Hole in the Clouds

Indian Summer

Nov 12, 2012

When you get a day in November that's t-shirt warm, it just seems right to get up on the roof. There were drainspouts to clear and trees to trim, debris to sweep up and . . . pictures to take.

Today's rooftop picture features our neighbors Carolyn and Frank; Carolyn works the pole trimmer while Frank hooks a finger in her beltloop to keep her safe.

Looking into the treetops, it became obvious that this year's fall weather has mostly been so mild that the leaves are only just now beginning to behave fallishly. But we trimmed the trees back so far that almost all the remaining leaves will eventually drop on the street or the sidewalk, not on top of the houses.

streetscape   Philadelphia   Kater Street   work   roof   neighborhood   trees   Frank   Carolyn  

Timbuktu

Nov 10, 2012

The new library building of the Ahmed Baba Institute in Timbuktu, designed by South African architect Andre Spies, sits at the edge of the Sahara Desert– for all intents and purposes at the edge of the world.

Timbuktu has always been miles from nowhere, and the sands of the Saharan nowhere are now blowing through its streets. Years of desertification have spread the Sahara southward, through Timbuktu and beyond across much of Mali and surrounding parts of West Africa.

The Institute was built in part as an archive to preserve ancient documents and religious texts, many of which had survived to the present day by being buried out in the desert. Its architecture was intended to echo the vernacular style, in which most buildings are constructed of mud, with thick, fortress-like walls. Needless to say, many Malians criticize the design as far too modern.

desert   library   Mali   Timbuktu   Sahara   (Image credit: Iwan Baan)  

Gargoyle

Nov 9, 2012

Looked out of my upstairs window a month or so ago, and there at the edge of the roof across the street was Samantha, a gargoyling sort of cat who'd followed her mistress up a ladder onto the roof and then, of course, refused to climb back down. Cats apparently missed the memo about going down ladders tail-first.

My neighbor eventually tossed Samantha down onto a second-story deck; she landed feet first and none the worse for wear–and by all accounts eager to get back up on the roof again.

streetscape   Philadelphia   cat   Kater Street   roof  

Sitting on the Wall With Osage Oranges

Nov 3, 2012

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, a few photographers from the U.S. government's New Deal documentation projects shot a handful of pictures using a newfangled technology: color film. This is one of the surviving prints, probably taken in 1939 by an unknown photographer believed to have been working with the Farm Security Administration.

The girls, who are described in the photo caption as "playing in a park near Union Station in Washington, D.C.,"  are holding osage oranges in their hands. Based on other images in the set, they may have been on the grounds of the United States Capitol building.

children   Washington, D.C.   1930s?   (Image credit: Farm Security Administration / Office of War Information)  

Two-Way Parking

Nov 2, 2012

Odd thing about Broad Street in South Philadelphia: people park in the middle of the street.

Between the northbound and southbound lanes, there is pavement marked with diagonal yellow stripes, the kind of striping that, in all other parts of the world, says to drivers: "Keep your car out of this area." But on Broad Street, at least on the part of Broad Street that runs through South Philly, the empty space between lanes calls out, "Hey, right over here–park your car! Right here in the middle of the street."

Facing north, facing south, doesn't matter. Free parking is free parking.

cars   streetscape   skyline   South Philly   Broad Street   parking   local knowledge   (Image credit: Steve Ives)  

A Good Egg

Nov 1, 2012

His father was Joe Egg, an Alsatian gunsmith. His older brother was George Egg, who inherited the Egg gunworks in London. He was Augustus Leopold Egg, born in 1816 and endowed with a moniker that could have come from the pages of Dickens, who, it just so happened, was a good buddy of his.

Augustus Egg spurned gunsmithing and took up art. This morning, we are treated to two Egg works: above, his best known painting, The Travelling Companions (1862), and below, a sample of his early, humorous, storytelling style, Queen Elizabeth Discovers She is No Longer Young (1848).

The word generally used to describe Travelling Companions is ambiguous. The two women in the railway carriage are very nearly identical; do they in fact represent different facets of the same person's life or character? Indolence and industry, perhaps? Or is the sleeping woman dreaming up her bookish companion? Or are they simply what they appear to be, identical twins on a long train ride? And why are they both oblivious to the spectacular scenery of the French Riviera that glows outside their window?

Queen Elizabeth is much more straightforward. In fact, the painting itself pretty much says everything there is to say about Augustus Egg's historical imagination.

painting   art   1862   Victorian   (Art by Augustus Egg)  

Philly Photo Morning

Oct 31, 2012

This past Friday was the third annual Philly Photo Day. The idea is for people all over Philadelphia to participate in documenting a day in the life here; thousands of people each send in one photo taken anywhere in town on this date, and the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center gathers them all into an exhibit to open in December.

Last year, I submitted a picture of people waiting on line at the state liquor store on South Street. This year, alas, Philly Photo Day caught me cameraless––but not really utterly cameraless. I am still blessed with a cellphone with which to do the deed.
 
So early in the morning of Friday, 26 October 2012, I wasted no time. Hopped out of bed, grabbed my phone, spun around, and recorded for posterity an image of where I'd just been.
-- 
bed   home   Philadelphia Photo Arts Center   Philly Photo Day  

Sounds of South Philly

Oct 30, 2012

Philadelphia rode out the storm without much incident; lots of rain and small tree branches fell, and then that was that. We were the lucky ones this time.

Although I haven't checked up on it with my own eyes, I'd lay money that this mural on East Passyunk is still standing. The performers celebrated on this wall–in autographed portraits designed by mural artist Peter Pagast to resemble the framed celebrity photos on a restaurant wall–were all born and raised in South Philadelphia: Frankie Avalon, Chubby Checker, Fabian, Bobby Rydell, Al Martino, Eddie Fisher, and in the upper right corner someone not so well known among us ignorant non-Philadelphia natives: disc jockey Jerry Blavat.

In 2005, when the mural was dedicated, all of them except Eddie Fisher showed up for a celebratory sock hop.

music   1950s   mural   South Philly   Italian Market   1960s   Frankie Avalon   Passyunk   Fabian   Bobby Rydell   Jerry Blavat   Al Martino   Chubby Checker   Eddie Fisher   (Image credit: Alex Yu) (Mural Art: Peter Pagast)  

Calm Before the Storm

Oct 29, 2012

Is there some kind of bullseye painted across the rooftops of Philadelphia? We are told that this Hurricane Sandy storm-creature is aiming straight at us and will not rest till it rakes us with its cold, cold eye. 

Until further notice then: to find my house, start from the bridge closest to the lefthand edge of the picture and trace about six blocks along the streets that angle downard and toward the right. Amongst all the rowhouses of the neighborhood, you may be able to make out a larger orange building with a dark roof; that's a church known as Apostolic Square, just a block and a half from our house.

Although both the rivers seen here are technically tidal–at least as far upstream as the dam near the art museum in the parkland above the center of the photo–the city is far inland and is not likely to get much storm surge. And it appears we won't be eligible for any of the snow this time. But school and garbage pickup have already been canceled, and there's rain on the roof.

birdseye view   Philadelphia   aerial   oblique  

Slide Guitar School

Oct 24, 2012

Almost nothing is known about this photo, which apparently showed up recently in a secondhand store in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Dominion Photo Company, which takes credit for the picture, operated in Vancouver for about fifty years, beginning in 1914. The fashions on display here, in clothing and music, not to mention the light fixtures and potted palms, suggest the 1930s?

We would imagine that when all those dozens of lap guitars got to strumming, the sound of the islands would have really filled up a room. Thanks to the magic of YouTube, master slide guitarist Johnny Pal shows how it was done.

Canada   music   British Columbia   Vancouver   1930s?   ballroom   guitars   Hawaiian music   (Image credit: Dominion Photo Co., via Shorpy)  

Still Life With Petrified Wood

Oct 23, 2012

If it's October, there must be a pumpkin. This assemblage–which was first featured about four years ago in a predecessor to this here blog–dates back to the time when the brick steps in the photo led up to a house we lived in on Columbia Road in Portland, Maine. In addition to the pumpkin, the still life includes a non-blooming potted geranium and five quinces. The petrified tree stump, which is approximately 200 million years old, is something we found in an abandoned coal mine in Walker County, Alabama; it now sits near our back door in Philadelphia.

Portland   Maine   fall   October   pumpkin   porch steps  

An Eye on the Street

Oct 4, 2012

It's now been about two years since Vivian Maier's photographic oeuvre was discovered among the contents of a storage locker that was auctioned off in Chicago. Hundreds of the pictures have now been published in a book and shown in galleries in New York and Chicago. Dozens are posted on a website, VivianMaier.com. She is the subject of a documentary film project. Hundreds of rolls of film she shot have yet to be developed, and perhaps a hundred thousand of her negatives have yet to be printed.

For fifty years, Maier worked as a nanny, first in New York and then in Chicago. Whenever she got a day off, she took her camera out on the street and shot pictures of the people she encountered. She spent all her earnings on cameras and film, and occasionally on travel to places she wanted to photograph. She became technically skillful, with a sophisticated eye for composition and drama. But she never showed her photographs to anyone.

In her later years, she fell on very hard times and became homeless. Shortly before her death in 2011, she was rescued by three Chicagoans who'd grown up under her care; by then, however, her financial struggles had forced her to sell off one of four storage lockers containing her life's work. The purchaser of the locker was a real estate developer named John Maloof, who'd thought he was buying old snapshots of his neighborhood. When he began to realize what he'd stumbled across, he set aside his regular work and devoted all his time to trying to track down the photographer.

Maier, born in 1926, was still alive in 2010 when Maloof began his search but had died before he could find her. We can't know what she would have thought of the whole world now having a look at the pictures she kept secret for so long. But at least we can look.

New York   Chicago   1950s   photography   portraits   streetscapes   (Image credits: Vivian Maier  

High Achievers

Sep 30, 2012

In attempting to learn what the photo above was all about, I came across the two pictures below; at left is a graduation ceremony at an electrical lineman school, while at right is a pole-climbing demo from a Power Day celebration. Based on this research, I'm prepared to say with some but not complete certainly that the guys in the top photo are doing nothing more than showing off their considerable skill.

Also, based on this research, I have begun to learn a little about lineman school. Historians of electrification tell us that during the early days of our power grid, approximately one out of every three linemen was electrocuted or fell to his death at work. Back then, obviously, the job appealed to people with a very high tolerance for risk-taking, and even today, people who are cautious and risk-averse by nature will have trouble forcing themselves to climb fifty or a hundred feet into the air and fiddle with live electrical wires. Thus, lineman school was created to teach daredevils to take risks in a less risky way.

The instructor of the class at lower left is Ken Bushman, a licensed hypnotherapist as well as a long-time lineman. He teaches breathing exercises as an aid to focus while working in the air. This particular class included fifty students, forty-six of whom made it through to graduation: "laid off construction workers, a food scientist in need of a change, a Zen monk, ex-cons, warehouse box movers, recovering addicts, veterans of Iraq/Afghanistan, the children of border crossers, descendants of American slaves, slackers, jokers, and serious men who love to work hard."

work   power lines   electricity   linemen