Happy – Page 6 – James Wagner

Duke Riley: news from the [water] front

under arrest

securing the acorn

This story had legs from the start, sea legs. Barry and I were watching it on line as it grew all day yesterday, and apparently it’s still going.
I would say that this late and abbreviated post were redundant except that I want to broadcast the respect for Duke Riley that we both share, and also to refer to our early immersion in the larger story of his remarkable art, including a wide-eyed visit to the first solo show at Magnan Projects in January last year. Then there was also the excitement of being able to share my own personal connection to and love for Rhode Island, the School of Design, Newport, and the little bicycle shop down my block on the corner of Brook Street, all sites associated with the still-unfolding story of the “Acorn” submersible project.
Don’t miss the slide show or the video on the NYTimes site.
My favorite take on the reaction of our guardians of public safety to the artist’s marine intervention? Libby and Roberta:

The Coast Guard and police didn’t think Riley’s floating bobber was so amusing and the boat was confiscated and he and his accomplices were charged with “marine mischief.” Talk about hammering a fly! Nobody seems to have a sense of humor or whimsy anymore, especially when it comes to imaginative art outside the normal channels. Now that’s a crime.

[images by Damon Winter from NYTimes slide show]

yellow Koi

This guy in the Battery Park City lotus pool is about eighteen inches long, and what you see here is the actual color.

butterfly effect

These two Painted Ladies were very busy in the 28th Street flower market this afternoon. They ignored me entirely, but I can totally understand the reason for their concentration: They have only two weeks to live and to reproduce, once they acquire those fabulous wings.

roof garden update

looking cool

After yesterday’s post, I suppose even I might have been able to predict this one.
The (five-year-old) roof garden outside our apartment is a great joy, even in the winter. But it’s so hard to get living things to survive an environment which doesn’t get any direct sun, ever. Some of what you see here are perennials, some annuals, some house plants summering outside for a few months, and some were purchased recently (flowers already open).

Sinbad was gay?

Kerwin Matthews, “flesh-and-blood Sinbad”

Why didn’t somebody tell us?
Kerwin Matthews, the actor who played Sinbad in the 1958 film, “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad“, died July 5 in his home in San Francisco. The NYTimes obituary says that his death “was confirmed by his lover of 46 years, Tom Nicoll”.
Yes, the film was aimed at a young audience, but we weren’t too young to fall in love with the beautiful and dashing hairy-chested Sinbad. Who could possibly have imagined that he wasn’t as straight as everyone else (everyone except me, of course, and all the other queers of whose existence I would have no suspicion until years later)?
My favorite part of the short item in this morning’s paper is this sweet memory recalled by his partner:

Except as Sinbad and Gulliver, Mr. Nicoll said, Mr. Mathews was never satisfied with merely playing action roles.
He always wanted to do light comedy, or something more weighty, he said.
Then, in 1963, Mr. Mathews was cast as Johann Strauss Jr. in the Disney television production The Waltz King.
He was most proud to play Strauss, Mr. Nicoll said, and that he had to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic. Whether they actually followed him I dont know, but he tried very hard.

More from the San Francisco Chronicle, and one more visual treat, a publicity shot for “The 3 Worlds of Gulliver” (1960):

Matthews as Dr. Lemuel Gulliver

[the first image from play.com, the second from briansdriveintheater]

Harriet Quimby

I’d heard about a bit about her before, but when I arrived at page 38 of today’s Newsday and saw that beautiful face turned to the camera the name Harriet Quimby somehow came to life for the first time. It was an illustration for the paper’s regular half-page feature, “IT HAPPENED ON LONG ISLAND”. This morning it carried the headline, “1911: America’s First Licensed Woman Pilot”. The picture shows Quimby seated inside her Moisant monoplane*, probably the one on which she learned to fly.
Her life makes a terrific story, and while it wasn’t to last very long that bright face still winks at us today.
I did a quick Google search to find more images of Quimby and this is the one which really inspired this post:

The shot may be a bit fuzzy but almost a hundred years after her death it shows that the woman who always wore her self-designed plum-colored, satin flying suit (the pant legs converted into a walking skirt) when she was anywhere near a plane, was much more than a pretty face.
Finally, a breathtaking image of Quimby and her 50-horsepower Moisant in flight, to suggest the thrill , the danger and, yes, the sometime beauty and gracefulness of air travel in 1912:

*
It appears that the paper has it wrong, describing the plane as a Bleriot XI; the Moisant was actually designed and built by the Moisant bothers, aviation pioneers along with their sister Matilde at Hempstead on Long Island, Newsday’s backyard.

[the first image is from Newsday, the second from the Library of Congress, the third via Lance]

rare sighting of a brace of two of my favorite things

lithe youths on light bikes, turning out of Rivington Street last Saturday

“Where do Homosexuals Get All Their Energy?”

Brandon Kelley

I’m not much of an advertisement for an energetic homosexual at this moment so I was curious about “Where do Homosexuals Get All Their Energy?”, this piece in last week’s The Onion. I read it straight through to the end. This was unusual for me, because I normally find the paper’s headlines much funnier than the full satirical narratives. Hey, I’m busy.
Sometimes I really am a very energetic homosexual, but right now I’m sitting at the breakfast room table at one in the afternoon, after a leisurely reading of the morning papers (and an old Onion). I’m about to leave the apartment with my partner (although there’s no rush) for a visit to the Metropolitan on a beautiful afternoon, leaving it to someone else to clean and put everything in order at home while we’re gone.
The satirical weekly’s Brandon Kelley (the writer’s pseudonym*) would describe my lifestyle differently. He starts out with a general comparison and continues with an elaboration on contrasting staight/gay competencies:

Boy, am I beat. And it’s not like I have some crazy life where I’m working three jobs and going to night school. No, I just have one job and a small apartment. I don’t even have a pet to look after. Even so, it seems that no matter what I do, there’s always more. If they put another eight hours in the day, I might be able to catch up on the laundry list of chores I have, or even just my laundry, if I were lucky. But you know who really gets it done? Homosexuals.
I know what you’re saying: Brandon, you’re just perpetuating the stereotype that homosexuals are superhuman. That is totally not true. All I’m saying is, with their boundless energy and talents, they make us straight guys look bad.

I’ll add an excerpt which brings this post back to one of this site’s foci:

And don’t remind me about those gallery openings. After a hard day of work, I was barely able to drag my ass down to the last one. I told myself, I’m not doing this again anytime soon! But it would never occur to homosexuals to think those things. The moment I walked in, there they were, dressed impeccably and criticizing the choice of wine.

*
I understand the portrait images used are those of the staff and their friends

[image from The Onion]

not just about clouds

While looking at this shot on my screen I was trying to decide whether to post what would just be another Lower East Side cloud picture. Then I thought of an excuse: I would say something about how if clouds were alive and sang they might have a chance of displacing birds in my personal hierarchy of the divine. At that moment I noticed my simple cloud scene included the tiny fuzzy shape of a bird in flight and my question about its banality vanished.
For me it’s still all about the birds.

Bicycle Fetish Day in Williamsburg

I’ve always loved bikes and bikers, perhaps almost obsessively (excepting the fiends who ride on sidewalks or yelp at pedestrians), and so on a recent Saturday afternoon I was determined to investigate the 3rd Annual “Bicycle Fetish Day“, an all-day bike fair on Havemeyer Street in Williamsburg, sponsored by the City Reliquary Brooklyn Civic Riders B.C., in loose association with the esteemed Board members and fans of the City Reliquary Museum.
I was not disappointed with the photo opportunities. I was sorry that I hadn’t ridden over the bridge on my own two wheels, and sorry also that our gallery-visiting schedule kept Barry and I from hanging out longer with these beautiful mounts and riders.