*Ding* *ding.*
Muses versus Perfect Nancy... round three.
Just marathoned, birthed a truly excellent drawing - frame & all - for the charity auction ce soir. Based on a b&w print my moi made a while back and, all intuitively, I made the drawing and then checked my cache of frames and lo and behold there was one so parfait and even a decent pre-cut archival mat in there with green inner mat (as opposed to the polymat(h)) that I nearly screamed thanks luck thanks luck thanks luck. And I continue along that thoughtal plane to here:
partaking as I do, lunging out into the energy that is the world, one is as bound to have near-death vehicular experiences as one is to locate a perfectly sized frame for a charity art auction when one is giving giving to a venerable institution worthy and musty.
And tomorrow *ding* *ding* round four or maybe five when I drop another piece to another org, Burchfield-Penney Art Center. Then a charitable break fer fucksakes.
I have embraced an old perfume fav, Calèche, a hard fragrance to wear, but fitting my Ryan Adams-besotted and autumn and change-embracing heart.
Love.

Rendez-vous'd with Beth last night and meandered through Chelsea, my main mission to see the new work of The Art Guys. Whose Middling City projet d'art via Hallwalls a few years back resulted in numerous faux advertising placards nailed into the most grime-ridden and impoverished and near-death storefronts along Main Street. These placards went up and then quietly started disappearing. I had spotted a fav, the one with the large banana and the red word THRUST, and knew it was to be mine, part of my wavering and eclectic and cherished art collection. So. One night, crowbar in hand, I wedged and screeched it off a building. Then I thought, Hmmmm, Nance, why not acquire one, too, for your beloved pal Liz. So I did. Then weeks later I was attempting to crowbar a third when a frightening and muttering man approached me and my crowbar and I split. Then Scot Fisher of Righteous Babe Records saved said building from wrecking ball and a crew put boards over the artwork and the building.
So Beth and I are in Chelsea last night at The Art Guys show. One of the Art Guys, the shorter one, said HIIIII, how are you? You stole one of our pieces.
In a joking manner.
Sara Kellner, formerly of Hallwalls, was there, and is still living in Houston and working at Diverse Works.
Then politicoe Barbra Kavanaugh's son Bryan was there.
Then we moved along to more more more shows and the last stop we started climbing some steps when I heard a small voice Hey, aren't you supposed to be in Buffalo?
It was Photi, he dated Larry from CEPA, now an assistant director at a gallery. He invited us to a gallery-sponsored fete in SoHo and, he advised, if we stuck to him there'd be plates of pot brownies.
In the interim I called Dorota who tipped me off about a Nike party and, as luck usually has me in its grasp, I was wearing a Nike shirt. I told Beth this was a message from GOD himself, and Bacchus to boot, that we should be at that party.
Flashing my left-boob-nested Nike logo did not mean less of a wait.
Once inside we tippled with sporty types on three levels until we'd had our fill of techno beats (we looked for Anthony shimmying in the corners), creative snaxx, free drinks and other inter-active artful experiences.
Love.

lucky.
unlucky.
lucky.
unlucky.
he loves me.
he loves me not.
So I'm driving to NYC, minding my own business - and driving the speed limit, for your snoopy information - when I hit a patch of water on the NJ Turnpike, sending my well-equipped Forester into a fast spin. NoNoNoNo I remember shouting, my panic mantra of choice.
As luck would have it there were no cars or trucks near me and when I hit the center guardrail with the passenger side of the car there was no severe damage to the car... or me.
I was facing traffic. You don't realize how zippy traffic is until you are facing it, the wrong way. So I had to guage when traffic wasn't a-comin' around the bend and go for a big fast fat fucking u-turn to get going again in the correct direction, after a quick breather to regain breath and steady hands.
Oh Gramma Vickie, up there, thanks for your navigational powers. You rock.
I am not checking out the traditional rock star way, in car. Not this lifetime.
Rock on.

Well it has been a while but now you can really really savour my Perfect Nancy words. I was in NYC. I was in the Adirondacks. Now I'm in the Middling City. Tomorrow, hooray, it's back to NYC.
Why interim Adirondacks experience? Because dear Andrew married the woman of his dreams. Not me. Laura. It was such a great wedding, very Andrew, with lots of music and a duet from Trinity in Boston (there were about 20 other choristers there from there) who performed one of his compositions. Later, much much later, after plenty of a really good chardonnay and great conversations of Clarkson ilk (Nan insisted that I sit with her and Will et al - primo!), I danced with Andy, Will and Max Clarkson. Who were all wearing kilts. It was contra dancing and after my last horrific experience with contra dancing I nearly ran screaming from the wedding party tent. Last experience: gig shooting a day of cultural events at former dumpsite Artpark. One of the events was a contra dance escapade and they were short a woman. They called for me. ME. I said, No really, I have to shoot, I can't follow... well, after three songs/attempts they excused me. Last night fared better and nobody was injured. I ended the evening dancing three songs with a woman from Boston named Amanda as my partner. The caller said same-sex partnerships were welcome. It was about halfway into the first number of our same-sex partnership that I noted that my partner had one hand. I was intrigued but never got the chance to ask how her hand went away. Andy's wedding shooters were unbearable. During the ceremony they were right next to Nan and Will - literally in their faces. They had bad grouping skills and I snatched drinks and a few handbags from subjects. Egads. It drives me to distraction watching shabby wedding photographers. While Andy and Laura were exchanging rings (speaking of distractions) I snuck up the aisle to shoot a few with my new digital number, the Olympus 5050. Nan hadn't seen me yet and when she noted it was me she reached over to hug and kiss me and talk to me ever so briefly. During Andy putting the ring on Laura. Oh well. But it was that sort of wedding, very casual, lots of movement throughout in the area that Andy cleared beyond the pond and garden.
I met Will's brother Austin for the first time, a musician and Volpe scholar. I told him of my Parsons School of Delight experience, and meandered over to my difficulties with (former) mentor Anthony. I described the situation. Austin suggested I think of another program, one more inter-disciplinary, challenging and more history. Not so sure about those concepts. I am appealing the final seminar grade that Anthony bestowed upon my hard summer of work. I was stunned by it, and am moving right along to another advisor I feel will benefit me and my work more. There are several others (3, to be exact) in his group who are equally perplexed by him as an advisor. Two of those three are equally upset about their grades. Grades do matter in grad school when it comes time for grants and such. And for an advisor to wallop his charges with low grades is further unproduction.
To end on a more light note.
Two nights ago, Friday, my sister and I rode up to the casino, the one in NF, NY. Her idea. We split a flask of Oban en route. I wore my lucky Sam Adams ballcap. I did well, winning about $200. I made sure that she went home with as much as she stumbled in with. While we were parking to go in I realized that I had sort of fabricated a spot and was dangling precariously into the aisle for more cars. I had my sister stand on another less-obvious spot and did a great big fast circle to get there, purposely crushing an orange safety cone. There's nothing like the feeling of crushing an orange safety cone. No, scratch that - my old practice (before the cars got nice) of arranging tossed-out Christmas trees in the middle of the late night Middling City streets to rush over them, sometimes backing over them and repeating step (always with Justin in the car), approached that. Inside there were the requisite drunks, kooks, elderlies and conventioneers. I talked to a few of them. There was a bleary-eyed Native parked at a slotmachine, his eyes so reflective that the little cocktail waitress (let's just say her nickname will never be Speedy) cut him off. Free drinks cut off.
Tragic.
All for now, love.

I approached the dad with the boy with the extreme wall eye and inquired thusly:
Is this venison jerky any good?
The dad looked shocked (perhaps it was my Neil Diamond concert t and we WERE in the throes of white trash Penn mountains) and referred me to the son... He'd know.
Me to wall eye: Is this any good? (holding aloft the venison jerky, priced at 99cents)
Yes, answer.
Sucked on that jerky for a good half hour listening to classic rock along the route to NYC.
Road trip perfection: CCR, other classic rock tunes, a good strong voice, a good strong cuppa joe and a slim salty fix of venison jerky shot and fabricated in PA.
Just stuffed the car into al fresco bistro expensive parking, after a mathematical discussion/debate with the man in charge of the big P.
Tomorrow registration, arbitration, administration and then a reception for us, the grad people of New School U.
Rock on road scholars.
Love.

Why you are glad you're not my neighbor, part 32:
well
yesterday I entertained Rio, Ron and their kids Lily and Ace and ferfucksake I don't want to send children off, back onto the highways and biways of this great land, without a proper pyrotechnical send-off.
So
I busted out a small pyrotechnical display and one of them was really loud, I mean so loud and whizzing by ol' whatzizname's open window (what is that guy's name, the next door drunk?, the creepy man who hates his own kids, really thick glasses... anyhow) I'm sure he was awakened abruptly from sleeping off his night of Adolf's goodness from down the block.
Off now to points beyond to deliver my photographic goods.
Tomorrow it's off to skewel to register, to activate the fall term membership.
Studiously,
Love.

To be filed under I can tell my grandchildren:
Have a three-part Fisher-Price gig today and tomorrow and the highlight of today was sitting behind the desk of F-P's CEO, Neil Friedman. Not only sitting behind the desk but I had my feet up on his desk. And I also was trying to figure out his computer's password? Fun? nope. Toys? nope.
Had to arrange eight kids under the age of 7 in and around his desk and came up with adult-style office tasks for them. One lucky kid got to sit on the CEO's desk, crosslegged, playing with an F-P toy.
Now off to Middling City U then back out to East Aurora for more more more.
Love.

The Baby Rockstars contacted me in exultation to say that they're opening for the openers for The Goos on Tuesday night and would I, as their official chronicler, be there? (much mulling)
I replied
I am on sabbatical from the paper. Although I don't doubt that I can get credible creds from another source I ponder.
I have also enough history with the Goos, JesusRockinRollChrist, going back to pre-nosejobs and gigantic hair and guitar-fumbling, to think Shit I can be there if I so choose.
One of my art patronesses, Fern, contacted me and selected and purchased one of my most sensual for a gift to a woman in Italy. Fern and husband have a ***** art collection and one of mine - or is it two? - hangs amongst. So now, after this blogging, it's descending into the bowels of the darkroom to print and print. And then frame and frame. And deliver.
And then another two deliveries.
As the cats, my perfect little fuzzy angels, do nothing more than lounge and wait for me to open the door and join them and then lounge at my feet or hands. Awaiting the love that emanates from me to them.
Ron and Rio are heading this direction shortly, oh, tomorrow.
Hello Oban purchase!
Got a fab booking just seconds ago for a day and a half that'll have me scrambling on the floor with children.
After sweating last night saw that VH1 was airing I Love the 70s and it so happened (in case you wondered if there is/was a God) to be 1973, the year that my life changed, when it derailed from what could have been a middling Middling City middle class existence of pastel houses, solid definition and maybe church on Sunday, to see the great rock and roll possibilites beyond. Dark Side of the Moon.
I was 10, I was enlightened and forever I thank my conservative-minded cousin Frankie for giving up the goods.
Gilmour was on, in a '73 interview, stating: This is not about drugs, you can trust us. I thought Jesus, I was 10 and if you had told me that then I would have perhaps had a naive trusting childness hearing that statement but was savvy enough to know there was something extra-terrestial boiling under that surface.
I rest my artful case.
Love.
ps: parting thought = Jim Ramer at Parsons rocks

So Justin has this great theory of what caused The Ol' Electrical Fiasco of '03: it was the French, causing mass inconvenience.
I'm not sure I'm 100% behind this theory, instead, after a bat plunged toward the borrowed car I plunged through the darkness in back to NYC (after several Middling City gigs), I believe now that a bat chanced into a portion of the grid resulting in mayhem for many. The bat was a flutter of brown and highlights and it whacked the car above my head, loudly.
So I was at Parsons having a smoke with others, watching black smoke billow on the eastern horizon. It's a fire - or explosion - at the ConEd plant, someone offered.
I attempted to take the 6Train to Dorota's and Union Square station was about 150 degrees and half the lights were off, the other half were blinking discoically. Both 6s were sitting idly, forlornly. I walked down Broadway and all stores were dark, all ATMs were dark, all cell phones were not dark but useless.
No ice, no delis, no cabs, no streetlights, no elevators, no Starbucks, no buses, no trains, no city lights, no looting, no mayhem, no non-cash sales, no chance of quickly escaping the largest power outage in the history of America if you were in Manhattan. Until the next afternoon. At first I heard the rush of fountains nearby and I knew the power was on as I had wanted to sit by the fountains the night of the blackout and realized that fountains, although they're all elementally water, rely on another element - fire/electricity. So when the fountains came on the children danced and screeched and sporadic whoops of joy were heard on the streets.
I borrowed Erin's vehicle after arrangments via the spotty cell phone service and walked to Brooklyn/Park Slope to fetch the car.
As soon as I drove into New Jersey I realized a curious thing. The gas stations and pumps were operational, as were all the other electrical devices. Laura and my father, the two I called early on Friday following the 4PM darkening of Thursday, seemed to not realize the impact of the outage: But Katie Couric's on t.v., Laura said. A quote from my father: The media sure isn't playing up this whole outage thing (to paraphrase).
So the Wired Studio websites are on hiatus, Act of God Clause in full effect.
I am in NYC, I am at Parsons, I am thinking, I am writing, I am ending this post with love of change and Love.

The final of the final three Olympic events must be completed today. It's when I have a self-challenge and invoke the magical powers of the song Dream Weaver and figure out a really competent way of dreaming said song into my personal website at Parsons School of Design.
Yesterday me and Margaret and Erik completed (sort of, it borders on the theoretical at this point) our site centering on Parsons Hair Styles. It was, as Margaret stated, a light way of ending a rather serious class. We had links to various hair-related sites, a link to a celebrity look-alike page where we had side-by-side images of Parsons people next to amazingly similar stars.
Today the personal website, tomorrow the world.
Actually, tomorrow it's back to the Middling City world for a while.
No comment.
Had a dream that I saw a car that had just crashed and while I looked at it the twisted metal turned into a substance like layers of thin paper and it began to burn. Smoldering and then a rush to ash and then the ashes floated silently away. The car was burning from the top down and I wondered, as I watched from a second-floor front porch, where the body or bodies were. The car burned down to the floor and I could see the shape of one body and it looked like it was moving but it was burning and moving. When the burning had finished I saw the spirit of the person move away from the car, at first a strong presence and as it walked away it disappeared.
This dream actually continued with me laughing uproariously with Margaret (where in hell was Erik) about our website. As I was dreaming/laughing I thought I never get to laugh like this, with so much gusto.
Matt Taibbi is here in NYC, writing hilariously for New York Press.
Had a most meaningful talk with Jim Ramer at PSD yesterday, he'll be my acting unofficial advisor, as will Martha. Thank the photographic gods.
All my love for now.
Onwards to learning.

Deliciously off the grid in the present, in the Knowledge Union of venerable and eccentric Parsons School of Design/Refrigeration ... and which I also lovingly call Factory of Art and Ideas.
Researching again the Liquid Architecture and thoughts on cyberspace made by Marcos Novak. Found a photo of him on the web, it screams guru or I've-found-my-schtick-now-luvv-my-goatee.
Squatted in a glorified bakery this grad school morn (read early afternoon after reading Novak etc. until the wee hours, enhanced by sips of Oban) and read New York Press. Was most impressed to see not one but two pieces by former Middling City terror Matt Taibbi.
One is his lecherous take on girl teen mags and the other is a book review by an elder dispensing financial advice to GenXers.
Both well written, of course. His writing leaves you with a lingering sensation of cynicism, sinisterism, voyeurism and here's another ism - hilarity.
Back to the smarty pants goatee, Marcos Novak, and Neuromancer and all other things fluid and poetic.
Novak calls forth the poetry of Lorca several times and I read a bit of him today. I am ashamed to say that my honors english major self is not too familiar with the dense and non-linear words by him - yet.
My love.
My NYC-based love.

For class - for seminar - really! - I had to watch Lawnmower Man.
Abso-fuckin-lootly one of the most challenging movies ever made.
NB: I did not call it a film.
Challenging how, you wonder, squinting your suspicious eyes.
To not keep screaming (as I did) What the HELL happened to the monkey? He was a real winner, and then *POOOF*, he's gone, EXEUNT.
No more monkey.
Then there are twists and turns and the oddest protagonist hairstyles ever viewed. And the movie stretches over two hours. You'll feel like you've donated an organ or something and want something in return. Don't do it.
Giving a seminar chat on Tuesday about three complicated readings.
One of the three of our little Group E has decided that she cannot meet until the night before - amazingly.
I'm forging on and will be making a handout summarizing all of our seminar readings (nutshell-style) and will be putting together a geeky a-v presentation. Solo.
And if my Geek Quotient were not high enough, I'm going to be finishing William Gibson's Neuromancer today.
Love, CyberCult-infused, Love.

Heard from The Kid.
Totally into it was how he began his email and then went on to state he's got a few ideas of his own. That is a plus as working with a model is and should be a collaboration of sorts and if that other person has ideas and a sensuality and a sensibility it will be better than if they are strictly a body in front of me and the lens.
Had a very unforgettable dream about an unforgettable image.
Saw a show of photographs by a Middling City artist who is not a photog but a photo-realistic painter - Curtis Parker. I know him from ages ago, from clubbing, and now he's married to another friend.
In this exhibition was a large print of moldy hollyhock leaves (their stems had not yet projected forth so it was early spring - or maybe autumn and they had been cut down) and much beyond them a gray house, looking rather in need of a paint job. It was a color print but the color was so muted it had hardly any color. Lots of grays.
I kept looking at the print and decided that I had to buy it.
I went back to look at it with JenD and was studying it very closely (just like I was looking at an Iris print yesterday made by Martha Burgess) when JD said That's going to cost about a grand to frame. At least, I said.
Such a beautiful image, not too unlike what I'm making right now for PSD.
Large-scale photographic Love.

Received the email address for The Kid from Marky Sparky Norris (front man at ARTVOICE) and seconds ago emailed said Kid to see if he might consider being my muse and central focus for some new photowork.
*please say yes please say yes please say yes please say yes please say yes*
Told him there'd be no nudity, no pyros, no oddness.
Well, unless he thinks that frenching a hibiscus flower is odd.
Kidding, sort of.
My Kenneth Cole slingbacks turned to sponges in the torrential rains today and so had to purchase some other choices, backups so to speak.
Met with fellows to discuss our presentation in a week of the week's three readings - one dense as stale swiss cheese and the two others less so. On top of usual grad student activities which includes impressive daily ingestion of caffeine.
Had an e-go-round with publisher/editor/pal a few days ago and will meet up with him around the 15th (when school is done for summer) to decide my ARTVOICISTIC fate.
Can go either way.
Is this a cliffhanger?
You betcha.
My gradschoolful Love.

Spent the better part of today making the freelance cash money photographing kids at camp, the camp of lushest green and rimmed with pine forest in a valley. Translation: no cell phone service all day. Chatted illegally on the cell to a NYC pal in a monsoon, ironically after describing how the pre-torrent landscape to my right just off the bi-way resembled Japan rice paddies - tiered and foggy and unbelievably green.
Camp. Teenaged drama. Preteened levelheadedness. Had lunch amid a table full of 11 year olds, rather than the table of grownups. They came to fetch me midway to rescue me from the 11 year olds and I looked up from a conversation about the structure by age, the benefits of peanut butter, the benefits of spreading peanut butter on Fudgicles and the like, and said I'm fine here.
The kids were mainly camera-savvy. Everyone knows how to perform these days, not only for cameras but for each other. Everyone can bust a VH1-perfect move.
Received complimentary art-related email from Ollivier Dyens, Parsons visitor/guest artist, who received several of my jpegged art images. Restrained, passionate.
I will surely plagiarize his NJP-related thoughts.
Back to Parsons/School/NYC tomorrow and tomorrow is a marathon group critique, in preparation for the following Monday's full-on critique with Everyone.
24 months more and I'll be sashaying across a Manhattan stage in crimson robes to a symphony of airhorns and hoots and hollers. I imagine.
Summer Camp-burnt Love.

As Bach violin concertos frolic along the four stray feline pals lounge just outside my door and occasionally Bootsy scratches at the door for my companionship. Even beat-to-shit Faux Extra is lying at my steps while Extra (my most perfect Angel of Darkness) is aloof and Tiger is just plain ol' effusive.
Last night was first Friday in practically my entire lifetime that I did not have to rush about and make images for my column WhatHasHappened. I wore a skirt. I carried my little Coach bag. I drank wine. I supped with Jen and Eric. Went to nouveau O and dug the food but not the suburban vibe happening around us. We were in a parking lot. There was at the end of our meal the Chippewa Street-appropriate thud-thud of top40 dance tunes. Our waiter sucked. When he inquired about dessert I said I want banana pudding. He thought I was joking. I want banana pudding. They had none.
He returned to our table with a comp dessert - banana mousse with macademia nuts in a dark chocolate crust. Not banana puddding but sufficient.
Putting together work and received a fab call from one of my patrons of the art genre, looking for more of my originals to give to her friends - this time a family in Italia.
I sign off, artful, restful and Bachful.
Love.

Met with visiting artist/thinker Ollivier Dyens, who teaches at Concordia in Montréal today. Why, just yesterday, during our seminar, I raised my hand and stated I really don't agree with anything that you're saying...
defending then I was the notion that making images/rendering light via digital is not too far from the same process via film.
Embedded in both is information that an artist/imagemaker must use.
He did not agree with my disagreement.
Today he reinvigorated our disagreeing. By the end of my presentation to him he said that he was beginning to understand what I mean/meant, for whatever that's worth.
I just sent him some jpegs of older work that I think he'll dig.
Made Justy go with me to the macrobiotic joint just around the corner from PSD for organic wine and wholesome fare. He didn't pout too loudly and his pal Jen, married to Steve Bartoo, joined us.
Then back to the lab, where I've been convented since about noon.
It is time to break free for extended hours.
I am happy with my new images, prints, art, pieces.
Tomorrow I meet with Anthony encore to show them.
Then Monday is the half-group again, in prep for the next week which will be another full day and a half of the 15 of us.
This intensive extensive summer session is coming to a quick end.
Am I a master of the DreamWeaver universe?
Does the Pope have Johnny Depp's likeness tattooed on his arse?
Yikes, now that is a perilous image indeed.
Due to annoyances beyond my control (those of you in the know will in fact know know and know) I am taking a leave from AV for the next three weeks - due more to assinine behaviour than my own ass dragging.
My artful and imagistic love.

Spending this AM catching up up up whilst listening to napalm-my-heart Ryan Adams. Such sights last night at Artists and Models, a veritable tapestry of people I know, avoid, talk to, admire and document.
Anna was a cyborg, David Butler was a presidential candidate (along with ex-drag queen Guy) with a fab economic plan advocating shopping, Mark Stockton was wired up in a complex panda head with night vision goggles and other such complex paraphernalia (totally rocked), Mike (formerly of treelinedhighway) was really drunk and he explained so after he was going to start saying something about my weight loss, Curtis was also tipsy but did manage to explain to CG and I how the lovely gigantic prints from former Artists and Models were made (I had several up - 3'x8'... Perfect Heroic Nancy!), the bartender didn't have scotch (?????????) so I had to have a vodka and something (!!), the tall lanky tv guy was all coked up, literary Ed worked the door and didn't quite get the whole way those Tyvek® wristbands were supposed to be installed on a wrist (I looked at mine and said Gee, Ed, I like your technique... he didn't get it), the artwork was of a certain elevated quality, Bruce Adams had an excellent church and art star-inspired chapel with relics of Cindy Sherman and Robert Longo (brilliant) and other various pedestrians interested and engaged me.
(sonic note: I might have to change this Ryan Adams cd as it's about to toss me off the edge into an abyss of heavy-eyed melancholia).
Notes on pre-Artists and Models yesterday:
Had a wedding in ski resort Ellicottville, an hour outside of the Middling City.
I seemed to spend more time staring at the landscape and getting some good deep thinking done than shooting the glowing couple.
I was in a Native landscape where highway signs are bilingual.
I knew the band, always a treat. Sid Winkler Band which features zany Susan Rozler and the amazing music encylopoedia Joe Rozler... young, hip, funny as hell.
I stood behind him for several songs and sang off-colour versions of Wedding Tunes as he sang the veritable versions. Sometimes as I passed on the dancefloor he'd sing a Hi Nancy J into the lyrics and - amazingly - guests would not hear it over their choogling and socializing.
Met a guy who does video production for Court TV. Nice conversation, how can it help my career?
So I'm talking to Susan Rozler for a long while when suddenly she reveals that she thinks she may have malaria. I was in the Philippines. I know about malaria. I avoided it. I took poison once a week to keep it away. I'm thinking she's being funny. Nope, her one kid is in Africa, she visited. BUT when you hear someone has the notion they may have malaria and you are an independenct contractor type you want to run like the West Niled mosquitoes from hell are on your ass, as you never know what in hell it could contagiously be.
Off to further work and social exploits.
My love, most of it.

Spent the latter part of last night in Liz's garden, drinking white wine as the fragrant lilies towered over us. This after seeing her at an Allentown art opening where I was happy to discover Burke Paterson among the tipplers and lookers. Burke is still tall, wearing trendy t-shirts and making art and living in Toronto. He was very excited to tell me how he just built a second floor into his loft, where his beloved Jet Stream alumi-trailer still holds court.
This is a city of several Middling City festivals - food-related as well as hobby-related. Tonight is the 20th annual Artists and Models, the first-ever I'm not participating in due to gradstudent-related (and travel) constraints. I'll be there as docu-girl.
Off to the sunshined outdoors to see, make and do.
Lead Boy Colleague dropped by to say Hi, he was off to shoot much the same.
Saturday saturnine Love.

Decided against shooting the Goo Goo Dolls early AM gig here in NYC, thinking (wisely, I believe) to forego that for the bigass Middling City show in August.
Tonight Lead Boy Colleague is shooting Skynyrd for me, for the paper. Fuh-reeh-bird. Having troubles of late with Netscape. Apparently nobody gets my replies so there are whole bunches of people out there thinking I'm a bad replier. So not true.
Back to the Middling City in several hours.
For the usual marathon weekend working.
All for now, time to do some art shooting while the sun is as high as my caffeine level.
Love.

Finished mere seconds ago an excellent visit with a PSD visiting artist, Antonio Muntadas. Needless to say, since I'm gleeful, he completely dug my work. Even asked for updates on the project. Wants to see the series finished, as in August. Wants it to be a book, suggested its format. Rock on.
Suddenly it's sunny in NYC and I'm committed momentarily, longitarily, with working on the raging elephant that is Dreamweaver.
We are to learn slicing in PhotoShop and apply it to this other software. To make panels. To make do-dads. I want to learn this, really I do, but am not locating the portal in my mind that intuitively grasps onto the 1's and 0's of this technique.
I shoot pictures - digital and analog.
I know that from the innermost beings of each cell in my body.
I do not know Dreamweaver. One day I dream that Dreamweaver will be as in there/in me as the aforementioned.
All for now, 1's and 0's are calling, no. They are screaming Nancy hurry the fuck up and learn us, use us, know us.
They win. Every time.

Nearly, no not really, time for my Sunday nap afore my jet to NYC/PSD encore. I still have yet to pen a zippola Statement of Intent & Discovery to pledge before the 14 others. Marathon Critique.
This, oddly, is very much the same in grad school as it was as an undergrad, maybe just ratchet up the impassioned opining a bit.
To all who have never been an art student: (scenario)
You are naked in a room, everyone is clothed and eating a snack that they are not sharing. You are doing a handstand and some classmates are very willing to say Hey, neato technique. But one sour apple says something like You know? When I read XXX he said that handstands are mere simulacrum of spectacles of paradigms! You get off your hands. You think for a moment and then jump into a karate kick and then suddenly have sparklers coming out of the top of your head, bright golden showers of sparks.
And you realize this: your art and ideas abso-fuckin-lootly ROCK. And you are willing to share enthusiasm and not brandish the weapon of ego. Re-met my friends' daughter, who I haven't seen since she was 2 or 3. She was NOT impressed until her father and I started doing our bad cop/bad cop sort of routine, regaling ourselves with our most outlandish drunken exploits. Suddenly I noted the barista of the coffee joint where we were standing had on one of those pukashellesque candy necklaces. I asked Do you know what to do with that? She did not. I demanded the necklace and taught her, and the friends' kid, how to shoot the candy off via the clenched front teeth. I nearly took some guy in a cheeseball suit's nuts right off. The kid later, when I was gloating on nearly taking the guy's nuts off referred to them as Two eggs in a hankie. I said Jeesh, thanks, that's an image that'll be haunting me for some time.
When she noted one of my Paul Frank watches on my wrists she really then thought I was okay for an adult, still a shade of youthful mistrust in her eyes.
Off.
Hey, go HERE for an interesting diversion, compliments of Reine. An old version of Netscape yielded a most interesting and eclectic collection of bookmarks.
Off again.

The Middling City's Main Street has been littered with a wrecked red sedan for a long while. I've been to & fro from MC to Parsons several times and still it's there. Saw it last night and then again this AM en route to the photo lab. But a wondrous new twist! Some art students, I speculate, armed with day-glo pink spraypaint went to proverbial town on the car and it's entirely hot hot pink.
But now that I think of it perhaps this is a band of concerned citizens setting out to highlight Middling City eyesores. These folks will be damn busy.
Had freelance gig #1 this AM and one of the Bar Mitzvah boy's uncles remembered me, a moment which always has me feeling slightly howshallIsay under the XY microscope, and he said You're a photographer I like. After about half an hour of my guerrilla family-arranging strategies and gentle cajoling and general photog merriment (my Perfect specialty) he (jokingly) said You're the photographer I LIKED?
Off to many points beyond. But not the bigass country show tonight at Darien Lake, a gig delegated to Lead Boy Colleague, who's been making my traversing days a heap easier with his rootin' tootin' shootin'.
All.

Today in our grad seminar we spent the better part of 3 hours discussing postmodernism and the fore, modernism.
Self, noself, etc.
Saw and shot Ani last night at Central Park, part of Summerstage. It was a fabulosic night after a day resembling rain. A very mellow gig and everyone was very stonerific... yeah, like whatever.
She came out with a growl and the up and downness of the show was usual, her army out in full force, grooving on every little nuance. Always interesting to observe.
There was a girl shooting for D'Addario Guitar Strings, a German guy shooting For German television, a guy from Central Park and a random other. In the front of the crowd a few people asked who I was shooting for and when I replied ARTVOICE two people said Oh... I read AV, are you Nancy J. Parisi? There is no escaping Middling City escapees.
I am a grad student, thinking all the time, all the time, all the time. Making and doing and making and doing.
And diggin' on the whole dang thang.
My overworked and overtaxed love.

Further barrage of Photoshop information and my brain is saying Hmmmm, it's so nice and sunny outside right now, howsabout a meandering with the camera? I have a meeting in a few hours with a visiting artist to go over my newest work, all printed-out as 8x10s and looking very good, if I may say so myself.
Back in session of marathon Wired Studio class so off I go.
Braincells don't fail me now.
Love.

Right to the important part. The Perfect Nancy Johnny Depp review. Having to look at him with dreads and unsightly braids in beard is better than having no Johnny Depp to look at at all. I rest my case.
Two miraculous things about the pirate movie:
1. His kohl eyes, what's best referred to as the Keith Richards eye thing, never are diminished even after watery battles and endless rum-filled nights. And swashbuckling and general mayhem. Perma-liner. And why, I wondered, would pirates have had this like linebackers do to prevent all that pesky reflection? I need answers.
2. Even when Johnny Depp becomes an accursed skeleton (plot device!) he is still beautiful and the age-old cliché of 'jumping one's bones' sprung to mind.
Only bad part of the movie was that my PSD schoolmate I was with misplaced a wallet and I received a frantic call to see if I had accidentally grabbed it. I had not. But I would like to have grabbed Johnny Depp. Today in the Post I saw a photo of that bimbo Vanessa Paradis, what the hell does he see in this woman?
Had the imagistic priviledge yesterday of shooting an ultra-Orthodox Jewish wedding at Niagara Club in Niagara Falls, NY. Made for Life mag-type shots of the veiling ceremony, the drinking of wine under chupah sub-ceremony, etc. There were two standoutish moments.
The whole day was sexually segregated but as a person with a mechanical device strapped on I was able to float between the two spheres. In the mens' pre-ceremony room (where bottles of topshelf liquor were everywhere and so were plastic shotglasses) I was even offered a drink. Only after I replied Thanks, Diet Coke, did I realize the error of my freelancer ways. I was to drink a hard drink.
The second standout was that the dancefloor was divided by a white cloth and the same klezmer band played to the women and to the men, who enjoyed their post-nuptial merriment separately. It was a sight. The men danced sweetly in each other's arms, more touching than displayed with their girls and wives. They were red-faced with liquor and hard dancing. The women played more games like jump-roping and I thought that maybe the games seemed somewhat childish because back in the day brides might have been mere teenagers, ready to rumble before the big ol' (yikes) premier wedding night rumble.
Oh, the B&G made off to the private room (which all Jewish weddings I've shot utilize, a moment to say Hi, etc. before the social onslaught) but this Orthodox wedding included male elders watching the door to make sure that... no suitors/interlopers/pretenders slipped in?
All for now, back to graduate matters at hand, afoot, amind.
Love.

She just wants to be somewhere.
She just wants to be.
She just wants to be somewhere.
She just wants to be.

I tried to find The Kid tonight, to ask him to be my muse. He must be the muse of me. I got a response (an artful rsvp) from the prof who so shattered my ideal world. He had no ideal. I did. But then I did not.
I have embraced Oban again. Hello Oban, give me bigger, give me bigger ideas.
I pet Extra until I wore a path into his fur and he screamed for Mercy.
I have no idea. I have no ideas. I have no ideal. I have no ideals.
I am a grad student?
I am a student of life?
I am a liver?
I am alive?
I am a lie?

Buddha Love.

As my grad student luck would have it I was phoned yesterday, nearly 24 hours ago, by my Middling City editor in NYC, as I was working on my DreamWeaver creation. Yikes, I thought... what tragedy has befallen the paper that he's phoning me, what photo needs have crossed his mental desk, I wondered.
Hi, he said, where are you?
Fucking around with DreamWeaver was my curt response. Why?
Oh, because we are in a cab heading to Balthazar and I wondered if you'd like to join us.
Us was Jamie/publisher/pal, his pal Seward and two associates of the paper.
I joined them. Much joviality. Much great French vin.
Then the two associates split.
Then I discovered that Seward had attended some very historic rock&roll gigs - like Hendrix at Fillmore East, Led Zeppelin's first American show...
and Pink Floyd shows - with Syd Barrett.
Poor Seward (no, not really), I really pumped him for SB info. How was he on stage? What did he wear? Did he seem in control?
Seward said that at Pink Floyd shows he felt like he was Underwater.
This has captured my rockstar-luvvin imaginings.
So Jamie, Seward and I wandered the Village, finally landing at The Bitter End to watch some mundane local bands, hepped-up on their respective and collective fans.
Just before that ultimate stop Jamie (after I gushed about the womblike qualities and Canarino Voltaire at Caffé Reggio) mandated a stop for some eggy-rummy-boozey treat. Called? Something starting with V that the 'boys in the back' have to make. That complicated.
Finished week numero three-o of PSD (interesting sidebar: whereas my pal/publisher Jamie was once unsupportive of my MFA decision, requesting - though I did not oblige - a leave of absence, unpaid, last night he was damn-near beaming with paternal pride at my studenthood) and am now contemplating wandering over three blocks to see Johnny Depp in that pirate charade.
Johnny.
Depp.
melt

"USA Today's lead, in an exclusive, suggests why you've never seen a clear photo of that piece of falling foam that likely doomed the shuttle Columbia: Budget cuts. According to the paper, the photo department's 'staff was reduced, cameras were eliminated, and the repair shop that helped keep the cameras and telescopes operating was severely cut back.' The photo program had 150 workers in the early 1990s and 35 by last February. 'It now appears in retrospect that there were not enough cameras in place to support the Columbia mission,' said the president of company contracted to take the photos."
This quote is fetched via MSN, I subscribe to their compilation of lead stories in the world's leading journals. I mis-read their header and thought I was going to read a story about the legendary Chuck Taylor sneaks and their rumoured demise when I began reading about the prez of Liberia stepping down. His name? Charles Taylor. Chuck, Charles, big diff.
So I begin blogging with this quote self-satisfactorially as when that Columbia debacle happened I instantly questioned why there were nothing but amateur snaps and videos of it, wondered aloud (a lot) why NASA had no tracking documentary means. Many (usually egg-heady boys) scoffed that saying that NASA tracks things via satellites and blah blah blahditty-blah.
I rest my case, but not on my laurels.
Back to Parsons work and then to hit the streets a-shootin'.
All my Big Appled Love.

Made freelance moola to pay, in my humble estimation, for the next few weeks of school where the meter ticks along heartily.
Have been making layered street images and been having incredible visual dreams.
Sat last night, as I awaited Jackdaw's set, upstairs at the venerable and stinky Continental to get some art ideas. Told Jesse at the door that I get some of my best art ideas while in the loudness and darkness (and anonymity) of upstairs. It's loud enough that your thoughts must fight the decibels. On the dance floor were The Goths, represented last night by a scrawny dyke with bandanna, her girlfriend with some sort of long red head wrap and fishnets, and a thick man with piercings doing what's best known as the coffin shuffle. When anything, of course, was not Goth enough they'd vacate the premises. The non-responsive dj went on an all-80s bender and played When Doves Cry which I just had to end art thoughts for to dance in the corner, head down. This is what it sounds like when doves cry, indeed.
Jackdaw's set was truly great and that tall Irish boy was wearing his usual kilt. Such a big sexy and athletic man that he pulls off a kilt better than most.
Bought one of their girlie t's with an upside down crown. They were $15 but I managed only to scrape together $9 and they let me have it, being Perfect Journalistic and Jackdaw-boosting Nancy.
Went on to the final destination, Mohawk, where I saw Two Cow Garage and Slobberbone. I've seen the latter numerous times but preferred the former better, especially their screaming Beatles cover. Whose title escapes me at this moment.
Had meaningful conversation with The Kid of Girlpope and he was completely irradiated and for a while we discussed fairness and spf's and harmful UV rays. I told him that I go from pale to third degree burns in a flash and that's no lie.
He is a beautiful boy, of the dark red-headed variety and we spoke so long that his girlie pal came over to throw her territorial arms about him.
(sidebar: it's been a Barry White tribute weekend and he's been crooning and rocking my world all weekend when I've popped into the home office hovel to work)
Love.

Just jetted back, again. Was greeted by several of the boys/the kitties and gave them a sound brushing to get rid of the flotsam and jetsom in their fur.
Ani is playing Central Park's summer stage on July 16th and I have to call Righteous Babe, home of the Little Folk Singer, for creds... and passes.
Barry White, I heard via an overhead tv monitor, passed onto the big soul lounge in the sky today - too soon.
Thank you Barry for all your romantic music.
Time to play some of that and thank you some more.
Off after that to a bbq and some small-scale pyros before a walk to Delaware Park for larger, more expansive pyros.
God Bless My Underwear!

dreams.

1. A few nights ago I dreampt/drempt/dreamed (?) that I made an art installation and that the pieces were sculptural, sound art. They were on pedestals and when a certain word was uttered the piece would grow. A piece might recognize the word fuck and when the sculpture heard the word it would snap to life and get larger, change configuration.

2. Last night after twelve hours at school I walked, as always, through Washington Square Park and there were, on the eastern quadrant around the fountain, hundreds of chalk circles. Big and small. The artist(s) left behind several unfinished chalks and it looked like they suddenly lost interest in their circular project and went away. They used many of the circles to write words that have O in them... lOve, spOrts, hOnor, etc. I wanted to shoot this circle art and today it was gray, rainy, no circles. Almost like a dream of circles, chalk, temporality.

Somnamulistic Love.

Purchased and have been playing with the Olympus digital 5050. Almost accidentally blinded myself last night by throwing it on night setting, pointing at my face and getting zapped by a shocking beam of orange light emanating from it. Have been doing street photos as well as some images ranging from thoughts of flowers wrapped in bronze wire. Both shot with 5050 (amazingly 6megapixels) and the Hasselblad borrowed from Parsons. Still not impressed with the Hassel501, it makes me further appreciate my Mamiya RZ and its wonderful rectangular format. And rotating back.
My street images are always of something with figures in the background, inspired by my gallery (usually) newspaper images when I purposely include and crop in the paper to images/figures in the background - to me as important as the foreground faces.
A reaching pathetic urban planter with figures walking away way in the back.
In moments there's a demo for us grad people of a Leaf digital back which is thrilling me to no end. I'm thinking I'd like to avoid the darkroom if possible, go from digital back to screen to print. If we're to be stretching the black & white prints, still in my mind, should be shelved while I play with the aforementioned.
Discovered a very secret french joint perfect for reading, a far cry from the salad bar universe around the school. And mere steps from it. Where a bottomless bucket of coffee, baguette and accoutrements are $4 and the background music is oso French.
Baguettes of Love.

Yesterday was a rockstar extravaganza with 7 or 8 hours of walking from stage to stage and talking with some of my favored Middling City residents, those who populate bands.
In a nutshell: Tony Christiano couldn't play as he had a dislocated shoulder from softball, Steve Ryder can play now after recuperating from punching a window - when his hand "went through something glass," The Sheila Divine is fairly done, members of Cracker complained about border crossing and their drummer asked me when I was standing onstage near him what the non-alcoholic version of Labatt Beer is (?), Alison Pipitone had a blemish on one side of her face and asked me to shoot her from her right side so I began to call her Liza (as in Minelli, who had me shoot her from her left side ONLY), Mockba performed in matchy-snatchy b-ball unis, Freeland played in his uniform FUCK tights which shocked my 6-year old niece for some reason, Val Townsend from The Edge showed me the exciting things she was crafting up with the wack of Mardi Gras beads hanging about the radio station's remote van, missed Baby Rock Star but not his one remaining bandmate who was covered in sweat, got hugs from numerous sweaty individuals, tried to get a shot of Eddie The Cop Cotter emptying some unfortunate punk rockers' 40s onto the ground so as to make it look like he was drinking it himself, etc.
Imagistic and Meandering Love.

Middling City singer-songwriter Pam Ryder (and boys) were on fire last night, I was so impressed with how far she's come as a performer. She rocked with Throwing Muses fury and Nietzsche's was packed.
Tomorrow is the ARTVOICE Street Festival, from 1-8ish. Me and Donny K and Marky booked the bands and arranged them on four stages. My longtime favs, Last Conservative, who've gone through major personnel changes (half the band left) I put on one of the stages early, thinking that because of the instability they should not have a more populated later set. Apparently TJ was upset about playing at 1:30. Oh well.
Really don't care too much for the headliners - Nighthawks and Cracker - but what do you want for free, what do you want for a day's work.
After the fest will rush home and lay out the column and file.
Then back on the plane at 6AM to return to GradLife.
Sun-filled Love.

More lauds to Justy for yanking me from Chelsea art op fabulousness to greater rockstar fabulousness. Namely the Wilco and Sonic Youth gig at Central Park's Summer Stage. Ani's playing there in a while and I'm going to call thee Tom at thee MTV for credentials and then I'll insert her into my column.
It was a grand show and the contrast between the mellow, summer-diggin' crowd and that of the swilling Middling City masses usually at Thursday at the Square was gigantic. At one point during Wilco's excellent set I asked Justy's pal/occasional bandmate Nick for a light, specifically a ligher. Then held it aloft during a more poignant Wilco ballad. You might deduce from this post that I missed SY... sadly they were not headlining. How were they not headlining?
Jetting back to the Middling City in a few hours to shoot non-stop, make the freelance moola paying for Parsons.
The woman who manned the Polaroid for my PSD id, I speculate, was on mind-altering drugs. My head is barely in the frame. But in true DMV photo style, she caught me at my most awkward facial gesturing.
Time to rock.
Love.

Let us get down to brass tacks, I say. Let me not link you to Gary Wright's masterful ballad Dream Weaver, let me paste it in here and now for you.
This Dream Weaver = harmless, simply-structured.
The other Dream Weaver = furious, complexly-structured and I am afeared I'll be reaching my own morning light before I can say I understand it. Here's hoping in a few days I look back at this post with uproariousness.
Love.

I've just closed my eyes again
climbed up on the dreamweaver train
tryin' to take away my worries of today
and leave tomorrow behind

Chorus:

Ooo Dreamweaver, I beleive you can
get me through the night
Ooo Dreamweaver, I beleive we can
reach the morning light

Fly me high through the stary skies
and maybe to an astral plane
Cross the highways of fantasy
Help me forget todays pain

repeat Chorus

tho the dawn may be coming soon
there still may be some time
fly me away to the bright side of the moon
and meet me on the other side

Ooo Dreamweaver, I beleive you can
get me through the night
Ooo Dreamweaver, I beleive we can
reach the morning light
Dreamweaver...
Dreamweaver....

yikes-a-roni, just because I have a freakin' blog makes me no webmistress.
Having a helluva time with Dream Weaver (really can't say those two words together without thinking of that guilty pleasure pop song) and the naming of things and where in hell they're landing and such.
Felt like the class was suddenly being taught in Korean and now I'm off to grab the textbook to see if I can sort this out and then unloose my inner rockstar webdominitrax.
The cast of characters of the class swirls and we are so busy it's difficult to really bust loose and get to know each other.
By the end of the 8 weeks I hope to be able to completely kick ass - offline and on.
My addled and rollicking love.
ps: so many hits today (still not close to the record) as my blog was brief required reading for Wired Studio

Oriented beyond belief right now, after about 7 or so hours of welcoming, information gathering and talking at Parsons.
Now catching up on the work part of my life and about to rejoing the pedestrians of NYC and see if Dorota is up to sushi and mischief.
All for now and over and out,
Love

Off to the end gig of the Middling City Guitar Festival in moments. A sunny affair with mid-tempo, mid-career bands.
Last night shot a society wedding and as I did the backwards walk in front of the bride there to my left was Kenneth Jaworski of Netherlands, specifically Amsterdam, fame and fortune. Talked to him later and he told me that he's in a band there, called Delaware, and that they hired some snazzed-out firm to design their cd package.
Got over the DMB sticker turn-in fiasco. Slightly.
My images of Dave rival any true artpiece. They are masterful, capturing his nuances well - the curved left eyebrow, the contorted fingers on frets, the devilish little smile.
Ahh, Dave.
There are occasional explosions outdoors and I forget every year that in this lawless corner of the Middling City this is where folks love to blow shit up in summertime.
I myself enjoy the colorful, flaming style pyros. The pickled man (read drunk) next door is not awakened by explosions in my backyard, only my loud whoops of awe - I am sure.
Tomorrow grad school.
Today the caffeinated newspaper deadline.
My Libran, balanced and convoluted Love.

OUTRAGE
Last night had to turn in my photo pass after shooting Dave's first three songs. This has only happened at one other concert, at Britney's Extravaganza where we had to be lined up extra early and be issued a double-sided photo id and turn that in upon leaving. So no new DMB sticker for the iBook. Pourquoi? He looked good, of course.

Second-hand sightings of rock stars:
1. Whilst waiting for creds and the walk-through to the pit to shoot DMB one of my colleagues reported, most excitedly, that his buddy works at Buffalo Athletic Club and Dave - thee Dave - came in to work out. The buddy was assigned to stick by Dave's side so nobody bothered him while he sweated those handsome beautiful drops of DNA out of his melodic body. He and bandmates were also spotted buying clothes at a mall (hello! personal shoppers!) and out and about on Chippewa Street. Assumedly nobody could tell them better joints to foray for cocktails.

2. Called Dorota yesterday on her cell and she called back from her workplace to report thusly: Jason, who works at Michael Werner Gallery a stone's throw from the Met saw Johnny Depp. Johnny walked into the gallery to inspect some Captain Beefheart drawings on view. Vicarious joy.

Over and out and time to rock.
Love.

Going to, but not staying for, Dave (as in Matthews Band) at Darien Lake tonight. Finally heard from Donna at Clear Channel outta Albany that I have a big yes to shoot DMB as well as opener - moe., formerly of the Middling City.
I wrote back to Donna that the first time I recall shooting moe. was at the shithole Essex Street Pub back when they were allowed to have live music. Haven't seen the moe. newsletter in a while, a full-colored something that rivals in apostledom the newsletter of Ani, Righteous Report. Opening up this trifolds and polyfolds one realizes in a flash that these acts have a whole slice of the universe mapped out for listeners, followers, merch gobblers.
Last night shot 54-40 at Thursday at the Square, a mediocre moment in time, to be sure.
They had a sub guitarist and quite frankly I'm not sure that I noticed.
Saw Boy Colleague Marky there who asked what the lead singer's name is.
Fer crissakes, I said, go on the internet system and find out.
Don't know if tonight I'll have my fourth annual shot at shouting DAVE, I LOVE YOU, YOU ROCK at poor, unsuspecting Dave. The last time that was shouted by most Perfect Me Dave looked amazed.
Hope the shirts are good, I'd like a new model.
Wore my red one yesterday and Bad Penny's words afloated into my mind, spoken in a post-cocktail rasp:
You're such a pretty girl, why don't you ever wear anything other than concert tshirts, you could be so attractive?
Got a message that Martin called today from Japan/Tokyo/the other side of the Planet, sorry to have missed his call.
Thinking now of how my brain will be filled with exciting new technological information starting in three days or so.
Technology... my friend.

Happy soft shell crab season to one and all! Praise be Neptune.
Crunched the guts out of two of them this evening when Jen and Eric took me out to Bon Voyage to Grad School dinner on a private, desolate patio.
Afterwards headed to the Dicky Betts gig downtown to make his second set.
You know you're in for a surreal night when there's a line of 40 guys waiting to pee and it's clear sailing into the ladies.
I encountered a few people I know, already past the oblivion bend. I saw Nick the security man who I talked with once but who seemed oddly hostile, perhaps his biker braid was too tight. Shimmied up to the front of the stage moments before Dicky and his cowboy accoutrements (boots, hat, band) hit the stage.
Dicky Betts Illuminati Strange Quip 1:
(woman, age perhaps 50, eyes unfocused, reeling on feet as she asks)
Who're you shootin' fer? Oh, well if you're writing an article you can use my quote, use it anonymously. (pregnant pause, mustering up her best serious quote-time voice)
When I go to a Dicky Betts concert I feel like I'm in joint custody. Afterwards I have to go to see Greg Allman.

Dicky Betts Illuminati Strange Quip 2:
(man with really sweaty hair, yes, hair. smiling, shouting, standing behind me)
Hey, who're you shootin' for? OHHHH, are you Nicole?
(where's that secret button for the trap door he's standing upon, I thought. I'm thinking he's thinking of Nicole Peradotto but she's no shooter so I just say Nope).
He pursues this. Nicole... Nicole Parisi? I say I'm Nancy Parisi.
(pause, pause, pause, I'm waiting for the light on Dicky's body to shine more red and yellow as The Tralf suddenly remembered that they do, in fact, have other than purple and bue gels on lights)
(pause)
Is that N-A-N-C-I? he shouts into my right ear.
Nope, that's N-A-N-C-Y.
I am so sorry, Sweaty Head says, I look at your photographs every Thursday, I love your work, you're almost famous.
Suddenly I think this drenched mis-speller is allright, event after he creates a bit of chaos with a carafe of red wine which he topples and tried to sponge up with his hands.
As soon as Dicky sang and played at the same time and I was ensured I had the true and desired IT, I was gone like an Arizona tumbleweed blown across the night highway and a speeding range of headlights.
Snakebite love.

Had a hit & run meeting at the paper on using iPhoto, a consumer piece of software created for grandmothers to email jpegs of grandkids to family members far and wide. Tried to tell publisher that both PhotoShop AND the software I use to turn jpegs into the magical tiffs all beautiful - PhotoStation - have caption writing capabilities.
At the sort-of stag for Mike Groll, getting married on Friday, I met a person who is a techie for the Dallas daily, John Herrick, who switched from shooting to computer nerding. Told him of the iPhoto situation and his response was... I don't think it's ROBUST enough for archiving for a whole newspaper. Alas. So my iBook and iMac have to both be restored and have OSX installed with OSX PhotoShop and sundry other items. Fun? No fucking way. Well then with OSX my iPod will be more than a neat little paperweight... at least.
Johnny Depp turned up in Random Notes in RS (which, btw, I still don't want to get yet they keep sending it here) looking really awful. And they compared him to Keith Richards, saying his pirate role in some upcoming celluloid disaster has him in bandanna, braids - hence the Keith ref.
Johnny, please call, you need my help to get you back on the Shining Path of Beauty.
Off to deadines far and wide with a song in my heart.
Note to self: you need more practice to perfect the Bach-harmonica project you're working on.
Love.

Yesterday's Robby Goo Allentown-time Music as Art Fest was excellent with Robby froclicking about, painting on the art wall with his wife Miyoko and then playing a whole mess of Eddie Money Covers with the band The Ifs as Robby Money. Bongoes, Robby, who would have guessed? Worked through the volunteer logistics to get into the studio while bands were playing all wired up in front of the Chameleon West windows to the adoring masses outdoors - Last Days of Radio and Girlpope. The Allentown neighbors, a vocal and somewhat ornery bunch, should have been pleased that the fest was contained, respectful and not teeming in decibels. Allentown Village Society, the org that runs Allentown Art Fest, had two of those cheapo signs on wheels directing people to the AAF a block away, at the corner of Allen and Franklin - within mere feet of Robby's event. A gesture at non-unity, for sure. The vendors, apparently, usually on that one block of Allentown, didn't want to be anywhere near Robby's event, fearing the worst.
Met a dj from Cali who spun between bands, and we discussed the new iPod. He told me he's going to put his entire collection on cd's and vinyl on them and use them through a mixing board. I told him I'm going to use mine to transport my digital art files, that conventional art students will use traditional art portfolios whereas I'll be carrying around something the size of a pack of smokes... until I make big ass prints.
Speaking of art school, that starts soon. A new art journey, a new art plan.
Love.

I had a series of nightmares last night starring the Dixie Chicks. Why? Well, for one, they came out in faux punker outfits, replete with bondage chains at knees and slicked-back tresses to resemble mohawks. e-fuckin-gads.
I forgot to point out to Boy Colleague Marky that when you looked up at the video monitors the lead singer with the faux mullet/mohawk looked like a strange tropical fish as her face was divided down the center by a black piece of metal, each side of her face projected onto two different monitors.
A most creepy effect.
Their soundboard wasn't half a mile away (calling to mind Rod Stewart, that saggy aging rock star) but was more like 80 feet so it wasn't as horrific as we imagined and the trio came together at the end of song three for us. It would have been a most picturesque photo op if not for the two hundred fans standing in front of us with fists waving in the breeze. Some of my Dixie Chicks together shots look they're getting puched in the chins by large black tentacles but I have gorgeous shots of the three separately - same for Joan Osbourne.
Saw Don Keller meandering through the security holding pen and asked whatinhell he was doing there. Retouching photos of Joan, he said. Met up with several members of Janet Reno Fan Club afterwards and Allison, who does film and video in SARS-ridden TO, said she shot a video of Joan O and her weight (and hiding same) was a huge issue. So I imagine Don was PhotoShopping pounds off.
Ended up at Americanarama at Mohawk Place, and dove into a long conversation about the Middling City's way-illustrious alternative musical past when The Pipe Dragon was operating full steam ahead on Ellicott Street. Impressed Mohawk by showing him my Pipe Dragon membership card (#0082) which I always carry. We wondered where David Baker is now - founder of the first incarnation of Mercury Rev and my former roomie and darkroom partner. The man, I divulged, was hopelessly addicted to Alf.
Rockstars, a mystery a minute.
Onwards.

I have spent way way too much time on the phone today with p.r. types, setting about getting my photo credentials squared away for the future to make all the photo magic happen. The behind-the-scenes crap that makes people's eyes glaze over quicker than you can say public relations nonsense.
But, at the risk of glaze, here's a super-primo example of the types of malarkey phonecalls I field from biased interested parties:
Ummm, hi, NAN-SEEEEEE, this is (X) I'm so excited (first tip-off that the b.s. will be flying shortly) about this opportunity and I KNOW (yikes, presumptions make my skin absolutely crawl) that you'll be excited about this opportunity.
(more details, more details)
Thee Jared, the guy who lost 245 pounds eating Subway sandwiches, is coming to town and... he's very structured... and I can get you an interview with him.
I had to get an okay with him first and then call you, so the time is 8:45AM on the 26th and you can have a few minutes with him and I know that you love people and what makes them tick and this is such a great human interest story... he's really such a motivated man.
(incredulity had, of course, set in a while back, but, summoning all of my diplomatic molecules forth I said)
Well, thanks for thinking of me and it is a great story but I'm not interested in it for my column.
(secret thought: Guess what Media Lady? Everybody in this fair land, even those that barely know what television is, knows the story of Jared, carbon dated now at about five years - call me when Johnny Depp rolls into town and I'll meet his jet/plane/bus/limo at any ol' hour, thanks and buh-bye!)
Love.

Off to the race! The big race when all sorts of corporate and office types gather under tents, do some stretches and then hit the roadways of the Middling City = Chase Corporate Challenge. Tent shots of university types then the quick trot to the viaduct for the overall of the throngs, running in thongs.
Then downtown to witness the Patio Lantern Magick of Kim Mitchell.
This morn I, and Marky Sparky of AV and Donny of Clear Channel (rulers! of the musical! world!) selected 30 Middling City bands to hit three stages, in stages, during the ARTVOICE Street Fest to happen on a Sunday in June. The ebbs, the flows, the avoidable genre conflicts - we discussed, we listened to cd's, we nearly threw cd's against the walls, we selected.
Now Marky S sends out letters of rejection and calls to say OUI OUI, we want you.
Running to shoot runners.
I dream of running often.

Spandex, spandex, spandex as far as the eye can see - that's what I expect at tomorrow's Kim Mitchell concert at Thursday at the Square. Lots of that miracle fibre as well as motorcycles... and mullets.
Got the final big okay to shoot Dixie Chicks from Lanie, their p.r. person - one song, song #3 only, from the soundboard as rumor had it. The opener is Joan Osborne, the woman who big fame has eluded.
Ron emailed me this morning to comment upon my Metallica purchase yesterday, he was incredulous that my metallic side wanted THAT and not Bucket Head. Perhaps I shouldn't mention right here that I'm right now listening to White Zombie, to avoid another torrent of musical opining from down south, where Ron lives.
Ron, btw, wrote to me recently that he may have an op to run a grappa farm. To my thinking that'd be like someone coming up to me and stating Nance, we'd like you to run the Oban plant.
At that time I wrote to Ron and shared one of my fav grappa tales, about having some of that and much later in the evening being awakened by a security man whilst I snoozed, all dressed up in finery, on a bench in Toronto, unable to awaken my pal/grappa sharer.
The end.
For now.

Suddenly the grande black coffee togo cup is empty and life doesn't seem quite so Perfect any longer.
Well, the knowledge that I now own not only the supersonic new iPod (external harddrive! music storage! car-adaptable portable songs!) as well as the new Radiohead makes everything sweetened with a golden glow of consumer happiness, audiophile bliss.
Missed the midnight Radiohead sale at New World Record where they gave out 7-inchers until they ran out. Was there this AM and bought a limited edition version with lyrics and the nice boy gave me the cover art, vinyl sized placard.
But, strangely, when I arrived at the counter I first said this:
The new Metallica, pul-leez. (as I had glanced down and seen the new Metallica)
Oh, the boy said, it's right here, moving one from my left shoulder to the cash register.
See, I was working on auto-pilot. My inner Metallica fan (and if you are a true epinw sport you know I'm one) and thrashing self was bursting onto the scene.
You own enough smarty-pants rock, it whined, you need some head-bangerific music, too.
Complied.
Rock steady.

Pertinent shoe information, lite enough for a Monday:
Despite the swearing that I'd never own a pair of trashy Candie's after the rather unfortunate ownership of a certain pair of 80s-era Candie's (tan "suede" mules with the plastic or whatever the fuck that material was) worn on the nightmarish date with John Meegan, bro of Amy Meegan, a high school pal, to the now defunct Aud Club of Memorial Auditorium. Somewhere in the family archives is horrid, hard photographic evidence:
Me: taller than John Meegan, winged hair, some sort of polyester separates including a-line skirt, Candie's.
Him: tan (not khaki, khaki was not invented yet) suit, no tie, openwide collar and brown clogs on his feet.
Background: a trellis festooned with fake flowers.
So, minding my own business, I'm shoe shopping accidentally when I spot some four inchers of wood, top stitched black leather and so I gave them the clomp test, clomping about the store in them before shouting out to nobody especially YES.
Candie's. Slutty Candie's. Candie's that have you strutting Candie's. Candie's reclaiming your unfortunate shoe past back in the dark ages of high school Candie's.
Shoe love. Ah yes, shoe love.

Pertinent shoe information, lite enough for a Monday:
Despite the swearing that I'd never own a pair of trashy Candie's after the rather unfortunate ownership of a certain pair of 80s-era Candie's (tan "suede" mules with the plastic or whatever the fuck that material was) worn on the nightmarish date with John Meegan, bro of Amy Meegan, a high school pal, to the now defunct Aud Club of Memorial Auditorium. Somewhere in the family archives is horrid, hard photographic evidence:
Me: taller than John Meegan, winged hair, some sort of polyester separates including a-line skirt, Candie's.
Him: tan (not khaki, khaki was not invented yet) suit, no tie, openwide collar and brown clogs on his feet.
Background: a trellis festooned with fake flowers.
So, minding my own business, I'm shoe shopping accidentally when I spot some four inchers of wood, top stitched black leather and so I gave them the clomp test, clomping about the store in them before shouting out to nobody especially YES.
Candie's. Slutty Candie's. Candie's that have you strutting Candie's. Candie's reclaiming your unfortunate shoe past back in the dark ages of high school Candie's.
Shoe love. Ah yes, shoe love.

Dashboard Confessional was a stop along the way tonight, as I speedblog. I noted the shifty eyes of Chris C, the man behind DC, the man who bit the logo of ACDC, the man, who if he had a memory seizure could safely say The crowd'll take over. He was too aware of my photographic presence in the pit, glancing down when he should have been glancing out at the sea of adoring and screaming teens. There were tears shed out of young eyes when they were not glancing through their FunSavers.
A later stop was the annual Red Cross charity MASH Bash where people cavort under really musty army surplus tents trying to look like MASH extras. Some pull off Hot Lips or Father Mulcahy fairly well.
I shot a couple in naval attire (her) and scrubs (him). I made four frames of them and moved on. The "doctor" came and tapped me on the shoulder: I hate to be a pain but she wonders if you'll come back and shoot another picture of us, she wants to do something with her leg.
As I knew one of the threesome I was then shooting I tipped her off: Something interesting is going to happen with this woman's leg, you may want to watch.
I walked over. The naval girl basically did a split on her beau, revealing all sorts of Victoria's Secret wares.
Of course suitable for publication, what do you think, I shoot for Highlights?
Disco was pumping through the musty tent and as I was leaving two girls were passing out on a curb outside the tent and one said to the other, roused out of her stupor:
Uhhhh, the BeeGees, not the BeeGees.
And I slipped off into the darkness, a ghost done with her soul-stealing for the time bean.
Love.

Firstly, how in blazes did Molly Hatchet's 'Kingdom of XII' end up within my illustrious cd collection?
Riddle me that.
Next on the agenda is this: why do not all artists have the same cavorting vibe about them that Yours Truly does? Namely, why did the artist who created the handpainted toilet (yes, I wrote toilet just then) NOT have a sense of humour about me sitting on his creation during the Take a Seat/chair benefit for the Middling City's beloved Studio Arena Theatre this evening? (Sidebar: I had a framed black & white print of one of my twinny models seated next to a furious fire, flowers in hand, for my contrib.) I handed my camera to my sister and said thusly: It's all set... get me quick. I went over, sat down on it (the art privey) with a straining look upon my (artistic/interactive) face.
The artist ran over muttering something, something about his 'Chair.'
Yeah, that and a packa smokes at a party'll get you a bunch of new acquaintances.
So during the tent party portion of this theatre benefit someone had the genius idea of hiring a really minimally-talented ROCK band in leather trousers to entertain the illuminati where a jazz quartet would have done the trick. Not only was I developing scenarios of how a certain office girl, I dubbed her MaryJo, would get canned early tomorrow AM for hiring Dirty Murphy (Ummm, MaryJo, could you please see me in my office in five minutes), but this band had a wireless mic and much later in the evening than the beginning the coiffed lead singer strolled about the tent as if this was his private karaoke time. He came up to me. I didn't know the (I think) ACDC cover that they were "performing." I started singing Yeah, Yeah, yeah, YEAH to the beat of the music and the lead singer looked at me as horrified as the toilet artist had and scurried away from me.
Oh well, we all have our strengths/talents.
Onwards to what the fuck I believe I'm good at.
Blogging, drinking coffee, making sublime images, conversing, shoe shopping and the like.
Off I speed to remedial rock audience participation classes.
My love.

Last night shooting ended with former Hüsker Du drummer Grant Hart warbling away on a guitar, his post-junkied teeth somehow still hanging on for dear life. His theme was scars (misunderstood by a Middling City listener as SARS) and at intervals he invited audience members to come up and share a scar to request a song. I was excited to show off one of several, attached to interesting stories, and had decided upon the deep right shin scar I got while shooting KMFDM and falling on a broken bottle and, standing on a barstool for a better angle, glanced down at the same time the sound guy stage right did and discovered I had bled all over my beloved soft doc marten boots acquired in Portland ME. A pool of blood, a piece of glass in my leg. I finished shooting (of freakin' course) and went to the front door where they took a shitty old tshirt and made a tourniquet of sorts. Well, I was going to share this story but by the time it could have been my turn I decided that I found Grant Hart supremely tedious. Enough, I said, and strolled back to discuss matters with others who had drifted away. The Neighbors, palsamine, sounded really great last night. Grant Hart might learn a thing or two about peppiness and delivery (and oral hygiene!) from these four.
Philip Glass's night in the spotlight actually rocked and I'm thinking of acquiring the piece performed last night, Symphony No. 3. Followed by a Q&A with PG seated front and center inviting any type of questions but that he'd probably do best answering music questions. Hardy Har, guess the comic twinge is in the Glass genes. For those of you not in the cognosenti, PG is Ira Glass's (swoooooon) uncle.
I am floating in writerly hell. Is my story too late? Will my editrix pal ever contact me? Will writing ever be an easy feat? Am I dyslexic? Am I a prognosticator? Am I a protagonist? A procrastinator? A pro-choicer?
Don't know (4x), Yes (4x).

So much Perfect News:
Just assigned seconds ago (ah! the life of a freeform freelancer) a shoot of the Philip Glass extravaganza at Middling City U tonight. They're banking on him standing up and making some sort of remarks at some point and that's not very definite so a-wingin-it I will be. If he's not onstage by, oh, 9PM, I'll hunt him down and get him backstage, lying on a divan surrounded by groupies and whatever.
Speaking of groupies spent most of Friday with The Nephew at Edgefest X at the local baseball venue, a somewhat sunny mediocre rock event. Highlight: Powerman 5000. The Nephew became Chief Little Autograph Hound backstage, politely asking playas for their autographs on his brand new SoCo bandanna. He kept wearing the bandanna high up to a point on his head, frighteningly resembling a much younger and healthier Pope. I showed him how to bestow a Papal Blessing and he gave such to several rockstars which they found charming. I had to give him Backstage Pointer #1: Don't Point and Backstage Pointer #2: Act always like you belong.
Yesterday shot an art party at an inner-city pro bono art school and there was, in a second floor art classroom, a girl holding an infant and two boys. The baby was crying. I glanced at it and thought Yikes, birth defecto... don't stare. The cry was odd. I looked more closely to discover it was a doll, one of those Baby, Don't Get Yourself Knocked and Cracked Up dolls that kids check out for a weekend and have to haul about for a weekend and a narc-like computer chip tells if this doll was left crying for long, shaken, etc.
I tried holding it and fed it its bottle. Then I looked at the kid: Do I have to burp her (its name was Jada, she said) now? I did. A few minutes of whoomping later there was sort of a breathing sound. She's done, the kid said.
Dixie Chicks management is being so obnoxious that I'm tempted to write back to their contact bitch and say You know what? I don't give a flying fuck about this show and these ladies need good publicity like mad so buzz off (or something to that effect). Four photogs only can shoot, one song only (#3), must shoot from soundboard (half a mile away), and the license and clearance agreement read like a messy pre-nup.
All in a few day's work and it's onwards for me... to caffeine, to deadlines, to images, to it all.
Love.

Suddenly readdicted to Amnesiac, Radiohead v2001 and nearly, now that I remember (this resurfacing and churned like the crockpot of chunky memory in me) it, peeing my pants thinking how there's a new Radiohead - a NEW RADIOHEAD - on the horizon.
As I write this I wonder if my editrix, my old dear friend Liz, might be reading this. Might she be gnashing her teeth with seether hate for me as I've been posessed by deadline anti-demons and have wondered where my story is much like she might be. It was derailed by her, actually, it was to be handed in two months ago. And then. And then. Tapes and notes move on their own. They shall be found, tamed, is it too late? There really is a writer down inside me, one that hates Photo Nancy for having too much the say. Then poor poet Nancy.
OK, here's a story: (omitting some details as it's not too on the import)
I am meeting some new people at a swankadelic joint when suddenly a broker of some sort introduces me proudly to a femme who's a matchmaker. She is not apparently married and I thought she resembled a psychic or aerobics instructor more than a matchmaker. But wait, I've never met a matchmaker.
Onwards. So we three now are talking when suddenly she blurts OHMYGOD she's perfect (that would be Yours Truly) for Jordan, turning to get Jordan's attention to meet me. (my cue to turn opposite direction and walk like my life depended upon the speed at which I propelled myself)
As I'm walking away the matchmaker I can hear is describing me to Jordan thusly:
Wide-eyed, virginal and WASPy.
If any of you smart, savvy, ironic and quip-filled epinw readers fucking know I'm just so not any of the above.
All.
Adjectives of unrequited Love.

Filed under Strange Things I've Seen Lately:
As credits rolled for the mediocre Laurel Canyon (yet Frances was luminous as the rock impressario/mom) and I sat to see who sang a certain song on the soundtrack a bottle clattered. The unmistakable sound of a bottle of booze hitting a hard cinematic floor. Looking behindways there was a man with what could only be called an impish grin reaching down to retrieve his bottle. As I was leaving the theatre with a pal there was the impish grinner, in the men's room, posing and making muscles for himself in the mirror. We caught glances. He was not embarassed.
My friend V made me a copy of his dark techno cd. This is what he does farting around in his Toronto suburb basement, his subterranean sonic world. And this cd rocks, would be a hit in the clubs.
Yesterday shot the all-day Kiss My Ass Hello Concert... Kiss the Summer Hello Concert to all others.
The day's highpoint by far was the crotch-grabby, swaggering and sexy set by LL Cool J, which I watched with The Nephew. This is the only act the child wanted to watch and I give him mad props for that... he eschewed all the nouveau R&B dance crap for this old school wonderment. Rock on Jake.
Now it's back to deadline hell.
Yet in hell I am ever full of imagistic Love.

Well, as the hotsauce bottle says, slap my ass and call me Sally.
It's finally time to go and see the band Anal Pudding, an event I've been putting off and putting off for some time, ever since that boy asked me to see them and I won an Academy Award for maintaining unresponsiveness when I wanted to spit laughter into his face.
Shot Robbie Goo Friday in the midst of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery show that he narrated with Johnny (audiotour). The pr nerds promised his appearance and I saw shitloads of Monets (actually there are several 19th Century surprises and I Perfectly Nancy rec the show), roast beef sandwiches... and no Robbie. Lo and behold and finally spotted him at the back of the sculpture court and went up to him and exchanged rock-worthy hugs and kisses. Posed him on a bench with feet up looking very comfy indeed and later emailed a few jpegs of same to People Online to see if they're interested.
Tomorrow is all-day fest, the first of season, at Darien Lake, and I'll be there with bells and nephew on. Planning on a spin on a few rides until time to shoot bands or I feel like barfing - whichever comes first.
But understanding that my inner ears have never been that stable, and I've been known to nearly fall over from standing still from time to time, I am betting my own hard-earned cash on the latter.
My perfect, undying, unsettled and unsettling love.

O Mighty Rock & Roll Power in the Universe/god please let my head soon feel it's part of my body and I'll never ask for another favour as long as I live.
(Yesterday's prayer after two meetings, a brunch date and six somewhat accidental gallons of coffee)

Met up later yesterday with a former lover and his wife of several years, also a friend. This would be the wealty technocrat who once said We can't get married, we're too much alike. To which I concurred and said Could you imagine the two of us trying to hang our art collection in the house - YIKES.
So we had dinner, some laughs and I sped off to shoot that twerpy Avril Lavigne and me and the Boy Collegues had to wait a good near hour and in the interim was much jostling about.
Dave puffing on his soggy cigar, wee baby shooter Marc (a mere 16! I said to him at Fleetwood Mac Jeeez, I thought you were from Rochester... and 21!), Lead Boy Colleague (in sandals. ?), Gary (who we now all refer to as PhotoGar (as in his AOL address), Charlie (ever-smiley), Ryan (who Lead Boy Colleague called to say Ummmm, you have a photo pass here and then he made it in 20 minutes flat... sans film so a-borrowin' he had to go), Pete and a few other occasionals. Two songs and we were out. Jesse from the venue offered us (as well as the tv guys) wristbands to stay and watch the show on the floor. His wristband offer was met with a deafening silence. Then one tv guy said Well, can I take it and use it for another show? Our collective thoughts exactly.
Inside the gig I turned to Charlie and said Look at this sea of little white faces. He added Little white girl faces. I dig looking at the signs that the girlies make spouting from their hearts their burgeoning rock and roll love.
These signs always feature bubble letters and sparkles.
Question: Can their be girlhoods without sparkles?
Answer: Was it a shock to you that the ol' Poopie Pope had Parkinson's, the affliction of my beloved Janet Reno?
Signs of love, sprinkled with sparkly farty effusions.

One word springs to mind when I think of last evening's Fleetwood Mac show:
t - h - o - r - a - z - i - n - e,
or whatever the hell it was that one of my former neighbors on Putnam Street (my special name for him = Hosey for the pantyhose he wore on his head, rather, a part of the hose on his head, sometimes - no lie! - with the cotton crotch floating on the back of his head as he made his way to and fro to and fro from his halfway home two doors down to the small mom and pop bodega where he walked back walked back walked back with a few candy bars balanced atop a can of Pepsi.) took every day.
Stevie Nicks displayed such anti-Stevie Nicks edgy freaky earth bitch energy and I noted, through Lead Boy Colleague's big ol' lens, that she was not even making the connection between her manicured hand and the tambourine. A ruse.
The others were doing their jobs. The crowd glass was half-full.
I had more fun and witnessed more stagely enthusiasm later at Mohawk Place watching banjo masters and folk soloists with Doug.
And, unlike Fleetwood Mac, those musicians did not make the press stand about half a mile away to shoot their likenesses, to steal their souls.
Off for more more more.

Thee only bad thing about last evening's Steve Earle gig was his lame-o attempt at a combover. Shouldn't such a perfectionist with off-stage guitar tech with a Kentucky Waterfall to beat the band (a mullet to those of you in the Middling City), exemplary songwriting and just the proper mix of balladry and intersong political banter be able to swoop the last remnant of headtop hair in a better way? Just a thought. Trying to lure one of my boy colleagues, Marky, into the Earle fold, as he's missing something I know he'll be digging.
Approached stage from the left side and, as I made proper media ok's previously, attempted to take my spot in the mini-pit, next to the other guitarist's guitar tech (and I've never seen one work this hard, in addition to non-stop tuning of about 10 he slargled a Rolling Rock, smoked, jumped onstage to play guitar and for one song, a synthesizer), when I was stopped by a ball of security flesh.
Badass: Where do you think YOU are going?
Me: Over there (pointing at Steve Earle's beat-to-crap cowboy boots)
Badass: No, YOU are NOT.
Me: Well, the promoter said it was ok.
Badass: Well, he's right over here and I'll ask him.
Me: (internally) you do that, fattie.
Badass: Go right ahead.
So about half an hour into the show I ask him
Me: So what should I call you besides Badass?
Badass: Excuse me?
Me: WHAT SHOULD I CALL YOU BESIDES BADASS?
Badass: I'm a Dynamic Bouncing Technician. Nick.
(joy! at ever discovering hidden comic talent)
So it turns out this Nick/Badass is not only a security guy but a Harley tech, a body tech (masseur) as well as a former Teamster and pipe-fitter. I find him fascinating.
On the other side of me was a goofball Canadian (no Kentucky Waterfall/Hockey Hair) who holds blues concerts in his living room in Barrie, Ontario.
For someone who claims the role of promoter he didn't know a thang about shows.
He had that wide-eyed Canadian charm, that interesing sonic attack of all things vowel (and, as always, apologies to dear Canadian pal Georgie-san) but he didn't understand via my body language that at some point I was no longer interested in explaining the Middling City music scene to him when Steve Earle was in the room - and that, given a choice, I'd rather speak to a squat polymath who could fix my body, sweat my pipes and repair my Harley, should I ever acquire one in a foolish midlife purchasing frenzy.
Love.

Sort of an Ani swagger parade is how I'd describe the Ani cd just left in my possession by Lead Boy Colleague. Guess I paid scarce attention to the release of Evolve and I'm digging the moth illustration on the cover. Jazzy. Onwards.
Best music news of late is the appearance tomorrow night of Steve Earle. His sister Stacey has hunkered down on Middling City stages here and there and now it's time for the best Earle of all. A blow your head off and switchblade yer heart extravaganza to be sure.
Next night, that'd be Thursday to yous not always working within linear timetables, is Fleetwood Mac and I'm feeling fairly sure that that'll not be as adrenalizing as Earle, or their last MC gig when that whole hoopla surrounded them when they drug their collective asses out of near-obscurity to hit the highway. All, really, thanks to past prez Bill Clinton and his inaugural Don't Stop...
My new school, New School U's Parsons School O'Design, is so discombobulated as they've lost and resent a few forms which is a real head-scratcher.
I tell you what:
yesterday had to break into my residence not once but freakin' TWICE. Doorknob lock went all kaflooey and dragged a ladder to the back of the house, broke a second floor window, set off home alarm (never thinking to unalarm) and then jimmyed (when the hell do you get to use this excellent verb?) the door off its hinges while bleeding up and down the wall out of a finger. Very evenly spaced and I've already pointed this out to four, I think unimpressed, others. So also while I'm bleeding and jimmying I'm on the phone with a man from Total Safety:
Me: what do you mean you can't find me in your computers? I pay my bills to you every month.
Him: I'm sorry but I don't see you... can you get to your keypad? It's rather difficult to hear you.
Me: BECAUSE MY ALARM IS GOING OFF. I guess you can't help me, GOODBYE.
About an hour later, after the cops came and went, I realized that I have Brinks, not Total Safety.
So same thing happened - unbelievably! - three hours later after I thought I fixed the prob. Turned alarm off, no cops, no jimmying. New doorknob.
All's swell that ends swell.

Yesterday, whilst reading a cookbook as I sat in my car and figuring out my paella strategy for today, I inadvertently, upon the passenger side, let loose my car keys. After shooting a wedding in a small town, and then trying to get into the car, I realized the tragic turn of luck. Hitched a ride with wedding people to a country club, hobnobbing with their bitchy limo driver the entire way. He was driving a near-classic limo like a yacht.
Him: This family never tips me, I drive the aunts around, the mother of the groom around, and they are all loaded. No tips, I'm like a waitress, I work for minimum wage. GRRRR, etc.
Me: (thinking) get a-no-th-er j.o.b.
So I'm grabbing his big subliminal hint that for helping me I should grease his craggly palm. I did - for the rides to & fro and for hanging onto my cell phone as I shot more wedding moments, alerting my photographic self when AAA was en route. More kvetching from Mr. Limo. We arrived at my car and the guy in the towtruck said Your car doors are already open. Handed tip to Mr. Cranky. Had a stress smoke on way back to club. Accidentally melted a grand and gaping hole into an article of clothing in the back seat - glad the little ember didn't hit the old newspapers archived vehicularly. Imagine someone making an announcement during the wedding reception thusly:
Would the asshole who parked right next to the building please rush out to your vehicle, it's engulfed in flames!
Conflagration follows me.
As do high rockstar times and minor misdemeanors.

They found one! They found one!
Listening to NPR learnt that those wily rascals in Iraq located one of those trucks-cum-chem-labs that Colin Powell lectured about a while back to the UN, who didn't buy his tale for one second.
Haven't heard back yet from my French family, who I assured that I (and all my friends and acquaintances, as far as I know) completely agree with their princely prez.
Countdown to studenthood and this is your mission: please send me some cash (what you can muster), some pink pearl erasers, some ear plugs, some cd's of your choosing and other sundry office supplies. As well as giftcards to Starbucks. As Jason so wisely observed, NYC (believe this or not) is short on mom-n-pop coffee joints so it's Starbucks... not a bad thing. It was whilst sitting in a lower Man. *BX (a stone's toss from Ground Z) that I am, I think, addicted to the bean. Could be worse. I was waiting for Jason and Dorota to unsubmerge from Century 21 with bargoons galore as I sipped and sipped.
On the hi-fi is Flaming Lips' excellent cover of Shakira's Can't Get You Out of My Head = sublime.
Your homework assignment: purchase the Lips' ep Fight Test.
Over and out and over and over.
Love of springtime flailing prehistoric millipedes who offer up domestic *surprise*.

Pearl Jam Friday night so captured my imagination (post-soul stealing of them by Yours Truly) that I was inspired to purchase their hi-end 100% polyester soccer jersey-style concert t with large embroidered P and J on either side of a lightning bolt = BOSS.
They dedicated Given to Fly to Vinnie Gallo.
Last night's Dave Davies (puffy, badly dressed) gig left me feeling Am I missing something here? Approached the exit and saw two cronies who had the similar feeling - one of them felt like she was seeing a former superstar on a county fair stage.