SJ Rozan

Went to the gym today to run my miles. On my way to the treadmills, passed the bikes. First guy’s watching TV. Second guy’s reading the Post. Third guy’s peddling furiously, poring over the score to a Schubert piano sonata. Me, I put Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson on the headphones, fired up the treadmill, and thought about how I love New York.

Came home from a few errands to find a Cooper’s Hawk on the back fence, standing over something gray, white, and unmoving. Oh no! One of Squirrely’s family, thought I. Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. Fly away with it, Hawk! They don’t, though, unless they have young to feed, and it’s way too early for that. (And from his speckles I think this guy is last year’s young, himself.) They eat where they kill, which in this case is right here on the fence. Because it wouldn’t leave and because the binocs were right by my desk as always, I had to look.

It’s a pigeon.

Not the diner, the meal.

The Hawk is indeed a Cooper’s, my first. Once it started tearing up the pigeon I didn’t need the binocs; feathers are flying all over the backyard. This is the second time I’ve seen this activity in the same spot; the other time, it was a Red-tail, also chowing down a pigeon. I feel a little bad for not feeling bad for the pigeon, but family’s family.

And right now, with the exception of that hawk tearing apart that pigeon, nothing, absolutely nothing, in the backyard is stirring.

Got up early to meet the estimable Keith Michael and a few other intrepid explorers. Traveled by subway and bus out to Dead Horse Bay, to go birding, see what we could see. Cold, wet, misty, occasionally rainy. The beach was scattered with beautiful debris — seeing what the water churns up is one of the reasons to go out to this place. The birds didn’t really cooperate, though. Mergansers, buffleheads, Brant geese, mallards, Gadwalls, a loon, endless gulls, American black ducks, sure. But what one really goes to see is the massive flock of scaup, somewhere between five and ten thousand of them. They were there, but on the far side of the bay, visible only through binoculars. We couldn’t get to them and they wouldn’t come to us. Every now and then a few hundred would suddenly rise into the air, and I kept hoping maybe one of them had suggested the fishing was better on our side and they’d all head on over, but no. Still, it was lots of fun, and to reward ourselves we went to the Pharmacy in Brooklyn afterwards and had coffee, hot chocolate, grilled cheese, and pie. Then in the evening I went to see Kenny Endo and Kaoru Watanabe on the taiko drums and Japanese flutes. These guys are always amazing individually, and together they are guaranteed, absolutely guaranteed, to knock your socks off. They’re doing the same program in DC on Wednesday — if you’re down there, go go go!

intrepid explorers

beach

pottery shard

bottle

manhole cover!

pottery shard, mussels, and snails

mastertile

bottle tree — just a detail of a large uprooted tree, draped with debris. someone went to a lot of trouble…

pottery shard

piling

and

kenny endo and kaoru watanabe tearing it up!

Two small Gadwall flocks

Argue: whose water is this?

Mallard swims between.

Green glittering glass,

Blue bottles, pink saucer shards,

Scattered on wet sand.

Rusted iron safe

Lies on its side, door yanked off,

Full of countless snails.

I know I’ve said that I post Eating in Translation and the food-related events therein largely for the ethnic culture and not so much the food. But sometimes, it’s the food.

JL and I raced up to the Malaysian Winter Market at Bryant Park today to chow down on Nyona’s nasi lemak for lunch. Good thing we got there early: by the time we were finished, the place was cheerful chaos and the lines were out the tent.

That was the river this morning. Green in the shadows, blue under the sparkling sun, whitecaps and spray all over as the powerful north wind made the water look like a snow-capped mountain range. One single seagull slipped sideways through the sky, letting the wind do the work. On the other hand, a male bufflehead came flapping in against the wind — strong wings on that little guy. A small flock of Brant geese, maybe eight or nine, rose up, circled, and changed their minds, landing where they started. Not such birdbrains, I think.

I’m doing workshops in June and August on Genre Writing. (You didn’t know that? Where have you been?) I can of course run on about the various genres, their uses and meanings, from now until… quite some time from now. But I do like to give students a chance to hear it from other horses’ mouths. I have good material on crime and romance, but you sci-fi, fantasy, horror and western writers out there: can you steer me to books or essays that discuss your genres?

Chinese New Year parade in Chinatown yesterday. Cold cold cold, but worth it. Happy Year of the Snake!

follow that elephant

dominican dancers

lion

lion and friend

lion

boy scouts are lost…

…but their flags aren’t

very cold erhu player

“gay snake says ok!”

general on a float

new year’s confetti on old snow

More on Flickr, natch. Just click any of these and you’ll be there.

This morning — and it was like 15 degrees and windy by the river, so I want you all to appreciate how hard I work to bring you these reports — I spotted the pair of mergansers swimming along near the seawall and three buffleheads (two males and a female) way out in open water. The mergansers apparently spotted the buffleheads the same time I did. They started swimming against the waves and the wind to get out to where the buffleheads were. I didn’t know if they just figured the buffleheads knew where to find fish, or if they wanted to chase the buffleheads out of their territory. It was a long paddle; meanwhile, the buffleheads kept diving for fish and coming up a little farther south each time, pushed by the underwater current. Finally the mergansers got to where the buffleheads had originally been and the buffleheads, from ten yards away, spotted them. The buffleheads swam directly toward the mergansers. Oho, I thought, it WAS about territory and now there’s going to be a lot of squawking and wing flapping. But no. When the buffleheads got to where the mergansers were — where they, the buffleheads, had originally been — everyone looked at each other for a moment, and then everyone dove. Apparently that was where the fish were, and the mergansers had just invited themselves over for breakfast.

For those of you anxiously awaiting a Bella the cat update, here it is. As all Bella fans know, when she first got here she spent two days under the bed before she was willing even to sneak out and eat when I wasn’t home. Well, last night for the first time, she slept on it. The bed, I mean. While I was in it. In the last couple of weeks she’s taken to jumping up on the bed to say goodnight; then she jumps off and goes and sleeps wherever it is she sleeps. Once or twice she’s settled down for about ten minutes before leaving. Last night, she never left. I woke up twice to find her just where she’d settled. She’s a prodigious sleeper, the kind of cat who contrives to weigh fifty pounds and be made of solid lumber when she wants to be. Last night was like having a marble cat sculpture on the mattress until her usual half-an-hour-after-sunrise announcement that books don’t write themselves while writers sleep.