Pictures Found on My Cell Phone

I recently discovered that I haven't deleted pictures from my cell phone for the last eight months. Going through the pictures I kind of relived some of the past adventures J. and I have gone on and other events in our lives. The majority were taken prior to our getting a new digital camera, yet, there are a few that are from after that point in time. It's so much easier to whip out your cell phone and take a picture, then remembering to bring your camera with you where ever you go. Or at least that is how it is for me. Here are some the images that I found, in no particular order.
J. and I went to PS. 1's 2007 Warm Up. We ended up going on the opening weekend and got there around 2pm. We were some of the first people to arrive, so the entire setting was quite pristine and untouched. The project was titled Liquid Sky and was designed by Ball-Nogues and was a canopy of tinted mylar petals. Here is a closer picture of the mylar petals:
We actually ended up spending the entire day in Long Island City and ended up having dinner at a pretty decent seafood shack right near where you catch the water taxis.

One Saturday in July, J. and I decided that we wanted to explore Roosevelt Island. Neither of had ever been there and we also wanted to ride the tram. The ride was fun, but short. Once out on the Island we walked from one end to other, which is really easy to do in less than an hour. Saw the crazy currents that collide at the north point of the Island, forming a whirlpool and momentarily thought about the possibility of moving to Roosevelt Island. Then we remembered the movie Dark Water with Jennifer Connelly; how our friends would probably visit us once a year simply for the novelty of coming to Roosevelt Island; that there was only one grocery store and a Chinese food restaurant and the architecture was mostly 1960s urban utopian style and kind of grim and we quickly forgot about that notion. At the south end of the Island are the ruins of the smallpox hospital. Roosevelt Island was known in the 19th century as Welfare Island and housed several hospitals, asylums and correctional institutions. Recently a portion of the smallpox hospital ruins collapsed. I'm trying to reformat the picture of the small pox hospital ruins we took. Instead here is a view of Manhattan from Roosevelt Island:
My problem is that I think I need photoshop in order to fix the pictures I downloaded from my cell phone. Very frustrating.

Tax Day & Protesting in New York City

I had to go to the mid town Post Office on tax day. J. and I filed online so I wasn't there to mail our taxes, but to pick up some priority shipping boxes for mailing some stuff we sold on Ebay. There were huge lines of people waiting to get their tax returns stamped "April 15" but what caught my eye was when I was leaving were the protesters on 8th Avenue. There were protest performers against the war; Grannies Against the War; people protesting taxes as actually "war taxes" and people in general protesting the federal income tax. The banners say "Whose Money?" "How much longer?" "In Whose Name?" It was definitely fascinating to compare the two scenes. Outside people were engaging in their first amendment right to assemblage, while inside people were willingly following the sixteenth amendment by paying their federal income taxes. It was like watching the Constitution in action.

Walk Along the Hudson River

Sights seen on a recent afternoon walk. Pictures were taken with my cell phone…

Shipwreck near the base of the George Washington.

Sorry for the upside down picture. For some reason it won't load properly but I really wanted to share this image.

What appears to be a Santeria ritual…basket with chicken legs. Real chicken legs.
An old New York City lamp post.
J. and I walked from 181st Street along the river to 125th to Fairway to pick up groceries. Right around 130th we were stopped due to filming going on. It looked like a cop show or one of the many Law & Orders or CSI New York, until we saw when they started filming a scene that it was Geena Davis and Rosie Perez walking towards a medical examiner car. Geena Davis towered over Rosie Perez. Needless to say there were a ton of real NYPD everywhere, so we couldn’t take any pictures. I went to the Mayor’s Office of Film ,Theatre & Broadcasting’s website to see if Geena Davis was doing a new film. According to the website, Geena Davis is filming a new pilot for CBS about a Chief Inspector who is a single mother with two children that she raising in the suburbs of Long Island. It is tentatively titled “Exit 19.” Don't think I'll be checking that show out if it makes it onto the fall schedule.

April 4TH, Shot Rings Out in the Memphis Sky

Today is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. At 6:01 pm on April 4th in Memphis, Tennessee at the Lorraine Hotel, MLK was shot by James Earl Ray. MLK had been standing on the second floor balcony. The bullet went through his right cheek; smashing his jaw and then traveled down his spinal cord and was lodged in his shoulder. MLK was pronounced dead at 7:05 pm at St. Joseph’s Hotel. He was thirty-nine years old. MLK has been dead longer than he was alive.

The night before he had delivered what is now called his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech at the Masonic Temple to sanitation workers who had been on a 65 day strike for the right to unionize. That day, MLK had been held up in Atlanta due to a bomb threat aimed at him on his flight to Memphis. The anonymous caller said “Your airline brought Martin Luther King to Memphis, and when he comes again a bomb will go off and he will be assassinated.” According to reports, the pilot of the Eastern Airlines flight announced to all of the passengers on board that the flight was being held up because of the bomb threat to MLK. In addition, MLK was struggling with his mission of non-violence in the growing support for the black-power movement and the furvor of the left and counterculture. Several biographers have also documented that MLK suffered from bouts of depression and was overcoming a season of estrangement from the White House because of his anti-Vietnam stance and the disillusionment from young Black activists who advocated more radical and violent measures.

On the evening of April 3rd, MLK tried to beg off speaking at the Masonic Temple but his friend and colleague Reverend Ralph Abernathy pushed him to speak. Reflecting on the recent threat against his life and perhaps attempting to lift himself out of the despair and doubt he had experience over the last year, MLK ended what would be his last speech with the following eerily prophetic words:

“Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

As news spread of MLK’s assassination, rioting was reported in at least 110 American cities, resulting in $50 million in destruction and the death of 39 people. Over 22,000 federal troops and 34,000 national guard were dispersed to areas to assist local police. The worst riots occurred in Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, DC. Many neighborhoods devastated by the riots have taken these past forty years passed to recover. You can still see the evidence in the burned out “riot corridors” of Chicago and Washington, DC.

MLK’s assassination was one of a series of events that occurred in 1968, a year that changed and as author Mark Kurlansky has said “rocked” the world. It was a watershed year where around the world people were questioning both their vision of their governments and their selves. Forty years later, we are still feeling the effects of 1968 and it is eerie to find ourselves in parallels themes and events from that time. Yet there doesn’t appear to be the outrage and frustration that is apparent in the writings and images from 1968. There is a desire for change, but there seems to be atrophy on the part of at least the American public. Or is that we aren’t looking in the right places? Are social and political changes being driven not by ideology but by economics? Is it because we are in a war that isn’t a war and that Americans haven’t been told they have to sacrifice their lives for in the name of democracy? I don’t mean to end an entry with so many questions, but the memorializing and speculation on the loss of MLK that is going to occur today is only the beginning of a year-long reflection that will occur over the next year on the year 1968. As revolutionary as 1968 has been betrayed, it was a year of much loss, destruction and set backs.

More complete historical coverage of the assassination and the life of MLK I highly recommend checking out the Atlantic Constitution Journal's website. They have really great images and photographs. Here's the link: http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/martin-luther-king-index.html