote of the Day
Don't let the fear of striking out hold you back.
Babe Ruth

Image ... Faneuil Hall in Fog. Boston.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

June 16, 2010





Image ... Shadows.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

June 15, 2010



Cuddling @ the beach watching the sun set.
Yasmin Gonzalez (right) and friend, South LA, age 19.

Quote of the Day
The more you can dream, the more you can do.
Michael Korda

Image ... Yasmin Gonzalez. Courtesy of Twitpic.

Monday, June 14, 2010

June 14, 2010



Image ... Cleomes in a roof garden. Overlooking Storrow Drive, Boston.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

June 13, 2010



Image ... Chychy Loving. Roxbury, Mass.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

June 12, 2010



Image ... Shadows, Bay Village.

Friday, June 11, 2010

June 11, 2010



Quote of the Day
Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.
Demosthenes

Image ... Along the Minuteman Bikeway. Bedford, Mass.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

June 10, 2010



Quote of the Day
Don't borrow someone else's spectacles to view yourself with.
Simon Travaglia

Image ... Fence and Path. Arlington, Mass.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

June 9, 2010



Quote of the Day
Patience is the art of hoping.
Luc de Clapier

Image ... Welding. Mass. School of Art, Boston.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

June 8, 2010



I zigged when I should have zagged, around Church Green, on my new route in town yeaterday and brushing by Franklin Park, I think, ended up on Geneva Ave., emerging way up Columbia, about a half hour rough riding detour.

Worked on three projects in the South End, including a new garden design and building project.

Biked to my garden around 4:00. Chilled and pulled weeds, which are legion. Many come from our funky low heat homemade compost I suspect. Plus we haven't mulched yet. Ordered a bale of saltmarsh hay the other day at Marshall's farmstand. How to move it? A bale of hay on a bike? That should be fun. Fortunately it's not far, just past Fenway Park. Biked back before dark.


Quote of the Day
I've never seen a monument erected to a pessimist.
Paul Harvey

Image ... Big Chief. Dorchester, Mass.

Monday, June 7, 2010

June 7, 2010



Moved to deeper Dorchester, Fields Corner. Uphams was just on the edge of Roxbury, close to the South End; this is 20 or so more minutes away by bike. A very diverse, mixed neighborhood.

On moving day, last Sunday, after schlepping all the boxes I took a walk making the above photograph and more than a few others.

Quote of the Day
Life is 10 percent what you make it, and 90 percent how you take it.
Irving Berlin

Image ... Awnings. Washington Street, Dorchester, Mass.

Sunday, June 6, 2010

June 6, 2010



The fallout shelter symbol made this photograph. It's such a rare historical relic, one seldom seen any more. The symbol, perhaps, of the Cold War, and structurally very similar to the peace symbol. This one is on the side of an abandoned warehouse outside Fields Corner and hence has survived through benign neglect, like much of Boston.

Image ... Fallout, Fields Corner. Dorchester, Mass.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

June 5, 2010



I made this on my first day in Fields Corner. I like the way there are both parking and no parking signs, in funereal black and white.

Image ... Parking signs. Dorchester, Mass.

Friday, June 4, 2010

June 4, 2010



Charles Sheeler was a pioneering modern artist, both a painter and photographer. To me his work still looks both totally contemporary and timeless. He's one of my favorite painters, along with Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth. I edited this image by bumping up the saturation significantly to make it sing at this small size.

Image ... Architectural Cadence. Charles Sheeler, 1954. Color screenprint. Courtesy of the Craig F. Starr Gallery, NYC.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

June 3, 2010



This is on surprising Washington Street outside Fields Corner in Dorchester. The street has a park running down the middle of it making it more of a court. But this is Dot and if there's one thing we're not in Dot it's snots, so courts are streets and squares are corners.

Rambling Victorian mansions, most outfitted with all sorts of striped awnings looking like a fleet of ships set to sail.

Image ... Awnings. Wellesley Street, Dorchester.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

June 2, 2010



The South End has a network of narrow cul-de-sacs and alleyways tucked away behind and running between the streets and avenues. Bordering them are the resident's backyards, decks and balconies. Laundry drying, once such a common sight, is now seldom seen.

Image ... Laundry. South End, Boston.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

June 1, 2010



This sombre and curious scene is just off the sidewalk running by one corner of the old burying ground in Uphams Corner, Dorchester. It's next to what, I suppose, was once the maintenance (or admissions?) house. The cemetery in Uphams Corner is one of the oldest (if not the oldest) in Boston, founded soon after the first settlement in the early 1630. The intersection of Columbia and Dudley in fact used to be called Cemetery Corners. Changing the name was a grave error but probably made the neighborhhood an easier sell.

Image ... Block. Dorchester, Mass.