very simple

I accidentally took this photo with my camera’s white balance on the wrong settings, but I think it ended up having a nice effect.

View of the Chrysler building from 42nd street.

We hear it said all the time. America is a nation of immigrants. To a greater or lesser extent, for those of us whose families came here over the past half a millennia, this is true. This is not true, of course, for the native americans who were already here and might have a bone to pick with the notion that we were immigrants and not invaders. This is also not true for the millions of african americans whose ancestors were kidnapped and brought here in chains.

But make no mistake. the overwhelming mass of people controlling the government, manning our borders, making decisions about “who we are” as a people? have roots that are not on this continent.

We are a nation of immigrants, refugees, slaves, and their descendants. We have, by and large, always struggled with what this means. There have been some ugly times in our past, even in the 20th century – from restrictive immigration laws to Japanese internment. But those are things that we studied and looked at from our late 20th/early 21st century viewpoint as how we failed as a society.

We’re failing again. Last weekend, the trump regime signed an order, late on a Friday (after anyone who could provide administrative guidance had gone home for the weekend) barring already-vetted legal visa-holding travelers to the US. It threw airports into chaos. Refugees who had spent years being vetted (and yes, despite claims to the contrary, we spend years vetting refugees), landed in the US and were immediately sent back to the danger they were fleeing. Green card holders who have lived here for decades, who have homes and families here, were being barred from entry for the crime of taking a vacation or going to a conference on the wrong day.

This is ugly, and un-American. and so we did what we do now. People turned up at airports around the country in force, and in public spaces to protest this. Because some of us remember history. And some of us simply know that this is not who we are. Courts are now stepping in and every single one is slamming this obviously racist, over broad, unconstitutional order.

These are photos from last Sunday’s protest in Battery Park and march to Foley Square.

From my photo class. Learning about how depth can be shown in ways other than the traditional ‘leading perspective lines off into the the distance’. Here you’ve got objects close up, in the middle distance, and in the far background, giving the impression of three dimensions even though a photograph is, as always, flat.

Most of NYC has been overtaken by the Walgreens/Duane read-ification of every open storefront, but there are still a few, lonely independent drugstores (with fantastic neon signs) that continue to survive, at least until their leases expire. My own independent shop shut down a few years back and simply notified us that all of our accounts were being transferred to the closest Duane Reade. Monopolies are fun!

It may come as a surprise to some of you, but I am a bit of an introvert. I get pretty severe anxiety at the thought of being in giant crowds, and even when I go out with friends, it’s pretty rare that I don’t have some sort of exit plan. I’ve been known to have “shut down” moments, where I just…hit a wall and need to leave immediately – it has nothing to do with the company I’m with but with my own capacity.

This post/link I read a few months back explains the feeling really well (and also why I woke up this morning with what felt like a massive hangover, despite having less than one beer after everything yesterday).

All that is to explain why there was no way I was going to Washington. But I did force myself, even against my natural inclinations, to get out to the march for women’s rights in NY. Because it was just too important.

Best. Sign. Ever. #WomensMarch #womensmarchnyc #sobadevenintrovertsarehere pic.twitter.com/TmJydvooqu

— Susan Kaufman (@skaufman4050) January 21, 2017

So, yes, the introverts showed up. Attempts to meet up with most of my friends (except one) failed, but it was a blast, and more importantly, it was deeply powerful to feel so much less alone.

I said the following on Facebook yesterday, but it bears repeating here: …the real reason I’m going to sleep better than I have in months tonight is just the incredible feeling I had today being among SO MANY people who turned out to support each other at this time, not just in our coastal enclaves, but on all seven continents, and all over this country, in blue states and deep red states like West Virginia.

Empowered by all the diversity represented here today. #WomensMarch #wewontgoback pic.twitter.com/mXMQioPOhW

— PP South Atlantic WV (@PPSATWV) January 21, 2017

THIS is what democracy looks like.

All this is a precursor to my photos from yesterday. Click on the thumbnails to enlarge. (The pics are pretty self explanatory, so I didn’t individually caption most of them in the interests of not taking three years to get through writing this post)

I’m taking a short, three week street photography class just for kicks, and also because it’s a good way to force myself out of the house during this dark, depressing, apocalyptic January.

So of course, the first class was during a bit of a snowstorm, which drove us into the nearest subway station for shelter.

Side view of one of the many mysterious locked call boxes on the platform for fire department and police use. Put in place before anyone could do something like make a cellphone call from several stories below ground (a feat that can be accomplished in every station in NYC as of…nine days ago).

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

Practice!

But after that, you still need to find this door.

According to Manhattan Block-by-Block by John Tauranac (a great map and guide for anyone living or visiting NYC), while all blocks are of “roughly” equal size, the distance between sixth and seventh avenues is by far the longest distance between avenues. Anyone who has worked in a particular section of midtown west on the 50s has always known about the “secret” passageway through a series of buildings halfway between the two, because it was just too much of a pain in the *** to go all the way to the corner if you had to go from, say, midblock on 53rd to midblock on 56th. So the thoroughfare, cutting through public and semi public spaces including a pedestrian passageway behind the Hilton, City Center, the Parker Meridian hotel (among others), led to a constant stream of people playing frogger with midtown traffic.

A few years ago, the city decided enough was enough. No, they didn’t try to force people to cross at the corners – that would have been asking too much. They turned the entire “secret passageway” into an official street.

By the police, no less. These guys were doing some very mild crowd control, but mostly just letting tourists pet their horses, on the plaza near the Rockefeller center tree. But one of them clearly noticed me trying to take a picture. Oops!

rockefeller center.

As noted before, I didn’t walk up fifth avenue as much this holiday season for…reasons. I did try to brave it once or twice to grab shots of the tree, but didn’t get any post-worthy ones due to the size of the crowds and the traffic that kept getting in the way in unfortunate ways. But I did grab this nice angle of rockefeller center one evening despite the jostling.