Philippe Petit...

One of my favorite children's books is titled, The Man Who Walked Between the Towers (2003). Mordicai Gerstein both wrote and illustrated this tale of a man traversing between the nearly completed Twin Towers...on a cable wire, on August 7, 1974 at 7:15am. I have read this story aloud to my children many times, and each time my eyes welled up as I turned the last page. In his book, which won the Caldecott Medal in 2004, Gerstein eloquently and artfully reminds readers that the Towers, and by allegory the memory of those who perished with them, live despite their demise...safely nestled and nurtured in the memory of that high-wire tirade.















Earlier tonight while thumbing through the digital pages of the Huffington Post, I tripped upon this interview, given by Monsieur Petit last night. I laughed...and my eyes welled up again.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Philippe Petit

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Colbert Report Tickets

Paul McCartney Appearance
More Funny Videos

Flaky Freeze...

The first snowfall of the year in the DC Metro region left its imprint upon our front yard. Here is a brief summary of our day, in pictures. Click here, to sit on the bench and peruse at your own pace.

Protest and the Politics of Choice...

First Street NE divides the US Supreme Court from the US Capitol. On any given day, the buildings uneventfully glare at each other. Yesterday this corridor ceded to an organized display of dissent, as tens of thousands gathered on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade (1973).

Shortly after noon, I walked the few blocks from my office and mingled about the crowd. My interest in documenting their faces and their slogans was driven by curiosity. Some individuals wore their political sentiment on their sleeves.
Others had it stitched upon their backs.
If you want to choose sides, click here and join the crowd, face to face...

Blue Ticket Blues...

Not long after dawn, we breezed into DC on I-395 with a special pass...a lone car cruising on the HOV lanes. The empty concrete landscape seemed a fiction. In the end, the deserted highway was real and the mirage came later. Once afoot and with tickets in hand, the blue ticket line unraveled into gridlock, and for no apparent reason stood still...for hours. One particular ticket holder amidst the standstill recorded a collective eruption of frustration and shared it with the Washington Post.


As the time for the Inaugural Commencement approached, we had choices to make: tread impatience with the rest of the crowd and hope the line began to move; or, break ranks and retreat to the wide-screen TV in the nearby Congressional office. I was happy to wade in the pool of stagnant faces, but conceded to other desires. We listened to the speech in comfort, and hung around for a reception before heading home, while CNN traced the beginning of the parade route....

I took a few pictures, but my exposure was limited. Here are a few of the faces plucked from the crowd. (If you feel like cutting in line, click here.)


Nevertheless, I did not dwell on the missed opportunities. Today was a day for contemplation and ideas. That urge to document images gave way to a more abstract appreciation of the moment. It was a remarkable day.

Two Tickets...

Early tomorrow morning we are heading into DC to swim in the crowds. I will let you know how it went.

Capitoilets...the pre-inaugural landscape

Preparations for the upcoming Swearing-In Ceremony are underway. Some spectators will be seated close in, others will stand far away. Nevertheless everyone braving the cold will be close to the blue walls.
I saw the first truckload of port-a-johns this morning, while driving along Independence Avenue near the Washington Monument. Then I noticed them everywhere. Rows and rows of port-a-johns. So during my lunch hour, I walked a few blocks into the shadow of the most notable dome in this city and marveled at how the terrain was re-framed by those other domes...capping the blue synthetic outhouses.

(Click here, if you wish to preview the privies at your own pace.)



By the time I headed home, the sun was setting and I still glimpsed a few trucks delivering their cargo. These lavatories stacked intermittently from the Capitol to the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial. Rows of blue headgear, lacking both context and content...at least for a few more days.

Murano Music...

Fountain pens fascinate me, especially the rituals involved in quenching their thirst with watery tones. Cartridges. Fillers. Nibs. Choosing the inks: bottle shapes and shades. After the sequence of pre-cursive manipulations, each pen then discloses a distinctive modulation when pressed upon the page.

Today, I flirted with a glass pen for the first time, an Italian pistachio green stylus I recently acquired. I etched ink across the pages of a new...(what else?) lime green colored Moleskine journal.

Some scribbles resembled diary confessions, some paid homage to childish sketches. The exhilaration of cruising around the blank page...the rumbling of glass against cellulose left a pair of haiku skid marks.

Glass pen whispers blue
notations born of friction.
Secrets scraping by....

Fragile word-chorus
chants abrasive melodies.
Caligraphy hiss...

A Foodie Farewell...

This morning Daniela spoke via Skype to her brother in Belarus. He recommended that we have brunch at Slim Goodies...a diner located in the Garden District. We were game, but my in-laws hesitated a bit. Daniela pressed the issue, and we were on our way at noon.

We parked on Magazine Street, and walked a block...passing flocks of hungover twenty-somethings at a pizzeria and a Mexican restaurant. A local couple and a crowd of grunge-artsy types hovered around the entrance to Slim Goodies. Green and Pink hair comingled with sterling silver piercings and vintage eyewear. I asked the non-pierced locals about the wait. "An hour," they answered without a care and a smile. So we left our name and a cell phone number with the hostess/owner and took a walk. A block away, we saw the six-foot high wall fountain at the The Bulldog Pub's beer garden.
Distracted by the scenic displays, time quietly slipped away. We received the call and returned to the diner. While waiting outside for a few more moments, my father-in-law's hunger boiled over into impatience, but the owner flirted with him and he blushed. "I'll get your table ready right now. You're such a handsome man. How do you keep the ladies off of him...." Her charm disarmed my father-in-law's concerns about the wait. (This woman had the skills of an FBI hostage negotiator combined with the allure of a 1940's pin-up girl.) Moments later we were seated next to a table full of tattooed women. Bruce Springsteen's Thunder Road blared from the jukebox, and coffee flowed as we eyed the menus.
I ordered the "Jewish Coonass" breakfast platter: two potato latkes, topped with grilled spinach, two eggs and crawfish étouffée. Daniela had the "Creole Slammer" breakfast platter: two eggs under a pile of hash browns and crawfish étouffée. The wait was worth it, and the flavorful impressions will last as long as those tattoos that brunched alongside our table. As we finished up, the owner/hostess came by once more and told us that she was picking up the tab for my in-law's meals...a jazzy display of class.

We walked off most of the calories strolling along in Audobon Park. As we passed the pond and other passersby, Gabriela found her tree and perched for a while, thinking of anything but....our trip home tomorrow.

An Old Year...A New Year...

Click on the comic strip...to read the fine print.