Prospect: A Year in the Park

When the robins come

Are robins becoming more numerous? Every spring, there seem to be more of them. This guy was taking a violent bath in the park's lake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Freshly storm-soaked and chilly, Prospect Park at sunset was subdued and lightly populated. Spring green, a thousand shades of it, is everywhere, along with splashes of delicate white.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's surprising how many trees glow red in their first tender foliage. This maple on Nellie's Lawn was one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The baby leaves on this oak blushed, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Almost home, in the Parade Grounds, I happened on this sidewalk memorial. A quick Googling revealed that Tamon Robinson was a beloved employee in a Fort Greene "Connecticut Muffin" coffee shop where, curiously, we just stopped in last Sunday after catching a movie at BAM. We had wondered about the oaktag memorial poster in the window; apparently the young man was run down by an NYPD squad car last week under mysterious circumstances and later died. Not surprisingly, his grieving family is seeking answers. How he came to be mourned among the ballfields of Flatbush, or by whom, I do not know.

 

If I shouldn't be alive

When the Robins come,

Give the one in Red Cravat,

A Memorial crumb –

If I couldn't thank you,

Being fast asleep,

You will know I'm trying

With my Granite lip!                                      

                            --Emily Dickinson

Bipolar weekend

 

This was yesterday afternoon, the Lilac Collection, Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Tonight, listening to cold rain lashing the windows and gusts howling, it seems long ago.

Every year, it is my stated mission to inhale lilacs from every single bush, allegedly to detect nuances of scent among different varieties. (For example, white ones have a very light scent; blue ones are incense-like.) In truth, I am just drugging.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the Cranford Rose Garden, a few bushes were already crowned in glory. Roses in April, really?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

Our native wildflowers in the Northeast are delicate debutantes, all in white. Left to right: Solomon's seal, false Solomon's seal, and trillium. The shady floor of the Native Flora Garden was carpeted with them. Trillium is also called wakerobin, and there were plenty of wide-awake robins marching around in the undergrowth.

We observed sadly that Streamreach, our beloved Ent near the BBG's wandering waterway, who shaded many games of "float stuff downstream" during Daughter's childhood summers, had sustained two mighty wounds since we last paid him homage. But he's standing, half an Ent still nobler than another tree whole, and I hope tonight's brutal winds do him no further harm.

A spell so exquisite

Some years the trees at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden cooperate and actually bloom to coincide with Sakura Matsuri, the Cherry Blossom Festival. Not this year, with its wildly premature spring. Today was already "cherry confetti underfoot" day, with drifts of blossoms in every breeze.

 

Let a thousand photos bloom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everyone was a flower girl today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nearby, the tree peonies vamped it up, a sea of satiny flounces sprung from the imagination of a ballgown designer.

 

This year, everything is peaking almost simultaneously. Tomorrow, as the cold rain falls, I'll share lilacs, wildflowers and even some early roses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Spring is a happiness so beautiful, so unique, so unexpected, that I don’t know what to do with my heart. I dare not take it, I dare not leave it – what do you advise?

                Life is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it.”

                                                        --Emily Dickinson, letter to Louise and Frances Norcross, Spring, 1874

Neck and neck

Today's Blurry Bird of the Day is a young blue heron, who was wading around the pool just above the Binnen Bridge waterfall. Thanks to the informative birder lady who identified him for me. He had a glaring yellow eye and a truly pencil-like neck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This swan, also a juvenile (judging from his leftover mocha coloring), still retained some youthful fuzziness and thus seemed to have, by swan standards, a neck thick enough to qualify him as an avian sportscaster.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also in evidence on a bright and crisp day: a very modest-scale film shoot for "A Case of You," directed by someone named Kat Coiro. Sounds like a rom-com; they had set-dressed some bookstalls. A crew member claimed that Brendan Fraser is in the cast, but he's nowhere on their IMDB listing...a curious thing to bluff about, no?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, I would like to share one of my favorite trees on the Nethermead: I call it the Mohawk Tree. It has grown into this fantastical configuration from a blighted stump, and I like its angle and attitude. Thanks to Matthew of Backyard and Beyond for pointing out that a very cool photo of this tree by photographer Mitch Epstein—it's a silver linden, apparently—can be found here, along with lots of other arty urban tree portraits.

 

Of note: The Audubon Center and the Lefferts House both reopen this week after being closed to the public for a winter hiatus. Lefferts House is open daily from 1 to 3 p.m. over the "winter break" Feb. 18-26, offering tots old-timey Dutch games and such.

WTD?? Muscovy madness!

What the duck?? On the last day of January, by the south shore of the lake, two white ducks are sashaying around, showing off their alarming blood-red face decoration.

 

Their entitled air bespoke poultry rather than wildlife; could they have escaped some provider of tasty birds to our city's diverse gourmands? What are these guys, anybody?

Thanks for a quick ID to Mary of Ditmas Park Blog, who "patched" me in to this link: They are  Muscovy Ducks! Apparently, they blew in with Hurricane Irene. According to Wikipedia:

* Them's good eatin'...gourmets call these "Barbary ducks," and they have a beefier taste than regular Mallard-based ducks.

* They are not from Moscow, but "muscovy" may have been a term implying exoticism. (Or a corrupted name from Native Americans in Colombia, where they are indigenous.)

* They are "carunculated" (lumpy-faced). Wild ones are part black, domesticated ones can be all-white. In addition (duck overshare alert): "Male Muscovy Ducks have spiralled penises which can become erect to 20 cm in one third of a second. Females have cloacas that spiral in the opposite direction to try to limit forced copulation by males."

* They can become "nuisances" and some areas cull the flocks...oh, no, here we go again?

 

Elsewhere along the South Drive, crews continued to hew damaged trees and leave mountains of fresh chip mulch for distribution.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are, however, plenty of trees left. And in a mere quarter of a year, they'll have leaves...

 

More Parky Patches:

I should look at Park Slope Patch more often. Just today they had 2 cool items about park-related stuff:

1. A movie shoot with Joaquin Phoenix on the Long Meadow, and

2. A "wilderness survival course" on February 11 run by the Urban Rangers. Since most of us in Brooklyn already feel as if we survive routinely in some fairly wild environments, that should be amusing!

In search of Happy Light in 2012

This winter, I'm throwing the book at SAD; I even bought a Verilux "HappyLight"®, before which I slumped in the frigid pre-dawn this morning. But I'm also determined to use Prospect Park as my full-spectrum light therapy...and to recommit to the daily park visits that prompted this chronicle three years ago. New Year's Day was spent in the HappyDark of the movies and a German restaurant, but on Monday afternoon I dragged Spouse to see the sun's last rays gild the lake.

 

 

 

 

 

And this morning, I braved the bitter wind to see the sun peer over the treeline behind the Long Meadow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The dogs were already out in force, jubilant in the bitter air. (Which reminds me: My limited edition of Park Bark: At Play with the Dogs of Brooklyn, a photo celebration of the park's dogs and their owners, is getting close to sold out! Thanks to all who ordered a copy for a holiday present, and if you'd like to get in an order (Valentine's Day approacheth), by all means go here and let me know if you'd like a dedication written on the flyleaf.)

 

 

 

 

 

WACKY TREE OF THE DAY

Monday afternoon, I spied what looked like a bunch of lime-colored, corrugated softballs in the leaves, under a thicket of thorny branches. One clung to the tree overhead. I struggled through the thorns and pocketed one to identify later. As I suspected, it was an Osage orange (Maclura pomifera). I've heard of these in the park but never found one before.

 

Here are some cool facts about Osage oranges:

* They are related to the mulberry, and are not citruses. (The fruits supposedly smell a little orangey, but mine didn't.)

* Few animals except horses eat the fleshy fruit (technically called a drupe), which is inedible and mildly poisonous to humans--but an extinct ground sloth may once have relished it as a slothalicious treat. Some folks also claim bug-repellent properties for the fruit, which exudes a milky sap (as I discovered when I sliced it open).

* Its nicknames include "hedge apple" and "horse apple." Grown as a hedge, it predated barbed wire as a way to fence in cattle.

* The tree's wood has been prized by bow-makers dating back to the Comanches for its flexibility and strength; early French settlers called it bois d'arc, or "bow wood."

* Merriwether Lewis sent cuttings of Osage orange to Thomas Jefferson.

Happy New Year...see you in the park!

Not one lasts

The day after Thanksgiving involved pie for breakfast. Later, I dragged the three of us to the park. A brisk mid-afternoon walk, this time of year, quickly becomes a sunset walk.

Drummers' Grove stood empty.

Oak leaves piled up against the Oriental Pavilion.

Across the lake, an animated party (bridal, apparently) worked with a photographer by the rustic shelter. He had rigged up elaborate reflectors, but none as good as the lake itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

Seed structures everywhere...in readiness for dispersal, death and rebirth.

 

We drank coffee on the Boathouse steps as the sun sank behind the trees.

 

Good Lord, Advent starts tomorrow...just in time to ease the heart as the shadows stretch their longest.

 

 

I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman,

       the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.

The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things

       come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go,

       not one lasts.

Autumn Movement   by Carl Sandburg

 

 

 

 

Through the mist

Henry James may have thought "summer afternoon" were the two most beautiful words in the language, but I'll suggest "autumn mist" as being up there. I have been using a broken toe and a stupid Velcro boot thing as an excuse not to walk in the park (what was my excuse all summer, before I broke it?), but was lured to the Long Meadow.

Remember that perennial school assignment to collect some fall leaves and glue them to construction paper? I still want to do that every year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the distance, the off-leash dogs capered like happy ghosts...

and at closer range, did more corporeal things.

 

I've decided that, if Daughter goes away to college, I will finally get us a dog. (I tell her it will replace her and will be given her room.) Now I mentally audition dogs as they pass, preparing for the day. One thing is certain: It will be a bigger dog, not a little yapster.

Near Bartel-Pritchard Circle, a big party tent was being decorated for tonight's "Fall Bash" park fundraising gala. Too rich for our wallet at $250 a ticket (still available at the door tonight!), but I peeked inside and saw some sort of fancy stage-dressing to create a faux-park; looks like the philanthropists will have fun.

And they won't have to get their shoes as muddy as I got my Velcro bootie; a path was being laid down for them, to be covered with rolls of fake turf.

 

Only God can make a tree...

...but professional artists keep trying.

 

I suspected some artyfact-related shenanigans were afoot on Tuesday when I saw this curious object being reverently photographed by two people in wetsuits as it was edged toward the lake opposite Prospect Park's Boathouse.

 

 

 

Then nearby, I came across this ungainly specimen, apparently some sort of cast.

 

Oh, dear. It looked like a fresh attack of Public Art. In parks, there are generally two types: the kind that sticks out like a sore thumb of artifice, and the kind that aims for homage to nature. Okay, three types, if one includes the Self-Consciously Fake Homage to Nature (like the shiny-silver "erratic boulders" that hunkered down near the Litchfield villa a few years ago).This looks like type 3.

 

 

 

 

 

Most of these efforts leave me cold, because they are overwhelmed by the profound, authentic beauty all around them. What might look majestic and intriguing in a loft or studio space tends to whimper and shrink alongside the magnificence of the simplest maple tree, much less a rock star like the park's tortuous Camperdown Elm (left).

 

(One big exception: the "Natural History" installation at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden by Patrick Dougherty, perhaps because of an inherent humility in its conception. It seems content to deepen the mystery of the natural world around it, rather than ostentatiously comment on it.)

 

 

 

 

 

My suspicions were correct: Art, incoming. According to the park's website: "Sculptor Robert Lobe is installing three sculptures that will be on view in and around the Lullwater by the Boathouse from May through November 2011. The artist stretched, gathered and tooled sheets of aluminum around trees and rocks to sculpt the skin of the forest." Lobe, a Detroit native, is currently an artist-in-residence at the LUX Art Institute in Encinitas, Calif., and he does wonderful drawings of trees and has taken gorgeous pictures of the Boathouse in winter. He also apparently welds in the snow, which is more guts than I've got. Maybe I will come to like his aluminum tree skins; I will try to keep an open mind. Meanwhile, I'm with Joyce Kilmer.

SPEAKING OF OPEN MINDS...

...I'm hoping to meet some at this year's Brooklyn Blogfest, tonight, May 12, 2011, at 7:30 p.m. at the Bell House (149 Seventh St. between 2nd and 3rd Avenues, in the groovy outback that some call Gowanus and I call Park Slump). I will be "facilitating" a breakout session, along with a fellow blogger, on journalistic ethics in blogging.  (Like, is it ethical to say snarky things about art before it's fully installed?) If nobody shows up, the topic will seem like a real punchline, so I hope we get at least a few souls to hash things out. It's a great program and always a good party, should be worth the $15 price of admission!

Bronx cherry-bombers

We live within walking distance of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, but I couldn't face the crowds at Sakura Matsuri, the cherry-blossom festival.

So on Sunday, we traitorously headed up to the Bronx to the New York Botanical Garden to see their cherries. Why is one "botanic" and the other "botanical"? No one seems to know, but Bronxites do bucolic quite well; these folks were lounging on a cool afternoon with one of those classy picnic hampers.

 

 

 

 

It's amazing how different NYBG and BBG are. The Bronx garden is a vast expanse that can only be practicably explored via their tram, which has an informative but somewhat intrusive recorded narration (and the drama of trying to catch one, and find a seat, at stops throughout the property). BBG, by contrast, is gorgeously compact and easily walkable on a first visit. Bigger isn't better--just different.

I loved the painterly drifts of tulips here near their (huge) Haupt Conservatory. Tulips are so much happier when they're not lined up like a firing squad.

 

 

 

 

Daughter loved these red ones, interplanted with spiffy yellow accents.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Subtle eye here: variegated young leaves on the shrub echo the green-touched white tulips beneath, and blue forget-me-nots beneath is cool-color genius. In my garden, the color scheme is decided by whatever the squirrels don't eat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LILAC PORN ALERT

It's great fun to use the word "porn" on a blog; Google sends drooling idiots your way for years. And what do they discover? Ha, ha, suckers! Here be the subjects of my panting lust!

Deliriously nuanced lavender ones!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hallucinatory pink ones! (I think this variety is "Congo.")

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And impossibly pure and tender white ones. Daughter admired the design of the budlets while still closed (and took this shot).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We spent awhile by a little waterfall in the Bronx River, over which swayed these alder cones. Everything was pale green, fresh and a little wild.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll be back at BBG shortly for the infamous Plant Sale Members' Preview, having saved all my fierce crowd-fightin' mojo over the weekend. Except for getting shunted to overflow parking at Fordham, it was a stress-free day in the roomy glades of the Bronx, even if we did burn a good bit of $4.27-a-gallon gasoline to get there.