World Radio Day 2020

Today is World Radio Day, certainly worthy of the nod, at least for yours truly, for I am an avid radio listener; and I've also been a guest on two radio programs that are based in NYC.

My first time being interviewed on the radio took place at the studios for 1010 WINS, where I was interviewed by John Montone about how conditions with my eyesight influenced my kaleidoscopic art work (that can now be purchased through Fine Art America).

I wrote about my experience with John Monotone in one my first entries on my blog.

#NationalRadioDay 2018

Today is #NationalRadioDay, certainly worthy of the nod, at least for yours truly, for I am an avid radio listener; and I've also been a guest on two radio programs that are based in NYC.

My first time being interviewed on the radio took place at the studios for 1010 WINS, where I was interviewed by John Montone about how conditions with my eyesight influenced my kaleidoscopic art work (that can now be purchased through Fine Art America). I wrote about my experience with John Monotone in one my first entries here on Blogger.

The second time I was interviewed by a radio host was when Karen Lewis had me on her WBAI radio program The Al Lewis Show) to discuss how my visual challenges shaped my rendering images re Black and White photography.

Both of these interviews can be listened to via my website, patriciayoungquist.com.

Meanwhile in honor of National Radio Day, I'm posting a clip (seen above this entry) of a scene from Woody Allen's, Radio Days, a film he made in the late 1980's. I worked (as an actress in a "silent bit" role) on that film in the scene filmed at Radio City Music Hall that is featured in this clip.

Be that as it may, on this radio-related holiday, I'm also hoping for another opportunity to be heard on another radio program! I've heard back from a certain national radio station requesting copies of my book series, Words In Our Beak...

VOLUMES ONE AND TWO

...so they can consider having me as a guest to discuss my books and related issues. Fingers crossed that this will take place. Stay tuned to know if and when you can tune in to your radio should they decide to interview me.

FALL 2018 ADDENDUM: 

Hardcover versions of Volume One, Two and Three can be found wherever books are sold.

MY BOOK SERIES

Please click here to go to my blog post that provides details as to where you can get these books. Additionally, I have rendered some images from these books into other formats and they are available via Fine Art America (FAA). Some of my other photographs (Black & White Collection, Kaleidoscopic Images and the famous Mandarin duck who visited NYC) can also be found on my FAA pages.

Deltiology is the term for the study of postcards. Who knew? AND Why post info re this now?

Some of you may recognize the first image atop this blog entry. It shows the front of a postcard that features a picture of Cam, a cardinal who has been a frequent visitor to my rooftop garden in NYC (which she discovered from the tree tops that are in my courtyard.)

The picture has also been featured on Brian Lehrer's NY Values Board for WNYC, as well as in my cyber-venues (Blogger, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, tumblr and Twitter). Moreover, this particular photograph is included in the book, Words In Our Beak Volume One, that I wrote with Cam.

Our book is set in my urban garden and it is currently available in Apple's iBooks Store and in the ePub or Kindle book department of Amazon. Words In Our Beak Volume One has been reviewed in both of those venues and also by members of Goodreads. At this time, I am assisting Cam by converting our book into a format that will be reproduced into a limited run of soft snd hardcover versions.

My Malus 'Prairfire' (Prairfire Crabapple)

MY ROOFTOP GARDEN

Ever since I helped rescue Super, a migratory bird who is a Northern Flicker, all of my postings, except for one, have been about that injured bird. It is my intention to visit Super at least once a week until he is able to be released from the bird rehabilitation facility on NYC's Upper Westside to Central Park. I would gladly see him more often, but the facility where Super is recovering is very busy. I don't want to interfere with their efforts to help Super or the other injured birds they are treating.

Meanwhile, I am doing my best to maintain my urban rooftop garden and  keep it a haven for the urban birds who have visited it over the years. My garden can be seen in the photograph atop today's Blogger entry. I took the image from the vantage point of a nearby penthouse garden. The picture was taken in 2015 during the late summer or early fall; and Cam, a cardinal who visited me during that time, insisted we include it in the ePub (Kindle) version of our book Words In Our Beak Volume One.

A Favorite Food of Cardinals

Cam, the female cardinal seen in the first image above this entry, loves to nosh on black-oil sunflower seeds when in my urban (NYC) rooftop garden (seen in the second image). 

This is one of the many facts about wild birds that Cam discusses in her book, Words In Our Beak,Volume One which is now in Apple's iBooks Store as well as on Amazon. Additionally, there are reviews for Words In Our Beak Volume One available on Goodreads. Moreover, information related to the book is posted on Brian Lehrer's (of WNYC) A New York Values Vision Board.

Words In Our Beak's goal is to open readers to a simple understanding of the winged world and their environment. Set in my rooftop urban garden in New York City, my story is told in the voice of Cam, a female cardinal, who visits it. Words In Our Beak is directed to children and adults who are curious about birds, and want to learn about them from a unique perspective. The book includes hundreds of images of flora and fauna, links to movies, as well as to informative narratives that have been created by the author.

ADENMENDUM: The digital versions of Volume One within the Words In Our Beak book series that are mentioned in this entry may only remain available for a limited time, but a hardcover version of Volume One can be found wherever books are sold.

Moreover, Volume Two of the book series is now available! Both volumes one and two are in hardcover format (as seen below) and can be purchased any place where books are sold.

Here's the purchase info for the hardcover versions of the Words In Our Beak book series:

Volume One: ISBN: 9780996378529:
Book Seller Info: http://bit.ly/2AFZDCz

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2zxVujM

Barnes & Noble On-Line: http://bit.ly/2AAnB26

book culture On Columbus: http://bit.ly/2FsC1Uf

Volume Two: ISBN: 9780996378536

Book Seller Info: http://bit.ly/2q75g8e

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2DY0mz0

Barnes & Noble On-Line: http://bit.ly/2G65m6H

Cam and Brian Lehrer's NY Values Vision Board

The image above today's entry is from WNYC's "A New York Values Board." I have included it with this entry as I am thrilled to announce that one of my images of Cam (posted below), with a passage from her book, Words In Our Beak Volume One , has been accepted to be on Brian Lehrer's WNYC's A New York Values Board.

Please go to the link, scroll until you see Cam, and if you feel it worthy of your liking — and there is an option to do so — I would truly appreciate it! AND if Cam was still around, I'm SURE she'd appreciate it too!

"They sang him a ballad, and fed him on salad . . . "

Temperatures in New York City (where I live), have been pushing sixty degrees or more for the past several days, which is is quite unusual for this time of year in our area. However, today is December the Fifth, and in sixteen days it will officially be winter; hence, a good reason to include Mutts, one of my favorite comic strips, in today's blog entry with his "prophecy" regarding the inevitable "W" word which is inevitable.

National Coffee Break Day

Drinking a cup of strong Venezuelan coffee (that I make a from a blend purchased at Sensuous Bean) in my apartment, and listening to 93.7 AM (NPR), 1010 WINS or Lite FM at 106.7 which are New York radio stations, to find out (among other things) the upshot of the traffic and transit report before heading to work is my morning ritual; and, doing it this morning, I learned that  today is National Coffee Break Day. 

This information prompted me to share my black and white photograph, Federal Café (posted above), on this morning's post. Federal Café, is not my only café-themed photograph. 

My image, At the Café, also pays tribute to reflective times that cafés offer, when one takes the time to truly take a "coffee-break" — a break without texting or tweeting or checking phone messages or journal or blog writing or making lists or  making phone calls.

Making the time to do nothing and allowing the mind to empty is the ultimate coffee break; it recharges the mind's batteries and refreshes the soul.

Hopefully, I've conveyed this in these two photographs, which can be viewed with others on my web-site, where they also may be purchased. Additionally, the second photograph, At the Café, has been rendered into an all occasion note-card which can be found in the store-front  pages of my web-site.

FALL 2018 ADDENDUM: 

I no longer actively produce event program covers, invitations and the types of greeting cards described here or on my website but arrangements might be able to be made under certain circumstances. My focus is on the Words In Our Beak book series, pictured below...

MY BOOK SERIES

...whose stories are told from the point of view of Cam, a female cardinal, whose photo is on the cover of each book. Words In Our Beak’s goal is to open readers to a simple understanding of the winged world and their environment. Set in my rooftop urban garden in New York City. Words In Our Beak is directed to children and adults who are curious about birds, and want to learn about them from a unique perspective. The books include hundreds of images of flora and fauna, links to movies, as well as to informative narratives that have been created by the author.

Please click here to go to my blog post that provides details as to where you can get these books.

Additionally,  I have rendered some images from these books into other formats and they are available via Fine Art America (FAA). Some of my other photographs (Black & White Collection, Kaleidoscopic Images and the famous Mandarin duck who visited NYC) can also be found on my FAA pages.

Reflecting on The Twelfth Day of Christmas AND Camels Hitting the Streets of The City That Never Sleeps . . .

Today I put my figurines of the three kings (pictured above) on display and invited a friend to dinner, so we could pay our own homage to ring out the Twelfth day of Christmas, January the Sixth: the Gregorian Calendar's Day for Epiphany (also known as The Feast of The Three Kings as well as The Twelfth Day of Christmas). 

To honor this day, in New York City, The Feast of the Three Kings Parade, a parade which includes camels, will march down Fifth Avenue. This is an annual event that I have yet to attend, in my nearly thirty years of living in New York, although the idea of seeing camels march down Fifth Avenue, in East Harlem, is more intriguing than checking out Easter bonnets at the annual Easter Parade down more trendy parts of Fifth Avenue — another annual parade that I've missed. The fact is: I don't list attending parades as one of my favorite things to do; and, although I live just a half a block from the part of Central Park West which is the route for the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, I have only seen part of the parade twice.

" . . . Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?" (Hmmmmmmmmm, that depends.)

Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? Many people probably asked this question in the singing of the Auld Lang Syne song as they rang in the New Year a few days ago. 

The answer? 

Sometimes. 

I recall walking up Central Park West sobbing over a broken heart from an unhealthy relationship with a man, when I was confronted by a woman walking her dogs, who cried out to me, "I hope that's not over a man!"

In Loving Memory of Aunt Grace Fitchie . . . (And One Reason I Like the Paper Card)

My blog, as you may know, is only a little over a year old and has only recently celebrated its anniversary. Today, like an occasional WNYC (NPR) program of The Brian Lehrer Show,  Prairie Home Companion, Car Talk and even Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me, in which repeats of favorite shows are aired again, I am repeating part of an entry from February 2010. This is in honor of Grace Fitchie, my dear great aunt pictured in the photograph posted above, standing in the middle of the last row next to my grandmother, Clara May, who is at Grace's left hand side. 

Grace was born on this day, January the third, in the early 1900's, I blogged about her in February 2010. She was an influence on my knowing the value of sending cards, and one that she sent me, over forty years ago, is still an impetus for me to continue to persevere in the new year with my designs of cards that are about more than communication, invitations that preserve moments in time, and event program covers that enhance an occasion, in keeping with the mission I have laid out in my philosophy which I have mentioned in numerous occasions within this blog.

Following up on Brian Lehrer's Question: "What are you putting yourself through to get to where you are going on Christmas?"

Yesterday on The Brian Lehrer Show (WNYC, AM Radio), listeners were invited by Brian Lehrer to call in with an invitation to "tell us the lengths you're going to in order to get to family and friends this holiday season. Are you taking a super long flight or multiple forms of transportation? What are you putting yourself through to get to where you are going on Christmas?"

The invitation to do this was prefaced by Brian Lehrer telling us the great lengths his producer was going to to get to the island of St. Johns for Christmas.Hard to top going to St. Johns and the oh-so-cool itinerary that Lehrer's producer would be following, but, thankfully, a couple of callers did.

Cards that are about more than communication.

Although we are in the throes of winter, I am working on my collection of invitations that preserve a moment in time, event program covers that enhance an occasion, and creating note–cards that are about more than communication. My desire to bring back the practice of sending a paper card is even stronger than it was a short time ago when my friends and I were discussing the pitfalls of sending “E–cards” about which I blogged in a previous post, and I am thinking ahead to the forthcoming seasons and images that might celebrate them.