Well it's definitely cold so I think we'll start the Winter Flickr now

[andyg0404]

Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.

Well, it’s not Buffalo but it was still pretty cold here, in the 20’s and windy when I went out but I see now it’s about 40 degrees. But it’s dry, at least until tomorrow with the threat of a deluge on Monday. Another wet commute to start the week, something that doesn’t please me. But I must have mentioned previously that the whole commuting thing is starting to pall. I had an annoying situation with my bus which actually turned out to be to my advantage. I have the option of taking two different lines to go into and out of Manhattan. This is very handy as one of them runs far more frequently, albeit stopping more often. I take the longer one in the morning while taking the quicker one for the ride home. A few weeks ago I boarded the bus in the afternoon, sat down and then heard the driver tell someone that he didn’t stop at my stop. To myself I immediately said, Oh? Other passengers pricked up their ears as well. The driver went on to announce that because it wasn’t a “legitimate” bus stop and the gas station on the corner where it stopped had complained, the police were giving the drivers tickets and he was no longer going to stop there. This was annoying on a few levels. It’s directly across the street from my home and the new stop is two blocks away. I don’t mind walking but I’m not thrilled about an extra two block walk at the end of the day if it’s freezing cold, or raining or snowing. The gas station was renovated some months ago, torn down to the ground and rebuilt. During the course of construction they also repaired the sidewalk on the two sides bordering the street. I can’t be sure but I seem to remember that there actually was a bus stop sign and that they must have removed it when laying the concrete and never put it back up again. Additionally the all the buses have stopped there for the 8 years I’ve lived in this house so to arbitrarily stop now doesn’t seem fair. The driver, who is a nice guy, sympathized and told us we should complain to NJ Transit. Which I did and let me tell you that I got the same satisfaction from them that I get in writing this tale, none. All they told me was it wasn’t a “legitimate” bus stop. The silver lining is that since I negotiated with my employer to let me leave earlier, I have incrementally moved the leaving time back from the compromise we reached to my original request. Prior to this stopping issue I didn’t think to check the schedule but afterwards I did and saw that I could just catch an earlier bus on the other route, and even with the additional stops still get home anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes early. So for once I came out on top in the commuting area. But my ultimate aim is to end the commute.  I’ve never encountered a delay in going from my home office to the comfy chair in my living room.

I had a splendid time with my friends last week and actually wound up doing something I seldom do which is a doubleheader. That is, a different friend emailed on Friday and asked if I would like to have her visit on Sunday afternoon. Sundays for me traditionally mean reading the Sunday newspapers and just hanging out. But I immediately wrote back and told her yes as it’s been some time since we got together and she just had her first hip replacement with the second one coming in February. I thought I would take her out for an early dinner but she wrote back to say she wanted to come around 1PM and leave around 3PM because she doesn’t want to drive in the dark. Something that I, and a number of my friends, can all now relate to. In addition to vision problems, the headlights on cars have become increasingly powerful and some people persist in riding with the brights on which is incredibly annoying. It’s bad enough dealing with traffic from the other direction but it’s just as bad when it’s behind you and reflecting off your inside and side mirrors. So she came and I made my famous frothy coffee and we ate the Java cake I had whipped up the morning before, before leaving for my first visit. I discovered on the ride home from the shore that once again my lack of directional acuity has been leading me astray. To arrive at my home I eventually travel on the NJ Turnpike. As you travel North it splits off to the George Washington Bridge or the Lincoln Tunnel. When I lived in my old town I went to the Tunnel because I lived very close to it. When I moved I continued to use that side as when you go through the toll, it leaves you out on Route 3 which is what I want now. Saturday night I was driving home and I got confused because I noticed that the Bridge side also said Route 3. I moved back and forth before finally deciding to gamble and take the Bridge side. Imagine my surprise when it let me out in the Meadowlands five minutes from my home instead of at the beginning of Route 3 by the tunnel. And it only took me 8 years to figure this out. Just hope I remember the next time.

Anyway, despite the cold and wind I went into the City and walked up to the Metropolitan Museum. I arrived and was dismayed to see long lines at the coat check, something I don’t normally encounter that early in the day. It looked like there were several group tours which added to the mix. And they only had two clerks despite having 8 or 9 hanging coat racks. I waited a while and then gave up and just wore my coat. I wasn’t warm but I wasn’t as comfortable as I would have been if I had been allowed to check it. 

But despite my complaining I had a very nice time. The first exhibit I visited was Madame Cezanne. A series of portraits of his mistress, mother of his child and eventual wife, Hortense Fiquet. She was his favorite model and he painted 29 portraits of her including a series of four portraits in a red dress. The plaque in the museum said it was the first time all four of these portraits were reunited since they had left his studio. They’re all the same pose in the same posture but each one is different and very beautiful. Three are from other museums with the fourth belonging to the Met. When I viewed it I didn’t think I had seen it hanging in the galleries and when I went to the website it says that it’s not on view. That’s one of the wonderful things about the Met, their collection is so large you never know when they’re going to bring something out of storage for a show. And because it’s the Met, it’s usually top quality. Cezanne boasted that no one painted red like he did. In addition to the portraits there are sketches he did of Hortense and other figures and objects, in addition to some watercolors which were exhibited in a separate room. The sketches are really remarkable in that he was just observing and pictorially making notes in his book for future works. Like so many famous artists Cezanne was not a very nice person, he treated Hortense very badly, only marrying her to legitimize his son’s birth. His friends made fun of her and he allowed it and when he died he disinherited her from his will. Happily for Hortense their son was a much better person and he saw to her needs until she passed away.  This is an article from the New York Times about the exhibit. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/arts/design/madame-czanne-at-the-metropolitan-museum.html?_r=0  This is a link to the museum website with some background. http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-museum/press-room/exhibitions/2014/madame-cezanne The website doesn’t show all the images from the exhibit unfortunately and they didn’t issue a press release which I find surprising but here is a twitter feed with a number of them. https://twitter.com/hashtag/madamecezanne

On my way to the second exhibit I walked through the drawing corridor and was pleased to see some new drawings and watercolors from Eugene DeLacroix and Theodore Gericault. You can see a little bit of it here at a Met blog. http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-museum/now-at-the-met/2014/delacroix-gift And at this link you can see Gericault’s The Flemish Farrier. http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/358099

The second exhibit was http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-museum/press-room/exhibitions/2014/bartholomeus-spranger  Bartholomeus Spranger - Splendor and Eroticism in Imperial Prague. Spranger was a late 16th early 17th century Flemish artist who worked in Prague. I knew absolutely nothing about him prior to hearing about the exhibit and reading this article in the NY Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/arts/design/getting-to-know-bartholomeus-spranger-at-the-met.html The paintings vary between religious settings and nude mythological settings. As I walked through the exhibit I thought to myself I hadn’t really seen much art like this and I confess I didn’t know what to make of it. As the Times says he is not a major Renaissance painter and his works are odd to say the least but it really is a fascinating exhibit. As a side note, one of the paintings, Hercules and Omphale, which is illustrated in the Times article is described like this: “In an opulent bedroom, the lithe Omphale, whom Hercules has been condemned to serve by the Delphic oracle, stands naked with her back to the viewer holding his club over her shoulder like a baseball player awaiting the next pitch. Hercules sits to the left wearing a feminine pink frock; he’s handling spinning implements, performing an activity ordinarily reserved for women.” Rather apropos for Betties.  This is a link to the Wikipedia page with my favorite picture in the exhibit, a self-portrait. There were two actually, both wonderful. He painted both of them for one of his benefactors, the second one after the benefactor gave away the first one. I guess you can tell by my choice of the portrait that I really prefer that kind of art to the fantastic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartholomeus_Spranger

Well, lots of babble this week.

This week I have replaced the at sign with %40 for all the pertinent links. Now let's see what %age of the clips we like.

Andy G.
 
Pretty in pink party

https://www.flickr.com/photos/paulasatijn/15373788998

Shag Me

https://www.flickr.com/photos/57172609%40N04/15547055251

18199

https://www.flickr.com/photos/126261562%40N08/15353105547

I'm a publicist and Matt is a flamboyant journalist. He looks better in that dress than just about any other person

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lastletterread/15623122951

The wedding dress.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/karenmartin21/15444329310

261014b 027 (2)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/brenda-silmaril/15034754663

Vampire Lesbians of Sodom dress rehearsal

https://www.flickr.com/photos/26186593%40N08/15651309475

Little princess

https://www.flickr.com/photos/53516713%40N06/15642449071

...a little bit?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/104312886%40N07/15443180759

How could this happen. How could they know?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/60741642%40N06/15433050808

9-2-14 (22)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/43980518%40N08/15006385964

Transexual Crossdressing

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sandstormmelody/8153723082

[Betty]

What right does any gas station or business have to demand where any commercial or private vehicle can drop off passengers at the curb? What law was invoked to get the cops there to wait to give them a ticket? This sounds like something that would happen in China, not in a free society.

What bug got up their butt anyway that they'd would even care where anyone drops off their passengers at the curb? What possible difference would it make to the gas station or business where the a bus drops off passengers?

He's lucky his business isn't in my town. I would have had more than half his customers boycotting his place, a few picketers there, with the local news taking pictures within a couple days. I'd start a letter writing & phone call campaign to all the local media, a few organizations, seniors groups, & to their competition. I'm sure their competition would help with anything that makes them look bad.

The point I would have stressed is not whether there is or ever was an official bus stop there, but why these pricks would even care where a bus drops off passengers. Do they actually think, if they stop people from being dropped of there that they will buy his gas instead of riding a bus, or if nobody sees a bus stop there, they'll buy more?

Hang this crazy person & his business.

Most gas stations are a franchise. They represent some gas company, chain, or supplier. I'd write them too. If it's privately owned, write their supplier. Google the station, owners, suppliers, etc. & look for dirt on them. Also the station manager may not be the station owner or property owner. I'd write the owner too. It's no fuss these days, it can be done online.

In the end of it all you might be able to have them begging to put a bus stop there.

[andyg0404]

Hi Betty,

You clearly are even more annoyed than I was. I can only speculate that the gas station's complaint was that when the bus stopped to pick up or discharge passengers it blocked their driveway forcing people entering or leaving to wait until he pulled out again. I agree that this is a very slim reason for their attitude but it would be difficult to mount a campaign as you suggest. The main thing in the station's favor is that it is an off brand and considerably cheaper than other gas stations, even 20 cents a gallon less than the 7-11 across the street. And New Jersey is a state where most people drive rather than take the bus so sympathies will lie with cheap gas rather than mass transportation.

In any event I'm glad that I'm getting home earlier and don't have to walk the additional two blocks.

Thanks

Andy G.

[andyg0404]

Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my four day weekend so far despite the chilly weather. Got to relax and read and see some nice art. To the readers of mystery novels on the board I just finished “Snow White Must Die” by Nele Neuhaus. It’s a German mystery that takes place in a small town in Germany. A young man has been released from prison after 11 years having been convicted of the murders of two of his former girlfriends. He was convicted on circumstantial evidence since the bodies were never found. He goes home and is not welcomed with open arms. Then the bones of one of the girls is found. This was a real page turner. I had trouble at the start because there are so many characters I had to start making notes about who was who but it’s a brilliant book. You keep reaching climactic points in the book and wondering, what next? But it was brilliant from start to finish, can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s an ongoing series in which the two main characters are a male, female detective team. Unfortunately like so many of the foreign mysteries I read it’s the fourth book in the series but the first one in translation. It’s always better to read series like this in the actual order they were written because the characters change and grow and the cast increases and decreases. I read a lot so I won’t go on and on but I will bring up the author Jussi Adler-Olsen who is writing a wonderful series about Department Q in the Danish police system. I just read the fourth book and it was gripping, each book in the series has been great and the supporting characters have grown immensely from book to book. The first book in the series is “The Keeper of Lost Causes.”

The following article appears in today’s New York Times.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/29/business/with-art-investing-in-genius.html  As someone who appreciates great art, I found it disturbing. To treat art as a commodity to be used as collateral or to prop up ones social standing seems to go against the grain. I realize that the robber barons at the turn of the 20th Century bought the old masters to show that they had arrived but the way it’s described below is just distasteful. Too reminiscent of my father’s partner who collected art based on what it sold for. I did enjoy the following comment in the article about value though, “A lot of contemporary art is aggressively ugly.” To which I can only say, well, yes!

I planned on visiting the Frick Museum today to see the Scottish National Art exhibit but in yesterday’s Times  there was an article about a new acquisition by the museum, a self-portrait by the 17th Century Spanish artist BartolomĂ© Esteban Murillo. It had belonged to Henry Clay Frick II, the grandson of the founder and at his death went to his widow who recently bequeathed it to the museum. As it goes on display on Tuesday I felt that I could a wait another week so as to see the show and the new acquisition. This is the article with an illustration of the painting.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/28/arts/design/frick-collection-acquires-murillo-self-portrait.html

Instead of the Frick I walked up to the Adelson Gallery on Fifth Avenue and 56th street to see an Andrew Wyeth exhibit. I really enjoyed it enormously. One painting really spoke to me, it was a yard scene, the side of a farm house, sectioned walls with a drain pipe, a shuttered window on the ground floor with an unshuttered one on the second floor. There was a clothes line that ran the entire length of the painting from right to left and on hung a pair of what appear to be pajama bottoms blowing in the wind. A rag mop is leaning against it as well. And there is an old farm bell of the type that you might see on a ship mounted on two wooden posts. It’s title is Slight Breeze. Very evocative of Edward Hopper to me except, as I've said before, without the inherent menace.  This is a link to the catalog on the website. If you scroll through it to pages 26 and 27 you will see the  painting I've just described. http://www.adelsongalleries.com/publications/books/sevendecades/ecatalog/index.php

Yesterday I walked up to the Met. I was dismayed to see a large crowd waiting to get in once again but I managed to get to the coat check quickly and was able to check my coat. I don’t know if any of you saw the stories on the news and in the newspapers but the Met owns a life size statue of Adam by Tullio Lombardo. In 2002 the wooden pedestal base it stood on deteriorated and when the museum opened the next day they found the Adam on the floor, broken in a number of large pieces and hundreds of small ones. Using new technologies they put it all back together and when you stand in front of it you can’t see even a hairline crack. It’s remarkable and it’s a magnificently beautiful full size statue. This is a link to a Times article about it with a slide show showing what they had to do to repair it. It took 12 years. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/09/arts/design/recreating-adam-from-hundreds-of-fragments-after-the-fall.html#

Then I visited the Cubism exhibit. It’s a gift of the collector Leonard Lauder and consists of 84 works of art distributed among four artists, Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris and Fernand Leger. This is a link to images of the collection. http://www.metmuseum.org/research/leonard-lauder-research-center/cubist-collection/the-collection  and this is an article about the promised gift before it was received. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/arts/design/leonard-lauder-is-giving-his-cubist-collection-to-the-met.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

It’s clearly a major collection of quality art and the Met is lucky to have it. But like abstract art Cubism is a very difficult genre for me. Perhaps it’s my monocular vision, my lack of depth perception or my inability to see three dimensionally but I seldom get beyond the cubes and squares to see the message in the art. I read the plaques and search for what is represented and only occasionally can I actually discern it. Maybe it’s my lack of imagination. Can’t say but it’s not art I want to stand in front of and admire, there’s also a repetitiveness of it that doesn’t lend itself to viewing a lot of it at one time, for me at any rate. I did find the colors bold and vivid and the collage part of it makes for an interesting display. I was looking at a work by Juan Gris and there was an elderly woman standing next to me also viewing it and she turned to me and made a comment basically laughing as if to say, this is how he saw his Mother?  I couldn’t disagree. I always go through the whole exhibit and then walk around a second time to ensure that I saw everything. While I’m fairly confident I saw the whole exhibit, in this case it wasn’t so easy to walk around and say definitively that I had seen the works as I went by again. They all sort of blend in together. It was very nice of Leonard Lauder, someone who I don’t agree with politically, to bequest it to the Met. And he did it with no strings attached, no clauses saying the collection has to stay together in a room named after him which is very unusual. 

The last exhibit I visited was Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Renaissance Tapestry. I’m also not enamored of tapestries but this was quite an exhibit. They were rather overwhelming. To call them wall size is inadequate, they are room size running to 26 feet wide by 16 feet high.  Actually I guess you would need a very large room if you wanted to display it. If you were to win one at auction you couldn’t just say, roll it up and I’ll put it on the roof of my car. They also depict Biblical scenes and wouldn’t be the most pleasant thing to look at every morning when you awoke. One shows the aftermath of beheadings, a rather timely topic today. But they are remarkable and only looked a little washed out in comparison to his oil paintings which were very vivid and bright. This is another link to a Times article about the exhibit that also has a slide show. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/24/arts/design/grand-design-showcases-pieter-coecke-tapestries-at-the-met.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar You look at the images online and you can’t even begin to imagine what they look like on the wall of the museum. Very interesting exhibit, I hadn’t really planned on seeing it and now I’m glad I did. As I viewed some of the works I thought that he wasn’t really a great artist and thought to myself, well I’m no expert, but I see now that the article agrees with that sentiment.

Well class, hope you enjoyed the lecture. Let’s see what’s at the Flickrs.

Andy G.

goan   

https://www.flickr.com/photos/123125505@N06/15760438665

Janet Weiss Dress Tryout

https://www.flickr.com/photos/beckys_box/9285796125

20141018 11.34.36

https://www.flickr.com/photos/9296771%40N06/15427067918

alice for mcm

https://www.flickr.com/photos/40171643%40N08/15622657845

ss2   

https://www.flickr.com/photos/104258138%40N03/15295509480/   

Matthew-Dressed-as-a-girl    

https://www.flickr.com/photos/radicalfeministrule/15861220115

♄; ❁侀 Sissy %40kara_hara 侀 ❁ [ Happy 7k♄ ] . // 6kkkkkk today?? xD . by girls.generation__09

https://www.flickr.com/photos/126358051%40N03/15514416619

10-31-14 (1)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/43980518%40N08/15514020490

wifes sister

https://www.flickr.com/photos/62235099%40N06/15511385780

new108339-IMG_9234t

https://www.flickr.com/photos/49049803%40N00/15675052325

Alice

[samantha1]

IT is great what they can do when statues break

[andyg0404]

Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.

Yesterday morning my weatherman told me that today was going to be a washout. Rain predicted from 6PM Friday night to 1AM Sunday morning. Do I even have to say it, I was not pleased. I planned on visiting the Frick last week and put it off because of the new Murillo going on display this past Tuesday. With the rain coming I thought I would have to put it off for another week but I was lucky in that I got to do my shopping and then head into the City without any serious rain and on the way home it only rained moderately. Not sure what became of the deluge but no complaints.

So, The Frick exhibit is “Masterpieces from the Scottish National Gallery”, ten paintings on loan from Scotland. It’s a touring exhibit and museums with more display area are getting more paintings but the ten in this exhibit are all first rate. The Frick has posted a lot of information on the website for this show at this link http://www.frick.org/exhibitions/scottish Off to the left are a number of links that explore the Gallery itself, an overview of the exhibit, a complete checklist with illustrations of all the paintings and a 5 minute video about them. All very worthwhile checking out. Of course if you’re in the Metropolitan area you should visit the museum without fail. I will definitely go back.

The consist of “The Old Woman Cooking Eggs” by a young Diego Velazquez which looks familiar to me and I wondered why until I realized it was illustrated in an article in the NY Times. Two wonderful landscapes, a John Constable, “The Vale Of Dedham,” which is a large painting of a forest scene and an early Thomas Gainsborough of “River Landscape with a View of a Distant Village.” These are paintings that you will notice details that you missed every time you stand in front of them. There is a portrait of Allan Ramsey’s wife, Margaret. “The Ladies Waldegrave” by Joshua Reynolds, 3 sisters sitting at a table, one winding a card of silk thread that is held by another with the third doing embroidery. Sir Henry Raeburn’s full length portrait of “Colonel Alastair Ranaldson Macdonell, 15th Chief of Glengarry” in all his Scottish glory, wearing his tartan and holding his rifle. John Singer Sargent’s portrait of “Lady Agnew of Lochnaw,” a very stately woman sitting in a chair in an informal pose looking directly out of the canvas at you.  The first Sargent ever on view at the Frick. Botticelli’s “The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child,” like the Sargent, the first Botticelli ever on view at the Frick. “An El Greco, “An Allegory (FĂĄbula),” showing a boy blowing a fire with a chimpanzee to his right and a fool to his left. And finally, “FĂȘtes VĂ©nitiennes,” by Jean-Antoine Watteau showing elegant people in a parkland setting. The description of the painting reports, “Watteau gave the features of his close friend the Franco-Flemish painter Nicolas Vleughels to the strutting male dancer and his own to the lovelorn musette player — perhaps an allusion to a competition between the two men for the affection of the same woman, or a risquĂ© joke.”

This is the NY Times article on the exhibit I mentioned earlier. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/arts/design/masterpieces-from-scotland-visit-the-frick.html?_r=0
 
Lots of things in the museum have been moved around and I noticed that the Ingres, the Manet and the Memling were all missing. I’m was confused about the Frick’s policy on loans but my big brother straightened me out. The Frick cannot lend anything bequeathed (or purchased) by Henry Clay Frick.  They can lend whatever came into the museum after he died. Consequently they will be sending a large part of the collection to the Mauritshuis to pay back the loan of the Dutch treasures I got to see last year. And presumably they will fill in the holes with items currently not on display.

To make up for the missing paintings I mentioned they had three paintings that I’ve never seen before. 2 full size portraits of Sir Griffin and Lady Boynton by the English artist Francis Cotes and a painting over the fireplace where El Greco’s portrait of St. Jerome is usually displayed. I was standing in front of it and leaned forward to see if I could read the little metal nameplate but was unable to. There were two women standing next to me and one asked if I could make it out. I said no and joked that I would have to climb up to see it. She laughed and said it probably wouldn’t be allowed. I pointed out that the El Greco usually hung there and she said she hadn’t been to the museum in many years so I mentioned the Ingres being missing as well. Then I said the guard could probably identify the painting and she said they asked and he told them to ask up front. I was just about done so I left them and when I got to the greeting area there was a woman behind the desk and  I asked about it. She told me it was a Tintoretto and she told me the name of it which I immediately forgot but I was able to look up, “Portrait of a Venetian Procurator.” I walked back in and found the two women and enlightened them. They were pleased and I said that it was one of the reasons I hoped the expansion of the museum was allowed, you take away an El Greco and just bring up a Tintoretto from the basement. It was very striking. Actually it’s not exactly a Tintoretto, it’s marked as Circle of, but very beautiful nevertheless.

And I very much enjoyed viewing the self portrait of BartolomĂ© EstebĂĄn Murillo. As a new acquisition I don’t think hanging it in the hall between two Vermeers is the best place to exhibit it. The lighting isn’t great and it would certainly have looked better in one of the bigger rooms. Of course the Vermeers really shone when they were moved to the large room and hung on either side of the other Vermeer, “Woman with a Maid,”  which I’ve mentioned many times as being one of the most beautiful paintings in the world. You can see the Murillo here. http://collections.frick.org/media/view/Objects/1163/4374?t:state:flow=25ecc6c7-c0b2-4934-a33d-a698c56ed6bb

Please look at the illustrations at the links to fully understand how wonderful this show is and definitely visit if you can, you won’t regret it.

There was a very good article on memory in the Times the other day, discussing how we remember and misremember things. God knows I remember things all the time that I’m sure of and then I am stunned to discover that I hadn’t remembered correctly at all. Not to mention memories of my childhood where I can no longer be certain if I actually remember saying or doing what I remember or if I remember the relatives telling me about when I had done or said it. One of the letters to the editor in today’s paper speaks to my feelings about my memory, “It’s not the things that I forget that worry me; it’s the ones that I remember that didn’t actually happen.”

When you look at the first two flickrs, which are from the same folder, go to the folder as there are thousands of similar pictures. I'm fairly confident we explored this site but it was some time ago and I'm sure some of these are newer and equally sure that many of the board members haven't seen them or most likely forgotten them.

Andy G.

Sweetwater HS (OK) 1993       

https://www.flickr.com/photos/79189925%40N06/9137747987/

Warren HS (Downey CA) 1985

https://www.flickr.com/photos/79189925%40N06/6942008110/in/set-72157629840068063

Sweet... until you note that in...

https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjvs/15747411360

Halloween favorites: Candy Striper 1

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ms_joann07/4030827876

Strollin'

https://www.flickr.com/photos/57172609%40N04/15305261443

What affect do gender norms have on kids as they grow up? 11/24/12 (For 11/25)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/95693638%40N03/15684862717

queen of hearts....

https://www.flickr.com/photos/76981898%40N00/15311884023

Prix de Beaute & Justin in #Hollywood 2014 GLIU

https://www.flickr.com/photos/gingerliu/15691736397

Tennis, anyone?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/60741642%40N06/15313324393

2012_light_0376

https://www.flickr.com/photos/61083860%40N00/15527590757

DSC_0607

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dressrei/15081121753

Closeup

https://www.flickr.com/photos/vivianchen05/15713357115

P1020158

https://www.flickr.com/photos/89611075%40N02/15516956807

[andyg0404]

Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.

It’s a cold, windy, blustery day but dry so I will avoid complaining. I went into NYC this morning and prior to visiting the Morgan Library I walked down to 21st Street and Sixth Avenue to buy almonds at Trader Joes. Going to Trader Joes early is always a good idea as I have been on lines to check out that went completely around the store. As all I ever buy is several bags of roasted, raw almonds, waiting on line for 20 minutes to check out is something to be avoided. Which I did today by getting there around 9:30 AM ET. I’m guessing I hadn’t been there since the summer so I was surprised that the bag of almonds that I had purchased previously for $4.99 was now $6.49, a fairly steep increase. Apparently this is still due to a drought in California at the end of last year. In an article I just read it stated that California is responsible for 82% of the world’s supply. But even at $6.49 a pound they appear to be a bargain, I see them online for much more and would also additionally have shipping charges added on. I use them in baking my cinnamon almond sugar cookies and love eating them, they’re a very healthy food but they’re also fattening, an ounce of almonds is 170 calories and it’s really not hard to eat way over an ounce. Actually it’s much harder to stop. Kind of like eating ice cream. I told a friend once that I would buy a pint of ice cream and eat half of it then put it back in the freezer for another time. My friend laughed and said that if he bought a pint of ice cream he ate it until his spoon hit cardboard at the bottom. Well, he probably didn’t weigh 200 pounds on his 5 foot 4 inch body when he was 19 like I did.

Anyway, from Trader Joes I walked up to 36th Street and Madison Avenue to visit the Morgan Library. The exhibit I was there for was “The Untamed Landscape: ThĂ©odore Rousseau and the Path to Barbizon.” This is a link to the Morgan website description of the exhibit. http://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/The-Untamed-Landscape  Rousseau was a nineteenth century French artist who worked mainly in landscapes. It was a nice size show, more than 70 drawings and oils with a few watercolors. The oils were all small and done as sketches for larger works. Some were very raw and abstract while others were closer to finished works. It was a wonderful show and the drawings were really the attraction, at least for me. He drew forest scenes and some of them were very spare, that is, like Japanese art which is never afraid of white space. Too many Western artists feel a need to fill the canvas when quite often less really is more. Additionally he drew boats at sea and docked, houses and chateaus and one lovely little sketch of four people kneeling in prayer from the back. I looked at one of the drawings and found it evocative of Van Gogh and I was pleased to read further on that Van Gogh cited him as an influence. At the end of the exhibit there was a real treat, four drawings, two each one atop the other. The first was by Rousseau and titled “The Oaks” and below it was a similar drawing by Jacob Van Ruisdael, “The Three Oaks.” Next to these two, again there was a Rousseau, “A Screen of Trees Sheltering a Cottage” and below it a Rembrandt, “The Three Trees.” In the article from the Times below it says that Rousseau owned these two drawings. You know my love of the Dutch so this was the icing on the cake for me. The majority of the drawings were from a private collection so I can’t give you a link to these two drawings but here is a link to the Rembrandt which is at the Metropolitan Museum. http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/354633 And this is a link to the Van Ruisdael which is at the National Gallery in Washington D.C. https://artsy.net/artwork/jacob-van-ruisdael-the-three-oaks This is a link to a press release from the Morgan about the exhibit which has a number of illustrations. http://www.themorgan.org/sites/default/files/pdf/press/RousseauPressRelease.pdf and this is a link to an article in the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/21/arts/design/thodore-rousseau-retrospective-at-the-morgan.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%7B%221%22%3A%22RI%3A9%22%7D&_r=0  It was a splendid exhibition, very enjoyable.

And so, on to the Flickrs.

Andy G.

Boys Will Be Girls

https://www.flickr.com/photos/126556798%40N02/15955377725 

Dragon*Con 2013 costumes      

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rgaines/9702641811

cf86l

https://www.flickr.com/photos/124061677%40N05/15485484077 

FYA Sat 1 Nov 2014 000005

https://www.flickr.com/photos/hewlbane/15654753296

Halloween 2014

https://www.flickr.com/photos/48457908%40N00/15120972843   

Nat

https://www.flickr.com/photos/128395119%40N04/15738643175 

P1020129

https://www.flickr.com/photos/89611075%40N02/15556002417 

March 3 2008

https://www.flickr.com/photos/96621487%40N04/15580776040 

Red Carpet Blondie (17)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/126461197%40N06/15739785811 

Snow White?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ryc-behindthelens/15718004606

Fasching 2015 (79 von 152).jpg

https://www.flickr.com/photos/116482854%40N05/15589129810

[andyg0404]

Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.

It was another cold day today, very raw. When I went out early this morning it was light out but it was still dark if that doesn’t sound too crazy. It was the kind of grim, raw day where you expect it to snow although it wasn’t expected and I’m glad to say it didn’t. But the next three days have rain in the forecast with thunder as an added attraction on Wednesday, not so good for all those people who hope to get away on Christmas Eve. I will start my final week of vacation on Wednesday, also taking the week between Christmas and New Year’s, returning to work on the Friday after New Year’s. 2015, a little hard to comprehend for someone born in 1951.  Returning on the Friday won’t be so bad, it will be quiet and a good day to catch up and then we have the weekend to unwind a little. I am looking forward to my vacation with great anticipation, no great plans aside from a visit with my friends down at the shore but it will be nice to rest, relax, see some great art and read. Good practice for when I retire.

I took a chilly walk up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art this morning for the current exhibition, Paper Chase: Two Decades of Collecting Drawings and Prints. It’s the Met’s tribute to their drawings curator, George Goldner, who is retiring in 2015. He’s done a remarkable job of acquiring quality prints and building their collection since he was hired in 1993. This is an all-star assemblage of artists including, DaVinci, Titian, Fragonard, Gainsborough, DeLacroix, Joseph Wright of Derby and Ingres and his teacher, Jacques Louis David, among others. I expected the show to be in the three rooms that generally house their drawing exhibits but its currently occupied by the Bartholomeus Spranger exhibit that I wrote about a few weeks ago. So instead it’s in the corridor where they always have drawings on display from the permanent collection. It’s a long corridor with drawings on either side and at each end and as you walk down and back you marvel at the wonderful things you’re seeing, one right after another. The Met is such a grand palace of art with so much in its collection that what is displayed is really just a tip of the iceberg. This is a link to all of the items in the exhibit, click on the thumbnail to enlarge it. http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/objects?exhibitionId=%7b37453033-0029-4CCE-90DE-B59CA44B101D%7d&rpp=90&pg=1

And so, on to the Flickrs.

Hope everyone on the board has a Happy Holiday.

Andy G.

The elusive Alex Plume has renewed his on again, off again relationship with the site. Although by the time you click on the link he may have barred it again.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/127712480%40N08/

Boys in drag (390)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/127712480%40N08/15414506644/

IMG_2063

https://www.flickr.com/photos/emilysakura/9581908524

dress party.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nayltail/2702077128

Jaz-Shannyn-Jake-2

https://www.flickr.com/photos/129264042%40N05/15788340432 

VIS_2547 circle skirt and polka dots

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jennellap/4333065833 

Feeling Girlie!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lisamcd/7468004206 

Sissy Princess

https://www.flickr.com/photos/127450642%40N06/15617707878 

027 - Copy

https://www.flickr.com/photos/10792226%40N00/15162318283 

day248-11 AnkRouge+AnkRouge

https://www.flickr.com/photos/yumiko_misaki/15623552269 

_SHS6439

https://www.flickr.com/photos/shamshahrin/15603392978 

Tiffany

https://www.flickr.com/photos/steffenkroehl/15150279784 

ddt457l

https://www.flickr.com/photos/deetee21/15607107229 

[andyg0404]

Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.

I am thoroughly enjoying my final week of vacation, the weather has been very cooperative. Xmas day was remarkably mild, albeit windy. I was able to wear my new flannel shirt/jacket without the heavy coat and the whole day was dry. Today also was mild and dry. Mild and dry would be a nice forecast for the whole winter but something tells me it’s not to be. I spent Xmas at the shore with my friends and expect to spend the rest of my time visiting museums.

As a matter of fact this morning I took the longest walk of my walks up Fifth Avenue to Museum Mile. I always start at the Port Authority Bus terminal on 40th Street and 8th Avenue and in sequence walk up to the following museums:

MOMA at 53rd Street
The Frick at 70th St.
The Met at 81st St.
The Neue at 86th St.
The Guggenheim at 89th St.
The National Academy of Design at 89th St.
The Jewish Museum at 92nd St.

The one I visited this morning, The Museum of the City of New York, is between 103rd and 104th Streets. 63 blocks up and four avenues over. I hope to continue taking walks like this for a very long time, I like to walk and I think that along with my daily exercise routine it’s helping to keep me healthy and fit.

I went to see an exhibit of Mac Conner, an illustrator of the 20th Century. Conner’s work appeared in magazines, industrial publications and when magazine work started to fade, he embarked on a career painting romance paperback book covers. He and Norman Rockwell, the dean of illustrators,  were looked down on by the critics as “just” illustrators, not true artists. They had their own meeting place, The Society for Illustrators which has a restaurant as well as museum. I’ve been there for a few exhibits which were wonderful. I’m a collector of old newspapers and magazines so the illustrations in the show resonated with me and brought me back to my childhood in the 50s and 60s. There is also correspondence to him from the magazines giving him an assignment or requesting changes to a layout he did. Also a rejection letter from the Saturday Evening Post telling him that his work was good and to continue making submissions which he did. Finally his work graced the covers of the Saturday Evening Post early on and then he regularly did illustrations for the women’s magazines of the day, the seven sisters of publishing, Better Homes and Gardens, Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, Redbook, Woman’s Day, all of which are still published, as well as Ladies Home Journal and McCall’s which ceased publishing in April 2014 and 2002 respectively. Other than Better Homes and Gardens, I remember my mother buying all of them when I was a child. I liked going through them for the cartoons. I particularly enjoyed the strip “It’s All in the Family” by Stanley and Janice Berenstain later know for the Berenstain Bears. One of my earliest memories of seeing crossdressing was from the All in the Family series in which the older boy has to play a girl in a school play. I’ve posted that here as a matter of fact.

Mac Conner is 101 years old and still going strong. This is a link to the museum website which has a video of him talking about his life, as well as a number of illustrations from the exhibit. http://www.mcny.org/exhibition/mac-conner-new-york-life And here are two articles about the exhibit, one from the Wall Street Journal and the other from the New York Times. http://www.wsj.com/articles/exhibition-review-mac-conner-a-new-york-life-1410389302  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/29/business/media/paying-homage-to-an-illustrator-from-the-industrys-golden-era.html?_r=0 

Yesterday I visited the Neue Galerie for an exhibit of portraits by Egon Schiele. The Neue is a museum  of early twentieth-century German and Austrian art focusing largely on the Austrians, Schiele, Gustav Klimt and Oscar Kokoschka and the Germans,  Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Lyonel Feininger, Otto Dix, and George Grosz. It was founded and is run by Ronald Lauder, heir to Estee Lauder and a noted art collector and philanthropist. Lauder purchased a full size portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Klimt for $135 million and it is the star of the museum being displayed in the main room on the first floor. (I mistakenly had Leonard Lauder as the founder of the Neue when it's his brother Ronald. )

Schiele had a very distinct style, unlike others that I can think of. His oil paintings can be very stark without a lot of warmth but the portrait drawings which are done in crayon, ink and charcoal are really very beautiful. Very simple and minimalist. There are portraits in charcoal that he did as a teenager in school that are really remarkable and show how talented he was. I was very surprised at how crowded the museum was, people were lined up outside waiting to get in. All I could think was, this isn’t Van Gogh, where did they all come from. I guess it has to do with the fact that while his work is on display at other museums it’s not in large supply and this was a chance to see many things that normally aren’t on view. This is a link to the Neue website with information on the artist followed by another link to images on the website.  http://www.neuegalerie.org/content/egon-schiele-portraits-0  http://www.neuegalerie.org/exhibitions/items/2841 and this is an article from the New York Times on the exhibit. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/16/arts/egon-schiele-portraits-at-neue-galerie.html

And so, on to the Flickrs.

Andy G.

Girl thingys

https://www.flickr.com/photos/weissfoto/3044716960

cf101b

https://www.flickr.com/photos/124061677%40N05/15687036019 

20141123-GR005289-Edit

https://www.flickr.com/photos/leahcim/15857920551 

Sissy Dress

https://www.flickr.com/photos/48457908%40N00/14302420153/   

In a Polka-Dot whirl at Magic Theatre

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tanyadawnhughes/15695566380 

Memories of Cross-dressing

https://www.flickr.com/photos/helene_tv/15872594445 

Petit Lesseps

https://www.flickr.com/photos/15693951%40N00/15912782261

Boys in Tights

https://www.flickr.com/photos/50856638%40N02/15740774220/

DudleyHalloween14 316

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dannycasillas/15286101504

cartoons animes hq s comics desenhos crossdresser cdzinhas mangas

https://www.flickr.com/photos/117041661%40N02/15894293932

Sissy P-Hose 4

https://www.flickr.com/photos/129684894%40N04/15868549986

[andyg0404]

Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.

I regret to say my final week of vacation is over and there’s a New Year to deal with. It was a pleasant week for rest and relaxation and reading. I went back to the Metropolitan Museum twice, once for the Assyrian exhibit which was objects not wall art and while not particularly my thing was nevertheless an interesting tour. Also revisited Madame Cezanne as well as the drawing exhibit. And another visit to the Frick to see the Scottish National Gallery show which was just as special the second time, I may have to go one more time before it closes.

Since I get up every morning for work at 4AM or usually a little before, I find that even on vacation I can’t sleep late. I woke up just about every morning around 6AM and never stayed up past 9:30 PM. On New Year’s day I awoke at 6AM and did my exercises then decided to take a long walk. I did a long circle around my home, roughly equivalent to a walk from the Port Authority to the Met and you won’t be surprised when I tell you I didn’t see too many cars or pedestrians. And I have to laugh at my keen sense of direction once again. At the end of the route I came back to my block and crossed to the other side of the street to walk down to the highway overpass and then cross again to my home which is a few houses up. My street is parallel to a highway. I walked down the other side of the street a distance until I finally realized that I wasn’t walking on a City street, I had descended down onto the Highway. The only way for me to have accessed the overpass would have been to climb the barrier which I thought probably wasn’t a good idea despite my being in good shape. So I walked back to where I entered and then found the street I should have been on and finished my walk. I’m lucky there was no traffic.

I worked on Friday but it wasn’t too bad as it was very slow, the phone hardly rang and I was able to catch up on things before business returns to normal next week. Even got to close up shop a little early and get a jump on the weekend. Today all I did was go into the City and walk downtown to the Strand bookstore and browse before heading back home to read the newspapers and chat with a friend.

This wouldn’t seem like a weekly Flickr if I didn’t mention the weather so
 right now it’s snowing lightly and cold but it won’t stick as tomorrow it’s supposed to be 60 degrees. Unfortunately early next week New Jersey will descend into the ice age with single digit temperatures expected, something I am not anxious to experience again. One morning last year it was 3 degrees out and I waited 40 minutes for my bus while I slowly turned into a human block of ice. It was so cold I couldn’t read the New Yorker, even with my gloves on. I had to put my gloved hands in my pockets to try and get some blood circulating. It’s the weather and the commute that are driving me to retirement. As I’ve often mentioned if I can work from home I will continue to work past 65 but if not I won’t regret giving it up.

Well, let’s see who on Flickr came to entertain us this week.

Andy G.

Girly Boy Dancers

https://www.flickr.com/photos/129353943%40N03/15968179889

The Ugly Duckling

https://www.flickr.com/photos/knessia/16082159381

Two sexy princesses

https://www.flickr.com/photos/125249336%40N05/15952028319

50131-stories-03c

https://www.flickr.com/photos/51515689%40N04/14967012443/

I like being pretty

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rkrause/15526122274

Cover Girls

https://www.flickr.com/photos/officialguse/15880312675

Tanya

https://www.flickr.com/photos/93737855%40N06/15417712790

fasching_ts-1

https://www.flickr.com/photos/toni_scholz/15945063918

DSC00722      

https://www.flickr.com/photos/26082347%40N03/8643071615

Kenneth taylor shopping in Birmingham

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sissy_katie/15237792913

i am the girl next door

https://www.flickr.com/photos/64237525%40N05/15290081023

DSC_6438

https://www.flickr.com/photos/23509681%40N02/15354496993