Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

Steve Fisher sent some follow-up photos to the story of the newborn robins which I posted last Sunday. We have to finish this story, don’t we?

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This morning, the day Vegas odds-makers said that
one of the chicks would be first in flight, one of the
adult robins brought some strange looking stuff in his beak.

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Although it looked more like nest material, the chicks
seemed enthusiastic enough about eating it.

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Later in the day, the most mature of the chicks
[probably the first-born] looked anxious
to explore the world outside the nest.

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He even got up on the rim of the nest and
poked his his through the latticework.

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He stretched his legs and flexed his wings.
He hopped around a bit, outside the actual nest,
making sure the wings were working properly.
Orville and Wilber would have been proud.

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Then in a flash he was gone, flying straight
across the yard to the cover of trees, too
quick to photograph him in flight.

I haven’t seen him back at the nest, yet, but
I’m told they will hang around for about a week.

Meanwhile, there are three other chicks who have to
follow in their sibling’s footsteps, or wingflaps, rather.

Our work here is almost done. Moral of the story,
don’t bet against Vegas, or Mother Nature.

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On another day, Steve had sent me these photos.

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Going up.

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Going across.

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And going down.
No this is not oriented incorrectly;
they really are all nose-diving simultaneously.

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A red tailed hawk.

- Steve Fisher has been posting some amazing photos of activity in his backyard in Maspeth, Queens, NY. It’s obviously Spring:

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Today, May 22, I see that all four eggs have hatched and the chicks are getting fuzzy…

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And hungry.

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In all the shots with the mother robin, it’s the telephoto lens
that lets me get in so tight – I am safely 20 feet away from her.
It’s only when she leaves the nest to gather meals for the kids or
to take in a movie that I can peer right into the nest with a normal lens
within inches of the chicks and I have a look-out
in case the mother comes home early.

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First time all four chicks are up at the same time. All they do is eat, sleep and grow.

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- I handed a “Forward-to-the-new-address-card” to the Post Office and knew it would take weeks to get my mail. Well, surprise! Surprise! It took exactly one day. And it keeps on coming. Who says you can’t trust the post office?

In honor of the noble institution, I’ve decided to repost this 2009 group of pictures of mailboxes. It seems a bit fitting.
Mailboxes, both brown and and blue, they exist in droves holding onto the snailmail still out there. One might wonder how many more postage rate increases it can withstand before we depend allmost exclusively on internet communication.

These days many of the boxes have been decorated with graffiti of different sorts. All of it seems to be some kinda message to the world.
Nice and clean with dozens of coats of paint

Given that it’s probably a federal offense, one would expect such graffiti to be limited. But I’d say that that’s not the case.

I can remember walking down the street with John Leguizamo and his director David Bar Katz as he was about to open in Freak on Broadway. Al around town his face was stenciled on sidewalks and walls promoting the show.

We passed a mailbox and John saw his image/ad. He got upset. He knew that it was a federal offense to mark up the mailbox and he asked his director to see if he could look into stopping such practices. The show opened and I suspect there was no such inquisition from the feds.

(Click any image you want to enlarge.)

One graffiti writer wanted the world to know that “Papa Loves Baby”

It certainly got the point across to “Baby”.

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“Faro” is someone who’s been out there for quite awhile.
(S)he doesn’t just cover mailboxes. Subway walls and posters
are also fair game for this scribbler.

They can get pretty gritty.

or some get newly painted with just a touch of pink.

Sometimes they come in pairs – brown or blue.

or threes. (newly painted)

Unfortunately, clean up painting things don’t get much better. Splotchy coats
of paint that don’t match the undercoat don’t always improve things.
It’s exhausting when you think about it.

These last two photos are by Steve Fisher,
a better eye for the humorous than I.

Here are some Manhattan views as photographed by Steve Fisher.

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Photos 3-11 are of The Church of the Heavenly Rest.
Steve went there for an illustrated lecture given by David Lowe
on Art Deco in NY, sponsored by the New York Landmarks Conservancy.

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The Church of the Heavenly Rest and its adjoining Parish House
are in a Gothic Revival style melding into Art Deco.

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The Fifth Avenue façade features sculpture
by the renowned artist Lee Lawrie.

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The church was built on land purchased by Andrew Carnegie in 1917 . . .

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. . . to prevent the construction of a tall building on the site
which would have cast a shadow . . .

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. . . on the adjacent Carnegie mansion and garden.

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The Indiana limestone clad buildings were constructed
in 1927-29 by Mayers, Murray & Phillip.

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The interior vaulting is of Guastavino tile.

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These are photos sent by Steve Fisher.

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Grand Central TIme

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Platforms on the Platform

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Hulu-hooping it Uptown

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Textures

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Kickstarter

continues to roll as the last of our days move on. It’s feeling like a long, slow, uphill battle at this point, and we’re taking all measures we have to contact everyone we know. Many thanks to all of you who have been so supportive. It’s so appreciated.

Take a look at our POE site: Poestory.net.

- New York’s had some unusually kind weaher lately. Lots of flora seem to be growing and maturing unnaturally early. With all this, obviously on his mind, Steve Fisher makes a photo trip to the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. Here are a few of his photos.

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- Yesterday, I wrote a bit about The Secret World of Arrietty, the newly opened Ghibli film that was planned and co-written by Hayao Mayazaki and was directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, the studio’s youngest director.

I went to see the film last night and have to say I proceeded with a bit of trepidation. Without Mayazaki, himself, directing I was not confident that the film would deliver all I wanted. This was a mistake on my part; the film is superb. It’s right in line with the canon of films the studio has recently been producing. It isn’t as emotional as Ponyo, nor as spiritual as Spirited Away, but the film, to me, comes closest in mood to My Neighbor Totoro.

The film starts as did Spirited Away. We follow the rear of a car as it approaches a country house. Like Totoro, there is a move to the rural area. In Totoro, the two girls are moved closer to the hospital where their sick mother is staying. In Arrietty, the boy is moving to the more natural and quieter setting so he can rest prior to a heart operation.

Within the house, where he is to spend some time resting, lives Arrietty a girl about his age who is only four inches tall. She lives with her parents. and they’re not sure if they’re the last of the “Borrowers,” as these small people are known. The boy sees the tiny girl and does all in his power to make friends with her. Arrietty knows that once their secret is revealed the comfortable family must move to another location. They can’t allow the curiosity of the “Beans” (Human Beings) to endanger their lives or freedom.

The film, like all recent Ghibli works, shows a wonderful interaction between plant, animal and human life. We’re all of the same mold, and we all have to treasure the existence of what is around us. It’s a wonderful and precious theme, and I relish their insistence on placing focus on it from film to film. This, to me, ties the work together wonderfully.

The animation is excellent at every turn albeit very gentle. There are always beautiful and subtle motions in the character movement, and each character is developed visually as well as emotionally. This is not something I much feel from animation I’ve seen in Western films recently. Ghibli is not forcing clichéd motion on their characters – such as popping zip actions for everything that moves. It’s a natural animation that I find wonderful to absorb.

I wasn’t completely happy with the voice cast. I found Amy Poehler a bit too shrill and at times overacted, but Poehler’s husband, Will Arnett, does an excellent turn as the father. Most surprising to me was Carol Burnett who did a good job with her character, Hara. The two leads, Bridgit Mendler and David Henrie were also quite fine. Although Hendler’s song tagged onto the credit sequence by Disney is completely off.

See the film if you have any interest in excellent 2D animation or in Ghibli’s work. It’s a bravura performance, though very understated. Beautifully done work which is certainly better than any of the animated features from last year.

Now onto the photo essay for Sunday:

- My friend Steve Fisher sent in this photo essay, and the images are too curious to pass up. Something I don’t see very often – or even at all.

Okay, so it may not have been the most romantic idea, but the chance to tour Polshek’s Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, even on Valentine’s Day, was too good to pass up.

Line of “Digester Eggs” from street level

Visitor Center entrance lobby fountain

Massive equipment

By-product Methane is used for heating the plant

Jim Pynn explains that from this command station, six people
will control the entire 53-acre plant’s operation

Views of the plant from atop the digester eggs,
some 140 feet above the street on a skybridge

Digester egg from street and from skybridge

Views across the East River to Manhattan from skybridge

- I’m not much of a football fan. I am a New Yorker. So when the hometown team goes to the Super Bowl, I have to admit it means something. It meant I had to check into the game every few minutes to see what was going on. Just the same, I was more interested in “Downton Abbey” last Sunday than in any of the car commercials.

Then there was the ticker-tape parade on Monday. It barely affected me. However, I received a slew of photos from Steve Fisher, who decided to take it in. It feels like a couple of months ago, now, but these are Steve’s photos. The comments are his as well.

Here’s a favorite post from 2009. A repost, if you will. All of these food carts are still in the same places, and the piece could have been photographed yesterday.

- Paddy Doyle’s novel, “The Van,” made me realize that we had a lot in common with our British and Irish friends. The travelling food sellers are a common dressing though the cuisine sold, I’m sure, is different.

A major part of the look and feel of New York is in the food carts that are standing everywhere. In the past, my childhood, the carts were basically hot dog vendors. Then they added the salted pretzel, and things started to develop.

With the new immigrant class in the city, lots of new foods entered the picture, and in fact, I believe, they’ve taken over. Today it’s almost impossible to find a hot dog vendor. I’ve searched for one in the last week and was coming up empty-handed until I saw one late last night. A vendor was wheeling his cart home after what was, obviously, a long and tiring day. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera.

They still sell the hot dog and the pretzel, but you can add “Halal” foods to that menu. Shish-ke-bob, sausages, and so much more have been added.

This is what carts look like today. They come in larger sizes and smaller
sizes. They sell everything from shish-ke-bob to hot dogs to pretzels.
Their prices are usually a good deal, if you trust the sanitation.

Many of these carts sell sandwiches, bagels and breakfast pastries in
the morning. Sandwiches in the afternoon. They usually are established
locations and the same people occupy a space for many years.

Here’s that very same cart as the vendor sets up in the morning –
I shot this at 6am. This same cart has been here for at least 12 years.

In the wee hours of the morning, carts are delivered to the requisite areas.
Oftentimes, if the cart is small, you’ll see the vendor pushing it himself.

This one is setting up early morning across from
Madison Square Park on 23rd Street and Broadway.

Stocking the shelves with pastries, preparing coffee and icing juices.
Getting ready for the morning rush about to start.

Another similar cart, in the Village, all ready for the crowds. This one has an
overhang, to protect patrons from the rain, and a external cooler with drinks.

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This guy is parked outside the IFC center downtown.
As you can see his menu is quite varied and ethnic.
Quite tempting.

You can also find fruit vendors around town. The prices of various fruits is about
half what the local supermarkets charge, and the quality is generally good.

Here’s a virtual travelling store. This truck is set up daily on 28th Street
off Madison Avenue to serve breakfast. They’ll cook the eggs for you.
Later in the day they move around the corner to Madison off 28th St. to serve dinner.
They’re open all night with lines of taxi drivers waiting to buy food from them.
I have to admit, I’m always tempted but haven’t tried it yet. After all,
can all those taxi drivers be wrong? The vendor must be doing
something right.

I also caught this truck downtown and wondered if they were
establishing a spot on Bleecker Street. But they never set up.
On the move.

Here are some new photos of my city courtesy of Steve Fisher.