KEITH GOODWIN

"Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The..."

Wed, 08 May 2013 00:55:59 -0400

“Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder. Many who try to climb it fail and never get to try again. The fall breaks them. And some are given a chance to climb, they cling to the realm or the gods or love. Only the ladder is real. The climb is all there is.”

- Petyr Baelish, Game of Thrones

"Once in the streets all thought of a united and harmonious picture vanishes into thin air. Jostling..."

Thu, 02 May 2013 14:41:52 -0400

“Once in the streets all thought of a united and harmonious picture vanishes into thin air. Jostling details, harsh realities, are flung at you too violently to merged into an ensemble. The picturesque still crops out in spots and patches at every turn, but it requires some mental (and physical) firmness to stop and enjoy it … If you are stranger within the gates perhaps this means chaos to you, sheer mob madness; and possibly before nightfall you will have concluded that Manhattan, like Constantinople, is lacking in homogeneity, wholly wanting in structural unity, in fact a mere agglomeration of buildings on a point of land. The checkerboard “blocks,” the recurrent regularity of streets, you admit, point to something planned; but the buildings are eruptive and the whole city abnormal—something again that apparently just “happened.””

- John C. Van Dyke, The New New York: A Commentary on the Place and the People (1909)

Photo

Thu, 02 May 2013 12:17:46 -0400

Spring is in the air

Thu, 02 May 2013 12:16:53 -0400

Spring is in the air

“Oftentimes [New York and Boston] are accusing each other...

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:02:53 -0400

“Oftentimes [New York and Boston] are accusing each other of various levels of suckitude. But it is in situations like this that we realize that it is clearly a sibling rivalry, and that we are your brothers and sisters in this type of event … [Y]ou’ve got a hell of a city going there. And you’ve done an incredible job in the face of all of this.”

— Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, April 16, 2013

My colorful ensemble

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:48:46 -0400

My colorful ensemble

Photo

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:14:04 -0400

"If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don’t be surly at home,..."

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 11:24:45 -0400

“If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don’t be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning ‘Good morning’ at total strangers.”

- Maya Angelou

“After Ever After”: A Disney Parody

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 15:11:44 -0400

“After Ever After”: A Disney Parody

"New York is appalling, fantastically charmless and elaborately dire."

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 13:16:26 -0400

“New York is appalling, fantastically charmless and elaborately dire.”

- Henry James

St. Peter’s Square after Papal Election in 2005 vs. 2013

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 22:39:04 -0400

St. Peter’s Square after Papal Election in 2005 vs. 2013

"Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite..."

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 23:30:00 -0400

“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.”

- Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it...

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 13:29:00 -0500

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says ‘Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.’”

— Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871)

"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 00:49:04 -0500

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

- Oscar Wilde

"I was in a curious position in New York; it never occurred to me that I was living a real life there..."

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 01:42:00 -0500

“I was in a curious position in New York; it never occurred to me that I was living a real life there … I am not sure that it is possible for anyone brought up in the East to entirely appreciate what New York, the idea of New York, means to those of us who come out of the West and the South … New York was no mere city. It was instead an infinitely romantic notion, the mysterious nexus of all love and money and power, the shining and perishable dream itself. To think of ‘living’ there was to reduce the miraculous to the mundane; one does not ‘live’ at Xanadu … [I]t was a very long time indeed before I stopped believing in new faces and began to understand … that it is distinctly possible to stay too long at the fair.”

- Joan Didion, Farewell to the Enchanted City

Winter on Rue du Petit Champlain — Quebec, Canada

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:54:40 -0500

Winter on Rue du Petit Champlain — Quebec, Canada

Shapes of New York

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 12:50:14 -0500

Shapes of New York

All I Want for Christmas is You

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 14:34:48 -0500

All I Want for Christmas is You

Floating Lantern Ceremony — Chiang Mai, Thailand

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Floating Lantern Ceremony — Chiang Mai, Thailand

"A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user."

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 09:09:18 -0500

““A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.””

- Theodore Roosevelt