I'm only happy when it rains

Umbrellas in Paris, looking down from the top of Notre Dame.

Intersections

From Paris, February 2011, where the Rue de Seine meets the Rue de Buc.

In the looking glass

Reviewing the more than 900 pictures I took in our six days in Paris, a few prominent subjects emerge: schlocky self-portraits, cemetery ephemera, and street art. Here we are, being goofy, posing in the reflection of a sculpture made up of gigantic mirrored balls that was in a garden not so far from the Louvre.

Diorama-rama

Library, 2007, Lori Nix

Blown away by Lori Nix's dioramas (via Craft and a number of other sources). Her show at ClampArt Gallery lamentably closed on December 18, but if you're in Chicago, you can catch it at the Catherine Edelman Gallery (it runs through February 26). On "The City," her latest series (of which Library, above, is a part):

In my newest body of work ... I have imagined a city of our future, where something either natural, or as the result of mankind, has emptied the city of its human inhabitants. Art museums, Broadway theaters, laundromats and bars no longer function. The walls are deteriorating, the ceilings are falling in, the structures barely stand, yet Mother Nature is slowly taking them over. These spaces are filled with flora, fauna and insects, reclaiming what was theirs before man's encroachment. I am afraid of what the future holds if we do not change our ways regarding the climate, but at the same time I am fascinated by what a changing world can bring.

Stocking the bookshelf for 2011

New additions (from Powell's Books in Portland and Argosy Books on 59th between Park and Lex):

1. Nina Berberova, The Book of Happiness
2. Millen Brand, The Outward Room
3. Richard Cobb, Paris and Elsewhere
4. Ernest Hemingway, Across the River and Into the Trees
5. Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question
6. Ed. Erin McKean, Verbatim
7. Susan Minot, Lust & Other Stories
8. Susan Minot, Monkeys
9. Graham Robb, Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris
10. Joanna Scott, Tourmaline
11. Simon Winchester, The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

I just finished Sacred Games (Vikram Chanda) and Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (Nick Flynn). Sacred Games was just what I needed for vacation: sprawling but fast paced, absorbing, full of Hindi expletives (bhenchod!). Haven't read many memoirs lately, and Suck City was a pretty good one; it focuses on Flynn's relationship, or lack thereof, with his father, a writer/bank robber/homeless man in Boston who begins sleeping at the shelter Flynn is employed by. At heart, it's just a fascinating story. And it's true: "There are many ways to drown, only the most obvious wave their arms as they're going under." 

Sumeet and I are keeping it low-key for the night: trying out Tiffin New York, finding something good on Netflix, listening to our cat mewl, and breaking out the Martinelli's at midnight. Here's to 2011! We (plus my parents) salute you from our great backyard in Milwaukie!

Let there be light

Santas converged at Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. The snowflake costume was one of the more ingenious (runners up: pink bunny suit from A Christmas Story, Lady Gaga Santa, Santa's naughty-or-nice list).

Grumpy.

Even kittens (OK, OK, she's a fully formed cat -- she's a little over five years old!) are grumpy on Sunday mornings. Rrrowr.

(Photo by Sumeet.)

Shuttered

Near Astoria Boulevard and Steinway Street in Astoria.

New old Amsterdam

Jo Teeuwisse, a historical consultant in Amsterdam, created a set of photos on Retronaut that overlayed contemporary images with those from the 1940s. Teeuwisse says:

Years ago I found some negatives in a fleamarket. I scanned them and put them online. I then found some of the spots in the photos and took pictures there.

In the picture above, you can see a group of young factory workers posing probably outside the factory during the war. I cheated a little bit by removing some pots of flowers which are on the steps today…!

It's World Mental Health Day

So, you know, check in with people. Or just read this photo essay on the Mental Floss blog: "10 Abandoned Psych Wards Photographers Love Sneaking Into."

About the image at left:

Cane Hill was a massive asylum on the outskirts of London, opened in 1882 and closed in 1991. Since then it’s been extremely popular with urban explorers (as well as arsonists), who damaged the place so badly that most of it had to finally be torn down back in January. Which is a shame — it was really something. Photographer Richard James took this impressive shot of the asylum chapel.

More Richard James photography on Flickr.