Urban Portraiture

    Pterodactyl (Medium: Pollen, car hood)

Bart Simpson (Medium: Wall, metal, bolts) 

Angel (Medium: Sidewalk, dogwood flower)

Lion Rampant (Medium: Floor, not-pee)

My brother-in-law wins the Sakurai Prize!

My amazing brother-in-law, Zvi Bern, just won the American Physical Society's 2014 J.J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics! Rock on, Zvi, David, and Lance -- and Debby, who's got a high-energy thing of her own going!

http://www.pa.ucla.edu/content/zvi-bern-awarded-aps-jj-sakurai-award-2014

Poor Wagger's Almanac

It's going to be a complicated year. 

Unexpected Beauty, Fraternal Twins

These are two of the most beautiful and expressive walls I've ever seen. 

 I came across this in a funky neighborhood in Philadelphia. It was right next door to an art gallery, but there was no comparison. 

I came across this in Seattle. It smelled wonderful too, unlike most alleys.

Remains

The walk to work can be a treasure hunt, a scavenger hunt, or a stroll through a mausoleum, filled with remains. 

Skeleton, devoured to sinew, tendon, bone -- and half a buttock

Abandoned hairpiece, left in the cross-hairs as if for emphasis

Fallen nest, with such sad and delicate shadows

Urban Blooms

I had the good fortune to watch this beautiful orange blossom over several days:

Orange blossom, Day 1

Orange blossom, Day 2

Orange blossom, Day 3

Orange blossom with cigarette butt, Day 4

Perhaps it is an opportune moment to share this rosebud, which surprised me in the middle of the road one day:

Urban rosebud 

Urban Palimpsest

Those of us who live in the city, live in a city, know how thrilling it is to witness something rare and out of time. I happened to pass by this neighborhood kiosk for the short time in which it had no fliers, no handbills, no missing kittens, but just the fragmented memory of what had been.