The Quirky Side

A sideways look at the world

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It’s a theory.

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The realities of Brooklyn brownstones ...

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I do  like to look at window displays, and I do  like photography as a theme. Does that make this a meta photograph? Damned if I know.

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I seem to spend a lot of time looking into shop windows at night, especially into shops that specialize in the unusual. In this case, in mannequins. The city, it seems, needs a huge number of mannequins to function.

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For Valentine’s Day, a glimpse at romance in the city.

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The Maccabees had oil lamps, but in later times people used candles in their menorahs. Then when candles became outdated, more practical incandescent bulbs. A few years ago, I spotted this menorah fitted with CFL bulbs outside a Park Slope synagogue. I haven’t checked lately, but it now may be fitted with LEDs. Symbols evolve. Happy Hanukkah, and Chanukah, and Chanukkah to my observant friends.

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For everyone who’s every wondered why photographers wear black, this is not, in fact, the reason. 

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It’s still Valentine’s Day, and it seemed like a good time to post this, for all the New York City romantics. (I await a romantic comedy that’s set at least in part in the subway.)

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It’s Valentine’s Day, so here’s one for all the shy people.

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It takes time to create traditions, and, who knows, maybe one day, this, too, will become a Christmas tradition. 

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Even Santa’s elves get tired of making toys. And, times being what they are, may need a bit of extra cash. 

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The first day of Hannukah, as well as Christmas Eve. Nothing stays the same: the Maccabees ran short of oil, but menorahs today mostly use candles instead; or, outdoors, electric light bulbs. After all, it’s the symbolism that counts. This Park Slope menorah has some incandescent bulbs, some CFLs. Soon LEDs?

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‘Tis the season. The shopping season started early this year, at least in NYC. By early I mean before Halloween. And I spotted this spring-loaded Santa figurine on a sidewalk one fine June day.

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It’s tourist season in New York. (Now that I think of it, it’s nearly always tourist season here.) And I’ve been thinking about New York, New Yorkers, and sophistication—the last real and imagined.

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I have no idea how this illustration of Mickey Mouse got inside the locked display at the Penn Station subway, but some enterprising person managed it. Probably one of the most innocuous rodents in the subway.

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As soon as I saw this, I thought of animals in a zoo. (Should I discuss this with my therapist?)

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These signs have been in a window near my neighborhood for a few years, and it’s a constant reminder to me of how much some people prey on fear, and try to get others to be afraid. It seems to sell guns, among other things. Our animal brains are conditioned to fear—saber-toothed-tiger! RUN! Somehow we often manage to forget that we have in fact evolved, that our brains are capable of more than fear. And saber-toothed tigers are not chasing us.