Trashed, New York City

It was a dark and stormy night when a scofflaw snuck this unloved TV with shattered screen out to the curb. I've seen a lot of random refuse in my time, including an entire piano soundboard and a sweet hand-painted sign saying "Mom loves Norm" (was it Mom or Norm who put it out?). But this was my first sad and forlorn flat screen stuck out in melting spring snow.

All trash tells a story: This one's a double crime in progress. New York City law requires e-waste to be taken to an electronic recycling station. Also, household garbage is banned from sidewalk sanitation baskets. Who could do such a thing? Maybe there's a registered serial number here. No doubt the perp is chomping popcorn and streaming Netflix on a newer model at this very moment.

The questions ask themselves. How did the screen crack? Did the TV fall off the wall or was an object thrown at it? Who opts for Vizio over Panasonic? Let's look at motives. Did a lazy owner with a guilty conscience think, "Nah, not lugging it on the subway. But I'll almost do the right thing." Or in blind denial, "Perhaps someone will want it?" The plot lines are endless.

Spring cleaning can be ruthless. Could have been a condo-owning Kondo-izer (The Life-Changing Magic of Cleaning Up by Marie Kondo) or a foresighted Swedish death-cleaner (The Gentle Art of Swedish Death-Cleaning: How to Free You and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter by Margareta Magnusson. Broken TV's certainly do not spark joy or thrill heirs.

The only thing I know for sure. It was a dark and stormy night. All better to avoid the $200 fine.

Bulldogged, New York City

In Wes Anderson's fabulous film Isle of Dogs, canines are removed from daily life and banished to a remote island. Here in Manhattan, it's the opposite. We're an Isle of Dogs that has Aisles of Dogs. I've seen pets tucked, lifted, dragged, walked, seated and scooped just about everywhere, including to Starbucks and the movies. Trendy owners now bring fur babies to the office, or even the post office (above). The problem is not all breeds are good walkers. Some tire easily on skinny little legs; others may be heavy as bowling balls. Enter, four wheels. Compared to, say, bringing an emotional support peacock to the airport, doing chores with a bulldog in a baby stroller is a walk in the park. But the sight of a regal dog in a cushy throne always makes me wonder. Who's the real master?

March For Our Lives, NYC

The protesters were young and their mood was serious at Manhattan's March For Our Lives on March 24, 2018. Among the estimated 175,000 demonstrators were many New York City students and teachers. Post-rally, it was hard to wind down. Many wore signs as they shopped, stopped for food, walked in the park or took public transport home. Three high school friends (above) walked up Sixth Avenue with a "Books Not Bullets" crown and stopped to snap a proud photo in front of Robert Indiana's iconic pop-art LOVE sculpture. After a day of sincere political action, they had a reminder that love was in the backdrop. Others left their signs in a temporary wall of dissent (below) against barricades where the crowd dispersed. Their fierce statement would remain for a few hours more, or at least until street sweepers arrived.

Big Snow, NYC

March in New York is not for the impatient. On the second day of spring, the city was repainted in winter white. It was the fourth snow of the month. Lacy shrugs covered buildings, trees and cars. On sidewalks, shovelers raced the heavy, wet snow while joggers sprang through it. Children headed with shouts and saucers to the nearest park as dog walkers put tiny red rubber galoshes on shivering paws. A giant inflatable pink swan sled swooshed down a steep hill and floated up it. On Riverside Drive, a yellow taxi left a wake on the street like a boat. The snow fell and fell and fell all day. It was so cold you had to put on winter gloves just to check out the view through an open window.

Lined Up, New York City

This is the largest line I've ever seen in my life. Literally. Made up of towering 25-foot-tall paper cutouts, it was pasted outside the popular art fair, The Armory Show (March 7-11), by the French artist JR in partnership with dealer Jeffrey Deitch and Artsy. JR's idea was to secretly photoshop contemporary faces of Syrian refugees onto historical photos of Ellis Island immigrants. The piece, "So Close," not only asks the question "Who is foreign?" by mingling historical and contemporary images but also slyly points out the privilege of waiting in line for upscale experiences like, say, an art fair, brunch, or a Cronut. Dualities were evident on the sidewalk below "So Close," too. As art lovers in mink and down coats lined up outside the show's entrance, a man in traditional Pakistani garb handed out Subway discount flyers to anyone who would take them. The day was bitter cold, and he shivered in his lightweight clothes.

Ice Plant, Half Moon Bay

Humans aren't the only species who invade and conquer. Plants are guilty, too. I was awestruck by acres of red-tipped green succulents flowering under a blue California sky next to a turquoise ocean. Then they were outed as a lethal beauty. An expert at the California Coastal Trail Association identified my fan photo as Carpobrotus edulis, or Ice Plant, and warned me by email that it "forms a large, thick mat that chokes out all other native plants and alters the soil composition of the environment." Even worse, as "a coastal invader, it competes with many endangered, threatened, and rare plants." Ice plant shows that colonialism is built into natural design, but the forward-thinking imperative is for us to weed it out.

Old Road, California

It's a mysterious truth that even a road to nowhere must lead somewhere. I’ve always loved the news item about the couple who followed their GPS so closely they ended up driving their rental car right into the ocean. An ocean of nowhere to them, certainly, but not to the people who walked the beach or splashed in its water. The furrowed tracks on this dusty old ranch road in Templeton, California, end in an infinite distance I'll never see but some locals might know well. Above them, a plane's white contrail pierces the deep blue sky like an arrow. When you think about it, nowhere can seem like a noun, but it's really just a point of view.

Bold, NYC

Sometimes rebellion is as simple as a pair of bright red boots with matching handbag. A flare goes up. Color, like hope, may be contagious on an utterly drab day in February. Inspired, a young woman in weathered Uggs checks out a spring shoe window display, perhaps imagining a new red pair of her own.

All Mine, NYC

King of the Mountain is serious business in Manhattan. It's not easy ruling the unruly kingdom (ask any builder or Wall Street trader). Usually, kids are on the losing end of the city's scale. Tall buildings shrink them down to mice. Elevators threaten to eat their tiny hands and sneakers. Dogs bark or growl nose to nose. Even kind strangers engulf like giant lampposts. But every now and again—on a swing, a parent's shoulders, or atop a manmade snow hill in Central Park—perspective reverses. Buildings become Lego blocks. Traffic runs on Matchbox toys. A snowscape becomes a moonscape; the sky tastes like cotton soup. Suddenly, the city is entirely theirs. 

Arch, NYC

Public art is never static. People, traffic, birds, squirrels, weather and time of day all change things up. Take, for example,  Ai Weiwei's 37-foot-high steel cage in Washington Square Park (until February 11, 2018). By day, it was a total selfie magnet for tourists. At night, it ruled the park. Darkness transformed Weiwei's center silhouette (modeled after a 1937 gallery doorway by Marcel DuChamp) into a beckoning giant keyhole. Floodlights on the arch turned park walkers into miniature moving cut-outs. Perhaps the conjoined couple in the cage had just stepped out to explore the world around them? I wondered if they might snap back into place at dawn, like two missing puzzle pieces.

Gilded, NYC

New York City's public art performances are seldom singular. Passersby often jump in with their own twist, like this street mime in gold sequins and metallic face paint perched inside Ai Weiwei's giant Victorian birdcage structure near Trump Tower. With 300 outdoor sculptures installed across five boroughs from October to February, 2018, Weiwei's work— "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors" —evoked the global refugee crisis and the divisive nature of borders and walls. The mime wouldn't say, of course, if he was going meta on Weiwei by impishly layering a migrant street performance on a public art performance about migrants. Or was it simply a great spot for tips? I had so many questions and he had so few answers. Just a signaled preference for peace.

Cheeky, NYC

Lately, everyone and everything seems to be getting louder. Yelling on cable news, ALL-CAPS on Twitter, amped-up music, you name it. My hunch was confirmed this week by this New Yorker piece by Amanda Petrusich. She notes in it that ubiquitous dynamic range compression is "the audio equivalent of writing in all capital letters," that "productive discourse has been reduced to simply securing the most deafening bullhorn," and even the ocean "is getting progressively less quiet." Noise pollution, like other kinds, is stuck on high.

One way to turn down the volume is to remember that whispering also commands attention. I've seen teachers quiet a noisy classroom by lowering, not raising, their voices. At the Women's March 2018 in New York City on January 20, the protester in the photo above stood out in a crowd with a cheek sign tinier than a button. Quirky and memorable, it proved you don't always have to shout to be heard.

On the Lam, New York

Balloons are not for the faint-hearted. They wilt, pop, fly away and teach children the true meaning of tragedy. Here, I saw two dozen helium balloons hanging like golden fruit in the leafless branches of a lonely sidewalk tree. This was not on purpose. But for karma's sake, I decided to pretend it was. The cheery cluster looked like a big bunch of grapes ready for harvest. They shimmered like soap bubbles. They gave the street a festive party mood that triumphed over freezing temperatures, trash and slush on a grey January day. All you had to do for things to look up was look up.

Booted, New York

Women's shoe choices often give mixed messages. At the 2018 Golden Globe Awards, actresses wore #TimesUp black gowns with precarious stilettos. High shoes lend power but are destabilizing. It's so much easier to protest in flats. 

Not all flats are created equal. I stumbled across a high-end shoe sale and wondered if, as with social media, shoe designers had to shout to be heard.  The parade of wallflower racks held the inane, the insane, and the downright hilarious. There were leftover platformed Timberlands with a stainless steel retainer tip, a burgundy brogue with a pink feather and rhinestone side buckle, and gold-dipped booties tied up with a dainty bow. You had to smile. The ultimate punch line was a zipped fake foot in a red stiletto heel that made me think of the creepy 1971 movie, Klute. 

Maybe outrageous times call for outrageous footwear. But the Golden Globes showed that when it comes to silhouette, some shoes are just too beautiful to #resist.

Eve, New York

I don't know about you, but I'm mighty glad to have 2017 in rear view. I share Whoopi Goldberg's 2018 resolution: "To be more resolute." I look around for inspiring images of fortitude all over. Above, Fernando Botero's mighty "Eve" in the Time Warner Center projects an air of unshakable strength. Naked but not vulnerable, she towers over scores of bundled-up winter shoppers seeking shelter from the record cold. 

Refreshed, New York

As the New Year approaches, the thought of changing up things appeals. This morning I peered out the window through the bottom of my unfilled water glass like a sailor with a spyglass. It turned a rooftop water tank into a bird and nearby buildings into canyon walls. Little kids lean back on swings, spin in crazy circles and look at the world upside down through their legs. They play with perspective on a daily basis. I want to do more of that this year. By refreshing our view, we refresh ourselves, too. What could you see differently?

Imaginary Acts, New York

A friend of mine once looked out her window in deepest night and saw a parade of elephants underneath. She described it to me so vividly that I almost stole it as my own memory. It turned out she wasn't dreaming. The only way to get the Ringling Bros. elephants to Madison Square Garden each year was to walk them across Manhattan when the streets were empty. Her vision of pachyderms on Park was real.

That circus folded in May, 2017, but our collective fantasy of seeing elements of the greatest show on earth lives on. This year's Bloomingdale's New York celebrates it with windows themed to the new P. T. Barnum movie, "The Greatest Showman." You can step right up to view the bearded lady (above), the snake charmer, the fortune teller and the trapeze artist all captured at work and play. The store's message is of fabulous individuality, inclusion, and, of course, shop until you drop. No elephants required.

Logged, New York

I've seen just about everything lugged on a city bus, from musicians hoisting 6-foot-tall double basses to millennials with unassembled furniture. This was my first live Christmas tree though. The passenger swiped himself on and positioned his fragrant cargo in a seat in the back. I hoped the miniscule bus forest might inspire a round of holiday carols ("Deck the Halls" would have been nice), but the M5 bus is no La La Land. So I closed my eyes, breathed in deeply and imagined I could smell fir boughs all the way home.

Conduct, New York

You'd have to be very jaded or a retail atheist not to get excited by the visual artistry in New York City's holiday windows. Each year Barney's, Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdale's and Saks Fifth Avenue create bedazzling sidewalk displays that in my mind outperform the towering spectacle of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

Bergdorf's theatrical stage sets—perhaps due to the architectural scale of the actual window frames and the bottomless talent of visual director David Hoey—are usually my favorite. This year's BG masterpiece windows (slideshow here) are no exception. Fanciful, elaborate and technically superb, they celebrate the city's great cultural institutions like The New York Philharmonic, above.

In the window, a cascade of neon instruments light up in sequence and crescendo visually to full blast. Prismatic perspective shows how symphonic music pours out, around, and over you. A flamboyant and flame-haired conductor ignites the scene with back turned and arms raised. My secret fantasy is that as she conducts, she shatters something—not the window—but the notorious gendered glass ceiling of most of the world's great symphony orchestras. 

What's that sound you hear? It's a #metoo army of stiletto heels grinding glass shards into grains of sand. Applause, please.

Purple Too, Storm King

I like to think there are trolls with poles underneath. If there were fish, what would they look like? Maya Lin's gorgeous and sensual Storm King Wavefield, above, is awash in living contradictions. Grass swells like water. Ocean waves mimic mountain ridges. An artist-designed tide flows to nowhere. Weeds, waves and rows of distant trees part like a classic landscape painting into fore, middle and background. And everywhere, shade upon shade of mysterious purple rust. I crave this beautiful decay, before the white.