Bayonne Bridge Open

The lanes are narrow, and you need to time it right, but when the Bayonne Bridge is open during its long roadway-raising construction, the views can be beautiful.

Red Truck Coming

Can a painting go viral, especially one from 1935? One of the pleasures of Michiko Kakutani's (the NYT book reviewer's) Twitter feed is that she often posts reproductions of paintings or photographs with no accompanying message. Yesterday, she tweeted Grant Wood's "Death on the Ridge Road." Joyce Carol Oates promptly retweeted that the painting had been used on the cover of her book, Telling Stories: An Anthology for Writers.

Is the painting telling a story? Or is it an allegory for what's about to happen to our domestic order as a big red T comes piling over the ridge? All I know is that America's most prolific writer and most prolific reader both have time to tweet a lot.

Veterans Day

"Welcome to Concord." After a year plus of discord, it was calming to see this sign along with the World War II memorial at the intersection of Clove Road and Targee Street on Staten Island.

The plaque on the memorial reads:

ERECTED AND AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF THE HEROIC MEN AND WOMEN OF CONCORD, STATEN ISLAND, AS A TRIBUTE TO THE SELF SACRIFICING SPIRIT THAT THEY DISPLAYED IN THEIR COUNTRY'S SERVICE DURING THE MOMENTOUS YEARS OF 1941-1945.

"MAY GOD'S BLESSINGS REST UPON THEM."

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

Lane Shift

Can't help but thinking there is an analogy here to the presidential election yesterday. Is it a temporary aberration that reroutes us directly into oncoming traffic, not to speak of dividing us? Will we ever come back?

Election Day

Polling place with a view.

The spelling is a bit off but the spirit is right.

Wall Weary

Looking something like a green submarine, the newest section of "uplands" takes shape and color in Brooklyn Bridge Park. It blocks the view of the harbor from the BQE, and I have yet to see a park visitor climbing its inclined path.

Perhaps its a prototype for Trump's wall with Mexico. I'd prefer the wall of Taco Trucks that assembled to protest Trump's candidacy at the Las Vegas debate.

Haunted House

Very scary...

Clove Road, Staten Island