JSP Visual Week In Review ~ 02.19.22
This week was a tale of two cities, but tonight is a small-town tale.
I’m at the kitchen table of my childhood home tapping out this missive.
I’m eaten hundreds of meals at this table (and the one before it) and wrote countless essays and high school term papers here.
It’s cold in Northeast Pennsylvania tonight. The thermometer that used to hang outside the window behind me is long gone, but my phone’s weather app tells me it’s 20 degrees. When I walked my dogs a couple of hours ago, there was a stiff wind blowing so while the temp was 20, it felt more like 10.
Me and the kids drove up this afternoon for an overnight visit with their grandmother. Drove through a couple of snow squalls on the Pa Turnpike but nothing the Beuford the 4Runner couldn’t handle (especially after that drive back from NY State about a month ago).
Speaking of New York, I spent some time there on Thursday. It was a balmy 60 degrees. Took the train in to Penn Station, then walked from there all the way down to Greenwich Village, went to the event I had to, then walked back a few hours later. It’s not a long walk, about 40 minutes or so, and it goes by quick.
I was masked up nearly the whole time. The last time I was in New York City was February 2020, just before the world went sideways.
Last Sunday, Super Bowl Sunday here in the United States, I woke up to fresh-fallen snow. Only an inch or so, just to make everything look nice. I took a drive down to Philadelphia – only about a 35 minute jaunt – to peruse some bookstores while fat flakes fell, and also to grab a couple of pints in a pub just because it was a Sunday afternoon, the pub was nearly empty and I had no one to see and no where to be.
But tonight, I’m back at the starting point. I played Scrabble with Chase, my 11 year old, the same way my Dad played Scrabble on cold winter’s Saturday nights with me and my sister, after we’d come home from Saturday evening Mass. (Matt, my youngest, didn’t want to play and Olivia had called it an early night.)
I’d usually lose to my Dad and/or my sister. I’d set up small words of little value.
Chase already plays a more strategic game. He lies in wait to build on a word and exact solid point totals.
Though I usually beat him, it was not to be tonight.
Tonight, like those cold nights of old at this table, I lost again.
But that’s ok. We ate some pizza, caught up with Grandma, he and his brother quizzed me about growing up in this rancher house, a smidge of house compared to their home in New Jersey.
It was fun for me, fun for them. I spent a lot of time walking big city streets this week.
It was nice to be back in the arms of a small Northeast Pa town to end it.
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This Week’s Links:
What I Watched This Week: Beastie Boys Story (Apple TV)
What I Read This Week: The Name of The Rose. Except I didn’t. I give up. I just cannot read this book. Very dense. I can’t follow the story line. I’ve been trying to read it the late ’90s. Can’t do it. Still working on The Ginza Ghost, a collection of short stories. Also started Nightmare County by Frank Harvey.
What I Listened To This Week: Camille Conte’s Show, Episode #691, commemorating Black History Month. A great selection of songs from the O’Jays, Billy Preston, Edwin Starr, Sly & The Family Stone, Jimi Hendrix and more.
More Preston: Did you know he was the very first musical guest on Saturday Night Live when it debuted in 1975?
Times.Co.UK: Marilyn Stafford: A Life in Photography
UN of Photography: In Praise of the Non-Technical Photographer
Daily Mail: When Design Fails
New Yorker: Stephen Sondheim’s Lessons For Every Artist
And more New Yorker: Stevie Nicks is still living her dream, and finding creativity in unlikely places
Eye on Design: From MAD Magazine to B Movies: An Oral History of Beastie Boys Artwork
NY Times: After Self Care…now this.
RIP: Ivan Reitman. Go watch Ghostbusters. Or Kindergarten Cop. Or Stripes.
“Life rarely presents fully finished photographs. An image evolves, often from a single strand of visual interest – a distant horizon, a moment of light, a held expression.” ~ Sam Abell, born today, February 19, 1945.
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