Apparently, Halloween in May is a thing now. (Also saying something is “a thing” is a thing, just as an aside). In this context, a Halloween photo fits. This one from 2011 features me as Justin Bieber, with the original hair that shot him to the top of the charts. If I ever make a Bieber cover album, this will definitely serve as the album cover.
Photo by Lilah Katcher.
Filed under Image for the day
QR codes like the ones above appear on every poster, magazine, and billboard these days. They let advertisers cut down on words and plop anyone with a QR scanner onto a web page with more info. So what is so special about these? They advertise resources at a library. Garbled-looking symbols take the place of words that in turn lead us to words.
Photo by Rhea and her Android.
Filed under Image for the day
Spending some quality time with Mother Earth. She’s still no competition for Ma, though.
Blair Road Community Garden, Blair and Oglethorpe NW, Washington, DC. Photo by Harry Chauss.
Filed under DC, Image for the day
Last year, I helped to plan a Shavuot event in this ravishing church. Shavuot, the Jewish holiday commemorating receiving the Torah, is coming up again at the end of May.
I decided to use this shot of the church stairwell today not because I am obsessed with stairwells, but because I love how the serene spiral is interrupted by a cacophony of life and color.
Ain’t that how it always goes?
If the stairway feels like my ideal conditions for writing or thinking or healing–calm, solid, continuous–then the glaring orange traffic cones and the person running up the steps with a Giant grocery bag depict how reality crashes in.
Image: The National Swedenborgian Church of the Holy City, 16th St. NW, Washington, D.C. Photo by Rhea.
Filed under DC, Image for the day, Jewish community, Uncategorized
Lag Ba’Omer falls on the thirty-third day of counting the omer, a Jewish tradition that marks the seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot. Usually a solemn period, on Day 33, the rabbis say we can let loose. Get married! Host a wild cookout! Cut your hair!* I don’t know all of the details about this, but I am a fan of chilling and joy.
Photo by Flickr user Özgür Mülazımoğlu.
*If you’re wondering why the last one, leave a comment and I’ll do my best to answer.
Filed under Image for the day, Jewish community
Best. Kitchen gadget. Ever. Rivaled only by the box it came in, which asks, “In a pickle about how to preserve your pinot? Well, get this gherkin workin’ and all of your problems are solved!”
It turns out pickles are quite the it thing right now. What’s the dill?
Pickle wine stopper by Fred, available at Trohv. Photo by Rhea.
Filed under Humor, Image for the day
I traveled this stairwell many times this semester, but it was only on the last day that I noticed its Escher-like quality. I had submitted my grades a few hours before. “Relativity,” he called it.
Photo by Rhea.
Filed under Image for the day, Teaching
“We’re out here pretty much every day, weather permitting,” he tells me.
So why not invest in some chairs? Or, you know, a table? I am clearly an outsider.
14th and V Streets NW in Washington, D.C., any afternoon. Photo by Rhea.
Filed under DC, Image for the day
Welcome to the DC State Fair… Seedling Swap, that is. Yes, the florescent grow lights, online buzz, and mass emails somehow culminated yesterday in about three dozen humans sitting shoulder to shoulder, touching leaves. Squinting and sweating and smiling in the sun.
Filed under DC, Image for the day
Rhea Kennedy Morgenstern, writer 