In college I took a directed seminar called Visual Approaches to Legal Thought, which asked us to do a lot of general exercises in visualization before conquering the legal part.  I remember one of them being the task of sketching out my mind’s depiction of time or a calendar.  

That sketch is long dead in a notebook somewhere, but it looks a lot like this image.  My vision of a year is a parade of seasonal scenes on a donut-shaped ring, that progresses counter-clockwise through a sphere that represents our planet, or my ‘world.’  Units of time aren’t cleanly demarcated — moments or days are a series of unidentified stopping points on a circuitous path that provide a constantly changing perspective of the year.  The tilt of the globe and an invisible z-axis provide occasional elevated vantage points, or moments of clarity, for seeing across the year.  

And so the passage of time, for me, often feels like winding my way around a planetary racetrack, the immediacy of tasks at the lefthand rail and outer space and abstraction flung out on my right.

[Image is Homer’s concept of the cosmos from the ever impressive Strange Maps.]

Had one of those mornings where I woke up and indulged my non-schedule by getting engrossed in a random Internet research topic.  Today it was infographics like this Pop v. Soda map.  Love how obviously coastal the use of ‘soda’ is.  I also say ‘soda’ (or sometimes the more fountain correct ‘soft drink’) despite having been reared smack in the middle of Kentucky, which continues to wage a battle between the Midwestern ‘pop’ and the more Southern ‘coke.’ 

My Dad and I in the garden outside the Frick Collection.  My family could not figure out why we had never been to the Frick since we had been planning to do it for ages, but we all agreed that we’ve been missing out.  It’s such a closely curated collection of true European masterpieces — without any fluff or filler work in between.  The Fragonard and Boucher rooms along with the perfectly edited selection of works by Whistler, Rembrandt, Vermeer, etc. were outstanding.  And of course, the turn of the century mansion setting on 5th Ave, is inspiring and complementary.  All in all, a great Saturday morning.

Mmm, so steampunk-in-real-life, I love it.

The sad news is that this guy never makes it.  Eternally drowning in the Hudson.