Haruspex Day 2021

In Gowanus

March 15 last year I assembled a poem from scraps and read its entrails:

I predict: that things will be very confusing, even surreal. That many of us will pass through what seems like a different world, strangely collectively. That some appearances will soothe our fevers, judged by the feeling of mercury. That we may — or alternately may not — be able to bear. That some possibilities will vanish.

And lo! you can’t say I was wrong. In general I am (making my monicker ironic) a lousy foresee-er; I hate to gamble. There’s seldom enough sooth from the future to cast a fortune. Now the radio station asks its listeners for lessons learned. I guess they want cheerful ones; would they choose the gloomy? It’s to be sealed for a decade. Imagine that, it poses, and I can’t.

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Gold and purple.

Gold[ie] and [Cherokee] Purple are so, so close.

After storm.

The Bunch of Tomatoes: A Tale of Suspense

The first Kumato [? — I am dubious] bunch, as babies — note the slow-drop shape:

 

Progress:

 

Almost! (but wait, weren’t there five?):

Drama:

The survivors offer themselves to me:

 

roadway rests. 3.2

The enclosure at Hadramout on Atlantic, seen in the previous post, has already been improved with a marquee.

Roadway restaurants three

They’re changing and regularizing already. A few more from earlier in the month, starting with Atlantic Avenue Middle Eastern classics:

Stickers still on the chairs

Atlantic Avenue (both)

These two from different ends of my extended neighborhood: Red Hook and Gowanus.

Basic, practical, safe(r)

Even more basic, to the point of barely existing.

Jaunty blue umbrellas at President and Court, and a rather more raucous use of the same blue at Smith and Sackett.

 

Roadway restaurants, addendum

A few more I happened to see last evening. First is actually an action view of one I showed, empty, yesterday, the Longshoreman bar just a block from my house, on Columbia Street. Kind of a horse-country vibe with the white cross-gate fences and the potted plants.

Then a few from Court Street, heading south. You can see that the Frankies folks have colonized a long stretch of the block with an aggressively rough-hewn look, right opposite the smaller red-framed and -topped space.

And more along Court. This first one has country-house detailing, for those of us taking our summer vacation on asphalt. The benches let them use the sidewalk too.

Roadway restaurants.

I’m interested in the ad hoc, quickly installed enclosures local restaurants have made to set up tables and chairs in the road, while indoor dining is still forbidden and presumably while and when it is restricted. The program, called Open Restaurants, allows a restaurant to claim space on the sidewalk, if it’s wide enough, or in the public road. (The program is run by the NYC Department of Transportation; the description is here. Restaurants do have to submit an application, but they’re allowed to certify themselves without inspection.) I am sure that within a few months these will be professionalized; I hear that the Upper East Side ones are already fancy. I saw these on a walk through Carroll Gardens, along Smith Street to Atlantic, west on Atlantic and back home—nothing scientific, just a slightly extended neighborhood stroll.

The white-picket-fence esthetic is applied to the street enclosure (next photo)

Painted to match the tree bench at the right, a longstanding feature

Both sides of Atlantic Ave.

Minimal.

High top tables strung along the sidewalk, broad here (more to the right, well beyond the bar’s front)

Extending an existing street cafe.

Surface.

Under construction

On the sidewalk.

For a pizza shop to the left. A few inches into the bike lane.

Fib.

People lie, have you noticed? Cell phones open a new channel for the untruth observer. Yesterday afternoon, for example, I was riding the Number 61 bus placidly towards home when the phone of the woman behind me rang. She started telling her caller about some bureaucratic errand she’d been on and then said, “I’m waiting on the sixty-one bus.” Did I hear that right? I thought. Maybe she said sixty-three? But no, she repeated, “I’m waiting on the 61 bus,” and while my mind spun trying to derive a scenario where one could legitimately be waiting for a bus while riding it, she doubled down by adding, “But not long, it’s moving out soon.” So no, it was just a lie; perhaps to confuse her caller about when she’d be home, or something. I don’t know.

The toy dragon is just for fun. I found him on the street. Rawr!

Overheard in Brooklyn, Prospect Park edition

All these within a minute or so on a single path in Prospect Park:

“‘Bunnies and Twinkies,’ she said to me, ‘bunnies and Twinkies, that’s all I want you to think about.'”

“I could do the dark road, too, another time.”

“To steal a Monet . . .”

Witch hazel, red maple, elm, and cornelian cherry are in bloom. (Photo borrowed from the City Birder.)