New York City: Hot Afternoon in Coney Island (Part 1); Wasilla: Cold Afternoon on Wasilla Lake

Ten days ago, I took a walk along the beach and on the boardwalk of Coney Island. Just as I was preparing to leave and to walk off in search of a cat, I saw this scene. Why is that girl prancing about atop of a school bus in high heels?

But wait! Even as I photograph her strange antics, my peripheral vision picks up some additional action off to my right:

It is a little girl and a woman, framed in the space formed between the jaws and hearts of a pair of public lovers.

 

She is modeling for a fashion shoot. Both she, the photographer, and their light man, who holds a large reflector just out of the frame, are students at Parsons. They hope to make it big, one day soon.

They're still at it.

I decide its time to leave, to go search for a cat. It will be dark soon, so I resolve not to take anymore pictures until I find a cat; I don't want to waste what little daylight I have left and miss out on the cat as a result. I have no idea how long these two stayed here, thus engaged.

I suspect they welcomed the dark.

Before I can find a cat, I come upon this Christ statue, at a Catholic church. Despite my resolve, I pause, and shoot three frames.

I found four Coney Island cats, and here's three of them, along with Santos, the man who fought city hall to keep their home from being destroyed so that someone could build big buildings on the place where these cats play, and hang out with chickens and ducks. I will post the full story on Grahamn Kracker's No Cats Allowed blog, but not until sometime Friday, maybe early, maybe late.

Even now, though, there are other New York City cats on that blog, should anyone be interested.

Today, on Wasilla Lake

 

This morning, I had a vexing internet problem. I could only log on for a second or two and then no more, no matter what I did. So I spent hours consulting with my service provider and Macintosh support, and then, for reasons that no one knows, it started working again.

It was now early afternoon and I was exasperated. I had to get out of here. I grabbed Margie and drove off to Taco Bell. So exasperated was I that I forgot my camera. I never forget my camera. But I did.

"You watch," I told Margie after I realized what I had done, "something wonderful will happen, and I will not have my camera."

Sure enough, as we drove past Wasilla Lake on the return home, we saw some boys playing hockey far out on the ice of the lake. "Damnit." I said.

Then, as we passed by an elementary school, we saw several small students, all standing in a neat row in radiant light alongside the road, a teacher watching over them. "Damnit," I said.

After we got home, I decided to get my camera, go back to the lake, photograph those boys, ask them a few questions and put the images and their answers in the blog. For a moment, I even thought about taking my big guns, the ones that I have hardly touched since my injury - my Canon 1Ds M III and some telephoto and wide angle lenses. I could handle it now, and it wouldn't be for that long, anyway.

Then I decided against it. I would just take the pocket camera, the one that I have been doing all the images in this blog with and work within the parameters that it limited me to.

But when I got back to the lake, the boys were gone. Two girls now walked across the lake. I suspect that they were headed home from school.

That's Fred Meyer's in the background, built right on the edge of the lake.

Our little town has been the brunt of much ridicule these past couple of months, but damn! What a setting we live in.

Hey, I love New York. How could anyone not love New York? But trade this for that, even though a past mayor and the city council let Fred Meyer build their box store in the completely wrong place?

Ha!

And then there was Bill Maher, on TV, looking at my buddy, Jim, the black cat. Man, he is smart. And so funny. I am not being sarcastic. I mean this, sincerely. And yes, our Governor and the little town that all of us who live here, even we who voted for Barack Obama, share with her, absorbed the brunt of much of his humor.

New York: Subway series, final; Wasilla: I lose my glasses

Young woman exits subway as I get on.

So many separate worlds, packed into so tiny of a space. (Remember, a click reveals a larger image.)

She seems to sleep on her feet. What kind of day did she have?

I did not expect to find such literal emptiness on the New York Subway. This was one of those times when I got on a train and went in the opposite direction from what I intended.

 

The persistence of smiles.

The way down into the subway.

Me outside, they inside. The opposite of what we who live Inside are used to.

This could be Fourth Avenue in Anchorage - if it were above ground and there was snow. I still worry that it could be me one day. What would this mean for my wife?

Divergent desires.

Red Line #1: The train I rode the most.

Perhaps she meditates.

I'll bet his neck is really warm.

The sports page.

Self-portrait: An Alaskan rides the New York Subway. Not all of us have, you know.

This will do it for the subway series. I have several other New York picture series that I shot and planned to put in here. I doubt that I will have time to do many more of them. I will try to get in at least a couple, but by then my pre-election trip to New York will be slipping so far into the past that I really ought to move on.

I should go to India.

Today in Wasilla: I lose my glasses 

I keep two pairs of reading glasses: one in my pocket in a little tube and another that is never supposed to leave my work station. Yesterday morning, I lost the pair in the little tube. In the evening, I lost the other pair. I tried to work at this computer anyway, but by late afternoon, I could not take it anymore. I got in the car and drove to Carr's, to buy another pair of glasses in a tube. Along the way I passed Teeland's, one of the original buildings of Wasilla.

When we moved here, Teelands sat right in the middle of the fabled wisdom of Wasilla's Main Street. Then it got moved to just over a block off Main Street. One morning, Margie and I decided to try breakfast here. We entered and found ourselves the only customers in the quite large, bottom-floor, restaurant. There were two waitresses. They stood behind the counter, visiting.

Five minutes later, they still stood behind the counter, visiting. I got up and called one over. She took our order, and filled our coffee cups. When the coffee cups went empty, I waited for a refill. None came, so I got up, went to the coffee pot and refilled them myself.

The breakfast was pretty good, though. And before we left, a lady came in and apologized. She said that had she been in the restaurant when we came in, the service would have been good. She charged us for only one breakfast. The other was free.

One of these days, we might go back and give them another chance.

Mostly, though, we go to Family, where the service is great and the food is, too.

Sometimes, we go to IHOP, which can be pretty good, too.

I discovered that Carr's no longer carries the glasses in the little tubes. And in the non-tube version, they only had women's glasses. So I went to the new Target for the first time and they had all the glasses that I needed. I bought four pair. 

I will probably lose them all in a short time.

I was very lazy today. These two pictures were the only images that I shot.

A quiet vote on a noisy day in Wasilla; New York series still on hold

After marking the names of the candidates of her choice, Margie casts her ballot. Now I will back up just a few minutes.

Our polling station is at Tanaina Elementary School, where all of our children attended, and where they sometimes had Sarah Palin's father as a substitute teacher. Some of the students were at recess when we parked and headed toward the door.

As we walked toward the voting room, I was surprised to see students walking out. We always vote here and never before had I seen students in the ballot room.

When we stepped into the voting room, I saw more students, getting a civics lesson on how the voting booth works.

Inside the voting booth, my unmarked ballot awaits my vote.

After Marking her ballot, Margie heads to the machine into which it will be cast.

In the evening, Margie smiles as First Lady To Be Michelle Obama joins Barack Obama on the podium in Chicago after his acceptance speech. I know that there is a great deal of disappointment in Wasilla tonight, but this was just the outcome we had hoped for. Wasilla's disappointment is profoundly offset by the new surge of hope that so many in this country now feel.

What a bleak time we have been through! What a horrific challenge Obama faces. Yet, if there is anyone who can inspire and lead us through the storm that is bearing down upon us, I believe it is Barack Obama. He needs our help. He is going to face so much opposition from the very people who created this mess that now faces him. On that account, John McCain's concession speech was an excellent and fine piece of work. 

It sounded like the John McCain that so many of us once loved and respected. Had that John McCain been on the campaign trail, rather than the one who sought vainly to capitalize on the anger and fear that the Bush administration so exploited, who knows how this election might have turned out?

Now, the obvious question is, where are my pictures of Sarah Palin and her entourage, as she cast her vote in Wasilla this morning? I'm afraid I blew that one, folks. I was not too concerned about it at all. I thought that I would handle it just the way that I have been handling most everything in Wasilla in this blog.

I did not know what time she would vote, but I figured I would eat my breakfast, then head out in the general direction of her polling station and if I happened upon her entourage then I would photograph it, if not, I wouldn't. No big deal. Her vote would get plenty of news coverage without me being there. 

As usual these days, I went to bed about 4:00 AM and then did not get up until a bit after 8:00. As I was preparing my oatmeal, Caleb walked into the house, home from his overnight shift at work.

"You should have seen it out there," he said. "Sarah Palin had an escort of State Troopers a mile along. They had the roads blocked off and were escorting her back to Anchorage to catch her flight." This happened about 7:30 AM, he said.

Suddenly, I felt that it did matter; that I should not have even bothered going to bed but should have just stayed up and then very early set out and scoped out the scene and photographed it - even that I should have gone through the process ahead of time to get the proper press credentials and should have been right there in the voting room to provide my own witness of this onetime moment in Wasilla's history.

Too late.

I had also thought about going to Anchorage tonight, to drop into the big party that the Obama supporters would surely stage, but instead, I choose to spend the entire day hanging out quietly, alone with my wife. 

That part of the decision was good. I enjoyed hanging out just with her. I always enjoy hanging out with my wife.

Wasilla: A roadside expression of love for Senator Stevens - an individual who claimed to be among his sign-carrying supporters attacks my first amendment rights; New York City series on hold for tonight, will continue

While looking for the two men who hope to best each other in the competition to become the new mayor of the City of Wasilla, I instead found these supporters of Senator Stevens, "Uncle Ted," waving signs on the corner of the Parks and Palmer-Wasilla Highways. Another supporter, not seen in this picture, launched an individual attack upon the First Amendment rights that I enjoy as an American citizen protected by the US Constitution.

To explain this bizarre turn of events, I must back up to a point 20 minutes earlier in the afternoon.

As I drove Margie to work, we stopped at a coffee kiosk for the usual brew and then continued on toward Wal-Mart, where her shift was to begin at 5:30. Regular readers will recall how I had earlier photographed the signs of Wasilla mayoral candidates Verner Rupright and Marty Mativa, from the car as we passed by them. I posted that I had no idea why either man wanted the job, but promised that if I happened to come across either of them, I would ask that question and share the answer with readers.

Since then, I have steadfastly kept my eyes open for the candidates whenever I have traveled about Wasilla, but I have seen neither one. Time is getting short, the election is tomorrow. On past election eves, I have almost always spotted local candidates waving signs at various places along the Parks Highway as it makes its way through Wasilla. I have seen this even when the temperature was below zero F., whereas this afternoon it was a pleasant 20 degrees above zero. Yet this afternoon, I did not see either candidate.

As I sat waiting for a light to change, I did catch the above view of Pioneer Peak.

"Look!" I pointed, as Margie got out of the car at Wal-Mart. To the south, the sliver crescent of the new moon rose over the Chugach.

"Oh, beautiful!" she exclaimed. "Where are you going to photograph it from?"

"I don't know," I answered.

I tried the above place atop a hill not far from Wal-Mart, but encountered a few problems. For one, there is no manual focus in this pocket camera and no matter how hard I tried to fool it, I could not get it to focus on the moon. It insisted in focusing directly upon the branches. I had no tripod, because I never use a tripod with this pocket camera - the whole point being that it is easy to carry and I can keep it in my pocket and not strain my healing shoulder.

So I had to go to a high ISO, 800, and even then I had to shoot at 1/30 of a second - very slow, a certain recipe for camera motion blur.

And then the clouds moved over the moon. I moved on.

As I drove toward home, I saw a small group of people waving campaign signs on the corner of the Parks and Palmer Wasilla highways. My hopes rose. As I drew close, I saw that it was not the mayoral candidates, but instead a group of Senator Steven supporters, urging us who passed by to vote for him. I had not thought about photographing Stevens supporters, but still, it was election eve, and they did present me with the opportunity to take an election-related image and put it in this blog.

I could also get a comment or two from them to explain what motivated them to come out and stand on the corner in the cool air and wave signs around. As to the outcome of the election, it would make no difference whatsoever.

I parked near a dumpster in the lot of the nearby Tesoro gas station, and as I got out of the car, I saw... the new moon... freed now from the clouds... a short distance above the horizon, almost directly behind the Stevens supporters.

I now knew how I would photograph this new moon.

I found a decent angle, lifted the camera and prepared to shoot. By now, the light of dusk had faded even more. I had to drop my shutter speed down to 1/20th of a second - hand held - pointed at people and cars, all moving. I would need to take several frames and then see what came out of it, but even then it might not work. 

If I had my SLR's, it would work, but I must let my shoulder heal some more before I start trying to carry those cameras again.

"What are you doing?" I heard a voice ask as I shot one frame. A woman came walking through the dark from the general direction of the Stevens supporters, but I could not be certain that she was one of them. She drew closer, into the dim light that illuminated the parking lot and then smiled at me. She was young, tall, attractive and her smile was sweet, but it was the wrong kind of sweet, for the twinkle in her eyes did not speak of friendliness, but of threat.

(To see a larger version of this or any image, click on it.)

I wanted no trouble with this woman and so, to be friendly, I explained that I was trying to take a picture of the sign wavers with the moon behind them. I told her about this blog, and my failed desire to find a mayoral candidate.

She asked me several questions - was I a Stevens supporter? This question can be most complicated right now, in recognition both of his many good works and all that he has brought to Alaska, coupled with the recent jury verdict that found him guilty of corruption. But at any rate, anyone in America has the right to photograph a group of people waving signs in a public place alongside a busy highway, whether they support them or not.

"Are you a Stevens supporter?" I asked in return.

"Of course I am!" she snapped. "Do you think I would be carrying a sign for him if I wasn't?" She carried no sign now, hor had she when I first spotted her.

I shot a couple more frames.

"I see that the moon is not in those pictures," she accused, sarcastically, as she peeked at my LCD screen.

I was dumbfounded at this false observation. "Yes it is," I said, "it's right there." Even as I pointed out the moon in the upper right hand corner of my LCD screen, she did not seem to believe it was there. I raised the camera and again began to frame the scene for some more shots.

"That's enough pictures," she suddenly ordered. "You can stop now."

"No," I responded. "It's not enough."

"Yes it is," she stated adamantly. "You're done. Don't take anymore pictures."

By nature, I'm a non-confrontational person, but I have lines that I cannot tolerate being crossed, and she had just crossed two of them. She was trying to bully me, and she was trying to suppress my right to free speech, as guaranteed under the First Amendment to Constitution of the United States. To me, this right is sacred, inalienable, and in some settings I have defied even policemen who have tried to trample on it. I was not about to let this woman trample it.

"I'm not done," I answered, and then shot another frame.

"Stop," she demanded. "You can't take pictures without our permission."

I was dumbfounded. What kind of American, with any education and knowledge at all, would think that a group of people standing alongside one of the busiest stretches of highway in the state, waving signs for all who passed by to see, signs that stated their position on one of the biggest stories ever to strike Alaska would think anyone needed their permission to photograph such a display?

Also, I have photographed many people carrying signs and they have all been happy to have me do so - that's why they carry them, so people will take notice and see them. 

A photograph enlarges their audience.

She then threatened me with legal action, promising to sic an attorney on me.

"I will take your picture, then," I responded. 

"No you won't," she said.

"Yes I will," I answered. In truth, it was too dark where we stood for me to get much of a picture and I did not care whether or not I ever photographed this woman, but I wanted to make it clear to her that she could not bully me nor take away my constitutional right to free speech - photography being a recognized form of free speech.

I turned toward her and raised my camera. Just like a prisoner who is ashamed to have anyone see his face, she lifted her hands to hide hers and then, reaching for the camera, lunged toward it. 

I still have far less than full mobility in the right arm and shoulder that I shattered just over four months ago, but I drew the camera back from her as far as I could before pain stopped me. I then pointed it at her, even as I raised my left arm to block her advance. She turned away, and rushed to a nearby vehicle, just as I shot the tiny frame at left, catching nothing but darkness and blur.

As she opened the door to the car and clambered to get inside, she shouted out that I could not take her picture.

"You can't take away the right to a free press," I said as she dove in.

"You're not the press!" she yelled, then slammed the car door shut. That's her above, in red, huddled behind the car door, perhaps calling someone on her cell phone.

I shot a couple more frames from right where I stood, then walked over to where the group of Stevens supporters carried their signs. I let them know why I was photographing them, told them about about their compatriot who had accosted me and suggested that one of them tell her about the US Constitution, the first Amendment and the American right of free speech.

They all seemed to be rational people who understood that they had chosen to engage in a newsworthy activity, one that made them natural targets for photographers.

"So what motivated you to come out her tonight to hold up these signs?" I then asked.

"We love Ted," the red-headed young man above answered with a smile. 

"We love Ted." I thought about that for a second or two. I was prepared to ask a few more questions, but I'm not doing an investigative report here, I'm not conducting an expose. I just wanted to pick up a little bit of the flavor of my home town, Wasilla, Alaska, on election eve, 2008. "We love Ted."

"That's good enough for me," I said.

I had gotten what I wanted, with some unexpected drama thrown in as a bonus. I walked back to my car, parked one space away from the vehicle that woman had dove into. I could not see her. I climbed into my car and drove home.

And earlier in the day:

I had taken Muzzy for a walk. I had not wanted to. In fact, I had feared the prospect. Before I injured my shoulder, there had been times when I had walked him that he spotted another dog, wanted to play, and then hit the end of his leash with such force that he had yanked me off my feet and dragged me sprawling across the road.

Ever since I injured my shoulder, I have refused to hold his leash. But with Jacob and Lavina in Arizona, someone had to take Muzzy on a walk and Caleb was not around. 

So I took him, and experienced only two minor incidents with other dogs, neither of which were of the nature to yank me off my feet. When we got to where it was safe to do so, I removed the leash. Muzzy was free, and he loves his freedom.

New York City: Subway Series, Part 1 - Music and Love; Wasilla: waiting for breakfast at Family

Where did he come from? What did he do there? What did he plan to do here? What is his instrument? Where does his mind go when he plays it? How much does he earn? How many people does he feed? What thoughts go through the mind of the fellow on the bench beside him? So many questions, but the train door opens and I rush through before it can shut me out.

The door closes behind me and I sit down. I see these two, who look to be in love; she exhausted, he intent, curious; she finds comfort on his strong shoulder. Those on either side intently ignore them.

A click will make the image bigger.

One wonders why life passes by so quickly, why age and deterioration downgrade the body even as desire remains young.

What do they find so interesting in this booklet? I want to read it and find out for myself. I doubt that I ever will. Too many other things to read, too many books that I want to read but never will. Too many more books I want to write. Reasonable health and life provided, I will write some of them, but it is clear to me that I have already used up too much time to ever write them all. 

So why do I waste time blogging?

Blogging is fun. Damn, it is fun!

I could ask the same questions of this gentleman from Africa as I did the one from Asia. I did ask him one question, but he did not seem to have the English to answer. Or maybe he had the English, but did not wish to be bothered into making answers.

His music was good. I liked it. 

It seemed to me that he should be playing on a stage somewhere, in front of an auditorium, rather than in a subway station. The thought struck me that perhaps he does both - plays on a stage, and then in the subway, too. Maybe when he goes home, friends and family gather about and he plays and others sing, drum and play even more instruments - maybe a guitar.

Today in Wasilla, beginning at Family Restaurant:

Margie and I were fortunate and got a table within two minutes of walking in. But Family was crowded today. All who came after us had to wait to be seated.

More who must wait.

The boys sit as they wait to be seated.

This boy seems to grow impatient.

As she waits, she gets a gumball.

Those who wait will get seated. Family Restaurant is very popular and there are many more tables than the few seen here.

After breakfast, I drop Margie off at Wal-Mart - a popular raven hangout.

After Margie gets off work, I drive her and Lisa to the Espresso Cafe. Lisa orders an iced Americano, which strikes me as crazy, since the temperature is in the teens. The barista is glad to fill Lisa's "Alaska for Obama" mug, as she is a supporter, too.

It's amazing how many Barack Obama supporters I encounter, right here, in Wasilla, Alaska.