Musings from the God of Cities

the second weekend of september of this year last weekend was a tiny bit wonderful in new york city. everyone was back from their various vacations, and starting to get back into the groove of city life, plus is was the last weekend that felt like summer around here. already it's getting darker earlier, there are halloween decorations being sold in stores, and nyu kids are flooding the west village. but last weekend was beautiful. the light was clear and bright, the weather not too hot. wanting to squeeze the most out of the weekend, i decided to go out and snap some pictures. my targets turned out to be the union square farmer's market for some veggies, a pie, and some pictures full of wonderful, bright colors. check it out:































after this, i promise: no more pictures of produce. ...for a while.

Happy, happy birthday, baby
Although you're with somebody new
Thought I'd drop a line to say
That I wish this happy day
Would find me beside you

Happy, happy birthday, baby
No I can't call you my baby
Seems like years ago we met
On a day I can't forget
'Cause that's when we fell in love

Do you remember the names we had for each other
I was your pretty, you were my baby
How could we say goodbye

Hope I didn't spoil your birthday
I'm not acting like a lady
So I'll close this note to you
With good luck and wishes too
Happy, happy birthday, baby

---Tune Weavers

as part of my further adventures in rediscovering taxachusetts, dw and i headed out to marshfield fair, the first of two fairs i've been to in the past few weeks. (<--- tiny little bit of foreshadowing). i was pretty jazzed to go, 'cause having grown up in new york city, i never really got a chance to experience the crafts-making and animal husbandry i assume are commonplace in a suburban upbringing. the fair wound up being even more awesome than i'd imagined it would be, largely because it had so many things i'm, like, totally into... y'know? (fer shure, fer shure) that said, here's what i did on my summer vacation at marshfield fair: the first thing we saw when we entered the fair was a series of presentations about (among other things) old-timey butter-making


and honey production






there was an exhibit about birds of prey






next to that was this dude who made sculptures out of logs with a chainsaw. here he made a house and a pine tree






after the chainsaw dude were some prize-winning vega-tables










including these maps of massachussets and america made out of vegetables




in the same area as the veggies were some freshly hatched chicken chicks




and some slightly older chicks being kept warm in an incubator


of course there were adult chiskens there as well


















heck, there were even some geese


but birds weren't the only animals at the fair. there were also oodles of fuzzy-wuzzy-bunny-wunnies
















some of 'em were lionhead rabbits which are apparently pretty rare in the states


being that this was a farm-flavored fair, there were other farm-flavored animals there like sheep,










goats,










and a smattering of bovines






i was kinda surprised to see some more exotic animals, like these napping coati


and this mother and newborn lesser anteaters


but marshfield fair isn't just about mouth-watering animals, it's also about letting your artistic flag fly in the form of arts, crafts, and needlessly complicated flower arrangements






























and of course, what's a town fair without cute locals. as a general rule, i hate massholes, but every once in a while there were one or two who were pretty easy on the eyes