Photography: The Homes of Queens Attract the Night

East Elmhurst
The homes of Queens attract the night. Walking 🚶‍♀️ at night, certain nooks and crannies catch my attention. Notice the side alley - it cuts along the building, connecting streets. This part of Queens - dubbed East Elmhurst, is dotted with alleys like this one.
Elmhurst
Walking from the Elmhurst Avenue station last night, I stumbled onto Ithaca Street — a quiet thruway in the Elmhurst neighborhood (not to be confused with East Elmhurst, above) of Queens. Do you like the architecture of this detached house? 

A home in Queens on Ithaca Street
originally posted on my Instagram

A colleague saw my photograph on Instagram and she said, "My mom grew up in Elmhurst and my sister and I recently drove by her childhood home on St. James Avenue. Part of my childhood was spent visiting my grandmother. There were some amazing homes back in the day." She also said she loved "my love for her Queens." 
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#nychomes #newyorklife #iloveny #autumnnights #queens #lovenyc #nyc #queensny #queen #newyork #newyorkcity #nycphotographer #night #newyorker #newyorklike #goals #newyorkstateofmind

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Self-Portrait in a Instagram-Laced Painterly Palette

In this post, I took a ton of painterly-style Instagram selfies and I talk about how we never understand each other well - in most circumstances. Understanding others is hard. But worth it.

     There is a moment in the new HBO comedy series "Mrs. Fletcher" where a young, white college kid sits at the lunch table with several guys he assumes are "just like him". The guys are talking about climate change in a thoughtful, meaningful way and the young, white college kid makes a joke about riding a surfboard on a tsunami wave. He's looking for laughs but he misses the cue. He assumes that people who look like him and dress like him will, in turn, have the same mindset as him. 

      I have come to find out that the biggest mistake one can make is to assume that another person thinks the same way that you do. And even if another person thinks similarly to you, or dresses similarly to you, it is the worst mistake possible, to consider that other person you. It is harder to make yourself known to another person, to a friend, a lover, or whatever. It is hard because it means you have to begin to understand the other person first and they have to begin to understand you.  

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Book Face: Pharaoh Amasis of Two Egypts Holding Court in Memphis on the Nile River

I’m a high school English and Ethics teacher. Sometimes I’m tired of being a grownup so I play with the book faces in my school’s modest library. Today, I’m covering an ancient pharaoh from ancient Egypt. Also, today is National Shelfie Day.

I'm Amasis, a pharaoh of Egypt.

Standing in the @gardenschoolnyc library serving up some Egyptian Pharaoh realness as Amasis, ruler of Two Egypts - where I’m holding court in Memphis on the River Nile. Who or what am I pointing to? The god Horus has sent me a sign - a golden slipper so bright that every maiden in Egypt must try it on. P.S. Thanks @joellegarcia__  for snapping the photo for this epic Book Face photo.

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A Moment of Clarity Waiting for the Q66 Bus in Flushing

I don’t like to wait. For buses. For people. Waiting feels like an abuse on my person. But worse than that, waiting exposes the truth of it all - that I’m not important.

     Which is why people who are entitled or privileged scoff at flying coach. One has to wait. So those who can pay the extra cash do so to stave off the notion that they’re insignificant. However, there is something to be said for waiting. I was waiting for the Q66 bus. This New York City bus takes me from Flushing to home via Queen’s Northern Boulevard. Today, I took the bus. I was shepherding a few students of mine back to Jackson Heights. We had spent the day in Flushing to celebrate the Lunar New Year (even though it doesn’t officially begin until Saturday). I teach teenagers who are studying in the United States on F-1 visas. 

      What that means is - among many aspects of the job - that we take trips quite often during the year. This year, we decided to go to a hot pot restaurant that recently opened up in Flushing. Apparently, it’s a popular chain in China. It’s situated on the ground floor of a modern box-y office building. The Mandarin teacher at my school recommended the place; she organized the trip. The dean of the upper school also came with us. He had never eaten at a hot pot restaurant, so we introduced him to duck blood and ponzu sauce.

      After the meal, waiting for the Q66 bus, I noticed the sign of Modell’s Sporting Goods sign flapping in the wind. I don’t like to wait, so I made something aesthetic for the moment. It’s often true that time slows down when waiting. Maybe it was the festive meal we were having. But I felt I was seeing, reaching for, and experiencing beauty all around me. Time goes into slow motion. Flapping of a sign. Red lanterns hanging from the storefront window. Ginseng for sale. The laughter of children. The feel of my wallet as I take it out, searching for a metro card. It’s an ephemeral feeling that lasted long enough to make me feel on par with existence. So I took a few photos. Pictures never capture how I see something with my eyes. The human eye’s depth of vision still exceeds the iPhone camera.

      I like the conversation I hear around me. I even said “Happy New Year” to a gentleman waiting for the bus in Mandarin. He smiles. I think he must be proud of me that I know an appropriate Lunar New Year greeting. We board the bus - the students and I - and I’m pleased by how calm they are; as the bus rocks and sways, gaining speed as it crosses Flushing Bay, the world seems open with possibility, and I remember the morning time. Sitting. Waiting. For the day to begin. And a teenager had said out loud, “I’m bored” - it was that time before classes had begun. That moment of free time terrifies some people because I don’t think everyone learns what exactly to do with themselves.
       It’s a skill. To stave off boredom and do. Something. And I don’t like to wait. That feeling of inactivity. Of time ticking. “Are we back at school? Yet,” asks Neil - who is sitting across from me. Yes. I say. Press the button to alert the driver to stop. “But I’m scared,” he says. I press the button. I get it. He’s afraid to stop the bus. To fling himself into the next thing and the next. I get it. I tell him. And we’re off.

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Quote on Beauty and Difference from the Classic Series of Dr. Who — "The Genesis of the Daleks" (1975)

"Why must we always destroy beauty? Why kill another creature because it is not in our image?" I keep the classic series of Dr. Who on replay at my house. I want to catch up on episodes I have missed — and I particularly like the Tom Baker episodes. He's the fourth incarnation of the Doctor, and he portrayed the character from 1974 to 1981 (the longest-running tenure of the role in the show's history).

The Genesis of the Daleks:     In the Terrance Dicks written chapter entitled "The Genesis of the Daleks," — the Doctor is sent back in time and space to the Dalek planet Skaro to prevent war between humans and the Dalek race from occurring in the future. The episode is an origin story of the Daleks —  a race of boxy, dangerous aliens. The Daleks have proved to be the doctor's most fearsome, persistent nemesis. With their vibrating cry of "Exterminate!" it is not a hard extrapolation that the Daleks are meant to represent the extreme version of what happens when a species goes all-out bonkers with racial superiority and hatred of difference. The Daleks annihilate difference and vouchsafe sameness in the universe. There is a twist in this episode, however, since the Doctor learns that the Daleks are the creation of a figure named Davros — a humanoid with a Dalek-shaped lower body. The Daleks are the master idea of a diabolical mastermind. Are you getting a Hitler-tingle? Well. You should.

Are Humans More Destructive or Creative as a Species?     
As per the course of a Dr. Who narrative — there is a lot of meaningful talk about what difference (and how humans deal with that which is different) means for the future of humanity. Are we more like the Daleks — whose prime directive is to kill all lifeforms, not like their own? The writers of the show make obvious nods to humanity's own track record for acting like Daleks — think of violence enacted in the name of racial superiority or the banal way in which humans become exterminators under certain conditions — think of the gas chambers that annihilated Jews, homosexuals, people of color, and other so-called dissidents — or the way guards at Guantanamo Bay tortured and debased human beings under their supervision. 

A Trenchant, Relevant Quote    
One scene in particular is a miniature of the grand themes Terrance Dicks is hashing out in the show. In a brief episode of capture, Sarah Jane Smith, one of the Doctor's classic companions, is considered for extermination. But a voice cries out. And asks a question: Why destroy beauty? Why destroy another creature because it does fit into one's own image?

(Sarah is out cold as a muto strokes her face.)SEVRIN: She's beautiful. No deformities, no imperfections.GERRILL: She is a norm. All norms are our enemies. Kill her now for what she's done to our kind.SEVRIN: No, why? Why must we always destroy beauty? Why kill another creature because it is not in our image?GERRILL: Kill her! It is the law. All norms must die. They are our enemies. And if you won't, I will.

Dr. Who "Genesis of the Daleks" Original Airdate on BBC television: March 8, 1975 / image from the BBC 

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Photograph: That Time I Captured a Cool Perspective from the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument in Cleveland

I took this photograph of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Cleveland, Ohio when I was there for my mother’s heart surgery last fall. See the posts about that time further down. I like the point of view - looking up at the body and the hulk of metal machinery and the blur of the flag. I took a lot of pictures. It was wet that day. I was a sodden mess. And is it me or does the human figure in the scene look alive? As if he is not a sculpture.

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Flash Fiction: Rocky Embankment Stream of Consciousness

     

     There's a rocky embankment that you're probably not supposed to walk on because it's filled with old age and danger. And of course, I fall flat on my face, and as I'm falling and thinking, “Oh, fudge!” When in danger, time goes in slow motion. I feel my knee pressed against the ground. It’s purple, bruised and I scratch my forearm. It’s nighttime, and I don't know how I’ll be able to climb out of this embankment. I have shorts that I wear in Summer. No pockets - so I had my wallet stuck into my shorts like a silly boy, and I had keys tucked into my shorts, and I had my phone, and everything stuck into my shorts - you know - in the lapel part of your shorts where your M matches the seam, and everything just falls into place. I don't know how I’ll be able to save my sandwich from falling into the rocks, and I had my keys, and I am like “this hurts,” and I’m stuck to the rock, and I don't know how I’ll get out. If I were injured more ... I ‘m lucky, but I'm like, “where's my phone?” I couldn't find my phone, so my phone at this moment is still lodged in the rocks of Lake Champlain. I wait till tomorrow morning to get it, but it's a big long story - the short version is I basically follow my tracks back to the rocky shores of Lake Champlain - and that's been my day so far. Now I'm back in my hotel room telling you the story on my iPad, and hopefully tomorrow morning I will wake up and locate my phone from the rocks so also what's wrong with me because there it is - I found it - inches away from where I fell. I could've walked a few meters more, and there was a path that takes you down into a depthless semigloss lake - that's safe, but “Yeah” - I don't know what’s wrong with me. 

~ transcribed at the scene.

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