Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- I rather enjoyed the pictures of the Wall Street area that were posted two weeks ago. Steve Fisher has sent me some more of them, and I can’t resist. I post them here with the courtesy of Steve who snapped them.

1
Bowling Green

2
US Custom House

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10
Fraunces Tavern – America’s oldest operating restaurant.
George used to eat here.

11

12

13

New York Stock Exchange

.

Generally, every week Steve also sends me about a dozen photos of birds.
I usually have no interest in these so you can imagine all the pictures you haven’t seen.
However, there were two pics he sent me this week that just took my breath so I have to post them and a couple of others that belong together.

.

Bluejays

More Bluejays

Even more Bluejays

Shy Bluejay
(Keep looking, you’ll find him.)

Mockingbird

- Yesterday, Bill Peckmann sent me a few scans with this note:

My stepdaughter Bethany just came back from her trip to Spain and brought back these very pretty gaudy postcards. Gaudy as in the Antoni Gaudi, famous Spanish architect. He would have had fun at Epcot and the Disney parks!

Here are the scans sent:

1

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

________________

These pictures reminded me that my friend, Steve Fisher, who is an architect, went to Spain to photograph the Gaudi buildings. I asked him to send me any pictures he could get together quickly. Of course, he’d shot them before there were digital cameras, so he had to scan the stills he had on hand.
Take a look:

- My friend Steve Fisher sent a host of photos of the Wall Street area on the very day that stocks went booming past their highest mark since 2008′s catastrophic crash. That same night I saw Arbitrage, a Richard Gere movie about a crooked hedge fund operator. These pictures seemed destined to end up on today’s photo gallery.

The pics come from many parts of the historic area like the Bank of New York Building or Trinity Church or Tiffany & Co. Lots of beautiful, old buildings displaying lots of majestic architecture and hiding questionable actions. Thanks to Steve for these photos:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

- In the past week the Shuttle Enterprise was ferried up the Hudson to the aircraft carrier, the Intrepid. There it would settle into its new home. Steven Fisher photographed the delivery.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

______________________

This followed with a photo essay by Steve on the World Trade Center memorial under construction. hese are not only his photos but his words as well.

After quite a few years, I ventured back to the site of the World Trade Center.
Last time I was there, when it was a giant hole in the ground, I stood at the perimeter, alone, and wept. This time, I have to say that I did not experience much of an emotional reaction, and I don’t believe that it was because of the passage of time.

There were the two large pools demarking where the towers once stood; there was the new tower rising ever skyward alongside the original site; there were the myriad of names carved into the metal band surrounding the pools; there were the crowds of people, tourists mostly, strolling among the trees, sitting on stone slabs, photographing the views and each other. But it did not have the impact that I expected.

1

2

3
As well-detailed as the fountain walls are (and they really are
quite lovely to watch and listen to,) I get a mental image
when viewing the pools that distracts me.

4
The central secondary depression reminds me of a floor drain in a tub.
I wish the water would disappear magically, out of sight, instead of
so blatantly going down a drain. It somehow lacks respect.

5

6

7
I think, too, that the presence of the visitors, an obvious
unavoidable necessity, is a detraction from the sense that
something horrific happened here. It’s like traipsing about
the ruins of Greek temple sites among so many tour groups
– it makes it more difficult to relate to the scene that
transpired here one September morning.

8

9
I do believe that the plaza will work better once the trees
have a chance to mature; perhaps it will be easier
to reflect and contemplate then.

10
Anyway, here are a bunch of photos I took, which are
probably like the millions of images being snapped by
thousands of others, but I found it still compelling to do so.

11

Steve Fisher sent some follow-up photos to the story of the newborn robins which I posted last Sunday. We have to finish this story, don’t we?

1
This morning, the day Vegas odds-makers said that
one of the chicks would be first in flight, one of the
adult robins brought some strange looking stuff in his beak.

2
Although it looked more like nest material, the chicks
seemed enthusiastic enough about eating it.

3
Later in the day, the most mature of the chicks
[probably the first-born] looked anxious
to explore the world outside the nest.

4
He even got up on the rim of the nest and
poked his his through the latticework.

5
He stretched his legs and flexed his wings.
He hopped around a bit, outside the actual nest,
making sure the wings were working properly.
Orville and Wilber would have been proud.

6

Then in a flash he was gone, flying straight
across the yard to the cover of trees, too
quick to photograph him in flight.

I haven’t seen him back at the nest, yet, but
I’m told they will hang around for about a week.

Meanwhile, there are three other chicks who have to
follow in their sibling’s footsteps, or wingflaps, rather.

Our work here is almost done. Moral of the story,
don’t bet against Vegas, or Mother Nature.

_________________________

On another day, Steve had sent me these photos.

11
Going up.

12
Going across.

13
And going down.
No this is not oriented incorrectly;
they really are all nose-diving simultaneously.

14

15

16
A red tailed hawk.

- Steve Fisher has been posting some amazing photos of activity in his backyard in Maspeth, Queens, NY. It’s obviously Spring:

1

2

3

4

5
Today, May 22, I see that all four eggs have hatched and the chicks are getting fuzzy…

6
And hungry.

7

8

9

10

11
In all the shots with the mother robin, it’s the telephoto lens
that lets me get in so tight – I am safely 20 feet away from her.
It’s only when she leaves the nest to gather meals for the kids or
to take in a movie that I can peer right into the nest with a normal lens
within inches of the chicks and I have a look-out
in case the mother comes home early.

12

13

14

15

16
First time all four chicks are up at the same time. All they do is eat, sleep and grow.

17

18

19

20

21

- I handed a “Forward-to-the-new-address-card” to the Post Office and knew it would take weeks to get my mail. Well, surprise! Surprise! It took exactly one day. And it keeps on coming. Who says you can’t trust the post office?

In honor of the noble institution, I’ve decided to repost this 2009 group of pictures of mailboxes. It seems a bit fitting.
Mailboxes, both brown and and blue, they exist in droves holding onto the snailmail still out there. One might wonder how many more postage rate increases it can withstand before we depend allmost exclusively on internet communication.

These days many of the boxes have been decorated with graffiti of different sorts. All of it seems to be some kinda message to the world.
Nice and clean with dozens of coats of paint

Given that it’s probably a federal offense, one would expect such graffiti to be limited. But I’d say that that’s not the case.

I can remember walking down the street with John Leguizamo and his director David Bar Katz as he was about to open in Freak on Broadway. Al around town his face was stenciled on sidewalks and walls promoting the show.

We passed a mailbox and John saw his image/ad. He got upset. He knew that it was a federal offense to mark up the mailbox and he asked his director to see if he could look into stopping such practices. The show opened and I suspect there was no such inquisition from the feds.

(Click any image you want to enlarge.)

One graffiti writer wanted the world to know that “Papa Loves Baby”

It certainly got the point across to “Baby”.

.

“Faro” is someone who’s been out there for quite awhile.
(S)he doesn’t just cover mailboxes. Subway walls and posters
are also fair game for this scribbler.

They can get pretty gritty.

or some get newly painted with just a touch of pink.

Sometimes they come in pairs – brown or blue.

or threes. (newly painted)

Unfortunately, clean up painting things don’t get much better. Splotchy coats
of paint that don’t match the undercoat don’t always improve things.
It’s exhausting when you think about it.

These last two photos are by Steve Fisher,
a better eye for the humorous than I.

These are photos sent by Steve Fisher.

1
Grand Central TIme

2
Platforms on the Platform

3
Hulu-hooping it Uptown

4

5

6
Textures

7

8

9

10

11

Kickstarter

continues to roll as the last of our days move on. It’s feeling like a long, slow, uphill battle at this point, and we’re taking all measures we have to contact everyone we know. Many thanks to all of you who have been so supportive. It’s so appreciated.

Take a look at our POE site: Poestory.net.

- New York’s had some unusually kind weaher lately. Lots of flora seem to be growing and maturing unnaturally early. With all this, obviously on his mind, Steve Fisher makes a photo trip to the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. Here are a few of his photos.

2

3