Sunday, February 28, 2010

day of rest


Union Chapel

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Thursday, February 25, 2010

Civility


Home of the Cars?

Before the American city could be physically reconstructed to accommodate automobiles, its streets had to be socially reconstructed as places where cars belong. Until then, streets were regarded as public spaces, where practices that endangered or obstructed others (including pedestrians) were disreputable. Motorists' claim to street space was therefore fragile, subject to restrictions that threatened to negate the advantages of car ownership. Epithets--especially joy rider--reflected and reinforced the prevailing social construction of the street. Automotive interest groups (motordom) recognized this obstacle and organized in the teens and 1920s to overcome it. One tool in this effort was jaywalker. Motordom discovered this obscure colloquialism in the teens, reinvented it, and introduced it to the millions. It ridiculed once-respectable street uses and cast doubt on pedestrians' legitimacy in most of the street. Though many pedestrians resented and resisted the term and its connotations, motordom's campaign was a substantial success.
--Peter Norton (More about Peter Norton)

The Charlottesville Police Department has a new statistical tool available for public use on the Internet. A query for all crimes in Charlottesville for the last seven days yields this report:

Had a close call walking Sophie earlier this morning. Almost struck by a car.
It is dangerous walking in our city.

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Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Providence


dusk

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Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Single occupancy vehicle


Drove home to the snow covered south. Making that big carbon footprint. 686 miles, I95, I84,I81, I64. 587 pounds of emissions. Takes 91 trees to offset. I'm covered. I'd ride Amtrak (316 lbs) but dogs are not allowed.

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Monday, February 22, 2010

1886


In Providence, there are several educational institutions surrounded by fences that have seemingly random dates bolted to the uprights. Huh? Alumni from Brown University or Moses Brown School please explain.

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Sunday, February 21, 2010

change again


Gray, Sophie and I went out walking. Met Charlie and Bode on the edge of Atlantic Avenue.
These two dogs, from Diane and Red Pilbin's kennel in New Hampshire are a delight.

Sophie's fugue, her existential moment of yesterday forgotten.

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Saturday, February 20, 2010

change


Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by his heart, and his friends can only read the title.
Virginia Woolf

Sophia has a ten year history of visiting beaches. When she is on the sand I know what she is going to do. Poetry in motion. She runs and the running sings.
I took Sophie to the ocean yesterday and she surprised. She walked out in the water chest deep. She ignored my calls.
She stood still for too long. She came back in. She sat. She walked back to the car.
I hate change.

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Friday, February 19, 2010

canis familiarus


Tallulah.
I'd never met a bulldog before. Charming animal.

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Thursday, February 18, 2010

Providence


Roger Williams, needs a new publicist. I'd never heard of him.

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010

lame


Sophie lame from road salt. Quit walking on Prospect Street a mile from home. Tried to hitch. Tried to get a ride from the police. Ended up carrying her to Jane and Paul's. They drove her home.

This dogboot seems to be answering, but not on the style level.

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Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Buteo jamaicensis


Hawks appear to thrive in the urban Providence biome.

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Monday, February 15, 2010

a day late


never too late

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Sunday, February 14, 2010

RISD Museum


Inside looking out.

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Saturday, February 13, 2010

Street Trees


My town, Charlottesville had a street tree plan in 1975. It was never implemented. I don't know the details of street tree planting in Providence, RI, but they have made an effort and the results are beautiful.
Walking Benefit Street to the RISD Museum...

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Friday, February 12, 2010

Sylvia

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Thursday, February 11, 2010

yo-yo


hoping to ease up through Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, Ossing, Danbury, Waterbury, New London, Mystic. End up in the fabulous Providence City Hall. Weather is conspiring against me. I like traveling up the valley, along the plateau, over the mountains, but I-81 reportedly is closed from the Mason-Dixon line to I-80.

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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

test pattern


ten years, two days

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Tuesday, February 09, 2010

brothers

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Monday, February 08, 2010

serious


looking serious at their uncle's request

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Sunday, February 07, 2010

public space




Some trees did break.

In the coming days there will be calls for sidewalks to be shoveled.

I wish there was as loud a call for drivers to share the road, the public space, with pedestrians.
More snow pictures here and here

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family


Walked into town for a movie with Robin, The Blind Side. Some families you are born into, some you choose. Both are good.

Kodachrome slides. Top image, Warrenton Virginia, Lee's Ridge c.1963, photo by LtC Bill Emory of his children. Bottom image, our father, summer of 1968, by me, shot out of the bus window.

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Saturday, February 06, 2010

grey


there will be broken trees in the morning

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Friday, February 05, 2010

Slabtown


winter. Snowing hard in CHO presently. Taking refuge in the song of Slabtown amphibians.

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Thursday, February 04, 2010

Perdido


winter.
Looking down the road, this blog will suffer a regrettable change of address in March, it'll be moving to http://www.billemory.com/blog/

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Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Brighton


winter

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Tuesday, February 02, 2010

high water

Monday, February 01, 2010

captions and cutlines


Elder Lee Frazier, B. Williams? Thirty three years later I don't remember...

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