Sunday May 27, 2012SUBSCRIBE
New Jersey Monthly Magazine
Photography

The Rake's Progress

The morning sun puts the teeth in relief...

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Bloom Riot

The Thing

A transformer, a transducer, an old-fashioned steam cabinet or what?

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Curtain Call

If you've been following PS the last three days (big if), the characters now take the stage for a bow, with another added...

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Old Ironsides

His boom times have ended, but his boom stands tall...

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Four Guys Waiting For a Bus

Rather stout fellows, too...

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Where Have You Gone, Mike Mulligan the Steamshovel?

I'm dating myself, but when I was little one of my favorite picture books was Mike Mulligan the Steamshovel. I no longer remember the plot, but I remember his steaming smokestack and his smile, formed out of the flapping bottom of his bucket. What does this have to do with today's Plain Sight? Click...

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The Color of Root Beer 2

They don't sell just root beer...

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The Color of Root Beer

A Stewart's Drive-In isn't literally the color of root beer, but when you see it your mind says root beer...

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Wall of Fins and Claws

A lot to look at, all in all...

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See You Monday, May 14

Plain Sight is across the ocean, in Copenhagen. Will return with a Plain Sight take on the Danish city. Meanwhile, ponder this unusual still life with stock pots...

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The Shed

And the ivied fence...

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Princesses With Lipstick Run Amok

Pinned to the wall, they are...

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Flowers and Bows...and Fondant

These cakes shed no tiers...

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Two Heads in a Cigar Store

This picture involves reflections. Speaking of which, today is the 900th Plain Sight post.

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Slices of Life

For when you're on the go...

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Plain Sight Was Here

Just in case you were wondering...

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The Hunger Games

A juxtaposition of too much and not enough...

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Scents and Sensibility

On encountering something new, in this case a person, a dog thinks with its nose...

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See-Through

A porch with stately columns in Long Branch...

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Green Day

Putting it on the line at the car wash...

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Anatomy Lesson

Contemplating the stuff we're made of...

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Black and Teal Fantasy

...on wheels

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In An Octopus's Garden

Not beneath the sea, but the color and the raindrops bring the song to mind...

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On Beer Bottle Hill

Down trends the neck, up trends the ground...

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Still Life With Caulk Guns

And a rainy day...

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Black Flag

At half-mast in the bed of a pickup truck...

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Bed Scene

Booth Theater

Waiting for the coffee and omelet...

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Bottoms Up!

Big Wheel Keep on Turning

Get a grip, huh?

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Rectilinear

Figuring the angles...

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The Trophy Maker

In a windowed workroom below street level, a craftsman focuses on the job at hand...

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Alien Life Form

If I Had a Hammer...

I'd drill, baby, drill...

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Step This Way For Catechesis

This is where catechesis, or instruction by word of mouth, is given to, among others (and this is not a misspelling), catechumens, who are people learning basic Christian doctrine before becoming communicant members of a church.

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Ragged

The strange shine of a dark, wet day...

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Baked Out

Equipment discarded outside a pizzeria in Morristown...

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Scrambling Up the Hill

On hands and knees...

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The Alien

A sighting in Florham Park.

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A Sandwich While Digging

Recently the utilities company came and opened a gaping square hole in the sidewalk immediately outside NJM's front door. Like, two feet from our front door. For a couple weeks we had to very carefully and gingerly exit the building, in sidesteps, so we didn't fall into the hole. Made coming and going interesting.

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Master and Slave

One bends to the other's will...

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Except For Want of a Rim

But someday, when the kids now playing in the fort grow up, dad may replace the missing hoop.

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The Elephant's Foot

A tree settles just like a pachyderm's paw, if pachyderms had paws, that is.

 

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Bimmer Molders

Black and Tan Fantasy

Leaf Springs

What holds a dump truck up...

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The Last Picture From Italy--I Promise

Here, in a mausoleum in a 400-year-old churchyard lie the remains of Aggeo Zecchi, 1900-1977, a gentleman who lived in the Appenine Mountains of Northern Italy, about 20 miles south of Bologna and Modena.

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Federico

He is remembered by "I Tuoi Cari"--"Your Loved Ones."

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Angelo Lucchini, 1894-1983

Think of the upheavals this Northern Italian lived through, including two world wars...

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Dante Zappoli, 1906-1986

Another of the memorable faces in the mausoleum at the 400-year-old churchyard in the Appenine Mountains of Italy, south of Modena and Bologna.

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The Coniugis

Entombed together, in a mausoleum in the yard of a 400-year-old church in the Appenine Mountains of Italy, south of Modena and Bologna.

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Signora Lelli

Flowers attend her chamber in the mausoleum...

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Signore Mezzini

Another of the interesting faces on the memorials at the mausoleum...

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Sandro Rava (1962-2008)

In this mausoleum in a churchyard in the Appenine Mountains of northern Italy, an unusual feature I've seen only one other place...

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In the Mausoleum

You begin to notice something unusual about these memorials...photographs of the deceased...

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Approaching the Mausoleum

In a 400-year-old churchyard in the Appenine Mountains in northern Italy. Only a dozen spaces remaining...

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Graziella's Sewing Machine

Vintage, lovingly used. Note the wear on the hand wheel at right...

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Giorgio's Cart

No longer fully operative, but a piece of the farmhouse history...

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Our Mountain Guides

If you've been following this Plain Sight series on northern Italy, you know how much my son and I owe to our wonderful hosts in the Appenine Mountains...

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Shocker! Meat Comes From Animals

This picture is not for the faint of heart...

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Pork Impresario

This enthusiastic gentleman, a manager of the plant, gave us a tour and tasting of the salumificio, a place where the pig is transformed into delicious foodstuffs from nose to tail...

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Ultimate Cracklings

They're called ciccoli (if I'm spelling it right) and they're crunchy and porky and utterly fabulous...

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Salami Stuffer

Ever wonder how those casings get filled?

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Home Sweet Mountain Ravine

I've described the Parmigano-Reggiano factory we visited as being in the Appenine Mountains of northern Italy. But what do the Appenines look like? Here is a dramatic example...

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Ever heard of Black Parmigiano?

Neither had I. It may not be available over here. It may not be widely available even in Italy. But it exists. I saw it...

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Old Grandad

Most Parmigiano-Reggiano is aged two to three years, but the factory keeps some around much longer, just to see how it ages...

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The Cheese Inspectors

During their maturation, wheels of Parmigiano-Reggiano are inspected by sticklers who use a light steel mallet (as demonstrated by a manager of the Santa Lucia Caseificio) to probe the interior of the wheel for faults...

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Shh! The Cheeses are Sleeping

Here, in the storage rooms, is where Parmigiano-Reggiano really becomes what the Italians call "the king of cheeses." They stay here for years...

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Cheese Underwater

Life began in the ocean then slithered onto dry land. Parmigiano-Reggiano kind of recapitulates that journey...

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Making an Impression

If you've ever seen an entire wheel of Parmigiano-Reggiano you know its distinctive stamps, which include not only the words Parmigiano-Reggiano all around the circumference, but the month and year of making, and numbers that signifiy at which caseificio it was made. Here's how that is done...

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Cruisin' for a Smoothin'

No, that's not a perfect rhyme, but what do you expect for free? Now as to the subject of today's picture, you'll just have to click if you want to unstick the mystery...

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Italian Alley-Oop

Transferring the curds--a roughly 80-pound ball--from the vats to the round storage forms in which they will become wheels of Parmigiano-Reggiano...

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The Big Bruiser

For some reason, one of the curd spheres came up huge and had to be sliced in two--that's all in a day's work at the Parmigiano-Reggiano factory, but big excitement for spectator me...

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Knot's Landing

After the curd is gathered, it is tied to a crossbar before being removed from the sea of whey. It is on its way, or whey, to becoming Parmigiano-Reggiano...

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It's a Whey of Life 3

The first step of making Parmigiano-Reggiano is all about teamwork...

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It's a Whey of Life 2

Like a kind of sunrise, the globe of nascent cheese emerges from the blonde sea of whey...

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It's a Whey of Life

In the village of Santa Lucia, in the mountains above Modena, Italy, they make Parmigiano-Reggiano, every day, and the process starts with vats the size of Jacuzzis...

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A Bike is a Bike. Not.

Some bikes are just quietly, strangely beautiful...

 

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Chow Before Ciao

Lunch at Enoteca Italiana in Bologna, a wine and liquor store and deli rolled into one...

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Classy Counterman

At Enoteca Italiana, where the stylish Bolognesi get their lunchtime sandwiches, wine and espresso...

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Produceapalooza 3

Step this way for a fond final look at the bountiful fruit, flower and produce market of Modena, Italy...

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Produceapalooza 2

This shopper never gets to the front of the line, but only in Italy do vegetables and fruit rub shoulders with statuary...

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Produceapalooza

You hear a lot about how beautiful the produce markets are in italy. And then you see one, and you understand...

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Work in Progress

A construction project impinges on a public square in Modena, Italy...

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Vacuum Cleaners Suck

But this one, inside the Verdi Suite of the Hotel Grand Majestic gia Baglioni in Bologna, intrigued me...

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Hello, Halo

Atop the cathedral of San Pietro in Bologna...

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Nice Backyard

We spent a few days in the Apennine Mountains, about 30 miles south of Bologna...

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Night Stroll

In Bologna on weekend evenings during the holidays, the streets at the center of town become pedestrian malls and the shops stay open late...

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The Town That Made Balsamic Famous

Modena, near Bologna, Italy, is where the real balsamic vinegar--aceto balsamico tradizionale--comes from. Modena is a sweet town, old and mellow yet tangy, not unlike the unctuous sauce the vinegar becomes as it ages...

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The Real Baloney

It comes from Bologna, hence our (derogatory) name for it, but the stuff that the Bolognesi are rightly so proud of is one of the jewels in their culinary heritage of working miracles with every inch of the pig...

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Breast Spritz

Only the Italians could come up with a public fountain as unabashed as this...

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Christmas in Bologna

Imagine Times Square as a pedestrian mall with traffic allowed only on the periphery, and not at all on weekends, and you have the heart of Bologna, Piazza Maggiore...

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Sinatra's Apple View

From Ol' Blue Eyes Drive in Hoboken

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Making Waves

Seasick at the front lawn...

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Rebar Reverb

Near the Holland Tunnel into NYC...

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Belly Up to the Rebar

Gustatory Ghost

Only the sign remains of one of Hoboken's great eateries, where etiquette demanded that you throw your clamshells on the tile floor...

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The Ties That Bind

Stacked by the right-of-way...

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Making Tracks

The raw materials stand at the ready...

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Red Alert

Anatomy of a Crane

The ground-level control panel of the crane that got jammed against the steeple of the Methodist Church in Morristown earlier this month...

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Jewel Encrusted

Smooth Sailing

A frozen river and a stiff wind—that’s all these intrepid boaters need to raise the sails for their favorite winter pastime. more

Onboard the Miss Ellis Island 4

Where no one dare tread, the bow of the ship...

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Onboard the Miss Ellis Island 3

At the dock at Ellis Island, after a party at the renovated terminal...

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Raining Needles

Asphalt Pastoral

The Barricades

Ten days after the storm, downed branches are still piled on curbs like fortress walls...

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Needle Park

Every night I park my car under a pine tree...

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Barrel Train

Now, after the Great Steeple Rescue, Plain Sight returns to more traditional subject matter...

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I am Curious Yellow

Before Fall Fell 2

Just Before Fall Fell

A Sunday afternoon at Lake Arrowhead, gifted with a souvenir of Tropical Storm Irene...

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My Shed or Yours?

Definitely not mine, but maybe you have a place at Arrowhead Lake?

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Take a Long Walk Off a Short Pier

Into a lake lush with lily pads...

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Dry Dock

High and dry and upside down...

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Lakefront Loveseat

A lazy Sunday afternoon at Lake Arrowhead...

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Stacked

Big Brother is watching from his perch on high...

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Ruins

An urban archeologist could read some sense into this...

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Shattered

An empty storefront takes it on the chin...

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Pumped Up

This Jet is full of nothing but hot air, like (at the moment) his flesh-and-blood teammates and their coach...

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Busted Beck's

Never made it out of the delivery truck...

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Deflationary Cycle

Perhaps if there were greater demand, matters could be reversed, but not without incurring certain inflation.

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Copper Armadillo

Well Spoken

Snazzy wheels await the return of their adolescent jockeys...

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Overturned

I see this as an operating theater where all the equipment and the attendants and the patient, on its back, are ready for the surgeon to come in, gloved hands held aloft...

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The Rake's Progress

In which the rake has abandoned his loyal owner and has fallen madly in love with a chain-link fence. The evil front steps, which have engineered the whole thing, snicker in the background. Oh foolish rake!

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Drain Aim

When the rains come (when don't they come?), it's a little misaligned...

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Mortal Portal

Before it was sheathed in plywood and insulation board, people passed through this doorway to do their banking...

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Blue Barrier

With dual cones on duty...

 

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Hazy Empire

You'd know it anywhere, haze be damned...

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Battered Boundary

It's magnificent, in a way, one of a kind...

 

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Sidewalk Splendor

Trash cans and riotous vegetation cozy up in harmonious colors...

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The Black Box

You have plenty of time to stare at this button while waiting for a response from inside...

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Another Bent Thing

On a gray day, a permanently windswept anetenna...

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Screw Job

Emerging from the side of a trash can, this bolt got busted...

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In the Pink

When you are directed to rinse, you reach for the pink cup. The dentist also has a pink cup on her instrument tray...

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The Sun Dome

Maybe someday nuclear fusion will take place in devices no bigger than this...

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The Gold Standard

The cyclops of the dentist's office shows its true colors...

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Artificial Sunlight

Pure and intense, but more directional...

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Scallops: The Hard-Working Deckhands

The two young men who toil on deck relax on the way back to port at Viking Village.

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Scallops: Spheres of Influence

Unused on this trip was this big bad buoy, but it has an important role...

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Scallops: Mission Control 2

You can never have too much rope on a boat. Meanwhile, in the wheelhouse, radar and sonar screens and other equipment scan the ocean bottom, watch the weather, keep track of other boats, avoid undersea wrecks and allow Capt. Chris LaRocca to tuck sagacious pinches of Skoal behind his lip...

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Scallops: Mission Control

In the wheelhouse, Capt. Chris LaRocca has all the essentials in close array...

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Scallops: Heading Home

With 459 pounds of cleaned scallops on board, the Lucky Thirteen heads back to Viking Village at Barnegat Light on Long Beach Island. This would prove to be the last day of nice weather before Irene made the scene.

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The Scallop Haul

The first tow across the ocean bottom yielded 70 bushels of unshelled scallops. Now came the small-bore part of the job, the cleaning...

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Sifting for Scallops

The dredge contents are dumped on the deck of the boat, and the deckhands begin flipping through the pile, sifting out scallops...

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The Scallop Scoop

This contraption, that looks like a giant bedspring/art project, is dragged across the ocean floor, arresting scallops from their peaceful, filter-feeding, bottom-snoozing existence...

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Daybreak at the Scallop Beds

Fifty miles off the coast of Long Beach Island, the scallop boat Lucky Thirteen prepares for a day of fishing...

 

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Pumping Out

Night Laundry

Alone with a cell phone while the clothes go 'round...

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Carotenoids

Bugs Bunny, eat your heart out...

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Pastel Parking

Hydrant Helpers

Not the middle of nowhere; maybe the edge of nowhere...

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Leafy Crossroads

Stumped

Up (Above) a Creek

She doesn't suffer for beauty, but the narrow creek (nature's storm drain) way below her is not exactly beautiful or bountiful...

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Bloomin' Booze

These flowers don't want to be watered, they want to be firewatered...

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Ramp Me Up

It looks like an amusement park for cars...

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These Boots Are Made For...

...watching others work. The crew boss at a car wash (the guy who handles the cash register) watches the crew swarm over the wet car with thick towels...

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Circular Reasoning

The hose knows where it goes...

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The Door Stops Here

And there's nothing you can do about it...

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Hero Buddy

This little fella snoozes, a laidback sentinel, above his pals the Marvel Heroes and the Glow Crosses...

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Kingdom of Suds

All in a lather, my car inches through the wash cycle, barely recognizable...

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Curbstone Caucus

Four high school girls take a straw poll outside a 7-Eleven.

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Buffer Zone

At a car wash in Montclair....

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Missing Only the Royal Guards

Through this portal pass ordinary suburbanites, though perhaps with titled aspirations...

 

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Well Grounded

Flowers bloom above an in-ground garbage receptacle. Not as gross as it sounds. Kind of beautiful, actually...

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Dumpster in a Bag

Yes, it's a lot smaller than a dumpster, but it's one heck of a lot bigger than any garbage bag you've ever seen...

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Crane Out of Context

This brushy marshland spreads for miles in all directions on Kiawah Island, South Carolina, interrupted by occasional, minimally disruptive patches of development...

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Bar Scene

Also known as Two Characters in Search of a Drink...

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Liquidity

An outdoor whirlpool gets pelted under a gathering sky...

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Master T

An unidentified box on a custodial door at an office building in Teaneck...

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The Ceiling Needs Ironing

Bringing a load of whites to the laundry takes on new meaning when the sheets are this big. I wouldn't want to be the guy who has to fold the pleats.

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See Through

A rainy morning in a banquet tent on Kiawah Island off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina...

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Odd Intersection

Where a parking lot and a driveway meet...

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Bumped Bumpers

These have taken it on the chin...

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Window Schlepping

There are window displays, carefully constructed, and then there is this...

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Corner Capers - The Reveal

On a hot sunny day on Halsey Street in Newark, two people share a slice of shade...

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Corner Capers 2

Part Pac-Man, part rearing horse, part pentangle...

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Corner Capers

All things considered, a busy intersection...

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My Morse Code

It responds not only to dots and dashes but curves and diagonals...

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Love For Fuel

Where tank trucks refill, headed for home furnaces. Probably fairly quiet there this time of year.

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Fog at Eagle Rock 3

Is there anything quieter than an epty, fogged-out softball field?

 

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Fog at Eagle Rock 2

Picnic benches in the mist...

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Double Parking Dispensers

Similarly attired aliens face each other in their domed bubble, prior to being fed by humans and dispensing removable white tongues that the humans require.

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Tank Art 2

Outside what appeared to be a pre-school on Halsey Street in Newark

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A Bucket's Bucket List

What would be on this particular bucket's list? Well, for sure, stop at all railroad crossings...

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Under the Overpass 2

At the intersection of I-80 and I-280 in Parsippany...

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The Wilds of the Suburban Interstate

Where I-80 and I-280 merge in Parsippany, there is a small, benign version of the Bermuda Triangle...

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Rope Skeins

There's no question of lassoing steers, but maybe telephone poles...

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Under the Overpass

Where I-280 flows into I-80, amid riotous greenery, a reflector attaches to a guard rail like a Post-it note on a page...

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Glossy Reminders of Wildwood Past

A pair of vacationing Pennsylvanians document the changing landscape of Wildwood in a new book of photography. more

These Shoes are Made for Mucking

A Verizon truck's rear deck contains a smattering of useful things, including a pair of mud boots and a whopper of a magnet...

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Where's Baby?

An empty stroller in an unlikely location begs a question...

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Tank Art

Outside what appears to be a pre-school on Halsey Street in Newark...

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Bulk Carrier

A Hoover for cleaning out old oil tanks and stuff like that.

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Mystery Star

I passed this gated entry on one of my walks in Berlin. Couldn't see anything beyond the gate but a grassy courtyard....

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Memorial Day Aftermath

In a park where a Memorial Day ceremony had been held, this mashup was discovered on Tuesday...

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The City Bike

Simple bicycles like these are ubiquitous in Berlin (though not quite as ubiquitous as in Amsterdam). What stopped me in front of this one was the combination of muted, pastel colors in the bike and in the wall it's leaning against.

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Six Legs and Two Spires

And an audience of big wheels...

 

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Waiting for the Freight Elevator

In a fortress of an old commercial building in Jersey City...

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Tailgate Tail

Like the bull who saw red and charged, I saw red and stopped in my tracks...

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The Pushers

What were these two women pushing? Counterfeit goods? Sisyphus's rock?

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Remember this?

Spring has had so little spring in its step we seem not that far from scenes like these, just two months ago...

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Storm Damage

Tree topples, limbs must be amputated, tilted stump remains...

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Lady Madonna

Through a glass darkly...

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Recuperate in a Castle

Almost 40 years ago, this sprawling mansion was a convalescent home for women. My own mother-in-law recuperated from cancer surgery there. Then the castle was bought by the King of Morocco. Now it is in the early stages of being converted to a luxury resort.

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The Teal Deal

Is it oxidation or something else that turns the marble this color?

 

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The Honor System

Rush hour, Berlin, on board the U-2 subway line. An interesting thing about the Berlin subway (U-Bahn) is that there are no turnstiles. There are ticket machines on the platform. Guess what keeps people from simply riding for free.

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The Shrink-Wrapped and the Nude

At Liberty Landing Marina at Liberty State Park in Jersey City, she faces the elements unprotected while on both sides her marina-mates are weather-proofed.

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Shipyard Hulk

It was just a few weeks ago, before the trees began to bloom, when I came across this marina in Jersey City...

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Land Shark

How appropriate that this shark should be within view of the sharks of Goldman, Sachs, their Jersey City tower rising in the background.

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The Beast High and Dry

Instead of making waves, the Beast in early spring is shading dandelions under its belly...

 

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Pull Handle

Where are we? In the subway (U-Bahn) in Berlin, waiting for a train...

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Car Infirmary

Where huddled masses of metal yearn to breathe free...

 

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Along the Avenue

A bush outgrows its pot, by a lot.

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I'll Be Washing You

Where cars come out clean...

 

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Tulip Petals in Dishabille

The tulip tree sheds its long, soft, sensuous petals and welcomes spring undressed, making a bed of the ground below it...

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After the Rain

A broken fence, where rain courses through, begins to dry out...

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Holocaust Memorial, Berlin 3

Yesterday, I criticized the memorial as too abstract, but its abstractness does suggest a metaphor that is intriguing and disturbing...

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Holocaust Memorial, Berlin 2

You know what's wrong with the Berlin memorial? It's fun. I'll explain...

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Holocaust Memorial, Berlin

Built on former no-man's land separating East and West Berlin, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe stands roughly between the Brandenburg Gate and the site of Hitler's bunker. It was designed by American architect Peter Eisenmann and consists of 2,711 stone steles, or slabs, of varying height.

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Jaws of Berlin

Street repair is a common sight in Berlin, and so are pedestrians calmly making their way around it...

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At the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin

This photo proves that I don't just wander around obscure parts of town but also take in some of the famous sights...

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Fashion Berlin

The broad avenue known as Unter den Linden in central Berlin is the equivalent of Manhattan's Park Avenue, only much broader, with broader sidewalks, too. Berlin is spacious, and it doesn't have the skyscrapers that make canyons of midtown Manhattan streets.

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Playground Berlin

A literal "kindergarten"--children's garden--grows in the Prenzlauer Berg section of Berlin among the blocky apartment buildings. It's about 5:30-6 pm, and I like how this one father, still in his business suit, kneels down to play with his kleine kinder.

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Elevated Berlin

As the U-Bahn, or subway, leaves central Berlin (Mitte) for Prenzlauer Berg and other former East Berlin neighborhoods, it rises from underground to elevated tracks along the avenue known as Schönhauser Allee...

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Self-Portrait Berlin

We're used to seeing these photo booths on the Jersey Shore, where people are already frolicking. But in Berlin you see them in seemingly random spots around town. Most curious...

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Wall Art Berlin 2

I didn't see many black faces while I was in Berlin. I did see one gathering of young black people at the Brandenburg Gate, and it was a strange one. They were demonstrating in support of the electorally defeated Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo, chanting and holding up signs that read, in German, "Gbagbo is the only correct/legitimate president of Ivory Coast." This was while Gbagbo was still holed up in his home, before his arrest.

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Wall Art Berlin

In Berlin's former Soviet sector, some otherwise drab apartment buildings invite artists to create street-level murals...

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Graffiti Berlin 2

As in Amsterdam, a lot of people get around Berlin on bicycles...

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Graffiti Berlin

Leave it to New Jersey. The only place where there is still a West Berlin and an East Berlin is right here, in Camden County. I am just back from a few days vacation in the original Berlin, the one that was mostly rubble in 1945 and is now famously unified and revivified.

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Plain Sight is on Vacation

See you Monday, April 11th. Meanwhile, here's a parting shot...

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Clams on the Whole Shell

A seafood delivery truck behind a restaurant...

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Some Spring

By the side of Route 280 West, in Parsippany...

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Fuel for Crocuses

What we need is more sunshine this spring, less white precip...

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Cat Pause

It was a Sunday...

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Clean Plate Club

My 91-year-old mother made fast work of a beautiful fruit tart.

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Infernal Equinox

Yesterday, someone left this pair of gloves on their dashboard. Today, the first day of spring, those gloves are probably wrapped around one of those ice-and-snow brushes, clearing the windshield.

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Gray Jersey

With a blood-red door...

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Fenced

Through this portal pass, well, nobody...

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Faith Base

The base of a flagpole, from which Old Glory flies...

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Freeholder M&Ms

A parked van offers a window into totes...

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Expecting

What these two golden boys are expecting is the emergence of their master from the Greenberry's Coffee shop on the Green in Morristown...

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Okay to Enter

The entrance to the roasting and packaging plant of Oren's Daily Roast, the premium coffee company, in Jersey City...

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In a Hospital 2

Along a corridor, in the 4700 wing of St. Barnabus in Livingston...

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Smooch Drops

At a wedding shower in New Brunswick...

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In a Hospital 2

Cellar Doors

Weathered, with a bright and shiny padlock and a memorable context...

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Abstract Expressionist Door 2

Another view of the dumpster door, this time as a monumental installation...

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We'll Be On It Someday

This embankment has been in the works for years. Some day, perhaps soon, it will funnel traffic to the Holland Tunnel...

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The Greenest Bathroom 2

A case of lime disease?

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Stuffed

A/C Out of Season

The superfluity of an air conditioner in February...

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Abstract Expressionist Door

Garbage in, art out...

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The Hippest Diner 5

The front door of Diner in Williamsburg, Brooklyn...

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The Hippest Diner 4

Chic dilapidation may be a prerequisite...

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The Hippest Diner 3

Happy young couples, in lumberjack plaid, at Diner in Williamsburg, Brooklyn...

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The Hippest Diner 2

A look inside Diner in Williamsburg, Brooklyn...

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The Hippest Diner

I have to admit, it's not in New Jersey. It's in Brooklyn...

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LBI Homestead

The Heubels hang their hats in Beach Haven, Long Beach Island...

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You Can't Make This Up

More amazing found art...

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Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda

Sometimes, for no apparent reason, autofocus doesn't work quite right...

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Parking Lot Pastoral 2

A golden sheaf on dirty snow...

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Parking Lot Pastoral

Lockbox

At Precision Motors in Caldwell...

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Bladder Control

At the dentist's office...

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Totally Tubular

At the dentist's office...

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Blue-Eared. 10-Eyed Pod People

At the dentist's office...

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Salt Encrusted

Even when the snow melts, the mess remains...

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Corner Shot

An alley near the docks, Nassau, Bahamas...

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Look Who's JRZ PROUD!

This snout-hearted citizen hams it up for NJ. Oink if you love the Garden State.

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Colorful Corral

Near the docks in Nassau, the Bahamas...

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The Male Room

Relief available near the piers of Nassau, Bahamas...

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The Dock Scene 2

Where the cruise ships queue, in Nassau, the Bahamas...

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The Dock Scene

Checking out the boats and the people, quayside at Nassau, the Bahamas.,,

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The Conch Seller

Selling shells dockside, Nassau, Bahamas...

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Where It's Warm

Not here, but in the Bahamas, dockside in Nassau...

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Sewn Smiles

The naked lady relaxes with her stuffed cronies as the new year approaches...

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White and Doubled Over

No, I'm not talking about myself, I'm talking about the tree next to the walkway behind our house.

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Mauve On Over

Leaves rain down on steps after a storm, and so does a potato chips bag...

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Burning Bush

It's even more striking in retrospect, now that winter is upon us, than it was at the time, and it stood out then...

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Essence of Danger

In the bed of a pickup in Bernardsville...

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Acorn Central

Pigs love acorns, and in Bernardsville, Dr. Erno Hollo's three 300-pounders feasted for months on this cache, here almost depleted...

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Tightly Wound

Have a little found art with your parking lot...

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Late Bloomer

Before the frost bit, but after many of the leaves fell, these flowers popped at a parking lot in Morristown...

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Men at Work

Construction underway in a parking deck at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in New Brunswick...

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Soles on Stripes

Walking on them tickles the toes...

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Under Construction

In a parking garage in New Brunswick...

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The Stare of the Unblemished 2

Don't shoot (the camera) till you see the whites of their eyes...

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Pretty Grubby

In the window of a beauty supply store...

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The Stare of the Unblemished

In a drugstore window in New Brunswick...

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Accordian Bus

Can't get around the spread-out campus of Rutgers New Brunswick without one of these...

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Bahamas Contrasts

In the port of Nassau, big cruise ships and a lone construction worker...

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Bahamas Togetherness

Holding hands in Nassau, where it's anything but ice cold...

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Found Art at the Guggenheim

A crane contraption on the sidewalk, and no charge for admission...

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In the Roscoe Vaults

Another tribute to my long-time buddy, Roscoe (1993-2010), found while searching through the Plain Sight archives...

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More Than Shoe Repair

A cobbler carries on while all around him undergoes a makeover...

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Roll Your Own

A pulldown security door heads for the scrap heap...

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In the Shoe Canyon

A young saleswoman waits for something to do...

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Know This Bush?

Any botanists out there?

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ROSCOE 1993-2010

I had to say goodbye to my buddy Roscoe this morning. He was 17 and a half years old--80 something in human years--and his health had been failing for awhile. We shan't see his like again. Why does an affected line like that occur to me? Probably a way to mask emotion...

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Can't Park Here. Really.

It just isn't possible...

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Before the Leaves Turned

When you could sit outside in a white metal lawn chair, and bask in the last balmy strands of summer...

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Market Structures

They keep the system functioning...

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So You Want to be a Hose

To figure this one out, you'l just have to look at the picture...

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Broom With a View

At Sickles Market in Little Silver, the outdoors gets a sweep...

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More Found Art

An environmental installation starring a flattened traffic cone...

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The Art of Pruning

The back of a landscaper's truck becomes an inadvertent art installation...

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Skin Game

The body's largest organ is examined here...

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Three Characters Under a Bridge

Waiting for a construction worker...

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Crunch, Munch...

Have you ever stared into the maw of a recycling truck?

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Dosa Hut

Nowadays this place is called Dakshin Express, but it's still my go-to for delicious, crispy-tacky, folded, papery, hanging-over-the-plate Indian dosas...

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Big Muddy Wheels

And a fifth wheel too, as the truckers call it...

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Oven on Wheels

At a carnival, pizza on the go from an old-fashioned dome-shaped oven...

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Big Berries

This kind of strawberry is even more seasonal than the edible kind...

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Marine Gasoline

It's 93 octane, but is it any different from automobile gasoline? In any event, it's fun to say marine gasoline.

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Where Tires Retire...

...yet remain useful.

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Thems The Breaks (Natural Edition)

Today, the panorama, the panoptic panoply across the pock-marked pavement...

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Unchain My Heart

And forgive us our trespasses...

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Ferris Metal

A welded mechanical marvel of the old school. But Do Not Rock Seat!

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Carnival Driver's Seat

The mechanical age survives at a carnival...

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Thems The Breaks (Skull and Crossbones Edition)

The sudden arrival of a Ford F-250 with a custom paint job changes the picture...

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Thems The Breaks

Or should it be them's the breaks? While you're thinking that over, have a look at the picture...

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For Whom The Teal Tolls

Last look at the twinned tints, this time with an orange intruder...

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Lakeside R.I.P.

Once upon a time a place to stay was here, by the shores of Lake Hopatcong...

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Teal, Tile and Tree

Yet another take on the tale of two turquoises...

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Teal, Tile and Tire

A chromatic confluence at the Shop-Rite in West Orange...

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What Does NJ Look Like?

Telephone poles, traffic cones, construction, intersections, and the punctuation of mall landscaping, let's celebrate it...

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Ahh, Summer (Memories For a Rainy Day) 3

Those were the days, which seem so distant now, when you needed a badge to walk on the beach...

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Ahh, Summer (Memories For a Rainy Day) 2

The impromptu sports of summer don't get any better--for participants or spectators--than beach volleyball...

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The Teal Deal

A pickup truck and a wall have something in common, as like attracts like...

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Ahh, Summer (Memories For a Rainy Day)

Chairs set up for a beach wedding in Long Branch...

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LBI, Off-Season

Kiddie pools covered, boats on dry land, the times they are a changin'...

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LBI's Leading Landmarks

Water towers dominate the skyline, telling you where you are on the island...

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Carports of LBI

The contrast of sun and shade, evergreen foliage and sky, and a burgundy sedan in the middle...

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Foliage Portals of LBI

Entering the clean, minimalist enclave of a Long Beach Island home...

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Alleys of LBI

A private world of ornamental foliage, trash cans, and fences...

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High and Dry

A boat out of water on tripod legs,,,

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Behind the Backstop

A no man's land...

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Recognize This Bridge?

It crosses a great river that New Jersey borders...

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Gifted Young Drummer on the Boardwalk - 2

Perhaps not many kids his age (18 going on 19) have heard of Art Blakey and Buddy Rich, but Dean Martin Pyzik admires the drumming of both, along with that of Tré Cool of Green Day...

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A Gifted Young Drummer on the Boardwalk

Set up on the Asbury Park boardwalk opposite the Stony Pony, this young drummer was playing some fascinating rhythm, not just the usual thudding. Turns out he is a 2010 graduate of Neptune High School, a member of the National Honor Society, and a drum instructor at Big Beat studio in Neptune City...

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Three Views of a Water Fountain - 3

Don't miss today's wide-angle, big-picture, contextually complete conclusion of this exciting series...

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Three Views of a Water Fountain - 2

In a playground along the Hudson River...

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Three Views of a Water Fountain - 1

In the middle of a playground by the Hudson River...

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GOOAAL--zzzzz

Soccer nets...

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A Woman Descends the Stairs

And looks like this...

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The Great Wall of Atlantic City

Standing on the Boardwalk, the back of the A.C. Convention Center is quite a sight. With all the black marks or holes in the wall, it looks like a giant abacus, or perhaps a secular version of the Wailing Wall of Jerusalem. Many of those stumbling out of the casinos after hours at the gambling tables are ready for some wailing...

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Above it All?

Well. Trump Plaza has emerged from bankruptcy, is now seeking a name-brand partner to upgrade the casino and hotel. Meanwhile, the Convention Center hulks on...

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Boardwalk Vacancy

This picture, taken from the Atlantic City Boardwalk near the Caesar's Pier Shops, shows that redevelopment still has a way to go...

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Suit Yourself

Abbreviated mannequins model their wares in a window of opportunity...

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Door, No Doorway

Enter into the mystery...

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Jungle in Ray-Ban Land

Luxuriant foliage while waiting to pick up a pair of eyeglasses...

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Why Go Anywhere?

Interesting to find that question asked next to a gas station...

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The Dress Rainbow

Never underestimate the power of an anticlimax...

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At the Checkout Counter

Much to look at while waiting to make one's purchases at the big gown sale in the Meadowlands...

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The Why of It...

A friend asked me, what were you doing at a gown and accessory mega-sale in the Meadowlands? I explained the answer in Plain Sight last week. But now here is the visual evidence...

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In the Shoe Canyon

A young saleswoman waited for something to do...

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Star-Spangled Bangles

If you can't find a tiara here, you just don't have any princess in you...

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Straphangers

So many choices, so little time...

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Train Station

At the two-day gown sale in Secaucus, a lot of dresses came with elegant cabooses. Here is one...

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Got Gowns! -2

A conference room at a Hampton Inn in Secaucus is converted to a clearance sale for formal gowns. Up to 75% off, and (in this part of the room) any color you want, as long as its white...

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The Jeter of 2030

Who knows? He may be wearing this mini-uniform right now...

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Body By Bristol-Donald

Personally, I've always loved the sound of the name, Bristol-Donald, and have seen it on mud flaps of trucks for years. Turns out it's a Newark-based company that makes truck bodies...

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Mop & Barrel

Can only mean one thing--we're at the car wash...

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Panel Discussion

Winter enclosure panels, removed for summer, congregate outside a restaurant...

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Telephone Booth With Bangs

Under droopy branches, a low-to-the-ground public telephone awaits discovery next to a Chinese restaurant...

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Ram Board

A children's art project in the park leads to an enigmatic photograph. Wait. Aren't all Plain Sight photographs enigmatic?

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Pane and Suffering

If sheets of glass could feel, these would be crying...

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Ye Old Schmatta Station

Behind a strip mall, an odd structure seemingly dedicated to cleanliness falls into disrepair...

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Got Plumbing?

What does it do? Haven't a clue. But the music goes round and round and it comes out here...

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Tank Crew

His job involves a lot of rocking and rolling of mute beings with tiny, featureless heads and narrow shoulders...

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Recreational Collision

The hoop takes a charging foul from a player going to the basket...

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The Edge of Ice Cream Season

Now that the weather is hot all the time, it's hard to remember that transitional time when spring was struggling to emerge from winter, but here is a glimpse of it...

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Ahoy, Driveway!

A yacht awaits its annual immersion...

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A Cooler Beach Day...

Hundred-degree days seemed a long way off in May, when these teens took a walk on the beach while elders snoozed...

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Mirror, Mirror...

Here's looking at you, kid...

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The Rising

In these wooden palettes, Al Santillo proofs the dough that rises to become the basis for his terrific pizza...

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Giving Good Weight

Some will recognize the title of today's post, borrowed from the title of a great early collection of John McPhee's shorter pieces, including one in which he harvests onions and digs one out of the ground, wipes off the dirt and bites into it like an apple. And it tastes good. Anyway, no onions or apples in today's Plain Sight, just a beautiful, old-fashioned set of scales, dusted with a great pizzamaker's flour.

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Mr. Pizza

Stopped in at Santillo's Brick Oven Pizza in Elizabeth recently for the killer pie Al Santillo calls the Grandpa, which is a big crunchy square pie loaded with the works...

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Porsche/Kiddie Car

Two extremes of four-wheeled transportation on either side of a fence...

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Basket Case

Behind a grocery store, I found a peach basket, shopping carts, railroad tracks...grids gone wild...

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Remember Spring?

There was a week when the tulip trees shed their lush blossoms, strewing sidewalks with an increasingly slippery pink carpet...

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Waiting For Godoctor

It's interesting how the quality of your waiting changes after you've been sprung from the waiting room and are now in the examining room, though still waiting...

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Pillars of 1926

On the Philadelphia side of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge over the Delaware River...

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The Crumble

The flag proudly waves as underpinnings erode...

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Mastoris, the Mega Diner 2

As Homer Simpson might say, "Mmmmm, baaaaked goooods!"

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Mastoris, the Mega Diner

Mastoris, the famous diner in Bordentown, is known for its massive menu, but the place itself is massive...

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Papa Paparazzo

Montville’s Ron Galella made a career of photographing celebrities in unguarded moments. Along the way, he became a celebrity himself. more

Spool's Out!

People ask me if I ever set up pictures. The answer is that the world sets them up for me...

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Waiting Room Anomie

Time ticks slowly, like an IV drip, in the doctor's waiting room...

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Moonrise Over Ben Franklin

Before dawn, from a hotel window on the Philadelphia side of the Delaware River, the view of New Jersey and the Benjamin Franklin Bridge...

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The Next Generation

At a worker's station in a doctor's office, a glimpse of the future...

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Strange Brew

Out of the viaduct, on the down ramp toward the Holland Tunnel, the tops of buildings float by...

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Up There, The City

The viaduct (or, as the Marx Brothers said, "Why a duck?") emerges into the open, and there, looming in brick and mortar, is a sign of civilization...

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A Little Bit of Stonehenge

Further into the Holland Tunnel viaduct in Jersey City, daylight breaks in on either side of a dark, massive beam...

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The Holland Tunnel Museum of Art 5

Into the viaduct, under the weathered steel beams, the next gallery of the site specific installation...

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The Holland Tunnel Museum of Art 4

A four-wheeled spectator enters the gallery of abstract art and slab sculpture...

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Behind Bars

Finally, traffic at the Holland Tunnel begins to move and the wall tapers down and traffic coming in the opposite direction heaves into view...

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The Holland Tunnel Museum of Art 3

Primtiive modern or modern primitive? A wall dividing eastbound from westbound traffic near the approach to the Holland Tunnel...

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The Holland Tunnel Museum of Art

One thing to be said for getting stuck in rush hour traffic at the Holland Tunnel, heading into New York City. You have plenty of time to study your surroundings, and some of what you see, especially in the viaduct, is striking...

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In Case of Thirst

A delivery truck pulls up in front of a 24-hour convenience store, and the driver starts unloading...

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Hanging Out To Dry

These short loins of beef are dry-aging at DeBragga & Spitler for the primo New York restaurant Picholine. A Texan turned Jerseyan, George Faison, is chief operating officer of DeBragga. Read on for a primer on dry-aging...

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Age Before Beauty

In the refrigerated storerooms of DeBragga & Spitler, 30-pound short loins of prime beef sleep amid big electric fans, slowly becoming dry-aged steaks.

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Here's The Beef

The loading dock at DeBragga & Spitler, one of the leading purveyors of high-quality beef in NYC and northern New Jersey. One of the two managing partners, George Faison, lives in New Jersey...

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Yonder Jersey

From the High Line--the former elevated railroad in Manhattan now converted into a public park--one can see the West 20's and, across the Hudson River, Union City and Weehawken...

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Guard Girder

It's there to protect the brick if a truck backs into it...

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Yipes Stripes

A derelict commercial building facing the Hudson River becomes a visual riot...

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Master of the Underworld

On Wall Street, surrounded by Masters of the Universe, a Verizon worker pauses before scuttling down a manhole into the underworld...

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Three Characters in a Wall

A kind of urban Rushmore...

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Stroller Jam

A kind of parking lot at a daycare center...

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The Gaping Maw

Through these portals pass...

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To The Ade of the Thirsty

The downbeating sun does things to you that can be remedied here...

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Caution: Wheelbarrow at Work

Where several small restaurants failed in succession, the owner of the building finally decided to rip out the storefront facade and start over...

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The Smell of the Surf

This boy doesn't fetch, but he does a pretty good imitation of Nipper, the RCA dog (I'm dating myself) while lifting his nose to the ocean just across the street from this rooming house in Cape May...

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Ice Cream That Never Melts

But at the sweet shop across the street from the Congress Hall Hotel in Cape May you can only buy the edible kind...

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A Vintage Phone Booth

Well, yes, the phone has push-buttons, but the booth itself is of the type Superman might once have changed in...

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Mardi Gras in Morristown 2

Same window as yesterday, but a different focal length. Result? A different picture...

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Mardi Gras in Morristown

Well, not literally, but this dress shop window puts me in mind of the spirit of NOLA's Fat Tuesday...

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Under Heavy Skies

As the first buds of spring burst forth, cars filled up before the clouds unloaded...

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Umbrellas Off Duty

In front of CulinAriane restaurant in Montclair (one of NJM's Top 25 in the state), two inanimate members of the staff seem poised for a minuet...

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Still Life With Mixed Mesh

And throw in railroad tracks for good measure...

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A Brook, a Bridge, Just Before Spring

I was driving down a lovely country road in Hunterdon County a few weeks back, and came across this bucolic scene...

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Between Stately Columns

Watching the river flow by, or at least the grass grow next to the river...

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What Ghosts In These Machines?

On the banks of the Delaware River, at Frenchtown, instruments performing tasks inscrutable to the layman. Anybody know what this equipment does?

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Sign Language

Before you cross this bridge over the Delaware, you've got some reading to do...

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Chalk Talk

The inviting beverage menu at the Bridge Cafe in Frenchtown, on the Delaware River...

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Men's Room Attendant

He's always pleasant, and you never have to tip him...

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What's Wrong With This Picture?

Hint: It's only a matter of time before you figure it out. Location: A luncheonette in Frenchtown.

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Waiting For Pancakes

The scene at The Pancake House in West Caldwell, where tables, especially on Sunday morning, are at a premium...

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A Suburban Side Street

A conversation between three parked cars and a weird tree trunk, with an audience of houses and a garage, lighting by the sun...

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Art and Industry

Outside the McHugh contracting company in Montclair, where sculptures are produced and sold as well as utilitarian projects taken on...

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Tonsorial Parlor

A vanishing breed, the neighborhood barber shop, and a welcome sight...

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Jackets Off!

Baby, it's sprngtime, suddenly, as evidenced by this winter jacket thrown over a fence at a playground...

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Sun Screen with Dogs

This bundled silvery cloth, gorgeous in itself, is used to reflect excess sunlight from the roofs of greenhouses at the farm of the Chili Goddess, Janie Lamson, in Rosemont, Hunterdon County. The dogs go with the property...

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Greenhouse Alley

These greenhouses, used by the "Chili Goddess" to shepherd pepper and other seedlings through the winter, shimmer...

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Ball Hound

I had the pleasure of meeting a dog recently who could play cornerback in the NFL, even though his ball of choice is a basketball. This dog, Jack, who lives on a chile pepper farm in Hunterdon County, likes to chase after a kicked basketball--the harder it is kicked, the better--and bring it back, all in the blink of an eye...

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Retaining Walls to Remember

Think of how much dirt this one holds back...

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Sittin' in the Rain

The only things moving fast were the raindrops, pelting the cars at a standstill. Meanwhile, on the side of the road...

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Dysfunction at the Junction

Intersect three interstates plus US Route 46, add bad weather and rush hour traffic, and you have more than a suggestion of congestion...

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Package Deal

Neatly wrapped, carefully placed. What could it be?

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Unidentified Lying Object

A rusted hunk of metal with bolts in it, spotted while stuck in traffic, going nowhere...

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Traffic Through The Trees

Look, through the thickets, are those cars--on Route 80--actually, um, moving?

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Marooned in Traffic

Going nowhere at the intersection of 80, 280 and 287. Plenty of time to roll down the window and look around...

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Stuck in Traffic 3

But now I was abreast of the King of Trucks, a Peterbilt (though those are fighting words to them that believe Kenworth is the King of Trucks. Me? I like 'em both.)

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Stuck In Traffic

Full title: "Stupid, Pointless, Pathetic Pictures Taken While Bored Silly, Stuck in Traffic"...

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Keep on Trucking

A UPS Store, hand trucks at the ready...

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Plantation

Spotted behind a booth at a pizzeria...

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Stacked

Emptying out a restaurant, piling up the remains of the day...

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Barbie at the Diner

She's sitting on top of the world, or at least a light fixture...

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Indoor-Outdoor

At Anthony's Pizza and Pasta, if you get the right table, you have the best of both worlds...

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Maxi-Melt

This picture is about what you can't see...

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UPSy-Daisy

While "UPSy-Daisy" makes very little sense, I trust the picture will...

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Popcorn and Pearls

Plenty of both in this unlikely juxtaposition...

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Dumpster Diving

Well, not diving, exactly, but peeking over the edge outside a restaurant being gutted...

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Out With The Innards

Emptying out a restaurant turns up all manner of quotidian supplies...

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Whirligig

Is it a weathervane, a propeller, a lazy Susan, a cable reel, a rotary shovel, a Swiss Army knife, a blender, a high-tech nutcracker, a Roto-Rooter, or a satellite dish?

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Cash Corner

In case of fire or other emergencies, including being tapped out, this alcove is the place to be...

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On the Waterfront

A few minutes after these pictures were taken, cross-country skiers came schussing down the beach...

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Beach Avenue, Cape May

The sun barely penetrates the clouds, the parking meters are buried in snow, and the pavement shines...

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(Not) Lounging Poolside

In the snow, at the Congress Hall Hotel in Cape May...

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Beach Blanket Brrr!

With Cape May blanketed, this sign brought on shivers and chuckles...

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Cabanas in the Snow

Facing the beach in Cape May...

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Cape May, Valentine's Day, and Snow

People in Cape May were saying they hadn't seen so much snow "since...ever!" Cross-country skiers were spotted schussing across the beach. Mounds of plowed snow reached six, seven feet in the air. Yet the mood was warm, because people who braved the white expanses were there to celebrate Valentine's Day, come what may...

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The Big Maw

Behind the scenes at a big butcher shop...

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Construction Site: Caution

Location: Morristown

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Wheel and Deals

Location: Morristown

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Cab Doffs Cap

At a repair garage in Morristown, a truck says "Ahh"...

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Wounded Trees of the Ivy League

Location: Princeton University campus...

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Show The Flag

By the side of Route 206, near Belle Mead...

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Sewers of the Ivy League

On the Princeton University campus, even the manhole covers have a pedigree...

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To the Loo

An old-fashioned sign directed patrons to the rest rooms at this French restaurant...

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Conversations With The Convalescent

My sister-in-law was sitting in the lounge chair beside her hospital bed, waiting to be released, and we were talking about her recuperation when I looked down...

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Choosing Sides

Lest there be any confusion during surgery, someone comes beforehand to mark the patient's hand to indicate on which side of the body the procedure is to be performed...

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Threads 3

From the tailor's driver seat, two headless figures form her offensive line...

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Kisses of a Kind 2

Photographer Emmet Gowin, who retired from the Princeton University faculty last month after 36 years teaching photography, trained and inspired many students, so it's fitting that some of their work forms a tribute to him in the current exhibit at the Princeton University Art Museum, "Emmet Gowin: A Collective Portrait."

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Threads 2

Tailor shop windows, busy working environments, are theaters of the hyper-particular...

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Pole Dance

A telephone pole on a flatbed by the side of Route 206 near Belle Mead...

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Kisses of a Kind

There are kisses and there are kisses. That photographs can be kisses is not an obvious idea, but you could imagine a list of ways that could get long before it came to the type of kiss embodied in the life and work of Emmet Gowin, who is retiring from Princeton University after 36 years of teaching photography and is the subject of a retrospective show at the Princeton University Art Museum through February 21.

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Verticals and Squiggles

The holidays linger in Palmer Square in Princeton...

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Drums in the Snow

Speared by a red vertical, against a white wall, blue barrels...

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Tool We Meet Again

A peek in the drawer of a Central Power & Light utility truck...

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These Boots Are Made For Slopping

Peering into the guts of a utility truck..isn't that what anyone would do, walking down the street?

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Magnets for Manhole Covers

I came across a utility truck in Morristown yesterday. The operator was checking voltages in underground cables. I asked him what this big yellow box on the back of his truck was for...

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Sew Central

The tailor sits here...

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Threads

No heavy lifting today, as compared to the last two days of PS. Just a view of a tailor's shop I happen to frequent...

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The Royal Road to Writer's Block

I'm worried that something I said in yesterday's Plain Sight might spread bad writing rather than make it easier for people to write well. I'd like to qualify my remark...

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Philosophical Significance of Infinite Value

The Dave Eggers-like title of today's Plain Sight in fact comes from an even more famous writer from a century ago, Marcel Proust, on the subject of writer's block. What does that have to do with photography and today's photo? Nothing, but I happen to be reading "Swann's Way" and came across this funny quote...

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Minus Whistle

A fringe of ice silences this teapot, which clearly could not stand the heat and got out of the kitchen...

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Yule Recall 2

One of the more elaborate late-lingering Christmas displays seen around is this diorama on the Green in Morristown...

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At a Standstill

Freezing temperatures stopped water in its tracks, creating a stalactite at the end of a drainpipe.

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Yule Recall

We've moved on, but not all the decorations have...

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Hangers On

White-collar collars of all colors, a community's collective answer to the question, which shirt today?

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Goodbye to the Zeros

There was very little peace, and what there was of prosperity was deep but obscenely narrow. So we march on, determined to get into shape (see this month's cover story!) for the age of full-body scanners...

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Heat on Demand

Baby, it's cold outside--and inside, too, if you happen to be working on a construction project like the condos on the Green in Morristown. Solution? Pipe in the heat...

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Across Two Rivers

The Hudson and the East. Traversing both and continuing into the Midwood section of Brooklyn (a largely Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, ironically) brings you to one of the most famous pizzerias in New York, Di Fara. A definite schlep, but worth it...

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Ecce Panis

Or, behold the bread! For pizza this good is indeed the staff of life...

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Remember Autumn?

It was only a few weeks ago, around Thanksgiving, when winter still seemed a ways away. The wind hadn't yet turned fierce and ripped the last brittle leaves from the trees. It was still possible to step outside under the mid-day sun in shirtsleeves...

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Unplugged

The TNT Ramblers--an acoustic rock, folk, blues group--played recently, as they do every month, at Toni's Soup Kitchen in Montclair during a Saturday luncheon...

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Wetness

Around the corner from the main shopping street in Chatham, a building's exposed flank spoke of wear wrought by the elements...

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Poof! You're a Malted!

That was the punchline of an old Lenny Bruce routine in which a Genie mans a soda fountain and a customer says, "Make me a malted." Anyway, at this soda fountain it looks like you can safely order a malted without becoming one.

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Venting

The oven at Anthony's Pizza and Pasta on the Green in Morristown can handle eight large pies at once. In other words, it's a biggie. It runs at 550 degrees, and requires some serious ductwork to vent the excess heat...

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Restroom Pastoral

A homespun bit of interior decorating in a men's room painted a buttery sunshine...

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Silent Cacophony

An oxymoron, sure, but this utility truck did bring to mind a kind of white noise or a representational canvas tilting into geometric abstraction...

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Electric Field

At play in the fields of electromagnetism...

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Keep Out

If you're close enough to read this sign...

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On a Pedestal

Your faithful pizza explorer made it to Neptune City, where restaurants instead of a fork should give you a trident. Neptune, of course, is the home of the estimable Pete & Elda's...

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Pie Scout

Doing my due diligence for our upcoming pizza issue, I'm scouting the best pizza joints in the state. Just went to Bayonne on a reader's recommendation to experience the thin crust pie at Venice Restaurant. It was excellent, but so was this little corridor between the bar and the outdoor seating area...

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A Whiff Supreme

At Grissini Restaurant in Englewood Cliffs, a special chef comes in once a week to make several gallons of tomato sauce--the owner, 71-year-old Tony DelGatto. The proof of this particular pudding is in the smelling...

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Spray Day

With a break in the drizzly weather, I was overdue for a trip to the car wash. Then a funny thing happened...

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Steel Pier Atlantic City

In its heyday, the Steel Pier in Atlantic City hosted big bands, movies, acrobats, and throngs of people who flocked to this all-in-one entertainment mecca. more

Botanica Magnifica

Longtime Jersey resident and podiatrist Jonathan Singer rediscovered his love for photography five years ago when he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. more

Wurst Case Scenario

Recently I toured the Thumann's deli plant in Carlstadt for a story for our December issue, whose cover theme is NJ ROOTS: AN ETHNIC PORTRAIT OF THE GARDEN STATE. The Thumanns (whose name, owing to marriage, is now Burke) are one of 12 families profiled in the issue...

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Late For Halloween

This ghost missed the party, and wound up in a doctor's office...

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Fence Faces 3

Looking through a smiling face to the construction materials behind...

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Fence Faces

The chain-link fence around the new luxury condo development on the Green in Morristown is alive with people whose beauty is only skin deep...

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Roll Call

Out with the old at a condo development under construction...

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Halloween Earlybirds 2

This Jersey City brownstone has quite a stoop to conquer tomorrow night...

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Halloween Earlybirds

I took this picture in Jersey City on October 13, and the display had already been up for awhile...

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A Chink in the Armor

Renovations often look worse for a long time before they start to look better...

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Precautions

Don't know why these were hanging up, and my bad for not asking. But they sure introduced a sober note as the tumblers tumbled and the agitators agitated and the people folded their laundry...

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You Lookin' At Me?

Well, yes, I was...

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Mobile Mosaic

Drove by this panel truck the other day, and snapped this picture. Mondrian, eat your heart out...

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When Bumper-to-Bumper

Yesterday's commute was a bear. Traffic bumper to bumper for a mile or more, from 280 to 80 to 287. About a 30-minute delay, most of it spent not moving at all. The only thing to do--for me, anyway--was reach for the camera and roll down a window...

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Step Right Up 2

The front of this shoe repairman's shop was blocked off for reconstruction of the building's facade, so all customers were directed to the back...

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Point and Shoot

Nov. 3–27: See life captured through a Jersey lens at the New Jersey Photography Forum’s fifteenth annual exhibition at the Watchung Arts Center. more

Reading the Rust

Can't quite make out the name of this painting company, but wonder how they got an old mailbox to use? It sure isn't an official one...

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New Car Joy

After almost a year of shopping, dithering, shopping, finding reasons not to buy, shopping some more, flirting with Cash for Clunkers, backing off, brooding, and finally buying (well, leasing), we got a new car last week. Now, in addition to pinching pennies, I am pinching myself...

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Across the Hudson

The Spirit Cruise boats pull in to Chelsea Piers...

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Big Foot

This boot was made for walking, and that's just what it did. It stepped into the concrete, left a mark that can't be hid...

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The Skyway Series 4: Reflections

Where 18-wheel cowboys corral their 10-wheel mounts...

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The Skyway Series 3: Close-Up

Anyone remember Mister Magoo (whose voice was Jim Backus)? Or am I dating myself? The latter, I know. Anyway, this one's for him...

 
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The Skyway Series 2: A River Runs Under It

Just a few hundred yards from the Lincoln Park Driving Range in Jersey City, Duncan Avenue dead ends at the Hackensack River, just above where it and the Passaic River empty into Newark Bay. It's quite a sight...

 
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The Skyway Series: Drivers

I recently met fellow photographer (though he's a pro) and golfer (though he's a low-handicapper) Chris Lane at what may be the funkiest driving range I've ever hit balls at--On Route 440 in Jersey City, with a backdrop no other driving range can claim--the Pulaski Skyway...

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Big Doings

So I was walking down Brackett Street in Portland, Maine, last week, when I stopped to photograph an interesting sandwich of houses...

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Meter Reader Heaven

During the four days I spent in Portland, Maine last week, I noticed that all the electric meters are on the outside of the houses, which in the neighborhood (near Longfellow Square) where I was staying were all small, multi-family dwellings...

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Back From Fishin'

I mean "fishin'" figuratively, in that the only thing I cast was a credit card, but I did eat a lot of seafood during my four days in Maine. If you're up in Kennebunkport...

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Gone Fishin'

Plain Sight will take a breather as I head to Portland, Maine for a family wedding and a few days of R&R. Back Wednesday, Sept. 2. Meanwhile, a few vacationy images...

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Where There's A Wheel...

...there's a way (to make a bad pun). And not even an accurate one, since the theme of this junkyard in Jersey City is old tires, not wheels. For a look at a really big wheel, um, tire, click...

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Still Life Never Sleeps

Behind a bed & breakfast in Great Barrington, Mass., I came across this scene. which went poof about 15 minutes later when a car parked right in front of the sheet of glass...

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So Sue Me

I said Tuesday's group of hot rod pictures would be the last. Well, I lied...

 
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Boy Toys

We bid a fond farewell to the Morristown hot rod rally with these pictures...

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Merc' Melange

When we left Tony Gaglio yesterday, he had sold his beloved 1951 purple Mercury Monarch, missed it so much he asked the buyer to sell it back to him, and had been turned down flat. Now for the rest of the story...

 

 

 

 
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One Man's Merc'

Tony Gaglio loved his 1951 Mercury. Then, in a moment of weakness, he succumbed to a generous offer for the car, and rashly sold it. He went out and bought a 1949 Merc', and he had a lot of work done on it in an attempt to duplicate the feel of his treasured '51. "But I just couldn't get it the way I wanted it," he says. So then...

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Hot Rod Messages

Hot rodders are very touchy about certain things, and about their basic convictions wear their hearts on their sleeves, or rather their windows, spare tire covers, and saddle bags.

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Rumble in Town 2

Details, details. Hot rods are all about the details. Continuing yesterday's coverage of a hot rod rally on the Green in Morristown...

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Warhol's World

Sept 8–Dec 12: The George Segal Gallery at Montclair State University presents the art exhibit “Andy Warhol: Through a Glass Starkly,” which features 103 Polaroid and 50 silver gelatin prints by pop art icon Andy Warhol. more

Rumble in Town

A passel of hot rods, chrome exhaust pipes rumbling, ringed the Morristown Green last week for a show and tell. Plain Sight was there...

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From The Other Side

Over the weekend, Plain Sight looked up at the elevated entrance to a plumbing supply store. As promised, here is the view from the other side...

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One More From Griggstown

Sustainable, shmainable. At the end of the day, or even before, my eye is drawn to what my eye is drawn to. And, yes, I found it at the Griggstown Quail Farm during the Sustenance Events fundraiser for Slow Food New Jersey. My kind of sustenance...

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Field of Dreams

Margaret Noon's Sustenance Events company recenty held a benefit for the New Jersey Slow Food movement at the Griggstown Quail Farm, near Princeton. Prior to an excellent four-course dinner under a white tent in a vast grassy field, the patrons received a tour of the farm and were introduced to some of its feathered inhabitants...

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Stand and Deliver

I don't have a thing for FedEx trucks, but something about this one caught my eye while the driver was making a delivery...

 
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Another Hurt Locker

Kathryn Bigelow's riveting movie, The Hurt Locker, about a U.S. Army bomb squad in Iraq, has the verisimilitude of a documentary. The title is bomb squad slang for the world of pain the soldiers will be in if they fail to "clear" one of the roadside improvised explosive devices they spend their days tracking down and disarming.

Somewhat closer to home, I visited another, much milder kind of hurt locker...

 

 
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No Tick, No Tock

At the center of town, the clock above a bank is beautiful. So what if it doesn't work...

 

 

 

 
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That's Some Banana Ya Got There

Odd to peel the whole banana before taking a bite, especially a trombone of a banana like this one, unless you were going to slice it into cornflakes or something. But whatever works.

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Una Pizza Napoletana 2

Having finished his dough, master pizza chef Antonino Esposito, visiting restaurant A Mano in Ridgewood from Naples, Italy, demonstrated the correct way to turn a bowl full of whole peeled Italian tomatoes (pomodoro) into sauce for his classic Neapolitan-style pizza...

 

 
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Una Pizza Napoletana

Antonino Esposito, a star of the Food Network in Italy and a renowned pizza chef of the style practiced in Naples, gave a demonstration at A Mano in Ridgewood yesterday...

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The Animal Cokedom

On a recent trip to the zoo, the lions and zebras gazed out from soda dispensers--and a young father entertained his baby in a stroller with a green serpent...

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At the Feet of the Founders

George Washington was embroiled in conversation with Alexander Hamilton and the Marquis de Lafayette while at their feet a child of the future was taking notes...

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Dolls or Dessert?

Walking down the street I passed a variety store with an odd juxtaposition in the window...

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Dog Pound

When you're in Union, there is only one place to go for hot dogs--the Galloping Hill Inn. No matter that it isn't really an inn. It looks more like a diner with a big takeout area in the back, which is where the action is.

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Elephants' Graveyard

Where two lumbering old machines go to rust away, unless someone should want to call them out of retirement, the Mets, for example...

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Nutley Pastoral

A side street, a patch of green, and late afternoon sun...

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The Owl Yard

You can find all manner of things here, but first you have to pay your respects to the owl...

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Controlled Chaos

They say you should never look at a restaurant's kitchen if you want to feel good about eating there.

But what about the back of a restaurant?

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See You In September

This space heater on a restaurant patio is just hanging out this summer, not doing any work for the next couple of months as flowers bloom beside it...

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Ask the Oracle

At an auto body shop, this broken construction block seemed to beckon me into its tucked-away temple...

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Circle of Spheres

On an office window sill, a shrine to pastimes...

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Sideways

Oh, the compromising positions you get into working on your car...

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No Pizza For You...

..if you violate these rules.

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Antitecture

I was walking from the parking lot to the office when I noticed, in the middle of the sidewalk, this neat, perfectly round mound with a tiny hole in the middle. It had not been there the day before. Strangely, not an ant in sight...

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Where's Elvis?

Even in the shadows, he catches your eye...

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Cinder Block Gardening

Here's how it's done in Jersey City...

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Foiled Again

Ever wonder what Santa's elves do in the off-season?

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For Sale Sale Sale!

Where these signs of the times go when the market is slow?

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Fill-'Er-Up Millinery

We pulled into this unpromising station for a tank of gas, and while it was pumping, my wife found three stylish straw sunhats inside...

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O Say Can You See City Hall?

From this vantage point a block away, with an interestingly cordoned motorcycle in the foreground, yes you can...

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The Gate

Through these portals pass people hungry for Mexican food...

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I Pledge Allegiance To The Lunch...

At a newly renovated car wash in Verona, this tableau of American values...

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What's With Roscoe

My cat is so old, in people years, that he should be playing pinochle in Miami Beach. Here is what the vet said is ailing him...

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Guy Walks Into A Bar...

Okay, that kind of joke probably was not what this youngster was telling. But just after school in downtown Jersey City, she held her audience rapt for at least a minute after this picture was taken...

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Porcines of the Times

At this pig roast, they served some mighty fine swine, making hogs of us all...

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Souls Have Shapes

I have a series of pictures I call "Souls Have Shapes." The title comes from the first stanza of a poem, "My Sisters," by Stanley Kunitz:

Who whispered, souls have shapes?/ So does the wind, I say./ But I don't know,/ I only feel things blow.

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"First I Look At The Purse"

Most of you are too young to remember this song by the J. Geils Band, but it was a hit when I was in college in Boston, which is where the band is from. I hadn't thought of the song or the band until just now, when I sat down to post today's Plain Sight picture...

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Keg Lift

Anyone recruiting for the U.S. Olympic weightlifting team might want to track this fellow down...

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Still Life Never Sleeps

All of us see things every day that we take for granted will look exactly the same tomorrow. But as I like to say, still life never sleeps.

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The Case of the Illuminated Pastries

Sometimes I just like to stare at the evidence...

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Son Rise

My wife and I are heading to Connecticut this weekend to watch our son, Michael, graduate from Wesleyan on Sunday. I am taking off in another sense, too. Michael spent a few days on Cape Cod with friends recently, and he emailed me this photograph he took in an alley near where they were staying. Check it out. The kid's got an eye, and a sensibility.

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Here Comes The Sun

Until yesterday and today, spring looked and felt a lot like what you see here. Click below to see full picture...

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What is it About Backhoes?

Maybe it's a vestige of boyhood, but I'm a sucker for a backhoe, with its digging tools fore and aft and its cockpit full of levers. And especially so when juxtaposed against something interesting, as here...

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I'm So Vein 3

I don't know about you, but I feel better knowing the person drawing my blood is wearing a latex-free, powder-free, ambidextrous, Med Pride vinyl examination glove and has a little play sunflower attached to her station.

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I'm So Vein 2

One thing I like about blood tests--probably the only thing--is the colorful paraphernalia, especially the specimen vials with their color-coded caps and mysterious preservative gel at the round end...

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I'm So Vein 1

Awaiting the tourniquet and needle for a blood test, I did what anyone with a camera would do--look for pictures.

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Dog(wood) Days

Catch 'em while you can. The dogwood blossoms will be on the ground before you can bark up the wrong tree.

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Green Day

A vacant storefront gets a makeover, here in the early stages of the process...

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The Light At the Top of the Stairs

In the lobby of a busy hotel, a dark ascent to a landing in the sun...

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Season's Greetings!

Santa has his sleigh, landscapers have their trailers. It seems, now that it's May, the landscapers make as many stops as Santa does on Christmas Eve. Except reindeer don't create a racket like edgers, leaf blowers, shredders and riding mowers do.

Come to think of it, do reindeer make any noise at all? They would probably trim the grass free of charge, and the way the temperature has been, it's not too warm for them.

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Like Water For Decaf

At Steel Pier in Atlantic City, a vendor dispenses Boardwalk vittles...

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Street Shoes

Why risk spilling soup on a beautiful pair of boots? Instead, they rest atop a locker in a  restaurant's back room until the employee's shift ends.

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Side Door in the Sun

Late afternoon sun does something even for entrances not ready for their closeup...

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George's Place

If on the inside it looks like a diner, serves like a diner, charges like a diner and satisfies like a diner, but occupies just part of a plain brick building on a street corner in Cape May, it is a diner, and a darn good one at that.

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Sunscreen, No Schmutz

Before there was SPF, there were these...

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The West-Facing Shore

There's more to the peninsula that is Cape May County than the Wildwoods and Cape May. Drive northwest from Cape May and you find yourself among the towns facing the Delaware Bay...

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The Tilt-A-Whirl Series 7

And so we come to the end of our series on the pre-season amusement park, shot at Morey's Piers in Wildwood. We close with one of the most iconic of all rides...

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The Tilt-A-Whirl Series 6

Through these portals at Morey's Piers pass Curly Fries, made with fresh potatoes. In the heat of midsummer, the aroma alone is worth the trip.

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The Tilt-A-Whirl Series 5

I loved these as a little kid, but even then it irked me that no matter what I did with the steering wheel the car continued to move mulishly in the same plodding circle.

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The Tilt-A-Whirl Series 4

What goes up must come down, whether it's the roller coaster or the metal weight that, if you're strong enough, rings the bell when you slam the sledgehammer down.

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The Tilt-A-Whirl Series 3

Step right up and buy a ticket to ride...once Morey's Piers opens for the season, that is.

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The Tilt-A-Whirl Series 2

Morey's Piers in Wildwood, before the season opens--silent, still, pristine...

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The Tilt-A-Whirl Series

Stillness is even more still in a place that is the antithesis of still--an amusement park.

Here the first in a series of pictures taken walking around Morey's Piers in Wildwood before it opens for the season.

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Spring Cleaning

Ah, the robin's chirp, the daffodil's bloom, the leaf blower's ceaseless whine. A sure sign of spring is the return of landscapers' trucks to suburban neighborhoods, gathering up winter's flotsam and jetsam...

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The Stair Series 3

In today's resonant finale, we look back at the stairwell and all the neatly hung household cleaning implements it contains, each a tiny soul awaiting its moment in the schmutz...

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The Stair Series 2

In today's exciting episode, we reach the top of the stairs and look back...

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The Stair Series

Friends in Long Branch have just moved into their first home—a beautifui and cozy one in Craftsman style. One of my favorite parts of the house is the back stairs from the basement to the kitchen.

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Seniority

Assisted living and better nursing homes make these the good old days for many elderly Jerseyans...

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Conehead

Sometimes I just can't resist traffic cones, especially errant ones. I cropped them out of this thumbnail, so you'll just have to click to the full picture to see them.

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Out, Damn Wrinkle

In the laundry room of a home in Long Branch, this tableau brought to mind an ocean liner and its escorts, a sovereign and its retainers...

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Rinse, Please

A day at the dentist. Sip, swirl, spit. Ptooey in pink...

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The New Hanging Out

Vacant stores are an unfortunate sign of the times as unemployment hits a scary 8.2% in New Jersey...

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At the Dentist

Excessive cuteness makes my teeth hurt, but in this case my tooth already hurt for another reason, and I found the tableau in the dentist's examining room amusing.

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Pickup Lines

I keep my camera on the passenger seat of my car just in case I see something at a red light. I often do.

Pictures that require shooting out the driver's window are the easiest. Shooting through the windshield is trickier. Hardest is shooting through the passenger window, as here...

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Building Blocks

Rarely does a building look as made from the kind of blocks I used to play with as a kid as this one does...

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Salute the Sun

Yesterday's late afternoon sun begged to be beheld and basked in, and on St. Patrick's Day what better place than by a bright green door?

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Carflections

I drove by the body shop to see about getting my 20-year-old BMW repainted, but they were closed. No problem, I had my 40D with me...

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Yanks For The Memories

It served me well for half a century, but when it comes to sore molars, the squeaky wheel doesn't get the grease, it gets the hook...

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The Wash Cycle 10: Finale

Plain Sight's ten-photograph series on a trip through the car wash concludes with a lone figure waiting for her vehicle...

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The Wash Cycle 9

All good things come to an end, including the drag line at the car wash...

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The Wash Cycle 8

Having your car washed is an old-fashioned pleasure in at least two ways: it's a mechanical process (you can actually watch what's happening step-by-step, as opposed to the invisibility, the inscutability of digital), and it requires manual labor by human beings at the beginning and end of the process. For example, the initial drying...

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The Wash Cycle 7

I originally promised six Wash Cycle pictures, but hey, I seem to be on a roll, so it's on to bonus time.

In today's Plain Sight, midway through the tunnel of scrub at Palace Car Wash in Montclair, we encounter...the dancing sponges!

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The Wash Cycle 6

One of the pleasures of having your car washed is that the process has a distinct beginning, middle and end, like life itself. Watching your car inch through that tunnel of scrub, with its fulsome sprays and blinking lights, and emerge in the sunshine dripping as from a baptism, is to participate in a kind of secular born-again ritual.

Click to see whole picture...

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We Interrupt This Program...

,,,to bring you a snowstorm. We'll get back to The Wash Cycle 5 when cars start lining up outside car washes again.

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The Wash Cycle 4

Today we move from clothing to cars. First, the residue of brisk business paints the pavement.

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The Wash Cycle 3

Village Laundry in Upper Montclair has some serious hangups.

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The Wash Cycle 2

Who says a laundromat can't venture into the deep waters of interior decoration?

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The Wash Cycle 1

The entrance to Village Laundry in Upper Montclair, seen from within, begins Plain Sight's six-part series on two very different sudsing spots.

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Public/Private Partnership

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner has his version, which has been criticized as vague, and so does this Montclair hardware store. Its version is not vague so much as contradictory.

click next line to see full picture...

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Pleasures of the Porch

Be it ever so humble, a table and chairs on the front porch is still pretty inviting.

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Two's a Shroud

Was Christo in Morristown last week?

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Meeting of Leaders

It was a rush to the bottom as two leaders met behind the Saunders Hardware Store in Upper Montclair.

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My Top Doc

My aches and pains are nothing compared to those this man unkinks in my 20-year-old BMW, whose 189,000 miles dwarf even the large number of annums on my odometer.

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The Tunnel of Scrub

On a sunny winter day you can see slush-spattered vehicles lining up halfway down the block to be vaccumed, hosed, blow-dried and buffed. No coins please. Leave a greenback in the old-fashioned mail box strategically placed within reach as you step out the exit and head toward your still-dripping mount.

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Totally Tubular

Johnny's in the basement, mixing up the medicine...Today's picture (the whole image, not the thumbnail here) reminds me of that line from Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues." It wasn't the basement or the same kind of medicine, but it was strong stuff.

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Snowscape With Blacktop

Just a random piece of road near Chatham, but with snow falling and the branches sheathed in crystal kind of beautiful.

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Snowscape With High Tension

Two squat brick buildings inject autumnal color into a gray-and-white scene behind locked chain-link gates.

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Snowscape With Listings

The Magley real estate office in Chatham, and its brethren in the background, inject blocks of color into a gray and white world.

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Fence The Dishes

Another day, another TV interview promoting our February "Recession Pricing" restaurant issue. Evidently it takes someone with a ladder to do the dishes at WMBC-TV in West Caldwell.

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Spool Days

They don't call it cable TV for nothing.

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Many Hands At Work

No excuse for tardiness here...

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Three-Legged Eye

I've been making the rounds of television stations lately, talking about our February Dining issue. This was the studio at Time Warner Cable in Palisades Park.

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It's Showtime

The view from inside a storage closet at the Pierro Gallery in South Orange. What was I doing in a storage closet at the Pierro Gallery in South Orange? You'll have to click to find out.

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In the Wilderness

In what untrammeled part of the state was this snowy landscape photographed?

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Where We Watched the Inaug

The NJM editorial staff convened at the Grasshopper off the Green pub, just down the block from our Morristown offices, to witness history and eat lunch.

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How To Stay Warm Outdoors

In Meadowland Park in South Orange, a lone spot of green keeps the hardy happy.

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They Made Their Bed

If you're like me, you never walk past a pickup truck without taking a peek at what's in the bed. You see some  interesting things that way.

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Slideshow: Amsterdam Outdoor Market

What I did on my winter vacation--browsed the big open-air Albert Cuypmarkt in Amsterdam. That would be well east of the Holland Tunnel...in Holland, where this Jersey Boy felt right at home

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Spotted in Amsterdam: Mickey Mouse

Just back from a week's vacation in Amsterdam, where I found one ageless American icon ringing a Dutch bell.

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Slideshow: A Glimpse, A Glance, Now Plain Sight is in Long Pants

Plain Sight, a Jersey Photo Blog, first blinked its eye at the world on Wed, Apr 23.

To celebrate its first calendar year--and the fact that I am on vacation until Monday, January 12--here is a slideshow of some of my favorite images, drawn from the more than 200 pictures I posted in 2008.

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Night Shoot

The scene on Myrtle Avenue in Montclair late during a recent filming of a commercial at one of the gracious old homes where production companies like to shoot commercials and the residents are paid very well and everything is put back together afterward better than it ever was beforehand. Sweet deal.

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Pump Me Up

Last week, before the snow melted, I came across this pickup truck parked in front of one of Morristown's vintage homes. The truck itself, or the gas pumping apparatus on it, was itself kind of vintage.

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28-Candle Salute

The gang's all here. Now, can we get 56 eyelids open at the same time, with 28 eyeballs looking into the lens?

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It Maccabees That Way

How to photograph 28 people in one living room at my family's annual Hanukah party.

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The Two Faces of Waldwick High School

Through this door pass students in thrall to the classical masks.

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Come Here Often?

Actress Amanda Bynes has a hang up in the Waldwick High School cafeteria.

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Impaneled

Walking along Glenridge Avenue in Montclair, I stopped to enjoy the geometry of storefronts.

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Undeveloped Country

It's rare to see a vacant lot in the thickly settled northern suburbs anymore. When you do see one, the contrast between something and nothing is striking.

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Trailer Park

Yes, right in downtown Montclair, outside the Wellmont Theater. Residents are peeved that the trailers eat up parking spaces, and they have a case. But from a photographer's point of view, the trailers are kind of cool.

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I Dig A Dozer

In this age of personal pan pizzas,  personal digital assistants and Smart Cars barely bigger than a suitcase, the mini-bulldozer has become a construction site mascot.

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Decoding Chaos

Though the Wellmont Theater in Montclair has been open more than a month, renovation mop-up remains.

I'm glad I happened by before the clean-up, because the search for order in disorder is one of photography's great pleasures.

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Last Unfallen Leaf

At a lonely table for one, late at a wedding in Long Branch, burning the candle literally at one end, figuratively at both.

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Truck Stop

Talk about a windshield filler. Such is the view from the driver's seat as I sat behind a dump truck at a red light in West Orange.

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PODScasting

I've seen them in driveways, but I didn't know quite how those Portable On Demand Storage bins were dropped off and picked up until I found myself behind a PODS truck at a traffic light in Morristown.

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Who Cleans Up The Confetti?

Is it fair to shower a man with congratulatory confetti when he is the one who has to clean it up?

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Dreaming of England

What's a nice boy from New Jersey doing dreaming of England at the end of Thanksgiving weekend?

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Fish Tails

String and a hook make the last roundup for a passel of bacalao at Corrado's in Clifton.

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Just Because You're Not a Turkey...

...doesn't mean you're safe on Thanksgiving. Especially at Corrado's in Clifton.

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That Empty Feeling

After the chafing dishes have been swept away, the wedding cake has been cut and the crowd has migrated to the dance floor, leave it to Mr. Lugubrious to find an altar of conjugal emptiness.

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A Chorus Line

A wedding in Long Branch brings to mind John Updike's wonderful brief essay, "Women Dancing."

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Wall in the Windshield

A Morristown alley, a brick-and-mortar relic and a new automobile -- perfect together.

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After Hours

An auto repair shop takes on a Raymond Chandler aura under glancing headlights.

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The Stride of Pride

The royal road to the unconscious? Not quite, but a certain old-fashioned dignity, middle-class grandeur, Hollywood's red carpet transposed to a minor key on a quiet side street in Montclair...

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V

The haphazard leftovers of urban planning, or the lack of it. But at least it's green.

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NJ Pet Photo Contest

New Jersey is pet crazy...and we have photographic proof to corroborate that claim. more

More From the Doctor's Office

Strange things you see while waiting in the examining room.

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The Dummy Doc

I don't mean this cute little kid, and I'm not casting aspersions on our praiseworthy Top Docs, either. But click and I think you will agree with my characterization.

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Yella Lennuf

It may seem I'm speaking in tongues, but sadly  I'm simply succumbing to sophomoric silliness (and my.soft spot for same starting sounds, aka alliteration).

Yesterday's plain sight was Funnel Alley. Reverse that and you have today's Plain Sight.

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Funnel Alley

How many shapes do alleys come in? Has there ever been one exactly like this?

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Fallen Wicker

A moment of silence for a piece of summer furniture--dashed, wet and alone, out of sorts and out of season. I'm getting misty-eyed. Or is that the rain?

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Looking Inside Out

If the sign looks like this, you haven't lost, you've won. Buon appetito!

click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture.

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Tent Show

Metal-framed, arch-shaped storage tents are becoming more common, but to me there is still something exotic and mysterious about them. They have an almost Christo meets Joe Sixpack quality.

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture.

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Prayers Are With You

On the bulletin board, behind a coat rack, at a company in Cedar Knolls, Morris County.

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture.

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I Could Have Kicked Myself...

for leaving my camera at home during a quick stop at my mechanic's place in Caldwell to drop off my car. All I had with me was my brand new iPhone.

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture.

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In the Valley of the Alley

Some pictures I take I know why I like. Some I can only hazard a guess. This is one of those.

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture.

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Dept. of Deja Vu: Station Identification

I was interviewed at a New Jersey radio station earlier this month, and it brought back memories of my days (make that nights, late nights) hosting a jazz show on WBUR-FM, the Boston University NPR affiliate, when I was in college.

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture.

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Farmers' Markets Winding Down

Some have already folded their canopies for the season, others will end the last weekend of this month. But a few continue into November. And at least two go year 'round.

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Whole Picnic Island

An oasis in a parking lot, a place to sit and eat and watch the ivy twine.

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture.

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The Wire

The TV series had drama and suspense. This wire has mystery.

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Slideshow: Have You Ever Wondered...

...What the back of a garden center looks like?

Neither have I.

That is, until I accidentally wandered into one....

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It's Getting Pretty Orange Out There

Soon every front porch will have its own organic gargoyle sporting the only gap-toothed grins that don't need orthodonture.

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Vacation Slideshow: On the Dock of the Bay

15,000 pounds of porgies, fresh out of Casco Bay, off Portland, Maine, are trucked to a warehouse on Custom House Wharf in Portland, where they will become lobster bait--and seagull supper.

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture and begin slideshow.

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Read Any Good Tank Trucks Lately?

Rush hour traffic jams on I-287 are good for at least one thing...

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture.

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Sundown at Sickles

My wife and I pulled into the parking lot of Sickles Market in Little Silver 15 minutes before it closed on Sunday evening.

In July, NJM wrote about the 100th anniversary of this immaculate, family-run farm, food market and plant nursery (click here to read the story). Now at last was my chance to see it. But as we pulled into a parking spot, the descending sun announced a 15-minute special of its own.

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture.

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The Seamstress's Cubby

Across the street from Holsten's, where Tony Soprano went for his last double dip, stands a sunny corner storefront where I take my dry cleaning and have pants taken in or let out, depending on how many Holsten's visits I've recently racked up or been able to resist..

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture...

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Legalized Gamboling: At Play on the Geo Jungle Gym

Pushing past the shrubs, we emerged on the rocks of Trundy Point, overlooking Casco Bay, just south of Portland, Maine.

Fond as I am of the Jersey Shore, I had to admit, "We're not in the Garden State anymore."

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The Geological Jungle Gym

Leaving the road, we crossed a bit of sandy beach and climbed a rocky outcrop thickly covered with wild berry bushes and shrubbery. A narrow path led toward a break in the bushes, beyond which Casco Bay spread to the ocean under a dramatic sky.

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture...

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A Dead End to Die For

Plain Sight is back in the enveloping embrace, or clutches, of home. As promised, or warned, a few  visual mementoes of my trip to Portland, Maine...

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture...

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Jersey in My Rearview Mirror

Plain Sight is on vacation, 340 miles from New Jersey, in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture...

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Outbound!

Plain Sight is loading the big rig for a small trip.

Actually, it will be a small rig, but a big trip.

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture...

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Tilt-a-Whirl at Rest

A secular altar tilted at the sun...

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture

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Carnival Lights

Incandescent bulbs in the sunlight, a milky way of the midway...

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture

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The Reflected

Yesterday, Plain Sight looked into the mirror-smooth surface of a concert tour bus parked in Morristown. Today, what I saw when I aimed the camera in the other direction.

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture...

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Mirror Images

The side of this concert tour bus reflected its mirror reflecting the sky and a few down to Earth things as well.

Click "Read the rest of this post" to see full picture.

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Come Closer...And Closer...And Closer.

I was walking to my car in a parking lot on Church Street in Montclair. I have parked in this lot hundreds of times, but each time I look at the same white brick wall to see how the light is hitting it and whether something, in some way, is new.

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture.

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Wearing His Heart On His Wrist

The sun was low in the sky when I pulled into Hot Dog Johnny's, the roadfood landmark on Route 46 in Buttzville, a few miles east of the Delaware River in Warren County.

The sun cast an orange glow over the green and orange awning, the several Harleys in the parking lot and the forearm of the young man in the passenger seat of the car next to mine.

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture.

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Cute! / Borrrring!

It depends on which side of the point-and-shoot you're on.

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture.

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Girl Talk

On a bench on the promenade at Pier Village in Long Branch, a mother and daughter had a heart-to-heart while the menfolk did what menfolk do, at least if you ask the women.

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture...

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The Palms of Pier Village

As seasonal as the weekenders who bask beneath them, palm trees on the Jersey Shore have to be replanted each summer, just ahead of the snowbirds who follow them north.

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture...

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Say "Cheese Sandwich!"

My stroll up the Long Branch boardwalk next brought me to a bench where a young woman in a funny hat was taking pictures of her husband and twin boys as they munched on floppy white bread sandwiches. Clouds had covered the sun, but their radiance was undimmed.

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture...

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Two Thumbs Up

As I passed the refreshment stand (see yesterday's Plain Sight) and continued my stroll up the Long Branch boardwalk, a boy ran after me, waving a white piece of paper...

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture...

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Pretzel Logic

Justine Pecora, a sophomore at Caldwell College, has spent the summer selling soft pretzels and ice cream and drinks and candy to people on the Long Branch boardwalk. It's a hard job, but there are compensations...

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture...

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Bench Warmed

Sleep on a park bench, even at high noon, and a cop is likely to tap you on the shoulder and tell you to move on.

Do the same thing on the boardwalk and you are left to your sweet dreams...

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture.

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Keeper of the Kiosk

You feel you will mess with the dude's vibe if you ask him to okay your beach badge.

Skateboarders get in free if they can grind the handrail alongside the stairs to the beach.

Click "read the rest of this post" to see full picture.

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Brooding on the Boardwalk

While this fellow took the measure of the waves, two young women stood on the boardwalk, lost in thought.

Click below to see full picture.

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Beachless

And nearly wordless.

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Party With Plain Sight!

Join me tonight, Sat Aug 9, between 5 and 10 pm, for the opening reception of the new photography exhibit at Andy Foster's Gallery 51 in Montclair.

I'm in the show along with five other photographers, all interesting and accomplished.

Thank you gift for anyone who mentions PLAIN SIGHT....

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Cyclops, or, View From A Dental Chair 2

Once the hygienist lowers you to the horizontal, there is not much to look at other than the dental hygienist herself (very rude) or the dental light shining above your head....

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Butterflies Are Free, or, View From A Dental Chair

When I say I take my camera everywhere, I mean everywhere, even to the dentist's office.

You have a lot of time of your hands when the hygienist goes to process the digital x-rays. But if those hands are holding a camera...

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Twyla Tarp

After the wind and rain, the snake dance in Montclair...

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It's Tarp Time!

For me, tarps are all the same yet all different.

This one involves a construction site in Morristown. Construction sites have fascinated me since I was a boy.

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Tale of the Tarp

Somewhere around the turn of the millenium the blue polyethylene tarp became the universal symbol of suburban exterior home improvement. Now every house painter is a pocket Christo.

It's fine by me. I like my McMansions wrapped.

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Doo-Wop Doggy and Jean Harlow

Yesterday's Plain Sight left off with a question:

What does the dancing frankfurter Doo-Wop Doggy have in common with the original "Blonde Bombshell," Jean Harlow?

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You Ain't Nuthin But a Hot Dog

No sequins on his buns, but this dude was definitely rockin' , even if it was one of the wurst Elvis impersonations ever.

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"Can I help you?" 3

At last it can be told--or, rather, it has to be, because I promised no more digressions.

Back on Thursday, I was taking pictures of an interesting truck in a parking lot in Morristown when I heard a stern voice say, "Can I Help You?"

Here, finally, is what happened next...

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"Can I help you?" 2

Yesterday's post was about taking pictures of an interesting truck in Morristown and being halted by the words, "Can I help you?"

That led to a digression about a similar but darker tale--from Jersey City in the early 1980's--of photographing what I realized too late was a Mob hangout. The post grew too long to return to the Morristown incident.

So now, to borrow a phrase from Paul Harvey, a broadcaster whose voice could dramatize the peeling of a banana, here is "The rest of the story..."

WARNING: This post includes a photograph that almost got me arrested.

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"Can I help you?"

As a guy who takes pictures wherever he goes--which is to say not on assignment and not by invitation, though also not by trespassing--I hear these words from time to time.

"Can I help you?" is, of course, a polite way of saying, "Who the hell do you think you are taking pictures of my [fill in the blank]?"

I heard them again this morning.

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Ploch's Pelted Petals

A hard rain is gonna fall, said the weather forecast. And it did. At Ploch's Garden Center in Clifton, the flowers took it on the chin.

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Did Defendant Stick His Nose In It?

Hot night. Where is it cool?

In a diner on Broad Avenue in Palisades Park.

Where is it cooler?

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Bye-Bye Balthazar

Much of what you are about to see are known in baking as "laminated pastries."

Sounds like something you would break a tooth on but could leave out in the rain for weeks.

The truth, in this case, may not set you free, but it will melt in your mouth.

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Au Hasard Balthazar

Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) is the story of a donkey.

It is one of the most sad and strangely beautiful movies I have ever seen. It was written and directed by the French filmmaker Robert Bresson, who Roger Ebert once called "a saint of the cinema."

I love all Bresson's movies, but Balthazar may be my favorite. (It's on Netflix.)

The movie has nothing to do with Balthazar Bakery, Plain Sight's tour of which continues today. But it gives me a rare excuse to mention this haunting movie filled with tenderness and cruelty and the unforgettable sound of one forlorn donkey (named Balthazar) braying.

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A Visit to Balthazar Bakery

Whenever I am in Englewood, or just passing by on Route 4, if I can steal a few moments I try to stop at Balthazar on South Dean Street. There you will find both retail shop and the facility (visible through the glass walls of the retail shop) where all their superlative breads, breakfast pastries, and desserts are baked.

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Summer: Half Over?

Tonight is baseball's All-Star Game, signalling the halfway point of the season. When you see store signs like this one, does it mean that summer is half over?

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When "Still Life" Isn't

Many of the pictures I've taken over the years are of things that don't move. Landscapes or still lifes. But they do change. Sometimes overnight.

Friday's Plain Sight picture was a case in point.

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The Spot at Lot 10J

I park my car in the same Morristown municipal parking lot--10J--every day, and usually in the same spot.

But when I left work and arrived at my car at--just a sec, I'll look up the EXIF information--exactly 6:48:22 p.m., it didn't look the way it usually does.

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Wet Screws

Lots of places are fun to traipse around after a storm. Parks are great, especially when it's foggy. Playgrounds can be magical.

But one of my favorites is construction sites.

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Tears, Petals, and the P.D.R.

In a doctor's examining room in Hackensack yesterday, this hierarchy of objects, on a counter top, isolated from everything else...

 

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Food Events

"Journey to Tuscany," an exhibit of recent photos by Highland Park artist Mark Chernin, will open at The Heldrich Hotel in New Brunswick this Friday from 6 to 8 pm.

Would this be Table Hopping if there were only visuals, no victuals?

Not on your life!

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Souvenirs of Little Rhody

On the Fifth of July, we drove up to Rhode Island to visit my mom. Drove home the same night.

But wherever you go, there you are.

Put another way, photography is both discovery and recognition.

A few pictures I brought back from my trip...

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Strange Doings in Rhode Island

Yes, it's true. New Jersey Monthly editors occasionally leave the state, but only when absolutely necessary--in my case, Fourth of July weekend--and only after mounting flashing neon signs on our cars reading, "New Jersey and You: Perfect Together!" or "Have you eaten a Jersey tomato lately?"

See what a stir that caused outside Warwick, Rhode Island.

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Long May It Reflect Our Values

What could be more American than "We deliver"?

Only what surrounds it in this picture.

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Long May It Wash

On this Independence Day, as every day, the Stars and Stripes may turn up anywhere, even in nooks and crannies.

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Long May It Drape Us

It's flag week at Plain Sight. Three days to the Fourth.

This flag nearly made me shudder when I saw it.

 

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Long May It Wave

It wasn't waving as I passed by the other day, at the intersection of Bloomfield Avenue, Fairfield Avenue, and Clinton Road in Caldwell. The air was so calm and humid, the flag wasn't even wavering.

But it will, and soon enough to remind us the fourth arrives in four days.

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Hello, Tow Dolly

Standing in front of something with a camera in your hands is no time to rationalize why you are drawn to it.

That can come later, when you decide whether the picture worked--that is, whether it transfers to two dimensions something of what you experienced in three (plus time.)

But that still doesn't explain why you were drawn to it.

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Still Life With Snapple

Just off Bergenline Avenue in Union City, the sun startled me, pushing forward this assemblage of discarded objects against a backdrop of unexpected swimming pool colors.

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In the D.D. E.R.

Standing today in a spotless room stocked with vital fluids and equipment for delivering them, I had a flashback.

Just five and a half weeks ago, I spent several hours in a strangely similar room, having essential fluids dripped into my body from plastic packs hung from prongs on metal poles just like you see here.

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Car Corral

It may not be the last roundup, but it does feel like the last for the day.

Git along little downtown Montclair dogies.

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Loopholes

Red light. Montclair.

Construction curtains looming like a hull with cockeyed portholes.

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They Paved Paradise, But It's Still Paradise

I've always loved the tiny backyards of Shore houses---just big enough for a picnic table with an umbrella, a charcoal grill and a clothesline you have to duck under.

But even more tranquil to me are the paved spaces between the houses..

 

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Summit Sundown So Long

I was thinking it was time to head home when the streetlights came on. And then the yellow lights in the brick building.

I took the hint.

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Summit Sundown Spirit

It was beginning to get dark. Something flickering like a cartoon caught my eye from the corner of a demolished room. It sucked in the last bit of sun, glinting above the cathedral on the west side of the demolition site.

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Summit Sundown Still

Walking around the site, I came to a kind of loading dock.

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More Summit Sundown

Not all parts of the Summit site are being demolished. Some are just undergoing a late spring cleaning.

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Summit Sundown 2

Last week I previewed a visit to an institutional site in Summit where an old wing of a building is being torn down. The question then and now is, can you identify the site?

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Roscoe: Up Close And Personal

Unofficial staff mascot and summer intern Roscoe J. Cat is ready for his close up. Keep an eye peeled for him over the next couple of weeks in Editor's Picks.

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Turn Around For Salami

Hard job selling insurance ten feet off the ground, day after day.

Aside from the stiff neck, the poor creature can't even turn around to locate the source of that powerful aroma of salami just 20 yards behind him on Branford Place in Newark.

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Operation Salami Drop Update

As the New Jersey National Guard gears up for its biggest foreign deployment since World War II, Hobby's Deli in Newark is gearing up to support them. You can help.

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Click For Full Pic

Most thumbnails, unlike the one at left, show you the complete picture, except smaller.

The daily Plain Sight thumbnail is different. It's always a detail cropped from the full picture. Today's thumbnail represents only about two or three percent of the entire picture.

To see the whole thing, click below.

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Running on Empty

Eastern Oil on Bloomfield Avenue in Montclair is known for its low prices and its discounts for cash. Cars are always maneuvering around each other like baby water buffalo to sidle up to  the mama pumps.

But yesterday morning, only four of Eastern's twelve nozzles had any gas to give.

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Where Cooler Heads Prevail

Three days of temperatures in and above the 90's--with one more to go, today.

Brutal.

Where to escape the down-pounding heat?

Down the Shore.

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Find Roscoe

Hybrid cars are all the rage, so why not try a different kind of hybrid, one combining photographs and the spirit of two popular children's books? Namely....

The Where's Waldo? series by Martin Handford (which you don't have to be a child to enjoy) and The Everywhere Cat, a 1970 classic by William Corbin and Consuelo Joems.

In coming weeks look for Roscoe J. Cat here in Plain Sight and also on the right side of this page, in Editor's Picks. Can you find him today?

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Lucy in the Skyway With Diamonds

Was it something in the water at the Skyway Diner? Nope.

Did the glaring sun cause a flashback to late Beatles songs? (Before it became associated with heartburn, didn't acid-reflux mean a psychedlic flashback you felt in your gut? Maybe the transformation of the term is Janis Joplin's fault, for singing "take another little piece of my heart.")

No, I'm afraid the answer is I just went a little goofy.

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Under The Skyway 3

Today we move indoors again, from the shelter of the black steel Pulaski Skyway to the, well, um, men's room of the Skyway Diner.

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Under The Skyway 2

For some reason, this photograph makes me think of what Humphrey Bogart said to Ingrid Bergman in the last scene of Casablanca:

"It doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.''

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Under The Skyway

Like the Boardwalk, with its miles of herringbone wooden beams, the Pulaski Skyway, connecting Newark and Jersey City, offers seclusion and mystery under its miles of steel beams and concrete pillars.

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The Wet Gourmet

Went for a haircut Saturday in Montclair.

Rain pelting the patio beyond the salon, but by the time I emerged so had the sun.

One wet magazine, though.

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After the Rain

The clouds parted and the sun rained down on puddles.

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Passing Through

Driving along First Street in Newark yesterday,

returning from a doctor's appointment,

came to a red light.

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More Pickup Lines

"In A Mellotone," a great 1939 Ellington tune, is also what I'm striving for today, on doctor's orders.

So without further ado, let's return to the subject this blog began with back in March.

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Last Medical Post. For Now.

In 2005, my father, Mel Levin, who was suffering from Alzheimer's, fell while walking with my mother, Roz, in their West Orange neighborhood.

He was not seriously injured, but he spent the next several days in confusion and pain in a room in St. Barnabus Hospital in Livingston.

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"I'd be Equally as Willing For a Dentist to be Drilling...

...than to ever let a woman in my life!" I first heard that hilariously mysogynistic song from My Fair Lady when I was about eight and my parents brought home the soundtrack recording from the Broadway theater.

That minds could joke about going to the dentist only confirmed my sense that life was full of temptations and pitfalls I could barely imagine. Back then, shadows on my bedroom wall--let alone knowing I had a dentist's appointment the next day--could keep me awake for hours.

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Grounded For The Holiday

I made it through the first five days after my freak accident fairly well. I had what my doctors called a  "minor concussion," meaning I could expect several days or more of headaches and sleeplessness. Well, nothing unusual about that!

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In the Examining Room

I was in my doctor's office in Springfield, shirt off, waiting for a checkup, when I realized I was not alone.

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Self-Portrait With Root Canal

It's been a medical week, and car accidents offer few laughs.

So let's look at something really funny, like root canal.

Not from the patient's point of view, though nitrous oxide, novocaine and favorite CDs on the headphones do help.

But how does the endodontist keep a straight face?

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Could Have Been Worse

"Paula" posted a question about whether I am still on speaking terms with my next-door neighbor, who backed into me with his SUV while I was mowing my lawn on Sunday, sending me to the hospital in an ambulance with my neck in a brace.

How this freak accident happened I attempted to describe in Tuesday and Wednesday's Plain Sight.

The answer to Paula's question is...

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On Trauma Bay 3

Luck is when you have been struck by a car backing down a driveway (see yesterday's post), suffered a mild concussion, a hairline skull fracture, various contusions and abrasions, and yet are not in such terrible shape that you can't look at your surroundings with interest.

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Near Death, But Not Too

No, this picture is not upside down. But if you are lying on your back on a gurney in a Level 1 Trauma Center, and your neck is in a brace, as mine was, about all you can do is tilt the camera up and backwards.

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For a Limited Time Only...

...it's rhubarb season.

Strawberries have their place, but their place is not with rhubarb.

I won't call it culinary cowardice, but the knee jerk reflex to dumb down the unique and refreshing tang of rhubarb, one of spring's greatest gifts, by combining it with strawberries turned to mush abuses both 'barb and berry.

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Can't Explain

Why do I have this thing about trucks? Not all trucks, just ones that for some reason arrest my attention. Like this one down the Shore, that I followed for a block or two until I could get close enough to take a picture.

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Sure Beats Winter

Yes, May has been cool and rainy, with just a few gorgeous days, but we must keep things in perspective.

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Tusk, Tusk

In a Morristown parking lot, an SUV sprouts fangs and sings, "I Am The Walrus."

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In a Pig's Eye

It's a little unnerving to be stared at by the creature that will provide your dinner...

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Car Wash Shocker

Maybe the water was too hot.

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Waiting For Pupusa

A Salvadoran restaurant just opened a block from our office. I went there for takeout at lunchtime Wednesday.

Ordered a guanabana shake and a pupusa, which is a Salvadoran tortilla, thicker than a pancake and filled with cheese, which melts as the tortilla is griddled. What to do while waiting?

Look at what's hidden in plain sight, of course.

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Wild on the Interstate

The traffic and the drivers are one thing, but wilder yet is what lies just over the shoulder of our Jersey Interstate Highways.

One of my favorite places to contemplate nature is at the intersection of I-80 and I-280 in (approximately) Pine Brook, where traffic often slows to a crawl, making it easy to roll down a window and pull out the camera.

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The Aquarium of the Crumpled and Extinguished

A few days ago, in posting some pictures from my bathroom series, "I'll Be Right Back...", I promised not to gross anyone out.

Though this picture has nothing to do with bathrooms, I cannot make that promise today.

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Patient, Stubborn, Dumb, or Lucky?

How about all four?

Photography isn't always about seizing "the decisive moment" or even recognizing that one has just done so.

Sometimes it's about having the patience of a grazing animal or the stubborness of one that refuses to seek a greener pasture--just yet. The line between stubborn and dumb can be pretty thin, as we often see in our politics.

But whatever drives you on or holds you back can finally tumble you into clover. Which is how I wound up taking the photo I posted yesterday of a busboy sitting on a shoeshine stand in a men's room, thumbs flickering over his handheld device. (Oops, that doesn't sound right.)

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Shine On

A busboy found a good way to get off his feet as a long evening wound down Monday night at the Birchwood Manor in Whippany.

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Creature Feature

They're everywhere. Strange beings with serpent's heads, raising their steely necks above the rooftops of our cities and towns.

Run for your lives!

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"I'll Be Right Back..."

That's the title of a series of pictures I started in 2002. This picture was taken Friday during our visit to New Brunswick.

The full title of the series is, "I'll Be Right Back: Visits to Men's Rooms and Bathrooms."

I promise not to gross you out.

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RU+18S@4PM=0

An interesting afternoon in New Brunswick with Rutgers University staff and archivists, who are helping us find material for our July cover story, THEN AND NOW.

But getting out of New Brunswick at 4 PM on a Friday on Route 18 South....

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Oracles of the Secular World

You'll see a lot of these as this blog continues--things that stop me, that seem to have a spirit, that I can stand in front of a long time, until I lose my concentration or feel that the kind and indulgent person waiting in the car may soon lose her patience.

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Guzzle, Guzzle, Oil and Trouble

Oil prices fell Wednesday, the AP reported, after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates and a government report said U.S. fuel supplies unexpectedly fell last week.

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Scaregoose on Duty

The most famous scarecrow of all time was Ray Bolger in The Wizard of Oz, but in these parts we have a bigger problem, geese, and are still trying to find effective ways of scaring them.

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When Rainy Days and Mondays Coincide

Windshield wipers were challenged throughout the day Monday, as were umbrellas, galoshes and all the rest of the stay-dry paraphrenalia.

From behind the wheel of my car, traffic looked like this...

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Waiting For a Hero

Waiting for a takeout order is a good time to zone out, read a paper, or, if you're like me, start looking at one's surroundings closely and hopefully. I use the word in the old-fashioned sense. I will never give in on hopefully.

At about 100 paces from our office door, Anthony's Pizza and Pasta is not only the closest food shop to our office, but a good one, making fresh tasty subs. The looking around is also quite good.

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The Overbrook Forsythia

Forsythia are in bloom. A stubborn plant, it heralds spring in its brassy garish way, flourishing where people want it, where they never wanted it, where no one remembers it even exists.

Pitted against neglect and decay, as here, it mocks our indifference to what we have left behind.

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Signs of Spring

Raise your hand if you're against sprawl. Unruly, unchecked, unregulated growth. It's everywhere, it's stubborn, and it's in our face.

But at this time of year we are reminded of another type of sprawl, just as stubborn and in our face.

Bless its heart.

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Happy Belated Earth Day!

The poet William Blake saw the world in a grain of sand. Well, how about in a thingamajig on top of a rusty metal fence in Edgemont Park in Montclair?

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Java Jitters

A handsome coffee parlor named Greenberry's opened a few doors from our office on the Morristown Green over the winter. Dark wood panelling, comfy armchairs, friendly baristas, designer chocolates....sound familiar?

The Greenberry's chain started in Virginia in 1992, and Morristown is its first outpost in New Jersey. Their point of distinction seems to be that they don't overroast their coffee like a certain viral franchise we could name.

The photo you see here was not  taken at Greenberry's (heaven forbid), but at its polar opposite, a one-of-a-kind place around the corner called Jersey Boy Bagels.

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Pickup Lines 2

With all due respect to Forrest Gump, a box of chocolates just can't compare to a pickup truck for that "you never know what you're gonna get" quality.

This one was parked in Wallington, a few blocks from a very good Polish restaurant, Krakus. (Have the pickle soup. Seriously.)

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Pickup Lines

As you'll see as this photo blog continues, I love pickup trucks. Maybe because they have beds. This one was parked yesterday near our office in Morristown.

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Four on the Floor

The telephone poles were taller than the trees in the new West Orange neighborhood my family moved to in 1963.

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Roll Over and Say Cheese