One of the great treats about being alive and on this planet is getting to see the ocean at sunrise and sunset. I am always staggered by the number of different colors in the water. I’ve yet to get a photo that comes close to capturing it, but maybe that’s okay. Because I don’t have a photo I need to keep going back to see the real thing.
The full moon sets and the sun rises at Carlsbad Beach, San Diego County, California
(Posted for the latest Weekly Photo Challenge.)
Last year I got to take my kids to New York for a few days. Our return flight was early one morning. I love this shot of my son – up way before his body clock would usually allow – taking in his last views of Manhattan before we departed. We were almost the only ones up…
Goodbye, New York.
Another crack-o’-dawn morning on the trip, my daughter and I walked out to the East River to watch the sun rise. That’s my daughter huddled on the side of the photo – it was colder than we had anticipated.
OK, we saw the sunrise, now let’s go back to bed.
(Posted for the latest Weekly Photo Challenge.)
Just after sunrise on the trails at Griffith Park in Los Angeles, California, the sunlight added a sepia tint to this trail and a grove of eucalyptus trees.
An empty trail just after sunrise.
Eucalyptus trees at dawn.
(Posted for the latest Weekly Photo Challenge.)
A decrepit retaining wall along the shore becomes magic as sunset approaches.
Pilings on East Beach, Santa Barbara, California
(Posted for the latest Weekly Photo Challenge.)
One thing I love about my iphone’s camera is that it endlessly compensates for poor choices — such as shooting directly at the sun – with frequently lovely results.
The view just after sunrise on the hiking trails at Griffith Park, Los Angeles, California
(Posted for the latest Weekly Photo Challenge.)
The latest Weekly Photo Challenge focuses on nostalgia and these photos conjure nostalgia in so many ways!
My writing room. Tile floor by me. Fake fur chair by Los Angeles designer Harry Segil. Back in those days, I worked in Hollywood and supported only me, so I had money for snazzy chairs.
In these photos is a tile floor I laid myself. Laying the floor took a long time, but not nearly so long as coming up with a design I liked. When I did the floor, I listened over and over to two record albums by my favorite band the Replacements: Tim, which had just come out, and Let It Be. There is still a bit of grout on the LP labels.
This was the room where I did my writing, and I wanted it to be special. I furnished it during the first of the mid-century revivals. I loved writing in that room. It was here that I wrote my psychological thriller about split brain research*, ?Was It A Rat I Saw?, under contract to Bantam-Doubleday-Dell. BDD gave me an advance to write ?Rat?, so for a year, my only job was writing. Bliss!
I published ?Rat? then I stopped writing novels for a long time, until I resumed with Scar Jewelry, my novel about family and music, which I wrote on weekend mornings in between everything else. I had forgotten how great it is to have writing as my only work, until the last couple weeks: I am laid up convalescing after hip replacement surgery and am getting a ton of writing done. More bliss! In fact, I expect to complete a first draft of my new fantasy detective novel, Frames, before I have to return to the d-a-y j-o-b.
I am writing Frames on my iPad, as I recently posted. I wrote ?Rat? on a technology of equal or surpassing greatness, the IBM Correcting Selectric typewriter. Kids, you had to be there to appreciate it.
More of my tile floor, and the world’s greatest writing machine: the IBM Correcting Selectric typewriter.
P.S. Contrary to what this image shows, the desk did stand plumb with the floor. I “digitized” these old prints by photographing them with my phone and that introduced the skew.
*P.P.S. Another post-op project has been to convert ?Was It A Rat I Saw? to an e-book. That new edition should be available in 4-6 weeks.
P.P.P.S. Harry still makes amazing furniture, worth an oogle regardless of your price range.
With much enthusiasm – and no shame – I contribute to the Weekly Photo Challenge using my worst photos ever. This week’s topic is companions, and despite the lack of viable photos I have to do a shout-out to my beloved writing companion, my iPad. I recently wrote my novel Scar Jewelry on my iPad, and now am close to finishing a first draft of my fantasy detective novel Frames.
With my iPad I write on my patio on a balmy sunny night. With my iPad I carry my words and ideas around just about all the time, keeping them in the glove compartment in case I get a spare moment to write. And with my iPad I can slip over to play a few games and think things through subconsciously when my writing gets stuck.
Below are my writing apps in action. I wasn’t sure that screen shots should count as photos so I snapped these photos with my phone. Hence the unforgettable quality.
Early version of my latest novel, as planned out using Keynote’s presentation slides instead of notecards.
I organize and reorganize elements in a scene using the mind-map app Poppplet.
The writing itself I do with Pages.
This week’s photo challenge topic is companions and for me that means the four-legs in our household. I’ve already posted a bizilion applicable photos (tags dogs or cats). Okay, at least half a bizillion. So now, make it a bizillion plus six.
A decade ago, Bop and Luna were kittens and my son (now 6’2) was shorter than his twin sister (now 5’10”).
Bop grew up to disdain other animals, with one exception. She enjoyed our rabbit Cookie, a bold and aggressive rescue bunny. Bop loved to hang out in Cookie’s cage. An extreme sport: Cookie would have killed anybody (not an exaggeration) she caught in her cage.
Cookie liked living with cats. She learned all sorts of tricks that rabbits should never do, such as climbing fences. When we first got her she was indoors in a cage but soon had the run of the backyard. She chased the cats whenever she could. She chased the neighbors out of their backyard. (Fortunately they found this charming). For all of that she was very affectionate.
As a kitten, Luna (left) appointed our two older cats as his parents. For the rest of her life, Boink (right) groomed and cuddled with Luna daily.
Red, a gentle giant of a tomcat, became Luna’s dad. They spent endless hours playfighting and exploring together.
When Cookie the rabbit succumbed to lung cancer, we lost a special individual and my key excuse against getting a dog. Enter Shadow, who lets the kids mess with her.
(Posted as part of the Weekly Photo Challenge.)
When screenprinting, my son often starts with a photo and then Does Stuff to it in Photoshop and Illustrator before he prints the result, giving the image a new and remarkable story to tell.
With the right software you can make a guy pink.
Or you can add a lot of tattoos.
Or you can throw in some UFOs.
These were all done as class projects. Now he is talking about scrapping art as a major. Sigh. His choice. His life. His choice. His life. His…
I love watching pelicans. Their wave-skimming flight, their tight formations with many birds veering as one, their precision dives – they always get their fish! Watching pelicans reminds me of Gary Larsen’s Far Side frame with the buzzards wearing shades and the caption “birds of prey know they’re cool”.
Every once in a while, I catch some pelicanness on camera.
Pelican at sunrise, East River, NYC.
Pelicans at sunrise, Carlsbad Beach, San Diego County, CA
They’re up there. Really.
Required Writing 