Due to my slight mistrust in the turns of buses I was doing some late-night walking, a healthy and thought-provoking 15 blocks are so and the elegant, and true, phrase
Beth puts me on buses
intermittently chimed in my head.
But because Beth puts me on buses that are never too close to my destinations I discovered about 12 hours ago a handful of wondrous things like a 24-hour florist where lilies chosen are wrapped with topnotch cello and tied with tri-colored ribbon, on a corner lurking is an old-school diner with tuna sandwiches under $5 and I laid eyes on a building that looked, at least in last night's light, like it had dropped in from Roma.
It is time for me to lunge off to an unnamed caffeine destination where nobody knows my name (a clue that it's not the French joint where I have been shuffled to the Regular column) and force theory about images down at the same same time.
New mantra:
Grad school is what you make it.
And here's hoping that none of you Perfect readers find that echoing in any way a tag line of an armed force.
Grad school - where you're not armed and are a force to be reckoned with.
Love.

In my ongoing hunt for online course clarity (not to mention the small list of MIA readings) I found myself in a B&N bookstore, the one that sells the crappy versions of Parsons School of Design t-shirts - 90% cotton, 10% nylon. Whothefuckever heard of such a blend? These shirts suck and on the ongoing to-do list is inquiring whether I can produce another version of this shirt in a more quality fashion, or perhaps simply a closer-to-home, renegade PSD Photo & Related Technologies model.
That is probably the sartorial way to go.
So I'm in the fairly feeble (yet so close to school as to render it convenient) art theory and criticism section when, 180 degrees to the left is this perfect gem: Overlook Illustrated Lives: Samuel Beckett, by Gerry Dukes. A photo assemblage, and writings, about Sam. What a great treat, what a balm for this Perfect soul.
*
Production shots, family snapshots, some garish color photos, some ramblings, some little-known facts and a clear-up, once and for all, of the great birthdate question/fiasco. April 13th, 1906 the answer. And Dukes's book prints the birth announcementas irrefutable proof of when Sam sprung onto the planet.
Onwards.
So we, we Parsons Photo and Related Tech grads, are meeting en masse this Sunday as a study group to non-e-discuss, our readings.
Now I am digitally editing images and then finding the braincells to meander through the readings for this week for the online course/discourse/discombobulation.
Love of Knowledge.

Hints as to what I consider to be one of thee most bodycentric, unaesthetic images - experienced live - to date.
Hints:
1. it involves toes
2. it involves open-toed sandals
3. wedgey, vinyl and white open-toed sandals
4. it involves frosty mauve nail polish
5. it involves overhead, flourescent lighting.
Do you glean the picture.
I wish I had not.
For the Love of God.

But I don't want to wait until 2005 to see the Diane Arbus retrospective.
I was thinking of canceling American Photo until I got past the usual titshots to read about the Arbus show as well as the technical (painters take note: photographers talk about technical matters... f-stops, films, papers, contraptions. why? because we fucking rock, that's why) (oh, but painters are okay, too) notations about several shots. What other feature do I dig? The one where they have a famed photog empty out their bag and list everything. From Sharpies, to mints, to lenses to fuzzballs at the bottom. I finally ditched Rolling Stone. Who needs RS when one gets Spin and Alternative Press and can breeze through RS in about 15 minutes at a newstand.
Today has been a day of interesting emails, let me tell you. Just like a photo bag, all diverse and interesting: all-femme Qi-Gong classes, Olympic-style bragging by a Middling City megalomaniac, acknowledgement and thanks from someone who received his packet in one day (one day!) via US Postal Service, and a few more.
Off to make and do and venture forth to sink into grad student matters.
Love.

We live in world in which late adopters reign unchallenged as our tastemakers.
By Stephen Metcalf
Posted Friday, September 19, 2003, at 2:49 PM PT

This quote rattles about this morning as I multi-task, sipping coffee from just yesterday (Laura, my dear friend, is wretching as she reads this), procrastinate and send off jpegs to interested cliental parties.
Metcalf is writing about VH1's series Where Are They Now - Ford Supermodels, kvetching how the once-focused network has become more MTV in its fashion sense. I think the phrase 'late adopters' is grand, really jabbing into the complacent ribs of the producers and vp's out there attempting to sate celebrity-obsessed viewers. OK, I can be obsessive about the music makers of our world (in the alternative sphere, usually not seen on such networks - and the writer writes about one of the all-time favs, Flaming Lips, whose brilliant Do You Realize is appropriated for a promo and who barely have appeared save for the whatwasit She Don't Use Jelly which everyone thought was their saving commercial grace at that time before Wayne Coyne romped off to parking ramps with multiple boomboxes to create symphonies of echoed noise), and Johnny Depp, but fashion and H-Wood has creeped much too up the asses of the music world. Of course rock stars will always fuck models and vv but what about those of us who, before floating off to REM world (and I'm not talking about those men of GA), want a piece of rock and roll greatness.
Wow, there is con/destruction happenig right outside the building where I now blog (my home) and it sounds like the apocalypse is nigh. Just looked out the window facing west, from where the infernal noise is coming, and no, not the apocalypse, just some city workers who obviously don't comprehend that behind this modest window is a blogger, a churner of words, a thinker who needs to not be embedded in their workday chaos. I have enough of my own, thanks.
Love.

I put the AHHHHH! in adrenaline.
Last night I attended, late, in rockstar fashion, the well-meaning yet poorly-attended benefit in & outside of Mohawk Place produced by Robby Goo et al from his recording studio, Chameleon West. There I saw The Kid, the model-to-be, and we discussed my pending series with him which went swimmingly until he began tossing in his four or so cents about how he likes to be photographed. From what he described it could not be further from my aesthetic intent, but was interesting nonetheless.
He is, remarkably, one of thee most spatial and unanchored rockstars I've talked to in a long while and thoughts of mine drift to how difficult it might be to pin him to the schedule of a shoot. Onwards.
Off to NYC again later this week to scramble to fix the chaos of the online course.
At last night's wedding gig, deep in the ski hills of an area south of the Middling City, I met a man (with seven wives? nope) who is a self-proclaimed DreamWeaver master. Imagine my glomming, my joy, my tunneled vision that this man will be sitting with me and tossing me a veritable electronic life preserver to make my Parsons School of Design website the beautiful and lush landscape I intend it to be. Actually, this man offered to do just that, in so many words.
And then... and THEN... the kid/model/flakey rockstar also knows DreamWeaver and I thought OhHappyDay things are e-lookin' up.
I was artfully inspired this weekend by these items:
1. chance encounter with a picture book on religions that I picked up ferfucksakes I don't know when and turned Zenstyle to the pages devoted to Zen Buddhism and there on the section's first page was a gorgeous repro of Buddha giving his Flower Sermon, holding up a lotus flower.
2. in the current Art News, in the hoaky piece on ten to watch, there is a piece on Adler Guerrier, a photog who makes images in NYC and Miami - lush semi-peopled landscapes. "The images evoke a playful and fluid sense of transit." and on.
3. in the lav at Cybele's this AM there, at the top of the heap of ancient lexicon, were the exposed endpiece pages, botanical illustrations. For me, clearly. They are in my back pocket, moldering and perfect gems of the green world.
All the above are to be inserted into my journal for artwork's sake.
Grad school. A wild mental ride.
An expensive wild mental ride.
An expensive expansive wild mental ride.
An expensive expansive chaotic wild mental ride.
An expensive expansive chaotic wild mental rock & roll ride.
All.