L.E.S. Colors

However much the neighborhood has changed —and in its way suffered— with the last decade of gentrification, I still have a handful of favorites on the Lower East Side, relative newcomers CW Pencil Enterprise and Russ & Daughters Café, and stalwarts Economy Candy, and Katz’s Delicatessen among them.

But this handful of photos takes passing stock of some in-between stuff, things seen en route from one stop to another.

Colorado

I was in Colorado last week for a family event and took these pictures in the course of a hike into a very small portion of Rocky Mountain National Park. What appealed to me about these subjects was the disarray, the contrast between cleared and nearly-uniform wooded areas and meadows, and the invasive presence of the root balls and fallen trees that previously contributed to that order. Each of these photos presents a sort of sore thumb.

If it can be said that there is an argument between the dead or fallen —the disrupted— plant lives displayed here and those that flourish, it follows that one aspect of the fight is the stubborn, gnarled refusal of the former trees to move on: rather than decompose, they opt to dry out and stay put.

Time, it seems,
forgives, if not redeems.