We walked past Nom Wah Tea Parlor (first Dim Sum house in NYC, since 1920) and down the short, sharply curving block known as Doyers Street. Once a cart path named for Hendrick Doyer (whose 1800s distillery at one end has been replaced by a USPS office), the route was also known as the Bloody [...]
The amazing New Yorker Hotel, “where night turns into play.” Built in 1930 and essentially it’s own ecosystem, it had 43 floors, 23 elevator operators, 20 desk clerks, 92 “telephone girls,” and more than 2,500 rooms, each with “a radio with a choice of four stations,” powered by the building’s own generator, which produced [...]
Taking a twilight break in the midst of a 10 day/474 page edit, we met this Rustic Sphinx Moth (Manduca rustica) as it emerged from its pupating burrow beneath the Lion’s Tail plant in my mother’s garden. It crawled unsteadily along the ground and into the branches where I caught it waiting for its wings [...]
packing.
at the shack at Nick’s Cove.
It is well known that Man Ray was heart-broken by Lee Miller, his partner/muse/lover, when she ended their affair. He penned pleading letters and obsessively cataloged her disembodied features (such as the lips and eyes below) while she (17 years his junior and longing to see the world) became a photo-journalist WWII [...]
Moon Jellyfish, Aurelia aurita.
Sea Nettle Jellyfish, Chrysaora fuscescens.
Leafy Sea Dragon, Phycodurus eques.
(click to expand image) L. Frank Baum’s Silver Shoes notoriously became Technicolor Ruby Slippers, but lesser known is this pair done in an Arabian style–more fanciful but not entirely unlike W.W. Denslow’s original illustrations–and rejected, after testing. Until recently these were held by Debbie “I’ve been collecting for 45 years and I’m only 40.” Reynolds.
“Dorothy [...]
The extraordinary collection of Pamela Kibbee with one of our favorite songbirds, Yma Sumac (Voice of the Xtabay). We made the mustachioed portrait of Pam in the mid-nineties. Can also play this here.
We visited (what remains of) the splendid 18th Century Cabinet of Curiosities of Bonnier de la Mosson, at the Bibliotèque of the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle. Considered by many the richest and most imaginative French cabinet of the early eighteenth century, this curiosity cabinet was housed in the hôtel particulier, as the city residences of aristocrats [...]