If I keep my eyes tuned to the road, I’ll find it
everywhere. And so it was on the Jersey
Turnpike, I think that’s where I was, in a bus to Lenox, Mass. Very tall slender poles, a few stories
high, guyed to the ground with red wires, three such objects in a row,
symmetrical and perfect. I didn’t know
what they do, though I now think they are simple radio masts, which I’ve since learned
can be quite complex and also camouflaged. They’re beautiful, to me at least. Much of my work is about lines, and this road
furniture was as inspiring and exciting as anything I see in museums and
galleries.
This photo, a set of radio masts in England which was the
closest image I could find to “mine” in NJ, might cause you to scratch your
head and ask What is she seeing. The NJ
masts are more slender, or so I recall from zipping by them in the bus. Well, I can’t help anyone else with this, I
only can say that when I saw them my attention was riveted, fleeting though the
scene was.
Today I was waiting on the subway platform, #1, 125th
Street, which for me means leisurely pacing back and forth from one end of the
platform to the other. In the pleasant
outdoors of this platform, a man sat on a bench with two or three rats draped
around his shoulders, dyed in various colors.
I couldn’t tell if they were somehow bound to his shirt, as they seemed
to be scrambling but not going anywhere.
I saw it and kept walking, as they were not so interesting actually,
just dyed rats. I only hope they are
well cared for. I tried to find a photo
subsequently on the internet, but it seems that there’s a trend, and I couldn’t
be sure I was getting the right rats, or the right person.
