The __Bs, as represented by pictures hanging at my in-laws:
And while I’m at it, fuck you to the Ann Arbor children’s museum:
As Others See Us
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Category Archives: Portraits
Tough People
Holiday at my in-laws in Michigan…
Very relaxing. There are some mementos of their pre1992 life in Siberia, like this photo from the 50s of my mother-in-law and her father and their pet wolf. If you think I’m kidding or that I’ve fallen for a practical joke, take a long look at that muzzle.
Competition
Agent Mulder Knew
In one episode of The X Files, Agent Scully needed to break into Agent Mulder’s computer. Her correct guess at his password? Trustno1.
IMO, Mr. Merkur’s greatest fault is not hat he’s a bad judge of character.
Springtime and a Worry
Mini__B on the swing, Mrs__B pushing him, and the Harry Chapin playground in Brooklyn Heights.
I’m wondering if we should take Mini__B to the doctor. He’s getting awfully blurry.
Update: I just noticed that this is my 666th post. Blurriness of the devil!
The Heights
Either you can deal with working high or you can’t. I don’t believe it’s possible to learn to be okay with height if you’re not okay with it initially.
Via Gothamist, a video of the Empire State being built:
And one of its window cleaners:
Inherited Traits
I, too, find comfort in sleeping on my belly.
Teaching a Baby
Today, Coney Island:
I keep trying to explain to the little man that there’s no point in burying her until the life insurance is set up, but he doesn’t listen.
Art, Not Mine
My office administrator, who shall henceforth be known as G__H, works on a lot of art projects whenever she is unchained from her desk long enough to go home. Her picture from Monday, from the graveyard at Trinity Church, next door to our office:
The building on the left is 100 Broadway, AKA the American Surety Building, AKA one of the first steel-framed skyscrapers. The sun is flaring over One Wall Street. And for the corpse-fuckers economic-theory necrophiliacs out there, Alexander Hamilton’s grave is nearby.
Multiple Chez__Bs
I was on the roof of an apartment house at 52nd Street and the East River, unfortunately with only the mediocre iPrecious camera.
Looking east:
The arrow points to the eastern of the two Skyline Towers on Kissena Boulevard. I grew up on Beech Avenue, on the block between Kissena and Bowne, about a hundred feet from that building.
Looking ESE:
The ‘rents place on Queens Boulevard.
Looking SSE:
Off in the far distance (about seven miles away), Chez__B in all its rampant glory.
Next Up: A Fauxhawk
Mini__B got his first haircut yesterday.
The Romance of the Big City…
…with some misogyny, some racism, and the Automat. Via Gothamist.
A few notes:
- The S.S. Normandie was the most beautiful liner ever built. The French Line and their Russian naval architect got it exactly right. Then the army got hold of her, killed her while docked in NY, and gutted her.
- The old Tombs was torn down and replaced by the new Criminal Courts Building (aka “The Tombs”) in 1940. The new Tombs is, up close, the creepiest building I’ve ever seen, but I can’t explain why except by taking people there in person.
- Having the video instead of stills gives you a better feel for Penn Station.
- No TV antenna on the Empire State.
VS Will Call Me a Furry
I wanna live
with a cinnamon bear
I could be happy
the rest of my life
With a cinnamon bear.
Mini__B Unmasked
I’ve seen all this before. At home.
TKO
Mini__B has been waking up later, around 7:30 or 8 recently, but not today. He was up at 6:00 for no reason and he doesn’t know how to go back to sleep. I spent an hour with him in his room with the lights off, on the couch in a nest of blankets. Every time he was about to nod off some impulse would make him start to squirm and wake him again. On one occasion, I was bent over him and when he rewoke he jerked his head, nicely head butting me backwards
I’ve had split lips before, but never one given me by a fourteen-month-old boy.
The Headline Says It All
From Gothamist: Dog Versus Hawk in Downtown Brooklyn.
The Prince Enthroned
In their infinite wisdom, toy manufacturers make half-scale, leatherette club chairs for little people. As the picture shows, you can’t really tell them from the real thing except by size.
Posting from iPrecious, will fix pic later if rotated.
On The Tip Of My Tongue
I spent all day in an airless, overcrowded meeting room in an otherwise beautiful museum in the center of Paris. People contributed, snoozed, bloviated, accomplished – I did all four- to varying degrees. However… There’s a man on the committee who I truly despise, for exactly one reason: at these semi-annual meetings he will not shut up.
He wants to present at every meeting, whether or not he has anything to say. He monopolizes Q&A time when other people present. (I once counted him asking six consecutive questions; today he managed four twice.) He interrupts people. (Last year, during a coffee break, he walked over and stood between me and the fellow I was conversing with, and when I tried to continue our conversation he told me I was being rude.)
I used to think there was something organically wrong with his brain, but today I had an epiphany. This is what real-life trolling looks like. How did I not see this earlier?
Off for some duck…BRB
Moronic Twit
Meghan McCain shows off the depth of her analysis.
Where to start? First, Ms McC, given the number of people who have already called you a “dumb blond,” I would have thought you’d be a little clearer on the downside of casual stereotyping. I realize you’ve led a sheltered life, but there’s more to Brooklyn than whatever hipster bar you went to in search of…whatever.
Second, Brooklyn’s population is 2.5 million. In round terms, zero percent of them look and act like Ms. Deschanel. Some do of course, but one percent would be 25,000 manic pixie dream girls and I’d have noticed a phenomenon that annoying.
Finally, let’s discuss devolution. Your father was given multiple chances to fuck up in the military because his father was a big shot, which makes you (like G W Bush) a rare example of two generations of breeding for the trait of failing upwards. If your father and the corporate big wigs who own him have their way, the dispossessed may engage in real violence in this country and being a spokesperson for the vapid children of privilege might be a bad idea. You see, as a liberal I don’t want anyone hurt, not even morons like you.
