Saturday, November 15, 2003

Ohmygod Beth, there's a man with a pompadour here.
And what a pompadour it was, heaped and starched to a sleek perfection atop the head of a 40ish art patron at one of the art ops I went to last night. Solo, looking for a place to shoot randomly the hand and eye coordinated interactions of strangers but deciding to move along (the white - wine - was excellent) but the atmosphere, including seriousminded/wrongheaded pompadours, was a bit stifling. Art ops, think revelry. This building, top to bottom art galleries, was filled to half-brim with folks who thought long and hard about which garish pair of shoes to wear, which brush to sleek over the pompadour to utter perfection.
I am off now, no comment from You, to purchase bagels, champagne, head down to SoHo where I'm shooting a couple in love in gesture in video in project in situ.
Off I go.
Production Love.

Thursday, November 13, 2003

My image of toddler Isabel with candy cig has created much gnashing of teeth for two of my PSD classmates who have had little to say previously on our online class discussion board. Suddenly there they were, these two righteous women, stating how onerous I am to have photographed an innocent child with a cigarette = HOW could I?, where was the parental consent. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc.
I wrote back a short & sweet, sweet & sour, response basically stating that the child's guardian, another of our classmates, was present, and that no childish lungs were charred during the filming. I made a reference to the rampant moral righteousness in the USofA, both of the wrongheadeds took that and ran with it down the corridor of nincompoopness. My two best classmates, Beth (the aforementioned nanny) and Vanessa, hopped on to the cause defending my artistic and moral integrity. V was right, I believe, that these two are feeling out of the loop, excluded from our reindeer games.
All for now and one for all.
Have set up times for video shoots with suspecting others. Spotted a perfect ramp that is part of my school, indoors, and am wondering how and if the guard will have to be bribed to allow shooting.
Location scouting, production managing, etc., what a racket.
Production Love.

Wednesday, November 12, 2003

So last night, here in the good city of New York, I came to the aid of a man lying lifelessly on 14th Street near Parsons. Me and another cell phone afficianado were on the phone calling the ol' 911 and were told not to touch the body. Help arrived but not before a few well-wishers tried to touch the body. One person, a concerned man, put his hand under the body's nose to feel for exhalation. I had a paranoic image rush through my mind of the body suddenly coming to and chomping on the hand. It didn't happen.
So help arrives. Two ambulances, one for each caller.
I had located an empty plastic bottle of methadone at the body's knees and thought Aha, a junkie. Who overdosed.
So the emt's shook the body so violently that he was yanked from death's door and he stood, very slowly, wobbly on his feet, his face bleeding from falling. I moved backwards away, watching the proceedings and noted that one of the emt's, the smuggest of them all, swept his arm in a Carol Marol-like gesture, to show the former cadaver/junkie all the worry he had caused in the arc of onlookers.
Ongoing, I am working at school, on the video project, and am meeting with the mentor/advisor in mere minutes. To show the footage. To explain myself. To explain my process. Then it'll be off to the Mac store to ponder the other things I need: more RAM, another cable, the time to edit. Oh, and the time to shoot, to gather the cast of characters and shoot away.
Processional Love.

Sunday, November 09, 2003

Here is a very educational site for your edification and erudition and such, compliments of pal Paul Morgan who suggests that you have your computer's volume cranked.
Going to delve in to video, digital video, for art's sake and delve into the video realm at Parsons, also for art's sake.
So, for art's sake, I sign off for now to make the cash money to support the art.
For its sake, my own.
Also: visited the life-sized Buddha at the museum, experienced two years ago, which had me magnetized by some internal energy. Thought Oh, that was then, a mood, an inner commotion. So.
Went back to said museum, paid a visit to same Buddha - Japense Heian period, mid 12th Century, gilded carved wood.
Felt nothing and then a click in my chest cavity then a warmth that held me in place so intense that I didn't feel I could move.
I'm going to write to the administrators there and ask what is this Buddha's story? How does he magnetize? Does he magnetize others? Any other tales of magnetization?
All for now.
Buddha Love.