street cleaning

In London and in Hong Kong they do it with dustpan and brush. In New York it's a high speed truck thing that kicks up dust and repositions it...

Illustration by John Hendrix, an uber-talented artist and a friend, in an interesting article in the New York Times yesterday about the insane NYC ritual called "alternate street parking." Here's an excerpt:

"AS if part of a carefully choreographed dance, at strict intervals, countless New Yorkers run from their homes and move their cars from the right side of the street to the left and from the left to the right. These rituals of alternate side parking, enforced by hefty fines and humiliatingly fluorescent window stickers, help make way for the Department of Sanitation’s street sweepers, which pass through our neighborhoods every day except Wednesday, when everyone gets a reprieve."

Your day kind of gets dictated by your car. And makes you sound like a very strict enforcer of time tables. "I must be back at my apartment absolutely no later than 12.20". "Breakfast is great but I cannot linger: it is imperative I am no later than 10.07 back on my doorstep."

I don't tell everyone it's all about the car. Too complicated. Too dull. Plus it sounds ridiculous. I just call it an appointment. Which it is. An appointment with my car, true. But one I definitely can't be late for--or I'll get a fine.

Which I suppose we can be grateful doesn't happen at every appointment we're late for...

imagination and knowledge

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

dancing (Matt Harding)

warning: this video ambushes you half way through. If you're like me, you'll be laughing and suddenly feel like crying. something about dancing and song and everyone joining in... something that makes you think of the heart of things... of what we were made for and meant for. something (obviously) that's hard to put into words. So I'll stop trying. And let you watch it for yourself.

more about Matt in The New York Times yesterday.

Olivia and her Pink Handbag

This is Olivia when she was about 3 with her pink handbag. (Oh she's my lovely niece, did I tell you?)

(Photo taken with my plastic toy Holga camera.)

My nephew, Harry (6), wanted to play machine guns in the trenches with his little sister; Olivia (3), just wanted to play princesses with Harry. It was a predicament.

It didn’t stop Olivia. She went fearlessly into battle but here’s the thing: in the middle of the machine gun fire—down there in the trenches with Harry—knee deep in all that mud—there she was, carrying her pink handbag.

Clearly—even in no-man’s land—Olivia would not be seen dead without her handbag.

But what to put in a handbag that goes with you into battle?

For that I approached the expert. "Olivia," I asked. "What do you keep your handbag?" She looked up at me as if I was the most foolish aunt any child could possibly have--and said, "My friends."

Of course. Do children have to explain EVERYTHING to grown ups? I think so. Probably. Sorry.

She then proceeded to pull out of her handbag: a plastic carrot, a furry bear, a tiny doll with one arm and bad hair, a strange knitted creature, a teapot and a purple troll.

But anyway, that's how Handbag Friends began. And it's for Oliva (and her pink handbag) that I wrote it.

Wait. Isn't it? shouldn't we? what about?
I think so.

Let's sing The Handbag Song! (You know you want to.)

invisible, incredible, impossible

(Doris Lee: The Violinist, Woodstock)

"Faith sees the invisible,
Believes the incredible,
And receives the impossible."
- Anonymous

Summer Reading List

Yes. The Miami Herald is a very smart paper indeed.

The Ultimate Guide To Grandmas and Grandpas is on their Summer Reading List (under picture books--they didn't have an "instruction manual/operating manual" heading).

The Handbag Song

it's live! (WARNING: don't let a five year old watch this or you won't ever get your computer back)

clarity and insincerity

Orwell said, "The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns ... instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink."

And he said, "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

George Orwell (1903-1950)