city lights

"the city lights are on

for us, to us, tonight"

- randall mann,"bernal hill" (via the poetry foundation).

photo © anita aguilar

jan 12, 2012

paris postcard: the nameless (17th)

"why & what is sweetness all alone?" - jack collom

in the 17th arrondissement

may 26, 2011

© anita aguilar

read a good poem: yours & mine

fifth avenue, nyc. photo © anita aguilar

Through your lens the sequoia swallowed me
like a dryad. The camera flashed & forgot.
I, on the other hand, must practice my absent-
mindedness, memory being awkward as a touch
that goes unloved. Lately your eyes have shut
down to a shade more durable than skin’s. I know you
love distance, how it smooths. You choose an aerial view,
the city angled to abstraction, while I go for the close
exposures: poorly-mounted countenances along Broadway,
the pigweed cracking each hardscrabble backlot.
It’s a matter of perspective: yours is to love me
from a block away & mine is to praise the grain-
iness that weaves expressively: your face.

--alice fulton via poetry foundation.org

read a good poem: new york

new york, madame,

is a monument to a city

it is

TA-DA

a gigantic pike

whose scales

bristled up stunned

and what used to be just smoke

found a fire that gave it birth

champagne foam

melted into metal

glass rivers

flowing upwards

and things you won't tell to a priest

you reveal to a cabdriver

even time is sold out

when to the public's "wow" and "shhh"

out of a black top hat

a tailed magician

is pulling new york out

by the ears of skyscrapers

- vakzhyna mort (translated by franz wright and elizabeth oehlkers wright)

via the poetryfoundation.org

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***

photos © anita aguilar

AMO the ARG: where the streets have no...

people...


or cars...

avenida 9 de julio

avenida 9 de julio

***
and a few floors up...

avenida alvear

an apt in one of these buildings would be nice, i think:

avenida alvear

maybe here, too:

plazoleta carlos pellegrini

all photos © anita aguilar

pretty city: ba, recoleta and palermo

on avenida pueyrredon

on avenida vicente lopez/junin

on avenida vicente lopez/junin

at a cafe, across from la recoleta

in the park, la recoleta

the courtyard, in front of the basilica

under the trees at the feria plaza francia

take 2. under the canopy, near the trees where the boys were playing in the feria plaza francia

at the feria plaza francia

at the feria plaza francia

at the feria plaza francia

real hippie hair, at the feria plaza francia

and a guy on stilts. where else but the feria plaza francia...

***

on avenida presidente figueroa alcorta

on avenida presidente figueroa alcorta

avenida del libertador

at the plaza del lector...

all photos ©anita aguilar

read a good poem: happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length

though, sometimes you see pretty things in the rain...
caught in the storm, palermo. buenos aires, march 19, 2010.

photo © anita aguilar

Oh, stormy stormy world,
The days you were not swirled
Around with mist and cloud,
Or wrapped as in a shroud,
And the sun's brilliant ball
Was not in part or all
Obscured from mortal view—
Were days so very few
I can but wonder whence
I get the lasting sense
Of so much warmth and light.
If my mistrust is right
It may be altogether
From one day's perfect weather,
When starting clear at dawn,
The day swept clearly on
To finish clear at eve.
I verily believe
My fair impression may
Be all from that one day
No shadow crossed but ours
As through its blazing flowers
We went from house to wood
For change of solitude.
--by Robert Frost, via The Writer's Almanac.

west end avenue

upper west side, nyc. march 8, 2009.

(playing with shadows and highlights...)

pretty city: "blizzard-like"

but really just kind of a slush-fest.

i took my g10 out tonight and snapped for a while.

maybe tomorrow i try again in the cold sunshine, with the 50mm.

i love the clover deli...

pretty city: the high line

quiet, before the storm.

my handsome writer friend observed that the city sounds different from up here...
i wore my hood to protect from the cold and occasional sharp wind, but it meant i did not really notice this for myself.
i hope one day he'll write about what i missed.

can you even seen the snow? click to enlarge the image, you'll see a few snowflakes...

all photos © anita aguilar

the sky was all purple...

looking west, from the east side. round about 8:45pm.

my friend teresa text-alerted me to an amazing sky tonight, with crazy, "cartoon-like" clouds. but i had been doing my laundry. by the time i emerged from the basement and ran outside with my camera, it was not so crazy. but still pretty.