Soul Train hits from '72 right now, a throwback to all the AM band songs from my kid room as I read novels or played Barbies. For this in the car in the Middling City it's AM 1400, same. Last night, en route to a Lackawanna-based restaurant specializing in what's so Island, looked to the left while waiting for a red light and there was a most perfect sight - something I've been looking for, a blend of industrial and living, a lit plant of some sort at the end of a street. Kind of like the wooden grain elevator that Catherine Parker brought me to one wintry afternoon, at the end of Koons Avenue along the tracks. Speaking of tracks, went with one Jim Fitzgerald of the Shiny Apple and Kennedy to the MC's fading Central Terminal where tracks are laid and trains don't stop. According to the footprints in the snow there are plenty of men who go into the terminal and when I stuck my head into an inky hole I heard water running running running. This is the joint where Spencer Tunick had several MC denizens drop their clothing and stand in the main lobby as if. So while Fitzgerald is admiring the decrepitude, a sheriff department helicopter flutters overhead and I start to thinking they're going to tell us to move along, get away from the expensive new chainlink surrounding the place. They hovered in ovals and then finally left. I have heard from a reliable source that they were looking for - and did ultimately locate - a missing person. Actually, a missing body at that point. The body had ingested a bunch of meds and meandered into the snow when it was ferocious. Helicopter brought back the September memory in Shiny Apple when Bush was in town and there was much surveilling and reshuffling of pedestrians.
In a short while it is a new year.
Happy. New. Year. Good bye to a year of tumult, change, challenge, newness.

Love changes, train changes.

Perusing a magazine that gives nature mad props mere moments ago I learnt a few fun facts that I must now share with You:
1. wolves/dogs have 25% more sniffing cells than humans - mag said sniffing cells, I did not.
2. wolves travel in packs that number approximately, according to my calcs, 15 members.
3. writing for nature mad prop mags reads sort of treacly.

In direct contrast to the hard-hitting piece I'm in throes of writing for the Shiny Happy Mag - You know, the one on televised Let-us-decorate-all-swoony-shows. Whilst on an errand ran into a person I know who shall not forthwith be named. She asked about my writing. Funny you should ask, I began. I tell her theme. She confesses that she is one of the bazillions who are addicted to these shows. As she tells me this fun fact a man next to her reveals that his wife is of these masses. Now they are part of The Story.

This is what art is: you begin, make, art becomes what it wishes to be and suddenly you are along on its ride as you ride it to the deadline's sundowny and rosey finish line.

Lines around Love.

Let us discuss something Perfectly timely and necessary to boot.
It is that time, that time that crushes us, when we must think of our resolution, our plan of attack, our modus operandi, for the new year.
This is not some frivolous gesture but, I propose, a chance to secretly or not so secretly indulge a desire to acquire a skill, a new thing, a new outlook.
So last year Yours Truly opted for this rez:
TRAVEL MORE.
And, ferfucksakes, I did.
Now. This year.
MAKE MORE ART.
Art can easily slip to the bottom of the to-do pile and Yours Truly is a Happiest Yours Truly when art is slipping forth with not only abandon but with regularity.
MORE ART.
Managed to squeeze much time in for the onslaught of travelling others, in keeping with the theme of wind in the hair, etc.
Turned Justy on to the favoured near-airport joint, Jim's. A place of bad coffee by the jug, truckers lugging small shaving kits and towels, the domain of the silver naked lady (this should conjure Westerberg).
Regarding new(er) music bought some Stevie to put my money where my heart is. And Le Tigre who found themselves on a mixCD by another and now it spins merrily.
And more.
And now time to work upon the next installation of wise words emanating forth from Yours Truly for the Shiny Happy Mag.

Magpies of Love.

Yesterday, conjured up the spirit of Sam Super B to blog.
Today back to the Perfect style that You know and You so enjoy.

How It Happened, According to Yours Truly.
There was a woman who met a man and they fooled around enough so that in time there was a pending baby and it was a problem but the woman was born without Original Sin and nobody understands that. Or any of this story's facts, for that matter, as they're mixed with fable and the default styles of translation and the retelling until the original is worn, less crisp.
So there's a meandering along and then labour pains. Water breaks while the woman is riding side saddle on the back of a donkey who is not pleased, who is being beaten along with a stick. The month is October and it is the Middle East.
They stop and out pops a baby and the baby, according to a prophecy, is the saviour of all people. There is a mysterious omen in the sky, a star with a tail, and word spreads, apparently, that something surreal/shattering has happened. Three kings find the couple months later - December - and they bring along camels, not the cigarettes, and gifts for the baby, like a shower of sorts. According to Kennedy the names of this trio are known and the names might have upwards of five syllables each.
Zoom ahead many years, to now, for example.
This birth is a baby is a man who is a founder of a philosophy that is interpreted for a long time and it, the philosophy, becomes a religion that becomes a far-reaching corporate interest whose h.q. is its own city within Rome, Italy.
This island of reinterpretation is within high walls and is full of breathtaking wealth and influence and its leader, the Pope, writes encyclicals that pronounce beliefs, interpreted belief, to its followers - and beyond. Missionaries, like door-to-door evangels, like Hispanic evangels who amplify their shouts of passionate belief out into a quiet neighborhood without regard, take it upon their believing shoulders to spread their reinterpretations.
According to lore the Pope knows the end of the world's date.
All the Popes have known this fact, revealed to the children of Fatima in visions, who smelled roses when the spirit of the Original Sinless woman appeared to them.
From a stable and a manger to a walled city, this is what transpired over thousands of years. What began as Buddha-like logic and love of peace has become a movement that has ripened beyond taste, use, intention of the founder.
This is Christmas, a time of rampant spending to show love for one another when, in fact, good deeds and aid and love should not only suffice but happen at all times.
And the music. Holiday music for this anniversary of the discovery of the Libran child Prince of Peace, light of lights, should be much better and possibly the only good one out there is by aforementioned Lennon.
Thus spaketh Perfect Me on this Holiday Matter.

Love Matters.

Most heart ache of ached, the season that has to be dig this experienced sans the other after all that time and now kapoof nothing not a card not a thing and what was all of that, a decade of wondering, of this and of that wasted, lost in a moment of honest reveal. A new season of wondering and waiting and new activity and not knowing the what is of the new but hoping and loving in a new light in a new way and what is the new locus. Thinking I don't trust I don't know but I do want to but what is it what is this what is this this season this place and time. This time of meaning full of things for others for other times and things that you do not have that you do not feel but that you do want and what would you do yes what would you do to have this that you want all the time all the place all the person now.

Love What.

'Tis the season to get cranky
FA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA...
'Tis the season to get tipsy
FA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA...
Don we nowsville our peppy apparel
FA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA...
Then we'll watch some blazing yule log
FA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LAAAAAAH.

Just got off phone with thee Elliott Caplan who says, and I really really don't think he's blowing smoke up my arse, that he digs my digvids that I dumped on him via a nice, tidy dvd.
Tomorrow afternoon we meet up in the Middling City suburbs to talk shop. Then call it a wrap. Not rap. This is so shop talk.
Out of towners are descending upon the Middling City in droves, all looking for high times and misdemeanours and squeezing them in right now to the miasmic schedule is mandatory. Justy et al will be looking to score some jubilance this evening and I am hoping beyond reasonable hope that he et al are not thinking It's Pink Flamingo Time. But, then again, holiday time is the only time Yours Truly darkens that rotting doorstep.
Until then, until later, Yours Truly remains Your Favored, Perfect Nancy.

Love's Sweet Remains.

post script, post haste:
Jesus H. Christ (the season's reason) forgot to freakin' mention that I sent off the paper. The PAPER. The brilliant essay on what completely rocks about the photographs of Gillian Wearing, Brit photog of my certain age. Sent it e-off to the instructress who I'm sure is shopping it around to various scholarly pubs.
As in pages full of brilliance, not ginjoints, ferfucksakes.

Sure does not seem like just yesterday and there are no misty tears to swab away but holy guacamole the nephew becomes thirteen today. There is an infamous Polaroid of me holding brand new him in my leather jacket and we're studying each other, really looking. My Sharpied caption reads Jacob's first sniff of black leather.
I talked to him when he was in his mother so I believe he knew my voice right off. Helloooo, this is your Auntie speaking, I'd pronounce as if I were speaking down into the Grandest Canyon. His mother/sole sistah did not mind but my father sure did when he witnessed the pronouncing once, claiming I'd deafen his forthcoming grandchild.
The nephew was born (the night he came out my friend TMO and I showed up drunk as can be about 2AM after spendiing the evening at nearby Icon, a concert I shot, I believe it may have been Pigface... or KMFDM. But we unsuccessfully tried to convince the near-asleep security man at the side door that we should be allowed to meander up to the maternity level for a quick hello.) with a keen sense of awareness and humour and I always have loved him more than just about anyone I know or have met or am sure to meet.
Since the age of six I dragged his nephew ass off to concerts so that he could experience music (and Yours Truly) firsthand and to see the underbelly, the workings of something and understand it, have a place in it. I felt as a kid that we family members toodled off and attended things, many cultural things, but we were skimming along as spectators - there was no sense of Knowing. So the nephew knows rock shows - the bands he's met, the security guys, the promoters, the merch girlies, the other backstage stragglers.
He is not a jock but a PlayStation addict, a karate kicker, a musician who plays piano, guitar and trombone. These past few years I've been pushing the rock concept at him. What a horrible rock stage auntie I would be.
Thirteen, the precipice and very start of what is exciting, heavy, transformative about It.
To that beloved kid, to You, I say rock on - faster, stronger, with more humourous abandon.

More More Love.

Once again Parsons School of Disorg just gave us practically no notice for a fab op. Last big no notice fiasco was one day's notice that all-time fav photog, Joel Peter Witkin, was speaking at school. Now it's Hey, on Monday there's a deadline to have work about NYC submitted for consideration for purchase by a corporation - 300 dpi tiffs AND 8x10 work prints of each digital file needed. Ummmm, HELLLLLLLOOOO. It's not only Friday but the semester's end AND I happen to be cross-state over here in the Middling City. As Tony the Tiger would say Guhh-reat.

Onwards.

So, Hillary was the one resplendent in topographical black leather coat and powder blue silk scarf. Eye shadow to match. Black pointy-toed boots. No gloves. Her assistants, as usual, in same. SS men handsome as usual and in black topcoats, ever muttering into their shirt cuffs.
I was in green down jacket, green Columbia hat with whimsical frills. The important hat. No gloves. Derek of Middling City News in complicated shades. Various other news types in bulky jackets. We were a scene. A photo op in ourselves.
Time to shoot the holiday card. And think about steaming email to the school. I am so like multi-tasking right now.

Love's Tasks.

The Church of the High Decibels is rocking out for the lord or for whomever they rock for over there, to the west. And here I sit, WBLK blaring out the R&B luvvin' brother (as V always described it) beats and the earplugs crammed in to their hilts. Made an executive decision mere moments ago that next purchase will be at the Mac/Geek Clubhouse - an Airport station so that I may be online over there, far away, to the southernmost corner of the pad to avoid insanity and the like. Homework beckons and home is not cooperating. So there.
Have to post thoughts most brilliant for online class about Aztecs, Freud, Discontents, Civilization, and more.
Tomorrow have a quick gig for the Shiny Happy Mag shooting that Hillary femme, at a ribbon cutting event for the Middling City's new Artspace, a joint that will house artists for living and for working.
Hillary, assuredly, will be the one in black pant suit and tasteful silk scarf held in place with a brooch. Yours Truly will be the one in workaday gear and sensible shoes.
Met with carcrash doc, McGrath, who looked at my films of shoulder, hot off the press. I was marked a tough customer as the xray tech wanted me to take off the Me and Ro necklace. To which I refused. I cannot take this off. It was very expensive. I barked. Really barked. It will interfere with the xray. It's of my shoulder, I barked some more. Yes, I know, techie said. It was a standoff there in the xray suite, the smell of photo chems most familiar wafting through the air. And the xrays were made and the necklace did not show its golden power. I rest my bejewelled case.
Dropped off a dvd for the enrapturing of Elliott Caplan.
Now waiting to hear another Nay or Yeah-You-Rock from another man in charge.

Charged Love.

Have the most brilliant of concepts. Look, this is not your average, run-of-the-grad-student-mill concepts - this is high concept. Going to write a paper that will bring tears to the eyes of all who read it. Well, that may be only two people (me, instructress), but damn, it'll fucking rock. Goes something like this: identity and faux identity in Mexican food items in Mex-American restaurants, and in modern photography. Brilliant. And I'm thinking it may be expanded into a book of sorts, maybe a novel. Along the process-oriented lines of Sophie Calle.
Well, that's all I can say for sure for now.

Academy of Love.

Primitivism. Us and Them. And I'm not talking the song by Pink Floyd. That's what Yours Truly read about last night whilst catching up on Parsons School of Dementia readings for the online thing. There was ref to the ethnographic writings of a few but the essay's writer never quoted them at length. A real bummer as it involved the prurient regarding of native peoples.
Beth the Great is not only great but a Genius as she has come up with a fab idea for my lodging in the Shiny Apple next month. Eureka I say to that and it'd mean, if all goes swell, a sublet of sorts from a classmate for the time being there.
So last night I read about the Aztecs. Sure, like everyone else, I knew about the rippings of hearts from living captives. But they were a friendly bunch to boot. If they killed you in battle they believed, well, belief is a nice consolation anyway, that the soul of the killt sped off to a heaven of lilies or flowers or some such flowery scenario. Those who just slipped away were, they also believed, sent to a much more boring place. Probably the usual celestial snooze-o-rama with angels with harps and clouds and do-gooders. All I know is I'd like to spend said afterlife with those of the rock or photo pantheon. Keith Richards naturally jumps into mind.
All for now and over and out, waiting word from JR, Mentor whether he thinks I should pawn my digvid camera - or not.

Knots of Love.

Sent words most imploring to Parsons School of Dilly-dallying this fine evening basically outlining ways I might get myself into her primo graces and glean an A or B to boot. I can be your personal chef for a while, I can shine all your shoes in your closet and out, I can walk your dog(s), I can write a book that you can sign your name to, etc.
Have no shred of guilt or shame or regret that I basically parked my ass at Kennedy's dining room table for what seemed weeks to make 20 digvids. And some, as I wrote somewhere, some time, are fucking Whitney Biennial-worthy. But we'll see what JR Art Mentor/Personal Art Designer, thinks and says about that. Talked to thee Elliott Caplan who will be watching some of my work with me this upcoming week. And then coffee and I said So what, you'll either tell me Keep up the GOOD WORK or What the fuck were you thinking. He said Oh, I never say the former, usually it's the latter. One conversation with him had my head on fire.
Speaking of fire, delivered a wedding today to one social worker type, in a building with the Middling City's elevator elder statesman. It creaked, it moaned and finally got me to floor number three. She opened the door after I buzzed (here begins Fake Plastic Trees and I'm catapulted back into my usual strong mem associated with this little, perfect tune) and there's a buzzer as the pitiful decrepit building is visited by the MC's crackheads and psychotics, to stare wondrously sans speaking at the Pentecostal-like flame arching over my forehead. I then, after said delivery, delivered myself to the doors of Jon's salon where I am always guaranteed to feel some love. Some coffee, some smokes, some laughs, some rock and roll banter and, all buoyed up, I made my way back into the chilly MC streets.

Streets Paved with Love.

Passed a taste test haranguer today as I had to return to the Mac Clubhouse to buy the correct dvd's (note to self = dashes and plus signs are of utter import when buying overpriced pieces of plastic to stuff into the overpriced pieces of plastic, i.e. PowerBook) and he either said Rock ON! - or Saigon!. Given his ethnicity I am not too sure which it was.
Last night's gig had a fateful ending. Merrily the singers onstage were a-singing and there were jazz hands in abundance and simpering and galumphing. Sudden-fuckin-ly the lights went kapoof and 32 actors, 1 photog, 1 director, 4 high school earnest ones, 1 priest (I think), 1 lighting tech, 1 mediocre band, 1 badass ghost, 5 random spectators probably related to high school earnests, et al were plunged into pure and inky darkness. Cell phones were whipped open to provide comforting light dots in the theatre/deconsecrated church. Well about 20 minutes of darkness, with the actors still onstage making the best of it and proffering up all songs they could muster forth about darkness and the like, it was time to s.p.l.i.t. It was when I rushed to my awaiting automobile that I discovered that I had pulled up at a rakish angle in my usual blustery rock star fashion and had I pulled up another centimetre I would have been over a brink. So the last time I did a gig for these singers and dancers and actors there was a fire/fire drill. Last night the entire town of Lewiston went dark. I told Brendan, the man who hires me, and the stage manager that I take full responsibility for these natural happenstances of doom. Which leads me to thinking that soon the Middling City will face another ice boom or did they pass legislation that ice booms are passé. So many Middling City facts, so little time.

Time 4 Love.

Busted out a minor version of my Perfect Paint Melt Stare today as a groupie/girlfriend of an ensemble member of the UB student variety tapped me on my rootin' tootin' shootin' shoulder to query Ummm, do you mind. Pointing to her piece of guano mini digvid recorder as she stood against a pole whilst Yours Truly documented all the jubilant holiday cheer before me and one hundred mid-day music lovers and other hangers-on. She so owned that square foot of lino, never thought perhaps of panning and wanted to warn all media hacks in the house to get the fuck outta her way.
I blog currently from the measle-down, scaled-down version of SoHo's famed MAC/geek clubhouse, in a mall. I am on errands. You do not want to get in my way when I am on errands for I:
1. do not care for errands, generally speaking.
2. loathe malls and their piped-in joviality.
3. do not care to mingle with maxed-out holiday shoppers but crapskis I have business to attend to with these nice MAC folks.
4. I am in a hurry people, not on the usual 20 mph Middling City rate of speed.
Well, that amount of mall-based surliness should suffice for now.
I leave you - breathless, feckleless, Perfectless.
I am an Americano'd streak on this horizon.

Horizontal Love.

Recently there was a blaze (word used in honour of ol' newscoot Irv Weinstein on the Middling City's Channel 7 Eyewitness News) and a building went kapoof. Was at Jon's Joint when I wandered over there and could not recall what had been there. Was it a building. A lot. Then, some steps. Then I recalled that I had not only passed this building bajillions of times but had traipsed up these steps for a job working for a former born again junkie. Former junkie, current born again. A real micro-managing, sexist, religionist ass named Dom. As in Perignon. As in Corleone. Etc.
So the steps, so the memory.
Another revelation, of a digital and less personal sort.
Working on the computer for what seems aeons lately have been sorting through not only occurent miasmas but have taken frequent sideroads whilst rendering digvid files to discover something so fab I must share it, shout it from the virtual rooftop.
Within the little package of Titanium Platinum there is a juicey bit that allows one to design one's very own cd/dvd doo-dad-rich labels. And even more... like case covers. I mean really. If You knew about this and did not tell I am like so furious.
Spoke with Justy today while he and Mattie were not hard at work at the mag. Decided that well maybe perhaps Bandmate Scott and I should make a biztrip out of NYC next week to suss out Knife Fight, Justy's band. To see if they might be suitable for our amazing double bill. Knife Call and Knife Fight: Battle of the Knives.
Saw that movie everyone raves on about. Sideways. Unexpected wacky character behaviour. Unexpected act of raging violence that had my face all sweating and hiding from an afeared mem of the X post-face-bash, with face dripping middle to bottom in fresh out of the veins blood. What a night that was. I wrapped his face, moaned in mama bear rage, put him in car and sought out the villain and believe I would have mowed down said villain and, thankfully, he was not still out on the streets and the two of us met TerryO out that night and I drank to assuage my rage and all until the newly-busted-nose X had to drive home as my head laid out the window for air and for understanding and hey let's give peace a chance.

Love's Chance.

Did a whole lot of minding my own business - ha and harumph - this weekend and am in the throes of conceptualizing how to write some ferfucksakes malarkey (as in some sort of Middling City sporting coach) for online course, get some art made, get some other items dotted and crossed and such.
If 100 magical fairies showed up at my door and they were all charged up on caffeine they might be able to lend some nec hands.
The church next door is rollicking for the lord or god or satan or saran wrap or whatever and perhaps as it's the yuletide it's turbo-charged evangelizing time. But I gleefully forget each year and so each time it's a different surprise inception at the disruptive wherewithall of these folks.
So now it's off to points beyond and then some and then some and then some and then some.
Did I mention there's some sort of malarkey abrew for Parsons School of Demarcated Anxieties?
Yours in Evangelizing Agonies.

Love's Agony and Contrapuntal Sensation.

(sung to tune of Love Machine, 70s Motown dance mega-hit)

I I I am a digital video editing ma-chine
And I don't work for nobody but Parsons
Oh oooh cha
A digital video editing machine...

I now have a plethora to send off to JR. And one, I swear, will be like so suitable for the next Whitney Biennial. No lie.
They are each little snippets of digital video editing mastery and the more I'm using this Final Cut extravaganza the more I'm meandering off the trail into black diamond territory, playing with scale, and other secret things.
About to jet off to Liz's girlie jewelry party for charity and find my sister some swingy earrings. Note to You: I do not have faux earholes. I do not wear earrings.
The last time I believe I attempted earrings was at the wedding of my beloved sister whose marriage (cue sit-com applause machine) went down in flames a few years back and whose d-word is now nearly final. (cue giant ovation)

After the jewelry purchasing power party Kennergy's free-jazz gig at Soundlab, renowned for serving the region's worst wine. At $3 per glass. O mighty God, if there is one, please prevent the temple squeezers from finding me if I so drink three of those glasses of rotgut that will rival the near-grain-alcohol vino of Thanksgiving Day when I served Stan and all the accoutrements. A-freakin-MEN.

Musing Love.

Well, file last night's charity event under Well, That Was Interesting.
First interesting fact is that I have the same, very-same, crimson chunks in my hair as does Robbie Goo and Carla, Mark Freeland's girlie companion.
Very same crimson, very same hair stylist.
Attended the VIP moment and ate about 6 Swedish meatballs and a rock sound guy queried if in Sweden the Swedes eat these. I thought not. The wine poured, the people schmoozed, the food disappeared.
Alison Pipitone played with her rollicking band and that was a highlight on the music end of matters.
Lead Boy Colleage and I spoke ever so briefly, told him about my beloved beau Kennergy who was not with me, he avoiding the rock scenario. O, velcro, I say.
I watched the video playing non-stop overhead and was delighted to hear that Yours Truly makes a cameo. It was described to me as TJ Zindle of Last Conservative fame and moi exchanging an Eskimo greeting, rubbing noses. And then, I saw it, this digitally-captured moment.
Have to FedEx off a dvd to JR for the grad student open house, sure to wow the masses my videos will be/are. Spoke with JR for a good long while yesterday, describing in full detail the work coming his way - a triumph. Triumph of use of adjectives, triumph of editing, triumph of shooting.

Triumpant, defiant Love.

A Johnny Depp look-alike meandered by in a gray poly-oly-um-cum-free suit. We danced a mean hustle. Afterwards, after twirling in a fashion that could best be described as near-arm-amputational (arms of Yours Truly), he growled in my ear Nice following, baby. The little vid made by Beth Dearest of the dancefloor encounter proves it to be not a good example of following, or leading.
Sky-high minis, sky-high 'fros, sky-drunk guys towards the evening's end, sky-high Leif Garrett of former idolatry (photographed by YT after collaring him and after his junkie eyes sort of focused upon where my voice emanated from), sky-high drink lines, sky-high bartenders in bowties, was the disco vibe.
Today I suffer from Convention Center Foot, the phenomenon that follows hours of fancy footwork upon a concrete floor.
Beth Dearest dared me (dared! me! what!) to dance with a cop guarding the point where those with all-access passes (me) could separate from the masses (them) and of course - suddenly - there I was gyrating in front of him. When the song was over he kissed me (kissed! me!) on the side of the neck and whispered into my nearby ear Thank you. It was such a touching disco moment.
Highlights Include:
Eric C not knowing who in hell Yours Truly was with my new colour-rich tresses and all, until I was practically on top of him.
Cell calls from Cheryl and Liz, somewhere in the morass.
Charlene Tilton, of Dallas fame, working up a sweat by the autograph stand where revelers were charged $10/Polaroid.
Finding a discarded Polaroid on the concrete floor of a chemical disaster that had beheaded the Polaroid's subjects = an artful triumph.
Discovering a cache of crap canned beers backstage and delivering them to the dancing girlies, and Myself.
Leaving and having to jump a curb to get out of the parking spot that I created.
Now to deadline day.

Concrete Love.

A Johnny Depp look-alike meandered by in a gray poly-oly-um-cum-free suit. We danced a mean hustle. Afterwards, after twirling in a fashion that could best be described as near-arm-amputational (arms of Yours Truly), he growled in my ear Nice following, baby. The little vid made by Beth Dearest of the dancefloor encounter proves it to be not a good example of following, or leading.
Sky-high minis, sky-high 'fros, sky-drunk guys towards the evening's end, sky-high Leif Garrett of former idolatry (photographed by YT after collaring him and after his junkie eyes sort of focused upon where my voice emanated from), sky-high drink lines, sky-high bartenders in bowties, was the disco vibe.
Today I suffer from Convention Center Foot, the phenomenon that follows hours of fancy footwork upon a concrete floor.
Beth Dearest dared me (dared! me! what!) to dance with a cop guarding the point where those with all-access passes (me) could separate from the masses (them) and of course - suddenly - there I was gyrating in front of him. When the song was over he kissed me (kissed! me!) on the side of the neck and whispered into my nearby ear Thank you. It was such a touching disco moment.
Highlights Include:
Eric C not knowing who in hell Yours Truly was with my new colour-rich tresses and all, until I was practically on top of him.
Cell calls from Cheryl and Liz, somewhere in the morass.
Charlene Tilton, of Dallas fame, working up a sweat by the autograph stand where revelers were charged $10/Polaroid.
Finding a discarded Polaroid on the concrete floor of a chemical disaster that had beheaded the Polaroid's subjects = an artful triumph.
Discovering a cache of crap canned beers backstage and delivering them to the dancing girlies, and Myself.
Leaving and having to jump a curb to get out of the parking spot that I created.
Now to deadline day.

Concrete Love.

So, minding my own business and shopping for toppings for my famed paella I actually had a family of four staring at my hair. They were making no attempt to hide the fact that they were staring and I returned their stares with my most Perfect, beatific smile. Nearing the paint-melt stare but not quite.
Shot a bar mitzvah today and this was overheard as a woman fumbled with a very decorative and overly-designed doorknob: Weeelll, that was easy after those bloooody marrrys.
To that I thought Well, yee ha to you, mid-afternoon tippler with abandon.
Tonight is the World's Largest Disco, or, rather, the Middling City's Largest Disco Scene. You know, the one where 10K people or so in flammable clothing and faux 'fros do their best hustle. Despite the fact that for most the hustle etc. was aeons before their time and if not for VH1's series loving all things retro they would just not know.
Bringing Inbal and Beth Dearest to the WLD/MCLDS vip portion of the evening for high times and no misdemeanours. Turned them on to sponge candy and now they are addicted.

Spongey Love.

*neato! this post was just completed as the previous was allegedly lost as I blogged on another internetal set-up with woeful and antedeluvian dial-up. So double post Love for You, lucky sunnuvagunn epinw reader/Lover.

The colours of crushed cranberries and sumptous, foolhardy and light-coloured pumpkin pie are running through my tresses, thanks to Jon. As of a few days ago and the visit to the salon and the espresso and - oh - it's all a blur. But I left with multi-colours. And they rock. As I told Kennedy Jon wants us all to look like we're out on tour. Speaking of tours, Robbie Goo and Jon are having a slammin' party on Monday night as part of the whole Music is Art genre of rock activities.
It's 3PM and I have not started cooking dinner for T-Day. Am I worried. Are real cranberries growing from my cranium. I rest my Martha Stewartlike case.
So I'm making duck with 40 cloves of garlique. 40. I went to B'Way Market yesterday for a special special duck from a poultry stand. I asked if the feet were extra to no noticeable mirth. Jon kept asking produce vendors if the various items in his hands were 2 for $1.19 a pound. To no noticeable mirth.
Now back to the Kennedy Kitchen for some good old-fashioned slicing, dicing, stuffing, and, most importantly, imbibing of wine all the while.

On NPR at this moment a man with one of those authoritative accents is describing the tradition of wild boar hunting on a holiday. You must make the kill... Oh, he's discussing ancient Greece and the historical figure, prince of Macedonia, Alexander, in honour, assuredly of the Oliver Stone movie starring the lips of Angelina Jolie and others. But really. No hunting of wild boars, please. Pigs are people, too. Ducks are not. Ducks are a dime a dozen as they are plentiful on ponds and in zoos feeding off the land. Alexander, a very present threat, the man accents on.

Stuffing. Love.

Cranberry and pumpkin pie colours now swirl merrily through my hair after a visit to Jon who touched up the red chunks and added anew. He and I visited B'Way Market to buy a fat pig .. home again .. home again .. jiggity-jig. Astute lovers of epinw and all things Yours Truly know, just know, I do not ever eat pig. But I did buy a duck, a solid bag of duck, no feet and no head. I asked the nice man behind the counter if I might pay more for the pair to be attached. Answer: no. Jon suggested buying a gag chicken and attaching those feet. I never swung by a shop of magick so no feet it is. Beth Dearest arrives in about an hour, onto this frost-strew gray Middling City terrain. Inbal comes on Saturday, just in time for me to drag their unsuspecting asses to the World's Largest Disco on S-a-t-u-r-d-a-y NIGHT for the beerish mayhem that it is. Now it's off to video land, cooking land, landing land, and more.

Love stuffed.

LOST:
(virtual flyer tacked with a red plastic tack, end broken from hammering, to a sapling on a busy street)
HAVE YOU SEEN MY ACADEMIC CAREER?
IF SO, PLEASE CONTACT ME.
ROCK ON,
NJP

I am in the midst of a freelance gig, part two (ding-ding) begins in a few hours. I informed one of my hirees that I am in grad school. She looked confused. SO I CAN TEACH IF I SO CHOOSE, I sort of warbled out. Well, if you ever do teach let me know. (long pause) I'd like to learn how to take better photos.

?

So, minding my own business, like fucking usual, and standing in the doorway of Jon's Salon (the man who gave me the crimson chunks and who is retouching them for brightness's sake this pending week) I see famed and lanky product and housewares designer Karim Rashid. Today, all dressed in white. Yesterday it was an all-pink ensemble, right down to his powdery pink shoes. Shot him last night at Albright-Knox Hallways of Art as he was lecturing, expostulating, espousing and effusing. Left Cheryl at the AKHA bar with one Jeff(rey) who was regaling and regaling to make the/my familiar less so, if you catch my deft storytelling drift.

So there was the imported designer, Rashid, meandering down Elmwood Avenue, the Middling City's one last outpost of pedestrianism. Spending his hard-earned design dollars in the MC. Jon ran to the window, leaving his client mid-cut, to see the man. I dared Jon to rush out and ask for an autograph, but on his left buttcheek. Jon, a rockstar, refused.

Love Refuse.

Minding my own business and about to blog this moment away as Interpol blasts away at a volume I'm sure that has the next door neighbors enjoying it completely, I glanced up at a stack of books. Dreamweaver MX for Dummies caught my eye and a cold shudder of death waved through my body.
Met Kennedy at a jazz gig at the church last night and Bandmate Scott was there, across the way/aisle/GodPath. So we go out for post-show drink(s), me and the Bandmate, at that joint Prespa. Small, functional, former storefront that pulls off the ginmill vibe well. We were glancing up at a college basketball game when - suddenly - there was a player with a face mask on. He'd had his nose busted or some such thing (as has Yours Truly - twice) and it blended his basketball head with the shiny plastic to horrifying effect. Bandmate Scott turns to me and sez "KNIFE CALL SHOULD WEAR THOSE ONSTAGE." I like so completely agree. This is like that dj that JW,Esq. was going to see last night, an alleged daddy of the suburbs who does his gigs in a metal half-mask. Masks, all the rage, suddenly.
And Bandmate Scott joins list of pals who have informed me that I must grow my hair. Puh-leez. Is it time to walk to the green line after grabbing a tall strong French coffee, wander into Diesel store before walking to Parsons, take a lunch break at Marquet and meander the streets in a visualizing stupor yet.

Love Stupor.

Awaiting the call. From Elliot Caplan, filmmaking guru and star, to meet up with him and show him a thing or two. Funny thing is I can't seem to find a critical cable needed for my one external harddrive that houses most or all of my most recent video oeuvre.
And I promised him an Americano so there's that to acquire as well.
And then I'll have one and then all hell will be breaking loose.
Got a note that I'm in the Parsons School of Delinquents Rogue's Gallery as one who has not yet registered/sent in funds. Oh, velcro, I say to that. It'll happen. Soon.
Sending off samples of work to a U for consideration to confuse and mold young minds - i.e. teach a few photo classes in the spring. Without giving away the exciting, exurban locale, it's a highway drive of two hours away. If it's a big green go Hello, books on tape. Hello, dashboard thinking.
All for now and over and out.

Love Out.

Senatorial shoot was a slammin' success, except for the lunching part. Evan, the imported (NYC) mailhouse guy that I drove about from location to location, and I had drive-thru from (gag) Wendy's. We both had the #6 with Diet Coke, should you need to gag along. Had to, at some point, coach my senator in the ways of the hand, how to wave it in front of his body like a salmon swimming upstream in a pleasing and non-threatening (continuing the metaphor, not like a salmon hung-over and threatened by a hungry, streamside grizzly) manner. Be Italian, I coached. To the softened gasps of all in the room. I'm half-Italian, I said, I can say that. At some point I bossed Like karate chops in the air.
Moments ago shot a Korean drum ensemble who marched and danced and ran while playing. Very kodo and affirming. And deafening. I was in front of them, as if they were marching into me (oh, they were) for the bestest shots e-ver.
Onwards to deadlines of redwood proportions.

Proportional Love.

Sloppy miasma, as all good parties should be. In the midst I discovered, on purpose, Polly and Mark's stash of aged rubber bands, broccoli bands, twist ties. A pet peeve. I scooped up half the collection and deposited it next to Kennedy, who was at that instant a seated reveler. I had just caught crap from him earlier for disposing of his twist ties. This has happened numerous other times when I am visiting someone. Scenario. Kitchen and Yours Truly is moseying about when lo and completely behold there is an amassment of the aforementioned and, before you can shout flotsam! jetsom!, then I dispose of them as they should have been months, nay, years, sooner. Au revoir neurotic gatherings. But then, as it was pointed out to me mere hours earlier, it is neurotic to gravitate and dispose of these.
As I was shooting at Burchfield-Penney Art Center Bearded Lady arrived, inquiring if the Cyndi Lauper show was still up. Poor testosterone-addled dear, she did mean Cindy Sherman but when I heard her request for Cyndi Lauper I turned like a cat sensing a snack, eyes lit from within, in a half whisper uttering Cyndi Lauper? Bearded Lady did not catch her artsy mis-spokulation.
Now I am putting together Regards., the column. And tomorrow an all-day shoot with a state senator doing the usual beautification and beatification.
All this and more as techno smoothness fills the space between.

Space of Love.

ps: still haven't sealed the deal, as Laura is wont to say, with Caplan. And Beth Dearest reports that Joel-Peter Witkin was not only high as a kite, but dismissive and incommunicative, this from Simone. To that I say Well ferfucksake, the man is a rock star. Does he have to be nice. Was Kurt Cobain nice backstage. I rest my haggard journalistic case.

Beth Dearest phoned me moments ago, from the computer lab at good ol' Parsons School of Deism, where she was sitting next to Mentor Jim. Upon hearing that BD was speaking to me he said to relay the message that I was in big trouble. For what, I queried. For not writing, for not calling came his basso profundo response. For. Having a sabbatical of sorts from all things grad, for having a moment of introspection in lieu of making - a commonplace must in art making, fercrissakes. Meeting up with Good W later today for some party wares as it's the b-days of both Liz and Polly and a party is afoot. Note to self: turn heat up on a more regular basis as the green plants are waning. Note to self: when the mood is of a certain nature keep the soundtrack peppy. Note to self: continue to bother the shit out of Holy Crap why Me Elliott Caplan to work with me as mentor #2, despite his wonderings if this is for money, for furthering of his fame, for coffee comp.

Compensatory Love.

ps: gleaned moments ago from Internet that the veep of this very land has been rushed or taken to hospital once again, for Shortness of breath. But he has a cold, the sniffles, so it may not be Arafat cause for alarm. Whew.

Firstly whilst shooting production shots of MacB (look, that'd be Macbeth to You), there was a fire alarm. Blaze, I wondered, a photo op of real-live flame, the lickings of orange and red that is escapable when it comes to my graphite brandishings. No. False alarm. While watching the non-burning building, housing, apparently, thousands of co-eds, as well as Leary Theatre, some co-eds thought it zany and unfettered of them to ditch their clothes so there was one nude male and one nude female. To the delight of the onlookers. I might here mention that this is a catholic (not as in universal) university. I might here also mention it's Oban time in my book, this moment, which always lends a special je ne sais quoi/feistiness/X Factor to epinw. Blaze. So there in MacB was some smoke effect(s) to accompany the Wyrd Sisters - one of the WS aided me in a moment of snack elusion when my bag of Smart Food brand over-cheesed popcorn ("dinner") landed sideways and was unable to enter my awaiting and disappointed hand, and mouth, and teeth crevices. Enter Wyrd Sister. After some magical wiggling I had my fucking Smart Food. She said Always call in a witch. To which I muttered Magick. Exeunt.
Shooting, shooting, shooting then this in Act V, Scene V, after death of Lady MacB. This quote haunted my own private moor and I reread it to Kennedy and have it now copied on one of the walls as it's the new digvid inspiration. Life's but a walking shadow, he sayeth thusly and following is most of the passage, fraught with phrases that have entered our mainstay category.

Macbeth:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Dig. Digvid.
Moving bodies shapes in space and with the gray that hovers it's time to bring the show not on the road but au contraire in the rooms that smell of perfumes. To bring the lit refs up to the 19th C.

It Ove.
Lit Love.

Embarking shortly for a theatre-related gig. And You know how much I completely am enamoured of all things theatrical. As in stages, not emphatic speech, mercury buckets. Informed moments ago that not ONLY Beth Dearest but Inbal the Newlywed Israeli are jetting to the Middling City for holiday fun with Yours Truly. Sitting currently in the new newspaper digs to discover that the printer has had a snafu of sorts and there is no paper as of yet. And today is the day. The day that it miraculously appears from our minds and fingers out onto the streets, into the eagerly-awaiting hands of the masses. Emailed famed filmmaker Elliot Caplan earlier to inquire if he'd be my on-site idea masseuse/grad school advisor and to that he replied Holy crap, why me. To that I replied Because, fuckhhead. No, not really. Told him, oh, a plethora of reasons why. Just Why. Just Because.
Time to embark.
Love to Embark.

Minding my own business, as usual, awoke to the boisterous man at the front desk informing me that 400 cops were coming and they needed my room ASAP. Not for any bust of any sort. Just a convention moving in. And Yours Truly was being evicted from her seaside abode high above the large-scale folks walking back and forth the Myrtle Beach prime real estate. So I moved out and then did some art shooting that already has a fine fine title - Towards the Ocean. Shots made from the high parking ramp where I'd been docking my rented Chrysler cherry red convertible Sebring that in a flash would have one way way over any limit of speed or prudence.
So I says to my self, Nance I sez, You have not been on a beach in a year or more and why the hell not meander down there. So I did and then proceeded to sleep for the next three or so hours, scorching my face a bit which has now evolved into a tan = egads.
Heard from JW,Esq. today who informs me, as usual, that he hit a grand show and I did not. He saw Brian Wilson on the Smile Tour.
Back to chaos, back to the mountain that is the to-do list, the holy shit you had best do this NOW list, the emails, the calls. The past three days of beach and work and pals a hovering dream. Like the blissful dreams one can have only on an autumn beach.

Love Beach.

This is it, shoulders walking strong with the rest of it, eyes looking at ideas of art swirling inside after seeing a masterwork again and again and now the haze of music that matches the outdoors and the interior perfect and also the mood collective at least among people that matter that are personal that wanted change but did not get change. And today, a question that surprised, about now an hour ago, from someone suggesting big changes and that idea hovers like the masterwork, in the dark, the messenger.
Shot last night Dem big winners, big surprises some. Walked with someone over to the bar to merrily discover that all was pro free-o, what with all the work accomplished, the lit drops, the canvassing, the stumping, and more. The spotlit crowd watching results and projections and then people up on stage until their attentions drifted back to the television set next to the stage. Big winners, big surprises. Stood on stage alongside Brian Higgins, a new congressperson, as he thanked everyone and sent out mad props to his forefathers, etc. Talked to pocket-squared Byron Brown, got a hard hug from Sam Hoyt. Got earfuls of gossip and news from various Middling City others.
Back to Mazzy Star, the stars and art and the like.

Like Love.

Yes, I am farting about with my template and that is why there are pixels askew.
File under How Democrats and Republicans Are So Like Cats and Dogs.
Takes place this Middling City morn, gray sky blazing and politics hovering in the air like tragedy or holiday anxiety.
Yours Truly: Hey Chuck (bowtied man who owns photo lab whose rent I pay, essentially), did you go out and vote already. But, wait, I do not want you to vote today, Chuck. (Chuck is a well-known Rep, a conservative one to boot, a lover of the prez, in the political sense as he's also an avowed hetero).
Chuck: Hey, Nance, remember to go out and vote tomorrow.
cue chortles.
As I just told Deb, I am preparing a dinner of flounder or sole, in honour of all the floundering souls out there who cannot get the lead (not Led, not today anyhoo) out and vote. My beloved sister is one of the lax. Oh, gravlax is another good choice for an entree today - in honour of those who are gravely lax in their inalienable right to freakin' vote.

Entree to Love.

Tenterhooks.
Collectively, good or bad/evil/anti-choice/pro-war, we are on tenterhooks - the old-school means of stretching fabric to its limit to work upon it.
Did you think these hooks were for meat, the meat of your anticipatory flesh.
The art world appropriated the def of the hook and it's what said world calls an 'L' bracket sometimes. The little L's that bend and cause one to smash one's finger(s) with hammer whilst installing artwork.
Today is Election Day's Eve and this is, historically, the one to make the difference we are ever collectively bantering about like earnest grad students. Difference keeps us apart, hopeful, suspicious.
If You have your shit together, have registered, know where in hell your polling place is, have the inclination, make the time and listen to the wise recorded words of Caroline Kennedy, professional orphan, that her pops nearly lost his prez election by 1% of a vote in each state (read differencemaking) then get the fuck out and greet the canvassers, the ladies with the boxes of doughnuts, pull the lever and impassively, prosportlike, move, tomorrow.

Moving Love.

ps: happy election day's eve with my whole dem heart pumping the B+

Had good discussion this week with X, AcademeGuru, regarding this my most favoured holiday. He gets this, always got this, about me. Halloween is adopting another persona, getting caramel stuck in one's teeth, trying to be terrified to get the ol' adrenal juices flowing, thinking of the dead and the morbid and the dying smell of rotting plants, Witkin photos that are elegant death. Halloween is not and never will be adorable Hallmark crap, cute and adorable smiling pumpkins. No, Halloween (and please toggle over to archive from last year's All Hallow's Eve) is the aforementioned as well as prankishness and smashing of jack-o-lanterns when it's proper to do so = under cover of darkness, in the middle of public streets and when the day/night is done. It is sad, but it must be done. It dispels the ghosts and after Halloween there is nothing sadder than a jack-o-lantern forlornly smirking as it implodes. Memory: Mr. Hung (whose handy diagram of the extro/into-vert dialectic I've hung alongside my desk) scooping 2-inch white fuzzy mold out of my jack-o-lantern last year, afraid I might be overly saddened that it had done its job and was sitting on a radiator festering. Fercrissakes, get that thing into the trashroom pronto, I suggested.
Be bad, be good, be everything in between.

Love, Pronto.

ps: My Annual Conceptual H'Ween Costume?
This year I am, I so am, Condoleeza Rice. Put that in yer corncob pipe and be terrified.

Hop aboard this thrilling train of Yours Truly thought.
Go to Parsons online course and holy crapskis someone actually POSTED. Instructress says read this and this and this and this and this. All of the readings pertain (very important grad word, like signify, rubicon, student loan, mentor and paradigm shift) to images of the Other. As in xenophobia and the capturing thereof. Or jungle fever and the capturing therof.
One of the links/readings is of images made, turn-of-C-style, of women of Algiers.
Go to CIA's factsheet on Algeria.
Read about Morocco, another former France-occupied spot.
Start thinking of France.
Start thinking of gai Paris.
Go to site listing apartments for rent in gai Paris.
Note that they are not très expensive, off-season, mon favori.
Meander back in memory to last visit in gai Paris, walking streets, echoing feet, speaking the tongue of gai Paris, eating the food on the tongue of gai Paris.
Jump off train speeding like the TGV, hit ground hard and body rolls until it comes to rest against a seeded, gone to autumn butterfly bush.

No love for Bush.

Blogger offers a special memo on how to blog a novel and, as much as I adore all my Perfection-loving epinw fans, I just cannot imagine tossing your collectivity into the midst of This Middling City, a sizzler, a bestseller if ever there was one.
Today's shooting included an anti-drug parade and hoopla. So I decorated the golden Forester and showed up to rep the other team. In seriosity I arrived to discover about 100 screaming children, dressed in red and holding red balloons. New special thought: hire these screamers to line my driveway for my annual red dinner in February. What a send-on for my guests as they arrive for dinner and drinks. So this parade was not a parade at all but a simple line of screamers and I could not make out the phrase that was screamed again and again and to me it sounded Japanese. Finally, I approached one of the children wranglers to ask the big question, to solve the mystery of the moment. BEEP THE HORN, BEEP THE HORN, BEEP THE HORN, BEEP THE HORN.
So when innocent motorists motored by they were greeted by this arcane phrase ordering them to beep so the children would scream louder and the motorists, if lucky and passing by at a slow rate of speed, could glean why in fuck they were beeping.
Nancy's special thoughts on baseball, parting thoughts.
The sport's uniforms are okay, varying slightly from team to team. Some look like really cheap poly. Some look better. When soiled mid-game I wonder if players are allowed to change into a clean one for telegenics's sake.
There are no supremely handsome baseball players and they tend towards awkward hairstyles. In keeping with my formula that the ire level of professional athletes is in proportion to the stylishness of their jerseys baseball players like so fit in. Hockey players look ridiculous suited up for the game and they fight most. Football players's natural looks are obscured and they are rather angry. Baseball players's physiques are open as are their faces and they are least prone to fisticuffs. Soccer players are most exposed and stylish and they don't fight. I rest my sporty case.

Sporty Spice Love.

So I had a Bon Voyage Koji party and concurrent old-fashioned throwdown to which seemingly thousands meandered into and stumbled out of. AJ brought a bday prez for me, one of his empty shotglass paintings, a marvel. I hung it immediately during a break in the baseball action - Kennedy and other fellas watched the game in my chamber and that is exactly where the painting needed to be. So up on a chair with work, hammer, nail and a wapping. AJ told me three times during the party how much he hates my new 'do. The red chunks, specifically. Had a very trying day yesterday which nearly began with the Middling City's mayor smiling into my lens after I asked his handler to Please hold the mayor's trenchcoat, and ended placidly at Kennedy's home as I drifted into SnoozleLand, the newest copy of SPIN still resting quietly in my hands. They did a fine job of amassing a chart to teach the masses of youngters and hipsters the big diffs betwixt the candidates. Shot Nader (again) on Sunday as he spoke not too far from here at the Ukrainian Party HQ on Genesee Street. It was packed with the usuals: Birkenstocks, Green Parties, Hippies, Crunchies, Crabbies - all holding oddly homogenous signs. I realized one of the Nader people had made the cheesey signs and passed them out.
Example:
Bush and Kerry make me want to Ralph.
Now really. Should a self-proclaimed peace candidate, self-reffed spoiler joke about his name being a euphemism for a politically-inspired barf, regardless of the barf's emeticlike source.
Ralph spoke of democracy, how he's not allowed to debate so therefore on his website he debates the other two sports virtually. How does one get a nose like Nader. Why does he always look like he awoke from a weeklong train ride in his suit. Did he. Stumpingly, he signed copies of his newest book, Crash!ing the Party. And sold merch, like any disaffected man with a following on the peripheries must.

Love Votes.

politico ps (pps):
Received the Pentagon conspiracy theory jet v. missile 9/11 video today. Art critique: a bit inconsistent, no firm conclusions, hearsay-ridden, no thrilling conclusion ie: links, deep facts. From me gets a big thumbs mid-way, another blip of fact to add to the heap of election year banter and warfare.

When life gives you lemons, make mojitos.
When life puts assholes along your path, make foxholes.
About to see Jon about shaping up the head of hair and will give him the same directive I gave the jaunty Israeli: short, saucey, sexy.
Ka-slosh ka-slosh ka-slosh last night, speaking of assholes and mojitos, not in that order, exactly.
No time to delve into the context of the assholes but my girlie tribe knows the slew of details.
So, on to the mojitos.
I get a call from Sam and Beth Dearest. One of those We are here and you are so there calls that has me nearly driving to the airport. But, alas, responsibility. So the Wish you were heres. No, wish I was There. Have not been in Middling City's embrace as long as I was gone so I'm still in what I call Post-Travel Limbo as my heart is split in two and I'm a distance learner, a distance yearner.
Have REM's Call Me Leper from New Adventures in Hi-Fi on the play and replay and rererererereplay mode.
Now to Jon for some good old-fashioned rockstar, Harley-driving, Marlboro-smoking, dog-loving high times.

Tribal Love.

Well. Well well well.
It's really real, the new newspaper, Buffalo Examiner - or - in epinw parlance, Middling City Examiner. I am the senior editor which means I've gathered up all the decades of journalistic experience into one big ink-spattered heap.
Received today four cd's made by Kevin Norton featuring fab fotos by Yours Truly of the quartet as a unit and then individuals. I wonder, did I recall that this disc would be featuring these or is this a surprise. Wondering still.
Got turned on to an Aboriginal artist today by a guy I shot at Middling City U - Gordon Bennett whose work reminds me in a flash of Basquiat.
All for now and over and out, think I'll attempt studenthood.

Love charade.

Completely, and I mean utterly, minding my own business yesterday after a gig, you know, sort of la-dee-dah humming and driving along Sheridan Drive in the Middling City suburbs, the golden Forester was magnetized into the lot of Shoe Universe - a place that is a port of sorts for women of all ages, trolling the aisles with intense purpose, eyes searching, boxes under arms, frenzy in the air. So, whilst talking to Beth Dearest, I find not one - but two - perfect pairs (that equals four) shoes. They are mine. Is there also guilt hovering in the air of Shoe Universe. Does the pope have the best interests of pro-choice people in his craggly heart.
Made portraits yesterday of an Iranian femme who's writing a book about Iranian contract/temp marriages - for pleasure (male) + money (female). A sort of fictionalized account of things, a là Rushdie, to be sure. I asked if she'd read Memoirs of a Geisha. But of course. Her house was a carpet museum of sorts and she made me a cup of coffee that had me whirring along the rest of the day.
Onwards to deadlines, the adrenalized onslaught I manage the best.

Best Love.

Just completed as in like so two hours ago the Coronation of Middling City U's newest baddest prez, John Simpson. Lots of my signature people looking human moments, looking ecstatic in bursts. Two nights of grazing on party food, those mysterious cheesey nuggets. Found Laura amidst all today's chaos and invited her to join me alongside one of the tables laden with crudites out the wazoo.
And just back from Philly yesterday, several days of walking through a small town, emptying (with assistance from Bill, Kennedy's bestest pal) a bottle of Oban, and best of all filming for art's sake. Just wrote to JR to inform him of such.
Onwards now to points ever beyonder.
Beyond Love.

Song du jour, du moment, is Beth Orton's Someone's Daughter.
Jaunty, rollicking, chock full of insight perfect for a day that has a chill that squeezes the remainder of life out of the perennials.
So Christopher Reeve died. And I recall shooting him near the Rainbow Bridge where one can cross from polluted Niagara Falls, NY to Vegaslike Niagara Fall, CA. His hands amazed me, all puffed out from meds and flakey. I made images of his body, his talking head, and those hands. At that time he had had no feelings yet in his body and speaking was laborious for him, intake of oxygen, phrase, repeat. It was painful to watch, I found myself holding my own breath and releasing it when he spoke. And I felt like death was upon him then, several years ago. Why was he on the Rainbow Bridge. For a film fest that never happened again, in Ontario over There.
This past weekend, post-wedding, I spoke with Father Jim of the Greek Orthodox Church in the Middling City, a man who if any, has a spirituality hovering around him - uncommon, I believe, in people of the Cloth. I helped him scoop the tray holding jordan almonds, the dual crown used in the ceremony, and some other nuptial paraphernalia, into a plastic bag. I spied the almonds. Are those jordan almonds. Yes, he said, have one for luck. I did. THEN he tells me about two seventy-year old sisters who kept jordan almonds from every wedding at that church, who put them under their respective pillows - for years - as it's superstition that the man of your dreams will come to you in the REM state. Did they ever marry, I asked. No. So much for lucky jordan almonds. I, too, now am assured a life of spinsterhood. Oh well.
Mad props to Beth Dearest for giving me her secret code to print out school readings as my own account with sheister-ridden XanEdu.com wouldn't recognize me as one who had reluctantly and yet diligently shuttled $80 or so at them for the same priviledge to discover last night that Holy Crap I can't access a thing and I'm on the road in minutes and what in hell shall I read on the trip if not good ol' snoozearific Michel Foucault et al. So now I'm armed with Foucault brilliance and won't have to pick up the latest MC News, USA Today or crapmag that I would not usually purchase but for that mysterious state of airport consciousness when suddenly flourescently-lit trash pubs look so... enticing.

Fluxes of Love.

Today I came out into the world. So therefore a bunch of us met up at the Middling City's most eldest of juicejoints, Ulrich's, for revelry's sake. Frosting, cake, gifts, singing, dancing to leder-hosed music, rat scampering quietly around a corner out of the corner of my eye, the debate raging overhead for a portion, more scotch, more dance, more frosting, cards, laughing with head tipped back. Good times were had by Yours Truly, most importantly. Then morning rolled around and it was full-throttle work all day, John Lennon's day.
Today a crisp apple day and, as is my custom, I called my mother who sprung me to discover my father, the other third of the equation, must have been online so no Hello at the exact minute - 2:01PM. Blogging now in my studio/live space getting well wisher calls and emails as the Hispanic evangels rock on for the almighty mightily and I work on various projects before ultimately heading to Kennedy's where I have a huge desire to bake sweet potatoes stuffed with crab or lobster. Tomorrow we jet off to another city for a while.
Older, wiser, stronger, faster, that's what I just told Justy.
Life might be for the living but birthdays are for the birthed.

Nascent Love.

Um, so minding my own stinkin' business (need I say - as USUAL) I'm having a, as in uno, drink with one of my most beloved editors, the Liz. Then more.
So then I query so what IS the next cover story of the next issue of the Shiny Happy. Well, wouldn't You know, it's the Asian Trends Pulitzer Piece by Yours Truly. Very Truly. Truly truly.
While out and about we are speaking to the bar owners, the chef of the joint, and assorted (not sordid) others.
Now here. Where I have the proverbial gun to the head, where I am flailing away and am assuredly looking at an old-school, charming night sans sleep. Hello! Journalism! This, kids, is what it's all about. The over-indulgence, the grace, the caffeine, the deadline pressure, the tension, the creativity. The ebb. The flow.
Love it, live it.
Called Beth in the midst of the throes of it. Noted she has not called back. She is scared. This is frightening. This is Get the fuck out of my way or I steamroll right the fuck over y'all time.
Onwards to crime.
Onwards to less time.

Onwards to Love.

Open thought to Kodak, one of several pains in mine arse. Whyowhy discontinue a winner, namely, your CN41 b&w film. I mean really. A grand film. Now to be replaced by a more expensive model, curiously named VW. Does Volkswagen know of this.
End of letter to misdirected corporation Kodak.
And just finished pondering the big questions raised by snapshots, papparazzi and daguerreotypes for skewel. Dragged philosopher Paul Virlio into it all, about his thoughts on what he dubbed the telepresence, what we all imagistically experience en masse, to global result.
“Since all presence is presence only at a distance, the telepresence of the era of the globalization of exchanges could only be established across the widest possible gap,” he writes.
Rock on, philsopher man.
Makes for further great cocktail party conversation.
Planning a bon voyage party for video artist Koji Tambaata at my joint, somewhere in the 20s. Full-on booze-a-thon with video people and rockstars and others. Or not. We have to hold a summit meeting.
And, on the subject of the day you should really be shopping for already, my bday soiree is happening Friday night at 9PM at the oldest grindingly sloppy bar in the Middling City, Ulrich's. German band live, in those cute little leather short sets.
So, if you are in the MC and are of revelling age, come and be.
Time to further my education, edit some marriage images and then, and THEN, watch the veep debate at 9PM EST. Cheney the Corporate Evil One v. The Dubiously-Credentialed Edwards.
All.

Debate on Love.
Parliamentary Rules and Roberts's Rules of Order in Full Effect.

Holy guacamole a first just happened seconds ago, when I lifted the half-full, nay, half-empty bottle of Oban to my lips and sucked its essence into my soul following this marathon - and I mean MARAfuckinTHON - two days. Today was an oldschool Perfect Me 18 hour day that ended with the dual Harvey Breverman gig at two galleries. First the one, then the other. Made hundreds of digital images of the beloved Harvey and his students, former students, art people, my art people, my pals, etc. etc. I think at the Harvey gig I may have spent about 60% of the time talking. Oh, if the woman who hired me finds this on the ol' internet system that was but a joke. It was more like... oh, 10%. Another sip of Oban, hello nectar of the gods. And tomorrow early to rise and meeting and the wedding of the diva bride and her man until it's time to meander into the final moments of Kennedy's show across the way. Interpol, Oban, a change of clothing, bane. You will be oso shocked and happy to note the Shiny Happy Mag story is complete, a genius array of over 2K words. And happy happy happiests to JW,Esq. who turned, uhhhh, according to some tripped-out femme at a recent concert, 28 or 29. But I know, ever-diligent fact-searching and soothsaying journalist that I am and will forever be, that he is over the age of 30. But never will he reach my age as I'm ahead by five or so.
And, really, there are eight shopping days and what in hell are you waiting for.
Search this blogpost for super-secret bday gift ideas.

Ideas about love.

If You did not take the time to watch tonight's Aspirational Debate, indulge in a firsthand document instead of predictable spin and snippets, I am impatient with You at this moment - or could it be the spate of tea and afterbuzz bordering on hyper-freneticism.
Most troubling phrase uttered by BadW was I know how this world works.
My maddest props to Kerry (who should be buying better suits, in my not very humble opinion as I've got the blood of a bespoke tailor and generations of seamstresses and sewers within) was his comment on certainty. That the hook or by crook BadW is ascertaining wrongly - his words were that there may be certainty but the facts or beliefs behind that certainty may be wrong.
This half-arsed certainty is parallel to beliefs that lead one to follow terrorism or to engage in acts of terrorism - beliefs that are certain and certainly not benefiting many or putting forth the concepts of co-existence, acceptance or peace.
There was one moment, near the end, when Prez43 garbled several words together, just a mash of sounds. Arresting it was. Reminded me of the Martianspeak (KLAATU BARADA NIKTO - to which I replied EEP OP ORK AH AH....... which any self-resepcting fan of the Jetsons will know as well as they will know what the initials WMD or WTO or OPEC stand for, fercrissakes) in the movie Kennedy showed me last evening, The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Oh, and one final parting shot/blow/thought.
Money, and the having of money, mean nothing. It might make the ugly men of the world fuckable or charities creak along. Or prevent historic buildings from collapsing. But. It never means taste or kindness or style ensue.
So. Post talkpoints up come the families. Kerry had only his date, the ketchup heiress. The Bushies had to share their portion of their limelight with the Kookie Twins. Ketchup lady looked like hell. Hair askew, a bad suit choice. And both first lady contestants wore winter white. At moments of appealing to the masses the whites, the pinks and pastels turn up.
Out on her own Hillary showed up in black and that is, seemingly, her colour of choice. Theresa Heinz needs a stylist. Kerry needs a better-fitting suit. Think these things don't matter. In a battle this important every factor counts - demeanour, thoughts, suits, slogans. Frumps and the weak don't win.
Rah Rah Rah.
Eep Op Ork Ah Ah.
epinw readers vote.

epinw Army of Love.

Not that this will alarm You but the ol' piece for the Shiny Happy Mag is l.a.t.e. Once again I am creating stress wrinkles in the visage of an editor. But, as I always say, it's researched, fact-checked out the literal wazoo and will arrive Pulitzer-ready. Just when I think I'm done researching - kablam - along comes more fun facts, a new joint to investigate. On the advice of GoodW, bona-fide & head-to-toe Banana Republic Boy, meandered into BanRep today for the FallSale and later spread the good cheer, telling Deb post-standing Wednesday breakfast engagement that indeed it was worth the suburban foray. Thanks to GoodW en route to the Luxe Card. What with all the Parsons School of Demands purchases I should be well on my way to the New School U plutonium card. Favoured new word, speaking of things invisible yet oso powerful: allotropic (an element that can appear in more than one form, sort of like multiple personality disorder). Use it, love it.
$5 Word Love.

Returned from ad agency gig at Middling City Zoo post asscrack of dawn. The femme who hired Yours Truly says Be there at 930. So I am. Along with some construction workers hard at work making Otter City, a display of... otters, and workers engaged in poo management. Finally, the event. For the dessert, if you will, of the hoopla, zoo workers had the elder statesman elephant meander out for a photo op. I saw this as Republican Party propaganda and will be PhotoShopping a Dem donkey into all the elephantine images. Sitting in my car parked in the center of the Middling City's largest park/golf course I talked to Beth and collaboratively we noted that our grad program is so peripheral in our minds. On that note onwards to homework and its attendant focuslike activities.

Focus on Love.

Swearing on the souls of the venerable and very dead founders of New School U (the corporate giant to the start-up Parsons School of Desirability), I was like so trying to do homework today in the wi-fi-rich teahouse. But. But what. I will so tell you what. There was a deep-throated - woopsies - let us say she was whisky-voiced, woman in the joint who boomed on and on and on and on about cancer, meditation, members of the Middling City U English Department Faculty of Yore who Yours Truly studied and partied her balls off with, and much much more. My ears and mind wandered. But, Beth Dearest and I have duly dually noted that the online seminar is so... off-kilter. There is no discussion as of yet despite the prodding efforts of, You guessed it correctly, Perfect Student Me. BTW and ink this on the calendar, there are thirteen shopping days until the day that I plunged into the world the day after the birthday of John Lennon. I count my b-day as a shop day as it's a dimanche fercrissakes and who the hell can't muster up some energy to shop on that day of non-rest, especially for such an important holiday. Supreme likes, should you need ideas: green, green tea, green, green tourmaline (ask the nice counter girlies at Me & Ro about my drooling over their exquisite green tourmaline ring), and world peace.
Oh, another distraction in the tea joint was a familiar disc playing up above so I asked Jennifer to refresh my memory. Over the Rhine. But of course. Then she tells me they have a new one, a double cd and it's for freakin' sale in the tea/jewelry/cd outlet. It is now mine and Blair would be oso proud of me as he manages them.

Love Outlet.

After the priest railed against gay marriage in a political way, preaching to the assumed choir about how Christians/Catholics/The Zealous do not need legislation to tell them that marriage is absolutely between a man and a woman, and a few other matters on the platform, a terrier ran from behind the altar, prancing and yipping all the way. A few congregants/wedding guests asked if I, the paid shooter, captured this Greenpeace-worthy, PETA-like activity. I did not, I said, as I was trying to catch the little beast more than capture it.
I gave the terrier mad props for attempting to fluster Father Blowhard.
Oh, and also, the groom's eight year old son nearly passed out on the oppressive altar. I later asked him how this happened, nearly. He showed me how his tie was tied so tightly that his lips had turned blue. And he nearly passed out again to illustrate.
In the midst of a love song, one that inspires couples to press their bodies together and to press their misty memories together, the dj boomed mid-song over the PA - THIS IS ONE OF THE WORLD'S MOST POPULAR LOVE SONGS. I mean really.
Just once I'd like to request a mic for my unfettered and sporadic epinw-style commentary throughout a wedding day. An example: Who the hell's idea was it to serve so MANY starches for dinner. & Uh, Father Blowhard, this one goes out to you, howzabout we stick to phantasmagoric ideals of a marital nature and keep the Republic out of this.

Dem dere Love.

Again listening, in obsessive fashion, to soundtrack from Lost in Translation x-specially track 5 that is Girls by Death in Vegas.
When life does not spring a Virgin Megastore in one's path one must make do, embrace the rehashing of a collection like a gallery on the skids without funding.
Last night, what small surrealisms in parts. After a solid night of working spun out of my Jetson Heliport in the most wee of hours and, as I had sipped mega-watt green tea all the night long, I was like so up to the task at hand for meeting Good W and his pals. Once I called him W and his response was that I was never to call him that again due to the alleged president's co-opting of the letter - I told him the right thing to do was to reclaim the, his, letter.
Four of us walked a few long blocks to the former offices of Middling City Orchestra, now housing several on its three stories. The MC Orchestra was one of my clients so to revisit this building and be able to meander into its nooks and crannies with abandon was a treat. Up in the attic (who the hell on the orchestra staff had to toil away the workday up in that hovel) one of the residents has a lovingly-organized display of death dolls from a graphic novel apparently. Rivalling anything I saw in the Satanists's home a while back, all black, intricate, ready for battling. It was at that point that Good W's pal Colleen told me of causing the jettisoning off of a young man on a water bed, as we looked down upon an air mattress resembling a water bed.
The residents shared stories of ghosts wandering this old home, about people drowning babies there when it was a home for unwed girls, about people slipping on the wooden stairs and feeling embracing arms about them. Not nearly as spooky as the shelves of death dolls.
Off now again to points beyond.

No love for death dolls.

THIS JUST IN:
I AM BACK ONLINE CHEZ MOI, AFTER ABOUT HALF AN HOUR WITH A FACELESS, NAMELESS TECHIE. CHECK UNCHECK CHECK CLOSE OUT OPEN UP CHECK UNCHECK AND VOI-FUCKIN-LA... ONLINE BRAINAL ACTIVITY UP AND RUNNING. YOU WANT MISERY. OFFLINE MY DSL. STOP.

Well cheese and crackers how the h-e-double-crisscrossed-hockey-weapons did it get to be thirsty Thursday already.
Yesterday's gig was at the home of the parents who brought one of the favoured ones of Yours Truly out into the world, Rio. Her parents, parents-in-law of Ron. So I show up and note most notably that there is a giant grill on the front Middling City lawn rivalling any of the suburbs. And, manning the grill, is Smoker Bob, in shorts, tan, cowboy hat, etc. So the food was insuredly good. John the CW Rocker was there and that was a bonus. Inside, a celebration of 50 years of marital union and guests manhandled programs and sang while Ron and I shot each other blood-curdling-oh-fuck-I-may-just-break-out-into-heathenistic-cackle looks.
You will be not too surprised to know that Yours Truly has once again painted herself into a grand corner and has oso many deadlines on her head that it might just implode like an old pumpkin.
And, speaking of pumpkins, one of my pumpkin-smashing students from last year's late-night seminar, taught from within my golden Forester, was inquiring if class will be in session this season. To which Yours Truly replied Do upraised pumpkins experience velocity and gravitas and gravity and elicit jubilation in equal measure.

Tutorials of Love.

Went to hardcore girlie wedding shower yesterday, sunny yesterday, for MaryB, in Deb's backyard. A real pleasure, a gathering of so many revelling babes and pals and throwdown party girlies. And somehow, despite its being an EstFest, there in the corner lurked Jack Daniels. I left before he was cracked. I left just after Sarah and I played London Bridge is Fallin' Down with our manicured toes (Sarah is 2.3 years old) and talked to nearly one and all. Got the lowdown on the re-opening of Royal Pheasant from Molly "Mad-In-Charge" Q, co-owner. The beets on the menu stay. The Rat Pack banquettes stay. Live lobsters? Staying. Gaggle of barflies? Not so sure.
Saw Festival Express and Janice Joplin's filmed performances gave me bona fide, 100% skin-keep goosebumps. The footage is unforgettable, the editing stellar. But where were the groupies, the boobies, I ask.
For what is R&R without a little r&r.
I rest my rollicking case.
Rolllllicking, documentary Love.

A fun fact.
The only thing Yours Truly can think of that I share with the US hook or by crook president is that we both like to assign nicknames to others.
Put that in your pipe.
Smoke it.
Inhale.
So, according to Beth, we have a School Assignment. I mean, really. School Assignment. Don't these people know I have work to do, money to make, magazines to read. And art to ponder and create.
In mere moments I'll be toodling over to the New School U site to see what is in store for me.
Had a whirlwind of visiting with gal pals this week. Lunch with sister Soups and then Laura. Plethora of drinks with Cheryl, Liz and Annie. To say that some of these minglings didn't devolve into, ramble willingly, into full-fledged revelry would be a complete and utter lie. I regaled Beth, in Harrisburg for the !happynewyeartojews!, with some of the details, always carefully and measuredly beginning with I was minding my own business when...
Trying to get her to the Middling City for another visit, this time hopefully without pyrotechnics of personal disaster.
Haunting phrase du jour/time:
at the end of the day.
Keith the Wired Instructor - as in the material learnt and not in his upper intake - said ...At the end of the day every day we PSD13 were instructees. JamMasterV even found a way to insert that phrase into a report she reported and when she said it, a cloud of irony over her head, we all silently chortled and glanced at each other. Behind me, in the tea house where I am stealing wi-fi molecules, a jewelry designer is listening to something, watching something, on her laptop.
That phrase came out of the micro-mini speakers moments ago.
Do not use this phrase.
I propose that there is no end to any day. Think more linearly, stop thinking 24 hours, 24 hours, 24 hours. Confuse day with night, dreams with wake.
Waking Love.

Well. Well well well well.
No grotto could be found at the Middling City's answer to Hef's Joint. But what I did find was a MC version of Fabio, long golden silken tresses and all. At some point in the evening, whilst speaking to a fun gal at the bar I noted that Fabio had unloosed his mane and was supine on the marble floor, in front of the classical musicians whom no one could hear above the party din.
I spoke with Fabio. His name is Arthur. He is a jazz musician. Who dances while he's playing. Or that is at least what I thought his handler, standing alongside him, said.
With a gown on my body and short hairs on my head - as well as my Don't-Fuck-Wit-Me physique some in the throng who I know did not know Yours Truly. One client of mine of about six months or so back, post several martinis, said to me You look like a movie star. I wanted to say to her Yes, internally I so AM a movie star and have been for decades - only YOU see my true, exterior movie star. And I thank you.
No other party notables except that the white wine ran low to dry and then it was high time to move along to scotch fercrissakes.
Up in the attic/third floor rumpus area I asked pal Sam for a coin to feed the very naughtily racist bank to see if, in sooth, the eyeballs rolled back to white as Kennedy swore they would. And, by gum and by crackie, they freakin' did.
And Happy New Year to all my faithful epinw readers of the Jewish faith.

Faithful Love Forever Now.

Tonight would be the night that me and Kennedy get all gussied up and walk over to a black tie affair hosted by Rick the Sex Man. Owner of sundry boobie bars in the Middling City and in Vegas and god only knows where else. This man bought one of Hef's former rides and I imagine a replication of The Grotto somewhere in the basement. I told Kennedy I imagine losing him at the soiree, only to find him hours later, tux MIA and floating in The Grotto whilst grabbing onto a slippery, frothy bevvie and a slippery, frothy stripper.
Time will party tell.
Love's Tell.

Minding my own business, completely, I found myself in the basement of Middling City Historical Society (wow, what a somewhat elucidating shithole) during a charity art auction in which I was particating. In mere hours my wondrous tripartite piece of graphite drawings on paper would be on the ol' block.
But first, research. Hence the basement. Kennedy and I prowled the depths, gleaning information. We pondered over the model Middling City of Yore, from the way-early 19th Century.
The flats, now not so flat with buildings.
My neck of the Middling city just off the map at my craning feet.
I suddenly became much more inspired by the pioneer days room displays.
I was so inspired by higher learning that I jumped the rail and sat in the "pioneer" rocking chair, rocking slowly, wine in hand, pondering life in pioneer days as well as the state of this Middling City institution.
I checked out the boots in the next "room." I lifted up the bed warmer, clearly a ye olde replication, and pretended to warm the pioneer bed with the missing mattress.
I moved on to a display of photos of the Fishkill Dump where all that remained post-9/11 remain. All the lost art.
Moved on to art on the block, not the dump (yet) and did one purchase - #93 in the air - until it was time to take the learning elsewhere.

Love or Else.

Cheez and crackers. OK more consistent blogposts, more words of wisdom and freewheelin' revelry here... and there.
Again on borrowed time/computer as the new fucking modem is not working and perhaps it is the port of ethernet magic that is a-fried out but that will only be gleaned after a long and intense and recurrent SOS call to some techie person who hopefully I can comprehend - as in their accent. The last techie was a gruff older man so gruff the gruffness obscured the actual words he spake.
Last night we landed after 3.5 hours in car, Kennedy and I that is, in front of the storefront gallery where some jazz happened starring our pal Peter Brotzmann. He was out in front having his customary Starbucks Americano and dark smoke when I unfurled the window to toodle out the window Excuuuuse me, which way to Buffalo. He stared blankly, then away. I toodled again. Same response. So we meandered towards him across the near-barren street of half-baked and half-assed businesses and decrepit row houses until familiarity swam across his face. We talked. The show began. I shot. Intermission. As I was on a road trip and had not had venison jerky it was beer time. Lame-o gallery (with a name like Faulty Metaphors or some such thing) had none. Grabbed $10 out of my bag and wandered to the convenience store. Found there some choice greeting cards. One to send to an accident victim. Birdhouses on the front. I ask, what do birdhouses have to do with accidents. Next. To a wondrous friend. Image on front is a cat, wearing a hat, sitting in a basket. At his feet, a bird, apparently dead. Inside. Sentiment is about You are a fab acquaintance.
And this fucking store has no beer.
Really.
Asking about in line waiting to purchase the excellent cards I met a woman named Janice.
Janice, a mom just off of work, ended up offering me a ride to a pizza parlour where I could buy a six pack. Janice explained excitedly that this joint had a wall of beer and she knew of this despite the fact that she does not drink.
Her car was a purple sedan with 10 pine tree air freshners and on the back seat were eight bags of snaxx for her two teenaged kids.
I did not have my seatbelt on in case Janice turned out to be a nut and I had to dive and roll.
Janice drove me 1 mile. We got out of the car and walked into the pizza parlour together. Janice explaining all the way about how I should trust no one else in the gallery's neighborhood and, most importantly, I should tell NO ONE that I am from the Middling City, as they'd take advantage of my naivete.
So, Janice drives me back to the gallery and Peter is there to witness me exiting a purple sedan. He raises his two eyebrows. I tell him about my new pal, Janice. I show him the greeting cards. May send him the one with the cat and limpy bird.
Ended the night at some Indian restaurant where I was served my scotch and soda with a deathly blue glowing ice cube. Upon leaving I placed the faux glo-stik cube in the to-go box in front of Peter.
The waiter nervously ran up to say
That ice cube remains the property of the restaurant.

I remain Your Perfect correspondent to all things Me.

Corresponding Love.

Well Well Well.
No, not so well for the DSL modem which fried out.
So no internet system for me, yet.
Apparently the trouble is far deeper and darker than I can figure out.
So borrowed internet time for now.
But onwards.
And onwards right now to Pittsburgh to see Peter Brotzmann, sax artiste, for the night with Kennedy.
So more later so all for now.
School officially begins again Monday, fercrissakes. So new cyber pencils must be sharpened, then, fer sher.
Love for now.

Maintenant.
Thank god for iTunes, headphones, volume controls and earplugs as Yours Truly is once again loitering at JFK and my perfect self is hopelessly and helplessly surrounded by pizza gulping, child indulging gum-chomping young families. M'Aidez.

Yesterday.
Had a disconnected lunch with Dorota who is not abreast of any situations in the life of Yours Truly yet remains highly judgmental: not a joy.
Moved along to protest(s) at Union Square and filmed several moments of that special tension that is created when the morass of media, armed militia and protesters circle one another. One false move and the morass is chaos.
Bought a few fab tshirts as well as a set of dress-up Bushie magnets, like paper dolls, only way better.
Had to move along to B&H and that's when things got really interesting.
(The Mess We're In hit iTunes as I am telling You this story, most appropriate as it references helicopters in New York, sung by Thom Yorke on this Polly Jean song. Keep this in mind. Dig.)
Took L to 8th Avenue after being chuted into the Union Square stop, under watchful copful gazes.
At 8th Ave caught the C up to Penn Station.
Tried to get out to street but noted that all was taped and barricaded and guarded and then had to walk two blocks, including down another platform, to get O.U.T.
Once up on the street I saw how the world here had changed. Streets shut off, orange safety cones all about, cops and dopey-looking delegates in spangles and vests and hats and more barricades. Crossing the street I noted I was entering a zone where all were subject to search. A cop with baton was crossing one and all and right up behind him I asked into his left ear if he was our crossing guard. I was followed then for a block by three cops, until I got to B&H.
Escaping B&H I opted for a cab in lieu of the subject to search choice.
Later later later I digvid'd helicopters in the sky as there were many. I noted that the Fuji blimp featured prominently the letters N Y P D.
A real bummer to a fan of the Fuji.
Time to board, read, snooze, deplane.

Deplaned and Delovely Love.

A fellow fan of the wi-fi molecule came to my e-motional rescue moments ago as I was supping in Rialto on wine wine and chop salad. The chef was on his wi-fi'd laptop at the bar as I meandered in. Spying wi-fi molecules hovering in the air like a pack of earnest hornets I said There's wi-fi here. To which he replied affirmatively. Then no luck on this very laptop. So he sat alongside me and together we figured the secret of getting me into the super-secret rialto network. Mind you, I am trying - trying - to write as a woman teeters at the edge of the bannister just outside the open door with her pal/date, drunk to a highly-decibeled degree and now she's doing a pantomime that has him in embarassed stitches.
I saw The Brown Bunny.
Review: eight thick inches of raw talent.
And searing Vinnie eyes, chin, nose, yum.
There are some trying moments but mainly not. It reminded me a bit of my grad student art, surprisingly in static contrast to a personality rich in non-static practice. Another love story. This one more psychological, deliberate, gestural. Ending is yeah chock full of the big... moment but it's a sad end, really, to a broken man's pathos path across the USofA.

+

Yesterday was truly a What the Fuck kind of day.
Began the day, nearly, by attending a funeral with Kennedy. And who the hell puts fun into a funeral like born agains. We arrived early. We sat in the back row. We looked damned fine.
The priest began to speak. That cookie cutter evangelical hands all aflutter evangelical banter. Hands a blend of rockstar, self-help guru and televised chef. Maybe a dash of qi gong practitioner. And the hair, a slick wave signifying the coast of the sea of galilea. I sang, probably much to the chagrin of the lady of a certain age in front of me with the fall rivalling any of the deep south. Kennedy would not sing, despite my raised eyebrows and voce.
So finally the high priest gets around to feting the dead man. And it ends. I am teetering on hysterics because of the lilt of the voice and hands.
And then.
And then.
He takes a turn.
(NB: man who is my waiter sees me writing up a storm merrily and brought bottle over to give me a glass on the ol' house - there is a god, apparently)
He says This is not usually done at funerals but oh what the HELL. or something to that effect.
Folks (I paraphrase) bow your heads. Well, now that your eyes are shut (they are, I quickly look about the new build church that has a slight reek of mildew) please raise your hand if you'd like to find the Lord - no one is looking but me and the Lord so raise your hand.
It is at this point I have both hands over my mouth and am trying to suppress probably the largest guffaw of my fucking laugh, rushing for the door, eyes streaming tears, thinking thank the fucking peeking Lord that laughter sounds like sobbing to the ears of the aggrieved. I charged 100' out into the parking lot and lowered my hands and the laugh filled the countryside where the new build church rests, down into the valley, down into the gorge, alarming not only fishermen but the trout.
Last night, following a gig supplemented by the lights and bear hug of Lead Boy Colleague, I saw a sight most gorgeous.
A laundromat was alight and encircled by firetrucks. The flourescent lights and giant picture windows left a giant lime green cube on the suburban landscape. Unforgettable.
I am out in moments into the Shiney Apple where I am bumping into Art and Ideas.
I am alive in ideas and Vinnie Gallo makes movies and I make videos.
Some head for the wilderness,
some for the shores,
some for the comfort of familiar arms.
I head towards Serendipity.

Towards Love.

Oh this is such a day for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
And here they are at 60dB and suddenly I am more at peace with the Middling City where the urban chief (ie mayorissimo) reports to patronage duty at the asscrack of dawn, offering condolences to the owners of the blazen pizza joint on the MC's west side. I can report on the pizza joint thusly. It was a disco kind of joint, chock full of mirrors so that when your drunken face was at the chest-high counter ordering up a slice or so there you were, all Picassoed out, sliced out yourself. And, oh, the disco balls. And pinball machines. A saucey isle in the midst of what was once working class, now crack cultured. All about the fades, the petit larceny, the pockets of attempts at cuh-lean living rather than leaving. So, the mayor reports in to say gee whiz and sorry. Off again to the Shiney Apple tomorrow and the making and doing of art and fine french coffee and the like. Into the eye of the hurricaine as this week happens to be the one in which most of my SA pals have been inspired to avoid: the target-rich RNC. Thought JetBlue would be offering up Hey Dem, Come Fly With Us discounts but nogo. Hope to digvid in peace, far from the madding crowds never to see eye to eye. But, then again, one does never know what forces forces one into the midst of protest and dissent. Some arresting news: JW,Esq. reports he's off to Burning Man in a customized orange fuzzy hoodie. In lieu of glo-stix, should I ever find myself there, I'd probably lean more towards masked rogue and mischief - less fluffy hoodie, more flakey hood.
Contrasted Love.