new york

Weekend Cat Blogging: Tiger!

For this Weekend Cat Blogging, we present a particularly magnificent cat:

This is a Malayan tiger, though as one may be able to tell from the vegetation it is not in its native Malaysia, but rather is at the Bronx Zoo in New York.

It is hard to watch one of these tigers and not immediately see the similarities to the domestic cats that share our homes:

Like many other tiger species, the Malayan tiger is very endangered, with possibly only a few hundred left in the wild. The Bronx Zoo has a breeding program and recently saw the arrival of three cubs, though I did not get a chance to see them personally.

Weekend Cat Blogging #286 is hosted by Othello at PaulChens FoodBlog?!

The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted this Sunday by Nikita Cat.

And the Friday Ark is at the mouldator.

Farewell to 2009

So this is the time when we choose to look back on the year that has just ended.  Or in some cases, not look back.  It seems that this past year was a difficult one for a lot of people, an annus horribilis or a “year to forget.” For me, that particular title could be better applied to another year that was far more tragic and difficult.

So I feel a little at odds looking back at 2009 and seeing a really rich year, one filled with visual and personal experiences.  I actually learned a lot, about other people around the world, about myself, about what is important to me, and I think that is actually reflected on these pages in a strange way.

I expect this coming year to be more of a transitional one, though I am not exactly sure yet where that will lead.  But in the meantime, we at CatSynth will continue to do what we do…

no editions – live video series 2009

A little inspiration for things to come in 2010:

no editions – live video series 2009 August 17 New York from no editions on Vimeo.

I saw this via an article on PLANET magazine. Primarily a fashion article reviewing Christian Niessen and Nicole Lachelle’s No Editions label, but tt seems to intersect with various ideas of my own at this particular time, the combination of electronic music with visual experiments. The clothing becomes a canvas for the video, which in turn records people wearing the clothing.

Fun with Highways: Kew Gardens Interchange

Returning to San Francisco from New York often involves a highway trip to JFK Airport, and there is one spot along the Van Wyck Expressway (I-678) that is almost always guaranteed to come to standstill, the Kew Gardens Interchange:

kew-gardens-interchange

The Van Wyck Expressway runs vertically in this picture, from the center top to the center bottom.  The Grand Central Parkway runs from the upper left to the center right.  The Jackie Robinson Parkway runs from the lower left to the interchange where it ends at the Grand Central Parkway.  The Union Turnpike runs along either side of the parkway.  Finally, the main surface thoroughfare through Queens, Queens Boulevard (NY 25) is in the lower left corner.

kew-gardens-with-signs

One doesn’t really see the complexity of this interchange from the road, just a series of exits in quick succession (or not so quick when one is barely moving), and in fact that it seems like the Van Wyck is merging into another, narrower road at the end, before the reassuring signs that one is still on the right road to the airport. It often seems like many of the larger highways in New York are really stitched together from older, smaller, highways.

This interchange was featured on Empire State Roads, with more information and images.

I have been on the parkways as well of course.  The Jackie Robinson Parkway winds its way narrowly towards Brookyln through parks and near several cemeteries.  I have relatives who reside in at least one of them.