December ocean

Before heading back home from my folks house post-holiday we swung by Wiborg's for a quick walk. Cold, very cold, but beautiful as always.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the desk of arborboy! May your day be filled with much coffee, good tunes, sunshine, life, and booty! Ah, yes, the booty!

Christmas tree creativity

In our small Queens apartment with three cats it is pretty safe to say that a standard Christmas tree with all the trimmings would certainly come crashing to an untimely death, or we would have to spend the month de-resining the cats, or some such undesired outcome. So this year I decided to get creative. Enter Dracaena marginata, the Madagascar dragon tree. You know this as a wonderfully reliable house plant for bright to low light conditions. As a member of the Agave family (Agavaceae) Dracaenas are tolerant of dry city apartments, hence this guy has been happy with us for a few years now. Well, we decided to reinvent the Christmas tree this year and this is what I came up with - no saws, arboricide, or sappy kitties!
And isn't it funny that for all the hundreds of dollars we spend on gifts for people during this time of the year it's the silly $7 purchase at the local dollar store that spawns the funniest looks and laughter and instant entertainment. Ah, what a world we live in. Happy very merry everyone.

morning icicles

On the way to work people rush and bundle and curse under their breath. They cut each other off for a seat on the subway, or to be the first to cross the street. These people are rushing to then spend the majority of their day inside, most likely seated, idle. It's 20-something degrees outside and I am going to be in it all day. I walk slow and take photographs to try and keep myself separate from the rat race. Harlem tunnel sunrise, complete with icicles.

Beltone

My brother Gian Carlo is always on the lookout for unusual musical devices to add to his recordings. Insert the Beltone, a recent aquistion.

Do you remember in grade school when you would have to have different physical exams? In my little country grade school we would go down to an office at the front of the school for an assortment of funny little exercises. One was the hearing test. You would sit in the quiet room with a woman seated at this funny looking machine with a pair of headphones attached. (insert Beltone). You would be told to raise your hand when you heard a sound come through the headphones. The next couple minutes would be followed by listening to different frequencies at different degrees of loudness, the silent and still room only disturbed by a small uniform-clad arm being raised every once and a while. Eventually the woman would tell you that it was over and you'd return to your classroom.

When Gian showed this to me on Thanksgiving at their place and reminded me what the machine was used for we shared these stories and a laugh. I guess it's no wonder we all got into odd experimental music as we got older. Too funny, all these odd memories from growing up that we remember.