Serendipity

Some days the palette is prettier than what goes on the page.

Lazy Sunday

I worked a kind of hectic week and was looking forward to a lazy Sunday, but at some point in the day I decided it felt wasteful to sleep all day. I was tired, but I wanted to pack my whole weekend into a single day.

Brian and I rode bikes to Red Hook. We popped into Pioneer Works for a few minutes to explore their current time capsule. It just made me feel hot and sweaty. 

Once we felt hungry we went to Hometown for the best barbecue in Brooklyn. Really our only plans for the day were to ride to Red Hook and eat lunch, and I made a request to watch the sunset, but the massive cloud cover had other plans for our evening.

We decided to get on to the next Water Taxi that showed up. Bonus: it is free on weekends. I could not have been happier than I was leaning over the railing to catch the cool breeze. The ferry landed at Pier 11 near Wall Street. After a frightful night in the city it felt good to be there facing fears. The streets were lined with police and firemen. 

We dozed on benches in Battery Park, using our backpacks as pillows. Occasionally I would awake to the sound of someone commenting, "Are those people sleeping?" Yes we were. Exhaustion is never convenient. 

In a last effort to see the sunset we boarded the Staten Island Ferry and once again felt the cool breeze. We stood at the back watching Manhattan shrink in the distance. Sometimes it is good to get a new perspective on the city.

My aunt texted, "You weren't anywhere near the bombs last night were you?" In fact, I was just a few blocks away when the first one went off. I felt and heard nothing at the time. When I rode home that night the city felt charged in a way I hadn't felt in months. I blamed the (almost) full moon. 

Once we arrived in Staten Island we immediately boarded the ferry back. This time sitting at the front to watch the Manhattan skyline swell in our vision. I watched the tourists on the ferry enchanted by the sight of it. They seemed completely unaffected by the events of the night before. 

It was time to join in their delight and feel nothing but genuine happiness about heading towards this city. Two feet back on the ground in Manhattan I felt a surge of unexpected energy and rode home with my regular sense of awe at the greatest city on Earth.

Black Lives Matter

I feel honored to have been a part of Airbnb's internal project for Black Lives Matter. I stopped by their NYC office and took portraits of the team. The ones above on black backgrounds are by me, the rest by their SF photography department. Read more on their design blog.

Melissa

Half fiery and half hilarious looks from Melissa.

Clinton Street Baking Company

A few shots of Clinton Street Baking Company (and their new expanded dining room) for Condé Nast Traveller. 

From the Sketchbook 03

Sketchbook entries from the week.

So where are you from?

Kate and Yoko of So Where Are You From? A podcast that talks about being Asian in America, and explains why you shouldn't ask your Asian friends where they are really from.

New paintings

A short, but sweet new series of paintings. Three black dots.

From one end to the other

This Labor Day Weekend, I decided to stay in town and make it a real New York City weekend. It's a good weekend to go places that are normally busy because the city really empties out.

On Thursday night we had a little weekend preview by stopping at Prince St. Pizza for a pepperoni square and then going to a horror film at Williamsburg Cinema. Friday night we ate at Brooklyn Crab in Red Hook and then popped into Sunny's bar and Bait and Tackle for drinks. Saturday we had some emergency bike repairs then took a group ride to The Cloisters. We had beers in Harlem before eating burgers at Corner Bistro in the West Village. Sunday I had to work a little in the morning before heading to The Rockaways to watch the big waves roll in from tropical storm Hermine. We made a pit stop at Rippers for some beach joose, then went into Chinatown for dinner at 69 Bayard. Monday we returned to Chinatown for dim sum and then took the ferry to Governor's Island. We ended the day with a burrito picnic in Prospect Park. We hit all of my favorite kinds of food in four days and did a whole bunch of very New York things along the way. It was a good mix of old hits and first times. I would say it was 100% more fun than getting stuck in holiday weekend traffic.

Things you should read this week

If you don't already keep up with Shoko's blog, it's a must read. She recently came back from a hiatus and wrote a POV post, a series I can't recommend strongly enough.

I read this quote from Corita Kent on Austin Kleon's blog, and it resonated with me:

I moved to this place in October and the tree was in full leaf then. I watched it lose its leaves. I watched it covered with snow. Then these little green flowers came out and it didn’t look like a maple tree at all. Finally the leaves were recognizable as maple leaves and that in a way is very much how I feel about my life. It seems a great new stage for me – whether it will ever be recognizable by anyone else I don’t know, but I feel that great new things are happening very quietly inside of me. And I know these things have a way, like the maple tree, of finally bursting out in some form.