birdspot

Random event/music post, to fill the time while I begin that new large drawing (after a number of hours of work, it still barely registers in a jpeg): Last night I saw Bubblyfish play at The Tank. If you haven’t enjoyed the pleasures of 8-bit electronic music played on Gameboys, visit her site here or her myspace page here. Glomag also provided an invigorating set, despite tech difficulties that knocked out a channel. I left in a fine mood indeed. Suffice to say I’m doing a lot of dancing around while drawing today.

I’m starting on a couple of new larger drawings, and because I have never really drawn a snake,* I have done a few rough sketches to see how the expression changes with the shape of the head. (more…)

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I walked for a bit in the park this morning, to look for birds and to enjoy a t-shirt-warm stroll. In between the intoxications of blooming forsythia and magnolia, and of the course the tiny greenings of so many trees, there were a fair number of migrant birds, and so, I can finally report, I am converted. It is great to bird in Central Park.

So much warm happiness was tempered, however, on my way out of the Ramble (an area meandering and wooded, for those not familiar with the park). A duck was standing in the middle of one of the paths, and I was surprised when it made no efforts to move off as I walked closer. Actually, I was surprised it was standing there at all. When I got within a foot or so I began to suspect it might be sick or starving. It was a Mallard, and of the wild(ish) type, meaning not one of the dumpier domestics. We walked up to each other, I knelt down, and we regarded each other. Befuddled, I went over to the nearest park bench and sat, wondering what on earth I could possibly do. The bird cast about with a rheumy eye, and then, ever slowly and deliberately, walked over to me, looked up at me, then slunk under me and curled up beneath my legs.

I sat on that bench for fifteen minutes, the duck in the shade at my feet, with tears streaming down my face. I have never felt so helpless. People walked by in the usual clueless manner, an occasional sidelong glance - another heartbreak, another lost soul in the park, another of countless sad city stories, they must have been thinking. Don’t mind me, I was thinking, I’m just sitting here. Just me and my DYING DUCK.

This is it, it is official. Even sans wild gray hair and excessive mumbling, I am now a card carrying crazy bird lady of Central Park. I don’t even need to bring loaves of bread or twenty-pound sacks of seed, I don’t need a creepy swarm of pigeons to warm these sorry and lonely bones. I’ll just go for a morning stroll like a million other people here and the birds can come expire in my lap.