Hoboken & Right Here

18 August 2021 – Well, there’s a stretch. I’ve never visited Hoboken or even had cause to think about it, not until bluebrightly and I entered into some chatter about one of the images in my Murals & Time Travel post.

It showed vine and ripening berries rampaging all over a chainlink fence, and I had soared off into some fantasy about city-as-art-installation. Bluebrightly commented that, instead, she thought of it as an example of nature taking over.

She added, “I always loved stubborn manifestations like that. In the industrial city of Hoboken, New Jersey, across the river from NYC, there was an Ailanthus tree growing out of the old train station roof. And Tansies along the railroad tracks. Probably all gone now, since Hoboken became popular.”

I replied that it made me think of a particular take-over moment in an alley right here, back in June 2020.

This moment:

So here’s to stubborn, insistent nature, in Hoboken, Vancouver & everywhere else.

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by icelandpenny on 18 August 2021 • Permalink

Posted in City, Nature, photography, Vancouver

Tagged alleys & lanes, cityscape, urban nature

Posted by icelandpenny on 18 August 2021

https://icelandpenny.com/2021/08/18/hoboken-right-here/

Blossoms With Attitude

27 April 2021 – It’s the height of cherry blossom season here, so the whole city is pretty in pink. But pretty-pretty is not the whole message.

First, there’s the sublime indifference to COVID. Our assorted cherry blossom festivals may once again be cancelled, but the trees bloom anyway. Take that, virus! Very comforting, very encouraging.

And then there are all the other messages. I tell you, these blossoms have attitude.

There’s over-the-top bravura: “I own the street.”