Prospect: A Year in the Park

Grand Army Pumpkins

It was perfect Halloween weather at the Greenmarket: dark, foreboding clouds but mild enough temperatures to permit costumed revelry.

Apple green stood out amid the harvest colors, in an Asian pear (and Daughter's top), and in Romanesco broccoli. We bought the pear (Daughter gets cravings for the hard, juicy things) but not the Romanesco (whose culinary uses are described here). I wonder if those are Fibonacci numbers in the vegetable's strange and lovely nubbins?

Costumes were in evidence: at left, a young lady dressed as, perhaps, candy corn. (Amazingly, there was also still some real corn; I bought 3 ears.)

At right, "hipsters."

And (as Little Edie says) "the best costume for today": Sister Mary Mackerel and her sidekick Bluefish at the Blue Moon fish stand. The folks here are always amazingly good sports, but today they outdid themselves.

GREENMARKET DOG OF THE DAY

This feathery friend is the gentle Olivia, who belongs to a breed new to me: the Italian Spinone. (At first, I thought her person was saying "Spumoni.") Olivia, hipster-like, has a scraggly little beard and emo-eyes, which she fixed on passers-by yearningly. She is training to be a therapy dog, but has failed her test several times--most recently, for being unable to resist giving kisses! That sounds like good therapy to me.

Balancing act

Five o'clock, the end of October, the Long Meadow. With daylight savings time almost over, I struggle to keep the melancholy of the season from overshadowing the golden radiance of it. Discovering this guy practicing his mad tightrope skills between two flaming trees did the job.

I was drawn to the mesmerizing elm grove, below, the one on a knob of land near the "dog beach."

The knoll is carpeted with leaves, and the mostly bare branches seem to wave overhead like a circle of dancers. See the guy on a bike at right, in a gray jacket? The two other cyclists had asked him how old Prospect Park was, and he was telling them a little of its history, with perfect accuracy and great zest.

One more shot of the elms, from the other side...towering over dog walkers, stroller moms, kids walking home from school. The moon was out, a little pale disc, but it's just out of frame.

Cast away transgressions

Thanks to a friend's generous invitation, I went along to Tashlich for the first time at the lake in Prospect Park. In this Rosh Hashanah ceremony, bread is cast upon a body of water (it should have fish in it, and the lake certainly does). This symbolizes the casting away of sins and the purification of the heart for a new year.

My friend's faith community, although called Conservative, was a relaxed and convivial throng, a mix of young families and a few "old hippies," as she lovingly described them. There was schmoozing after their young lady rabbi led us in prayer and song; some people tossed popcorn instead of bread because it's supposed to be better for the ducks. 

The rabbi and a few others blew the shofar, and its haunting call met the beats of the African drummer's grove floating across from the other side of the lake. The rabbi's pug added some enthusiastic barks. ("The Rabbi's Pug" should also be the name of a children's book.)

The spectrum of Brooklyn's Jewish communities was represented at water's edge. A gathering of very Orthodox folks brought at least three generations to the lake, their quiet reverie a contrast to the ebullience of my friend's group. Yet another tribe gathered on another little peninsula; I had a hunch they were from the Syrian community. Nearby, picnickers barbecued obliviously as the afternoon light mellowed.  The ritual felt curiously familiar and comfortable to my Catholic self; I've been doing symbolic things with bread and water, and lapsing into an ancient tongue on holy days, and seeking absolution for sins, all my life. Feels great, and even better outdoors.

Cast away from yourselves all your transgressions,

And create within yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.

                                                --Ezekiel 18:31

Philosopher hearts

As Daughter runs around Prospect Park with a track team, Mother pitches camp under an oak and lets the world unfold on the Long Meadow.

Little girl to father, left: "If you built a really big kite, you could attach yourself to it and fly into the air! I want to do that!"

The September sun gilds the grass tenderly; these pictures, frustratingly overexposed, don't capture the gold, or the tenderness.

Perhaps this artist did, despite the distraction of her lounging friends.

How can such sweetness be shot through with melancholy? Poets and dogs understand.

 

September's Baccalaureate
A combination is
Of Crickets--Crows--and Retrospects

And a dissembling Breeze

 

That hints without assuming—

An innuendo sear

That makes the Heart put up its Fun

And turn Philosopher.   

--Emily Dickinson

   

                        

Fresh summer greens

At the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket, all sorts of nice fresh green things took the stage at the Bradley Farm's stand, like bunches of herbs...

...and fragrant fennel...

...dark, crinkled lacinato kale...

...and extra-slender haricots verts. Unfortunately, these skinny beans bore a plump price tag of $10 a pound, so I would up getting their fatter, more ordinaire counterparts. Note to self: grow these next year.

GREENMARKET DOG OF THE DAY

This big sweetie is Charlie, whose doting owners guess him to be a Chow/Shepherd mix. He came to them via a rescue group in Washington, D.C.; he's definitely more Brooklyn than Beltway.

Line caught

It is a phenomenon at the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket each Saturday: The Fish Line. So many folks line up for fish that they've taken to marking the suggested line area in chalk, sometimes with little jokes added to pass the time. We're waiting for the freshest fish in town, from Blue Moon, a fishing boat based in Mattituck, L.I. Their website is really neat, involving a Greenmarket romance and a great tale of people following their own offbeat dreams.

The Blue Moon stand smells briny and clean as the ocean itself, without a trace of that fish-store funk, and the folks who work there always seem cheerful and seaworthy as they sort through fish fillets until I get just the right weight (about a pound "heavy" to feed three of us). Usually, the only thing I can afford is bluefish, and I wouldn't buy it from anyone but them; most folks dismiss blues as too "fishy," but that's because they haven't had blues as fresh as Blue Moon's.  I also love their smoked fish, which is kipperish and wood-smokey. Above, art from their hand-lettered sign.

Saturday, I splurged on cod, and cooked it with twice-cooked fingerling potatoes in my iron skillet, served with fresh corn on the cob; tonight was a peach pie following pasta with Jersey tomatoes (astronomically expensive this year, perhaps due to tomato blight?) This is the time of year it's easy (but never cheap) to be a "locavore."

GREENMARKET DOGS OF THE WEEK

From locavores to omnivores, here are two lovely pugs who were patiently waiting in the Fish Line. I didn't catch their names, unfortunately, but one is black and the other is "fawn," the term for your classic standard-beige pug.

Pilgrim rose

After a night of pounding rain, the roses growing wild near the Long Meadow released their perfume onto the wet air.

It also smelled a bit like wet dog, especially near Dog Beach, where a clueless young woman stood by as her doofy, dripping mutt leaped all over me. No "down, boy" or even an apology as I wiped the mud off; such dolts as these give ammunition to the anti-off-leash crusaders. Not the dog's fault, of course; he just suffered from an excess of unchecked happy dogness. I was reminded of the cretinously entitled parents who unleash their toddlers to hurl Cheerios around white-tablecloth restaurants and then imply that you "hate children" if you complain...

Anyway, the roses soothed my peevishness, especially since I missed Rose Night at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden last night. Here is a bonus rose from yesterday (with Pollinating Action Figure Bonus!) on the garden path behind the Audubon Center.

And here is Emily:

Nobody knows this little Rose –
It might a pilgrim be
Did I not take it from the ways
And lift it up to thee.
Only a Bee will miss it –
Only a Butterfly,
Hastening from far journey –
On its breast to lie –
Only a Bird will wonder –
Only a Breeze will sigh –
Ah Little Rose — how easy
For such as thee to die!

                —Emily Dickinson

Sumer is icumen in...

...as we note, at the Grand Army Plaza greenmarket yesterday, sweet Williams...

...sweet strawberries...

...and sweet firemen shopping for their undoubtedly yummy firehouse meals.

GREENMARKET DOG OF THE WEEK

My daughter, who is wont to complain about hauling produce in a cooler while I take pictures, could learn a thing or two about teamwork from the lovely Bella, a pit bull mix. Bella willingly totes as much Greenmarket booty as her people can fit in her backpack (they were tucking in some radishes when we met). However, Bella's sense of responsibility for her cargo does not preclude flopping over on the asphalt and demanding a belly rub.

Dogfights

It's Guest Artist Monday! Since I didn't make it over to the park on Mother's Day, I was especially delighted by these glimpses of what I missed from gifted  photographer William Woerner. He showcases his stuff on his blog Lens; here are a few great shots of Sunday's dog action.





Dogs were on my mind after Brownstoner sparked some flame wars over this article in the New York Post, featuring a cranky video vigilante named Orrin Tilevitz whose mission in life seems to be getting irresponsible dog owners busted for their pooches' park misbehavior. I chatted with the young reporter, Sarah Ryley, on the Long Meadow last week (and honored her request to "embargo" the story); given the thin gruel that is Post house style, I thought she did a decent job.


In the movies, Orrin would be a quivering fall guy (played by Richard Dreyfuss) for an out-of-bounds Disney dog (perhaps like this rascal, "Zeus," at left). But in reality, this guy walks around with pepper spray and seems to dedicate every waking hour to chronicling miscreant dog/owner duos. Apparently, he's been attacked in the past; my own relaxed attitude toward the off-leash crowd in the Long Meadow (both during and outside of permitted hours) is shaped by my own, more positive experience. The dogs and owners I've met (typified by the folks at the advocacy group FIDO) create a safe, vibrant community out of this greensward. The worst behavior I've seen is dog-on-dog bullying (no worse than what I used to witness when I worked in an office). Tilevitz fumes that dogs ruin birdwatching, but I'm such a lousy birdwatcher that it's not an issue for me.

Dogwatching is more fun, anyway; no warbler has ever offered me a big sloppy kiss or let me give it a belly rub.

All dog photos: William Woerner; Tilevitz photo, JC Rice for New York Post

Puddle pumps and doggywoods

Yes, it does sound like a children's book title that would cause Dorothy Parker to quip (as quip she did), "Tonstant Weader Fwowed Up." But I swear it's true. Here are actual dogs frolicking in front of dogwood on the Long Meadow yesterday. (Today I garden, so send me some great shots of springy Friday parkitude in my absence.)

And here is a superb invention we could use in the basement of the CrazyStable: a puddle vacuum! Perfect for suctioning off April showers from the May outfield.

Hey, thanks to Louise Crawford and everyone who made last night's Blogfest 2009 a convivial event, and especially to Brit in Brooklyn for including me (first, no less!) in the video tribute to Brooklyn's photobloggers. I felt touched and honored that my taped-together point-and-shoot Canon and I were up there with so many Brooklyn photographers of such deep and varied gifts and visions. The whole montage brought tears of love for Brooklyn to my eyes. And the evening itself brought home an interesting point: blogging per se is the least interesting thing about blogging. Yeah, anybody can do it and it's online, yadda yadda. But the content, the connections, the actions that grow from this ocean of citizen journalism, commentary, and shared creative work is what we're really up to.

The evening, at the Powerhouse Arena in DUMBO, was dedicated to the late Bob Guskind of Gowanus Lounge, who totally got it: this is just a tool for sharing our passions and making things happen. The caricature of bloggers as narcissists in PJs chronicling their every mundane thought and activity may, like most stereotypes, spring from some reality, but the folks last night represented an amazing range of interests beyond their own navels (and none were in pajamas). The word may still waft a whiff of contempt from the dino-media, but I'm proud to be a blogger.

Oh, and the after-party at Galapagos Art Space was really cool. I've never been to an "after-party" before, much less one in a space with tables set on islands among indoor ponds. One pond held a plaster sculpture of a half-submerged girl's kicking legs; another held a flotilla of tiny toy pigs on rafts. As the Clancy Brothers said, "Great social significance. Well...some social significance."