Jesse Jarnow

199 post-WFMU sunrises, december 2008 – may 2013

I’m retired from the overnight slot at WFMU. I look forward to communicating directly with the hive-mind during other hours on other days. Fill-ins coming soon. I hope to be back with a full-time show at some point in the future.

2008

12/1: deep, deep blue. almost ambient pink in the clouds.
12/8: the blue creeps out from behind the black like a doppelganger overtaking.
12/15: non-existent, not coming. probably.
12/22: muted by the streetlamps over the ice fields.

2009

1/5: charcoal-blue pepperland inversion.
1/26: blue, definitely. lonesome, TBD.

2/2: palimpsest, diminishing usage.
2/9: perfect planetarium dissolve.
2/16: velvet-painted chintz. on the skyline, financial district office lights pinpricking on like an advent calendar.
2/23: perfect lunar blue gone hiding behind chalk-gray, then back to a more tempered, public self.

3/2: a pale, snowy enclosure behind downtown. lights are still mostly off, like the skyscrapers and glass boxes want to sleep in.
3/9: stolen by daylight savings, then released slowly, like a fog. thx to everybody who pledged last night! #wfmuthon
3/16: dim, unformed. something not yet ready to be told.
3/23: inside an easter egg, too blue for walt. perfect crescent moon hanging over the financial district, almost CGI.

4/6: austere gray with ambient pink, like a blue/orange flood braced to shatter winter’s last wall. happy opening day, peeps.
4/13: blue-white light precisely detailing downtown’s contours. spires, cell towers, rooftop watertanks, scaffolding around glass boxes.
4/20: chalky gray. ambitionless & deferential to newer, brighter suns rising in parallel.
4/27: blushing peach, mildly aghast at having tricked everything (and everybody) into bloom. but only mildly.

5/4: enthused flowers bent crooked with rain, pink petals litter sidewalk. in the distance, dock cranes, draped in fog.
5/11: nearly full daylight bounces btwn glass boxes of exchange pl. reflections incrementally deeper, more vivid & illusory, each week.
5/18: cold, wet breeze off river. trees disheveled, starting committees.
5/25: a rumor, unconfirmed, truth blurred by stillness.

6/1: a blue so cool & white that it hurts.
6/8: damp, fragrant. neon green post-it note affixed to sidewalk, labeled “trash.”
6/15: through the rain in a rented tux jacket, boutonniere petals wilting.
6/22: clouds still amassed strategically above skyline. swarm intelligence in repose, potentially violent.
6/29: real summer at last. international flags lining boulevard lap agreeably, like they’ve adjusted to waking w mimosas every morning.

7/6: crisp & amendable, wanting to be time-stretched into an infinite gentleness.
7/20: dew condensing, on the march. innocent morning sweetness amping itself for humidity assault.
7/27: unobtrusively blinding. humidity-powered smellscape carries scents of baking bread, urine, and then something like ginger ale.

8/3: a miscalibrated counter on a cassette deck, reset.
8/10: windwhipped. soft, wet air. garbage cans rolling across waterfront plaza.
8/17: haze smeared. gray malaise & unborn breezes.
8/24: inexplicably smells like pancake batter.

9/7: end-of-summer melancholia compressed into quiet colors, darker dawn. the breeze reports from someplace far away.
9/21: soft focus. crystal blue & pink clouds behind unfathomably sharp skyline.
9/28: blue/black flood rolling over buildings, sidewalks, everything, lapping at morningfeet.

10/5: padding on the balls of my feet through the kitchen, trying not to wake anybody.
10/12: milk truck loitering by empty bus stop, engine running, no driver in sight, ready to be liberated.
10/19: cruise ship creeping by in slow motion, moving facade in front of sleep-blinking financial district.
10/26: mars, or something else high & red, lingering over WTC site.

11/2: angry, choppy wind. traffic lights in all directions seem to be red, glaring.
11/9: thin orange-grey smog-haze in quiet, dramatic gradation.
11/16: is.
11/23: the silver-purple of dreamless sleep.

12/7: a million fissures blurred to seamless slate.
12/14: unconvinced of its own existence.
12/21: hiding behind a snowbank, hoping nobody notices.
12/28: a red/purple/gray flatness only spoken to/by other sunrises.

2010

1/4: mysterious puffs of backlit red steam against slate sky from roof of waterfront mini-highrise. also, ZOMG, it’s fucking cold.
1/11: lacquered & holding. more mysterious backlit red steam belching from waterfront rooftop.
1/18: streets glistening with rain-sheen, empty studio backlot ready for action.
1/25: shaking lampposts & stray leaves trace the wind’s abrupt contours, possesed by the spirit & speaking in silent, secret tongues.

2/1: immaculate, clear & cold. perfect fade from dark blue to light, distinct orange flare banding horizon.
2/8: a place for every shade of blue & every shade of blue in its place. crisp crescent moon over the harbor.
2/15: encased in blue ice & melting dimly at the corners.
2/22: perfect visibility, the skyline recut in the night with municipal lasers. dirty snow clumped around trees & lampposts like mold.

3/1: muted icescape & the smell of home fries.
3/8: crisp, warm & OMG dudes I obliterated my goal *and* i get to keep the beard! thx to all who pledged! stunned!
3/15: dark, oddly gentle. umbrella carcasses scattered in the storm-eye.
3/29: dripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdripdr — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvHSvSBwFYM

4/5: gently (one hopes) meeting the mets.
4/12: buds & blossoms & candles still flickering at waterfront memorial for kaczyński by katyn statue: http://twitpic.com/1f2bvp
4/19: momentary stillness of skyborne machinery.

5/3: heat, rain.
5/10: whiteblue recessional, proceeding.
5/17: soft air, sleepy blossom perfume, & an idling WPIX news van.
5/24: fog-draped, all but waterfront skyline shrouded. city looks shrunken, intimate.

6/7: sheepish. bearing treatises of coolness, perhaps misleading.
6/14: in the smoggy, smoggy dew.
6/21: glass box office towers reflect surrounding cityscape into shimmying, building-sized david hockney mutations. breeze, cinnabunny.
6/28: barometric alarm clock, arms spinning.

7/5: businesslike, unamused.
7/12: massive 10-deck cruise ship drifting by, looking as big as buildings behind it, temporarily/confusingly redefining skyline.
7/19: flags blowing in subtly different directions & creepy newfangled group aerobics on the plaza.
7/26: uncommonly cool & gentle, with an even more uncommon garbage stank.

8/2: morning boot campers circling the plaza like a .gif loop. dude with a stopwatch, barking.
8/9: boats in the steam. (or, if autocorrect had its way, boars.)
8/23: uncertain contents leaking.
8/30: mini traffic cones laid on plaza in airy grid, like gallery installation, for MIA boot-campers. cloud ribbons merge w glass boxes.

9/13: distant purple/gray command wending through the system.
9/20: massive blue soundstage.
9/27: sparse, insistent rain. hard wind off the hudson.

10/4: brooklyn shipyard cranes glittering like a distant alien city.
10/18: stars out, air rich.
10/25: hive-like, the city in cross-section.

11/1: trees on south side of street totally bare. on north, modesty just starting to diminsh.
11/8: the purple between gray & blue.
11/15: a dim pink humming.
11/22: detuned & weary.
11/29: intricate orchestration from star-ridden black-blue above to far-off white-pink at horizon line.

12/6: chalky, marbled.
12/13: a laden vibration.

2011

1/3: christmas tree, tipped & spilling from oversized white garbage bag, flapping sadly.
1/10: ice black harbor.
1/17: empty plaza, empty trains, collective MLK sleep.
1/24: glass towered ice fortresses on the hudson.
1/31: paths through the terrestrial surface.

2/7: dim pastel sedimentality.
2/14: lavender concrete, crumbling.
2/21: all american white-out.
2/28: fully retractable graphite rain.

3/7: $ & £ & € & xx & oo from the heavens.
3/14: a thousand springs behind.
3/28: born blue.

4/4: off-purple near-rain.
4/11: monday morning fogging down. city entirely enveloped, invisible besides dim dock lights.
4/18: boot campers out on plaza for first time this year. terrifyingly perky routines.
4/25: a sweet, cool pausing.

5/2: freedom’s just another word for what’s on the other end of the PATH train. terrified.
5/9: countrypolitan platitudes.
5/16: cinnabon fog.
5/23: bootcampers prostrate in odd symmetric/ritualistic array around katyn massacre memorial

6/6: muted perfumed fanfare.
6/20: secret no longer.

7/4: abandoned skyline in low clouds.
7/11: 12-story carnival cruise ship lumbers up the hudson, past the skyline, like a lost, confused whale ready to beach.
7/18: niiiice dissolve.
7/25: pleasant! harbor breeze + unmistakable smell of lightly jellied toast.

8/1: new morning.
8/8: syrup, slowly swum.
8/22: following a trail of rose petals onto the PATH platform.

9/5: unlabored & abandoned.
9/12: in remembrance of thinkpieces past.
9/19: infinite gradation in blue.
9/26: purple darkness.

10/3: velvet clouds over the city like the cover of “loaded.”
10/10: blue unmuting.
10/17: in invisible pinks.
10/24: perfect crescent moon (the lunar megaphone?) hanging directly above zuccotti park.
10/31: 45 at 33 1/3.

11/14: drab whiteness overtaking, minus tiny distant flare over navy yards, like dramatic natural history museum miniature.
11/21: deep purple rain.
11/28: black sky, blue clouds.

12/12: bare metallic branches.
12/19: the frozen rigging resists.

2012:

1/2: de-reveled.
1/9: skyline snooze control
1/16: heavy, windless cold. branches & flags still.
1/23: half-pleasant airborne slush.
1/30: tiny lights blink awake.

2/6: chalky monday.
2/13: crashville skyline.
2/20: crystal blue per$ua$ion.
2/27: freeform <3.

3/5: purple cloudbank fleet.
3/12: blue noise behind the black.
3/19: hyperreal crescent moon over wall street.
3/26: blue upon blue upon blue.

4/2: tranquil blue gradations & return of war yawping morning boot-campers.
4/9: white-blue sky, light eastward wind, mets somehow 3-0.
4/16: cherry blossom clinic.
4/30: skyline time-lapse freeze-frame.

5/7: half the flags blowing east, half blowing west.
5/14: boggling over bootcampers & citybirds with bryce.
5/21: cold fog, cloud city.

6/4: lunar holiday.
6/11: nu-WTC disappearing into cloudbanks & looking even taller.
6/18: goodbye blue monday…
6/26: …hello, blue tuesday.

7/3: cool sweet haze.
7/10: atmospheric conditions tolerable.
7/17: solid dew.
7/24: a crumpled lacoste umbrella by the newsstand.
7/31: sea gray, with gulls.

8/14: glass panels creep up a skyscraper in progress.
8/21: the smell of cheese & sickly flowers.
8/28: fat, warm rain.

9/4: luminous fog, hyperreal skyline.
9/11: freedom moonset. pic.twitter.com/fQh6TFgy
9/18: both purple and rain.

10/2: inscrutable and depthless gray-brown.
10/9: very close to still.
10/16: daylight unsaved.
10/23: black magenta.

11/6: morning in america with newscopters.
11/13: ambient pastels.
11/20: a curtain, reversed. pic.twitter.com/hUtrEW8t
11/27: grey behind red behind grey.

12/4: deep static.
12/18: giant misplaced novelty wreaths above the holland tunnel tollbooths and rain.

2013:

1/1: a very pastel beginning.
1/8: crisp prop moon, crescent.
1/15: the softest red.
1/22: ice raga.
1/29: soft-edged & windless.

2/5: unhurried snowstatic.
2/19: metropolitan soundstage.
2/26: all new, unshredded flags of many nations down the middle of montgomery street.

3/5: ow, my brain.
3/12: NOT TOO LATE TO PLEDGE. 800-989-9368, http://wfmu.org , or http://bit.ly/frow-zone .
3/19: slushfall.
3/26: purple cloudcliff.

4/2: loop-ache aggregation.
4/9: beach party tonight.
4/16: out demons, out.
4/23: wet white blossoms.
4/30: just like any other day that’s ever been.

5/7: tomorrow’s clear light.