Liz just emailed me, Catherine, honoree/very-recently-past bday girl Cheryl, and Polly to give us the tally of what we sipped on as we supped.
Quite impressive indeed. We champagned Cheryl's birth and Yours Truly put out a call for work online about a month ago to a long list of friends, colleagues, relatives of Cheryl's for b-day wishes and images.
Selected Flora's (her daughter) collage of her and her mom surrounded by a pen and ink drawing for the cover.
This took many hours to get together and had it spiral bound via some helpful Kinkoists.
Stuffed the inch-thick book into a garment giftbox with tissue paper and some dish towels that were very Cheryl-appropriate so she wouldn't see what was underneath them for a bit.
It's been a trad with this circle of pals that YT makes sign-in/wish books for friends arriving at 50. As Cheryl wanted a very intimate dinner of her inner circle several would not be there to sign a book. Left some empty pages, however, for her to pass the book around at a few other, post-b-day gatherings planned in her honor.
Did a classic encompassing EveryoneHere image at the evening's near-end.
Some technical issues with that little Leica.
It is in time-out.
Pushing pixels merrily before back-to-back planned outings.
Today is Mark's b-day. Happy b-day to Mark. At midnight last night we toasted his birth.
Tonight is the Nullstadt re-emergence at Hallwalls, a flashback to wayback over there when, when the Continental (the fount of dancefloor inspirations and so many rock and roll tales and experiences of YT) was running full-tilt.

Full-tilt dancefloor Love.

Yesterday was interviewed by StevieB's lovely lady Kelly for a piece about Artists & Models for Buffalo Rising Online. She made a digvid of Yours Truly for possible inclusion in an accompanying podcast and one of her last questions was about my cooking prowess – she was one of the twenty supping on my spring/ICP-inspired menu last month.
Kelly has been recording with Robbie Goo et al at Chameleon West and from her descrips and stories of her singing history it was hard to imagine what the product of those studio hours would be: girl with gospel background, rollicking bass player, knob twirlers of various ilks.
I gave her a lift downtown after our interview/lunch and she shoved her in-progress two-tracked (at this juncture) disc into the appropriate slot en-dash and omigosh and voilà, great dance music. She can sing for real.
At first I thought she sounded Pinkish, kind of aggressive and gutteral where needed but as I heard more I thought Nope, better. And I am a Pink fan. And, as I told StevieB tonight, she writes better songs and they're way more interesting than that twerpy boozer Lady Sovereign. And I'm a fan of hers, to boot.
So tonight was an artist meeting at Central Terminal for pending Artists & Models. I commented to Meg Knowles, also on the scene as she is making & doing for this grand fete, that it is astounding how in so many short years so many people stripped out so much and destroyed that giant space so very well. The surrounding neighborhood is now, pretty much, a ghost town with its former homes, bars, restaurants, corner stores. It would be a great movie set. The east side was, until even the 90s, a quadrant of the Middling City where, on a lark, a gaggle of us (and loads of others) would wend our way over for Polish food, some laughs in a crusty and well-equipped corner bar full of memorabilia and crusty neighbours.
*this just in*
Literal Harold is on a rooftop in San Diego on another press junket via Sony. He was talked shop at and now his fun may begin, the payoff, if You will. He mentioned the possibility of a Padres game, a sidetrip to Mexico. Nothing much about the goodie bags. Yet. I think the inclusion of YT on said trip would have made it oso much more raucously good fun. But, oh, right, getting away this time of year is as possible as Father Baker getting canonized this weekend. Double bummer.
Kennedy is in Spain, where I should or could have been. This would be time numero trio that YT has not been able to jet off to Spain. Sparky says there must be a reason for this and it is does seem soothful of her.
Off to do some prep things for Cheryl's lavish dinner created by a group of us for tomorrow evening, for her fiftieth b-day.
And, on another, warbling note, iTunes's email's subject line in the inbox mentions a new release by Paul McCartney.
Is this to prevent me from instantly deleted it.
It did not work.

John Lennon Forever, Love.

Whirlwind in full effect.
And Yours Truly functions well in whirlwinds and other moments of pure motion in throes of observing and documenting.
This past Friday evening motored to Rochester for the member opening of the Ansel Adams exhibit at George Eastman House, where YT has been a proud member since Tony Bannon took over the gig of director.
Arrived on the scene with Sparky and we promptly toasted our arrival with a nice glass of champ before we headed in different directions so I could subsume.
As I sketched some of the prints and took notes I overheard a man telling his much younger date on his arm that No, this was the age before PhotoShop – to her amazement at the tonalities and sharpness of one of the prints.
I was there for art's sake and for a piece I'm writing for the Shiney Happy.
Big Fact Gleaned (BFG) is that AA did not use a darkroom timer (as some non-timing old timers did not) but a metronome, emanating from his pianistic training.
A main lovely feature of the show (besides a vid of AA and Georgia O'Keeffe in conversation) is a wall explication of how he created a shorthand of notes on printing each print, in a grid system. I think this is lovely info for all photogs who actually spent years in the darkroom, it certainly springs up lovely (for real) mems of being in the darkroom, lovingly sloshing chemistry over a print and working for hours and hours on one image until it was just Perfect.
And still, after all those years of childhood photo self-ed/experimentation, Nancy Golden workshops, big U undergrad courses, news bureau and newspaper printing on a deadline it was all still Magic.
Tony Bannon and I were so happy to see each other and me, Tony, Sparky visited in the GEH café and Tony gave me two gorgeous books: an AA book and another called Picturing Eden (after I told him of my nature-capturing photog ways and concerns and how grad school powers that be tried to flush this all from my system but it persisted and persists) in which he not only wrote a profound intro but a very sweet note to YT.
He then took me and Sparky on a back-staircase tour of GEH, culminating in a visit to his office which, back in the day, was Eastman's screening room.
Tony had photos (quel shock) of the screening room in Eastman's day, replete with stuffed animal bounty heads, extension cords suspended awkwardly from things, stacks of films in their canisters, an odd assembly of chairs for watchers.
Tony also wanted to show me a plant I gave him as a big thanks for writing an essay for a solo show I had at Big Orbit. The plant thrives, perhaps better than the art career of YT, who works all the livelong day making everyone oso happy with beautiful documentation of what they do.
Speaking of such, had the most amazing five-course dinner chez President Simpson and Katherine on Saturday evening during a pre-Commencement soirée. Tuna carpaccio, duck breast, side dishes that were so intricate and a dessert that, due to a pending deadline, will only be described as Architectural. A few of these dishes YT will attempt to recreate for one of my next dinner parties.
Mucho latero met the gang of girlies out for double b-day trouble, celebrating the births and lives of Jana and Tiffany.
The only snag du soir was that the Sabres lost in double OT.
Dined with my loving parents last night and, despite giving her a lavish bouquet that she received direct from growers (ProFlowers rules), gave her another gift so that those in restaurant would not glance over and think Geez, what a cheap-ass, no gift for her mom. So I stood up and in grand gestures, lest anyone was watching, presented my dear Mom (Fats to YT) her lovely gift of excellent jacket, just the thing a daughter who digs the shop acquisition, will buy for a mom who would not toss herself over that certain precipice of fashion chance.

Back to Pixel Management.

Laser-focused Love, Love.