Slow Family
Slow down. Reconnect. Trade frenzy for fun.
Copyright 2002-2023. Susan Sachs Lipman. All rights reserved.
Thanks for stopping by! Suz
Give me a shout
suz [at] slowfamilyonline [dot] com
Subscribe to My Blog via Email
Slow Family on Facebook
Fed Up with Frenzy on FB
@suzlipman on Instagram
Lower Manhattan.Just sharing a moment on the boardwalk.Hot Knishes and Cold Beer.“More Rides Fun Games Excitement Thrills This Way.”Faces of Coney Island.Coney Island has had more ups and downs than its famous roller coasters. The former island off Brooklyn, NY, has been home to a sprawling series of popular seaside resorts and amusements since the mid-1900s.Tickets.Deno’s Sweet Shoppe.A winner every game, a prize every time.Buy the Book
Follow the Blog Tour
Find me on:
Join me outside:
I am an American Express Everyday Card Ambassador
Obsessions
Astronomy Autumn Baking Birds Books Calendar Cheese Childhood Children Citizen Science Container Gardening Cookies Cooking Crafts Fall Family Farming Flowers Food Food History Free Play Gardening Holidays Marin Mill Valley Nature Nature Activities Nature Photography Night Sky Outdoor Play Parenting Photography Play San Francisco Slow Food Slowing Slowing Down Solstice Sonoma Spring Stargazing Summer Sustainability Tulips WinterThemes
- Butter and Egg
- Celebrations
- Community
- Crafts
- Deck Garden
- Design
- Education
- Field Trip
- Giveaway
- Health
- Holidays
- Home Ec.
- Lost Arts
- Nature
- Nostalgia
- Odes
- Play
- Porch Swing
- Reading
- Recipes
- Road Trip
- Scent
- Seasons
- Slow News
- Snapshot
- Sustainability
- The Great Outdoors
- To Market
- Tributes
- Tulipmania
- Uncategorized
- Vanishing Breed
- Vintage
- Who Moved My Cheese?
-
Recent Posts
Top Posts
Our Generous Sponsors
Slow Family Readers
- 592,980 hits. Thank you!
Category Archives: Snapshot
My Photo on View at International Center of Photography
I am thrilled that one of my photos was included in the exhibit ICPConcerned: Global Images for Global Crisis at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York. The show ran from Oct. 1, 2020, to Jan. 4, 2021, and featured photos from more than 65 countries, in response to events of this tumultuous time—a global pandemic, the Black Lives Matter and similar movements, the effects of climate change, the U.S. presidential elections and many more events that were felt and depicted in ways both epic and very personal.
My photo (above), “Golden Gate Market, 8:15 a.m. Sausalito, CA”, was taken on Sept. 9, 2020. That day, smoke from a series of wildfires on the U.S. West Coast gave the sky over the San Francisco Bay Area an apocalyptic orange glow for most of the day. I recorded some audio to give context to the photo.
The exhibit was organized and presented in much the way the photos from around the world were taken. Throughout the year, starting with the first shelter-at-home orders in March, the show grew to cover the gallery’s blank walls, which were denoted by month.
ICP describes “concerned photography” as “socially and politically minded images that can educate and change the world.” As a longtime fan of ICP and of this kind of photography, I was thrilled and honored to be part of the show. I was also very moved to participate in a presentation, during which ICP Director David Campany walked us through the exhibit, sharing the processes and all the images, which had the effect of making me feel more connected to and unified with the experiences of others whom I’ll never meet. Over the year, the exhibit grew to approximately 1,000 images. Future projects, such as a book, may be forthcoming.
See my gallery, Climate Change is Real, which includes the Sept. 9 photo.
See my photo portfolio at Suz Lipman Photography.
Exhibit photos: International Center of Photography
Take the F: An Appreciation
In his New Yorker essay Take the F, Ian Frazier describes life in his Brooklyn neighborhood and building, before relaying the story of a neighbor who had taken ill. While she was in the hospital, the whole building was “expectant, spooky, quiet”.
🍃
The neighbor finally returned, pale but on the mend. In celebration, Frazier “walked to the garden, seeing glory everywhere.” He “took a big Betsy McCall rose to (his) face and breathed into it as if it were an oxygen mask.”
🍃
I read this essay 25 years ago, and I still think about its life-affirming qualities often. I look forward to once again surrounding myself with roses, like these in the Sonoma (CA) Plaza, captured during the fullness of May.
🍃
What do you look forward to?
🌸🍃
The Nightly Howl
Italians, under siege from coronavirus, began taking to their balconies and windows, at an appointed hour each night, to serenade one another with their national anthem. It was a show of solidarity, something to provide uplift in these brutal times. Residents in Chicago followed suit, singing a city-wide version of Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer. In Dallas, people sang Bill Withers’ Lean on Me in unison. In Brussels, Seattle, New York, Medellín–in places all over the globe–people started standing on balconies and doorsteps and clapping to applaud health-care workers, often at 8 p.m., local time. The phenomenon even spawned a hashtag: #solidarityat8.
In Mill Valley, CA, we have the Mill Valley Howl. Started a week after shelter-in-place orders, the Howl has grown to a citywide cry at 8 p.m. each evening, when cooped-up residents open their windows or go out onto their front yards, decks and streets, and howl at one another into the night. It’s an amazing show of solidarity, of a kind of momentary community joy, while at the same time evincing something more primal. I hear anguish in the Howl. I hear prayer (or perhaps I feel it, looking up at the bright star of Venus, while we’re all baying into the twilight.)
From my house, the Howl seems to start low in the valley and swell and run through the neighborhoods and canyons and up into the hills. It takes on different shapes in its few short minutes, before dying back down. Dogs and perhaps actual coyotes join in. I howl back at the noise and my neighbors’ lit houses. I howl to thank the first responders on the front lines. I howl to mark the days of this strange time. In a town in which people are temporarily sequestered in houses that are largely tucked away from view, howling lets others know, distinctly, “I am here. And I see (or at least hear) you.”
The Howl suits this place, at the edge of the wilderness, the same way operatic versions of the national anthem suit Italy. A howl is a call of social pack animals. We’re bonding with each other as we mark our territory–this territory, this moment–we’re here in our houses, we’re here on the planet, we’re with one another, alone and yet together.
Photos: Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival, Suz Lipman; Public Domain
Posted in Community, Nature, Snapshot
Tagged Alone Together, Community, Coronavirus, Covid-19, Marin County, Mill Valley
Going for the Gold: Olympic Synchronized Remote
Is your family enjoying the Olympics? We sure are!
You might also be interested in:
Posted in Snapshot
Tagged Humor, Olympics, Olympics Activites, Photo, Photograhy, Television Viewing
Snapshot: Fourth Of July
Posted in Community, Holidays, Seasons, Snapshot
Tagged 4th of July, Flag Photography, Fourth of July, Holiday, Independence Day, July 4th, July Fourth, Patriotic, Photography, USA
Spring at the Bird Café and Bird Feeder Activity
We’ve had some lovely birds greet us this spring, more than in recent memory. They feast on our seed — bars of Birdola songbird and gold finch feed that fit in a wire-cage bird feeder (though you can make your own feed, too. A recipe follows.)
Our visitors this year include the blue Western Scrub-Jay, the very cheery House Finch, and a young Titmouse. Which creatures are visiting you?
This is a really easy bird feeder to make:
Pinecone Bird Feeder
You’ll need:
• Pinecone (you can substitute a toilet-paper tube)
• 2′–3′ of string
• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening, peanut or other nut butter, suet, or lard
• 1/4 cup cornmeal or oatmeal
• 2 1/2 cups mixture of birdseed (e.g., sunflower and millet; check your local nursery for suggestions), chopped nuts, and dried fruit
• Mixing bowl
• Plate, shallow dish, or pie tin
• Spoon or butter knife
Tie the string around one end of the pinecone.
In mixing bowl, combine peanut butter or other spread with meal.
Spread that mixture over the pinecone with the knife or spoon.
Pour the birdseed and feed ingredients onto the plate. Roll the pinecone in the seeds.
Hang from a tree branch or window eave.
Photos: Susan Sachs Lipman
Posted in Deck Garden, Nature, Porch Swing, Seasons, Snapshot, The Great Outdoors
Tagged American Robin, Backyard Birding, Bird Feeder, Birdfeeder, Birding, Birds, Habitat Gardening, Make Bird Feeder, Make Your Own Bird Food, Marin Birds, Mill Valley, Nature, Nature Activities, Nature Crafts, Northern California Birds, Pinecone Bird Feeder, Spring, Western Scrub Jay
Photo Friday: Occident Flour
My love for painted advertising signs on the sides of brick buildings is well documented here. It’s not unusual for me to yell “Stop the car!” or slow my family on a walk to capture one with a camera. More commonplace in earlier decades, they used blank brick canvasses to sell everything from mining equipment to toothpaste. I love coming upon them on country roadsides and in city alleyways. This bright one near St. Johnsbury, Vermont, was no doubt repainted and lovingly refurbished to its old-timey feel. I don’t think the site is a general store any longer.
I’ve since learned that Occident Flour was produced by the Russell-Miller Milling Company in the midwest from 1894-the early 1950s. It was sold to the Peavey Company in 1962 and acquired by ConAgra in 1982. That trajectory, along with newer advertising methods, partially explains the loss of painted signs for individual concerns.
Have you seen and photographed something unusual, whimsical, beautiful, or otherwise interesting in your travels? Has anything surprised you or caused you to pause? Or have you simply experienced a small, lovely moment that you wanted to capture? If so, I hope you’ll share with us by leaving a comment with a link to your photo. I look forward to seeing it!
Photo by Susan Sachs Lipman, Graphic from Occident Flour
You may also be interested in:
Photo Friday: Ghost Sign
Photo Friday: San Francisco Storefront
Photo Friday: Tamalpais Motel at Dusk
Posted in Butter and Egg, Design, Home Ec., Lost Arts, Nostalgia, Odes, Recipes, Road Trip, Snapshot, To Market, Vanishing Breed, Vintage
Tagged Advertising, Architecture, Billboards, Ghost sign, Ghost signs, History, Occident Flour, Painted Sign, Painted Signs, Photography, Vermont, Vintage Advertising
23 Things to be Happy About in October
I tend to be happy most months and seasons, and completely enjoy the continuity and mystery of the turning year. That said, there is just something a little extra-special about October, which starts tomorrow here and which some of you are already enjoying. What are some items on your Happy October list? Here’s mine:
Crisp air
Pumpkins in fields, farms and stands
Long nights
Scarecrows
Curling up with books and tea
Bountiful harvests
The slant of sunlight
Apples and cider
Riotously colored leaves
Fall movies
Meals with friends
Sweaters and socks
Gloves, mittens and hats
Leaves crunching underfoot
Birds in flight, migrating
Fireplace fires
Stock, johnny jump-ups and even mums
High school football
The smell of bays, oaks and wood duff
The prospect of Halloween
Children in costumes
Picking up sewing projects
Being at rest
Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman
Posted in Nature, Odes, Seasons, Snapshot, The Great Outdoors
Tagged Autumn, Autumn Leaves, Fall, Fall Leaves, Flower Photography, Halloween, Harvest, Nature Photography, October, Photography, Seasons
Photo Friday: What’s in Your Mailbox?
I don’t know about you, but for me mailboxes and the mail they contain are a source of delight. Even, and perhaps especially, in the age of e-mail and junk mail, it’s a wonderful treat to receive a hand-written note or a postcard from an exotic place that someone took the time to write.
As a bonus, in the town where I live, these sweet mailboxes are somewhat typical. Because many houses are on hills, groups of mailboxes sit on the street above or below. Many are decorated personally and whimsically and it’s delightful to come upon a painted or glittery or otherwise personal one while on a walk or ride. (And, yes, ours depicts a 50s auto flame-job – not quite sweet but not menacing either.)
In an act reminiscent of writing to pen pals around the globe as a child, my dear friend Elise from New Zealand (whom I met online) and I have been exchanging weekly postcards across the internet ethers. As it happens, we just exchanged photos of our actual mailboxes, or letterboxes.
Have you seen and photographed something unusual, whimsical, beautiful, or otherwise interesting in your travels? Has anything surprised you or caused you to pause? Or have you simply experienced a small, lovely moment that you wanted to capture? If so, I hope you’ll share with us by leaving a comment with a link to your photo. I look forward to seeing it!
Photo by Susan Sachs Lipman
You might also enjoy:
Photo Friday: Mouth Watering Watermelon
Flea-Market Inspired Spring
Posted in Community, Design, Lost Arts, Snapshot
Tagged Letter Writing, Letterbox, Letters, Mailbox, Mailboxes, Mill Valley, New Zealand, Pen Pals, Postcards Between Poles
Photo Friday: Mouthwatering Watermelon
With July 4th and the height of summer approaching, it seemed a good time to focus on bright, flavorful, colorful, summer-invoking, mouthwatering watermelon, painted and real.
I hope you have a terrific holiday (if you celebrate) or otherwise enjoyable weekend.
Have you seen and photographed something unusual, whimsical, beautiful, or otherwise interesting in your travels? Has anything surprised you or caused you to pause? Or have you simply experienced a small, lovely moment that you wanted to capture? If so, I hope you’ll share with us by leaving a comment with a link to your photo. I look forward to seeing it!
Photo by Susan Sachs Lipman
You might also enjoy:
Photo Friday: County Fair Pig Race
This Moment: County Fair Funnel Cake Eating Contest
Sonoma-Marin Fair: The Food
Photo Friday: Market Tulips

Tagged Food, July 4th, Murals, Photography, Picnics, Watermelon