Missed their Friday night gig at the Middling City's famed Nietzsche's but got to see them, the men of Vinnie Barbarino Experience, at yesterday's rock and roll wedding at the landmark downtown = Shea's.
During their soundcheck I was most disappointed to not see oversized 'fros and Timmo's lime green suit. When they truly began, after the dinner/pre-first dance there they were, all gussied up. They were a little decibled for the wedding majority but many danced to their set list of wedding clichés.
Shea's is now redubbed The Wonder Theatre.
Read a wall plaque about its founder, Mr. Shea, who was raised in my post-industrial and hardscrabble neck of the MC woods. Somehow he turned his OFW and iron worker smarts into theatre love and building and such. I imagine that his ol' OFW pals must have hid in bushes and beat the pansy-assed crap out of him for giving up roughnecking for velvet seats. But this is just a working theory.
So, for the wedding, contrary to what I discussed with my Boy Colleague Advisor, busted out the new rig and experienced the sometime joy that we photogs experience when working a perfect new, full-throttle machine.
As the BCA says, It's sick.
The pastor at the wedding looked like he could have been a brother of David Byrne - same height, same black limpid eye pools. He introduced himself as Pastor Mike. Pastor Mike was a bit intense, he was very pleasant and pseudo-easy-going until I asked The Position Question. How will they be standing, where will you be standing, Pastor Mike. And then explained to him that, according to my calculations I'd like to be standing behind him. Pastor Mike's face changed. I've seen this Man of Cloth Facial Change before and I am ready, armed with cool reason and an internal version of Paint Melt Stare.
You know, Nancy, weddings are sacred . . .
(thought bubble *are you fucking kidding me, get over your self Pastor Mike*)
. . .
Shot from behind him and he never knew a thing.
Later, during the eat time, he wandered over towards me and this would be the point where he'd sidle and complain, post-act. But instead he surprised me whilst drinking a diet cola.
You look so alone over here.
(*shudder*)
Just taking a bit of a break, Pastor Mike.
Onwards.
Time to head to the suburbs for back-to-back gigs and then more more more.

Back-to-back love.

What is now:
Perfect Yours Truly nestled into her favoured wi-fi hotspot at JFK, after a day of school and a plunge into the big-boy world of super duper mega supra pixels. And, as is his wont, heard from Spending Guru as I was trekking the final last long block towards B&H - post JR meet-up. I said to him Do you realize that since I've known you there was only one time I went to B&H without getting a call from you. It's a serendipitous tradition if ever there could be one.
Special thought:
I truly believe everyone, and I do mean every one of You, should have as the first song selection on your iTunes, should you have iTunes, be Bad Co's Good Lovin' Gone Bad for I can think of no better song to begin laptop projects, work and art.
Speaking of art, I've been accepted into two groups - a discussion group for vlogs and a group of artists who make the same. More groups and I am so not a grouper.
Glancing up at the pair of JetBlue-approved monitors I see ESPN is broadcasting footage of athletes attacking photogs of all genres - on the right a live shot of a pickup truck on a so-called rampage, driving à la OJ down some highway. I find the footage on the left disturbing, as I feel it's shown as comedic sidebar, another slap at the trade and the rights of any journalist shooting a celeb in a public place.
Time to further investigate and delve into vlog world as I'm at JFK with an extra 25 minutes of wait time.

Love Waits for No One.

Special blogpost for patchouli oil wearers who ride airplanes.
(I think You can see where this is heading.)
Airplanes are small capsules (petri dishes of sorts) with repumped air. Twist open the overhead vent device over your seat and all that is whizzing out is more of the same repumped matter. Add your patchouli oil to the mix and you have one big hippie olfactory luvv fest, unasked for by your fellow travelers. You love that shit, 99.9% of the rest of the planet does not.
Spare us, slather yourself upon arrival, share this woody scent with your familiars.
Thanks for your attention in this matter.
Sitting in a borrowed studio waiting the arrival, the studio visit, of Anthony, my former advisor here at Parsons. To show him what's what with the digvids.
Sparing You the concurrent commentary track, in a gesture of diplomacy, restraint and such.
Such love.

+ +
This just in:
Always needing a side project of sorts made an executive decision at roughly 3PM this very day to create a vlog, the video twin of epinw, if you catch my geeked-out drift.
I should link it from epinw but let us see what in hell is premierly entailed in streaming &c and then, secondly, how in hell it looks.
Middling City happy vibes amassed evaporated with each passing Parsons minute forging onwards, only six school weeks to go.

With a slightly-failed and collaborative mehendi up my right leg I blog.
The Artvoice Street Fest was fun, breezed in with Kennedy to see Medeski Martin and Wood and some pals to boot.
Added bonus was seeing The Ramrods on a much more humble stage near the liberry with Bill Scott, thee Bill Scott, up there doing his charismatic vocals thing. And, as is de rigeur with his frontmanship, there were entanglements of chords, and near spills. All in all a good time.
Hung in Kunji's booth, this is where the slightly-failed and collab mehendi comes in, and decided to give the primitive body-marking process my annual whirl. It began as sort of a floral motif with a long stem. Seeing my hesitation Allen grabbed the squeezey bottle and added my iconic bumble bee, some other items as well as the initials of Yours Truly. He felt this handiwork may have caused the loss of a few potential customers. One teen was getting some symbol, maybe sanskrit, but who the fuck can say for sure if it indeed meant peace or whatever, I showed her my leg and said Don't you want THIS instead, it's number 43. She looked pained, wanting to be polite yet visibly thinking Yikes, no, not that assemblage.
As we left the scene Government Mule was warbling out their Southern Rock into the chasm that is the Middling City's Main Street. And there was a 'subway' sighting.
Always a thrill, it eking past, empty.

Thrills of Love.

Left Cheryl's demi-sunny garden mere moments ago sufficiently caffeinated and such. She is en route with Liz to a rally for Garden Walk. Would Yours Truly invite the general public to meander through my garden, if it were in a less-industrialized neck of the woods. I think not.
May hop into Artvoice's pro bono Middling City showcase street fest a bit later as Medeski Martin and Wood are playing and Kunji and Allen just phoned to see if I'd be stopping by her mehendi boof where she imprints (usually) ladies with time-honoured henna paste leaving behind designs nouveau arte and whimsical. I usually mehendi myself at her stand, squeezing out a semi artful blob that lasts for about a week. Speaking of body markings shot a bike race yesterday and spotted a guy with a hideous photo-realist tattoo of what I assumed was his beloved and departed german shepherd, regaling most of his shoulder.
The Middling City feels more humid than the Shiney Apple and I am enjoying the space of it all until mid-week when I jet back to school for a few seminars - will be showing and telling new work on Wednesday to the shrink et al.
Seedlings replanted at Kennedy's warble out of the ground, and mine own is jam-packed with the regular perennials and Extra excitedly tells me how happy he is that the cat mint proliferates. At least twice during the summer I spot him lolling amonst its fragrant leaves, getting all wacked out and when he notes I'm watching his debauchery he stares in wide-eyed panic and splits.
Time to water the cat mint et al.

Minty fresh love.

Beth Dearest and Yours Truly this early afternoon did the girlie version of playin' the nines, and this is an exciting brand new conceptual development spun out whilst waiting once again in the concrete luvv of (no, not the Guggenheim... but close) JFK airport. Playin' the nines, girlie stylee, means tossin' out the angst con brio, then there's a counter toss, and so on and so forth until you've walked several long city blocks, whipping each other into a frenzy of purge, anxiety building to fever heat and then
*P O O O F *
it goes away. Usually. Nines over. Misery quelled, time to move on to fuckin', much-deserved FUN.
Armed as usual with anti-fellow-traveler devices: earplugs, iTunes, laptop, mags, liquids, and, most important, a don't-fuck-with-me-NO-don't-even-look-at-me aura. No, scratch that, it's more the aura of ignoration, ignoring fellow travellers. High on pet peeve list: those who apparently haven't travelled in the last half decade, astonished that they must show picture id, take shoes off, de-jacket, etc. Those who (come to think of it, just like tourists on Broadway in SoHo) move in slo-mo to come to halts for no apparent reason. Time to plane.

Plane ol' Love.

This just in:
JFK is playing REM's At My Most Beautiful over the creaky p.a. - heard in this joint before and still a surprising choice for sonic vibe control.
Sonic Vibe Control, one more amazing band name by YT.
This also just in:
Liz tells me that epinw is linked from her own blog and I'll be dang-blamed, it is like so true.

So, here's what the shrink had to say about the work of Yours Truly. After my illuminating and oso brief description of what It is (moments of people moving through art spaces as well as of industrial spaces).
He said, and I paraphrase:
Well, I see the connection, industrial spaces are oftentimes transformed into art spaces so there is a parallel. He (Mark, the Brit) went on with such beautiful clarity I made mental notes all over the place as there he was spouting forth a grand thesis statement, a raison d'etre et art if You will.
At some point Mark was speaking of the mango. The mango. I wrote this down. Now, after decades of shooting and witnessing great rock moments I sometimes mis-hear the world. So, the mango. It was after some careful calculations that I determined it was not a mango he was speaking of but a main goal.
Voi-freakin-là.
After class Beth and I meandered in an out of three bookstores, including The Strand where David Sedaris was to read from his newest book. We did not stay as I've seen his schtick before and there were more books to find in other places.
Time to return the XL1 to Parsons School of Destinations and then witness great moments in art past before meeting with Mark the Shrink again for more elucidations.

Lucid Love.

Dorota just made her patented jet fuel and soon it will be time to ka-zing out of the loft and drift through the streets before our class meets collectively with a - dig this - shrink. I like telling people that Parsons has supplied us with a shrink for it sounds like so new age yet parental and proactively imbued in quirk.
Last night, whilst waiting for Justin at the usual designated meeting joint, Sweet and Vicious, met a guy named Peter who was waiting for approx fifty to be showing for a bon voyage celebration. We talked over the din of a table of guys getting redder in faces celebrating a b-day. He intrigued greatly as he runs a super-swingin' p.r. firm and I'm sitting there with all my fab skill of write thinking Buddy, you have NO idea that you're sitting next to your next copy writer. Yet.
Just checked out his website and it's rather subdued, not very flash.
The evening evolved into a spot in Brooklyn named Floyd. As in Pink. But not.
Saw all the gang and it was a treat.
Time to wend, not to spend, to learn and be learned.
Missing Kennedy greatly.

Missing Love.

One productive meeting with JR down, one thesis show to go.
Just did a show + tell for about 1.5 hours, showing Jim all the new things - the highs, the lows, the dodgey experiments, the curios, the cinematic triumphs. And for the triomphes cinématiques a rare epinw exclamation point. !
Dropping major baggage (literally, not figuratively) at loft before wending my way uptown to get inspired. Read: look.
After a while I will socialize with schoolies and others on the A list.

A listed Love.

Today's theme: readjustment.
Changed JetBlue itineraries for rest of the ultimate semester resulting in no rising + attempting to shine at 4AM each bookish Monday to catch the 6 (not green line, as in subway, but actual hardcore 6AM flight out of the Middling City) en route to Parsons School of Non-Details. Learned, amongst other things today, that school starts at noon on Mondays, not a minute earlier. 12 - 9 = 3 hours to wend way from JFK to PSD.
More readjustment.
Shiney Apple sleeping destination was changed from sublet situation in the easterly twenties back to the beloved and familiar SoHo - i.e. Loft of Dorota et al. I am here now, wondering if I can muster up any more energy to do a bit more digvid tweaking. I think not. There is always tomorrow, with tomorrow's fresh eyes, tomorrow's turbo-powered café (heading straight to Ceçi-celà when the sun rears its drastic summer head), tomorrow's revamped badassness, tomorrow's free day status following meet-up with Mentor JR.
As I told a schoolmate in the elevator today Art is not a life or death situation - art is supposed to be fun, fercrissakes. Put that on your wisdom-rich wall calendar and smoke it.
I remain artful and oso much more.

Oso Love.

Well, one thing to look completely forward to this summer (besides looking at Modern's Friedlander retro) is the pending release of Johnny Depp in the Wonka remake - although he looks very peculiar, thanks to director Tim Burton. Did this movie need to be remade. I think not.
So Anita West is on 97 Rock blathering about the new release by Ringo Starr and that he looks fantastic. Colour me doubtful, about both.
Finished shooting a weekend of weddings - one in Erie, PA and one out in the exurbs. In Erie I learned some valuable things. Such as small Catholic colleges are not shy about commissioning grand stained glass windows, there's a small vintage smokeshop on State Street and that there's a private club on same called Marinator or some such thing - a place employing snippy bartenders who wish to make photogs drink from plastic cups, which I ixnayed. A real glass, puh-leez. I mean really. Hired helpers dig real glass, too.
Just back from a coffee/love fest with Allen and Kunji - a much-needed jolt of both.
So back to digvid edits, dad's day restaurant foray, more edits, more errands and then jetting off to school. New protractor, new shoes, new semester.
Hello anxiety.

Anxious Love.

Relevant and lighthearted theme du jour/blogposte:
Losing one's way, thematically/artistically/orientationally/intentionally.
Delivered a gig to Hyatt "Regency" in downtown Middling City, after basically missing correct left and heading into setup for the MC's weekly summertime Thursday in the Square and got giant pangs for shooting music and seeing the regulars. That's one way to lose one's way.
Then in the lobby I am waiting for appointment and am looking up at the tinted mirrors and eavesdropping like mad when I essentially walk into NYS Attorney General (no bars, no stars) Eliot Spitzer, who I've photographed before - a sharpie to be sure. That would be the orientational losing of way.
Then I am waiting for appointee and am outside her office and meander over to look at the samples of wedding cakes - different frosting options, before amusing myself by reading the MC News.
Then mere moments ago I open up mail to discover a sizable bill from the day You may recall when Yours Truly was completely and hopelessly LOST on the 407ETR up to the north until aided by a nice and large cop in a sedan - You know, the one who drew directions by drawing a rather long line with the number 407 underneath. The Gee, merci moment of that moment. So the bill for the lost condition of me that day - exiting, re-entering, heading ouest/west then est/east, exiting and re-entering (repeat a few times) totals $62.86. Not even kidding one tiny bit. $62.86. You can bet your OPP that phonecalls will be made, heads will like totally roll up there in Maple Country. Moral of all: do not get lost. Do not lose a way. Any way.
As for the art direction that is another matter, for that You must read and re-read between lines both short, long, longest.

Longest Love.

Ace Heat Manager Yours Truly here sitting amongst all sorts of paraphernalia and dehumidifying regalia to enable working at optimum conditions - sort of like an electronic venti coffee du jour from Starbucks, if you will. As the dehumidifier fills up the papers lie more flat, the computers sigh a sigh of relief, as I do.
Completely lost my last blogpost into cyberwherever last night/this morning and not sure what the hell happened but it basically recapped my experience at Music is Art, Jon and Robbie's music and art and curiosity extravaganza. Wended my way from Deb's home to MIA through sunstung and fried-food-outfitted masses, noting the item of the year at Allentown Art Fest appeared to be a curious copper bowl atop a 4' stick with some sort of glass globe incorporated in the design. I didn't get what it was other than whimsy. Whimsy on a stick. Deb suggested people loved it because it was affordable. Suppose she is right, a far cry from the overpriced, sofa-sized work on view. Kennedy asked for an "art" report and I had very little to report from my short wend: I did proffer up some details about a very hairy and surly-faced man sitting on top of one of those director chairs with extended legs, apparently guarding a display of small watercolors of flowers. Floral whimsy, made by a hairy, angry man.
At MIA saw many of the rock and roll crowd, some from the photo world and paid for a ticket to watch what I anticipated greatly inside the sideshow tent. Nope, not The Enigma, who I've shot to date thrice at Jim Rose Circus Sideshow. Word on the street, alongside the tent, was Enigma's wife was there, Cat Woman, tattooed with a tabby cat pattern over her entire body. From what I saw she was perhaps tattooed over 90% of her plump self, sans boob tattoos. What a pair - puzzled and kittified.
I was there to see the suspension team Jon had told me about and waited impatiently in the hot shade to see a woman with cinched waist and long dreads and three-inch hooks in either shoulder blade pretend to be stabbed, be carabinered and lifted into the air but not before the faux jealous lover (murderer) danced with her à la Last Dance With MaryJane. Wondered nearly aloud - was this crime pretense really necessary. My Perfect answer. Absolutely not. She was pushed to and fro and about ten minutes later I thought Well, now I can say I saw a woman hanging from two 3-inch hooks in her self. Onwards.
Last night dined under the grape chandelier at Chef's with Allen, Kunji, Laura. Saucey high times and then onwards to sip on beers regarding my most favoured view of the grain elevators from the foot of Hamburg Street. My holiday card tree now covered in lush green leaves and tall green grasses blowing nearly horizontal in the Buffalo River breeze. Cops motored by slowly, not bothering to bother us with our open containers, our Yeah Yeah Yeahs emanating from the golden Forester.
Told Laura today had a brief thought of driving solo to Boston today for the 50 Foot Wave (Kristin Hersh) and Pixies gig there but the seats left sucked and really, I do have a shitload of work to get done like right now.

Now like Love.

So here I find myself once again blogging on the blazingly quick machine in the Apple/Geek store/h.q.
Here to aquire external hard drive (that'd be h.d., to the uninitiated) to make more more more digvids - each nanosecond burns up memory like mad. Last night spoke to Beth as she was working hard on her art for today's viewing and explication rite at Parsons School of Disorg. All of a sudden I heard a screeech, a bang, and then she said Oh, Deb's cat just knocked over my art, gotta GO. Felt sad for her, nothing worse than forces of nature working against the ol' creative process. In Canada that would be pro-sess.
Just found another slammin' pair of summer in the city sandals, accidentally, of course.
Described them to Kunji as one part functional, one part girlie - parfait for traipsing about in the Shiney Apple in search of art and high times.
Speaking of such, been in communications with several Shiney Applites to tell them my ETA. And, NB, this is one week after the so-called residency at school. Due to a communication snafu Yours Truly is not there, is working hardly in the Middling City making art, finishing up gigs, weeding, and the like.
Just got email from and replied to Peter Brøtzmann who orders me to stay in touch, which I will certainly do as he's a keeper of magnanimous proportions.
Just also dropped Kennedy at airport as he's off to the Shiney Apple to see PB et al during the VisionFest.
The nice Apple store boy just fetched me my new h.d. - a $400 model holding 500 oodles of pixels and other digital video molecules. A fresh new h.d. for fresh new work.
A fresh new summer, a fresh new pair of gardens, a fresh new semester, and then - and then - a fresh new Master of Fine Arts and Universe degree. Come hell, high water, Oban, and more.

High water love.

Day of dual/duelling fests and heading shortly over to Jon's - the Music is Art affair, paralleled with an art show at Albright-Knocks that I saw yesterday that includes an overview of the work of Mark Freeland, Middling City bon vivant of sorts.
Had an art date with the niece yesterday and whisked her out of her suburban setting and headed to the aforementioned for meaningful meandering and lunch. During a break in lunch action we headed into the courtyard to climb on a fruity tree when Don Warfe appeared to not only tell us to get down but to wash our hands immediately as said tree was coated, apparently, in chems.
Meeting up with a few over in Fest 1 as long as the SPF holds out and thoughts keep involuntarily wavering over to the reality of Shiney Apple Reality heading my way in about a week.

SAR Love.

So there I was, perfectly documenting the race, the Corporate Challenge, for Middling City U in the swelteration and the good people under the tent gave Yours Truly a nice straw cowgirl hat for sunproofing. I asked Laura, who works at MCU, if, with my bitchin' shades I resembled Kid Rock. Her reply was a weak affirmative. Saddled with approximately 30-40 pounds of gear, trekking to the start, course and then finish lines I nearly faded out. Me + Heat = Bad. Memory drifted to the sun stroke I'd had in the Phillipines, when I hallucinated that I saw a man's head where the pig's should have been at a roast one beautiful evening. The daytime found me splashing in the South China Sea, and then hiding in the shade - with SPF a gazillion all the while. Then I nearly passed out in a bathroom but not before spotting one of the planet's largest cockroaches and then was put to bed for a day and a half in the bedroom of the family I stayed with, wealthy enough to have a generator-powered AC situation despite brownouts. And, once I drifted back to non-dream land, the fever dreamscape, I discovered the Qu'ran on her bedside table and read much of it. She, a Muslim, despite the sweltering Catholicism of the island Luzon, and the family she was in. Like many of the rooms of the wealthiest Filipinos, the walls were mahogany, restive mahogany left to its primal coloration, like the walls now of the room where I dream at the edge of the Middling City. Time for volunteer biz, to help Jon et al set up for Music Is Art Fest at the edge of Allentown's own, history-saddled fest.

Edgey Love.

So apparently, whilst attempting a way-rad stunt of sort, nephew careened off his bike and shattered his forearm and elbow, resulting in several plates and screws to keep it all - theoretically - together. Rushed to hospital to see his post-op self, armed with a gift bag full of mags and candy. One of the mags is all about skateboarding so I penned in a caveat about trying this out post-hosp.
As he drifted into a morphine dream he sweetly said Peace out, Auntie.
Time to rush off and shoot a bunch of ladies having tea at the presidential manor of Middling City's U's Simpson et al.

Elbow Love.

Let Us say that this shall be filed under H, for Hardy Freakin' Har.
Middling City U gig this noontime was to capture the likeness, steal the soul of one Senator Chuck Schumer (of GOFORIT Fame), weeks ago highlighted within epinw, Your source for Perfect news, advice, tidbits tantalizing and fraiche.
So Schumer, as is politco wont, is missing. Then he appears, and so does his crackerjack team. I know one member of the team quite well, we sat on an artsy committee aeons ago. So he gives me the ol' kissonthecheek and then says You know, Nance, I just told X that if Schumer gets sick, I'm breaking your camera. There is a moment's pause, a quizzical aura hovering over my head and a near violent one to boot as who in hell wants to hear that one's trade tool(s) is being threatened. It takes me a moment to realize he's wryly reffing the Hillary moment, the ol' Gripping the Podium shot. He said, Well now, I didn't choose sides. And on and on and then I said a few words. I mean really. Wasn't that about one hundred years ago, wasn't it news, wasn't it an elected official in my sights. Onwards.
Made art today, this fine AM before the gig, all shallow depth-of-field wispiness I cannot divulge too much of. But let us say it is Perfect, it Rocks. It is going to be shown in a gallery in the Shiney Apple on Fifth Avenue this fine, pending summer.
I pre-rest on my pre-set laurels.

Love of laurels.

Have an op to go to Lollapalloowhatever this summer and the big question is this: can Yours Truly dig on a two-day rock extravaganza sans camera. Think Who can I get some creds from to shoot it so at least I'm not another sweaty pedestrian. Thinking still.
So art is afoot and it goes well, need to make several days to edit them all but there are actual story boards to remember what's on all the tapes.
Yesterday shot a wedding which was a good time, knew a lot of the guests so it made it more breezy than not and engaged in a conversation with two about the differences between the sexes - processing of info and all.
Steve S cornered me at some point, as he does, to ask a shitload of prodding questions and I know he means well but allright already I say to that.
Questions about where I'm on the map, so to speak.

Speaking of Love.

And the Middling City crumbles further still.
Apparently the housing gendarmes who filter violent activity between nearby bad people and nearby decent people is fading out. Meaning. Yours Truly lives on the DMZ between Project Land and Working Class Land. Housing Cops are going bye-bye and allegedly during the summer they expect a blaze of activity, that the scene will be "busy." Heard on one MC radio program that two people were stabbed yesterday on Fulton Street en plain air and that'd be a stone's throw or so from where I blog.
Onwards.
Yesterday, while Judy Jetsoning out, saw four cop cars speeding westward (perhaps to scene du crime du jour) and in front of the pizza parlour a youngish guy watched the approaching cars and nervously wrapped his t-shirt, that he had removed and was holding, around his right fist as if getting ready for a throwdown.
Urban Pioneer Reality at its most real.
Then I went out to Middling City U to shoot another EC-produced event, this time featuring a man whose big thing is e-poetics. And he explained to sleepy students how poets working in this media hide some of their words within html code. And I thought What the hell, I like reading pomes pennyeach but who has that kind of wherewithall to be dragging an online pome's code into the light of day to read it in its entirety. Give me the word on the printed page, s'il vous plait.
He went on to say that Duncan (that'd be late great Robert Duncan), when he became himself a hotshot, would dictate to printers and publishers what font he wanted his work to appear, that he chose Times Roman for its spacing. First time I'd heard that and I find it rather suspect but oh well, let us run with it.
Today is a bad day for filming anything in the grayscape.
Time to gather the work to be delivered and disseminate images . . . and miles of smiles.

Love's Smile.

Latest in the cavalcade of hotshots photographed by Yours Truly was a hotshot from a certain Ivy League joint - this afternoon in the Middling City while said hotshot had a beetle crawling about his collar, unbeknownstingly. Hours afterward, whilst speaking to the person who had hired me for the gig - thee Elliott "GimmeAnEmmy" Caplan - I remarked on the progress (and perhaps even prowess, or prowling capabilities) of the bug. EC said he wanted to reach over and flick the dang-blamed thang. I also commented upon the fact that the man in my sights (i.e. subject) was gripping his venti Starbucks (swoon) paper cup like a shield, a prop, a signifier to such an extent I wanted to fling the goddamned thing more than the bug.
Now it is night and it is time to shoot video of things at night that you are accustomed to seeing during the daylight. My first recollection of the day for night for day or whatever phenom was when I found myself on a curious date of sorts in a large public garden at night and realizing how different nature or penned-in nature looks in the dark hours. Onwards. Today, in the garden store a man urged me to help him look for eggplants. Being ever-pleasant or rather always looking for a good blogpost and sensing one in this oversized odd man, I searched for young eggplant plants. And found him three, chatting all the while. He actually asked if my hair was a natural shade. Or, rather, he was going to pose that rather prying question until I bent over to fetch an eggplant young plant from a shelf and he saw that in sooth I am a happy natural light brunette with tinges of reddishness rather than faded primary red with scrapes of yellow faded into an interesting mélange of who can freakin' say. All thanks to beloved Jon who is in throes of working on his Music is Art Festival happening on the 11th and 12th in Allentown, a quadrant of the Middling City. Jon promises it will be one freakin' fab time with more artists, a collective of body challenging/punishing artists and more more more. Music by the usual suspects and then some more more more.
I explain to people quite frequently that my hair lies in the hands of Jon, that I like sitting down in his chair and tossing him all my trust and not really knowing what the hell I'll look like when I embark.

Love's Surprises.

Latest in the cavalcade of hotshots photographed by Yours Truly was a hotshot from a certain Ivy League joint - this afternoon in the Middling City while said hotshot had a beetle crawling about his collar, unbeknownstingly. Hours afterward, whilst speaking to the person who had hired me for the gig - thee Elliott "GimmeAnEmmy" Caplan - I remarked on the progress (and perhaps even prowess, or prowling capabilities) of the bug. EC said he wanted to reach over and flick the dang-blamed thang. I also commented upon the fact that the man in my sights (i.e. subject) was gripping his venti Starbucks (swoon) paper cup like a shield, a prop, a signifier to such an extent I wanted to fling the goddamned thing more than the bug.
Now it is night and it is time to shoot video of things at night that you are accustomed to seeing during the daylight. My first recollection of the day for night for day or whatever phenom was when I found myself on a curious date of sorts in a large public garden at night and realizing how different nature or penned-in nature looks in the dark hours. Onwards. Today, in the garden store a man urged me to help him look for eggplants. Being ever-pleasant or rather always looking for a good blogpost and sensing one in this oversized odd man, I searched for young eggplant plants. And found him three, chatting all the while. He actually asked if my hair was a natural shade. Or, rather, he was going to pose that rather prying question until I bent over to fetch an eggplant young plant from a shelf and he saw that in sooth I am a happy natural light brunette with tinges of reddishness rather than faded primary red with scrapes of yellow faded into an interesting mélange of who can freakin' say. All thanks to beloved Jon who is in throes of working on his Music is Art Festival happening on the 11th and 12th in Allentown, a quadrant of the Middling City. Jon promises it will be one freakin' fab time with more artists, a collective of body challenging/punishing artists and more more more. Music by the usual suspects and then some more more more.
I explain to people quite frequently that my hair lies in the hands of Jon, that I like sitting down in his chair and tossing him all my trust and not really knowing what the hell I'll look like when I embark.

Love's Surprises.

Was just, scant moments ago, delivered news most shocking and disturbing. Maybe even life-altering.
Over time Sharpies are, according to a colleague, as noxious to a cd as lead paint.
So, what does this mean in this Perfect World.
Well, in a petite nutshell I will tell You.
Come, realistically, September, month of new scholastic beginnings, Yours Truly will be placing all digital files currently on cd's - annotated with Sharpies fercrissakes - onto external harddrives. Conservatively, with a digital archive this size, it will take weeks. This is news one does not want to hear. That all your digital archive is quietly fading into oblivion. Allegedly another, mutual colleague, cannot open up cd's from the dawn of our collective digworld - roughly 1997.
I will never look at Sharpies the same way.
Sharpies, poison seepers.
So, I ask You, what are they doing to the hands of YT, when errant marks mark YT.

Sharpie Dubious Love.

5.30.05
Dearest Dave,
You know that I love you. I really, really do.
I loved you even when you got all hefty and you grew a beard, as some menfolk do, to hide that fact/expansion.
You may recall that I am the photog who, backstage three times to date, has shouted DAVE I LOVE YOU - YOU ROCK. Whilst flashing the ASL sign for I Love You.
It's me, Perfect Nance.
Now, about the new release.
Forgetting that I had it in my cd changer (and that I even had purchased the dang thang weeks ago) in my vehicle it played a song. Onwards to slight confusion. Looking down (ever cautiously as I am one safe fuckin' driver) at the car's hi-fi panel. Yes, cd is on. Not the radio. So WHY in blazes in Sting warbling a tune out of my hi-fi. And then it sadly hit me, Dearest Dave.
Please do not make any more singles whilst sounding like Sting. And please try to rock a bit harder as it makes me self-conscious in a way, that perhaps all my boy pals and boy colleagues were right, that I might be a geek for loving you so.
Love, Love, Love,
NJP

PS: Crit Love.

Gee, that was fun.
According to my meager and somewhat impressionistic calculations I think it just took me nearly two hours to book my tix for jetting to and fro this fine summer to get my Perfect self to school. Sort of like taking the cheese bus but a whole lot more expensive than school taxes, nobody is yelling their stinkin' head off in the aisle (well, okay sometimes the wailing of infants - cringe - happens upon lift-off and lift-down), and in lieu of a crotchety bus driver there is a whole ensemble of perky staffers, armed with strong arms to lift baggage snacks and drink items. And, mid-June, I'm officially over 100 super-sonic-bonus points and can traverse off to a swell spot of my choosing and at this moment I just might head to the furthest destination sight unseen but I've probably been there and it's probably LA or SF. Tokyo would be nice, been craving the fruity dry air scent of that island, the food that surprises you, the wack juxtapositions of things, the flora. JetBlue doesn't fly left of Cali.
Shot a wedding today and informed the couple that when the photog gets misty at a wedding it is good luck. And that quippitude is bound to end up on the special epinw calendar, chock full of wizened words, helpful hints and good old-fashioned snark. It has to be good luck if the core of the day, oh, you know, the sentiment of these two people, creeps down their bodies, across the floor, up your leg and into your brain, rendering things slightly swirly for a few moments. I mean, really, I've seen it all. All. Seen. All. And that's just the backstage antics at rock gigs. Then the weddings. All. The only snag du jour was the seemingly benign priest cornering me after all was said, done and official to tell me that basically I'd thrown his whole gig off course as I had gotten too close to a moment onstage. I feel bad for individuals at times like those, having to divert anger and negativity towards someone who they deem their easiest mark. In lieu of Uhh, excuse me Father Malarkey, don't you have something better to do like administer to the bereft instead of invading my time with your fear of losing one centimeter of control over your regimented scene (and keep your hands off the kids), it was Well, it was important to the bride and groom to get a shot of that and I was quite quick about it.
Then drove to a nearby exurb (you know the one, where everyone is wearing a blank smile, walks at half-speed and is wearing sensible shoes) to purchase, on behalf of Yours Truly and Cheryl and Liz, a gift for the pending baby of Jen and Jamal. I decided to call Jen from the sto - JEN, I shouted, I'm in a gift store, did it come out yet. Do you know what it is. So I have to buy yellows and greens. It is imminent. Jen sweet Jen is about to be a mom and I forgot to ask if Jamal still has the scruffity beard he had in the winter as I think his new child should see him at his best and that beard is not included. Jen suggested instead of posting the gifts that I hand deliver them. I considered. Drive to Boston. New baby. School beginning any second. Maybe pile.

Maybe love.

This is a stilled moment from a brainy concept I had that never really got past the "TheArtistIsFuckingAboutWithAConceptThatMayNeitherSeeTheLightOfDayNorOtherSubjets - NorEspeciallyBreathlessAndEnthusedStrangersInGallery" stage. Let us just say that its title could be Sing Into My Hairbrush.
Models were lined up. Concept was so light-tight. Well, crap, I'd best not give it all away lest I'm trolling for said concepts later this art-making cycle.
Have been having odd dreams where I'm being visited or am visiting with a parade of people who I know who have drifted away. Last night I saw Chaz and we hung out for a while and it was like the heady and adrenalized and blatanly strange old days.
So where did Laura's jpeg escape to, the one of the man in Central Park lurking behind me and my digvid camera. Buzznet (below on a past epinw post), so not working with me at this moment.
Oh, note to self:
Remember that on warm days driving around with too many layers, not opening up window for fresh air, and not turning AC on high enough results in snappiness with unwitting photo subject who is not only awkwardly self-conscious but just trying to break the ol' photo ice. Then all improved, went swimmingly, &c.

Swimming in Love.

Mere moments ago Yours Truly was trying to Perfect her mind even further by listening to a scientific radio program about the space program. Now, all due respect to my colleagues and full range of pals who dig the big S as in science and all the engineers and rocket boosters. However. After giving it about a good twenty minute college try I was like so done with it. Onwards to Daft Punk I say.
Having what I love to call a ping-pong day - suburbs, city, suburbs, beach in suburbs (for a photo shoot fercrissakes, really), city, suburbs and - finally - city for some vino with Liz.
Back to Middling City U deadlines fast and deep.

Deep deeper love.

Late morning, today, outside the big box store, you know, the one that chokes you with the aroma of popcorn when you enter and where in HELL are their greeters of yore, or is that another box store, a man gave me a choice. Are you running a cat clinic or are you a crazy cat lady, I bet you're not a crazy cat lady. Oh, I said, I am the crazy cat lady of my neighborhood, I feed all the cats. Then I went on to tell him how Extra is the original cat, how he's had shots, is neutered, and the rest are all transients, as the man smiled said an odd Thanks and turned quickly towards his car, stating weakly that he, too, was some sort of cat lady.
Just weeded and dropped some perennial seeds in a flurry as it's time to hit the road again and the sun is for seedlings, not for Yours Truly.

Seeds of Love.

About to embark out to Middling City U to shoot the difficult donor wall, a respendent and very reflective surfaced creation that necessitates Yours Truly shooting from behind dark fabric.
Saw several noise bands last evening with Kennedy at Matt Kantar's joint, Kitchen Distribution, a warehouse at the terminus of Auburn just a quarter's toss from the toll booths where now an additional quarter is charged to bring the toll for the ol' Niagara Extension up to 75¢. Scott's band - Caustic Solution (another clever as hell band name) played first and were truly the best, followed by noisemakers from Rochester and some from points beyond. The bricks quite possibly are still reverberating, I'm sure the foundation is a little weaker for the sonic wear and tear.
Yesterday, driving away from photo lab spotted a young girl with snow shovel, already this season an odd sight but she was shovelling out her home's front hallway. Glancing towards the open door I could see another person with another shovel. Happy to report I've never had to shovel out my hallway.
Came up with, in a dream yesterday, the way to show my digvid work this summer at the thesis show. A self- contained enviro of semi-darkness.
Off to donor wall shooting.

Shoot Love.

As we say in the biz, Gee Willikers, whomever happened to be epinw reader numero 20000 please speak up as I'm sure there's a prize around here somewhere for you. And a friendly reminder that Yours Truly never put a counter on epinw until well into the second year so really the count and amount (a wry ref to Dialing for Dollars - a slice of Middling City television arcania) would be higher.
Second off the amazing and stellar and tear-wrangling news is that Neil Diamond, epicenter of the universe, is working with Rick "pleez breath relevance into my career bro" Rubin. And RR knows, understands the austere beauty of Neil's early work.
A quote from today's NYT article:

In fact, the two men have much in common. Both are transplanted New Yorkers, dropouts from New York University. Both have played with the ethnic and racial makeup of American music, Mr. Diamond as the star of the 1980 "Jazz Singer" remake, Mr. Rubin as producer of the Beastie Boys. Mr. Diamond grew up wanting to be a doctor; Mr. Rubin, a lawyer. When they eventually met in 2003, in Mr. Rubin's house in the Hollywood Hills, Mr. Diamond was impressed by the living room. "It's only got a Steinway piano and a huge Buddha that goes up to the ceiling and out about half the wall," he said. "And a rug in the middle of the floor, and that's it. I've been thorough a few of these, uh, transcendental situations before, and I understood where he's coming from, what can I say?"

Neil, a transcendentalist.

Allright, let us all collectively forget the surreal memory of Neil in blackface in Jazz Singer but otherwise it is a fine article. Rubin, a wise wise man.

So, being a Diamond Girl and all, I do know that Neil is coming to the Middling City late August and I really must get some tix soon as assuredly it'll be packed. Part(y)ing thought: Cherry Cherry. Only one of the world's most perfect songs.

Cherry Cherry Love.

Special combo blogpost - begun Thursday, finished Friday.

Finally, I found a cop. In Canada, the fair land to the north of the Middling City, that's an OPP officer. And there he was, in a well-equipped ride (probably inside and out like that of the Niagara Co's Coroner), idling outside - of all freakin' things - a donut shop. In Canada, the fair land to the north, that is donut shoppe.
I was lost. And, if You truly and perfectly know Me, You know that this could be an eventuality when faced with an unknown highway. And Canada wasn't helping, having created a highway system so faceless and so intertwined with the same and recurrent artifacts to make the NYS thruway look like a charming two-lane country road.
So I was on the 407 ETR (that's Electronic Toll Road to the newbies) heading back to the Middling City for a gig and a vino engagement and was heading west/ouest. For miles and smiles and miles until I thought that the next roadway should have been making itself known and, sans helpful distance markers or signage, it was all one stinkin' guess. So west/ouest then thoughts of No, it's east/est. Then more miles/kilometres. Then the cop.
So I pull up snugly next to his car and am waving around my MapQuested print-out like I was contemplating tossing it into his vehicle. He snatched the paper out of my hand with a smile and draws me directions. One straight line. One line and the number 407 underneath. You'll be on the 407 in one minute, straight ahead. Then stay on it for 45 minutes.
45 minutes mine arse, I had a gig to get to and vino afterwards to engage in. So with the keeping up with the Canadian drivers at high speeds it was more like half that. Then onwards to photograph over-the-top and tipsified law students glowingly celebrating the demise of their educations and such. Read: commencement.
Shot one of the season's final commencement this afternoon. No senator. No repeated speech. No beach balls flying overhead for this was the dignified pomp and circumstantial and velvet cap-wearing of med students.
Best quote: medicine is art and science.
Art: science and zen. No medicine.
Well, the recreational sorts.

Sorted Love.

So, here's a visual treat for Your perusal, a fine image from Middling City U, parked outside the commencement ceremonies. Why, I ask, was the coroner on site.
Why does the coroner drive such a bitchin' ride.
Why, look at how squat Yours Truly appears in the hi-gloss surface.

Surface of Love.

To be filed today under O for Oh, No! Not That Anecdotal Story... Again.
Today's gig, Middling City U's general commencement ceremony (read: multiple hours, multiple grads, multiple mortarboards), included a special message from NYS senator Chuck Shumer. Or is that Schumer. You look it up. Anyhoo. Moving along into the proceedings I tell one of my boy colleagues, Derek, You know, I bet he'll be telling the same anecdotal story I've heard three times to date. He needs a remindful booster shot. You know, I begin, the story about the scholarship. The trip around the world. The dusting yourself off. The not getting the girl. His face lights up. YES! I think I HAVE heard that story. I said Well if you've been on the commencement tour you sure as hell have. So the senator begins. I turn to Derek You see, the same story. He still didn't get the girl. One wizened audience member shouted out Take the scholarship, nearly derailing his narrative choo-choo.
Saw Elliott there, in cap and ballgown, looking quite beleagured under the ceremonial garb. I heard someone calling my name and there was his cinematic face.
It should be noted here that as the platform party made their way past Yours Truly many of them greeted me as if I were master of ceremonious hoopla or some such thing. Why, even the senator of repetitive anecdote shook my hand after quickly deciding, I could see, not to give YT a kiss on the cheek. His handshake had my very important hand, the one responsible for lifestyle, &c, nearly shaking. A grip to be sure.
Here I must end.
The online course is done and if I was sure that You would read my brilliance I would post it below. But You would only not read the whole fucking thing, you would not glow at me about it. And I do so deserve it for creating a new branch of aesthetics. Voilà thesis.
Onwards I must float.
JW,Esq it's your turn for correspondence and I do hope this publique shaming hastens such. Or perhaps your head is far too emburdened with things litigational, corporation takeoverish, or rockish.

I rest my case, my adrenalized self-employed and over-achieving case.

Cases of Love.

So, there I was. Minding my own business.
A postcard came to my newspaper office from Parsons School of Design, a Manhattan school. Suddenly I was applying to said institution. And then I was accepted, a call from Jim Ramer told me so and the night was Mardi Gras and I had been out shooting for hours. Glee. Panic.
Now, years later, about two, I find myself writing another research paper for an online course with a photographer instructor named Brian Moss who lives somewhere near Los Angeles. He's upbeat, savvy, very nurturing in his comments. As is JR, my art mentor and leader of the small and efficient Team Ramer.
I am tossing words about in this nearly-ultimate research paper like nobody's business, pulling out all the grad student stops, if you will.
Why, topology is even used. And scads of others that perhaps a few years ago would never have flown out of me. At that time I was still (sort of) living with a pro academic who was landslided into words and theory and I, throughout those ten or so years, tossed myself into the Real - the real world's images, the real world's happenings and descriptions of those. So now I am balanced between academia and realia which is, in my truly humble grad student opinion, the way to go.
Speaking of go, off I go to finish this burdensome task to proceed along to a small mountain of freelance deadlines and assignments and hell, where's the fun.

Hellacious Love.

Phones are all off. As are the bets.
Can Yours Truly finish the Pulitzer-worthy research paper of 3K tonight, or by tomorrow at 5PM. That is the question. Writing about Sam Taylor-Wood, Gary Hill, Bill Viola. And me. Aesthetics of Stillness.
So, comedic interlude during tonight's commencement gig was when PhD's were becoming such and as they were being conferred their thesis title was announced. One, Fiona Apple-worthy one had approximately thirty words in its title. Me and an usher glanced at one another in faux understanding of what this biomedical person had achieved behind such a hefty title.
My thesis has three words. Six syllables.
Scott is aiding me in the quest to locate the email address of cello boy, to tell him to tell his bandmate that he owes me $51 due to an international credit card fraud scare, or shitheel international practices of zappos.com - or both. Zappos, lest you wonder, is thee place to buy shoes online. They have the best, the obscure, the pedestrian. And one of the tentet ordered, with assistance from YT, some fine Chuck Taylors for his kid.
A rearch paper is afoot. I am ablaze with ideas.
I am off, as Brucey says, like a turd of hurdles.
At times like these the tough just get coffee chugging.
Or something to that chestnut effect.

Love's Hurdle.

Several days later, braincells misplaced and mis-spent evenings later, the band has split the Middling City. I have the paper topic: The Aesthetics of Stillness.
Was procrastinating productively when it wavered at me in a moment of clarity. Will be writing about the video work of Yours Truly, Sam Taylor Wood, Bill Viola and whomever else fits the goddamned bill.
Besides the gigs the most memorable moment of band stay was taking Peter Brøtzmann and Kennedy to the grain elevators. First the favoured street, Ganson, alongside tracks, Great Northern, several other elevators, mounds of sand, an inlet. Then the foot of Hamburg Street for The View. Then to foot of Smith Street to the odd park, across train bridge then to Concrete Central where we saw, amongst other things, a pack of splatball enthusiasts, a few galloping deer, some birds, some wreckage, some skulls. Picked up a deer skull for the collection. Which leads me to thoughts of the frozen sheep head in my freezer. Probably high time to liberate it. As I did with the pig heart. I can hear the voice of Baumann telling me that plastic outgases, imagine the plastic wrapping the head has maxed-out on outgasing and all the condiments and film in the frigerator are just biohazardic.
Weeks until school. Am I ready. A question, a statement. A ploy, a plan.
Have a place to live and will have to adjust to its new offerings of early morning coffee, hopefully French as in SoHo, its wi-fi molecular structures, its proximity to Parsons School of Degree of Difficulty.
Speaking of such, time to continue on this catching up of days.

Caught Love.

Here is my art statement story, and I'm sticking to it:

My digital video work is an exploration of narrative and non-narrative possibilities, of images made that are near-still creating a poetic rhythm of anticipation. Thematically and literally the work focuses on the organic, or green, presences around us in sometimes fabricated circumstances, merging them architecturally, metaphorically or texturally with non-organic forms. I am also inspired by the element of chance in everyday living, the visual stimulation surrounding us all.

Fired that off to JR yesterday, for the thesis show in the Shiney Apple in August. About to foray into my netherworld, the place where art goes from idea to acquisition then onwards to something edited and more tangible and finished. Off for looking, shooting, trignometric study of the landscape nearby.

Tentet last night magical, them in three formations each set. Arrived to discover a rapt and huge audience hung onto notes as if at a poetry happening. It was perfect. Tonight are all ten at once, and ten times the decibels. Peter Brøtzmann gave me and Kennedy cd's and a card game he invented - Images - whereby a deck of cards with appropriated and created images are shuffled and used to create actions. A list of directives help keep it flowing and these are halftimes for musical gestures. He is truly an amazing man, and he has an exhibition of his work in November.

Create, time to create. The flowers yell color and the wind is low and the odd surrounds are beckoning to me Use us, use us.

Used Love.

Been carting about jazz musicians for Kennedy's dual Hallwalls meets Middling City Hysterical Society gigs tonight and tomorrow. Guys from all over merging for some free jazz love.
Gigs actually - shockingly! - received great press today in Middling City News and the music critic Jeff Simon actually praised the collaborative efforts (thanks to Yours Truly's usual planning prowess) of both institutions for coming together for what will prove to be some historical musical moments.
Scanning as We speak, images from yesterday's dedication of a long project recreating in bronze some frieze work made by one way-past MC artist, Chaz Rumsey.
The scanner was not at all cooperating and after much wrenching of face, cords, search for installation software did the ol' restart. To fab results.
Just completed Beth Dearest's artist statement for our pending thesis show and it's high time to pen mine own. Memory. Duration. Time. Keywords.
Time for deadline turbo-powered burning, editing, delivering. Then perhaps more more more caffeinated beverage.
Things are falling into place for summer Shiney Apple dwell. JR says it's all about me, all about the art. What could be better. Now to create time to create.

Creative Love.

This AM phoned Dragon Boy to wish him one fine Cinquo de B-Day and we spoke for the first time in mos. and mos. - and loffed and loffed. But we are still in the NoGoZone and that is the way it is. He is 34. He is Solvent. To that I said Ummmm, yes, you told me that already and congrats for that. We then discussed our respective hangovers as that's the way of it, of us, was of us.
And to dangle what the story was:
(from The Tell by YT)
I imagine, beyond imagining, I know it as well as I know the spaces of what I lose on a night of binging like a conventioneer as he does in cycles, that he ruminates on where our steadiness faltered, how the dysfunction worked, and what I never told.

And to that a good night, a good 5/5.

5/5 Love.

Special Memo to All Musicians, Bands and the Like:
If Yours Truly requests a special tune, namely WipeOut, a drummer's paradise so to speak, and your respective band/combo/whatevertet features a drummer of merit then please comply. To not honour such request not only displeases me but spreads minor bad karma as this is one of the world's premier party songs and drummers, the underloved band member, need to let off a little showcasing steam.
Thanks for your attention in this matter.

Onwards to the business of dreams. Next item on agenda for this blogpost.
Champagne-fueled dreams featured an upper middleclass femme first shoving me in the kitchen of Kennedy and then lunging for and threatening YT with the knife. It turns out this hulking woman was a fan of crack and her friend, accompanying her and watching the domestic chaos was apologizing for her pal's behaviour. Be understanding. Be empathetic. Fuck no. I called the cops after I told Kennedy what had transpired. Cops searched the house and found Ms. Knife hiding in the basement. All you dream enthusiasts have fun with this.

On an errand today saw Nate en route to his joint, balancing snack and keys and forgot to tell him the new Tori has grown on me. And, as rock is now on the agenda. Has anyone noted that Liam Gallagher is morphing into Ringo Starr. Just received SPIN for now and it's clear as a good digital image that's that what's happening with his facial molecules.

Molecular Love.

Art. Nature.

Words cannot begin to describe how ecstatic I am at this moment - You are witnessing exciting history as I finally, finally!, post a jpeg to epinw.
This is Yours Truly in Central Park, documented pre-artwork make by Little Laura.
The night before was supping with steaks and scotch and this is a sunny day with what she refers to as Swamp Thing emanating from Frederick Law Olmsted-placed rocks. He was working out. It was 45º.
Today in the Middling City it is much the same.
Now, lest You think I am procrastinating very badly, or very well, this uploading of images is an exercise in work-relatedness and I am thinking the site that will host my images, BuzzNet, is how I am going to post my research project for the online miasma.

Historical Love.

So, in its entirety, is the Perfect pome, about YT, sent to epinw h.q. by its maker, Robert Nesbitt. Replete with odd spacings along the page opted out of.

The Photographer (to Nancy Parisi)

What has happened?

I always wonder if that's you
or someone who looks like you
with a camera

How do you maintain
anonymity
so perfectly
unobtrusive, invisible

of course it serves you
and you have cultivated . . .

a magic garden of skills
blossoms flash
dazzling the eye of the beholder

Capture moments more concisely
than the quantum physicist
not breaking
but stabilizing
bearing new dimension
by forgiving one


Um, what the f-bomb can I say but Hell YEAH, I sure do have a magic garden of skills and what gal doesn't want to be compared to a quantum physicist.
Shot a few events yesterday, including the famed Oozefest at Middling City U in a gentle downpour and, as is always tradition, several young male co-eds opened wide their arms as if to grab me in their teasing muddy embrace to which I always disappoint by not squealing and just giving them a much diluted version of the PaintMelt Stare. Then moved on hours later to a wedding day, capturing that second when the magic words are spoken and ka-poof a couple becomes married. Read between lines here, Yours Truly feels this is nonsense. A public and already-known pledge of ongoingness is a beautiful thing but a couple doing so has already done this between them. But a swell party usually does follow.
Magic words include moment of saying This is over, I quit, I love you, Yeah sign me up, etc.
It's an Interpol day and it's time time time to go make some digvid art happen.

Happening Love.

To be filed under Like so totally stressed out and disarmingly distracted.
D, lest You are not up to par on your filing skills.
Wow, now doesn't that remind me of a tale of Yours Truly in her college/first-round salad days when I was a highly-paid non-internistic office worker at the on-campus corporation which I also worked for as Cultural and Performing Arts Chairman. So I was corporate double-dipping, if you will.
And working with a bunch of jaded grownups, all into their tasks at hand while I had to sometimes file requisition forms by Number. And then sometimes, in my daydreaming wanderlust and distraction (much like that previously mentioned) I'd be filing along and think Oh, SHIT, this one is not even close. And then I'd see there would be whole subsets of misfiled forms. And sometimes I'd go back and fix the situation or just think Really, who needs to see this crap again, and move on.
Then, years later (I am so on a filing memory roll here so go with it), this is where at the bottom of screen the words Five Years Later flash on screen, I am temping at some bigger, publicly-traded corporation and I'm sealed up in the bowels/tomb of this joint, filing for aeons. This was the trust department of a bank and I'd get lost in the tomb for hours as I had access to basically the back stories of scads of dead people and I'd look at their memorabilia, their passbooks, whatever. It was much like my stint as housekeeper/watcher/gardener at the North Buffalo home of a deceased lady and world traveler for a year.
So there I am, Wednesday night, campus of Niagara University, not too far from Toxicville.
Basically I live out of three bags - laptop, digital camera, film camera: I am a commuter in all aspects of my life.
So I grab one bag and shut car door, realizing in that nanosecond that keys to life are in bag #2.
Quick thinkathon.
Gig is starting in minutes so, in a nutshell, parents were called and they rescued me as AAA was called and the man on the phone had some confusion and had never heard of Niagara Falls ever. I imagined waiting on the campus, huddled against a closed 70's-era building for half the night. So Mr. & Mrs. Perfect, my mom and dad, rescued me. We were talking on our cell phones and they were saying We're in front of such and such. To which I replied But I'm in front of such and such. And, in the midst of a few bedraggled co-eds were they. Parents to the rescue. And, sadly, this is only the beginning. As the stress of cross-state travel, thesis thinking and writing, term paper r&d, freelance fulltimeness, basic life logistics chugs along I find myself in self-amazement at how things slip through the cracks of reason.
Many Did I just tell you thises. Lost keys, lost books, lost everything.
But then, mid-August, if all goes swimmingly, as JR thinks it might, I'll be a new Master. Of You. Of the Universe. Of all things interconnected, challenging and Olympiad in execution.
Salman Rushdie last night at Middling City U ended a lecture largely about the nature of writing and being a writer thinker with these words:
That's the job of it.

Love's Job.

JR wrote to me today to say he has all sorts of confidence in my ability not only to get my thesis done but to defend it brilliantly. Well, glad he thinks so.
There was a communique from Parsons School of Defense Mechanisms stating that the thesis and work and statement are to be completed quickfastinahurry and then defense of said thesis will happen in front of a panel of five people who each get ten minutes to rake us over the coals, so to speak.
And I have to make new digvid work, and make editing time. And write a paper for the online class. And continue to work to pay for all of the above.
Did a reading yesterday at roughly 745 PM as part of the poetry marathon Urban Epiphany. Read about five and finished with a story poem I wrote called The Tell. About using the poker notion of the tell, the giveaway signifier of aother's gestures, to know when they're bullshitting, lying, etc.
Was approached afterwards by amongst others RD Pohl who edits pomes for Middling City News who asked that I send him some words for publishing, especially one for Creeley = Believe.
Time to make the longass drive to my dentist for the pro cleaning by the woman whose name I can never remember and make small talk all the while, or most of the while, while she does her thing. She usually asks about school. Maybe I'll suggest beforehand we avoid this topic completely as I don't want to be responsible for the loss of any of her pro digits.
Driving with Kennedy tonight to see some jazz in Rochester. A road trip. Of jazz proportions.

Proportionate Love.

Had an interesting meet-up with a Mad Scientist yesterday. For a shoot for Middling City U.
The Mad Scientist (heretofore dubbed MS) revealed to me nearly immediately
(here I would like to interject that as I'm trying to blog, a brief respite from concurrently going blind and reading online articles for class, being a really good grad student, I am being distracted by a fat lezbo drumming a nearby table with her fucking chopsticks and I am listening to Interpol on iTunes yet I can still hear the clinkclinkclink and I'm about to go over and grab the chopsticks out of her chubby hands and throw them across the tea house. Then I'd like to ask her overly-mascara'd date this How in blazes can you put up with this crap.) that he had Cyber-stalked me, Googled me. He said You've done a lot of weird things. Now, as You can probably imagine, a plethora of images from the past of Yours Truly popped up, Google-style, in my mind. As we discussed what he'd seen (she's still chop-drum-sticking...) online about YT I then told him that he was going to be blogged, that a blogpost was happening as we spoke.
So the MS is being posed by YT, pressing his back against a whiteboard of a gigantic formula of numbers and icons and at some point I look at it, stopping shooting, and query So what IS that. He then goes on to explain how it's basically (basically) a formula for how the brain works, how it uses visual information in front of the eyes, processes information. The MS works with machine intelligence and this formula is how the brain works as the formula for how a computer does the processing of visual information would take, he says, a bajillion years as it would process each item, moment separately. So he's talking about Bayes, Bayes this, Bayesian that. So WHO is Bayes, my ever-queryful self wanted to know as the way things are being discussed are curiously a whole lot like the manner in which Roland Barthes describes postmodernly objects, sight, experience of same. So Bayes was a nineteenth century man of the cloth who wanted to prove if god existed or not by a happening formula. Did he. Who knows. But the fab thing is I have another little tool for my grad school toolbelt which, as a premonition I had shitloads of years ago, which I told Academie Guru/The X, was leading me into science, of all conflated things.
Regaled the mad scientist with a moment I could not blog a few weeks back, involving a photo shoot with a bevy of cops (femme, men) and the incessant sexual haranguing on the set - of each other, of me. It was quite an unforgettable experience and it was the premier time YT had e-ver been called Tootsie.
So I regale him with that and then, conspiratorially, he asks if I'd encountered any crazies at Middling City U. One person jumped to the forefront and I dumped some details on MS. We then revealed to each other that we are both somewhat (and here I hear the cackling of Beth who will immediately, as I know her well, think HA! She's 1000% crazy, and April Fools' Day proved it) crazy and therein ended the happy shoot.
Back to school, virtually.
Whereas I was in a snit earlier I am free-wheelin' Perfectly Myself, diggin' on Interpol, Learning, Reading, green tea, art ideas that are swirling around me like good, protective ghosts.

Love Protects.

Perfect word to You, the wise.
Rediscovered Rickie Lee Jones's (for real) Ghostyhead from way back when, 1997.
Scaring up all sorts of items pome-deep for Sunday, certainly not the day of rest of Yours Truly, homework day and annual Urban Epiphany, megamarathonreading.
Thinking how I am being handed all sorts of discreet respites to do all the following, in no particular order of descending or ascending import, deport or ex.
1. Write research paper for the ultimate online course - primo op to get MFA thesis move on.
2. Plant garden(s).
3. Get ready for Middling City, end-of-May exhibition at Brad's joint which will include screen captures and neato digprints of same.
4. Hammering out, whacking to bits, summertime details and logistics and time and stress management.
5. Make sure Good Vibes Team of Yours Truly is really understanding what I'm asking of them, although they assure me that they are.
6. Pet Extra.
7. Scare up the aforementioned and then some fine words stored here and there.
8. Shoot, make, do and burn new digvid pieces for me, for JR's viewing pleasure, for skewel, for fame.
9. Complete application for NJPPhD Plan.
10. Think more deep and complex grad student thoughts as time is quickly running out to do so.

Lists of Love.

Nature. Nature. Nature.
Turns the Middling City into a big reheated miasma of flora.
The started seedlings are totally sprouting, the baby nasturtia reaching like mad with their tiny, hand-shaped leaves and I worried this AM that they might get leggy before it's their time to hit the soil. So therefore I'm holding back on starting the tobacco plants, this year's big garden theme.
Have to get a new metal trellis for the second of the honeysuckle as it's pulled down the former and have to also get a new jolly roger as the one from Liz has finally been shredded to bits, only its skull remaining with bits of black fabric around it. I'm sure the Holy Eucharistic Rock Band as well as those at Bleak Bakery are thrilled to see that I've changed my ways and have removed what they viewed as a harbinger of death flag. Jack of Bleak Bakery told me so once, in his Yogi Bear voice... how much he loathed the jolly roger as, you know, in this world flags are to be either ol' glory or something really barfy suburban like a whimsy-rich drapeau showing something really really fluffy.
Editrix Sue just asked me to shoot a bunch of things, amongst them a doctor (of bodies, not of the high-falutin' mind sort) who engages in limb-risking drag racing. Neato. As well as annual Oozefest, the event where volleyball merges with a field of mud.
So it's the tenth anniversary of the OK City bombing of Murrow Building and watched part of the ceremoniousness with Kennedy today as we worked out... Clinton the highlight for me, speaking poetically of the American Oak that made it through the trauma. Thoughts meandered over to this week's school readings about murder and just shot off a post about trees, hanging trees, the remaining hanging tree at Washington Square Park in the Shiney Apple in the NW quadrant, an elm that stands still.
Tree of Life. Tree of Wisdom.
Me and Ro's golden tree about my neck.

Tree Love.

Minding my own business and about to embark on homework, headed over to Allen's for a rockstar koffee klatsch. Sat on his/Lisa's front porch for a turbo-powered cup of tardark roasted goodness. Now I'm at the tea house. Now I'm really embarking onto readings about dead bodies, le topic du semaine. Passed on all things art opening last night. There are some tonight and tomorrow Kennedy has John Butcher playing a gig at SoundLab - Allen might be recording that for the artistes.
Got a good email from JR stating that he wishes I'm ready for a free PhD ride at the next school as he wrote me a blazingly stellar letter.
I replied with a grand Merci and told him not to fret, the spring has emerged as have the muses.
Nearly wept for JW,Esq who nearly but did not meet Bono at a swishy house party out in Cali and will not (*sniff, *sniff) be going to Coachella as, he says, how could it compare with last year's lineup that surpassed understanding. I told him to go read some law tomes.
So the pope is way dead and the new one is emerging from the conclave. I imagine it's like the Miss America pageant with scads of backstage underminings and well-placed back stabs. Emergence of cliques, factions, coteries. Them all lashed together until the big pronouncement, when the black smoke warbling out of the vaticani smokestack goes from black (working still) to white (annnnnouncement!). All so medieval, all so media-covered. I am lobbying now for the sainthood of Yours Truly. But, to expedite, I'll perform miracles (three, maybe more) avant my timely passing. We will not call these favours. We will call them miracles. Dig.

Miraculous, saintly love.

My new fav person named Valerie just did my taxes as we talked about a lot of things and the office nuisance shambled about annoying the ladies of the office and then Yours Truly. You know, the kind of office person that thinks aloud, dials phone with it off the hook so the sound of dialing and tones and such fill the soundwaves, asking annoying questions. I was just there two hours and I wanted to throttle him. Valerie and I, amongst other things, discussed life, travel, development of urban and suburban places, higher ed, people getting their GED's, etc. She was delightful. She is my tax lady and she rocks.
So no shooting officially until Sunday for Middling City U so it's time to catch up and do homework at a frenetic pace.
A new cat is back on the scene and I can't tell if it's my former lapcat and now feral Bootsie, mending his ways. For this cat talks to me, rushes up to me and would come into the house if I left him. I reassured Extra that he'll always be my favorite, always the toppermost of the poppermost. All this as Faux Extra suns himself nearby as whatever is happening to his kittie head transmogrifies into something more horrifying - think cat injuries, fights - yet he still wobbles around slowly on his own four feet, still hanging on for another season. Sometimes he's sleeping so soundly that I think Oh, NO, Faux Extra is d.e.d.
Had a swingin' time last night with Cheryl and Liz at the wine joint. No major fisticuffs or dramas or fiascoes to report.
Onwards to work, less worry.

Don't Worry Love.

Hiding out at the tea house getting work for school and freelance domain done until my afternoon shooting spree - and am relieved that Mme. Death is not here, regaling another of her unfortunate lady pals with tales unending of death, death, and more death. But I never do seem to travel anymore sans earplugs and phones for iTunes = Sanity Savers, to be sure.
Just wrote to Brian Moss, the current edifier for Parsons School of De-wonderment, replying to his wondering about his own wondering, if we grad students could/would muster forth 3K papers for his class and, to sweeten the deal, he's saying Make it oso multi-media with pictures, links, go nutz.
I just informed him Perfectly that he's the premier online teaching one to say go multi-media rather than citing online sources. The class is so wide open, about a vast amount of things Aesthetic, Beautiful, Art, Artful, contemporary and relevent to YT that there's a plethora of ops, maybe too many ops.
Slowly getting to a topic that I want to live with for paper, thesis, onwards.
Got email from RonE from the Shiney Happy Mag stating my portrait of Kennedy, to appear in full-page glory, set standards of de-zine, that my forthcoming spread/overview of the Middling City rock scene was stupendous.
But You heard all about this whilst it was in process (translation for Canadian epinw readers: pro-sess) and so You know, You knew it freakin' totally rocked.
Speaking of such, Dylan warbled into the Middling City yesterday and I imagine that Jamie Johnson and Pauly were there, front and center, awaiting and basking and waiting for tiny spitballs to hit their reverent foreheads.

You rock, I rock, we all rock for rock rock.

Collective, Chanting Love.

Just to prove to You that Perfect Me can transform any event into a madcap adventure.
Minding my own business I left the Shiney Apple, hugging Beth Dearest goodbye and meandering over to Central Park West for the C to the A at 59th, thus avoiding the horrors of the Nassau/Fulton stop of stench-ridden air where the air is three parts odour, one part oxygen and the lighting is nearly epilepsy-inducing.
Platform waiting and then on the A. Yee-Ha, things are working wondrously and nowhere's near the chaos of the last dragadocious trips back to Middling City where, let's see, a jumper (if you epinw recall) rendered a train bio-spattered and unwavering from stopping whilst authorities reckoned Yup, a jumper. Then the blizzard and the 4 train just not moving. Just not and the subsequent cab search and finding the A. So last night. A gets me to Howard Beach and I am on the AirTrain getting to JetBlue terminus. Quasi-terminus. Then an unintelligible announcement: GGEU HEJ SHEHT RESLSL.
We passengers look at each other, Did You understand that.
Another announcement.
Pretty much same as before but another man's voice. We sit for about half an hour. My plane is leaving in forty minutes. I am sitting, then standing, then walking along platform searching for clues and answers. Finally a guy with an answer. And what an answer. Yeah, they're holding us because... train... before us... problem... don't know... leaving.
So I try calling JetBlue to say HIIIII, I am enfuckin route but keep getting disconnected. I call Kennedy to say I may not be arriving in Middling City after all. We then get rolling again and I run to the kiosk for checkin and am closed out because the plane is leaving imminently. I approach the staffers, explain away, a helpful woman grabs my i.d. and RUNS me through everything, depositing me at Gate 10 in a full-body sweat. Didn't catch her name as I'd be sending her mad props and a thank you note and she leaves and some tall and obviously above-average arrogant handsome jerk looks at me and says Ohh, SMI-ILE.
Now, if you are a man and are reading this you've never experienced, perhaps, this scenario of dishevelment or hyper-introspection when a complete stranger begs you to give up your bestest Mary Tyler Moore Smile. I looked at him with the patented PaintMelt Stare© and said YOU have no idea what I've just been through and continued along the gangway. Then I'm standing in my little row (18, to be precise, you know, like Danny Gare) and some other arse looks up at me like I'm standing there just to admire him.
I mean really.
Back to Middling City reality of sorts: work-imbued, clusters of moments of adrenaline-enhanced productivity, rock on the hi-fi, moments of petting Extra the Cat and dreams of gardening.

Gardens Teeming with Love.

The elevators were golden.
-from a quote from Diane Arbus's journal at The Met in the show up there of her swingin' work.
After the NYU show that disappointed slightly, glad to see this one of several never before seen pieces, her actual cameras, her notebooks, some of her ephemera.
Also looked at the Larry Clark show at ICP that wasn't so necessary but there were some great portraits hung.
Also looked at the Buden installation in the midst of the Guggenheim and glad to have seen this conceptual piece in real life as the photos don't even begin to depict its complications.
Did some primo shooting outside of The Met again, inside the Guggenheim of blank spaces rendered lifeless for the aforementioned that takes it all up, of some odd looking trees and things.
Have been writing a bit here and there.
Time to fly as Beth has arrived at the Bryant Park where I blog. Neglected to blog from Union League Club where I witnessed Laura in action. Looked through their library for something arcane, interesting and had to settle for the latest edition of New York mag.

Mag Love.

Wow. To be filed under W - no not for Wow - but for Whew! what a timesaver.
Most Perfect little helper Celia emailed yesterday to say Um, nope, you are not reading tomorrow (now today) but on the 24th. So put that in your futuristic pipe and smoke the shit out of it.
Urban Epiphany. Oban-soaked YT showing up at a secret time to read from the poetic oeuvre. Well, it's kind of like epinw but it's all rhymey. If you believe that you are not ever never allowed to read from this well of quippity again. Bought the new Camille (as in Paglia) that whiney-ass bitch who teaches in Philly who I shot with Ginsberg back when he was alive and roaming the planet and sputtering out language poems iterating the menace behind all of life. Camile I agree with here, that post-mod and post-structuralism has sucked all or any spirit(uality) out of writing, made poetry a thing for high school girlies, New Yorker readers who dig it in the borders, for the wor(l)d-addled, the Patti Smith lovers, oh, yeah, the Urban Epiphanites to boot.
I think I nearly flunked outta sight outta mind outta Parsons School of Design-by-Committee for suggesting that poetry/life/sexuality/energy flows around us all, is as inescapable as the scent of a lover, the scent of a night-blooming jasmine tree, the sound of a Mister Softee truck trundling down the street in summer. It is like so there. But the post-mods/the post-strucs will say Death to life. Just ask theory-burdened X who had me so convinced that I hated what Academie had to offer. Au contraire, Pierre.
And, for your edifiication, Pierre is my childhood dog, departed. Thought of him this AM, how my mother had him jetted off to the afterlife whilst I had jetted off as a teen to Manhattan. And You wonder at my separation anxieties.
Time to wrestle with, of all things, my cd drive which has decided not to cooperate.

Love's Cooperative.

Sage.
Let us ponder sage in all its incarnations for a moment. There is sage the herb, who has a leaf most velvet and scent most intoxicatingly green. Used by the Native culture to wane the bad as the smoke believable as a cleanser. This practice followed by Your Beloved Truly, when the crap is knee-deep, or when the space is new - there is sage burning. Then there is sage as in wise wisdom, words of strong conviction that chases out the bad practice.
Got some sage smoke in form of words tonight from Brucey.
I have purchased too many seeds for the garden that I will ignore - sort of - all scholastic summer but it's the promise of the seeds and, as Rio says, it is the curse of the gardener to buy too many seeds. Nigella, tobacco, nasturtium, moonflowers, lobelia, bellflowers, more sweet peas. Each flower remindful of a person, like songs.
Sunday I have a poetry reading, asked by Celia to do so, as is an annual tradition that reminds me that Oh yeah, I do that.
Putting together my Support Team for the two months of X-Treme Travel and Erudition and have informed said Team they are to be UPUPUP, with nary a twist of YouBroughtThisUponYourOwnGoddamnedSelf *BUT* Stifi-like You Can Do This, no matter how canned.

Canned Love.

Excerpt from a true exchange.

Jennifer at Righteous Tea House (where no coffee darkens its menu, but is carried in by said Jen, a coffee addict): Dragon Ball, Nancy.
Yours truly: Yes, please.
Dragon Ball, for your information, is not akin to prairie oysters but is a fine Nihoncha, Japanese green tea, dig.
Plus there are no dragons. Just humans who are, metaphorically and behaviourally speaking.
As Irony would have it had to shoot the Middling City U's Wellness Fair and I asked several people manning brochure-strewn tables under festive little tents if they could disunwell me in my hayfebrile condition.
Pissed off an RN by shooting an image of her checking someone's blood pressure. NICE, HEALTHY ATTITUDE, I wanted to say to Nurse Bitcho. I asked for her name and she sneered like I haven't seen in quite some time. She finally gave up the freakin' name. Wanted to turn to her with my most saccharine countenance and say NOW, that wasn't so bad now, was it, Nurse Crabface.
Others were not so cranked-out at the wellness extravaganza. Next to the Soy!-obsessed lady were two people from two very mediocre MC restaurants, cranking out frightening-looking pasta dishes. Soy! lady's lame-o breakfast cereal samples could not compete with that odoriferousness.
Picked up a mini highlighter, a mini flashlight. Why things so mini so beloved at maxi fests, I do wonder.

Maxi & Mini Loves.

Spring. Reminiscent of Barry White classics. Bulbs poking up their green stuff, the smell of earth again and my allergies rearing their histamine-rich heads. Hi Spring, hi itchy eyes, hi stuffed nose. So time to buy that herbal crap with the marshmallow root, etc. etc.
Finally got the scanned music image project off to the Shiney Happy Mag, a triumph with fabulosic wall notes of sorts to boot.
Strove for balance - to show the depth, the depraved world that was Middling City music in the late 80s and early 90s. What an odd assortment of memories, what a cavalcade of faces, clubs, bands, styles, cocktails, shoes, cars, flashes of light from flashes and brilliance. And on and on to now.
So I've been booted off, firewalled out of my wi-fi scenario at Kennedy's and there could not be more troubling, mood-altering news. Hoping this may be an aberration, for who would miss a scant few wi-fi molecules to check one's email from time to time. Fercrissakes.
NYC in the headlights of planning for art, scholarly activities and all attendant moments = skipping lectures to see the world, visiting with friends divorced from scholarly world, and carefully planned cocktails.

Love's cocktail.

After plying with dinner and red wine got my crack team of Archive Searchers doing just that into the long and quiet night hours. Me, Scott, Laura wending our way through the oppressive amassment of three-ring binders, looking for the rockstars of yore as well as the pre-rockstars of the Middling City. And, once in a while, the sidetrip into looking at a certain figure, a certain moment that does transfix. Found stacks of good things that I am film scanning for the Shiney Happy mag, three pages will be packed with all the hoopla past.
Just had to shoot an amazing vivacious woman at Middling City U who was listening to the Smiths (lovingly referred to as Smiffs by Yours Truly) the whole time, probably set to level uno so an undercurrent. Told her I'd never seen the Smiths but did see and shoot Moz solo, well, with faceless bands. One time at Nassau Coliseum when I was on a date with a rock star. Funnily enough, Laura came across said rockstar's likeness last night asking who is... Told her of our crazed Libran connection, how we'd see each other here and there and that was approximately three lifetimes ago, by my humble estimation. So this vivacious woman and I ended our sitting discussing the PhD quest. Most excitingly how it does involve Travel. She basically insisted that I take a vacation between schools/degrees/quests. I was sort of yeah,yeah,yeahing the whole thing and she asked when Parsons School of Dementia-Inducing-Stress is done. August 12, I reported. Well, she continued, looking at the Middling City U schedule of academic events, Fall starts August 29th, that gives you about two weeks to go somewhere warm. Somewhere warm, I thought. Where. I said Well, maybe I could see myself sitting alongside a pool in the shade with a stiff cocktail in my hand staring at the air for a few days, completely out of Type A character. Well, it's SuPPosed to be out of character.
So there you have it. I guess in August YT will be by a pool having an Oban, in theory anyway.

Anyway Love.

Bonne Chance, Bob.

Good bye to the harbinger of simple turn of word, mono syllable, noted simple, shuffled voice more of story than poesie for the duration of his readings, former rogue and always a romantic. Believing in the succession of loves following the ache of a love lost. When Creeley was still a smoker another poet wrote of his pocket-to-pocket searching for cigarettes. Then the pocket-to-pocket for the light. Then the pocket-to-pocket for another. Then the pocket-to-pocket for another. Creeley always obliged my camera and never ever can I forget the reading I gave at Central Park Grill with Creeley in attendance, his flushed Dig It following my words.
Last night, with Cheryl and Liz, drank toasts to Bob while Liz's cut flowers scented the room. Where was he, where is he and the notation that some lives lost are more of a loss, truly, than others. Some expected. Some sudden and, despite the age, the loss of that presence in the physical world is big.
Liz brought out her Creeley-signed books and in one I opened to his poem beginning Death be not proud. Goes on of loss and look in mirror.

The other deaths this week in news shadowed by the poet's.
Not to compare and contrast but that is the vrainess of Yours Truly, All Tomorrow's Parties.

Vrai Love.

Last night was sent off to Middling City U to shoot the ol' Music is Art series event featuring Terry Sullivan et al as well as Last Conservative. Breaking news is that Mike Z has completely, utterly left the band again, for good and that they're shopping for another bass player. But, as I discussed with Allen (who was there last night tucked away in a secret booth sound engineering) that it will be near-impossible to replace his stoic and somewhat sneering presence, a perfect foil to TJ's manic performing and singing. So Mike is off to all things academic, like me transorming into NJPPhD. Allen pointed out today my hypocrisy at once deriding all things academic and now like so embracing it.
So hung with members of the rock and roll famille, the knob twirlers, the video documentors, the walkie-talkie talkers, the performers and the like.
Off to make up an artist raison d'etre for the PhD plan.
The wish, plan, attack, hope for it all all all.

All Love.

Completely and utterly minding my own business, as is my ever-wont, found a PhD program not only to my liking but it is like so vice versa. They want me and will give me gold stars on my forehead and give me support and one class to teach and I get to go on field trips and it's tuition-paid and I still cannot believe what I dreamily and dream-relatedly fell upon. Yesterday.
Now to finish up the PSD and MFA paperwork and hoop jumps to the next thing.
Off to deadlines extreme and deep and so very very real.

Real Love.

Today is the sort of birthdate of Sam. Born on Good Friday, he said, but April 13th (or not as records were sketchy and he sketched a nebulous picture) is allegedly the day. But all good Samophiles think of him today.

So, then, a snippet of Sam.
From The Unnamable, which I've been thinking of a great deal as of late.

I speak of evening, someone speaks of evening, perhaps it's stil morning, perhaps it's still night, personally I have no opinion. They love each other, marry, in order to love each other better, more conveniently, he goes to the wars, he dies at the wars, she weeps, with emotion, at having loved him, at having lost him, yep, marries again, in order to love again, more conveniently again, they love each other, you love as many times as necessary, as necessary in order to be happy.

And in the back of the book, a yellowed little Grove Press thing, I wrote this in pencil:
the girandole above
our fireplace is beige.

Onwards to Asian memories and conjurations and newsbits.
Time for an annual holiday-related dig this:

CUTUD, Philippines - Filipinos marked Good Friday by retracing Jesus Christ’s last steps and reliving his crucifixion with nails, whips and blood.
The gory rituals in several parts of the heavily Roman Catholic country are not sanctioned by the Church as part of Easter but have become a magnet for the curious and devout during a week of prayer, shopping, visiting and little work.
Go here to read the whole dang thang.

Every Good Friday I recall the excellent tri-fold card I designed for V showing the roasting of the dog moment in the Philippines whilst waiting for a boat for Bataan. The running, chasing, clubbing, roasting of said dog a Perfect visual for this day when the curtain mystically rended in two. Symbolistic stew and swirling of spirits to You.

Stewed Love, not prunes.

Well well well well well.
No, make that unwell unwell unwell unwell unwell.
Got a forwarded email from one pal who got one from a mutual pal who, after reading the meandering machinations, has sadly derailed. Toys in the attic. You know, nutty bumpers.
Lest you think you are secure with your toys in the toybox we are all bumping around on the bumper cars and one bad bump and kapoof = nutsoville. That is like so my theory and I rest my inquisitive case.
Speaking of cases, and to sound a bit like the aforementioned derailee, I could be in the midst of yet another cease and desist situ as I've created some neato merch based on my famed and inflamed and incensing Globe covershot showing Hill (as in Hillary, you know, former Mrs. Presidente) as Yours Truly loves to say Gripping the podium. Oh, if you really must know, or find, go searching at cafepress.com fercrissakes. It'll be our little easter egg hunt of sorts.
Speaking of the pagan-cum-christian blood ritual of Easter, tomorrow is Good Friday. This means that there will be mayhem at the bakery nearby as pastry munchers of all shapes (no, scratch that, the pastry munchers are of one shape) will be queued up for sugar, fat, raisins, shortening and such all tossed together to make treats of all shapes. Peeps, let us focus on peeps for a moment. Misshapen marshmallow birds.
Now let us focus on the green jelly beans.
Now the black.
Now the red.
God, no pun intended, I love Easter.

Love's Peeps.

NB:
Yours truly has NO VOICE. I am rendered speechless via some sort of laryngitic condition that, as a client just told me, is Going around. Not aware of this rampant voice-related pandemic, I guess I'll just go with that. Laryngitis. Me. Got a call from another client who kept asking Is this a bad time to my Who IS this in my nouvelle speaking squeak. Is this a bad time. Who is this. 3x. Finally she says who in hell she is. Finally I say I am fine, I just cannot speak. We agreed to communicate via email. Jonathan is on his way for a headshot shoot at my joint and I'm sure he'll keep a health conscious distance as did my last gig at noon.
Got a call from Beth Dearest who burst out laughing upon hearing my condition. Now you know how I felt the last time you were in the Shiney Apple she guffawed. Well, I wasn't laughing at you... I guess you are just mean-spirited. Just as well that she couldn't understand me. But she did manage to tell me that she's going on a date tonight and I'm not sure what genre of date it is but as with several other pals today we agreed to speak later. If possible.
Onwards to speechlessness, so not me.

Speech-impeded Love.

Lost entire last post as I was not officially logged in to Blogger and that like so comfreakingly sucks. Speaking of Nancyisms was talking to Beth Dearest moments ago and described the current Middling City snow as snow globe style. At first she thought that I was quoting a certified meteorologist. But no.
Told several at Middling City's Main Event last night that my new and luxe hair colour, purple haze awash over what was, is grape flavoured. Several smelled, some licked. To no avail. To my delight.
The new cut rocks as does its creator, Jon, who last night was in his vertically striped tapestry jeans, outdazzling his lady friend's ensemble by x2, a peril of dating a man who is a dresser.
Stopped by Jon's place yesterday brandishing a gift for him and after a spate of visiting to basically demand or request that he make me look better, he agreeing as he was up to his elbows in multi-layered blonde hair of a girl named Teal. Then the haze. Then the cut. Then the visiting with the interesting cast of characters, half of whom are engaged in the rock realm.
Just came from Bandmate Scott's gig as (whatwazzit, Hymen, Hytymnestra, Heteros) Hymns. Bad name. Good times. Then Aaron Miller - two short pieces via a program called Max........ somethin somethin and I asked how much and he said how high, no, but it was high, like about $700 so no go. I axed about a bootleg but he said impossible as it bonds with all things secretive on one's laptop and to that I say O, Really.
Had a gig early early today for a fam celebrating their mom's 90th bday and she was beyond confused and I wondered why in hell they were doing this, to prove their love, their tenacity, to weaken hers, who really does know.
Oh, the day is over and I've lost my voice and my homework is not done and I would like a cold remedy and a respite and a re re re ... joinder, fresher, membrance.
All for now and over and out.

Out Loved.