"Peter Pan Jr.," Priscilla Beach Theatre, Priscilla Beach, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA

Disney's Peter Pan, Jr. is in rehearsal now at Priscilla Beach Theatre (PBT), the first of five Children's Workshops in the 2015 Summer Stock season.  It's a musical about the adventures of Peter Pan, Wendy, the Lost Boys, Mermaids, and Captain Hook. Produced by Bob and Sandy Malone, directed by Theresa Chiasson.

Public performances are 6/26, 6/27, and 7/3 on the PBT Outdoor Stage.  Contact PBT for more info at 508-224-4888.

Come out and support local, live theatre in our community at Priscilla Beach Theatre!

Speed or Grace? Manomet, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA

New England is pretty enough to take your breath away sometimes.  Going up and down these steps will take your breath away, too.  It is so nice today - perfect really - I stretched my walk into a total 13,000+ steps.

Standing at my favorite bench beholding the grandness of the ocean is empowering and humbling at the same time. It's a spectacular world in which we live. Low tide in the arc of the bay.

The beach near Manomet Bluff. Stage Point in the distance. (Panorama - click to view in full width).

Speed or Grace? - life choices - above on the left, do I pick power, control, noise, and fossil fuel, or, on the right above, do I choose art, music, poetry, romance, and wind on the sail?  I think my bias is a bit too obvious.

 Wild roses adorn this path to the beach, characteristically New England beautiful.

A spring day at the beach.

Time for the end of the rhody blooms for this year.

A typical Manomet street as spring blends into summer.

After I arrived home, as darkness fell, these two flew in for a night roost. (Poor quality image but you get the idea). I think they were Great Egrets but, it was almost dark and my bird identification skills are lacking even in the daytime.

(Note: all images made with cellphone).

Have a Nice Day, Manomet, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA

Stairways are necessary to bridge the rock seawalls. Many/most of these beach access stairways are made of wood but, some are metal. This one looks like a fairly heavy section of metal but, if it's not too heavy to be lifted, perhaps it could be pulled up each season out of reach of the damaging winter storms.

Stairs at the top of the bluff with a nice graffiti sentiment tucked away out of the main view.

One of Manomet's quiet country lanes.

This gargantuan rhody is peaking.  And yes, that is Amy in mid-June wearing a winter coat on this chilly, windy walk. It is New England after all.

(Note: all images made with cellphone).

Random Sights and Thoughts, Manomet, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA

Today, in my sort-of-rural home in Manomet, I saw two foxes, one deer, three rabbits, a raccoon, two green heron, a great blue heron, many other bird species, a half dozen turtles sunning on a log, and a half dozen chickens wandering near their home - and this bumblebee - who was very tolerant of me sticking my cellphone in his face as he's trying to gather pollen from this rhody. I was close - very close.  

This lovely impressionistic-looking painting is simply a neighbor's yard that hasn't been mowed yet this year.  It looks wonderful! I wish that most yards looked like this.  Whoever decided that green grass clipped short should be the standard anyway?

To walk on the beach you have to get to it. Stairs to the beach are a great equalizer - EVERYONE must transport their own self up and down the bluff, no shortcuts, no getting someone else to do it - if you want to go to the beach you have to go up and down more than 100 steps - I like that.

I have mentioned before my daily search for an image of extraordinary in the ordinary.  Today was doubly successful both with the bee picture and the sky picture above. And talk about extraordinary, the cellphone seems to be a device that has zero moving parts except the push-button on/off switch. That is absolutely pure magic.

Note:  all images in this post were taken with my cellphone.

Wandering Around, Manomet, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA

High tide in the arc of the bay. I watched a group of five gulls soar along the bluff on the up slope winds. They carved a big arc reversing course to join up with two others who were trailing behind. Why would they do that?  Was it to be social? Were they offspring trying to keep up? Friends? Relatives? What survival function could drive that behavior?

I think they were just having fun.  Fun is not limited to humans.  If you've ever watched a baby moose playing in a lawn sprinkler, or squirrels wrestling with each other you know it.

Perhaps the gulls just wanted to share the pure joy of soaring flight with each other - to share their "gullness."  Yep, I choose that answer.

Sometimes, I just make a small part of my world in color to focus on its beauty.

Odd effect here - it's just a basic Manomet panorama along the shoreline but, the distortion makes it look like an island in the ocean in some exotic South Pacific location. I like that. Manomet as a South Pacific paradise. For eight weeks or so every summer, it truly is.

The beach volleyball net is up and ready for the young folks to play.

I'm alive, the sun is shining, I have food to eat, a roof over my head, clothes on my back, people to love and be loved by - it is enough, life as it is.  I don't want or need more, bigger, better, faster. Enough really is enough.

Note: all images made with my cellphone.

A Rainy Day, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA

As a photo/image maker, I try to find the extraordinary in the ordinary.  Like this taffy ribbon of asphalt road gently following the rolling land, as if poured slowly out to create this path through Myles Standish State Forest in Plymouth. 

Over in Chiltonville, the rain and the quiet seem to have made everything even more green and lush.

And in Manomet,  here the extraordinary in the ordinary just jumps right out before my eyes. Our world is beyond spectacular - down to its smallest details.

Note: all images made with my cellphone.

Random Sights, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

When I was a kid growing up in the 1950's, if you could even find a carousel, all we ever got to ride on was a fake horse! Kids today get to ride all kinds of cool critters. This carousel is located on the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston.

These unassuming condos along one of the North End wharves have private decks and dockage on adjacent Boston Harbor but, a 1 or 2 bedroom unit will cost in the millions of dollars to own - location, location, location. I can just see the tip of the Boston Airport Traffic Control Tower peeking out at the right - a place I will always remember fondly from my workingman days.

Big boat, little boat.  The Coast Guard maintains a station on this wharf.

A North End "cigar bar."

Lots of great restaurants and bustling sidewalk scenes in the North End for both locals and tourists. It's not uncommon to hear conversational Italian spoken here either. 

A water sculpture in the Rose Kennedy Greenway offers some great reflections - and splashing puddles for kids and adults of all ages.

A beautiful spring day to feel the sun on the skin in Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park in the North End.

This is a special building to me.  I think democracy is special. When I first moved to Boston, each year on July 4th, I would go to stand at the base of the Old State House balcony to hear the reading of America's Declaration of Independence.

In this image, I love the way the late afternoon/early evening light slices through the highrises in such a way to magically highlight/backlight/illuminate the Old State House. The Old State House, built in 1713, is a site where in July 1776, from that very balcony, the Declaration of Independence was publicly read to the Boston citizenry for the first time.  Very heady stuff.  A declaration. A revolution. Freedom from tyranny. Ideas worth living, fighting, and dying for; now and then.

I always pause a moment when I pass here and pay a silent tribute to those who gave us the lives we still enjoy today in freedom.

Yes, this city, like any other, can be a busy and noisy place - cars, trucks, buses, fire trucks, ambulances, police sirens, dogs, hawkers, buskers, workmen/women, saws, cranes, jackhammers, kids, motorcycles. But beyond all that, this city, Boston, has the very seeds and heart of our nation - I like that. 

In case you need some hot stuff........ at Quincy Market near Faneuil Hall.

Those 30-second live on-site news bites they show on the national news require a team of support people - cameras, sound, production, grip, driver, electrician, lights, trucks, etc. This national news team was using a local park setting with the city skyline behind it as the background for this news piece.

Boston is one of the world's great, big, little, walkable cities, always a pleasure to visit, sights to see, things to do, and good food to eat. Now if we could just do something about that January and February weather........

Note: all images made with my cellphone.

Greens and Purples, Manomet, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA

Spring is a wondrous time in New England as the browns and grays give way to the greens of new life. 

But punctuating the broad expanses of green are splashes of brilliant color - like a soloist in an orchestra. This rhododendron bud is lower down on the same tree as...........

.....this fully blossomed spray near the top. More sunshine, faster development? Sounds like a good recipe for nearly everything.

Note: all images made with my cellphone.

"As If It Were Already Here," Rose Kennedy Greenway, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Artist Janet Echelman has created a wondrous work of art in Boston titled, "As If It Were Already Here." It's quite pleasant to stroll along the Greenway and enjoy this undulating sculpture suspended above.

Her website says in part, "A monumental, aerial sculpture is suspended over Boston’s Rose Kennedy Greenway from May through October 2015 as the signature contemporary art installation in the Greenway Conservancy’s Public Art Program."

 

"The sculpture for Boston spans the void where an elevated highway once split downtown from its waterfront. Knitting together the urban fabric, it soars 600 feet through the air above street traffic and pedestrian park."

"The form of “As If It Were Already Here” echoes the history of its location. The three voids recall the “Tri-Mountain” which was razed in the 18th-century to create land from the harbor. The colored banding is a nod to the six traffic lanes that once overwhelmed the neighborhood, before the Big Dig buried them and enabled the space to be reclaimed for urban pedestrian life."

"The sculpture is made by hand-splicing rope and knotting twine into an interconnected mesh of more than a half-million nodes. When any one of its elements moves, every other element is affected. Monumental in scale and strength yet delicate as lace, it fluidly responds to ever-changing wind and weather. Its fibers are 15 times stronger than steel yet incredibly lightweight, making the sculpture able to lace directly into three skyscrapers as a soft counterpoint to hard-edged architecture. It is a physical manifestation of interconnectedness and strength through resiliency."

"In daylight the porous form blends with sky when looking up, and casts shadow-drawings onto the ground below. At night it becomes an illuminated beacon. The artwork incorporates dynamic light elements which reflect the changing effects of wind. Sensors around the site register fiber movement and tension and this data directs the color of light projected onto the sculpture’s surface."

Note: all images made with my cellphone.