Seasons

The yard catty-corner from my building basically functions as an enclosed trash heap. Shiny food wrappers, cigarette butts, tallboys of Arizona Tea and bright plastic bits, unidentified, are penned in by a chain-link fence. From my window, I can watch people toss rubbish over the fence as they walk by, as if the whole lot is an oversized trash bin.

This summer vines grew along the chain-link and then started to edge inward and overtake the waste. Several days ago the vines blossomed, their dark plum blooms resembling pools of spilled nail polish on the green creepers.

Why so trashy?

Brunch Talk

"Chill out world. She's not Amanda Bynes-ing. She's Madonna-ing."

What Would Veblen Think?

Conspicuous leisure is to the 2010s what conspicuous consumption was to the 1980s.

Looking Up

During the summer, I write at the library on 42nd Street on the days it stays open late. The reading room has a mural painted on its ceiling of flossy, soft clouds in a pink sky. Beneath its constant pastel, I like to sit in one of the oak chairs there and glimpse, through the gilded windows, the sky above Bryant Park change.

Empire State on Independence Day