Here Is New York in 2020 (Stylized by Google)

At the close of this summer of discontent, I side with Jerry Seinfeld and Patti Smith, and against James Altucher, on the subject of New York City.

Not that it matters. All four of us are privileged, so New York isn't really ours.

Also, as E. B. White eloquently noted in the 1949 foreword to his love-letter/essay, "Here Is New York," the city can't be written about or "brought down to date" by anything other than opinions and observations offered at the speed of light.

But what if...

What if, in 2020, we have the speed-of-light technology to see into the soul of New York?

I think we might.

This summer, returning to work in New York in mid-July after sheltering at home in New Jersey in mid-March, I took many cell phone photos that needed no development process. The files automatically uploaded to a digital cloud. Instantly, using a mysterious algorithm that mere mortals cannot initiate, Google's vast artificial intelligence (AI) engine selected several images to machine-edit.

My little corner of the Google Photos cloud is now filled with "auto-stylized" images of New York in the summer of 2020 that differ from the New York I saw with my own eyes.

This technology is not new, but it appears to be evolving. Before the pandemic, after taking cell phone photos of New York, I would often be surprised to see an additional image or two that had been auto-stylized by Google in my photo feed.

Almost invariably, the AI had edited the images in black-and-white -- as if Google had the same nostalgic view of New York as E. B. White in 1949.

In 2020, many more of these auto-stylized images have magically appeared on my phone in a very different form. 

As if it has transported me to the land of Oz, New-York-as-stylized-by-Google now appears in hyper-vibrant color.

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My return to New York was a plot hatched by my daughter Maddy, who lives in an East Side apartment just one block from composer Irving Berlin's former home, two blocks from Katharine Hepburn's former home, five blocks from the workplace where I met my wife Nancy, and eight blocks from the site of our first date (when Nancy lost her wallet outside a movie theater playing "The Natural," yet with great relief found her cashed paycheck stashed separately in her purse... for we all lived from paycheck to paycheck in 1984, the year before E. B. White died).

My daughter and I are enamored with New York's poetic nature. Poetic, in the sense that it "compresses all life... into a small island and adds music." That's how White describes the city in his famous essay.

He also describes his enchantment at living in such close proximity to so many magical people. For White, only 18 inches separated these random encounters -- the distance between his luncheonette booth and one frequented by Fred Stone, a local actor who played the Scarecrow in the Broadway version of "The Wizard of Oz."

When I lived in New York before marrying Nancy (29 blocks from Maddy's apartment, on the other side of Manhattan), I think perhaps I once shared a wordless ride on the 7 Train to Shea Stadium just 18 inches from writer and Mets fan Harper Lee.

In 2020, 18 inches has become 6 feet, and my daughter has experienced her own random link with Oz in a casual nod of recognition exchanged with actress Mary-Kate Olsen in her Turtle Bay neighborhood.

Maddy is perceptive and literate. In April, she offered great editing suggestions to a pandemic-related short story I wrote. A few weeks later, she said she planned to be out of town for a week and suggested, just like White's editor Ted Patrick, that "it might be fun" for me to hole up in the city in mid-July to write about New York.

Maddy offered the use of her apartment, but between her work responsibilities and other family obligations of my own, the "week" turned into the Sunday night before I was scheduled to return to my office at 777 3rd Ave., between 48th and 49th streets. Instead of spending several days alone in 90-degree heat at the Algonquin Hotel, I spent a single, comfortable, air-conditioned night with Nancy in Turtle Bay.

We drove in and parked that Sunday at the U.N. Plaza, where Harper Lee's friend Truman Capote once lived, and Nancy and I gingerly explored our old stomping grounds.

As I posted here last month, a feeling of great forlornness and forsakenness struck us. We had the sense that New York had become strangely vulnerable during the pandemic.

We were comforted by a visit to an old, familiar bar.

"At least Murphy's will always be here," I said -- then learned in the weeks that followed that it too had closed for good at the end of August.

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Which brings me back to Google, and its conjuring of New York's ghosts.

E. B. White wrote that summertime is a good time to re-examine New York and to receive what he called its gift of privacy.

So much is happening in New York at any given time, he reasoned, that individuals can choose whether to attend or pay attention to any particular thing, and that no one thing can throw the city off balance or inflict itself on a person.

He also wrote that although no plague could wipe out New York, the city was -- with the then-recent development of planes carrying nuclear warheads -- for the first time in its history, destructible.

It seems to me that in 2020, Google (which I am using here as shorthand for "Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, ubiquitous connectivity and high-speed Internet access") has dramatically changed these equations, and White is now wrong on both counts.

People nowadays can ignore what they choose, creating their own realities from a vast global storehouse, with myriad ways to experience sudden rejuvenation. Because of technology, "New York" is now everywhere. And we now know that, over time, pandemics have the same destructive power as our bombs.

I think the idealized version of New York today -- which Google's AI somehow senses and changes over time and then reflects back to us -- is the idealized version of what's best in each of us. It is the New York of the person in quest of grand achievement, a more meaningful life or simply better days to come.

I think these stylized images are digital versions of the old willow tree that E. B. White wrote about.

Off and on in the '40s and '50s (and while he wrote "Charlotte's Web"), White lived in Turtle Bay Gardens, a complex of 20 contiguous townhouses in two rows on the north side of 48th Street and the south side of 49th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. Personal favorites Bob Dylan and Kurt Vonnegut lived there in later years too.

The buildings enclose a private, central backyard. White particularly loved a willow tree that grew there. It stood outside his apartment window and next to a replica of a fountain at the Villa Medici in Rome.

In "Here Is New York" he wrote that this "battered tree, long suffering and much climbed... symbolizes the city: life under difficulties, growth against odds, sap-rise in the midst of concrete, and the steady reaching for the sun."

He concluded: "Whenever I look at it nowadays, and feel the cold shadows of the planes [bearing possible annihilation overhead], I think: 'This must be saved, this particular thing, this very tree.' If it were to go, all would go..."

As it turns out, White's willow is now gone... like Murphy's, like the New York we all remember. The tree died and was removed in 2009.

With support from composer Stephen Sondheim and other Turtle Bay Gardens residents, Urban Arborists in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn cared for the tree until the very end, and founder Bill Logan has been nurturing its cuttings so that they may be replanted in parks across the city.

(PS - On Sept. 23, Logan sent a note that Urban Arborists replants more cuttings from White's willow every year. The original offspring from the tree "is now more than 40 feet tall in our yard in Brooklyn.")

All this is alright with me. I don't want New York back again, back the way it was. I'm excited by the prospects of the New York that is to come.

Besides, Google has my back. It is creating little digital snapshots of an idealized version of New York that will truly live forever. Technology has dispersed these ageless pixels into the ether, to be perhaps deciphered one day by the life forms discovered this past week on the planet Venus.

I cannot bring New York down to date on paper. But if each picture can be worth a thousand words, then the seven auto-stylized images posted here are Google's homage to White's 7,000-word essay.

The photo on top of this page, for example, is a Google-styled vision of Turtle Bay Gardens. When I returned to my office on July 20, I realized -- for the first time -- that our Board Room windows on the 23rd Floor overlooked these buildings, and the interior gardens where White's tree once stood.

Our building had been vacated due to the COVID-19 lockdown, and the windows had not been cleaned in more than four months. Google's AI brightened my camera's God's-eye view and nostalgically blurred the dirty, dried droplets of rain as if they were heavenly stars.

Google -- like me and Jerry Seinfeld and Patti Smith -- knows the value of this city... this mischievous and marvelous monument which, not to look upon, would be like death.

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This post is dedicated to White's stepson, the writer Roger Angell, who is celebrating his 100th birthday this weekend. Angell originally commissioned White to write "Here is New York" for Holiday magazine, and his foreword graces the 1999 edition of its publication. Below is Edward C. Caswell's illustration of White's willow tree from the tailpiece of the original 1949 edition.

3 Tweets: The Capitol Theatre in Passaic

Peak @springsteen 42 years ago this weekend at the Capitol Theatre... the poets down here don't write nothing at all, they just stand back and let it all be

Jungleland (Passaic, NJ 09/19/1978) https://t.co/oAHHb1vhTD via @YouTube

— Bob Varettoni (@bvar) September 18, 2020

I posted the above on Twitter, feeling nostalgic on a Friday morning. Then I noticed Van Morrison trending, because of this:

 A little more research, and my descent into melancholy was complete.

This is the site of the Capitol Theatre today https://t.co/0Lay8adaWW pic.twitter.com/PHwhu3DhTb

— Bob Varettoni (@bvar) September 18, 2020

 

19 Years Later, 9/11 Remembered

Empty Sky Memorial, Liberty State Park, NJ, 2020

This year I've again updated a Pinterest site of photos and stories recalling my former Verizon colleagues and their heroic response to 9/11. You can reach it at https://www.pinterest.com/bvar/verizons-response-to-911/ .

Newly added is a booklet from 2005 about the history and recovery of 140 West Street, the old headquarters building that was severely damaged at Ground Zero... and from which workers snaked temporary cables from open windows to get the New York Stock Exchange up and running just days later, beginning our national recovery.

Here are links to a half dozen related posts here (from most recent to oldest):

• 9/11: A Lesson in Accountability
• Revisiting My 9/11 Diary Pages
• New Insights on Verizon's 9/11 Recovery Efforts
• A New Generation Runs to a Crisis
• 9/11 Memoirs of an Invisible Man
• How Long Until the Elmos Show Up at Ground Zero?

I hope you can make sense of it all.

Even 19 years later, I can't.

Last Call at Murphy's Pub

That’s my shadow, holding up a cell phone to capture this image at 5:19 p.m. on Sunday, July 19, 2020, on Second Avenue, between 51st and 52nd streets.

It was the first time my wife and I were back together in New York City since the outbreak of the pandemic. We walked around our old haunts on the East Side, without any direction.

Nancy turned to me at one point and said, “It’s odd. I’ve never seen New York look like this.”

“How so?”

“The city looks vulnerable,” she said. “I never thought that would be possible.”

As we approached 52nd Street, I had an idea. “Let’s have a drink at Murphy’s,” I said, eyeing a temporary terrace, constructed of 2x4s, jutting out into the empty red bus lane along the west side of Second Avenue. A temporary sign proclaimed that the site was “Murphy's Pub,” although the permanent signage on the building called it “Jameson’s.”

When we were dating, Nancy and I often had drinks at Murphy’s – usually with colleagues from the newspaper where we worked nearby. We were regulars. When my wife entered, the bartender would cheerfully call out, “Gin and tonic!” – as if she were Norm on the sitcom “Cheers.”

We took seats at the outside bar, and a waiter dutifully handed us menus, since we’d need to order food (in accordance with Gov. Cuomo’s restaurant-opening restrictions). We did – and Nancy, who for years has ordered only wine on date nights, ordered a gin and tonic with her meal.

Surprisingly, from a makeshift stage at the front door, music began to play. It was “Mae & Henry” – a guitar and violin duo of locals Mae Roney and Henry Raber.

Mae is a wonderful fiddle player with a soulful vocal range, and her version of the great 1990s song by 4 Non Blondes, “What’s Up (What’s Going On),” gave me goosebumps. Live music is vibrant and immediate, raw and energizing in a way that can’t be replicated in the streaming videos of homebound musicians.

The waiter retuned with two large, clear plastic cups, one filled with a perfectly-headed Guinness for me and another, with ice, containing a strong, cool, smooth gin and tonic.

It was as if a ghostly bartender had been waiting for 30 years just to serve a perfect drink, in a perfect moment, to Nancy.

The gin and tonic looked refreshing and timelessly regal. Drops of condensation made the cup glisten in the descending sunlight.

My wife offered me a sip, and it tasted like New York.

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In the month since, I’ve returned to New York other days in my current job. Last night I detoured past Murphy’s Pub on my walk from a parking garage… and found out that it was vulnerable too.

A post on its Instagram account (adorned with the logo of its co-owned sister/neighbor, Jameson’s) said, “our attempts to negotiate reopening that would allow us to operate and recover from the pandemic proved unfruitful… Go raibh maith agat!”

I tried Murphy’s door, but it was locked. An amiable young man with close-cropped curly red hair poked his head from an open window. “Couldn’t get another lease,” he explained with a brogue.

I looked past him and saw chairs stacked on top of the pub’s familiar wooden tables, and some half-packed boxes. “We’ll be open around 5 today, if you want to stop by then. But we’re closing this weekend. On to better things.” He shrugged and smiled.

So after work last night I had a last burger and drink at Murphy’s. No music played, but I imagined Mae & Henry performing an old Dylan tune, and I toasted all of us who once shared some time together here.

Here’s to you, Nancy, and Joe and Cathy, Mary and Dennis, Mia and Bill... to Tricia, Ken, Rich, Monica, Laurel, Claudia, Sue, Mia, Gina, Marguerite... to Randy and Barbara.

We were once together in a magical place. It wasn’t just this bar near the corner of Second Avenue and 52nd Street. It was all of it.

On to better things.

Wherever any of us are now, in New York we are forever young.

What Inspires You Lately?

June 7 in New Milford, NJ

What has inspired you lately?

In these unique and challenging times, I am often inspired... and challenged to be better... by the good I see in others.

As communications director for the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, I see the great work being promoted recently on Facebook and Twitter by our grantees throughout New York State:

Restocking food pantries, supporting COVID-19 testing programs and providing additional nursing support are just some of the many initiatives supported by our Foundation. I am inspired by the self-sacrifice, dedication and community spirit I see among the grantees.

Last month, I was inspired when reading about Roman Suarez, a New Yorker who didn't leave the city during lockdown (as The New York Times noted so many residents had). He dedicated himself to picking up medication and groceries for three dozen family members in the Bronx. I posted more here, referencing "The Great Gatsby" to say he was worth the whole bunch of fleeing New Yorkers put together.

This past weekend, in my suburban hometown of New Milford, NJ, I was inspired by the peaceful, earnest resolve of those who organized and attended a Black Lives Matter rally on the grounds in front of our police station and borough hall.

Families with young children and babies in strollers, high school and college students, curious older residents and police officers stood in respectful silence for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. The organizers spoke from a small gazebo (adopted and maintained by Girl Scouts Troop 97527), using a toy karaoke machine plugged to a portable generator in a van parked nearby.

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For further inspiration, I have my old standbys: literature and music and art.

Usually, I re-read "Gatsby" every Memorial Day weekend, but this year I settled for having recently watched the movie instead. I recalled on Twitter how once, driving my daughter back to college in DC, we had listened to the book together...

I can't seem to concentrate enough to read books lately, though. My mind frets and wanders.

Music is always a comfort. I've been enjoying the intimate "concerts" from the homes of some of my favorite musicians. I was also inspired by this story last weekend, again in The Times: "5 Minutes That Will Make You Love the Cello."

The Times asked Yo-Yo Ma, John Williams, Andrew Lloyd Webber and others to pick cello music that moves them. They posted brief commentaries about their selections. While viewing their words online, you could also listen to their choices.

Two of the selections from Bach reminded me of life after college. I lived in Manhattan, sharing a two-bedroom apartment with a concert cellist who loved Bach. On weekends, he would give kids cello lessons in our living room. Recalling those sounds from my bedroom on Saturday mornings -- when anything was possible -- is one of the best, most inspiring memories in my life.

Here's the haunting selection from Bach's Cello Suite No. 5 (choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's favorite), as included in The Times.

Finally, about art.

One local painter I admire, Said Elatab from Paterson, NJ, has a tendency to burn his work whenever he is sad or outraged. He posted this on Instagram last week, urging others to share it:

He wrote that this was his way of expressing his feelings until there is justice in America.

I am inspired by Said's passion. Mostly, though, I am inspired by the underlying message of his literal fire. "Nothing is permanent," the artist reminds us. 

We should support each other. We should value people, not things. We should appreciate what is here today.

I am inspired by these beliefs.

In these unique and challenging times, what inspires you?

April in New Milford

Yesterday, before the rain washed the chalk from the sidewalks.

My hometown has always had its charms.

Before sunset, April 28.

Granted that New Milford, NJ, would not necessarily be described as mysterious, evocative or romantic. It's not like Paris, which I've always wanted to visit. Or New York, which will always be my favorite city.

But this past month, all hometowns -- no matter where we live -- have shared a life-and-death connection to the larger world. The pandemic's common denominator is part of an equation that has changed perspectives everywhere.

Ordinary life is now filled with ghosts. Even the NJ Transit buses that still travel up and down River Road are all empty.

In New Milford, I usually start the day with a run. Here's what 7:30 a.m. looked like on April 14:

And this is what the streets look like before 8 p.m.:

Everything is closed. Well, except for Joe's Beer Wine & Spirits:

The churches are all locked:

But, outside, there are symbols and signs of Heaven all around:

Including in all the color of the blossoming trees:

This year the Easter Bunny, surrounded by police officers, waited for cars to circle past in the parking lot of the empty Shop-Rite:

This is right next door to CareOne at New Milford, a senior center where -- as state officials reported on April 20 -- COVID cases numbered 64 and COVID deaths totaled 17.

Meanwhile, wild animals are reclaiming the land. During a walk on April 20, I saw deer roaming the suburban streets. There are no woods nearby.

On the morning of April 21, I thought, from afar (below left), that abandoned pink latex gloves had been blown against the branches of a tree. I went to clean them off before my run... and discovered they were flowers.

During a walk on April 28, I took this photo of a house a distance from my own. I was struck by the message ("Persevere") in the bay window:

I didn't realize, until I posted the image on Instagram, that the house belongs to someone I know. It's a great family, and many years ago the husband had come to my house to tune an old piano.

I have a digital piano now, and lately I have more time to play... mostly sad songs, like "Mad World" and "Philadelphia." (I also wrote a sad, COVID-inspired short story, during hours when I would normally be commuting to New York.)

On a cold, damp night last Friday, my wife lit a fire, and I plugged in my headphones so the piano wouldn't disturb her.

I'm not sad, though. Deep down, I'm hopeful. I look forward to a different life ahead.

I plan to change a few things.

Someday, I know now in my heart, I really will visit Paris.

A Change in Perspective: New Jersey from Above

High above Fair Lawn, NJ, on March 2, before the proverbial flood

It's stunning how perspectives have changed over the past few days.

Here, for example, is NewYorker TV critic Emily Nussbaum yesterday on Twitter:

I am particularly haunted by recent views of my home state from drones above nearly deserted places, such as Jersey City:



Paterson and Newark:

View this post on Instagram

These normally busy downtowns are very quiet and empty lately as New Jerseyans stay at home to #flattenthecurve of coronavirus spread in the Garden State. Credit: @tariqzehawi and @danielleparhiz for NorthJersey.com. #northjerseynews

A post shared by NorthJersey.com & The Record (@northjerseynews) on Mar 28, 2020 at 7:01am PDT

Hoboken:



And Montclair:



Even more disconcerting, here's a March 20 video from NBC News showing the long line of cars waiting at a drive-through coronavirus testing area in Paramus:




These God's-eye views of my home state are reminders that life is at once more complex, absurd... and sometimes inspiring... than what we can immediately understand from our own, limited perspective.

How is it absurd? Turning to social media for some connection, my experience has been mixed.

First, I read a thread from Fr. Jim Chern, the Newark Archdiocese's director of Campus Ministry and chaplain at Montclair State University. I know him as thoughtful and devout, with a great sense of humor. Recently attacked by trolls, he felt compelled to respond: "My exposure to 'Catholic Twitter' is, as it turns out, thankfully limited. Kind of stunned at the judgmental and harsh tone: I was accused of abandoning our people because we've been ordered not to publicly celebrate sacraments. It was below the belt, untrue and uncharitable."

Then I joined a Twitter chat about "how to be professional on Twitter during a crisis." One of the guest expert's first posts was this:

"That's it," I exclaimed to no one. "I'm out!"

I drove to Mom's house to deliver some supplies.

The local nursing home; Borough Hall; graffiti along Route 80

Normally a 25-minute drive to Totowa, it took 20 minutes in sparse traffic. It would have taken even less time, but several local streets were blocked by landscaping crews hard at work -- as if Gatsby had dispatched a legion of gardeners to prepare our modest town for a lavish "it was only a bad dream" party.

On the highway, the cars on Route 80 were overly aggressive or overly cautious -- as if caught in an imaginary snowstorm. Mask-wearing drivers were filled with bravado, nerves or fear.

On the return trip through Paterson, I noticed the new graffiti on one of the highway's sound barriers. It's a rendering of the word "CORONAVIRUS."

Back home, my grown daughter asked if we could go for a walk. Some exercise; some diversion.

It was dusk, and our surroundings humbled us. Church doors were locked. The large American flag had been lowered to half-staff in front of Borough Hall; in back, lights were ablaze to discourage teens from gathering in empty playgrounds and ball fields.

Everything had subtly changed, except that the liquor store was still open. Then an ambulance approached the local nursing home, where the virus had already caused at least five deaths.

The ambulance arrived with lights flashing, but no sirens. My daughter explained to me that this likely meant someone else had died.

We walked on in silence after that. We didn't know what to say.

Churches closed; liquor stores open

Later, my daughter and I watched an on-demand movie, "The Invisible Man." It was a makeshift "movie night" like the ones we used to have when she was a little girl. As we watched, she discovered on her iPad that the movie was based on a book, and I explained to her about H.G. Wells.

Before going to sleep Saturday night, I returned to social media on my own iPad to check on the health and safety of family and friends on Facebook and Instagram. I've been happy to see their faces, and the faces of coworkers, on recent video chats.

I woke up and read The New York Times with over 100 others by logging in to the "readalong" hosted every Sunday morning by Sree Sreenivasan. His engaging guest was the author Harlan Coben, and you can view a replay here.

So, in fairness to social media, I have in fact found some comfort there.

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I wonder, after all, what the God's eye view of my family is really like.

Perhaps it's a view from above of two people walking down River Road in New Milford, NJ, before dusk: a dad and his daughter.

There's no way to tell, from such a distance, how grateful and lucky we are. How much we love each other. Or how our journey will end.

After a while, the drone would simply move on, and the perspective changes again.

We too become invisible.

April 3, 2020 - video here

I Miss You, NYC

It's Throwback Thursday, so I posted this photo on Instagram tonight from two years ago, the first time Nancy and I had ever been to baseball's Opening Day (and the first time we ever descended the precariously steep escalator to the Hudson Yards subway station).

We rode one of the MTA museum's 7 Trains to Citi Field that day.

I happily snapped photos of the train's arrival, and we sat in one of the 50-year-old "redbird" cars.

My Uncle Charlie had taken me to my first MLB game on one of those same subway cars, arriving to then newly-built Shea Stadium, across from the World's Fair, and ascending to our seats in the precariously steep nose-bleed section of Shea Stadium.

Hudson Yards station

That first ride on the 7 Train was a rite of passage for me, full of odd and eye-opening sights I had never seen as a boy growing up in the New Jersey suburbs. Things were different in New York, in a profound way.

Just like when I rode the train with Uncle Charlie in the 1960s, on Opening Day 2018 the tinny subway sound system played the hokey song "Meet the Mets" when we arrived at the ballpark station. That was a great day, and Nancy and I bought tickets for the Mets home opener in 2019... and Opening Day 2020 too.

But that game didn't take place today.

New York is on lockdown. No one knows when the baseball season will start, and everyone grimly accepts this fact given the current life-and-death Covid-19 scenarios.

In "an abundance of caution," our New York City office, like so many others, has been closed these past two weeks. I haven't been to the city since Friday, March 13th.

My daughter is currently on lockdown in a Manhattan apartment, but she assures us she's fine. I keep wanting to drive to the city to "save" her, but I really think I want to drive there to save myself.

I'm very much in love with New York. I'm a little worried about how it will change in the coming months.

My Google Photos folder is filled with past images of the city. And, more often than not, these are the photos that Google's mysterious algorithm chooses to "auto-stylize." Here's an example:

St. Patrick's Cathedral

In fact, here's an entire folder of 120 images of New York City that Google has auto-stylized for me (often, nostalgically, editing them in black and white).

When I've worked in New York these past few months, I've taken cell phone photos all the time. The city is full of beauty and life, architecture and art... and still odd and eye-opening sights.

Most recently, on March 11, I posted this photo on Twitter of Times Square and one of my favorite places, Grand Central Terminal:

It was a Wednesday morning (evidenced by GCT's iconic brass and onyx four-sided clock). I was simply struck by how far fewer people there were than usual in pre-lockdown Manhattan.

A BuzzFeed editor saw the tweet and asked to add the Grand Central photo to the end of a story, "24 Shocking Pictures of Famous Places Before and After the Coronavirus Outbreak." All fine... until Complex Media re-posted the photo on Instagram in this way:

In a little more than half an hour, more than 34,000 people had "liked" the post, but the comments were turning rapidly ugly.

Pictures don't tell the whole story, and there was certainly more context to the BuzzFeed post. In contrast, Complex's stark Instagram post looked... odd... showing Grand Central at an obviously different time. People were commenting that my photo was inflaming fear.

Magically, just as the photo began to go viral in a bad way, Complex deleted the post. So ended my brief reign as a perpetrator of fake news.

The lesson: a picture is (possibly) worth a thousand (misleading) words.

That is, unless it's a photo of New York City in the distance, without any words at all:

It's Snowing in New Jersey...

... because things aren't weird enough here on the morning of March 23, 2020.

How are you coping with the new realities?

Working remotely full-time lately, I've been finding and using new ways to use technology to stay in touch with others.

Thanks especially to Sree Sreenivasan 谢斯睿, Steffen Kaplan (their mantra and challenge is to "Always Be Creating") and to this past Saturday's virtual Social Media Weekend conference sponsored by Pace University and Muck Rack.

I've also traveled around my home state of New Jersey, partly in efforts to care for Mom. For me, stopping along the way to take photos has been a source of joy.

Above are images that Google Photos' algorithm randomly auto-stylized over the past two weeks. It's an interesting theme. (Context/captions are posted on my Instagram sites: @bvarphotos and @foundinnj)

This morning's springtime snow isn't sticking to the ground. So I don't have any photos to prove it.

Instead, I'll sign off with this image of street art or graffiti or word from the prophets written on this sound-barrier wall along Route 80 yesterday in Paterson, as I was returning home from Mom's:

PS - Let me know if you want to talk or (remotely) visit: bvar@verizon.net

Pics, Or It Didn't Happen

Walking up Fifth Avenue: I was there

If you find yourself on Fifth Avenue before January 19th, I recommend spending some time lost in the J.D. Salinger exhibit at the New York Public Library.

It's free, courtesy of J.D. Salinger Trust and coinciding with the centennial of the author's birth.

On public display for the first time are papers, photos and other personal items belonging to the quirky, reclusive literary icon.

Salinger didn't publish anything after 1965, 45 years before his death, but he evidently kept writing long after moving from New York to New Hampshire. So many notebooks, so many letters, so many words.

The family photos on display are particularly touching, even more so to me than his actual Royal typewriter or the handwritten margin notes on the author's galley of "The Catcher in the Rye."

I wish I could show you some of these items, but -- in true Salinger style, in this cramped exhibit space where you will be instructed to circle single-file from left to right -- no photos are allowed.

The hallway leading to the Salinger exhibit's guarded entrance

Cellphones, coats and bags need to be checked before you enter. You can take photos anywhere else in the library, just not here. It's strictly enforced. There's a guard at the front door and another inside ready to pounce on any raised, smuggled phone.

Which begs the question: Since I can offer no pictures of the exhibit, how can you believe I was there?

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Photography stops time. It's magic... and intimate, and precious.

It's why I take candid photos of my family. Or why I have two Instagram accounts. Or why I've formed friendships with people who come home from work and wash up, then travel somewhere to capture a fleeting image.

All these photos I've taken have taught me to stop for a second, and marvel at the everyday things that hide in plain sight at the edge of the miraculous.

Every image proves I was somewhere; every somewhere never stays the same.

After retrieving my cellphone and coat after visiting the Salinger exhibit, I kept walking and walking up Fifth Avenue, without any tie on or anything.

All of a sudden, something very spooky started happening.

Every time I came to the end of the block, I had this feeling that I'd never get to the other side of the street. I thought I'd just disappear.

So I started to make believe I was talking to Salinger, and I'd say, "Please, Jerry, don't let me disappear."

When I reached the other side of the street, I raised my cellphone and took another photo.

Jerry, I knew, would understand. Having just had a glimpse into his real life, I realized he was just like everyone else. He wrote all those words because he was afraid to disappear too.

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Happy New Year, every one. Here are my "Top 9" photos from my Instagram accounts in 2019:

@bvarphotos

@foundinnj