Today wrangled with the past by brazenly ignoring the ongoing policy of ignoring high school reunions. Attended an event this afternoon honouring three fallen classmates: a sudden death, a cancer death, a suicide. I did skip the evening portion of drinks on a patio on the river.
And, just as with hanging with Loomis, I am intrigued by how memory obscures nearly all events from those non-halcyon high school years. Over lunch six of us managed to piece together some things.
As I did one year ago with Loomis, I rifled through a lost & found to glean a few souvenirs and the objet I scooped up I'm mailing off to her.
Today at the memorial gathering I read Evening Without Angels by Wallace Stevens, as I did for my Aunt Marion's funeral. One thing to completely dig about this poem, beside its wordsmithed perfection, is that no matter how many times it's encountered there is a surprise, an impermeability.
The poem has celestial sounds that belies its darker thrust.
You will miss it online. You will find it below like right now.
----------

By Wallace Stevens
Evening Without Angels

Why seraphim like lutanists arranged
Above the trees? And why the poet as
Eternal chef d'orchestre?

Air is air.
Its vacancy glitters round us everywhere.
Its sounds are not angelic syllables
But our unfashioned spirits realized
More sharply in more furious selves.

And light
That fosters seraphim and is to them
Coiffeur of haloes, fecund jeweller –
Was the sun concoct for angels or for men?
Sad men made angels of the sun, and of
The moon they made their own attendant ghosts,
Which led them back to angels, after death.

Let this be clear that we are men of sun
And men of day and never of pointed night,
Men that repeat antiquest sounds of air
In an accord of repetitions. Yet,
If we repeat, it is because the wind
Encircling us, speaks always with our speech.

Light, too, encrusts us making visible
The motions of the mind and giving form
To moodiest nothings, as, desire for day
Accomplished in the immensely flashing East,
Desire for rest, in that descending sea
Of dark, which in its very darkening
Is rest and silence spreading into sleep.
. . . Evening, when the measure skips a beat
and then another, one by one, and all
to a seething minor swiftly modulate.
Bare night is best. Bare earth is best. Bare, bare
Except our own houses, huddled low
Beneath the arches and their spangled air,
Beneath the rhapsodies of fire and fire,
Where the voice that is in us makes a true response,
Where the voice that is great within us rises up,
As we stand gazing at the rounded moon.

----------

So after high school revisitation (really, I did enjoy the girls, lunching and laughing) stopped over at Liz's - post Garden Walk - to see the garden in its fullness, and to see the prized lily that she repaired with duct tape.
And not only that but a good glob of Elmer's Glue to boot.
(This also conjures how YT has been doing some plantings, time allowing, anticipating a late-summer fete and the rock star visit this upcoming Tuesday chez moi.)
There is a plethora more going on this fine, about-to-deluge evening and I did think of Al (as in Gore, not Farmelo as 1. who is the champeen of global warming miasmas and how to fix - go here for some awareness, and 2. I have never, ever referred to Allen Farmelo as Al, as dozens of others do.) as I read of record-breaking high temps the world over, beloved Paris has even become an oven and the bedgraggled tourists at the Eiffel Hoopla are being misted with water cannons. Yours Truly imagines dozens of fun-savers ruined each day.

Must report upon some missed (speaking of misting and missing pieces) happenstances of late.

1.
Minding my own business I was returning to the USofA from Canada and was at Booth 14. Waiting and waiting as seemingly each booth had a complication, a slew of questions, trunks popping open for closer looks. It became my time at #14 when, seemingly, all hell began to bust loose as the inspector, the border patrol man became rather panicked and speaking loudly into his shoulder radio. DISREGARD SOS FROM BOOTH 14, DISREGARD SOS FROM BOOTH 14. I looked at his face sort of awaiting an ironic punch line, or a few SWAT Team members emerging with AK47s at the ready. He looked down at me in a strange way, perhaps to see if I was expressing any anti-social, pro-terroristic senses of humour.
2.
Again minding my own business met a bunch of girlies out recently after dinner with Jana at some Med joint. Read: garlic dips.
At appointed meeting place there are others that are pals so it became a real happening of sorts. Jen and Eric were there, for instance.
So I'm standing at the bar (Yes, minding the business of YT) when the bartendress (and I do refuse to use the word barmaid as it conjures for me images of ass-pinched women sweatin' for tips) puts the ol' upturned, or downturned, rather, shot glass in front of me pronouncing Apparently, you've touched a customer in here.
And, of course, I had to ask if that was appropriately or inappropriately.
I asked who the spender was and she sort of bobbed her eyes about. She finally tossed out the biggest clue of all. Cowboy hat. There were two bona fide (you could tell, believe You me) cowboys in the joint, obviously from far far away. I saw them eating Slim Jims later. In case You had a doubt. At some point the cuter of the two cowboys meandered by and, as he passed, said in my face You shore are purdy.
Did I feel like Debra Winger just then in that god-awful cowboy movie. Nope.
Can You explain how that image just emerged from this high school memoried-besotted brain.
I thought not.

Not thoughts, Love.

Sent in an email that I am not going to undertake the Doctor Nance Project.
Thought and decided that my passion is not There, but elsewhere.
I already slogged through a program for my field's terminal degree and the thought of maneuvering through seminars, attendant writing and reading, plus teaching responsibilities, and maintaining my career was not only a hellacious undertaking, but not one that enthralled.
Onwards.
Not easily, but onwards.
Time to make make and do.

Doing and not doing Love.

The People (yes, that would be a big P) of Andrew Cuomo hunted me down to insist that I troll The Archive for more more more images of him and Eliot and Hillary. I complied but not before a question - OK, so your deadline is in like how many minutes, how long did you HAVE this deadline.
The woman I was in actual contact with transitioned from the ennui-laden voice of a campaign chair in the Shiney Apple to the squeaky all-girl high-pitched We Are Conspiratorial Pals voice.
Well . . . Nancy . . . you KNOW how campaigns are.
Onwards.
So here I am in the Mac store in the former wetlands of Cheektowaga, in the dismal mall - a universe away from the clubbiness, the buzz of the SoHo/Preferred Mac Joint.
Working in said Mac hangout in the former wetlands on a demo model just like the one that the nice Apple folks constructed per my requests out in Cali. And, just like the machine of Yours Truly, the freakin' trackpad does a very odd skip and jump.
It is time to wend my way out of this happy land of machines and digital pageantry to the land of deadlines, and requests.

Honeyed Love.

Yesterday's gig was making portraits of a solid couple, he the gatekeeper if You will of a fine old Middling City place of worship to the intangible energies of Life.
The couple told me that upon finishing their sitting with me they were going to ready the joint for two baptisms, a service, two weddings. That they'd packed lunches and dinners to lunch and sup in the back catacombs whilst their helping hands were not needed. We discussed the somewhat Pagan-sounding tradition (a dying one, according to them) of arriving believers to dip their fingers into Holy Water to remind themselves of their baptismal promises.

As this couple in Love was busy backstage before our shooting I gave a donation to the candle fund, stuffing it into the large wooden box to light a large blue candle under the resident copy of the Pieta in honour of the first death of one of my first cousins, Patricia.
Under the Pieta as her mother, my aunt, is, needless to say, beyond heartbroken and stayed with Patty from Mother's Day (when the devastating news was delivered) until now.
Patty died of lung cancer. This was fast and furious and following her ineffective complaints to doctors of shortness of breath. Bronchitis they said. Wrong. Peace to the soul that is free.

Deborah told me yesterday that she made her Bat Mitzvah, that it was a rather surprise transition, that they did not even know that she would be making it. I think I'd like to make a celebration for her Bat Mitzvah.
Made one of the best green gazpacho recipes YT has ever seen, this time for the annual chili extravaganza at Bruce and Diane's. As Luck would have it found a cut glass punch bowl, as I did last year for a soirée at Liz's where I brought same soupy goodness, at the supersonic thrift joint. Being a tomato allergy victim (TAV) I like to show up at tomato-centric events with non-tomato molecules. At the party, held in honour of Bastille Day (back on the 14th, bien sur), saw a plethora of pleasing people, most alligned with Middling City U - a treat for sure.
Saw President John Simpson and Katherine across the way and could not get over to give a big hugging Halloo. John, always dressed to perfection, actually, she is, too, was in a vibrant short-sleeved shirt, quite unlike the vintage complexity worn by Pat K at the joint where I met some of the girlies this fine morn.
Brought Kennedy to the party last night and beforehand to the most soothing Botanicus Gardenus at the edge of South Park.
Marvelled at some orchids, plunged into lemon blossoms.
Bought a succulent that is truly a work of art.
Speaking of art, came up with a grand book club-like concept to be carried out with the girlies to make art in lieu of reading. Get together. Have an art project. Finish art project. Hurray.
Time to speed off into the distance for now.
Carrying with me all that is.

Is Love.

Literal Harold and I met yesterday for breakfast at the sunniest diner in the world, within a pancake's flop of where Father Baker remains.
The coffee is as bad as the vibes are good.
Harold made me jealous at one point as he regaled me with stories of his junkets and travelling gigs, one for the NYT to a suthirn state of all places for their 36 Hours Series. I asked him to help me decide about the PhD/Doctor Nance Project but I think the newer, better aim is to be more a photog v. of Literal Harold. I can always just get vanity plates that say DoctorNance... oh, no, too many letters. It'd have to be some ineffective DOCNANC which makes absolutely no sense.
We had planned after this post-industrial townie meet-up to walk in the most excellent of the Middling City's Olmsted Parks, South Park. Magical, with water lilies, vistas, and the pesky golfers are not so plentiful and, as is the wont of public coursers, they do not let out yelps of helpful Fores whilst driving that little ball home.
So we meet over at the park and Literal Harold, upon hearing of my odd bout of heatstroke last week, promised to have a palm frond in hand to fan me.
And I'll be goddamned if he didn't appear from his sensible Chevrolet Classic rental with a faux palm frond fan in hand. I snatched it from him and did my own fanning.
Dined at the favoured Allentown joint last night where there is always a primo selection of Thursday nighters, and vino. Enjoyed lots of sauvignon laughs, even despite the gushing rain that sent most of the diners indoors, me et some al under the tented outdoor cabana bar.
Off to more points above, beyond to make and do.

Love that Sauvignon Blanc.

this just in:
Philip Glass to play Middling City U this September the 18th.

Blogging via the new faster stronger powerbook with the illuminated keyboard. A bonus. What is not the bonus, well, it kind of is a bonus in this mad, real estate-driven world, is that there are many square inches of this machine - not just the 3" on the sides that I expected but the extra of the depth. And Yours Truly truly uses a laptop on her lap's top and this newbie gets rather warm, is rather weighty after a work jag.
Fussed around with Aperture until after a few hours I had selected images in a work folder just fine, could figure out how to place them on their stylin' light table yet could not figure - yet - how to grab each one and wrangle it into client-worthy readiness.
After that this is how YT felt.
Aperture: 1
Me: 0
First stop this fine dewy Middling City morn is a gig on the urban campus of MCU. Second or third stop will be. Quiz.
You have thirty seconds to figure out this answer.
Patient pause.
No.
Third stop is going to be Barnes and Nobility for one of those Aperture Life Raft handbooks, aka the Cliff Notes of Reason - the For Dummies series.
On a not lighter but more cinematic note, saw Johnny in his new movie and, as far as YT is concerned, they could have weed whacked most scenes with Keira and several with Orlando. More Johnny, less puffery.
As Jack/Johnny would say (and the one line in which he used it this time around got a rollicking laugh out of one of the elderly gigantic ladies in attendance at the matinée, armed with - what else - the econo bucket of the stalest, crunchiest popcorn, as she saw the first Johnny Pirate movie and was like so in the knowing) Savvy.

Swaggering Love.

Hot-weather-inspired Middling City parties this weekend - involving margaritas and burritos.
Or is that burritoes.
Let us ask Dan Quayle.
Or not.
Cheryl & Ed had the margarita party and Gary and Michele had the latter. Today had coffee with some gals, not Mexican.
Neither the gals nor the java.
Come to think of it Yours Truly only had one Mexican acquaintance and she came with the X so it's perhaps safe to say YT has no Mexican acquaintaces at this time.
Regarding the Mexican-related hoopla, perhaps in these warm months all denizens of the MC should carry about some Frank's, just in case.
Did not attend the Italian Fest, the Burger Fest. Skipped this year's Taste of Middling City. These are all foodstuff frenzies and why should events be centered mainly on food. Oh, that's right. Take a look around. The adult record-setter of burger eating ate a meager five in five minutes. Couldn't any red-blooded non-corpse of any nationality eat that many. I ask You.
The child in the kid burger eating melee ate fifteen. More like it.
In the review/commentary of the event the Middling City News reportage intern stated or reminded that at the core of eating contests lies this little trick.
One must dip bread into water.
Here YT would like to toss in this fun fact.
The human stomach is about the size of a fist, the size of a grapefruit. Imagine what you put into it during a meal. Or not.
I rest my biologically-revelatory case.
Tomorrow's first gig at the Center of Excellence.
Truly, YT prefers to spend most of her time at Centers of Excellence.
No matter the genre.
Tomorrow, and this is really the grandest fun fact of all, YT receives her new power book. The super-duper-magna-cum-power-loaday model.
The beauty of ordering à la carte online is that one may toss onto the machine what one likes from the vast and stormy (well, in actuality, their crisp menu is not at all stormy as it is all very helpful with links wherever there might need to be some clarity. like epinw) menu. Aperture... pre-installed. And more.
Let us end on my favoured DQ quote: What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is.

Love of Knowledge, big and small.

Colour Yours Truly absolutely perplexed as to how it has taken this long for the second disc of Beth Orton's pass in time to be spun on the hi-fi. Three years to be exact. I am utterly amazed and gleeful as it really is summer cd parfait. This is the one with the haunting song made with the ChemBros - Where Do I Begin.
Dropped about a dozen or so of my grain elevator images (drawings, photographs) on the gallery near the teahouse. Propped them up alongst the walls and assume I'll get some sort of call as to when the non-public hangings are to happen, to hash out details of a reception involving the usual sundries and sips.
Off to a slew of girlie gatherings for various occasions - live music, the birth anniversary of beloved Annie, gardens.
Of the garden variety, lunched along the Middling City's bustling avenue and it actually felt urban. I was transfixed.

Transfixed, focused Love.

How is It.
It is a thumping landscape of Thom's voice all warbulated and thin and tremolo even. And I just read a critic who stated how much she loathed the lyrics of this and the predecessors and I have to agree at points, like the one song (fercrissakes I've had it not even long enough to have left fingerprints on the elongated innards which fold out like an art project accordion book I had the little inner-city + rural campers make sometimes for my favoured book projects and the cd is still in the automobile)that features Thom singing the word Algebra and Yours Truly thought Did he just insert the word algebra into this symphonic astral plane.
Why, yes He did.
New Experiment.
YT is going to ingest Advanced Gingko Smart until the 90 gel caps run out to see if not only I can recall the harrowing moments of learning algebraic equations and such, but to see if I can pull words out of the air on demand - like radon. This one came up last evening. Radon. I've done the gingko thing/k before, most notably last when I was careening back and forth between adulthood and studentness, between the Middling City and the Shiney Apple.
Most in need of some SA time, wending about as the summer months, in my non-humble op, are the best to be there. All seasons are grand there but summer there is full of different noises, parks in a bluster, the galleries are not operating at full throttle, all the a/c is, and onwards.
Gig this fine morn featured children learning stage lighting. Yesterday they mastered stage design, more or less, and today lit their constructions. Much of this gig happened in the near-dark Drama Theatre out at Center for the Arts and Mediocre Coffee.
Then I tunneled my way back to the pelting rain.
This MC rain means that some floral offerings of Nature are growing hugely. And, merrily, I discovered that my gorgeous and delicate nigella plants returned, their primitive and gentle lilac-coloured flowers saying a big Hello.
I will admit that these seeds were chosen last year out of my deep admiration for chef/cook/joie-de-vivrant Nigella Lawson.

Nigella Love, all varieties.

Yours Truly is sipping a Molson Canadian.
This is unusual, surely You know.
When it's time to sip it's usually Oban, a sauvignon blanc.
But I've been slicing down little trees, You see, and thoughts of a few random cold bottles of beer in the film-laden fridge beckoned.
The cat, Extra, has been most amused by my yardly antics. Mostly by my rushing the lawn mower over saplings. He sits up tall in amazement at my human undertakings, I don't think really comprehending why a collection of approximately forty young trees deserves to die.
I say, or will say, when back in the back yard, Extra, it's like this. You take down the occasional bird. I do not ask why. I, on the other hand, succumb to the trope of lawn smoothness and mow shit down. Comprends. He will amuse me, look interested, wander back to his cat bowl, tail high, as I shove the Murray brand mower here, there, everywhere. After the beer.

Break Love.

Yesterday was one of those types of days that Yours Truly truly finds remarkable, one that careens from moment to moment, gig to gig, conversation to conversation, a salad, if You will, of good and mediocre bits tossed about.
First gig was documenting a rather far-flung garden walk that spreads over possible five miles, a disjointed affair under a flowery header and featuring, as they do, gardens of the usual items reconfigured to be made into someone else's own.
I headed to one garden as it featured a maze. Imagine the surprise of YT when I walked around the corner, scanned said yard, saw no maze at all, and then noted a most petite maze made of bricks in a maze pattern, separated by neatly planted rows of thyme. I spent some time marveling at the concept and placed gardened plants when the owner/gardener emerged from her home. I liked her at once, a familiar face that screamed I am a friendly gardener with a solid sense of humour. We talked mazes. And then her bamboo was noted and YT was off and running. Figuratively.
Her neighbor appeared and we spoke more bambooese. I saw this garden and saw the most gorgeous bamboo ever - goldenrod bamboo which looks like some gardener with OCD has taken brush to bamboo, painting neat little gilded areas. These two fellow bamboo lovers tipped me off to a fab, they say, bamboo joint in Rochester.
My beloved grandmother Victoria had a stand of hale bamboo in her garden in Smyrna, GA, outside of Atlanta well before it was Hotlanta.
That's one of several childhood garden memories. As kids are tossed outside to amuse themselves, or at least they were then, my sister and I meandered about a lot of gardens, these imprinting very florally.
The next gig was up in Canada, a wedding and this was for guests a four-day affair. For me it was a long collection of hours, it ending truly at 10 but the mom insisting I stay to get a certain photo memory about one hour later. So I sat off in the shadows, watching all from afar, making some random calls as, happily, the cellie was registering these far reaches as Middling City = no roaming charges. Finally, and YT does mean Finally, the moment happened. Frame. Frame. Frame. Then off into the pitch again to wander down a road, the music carried off in a slow Doppler wind.
Saw some fireflies. Saw no mayapples.

Fire fried Love.

Well, once again, completely, utterly minding the business solely of Yours Truly, there I was, standing at the possible brink of photographic disaster. Not really photographic disaster but truly engineering disaster, or that's at least what we The Media not so secretly hoped for - what the engineers rushing about did not.
YT et al were standing on the viewing level to witness the premier shake-up of the faux Cali townhouse, replete with chandelier and roof tiles, to see if the faux hydraulic earthquake underneath the house, created by the various engineering pioneers present, would destroy the two-story complex - or not, thanks to several expensive and compact dampers.
One of the project founders (mind You, we are all in hardhats which makes any instant instantly slightly comic) was telling half of us that via the radio in his hand we would all hear the news that The Test was about to begin.
(sidebar: now if this story ended quite differently, like, say, if I had to dig out from a pile of twisted metal and wood shards, I could make snark about how those soldiers seated in the desert similarly had no idea what they were undergoing whilst the mushroom cloud was about to spore)
We would, he said, hear FOUR BEEPS and then
We should run like hell, YT proffered,
to the engineer's slightly confused glance
and then he continued FOUR BEEPS and then the shake will begin for 40 seconds.
Beeps, shake, creaking, nothing.
No catastrophe. Building standing.
More shots in control room, in the structure where an impromptu press conference happened and then I talked with some colleagues and film crew from Rochester before wending my way into the non-faux, non-engineering albeit très engineered and manicured campus beyond the Land of Faux Quakes. YT was informed that my images from a previous test are on USAToday.com under the tech section.
On a similar note, ended the evening with a petite pyros display to please the niece and nephew for they know their auntie always has a stash of such for sundry summery occasions.
Time to dispense my handiwork, deliver photographic images far and wide. And smiles to boot.

Boots full of smiles, and Love.

Yesterday, according to Yours Truly and who else but, was declared by same to be Diane Arbus Day for everywhere there were characters doing their personal things that were circus-curious yet somehow slightly universal.
Examples.
A woman who outwardly appeared to have lived the good/hard life, maybe in her late 50s, on a beat-to-shit bicycle, a cigarette dangling from her lips. Eyes cast down.
Man in his 70s with very wide hips, dressed in khakis, white shirt, dark shoes, standing on a fairly busy Middling City streetcorner timing something, his black watch (assumedly with one of those sporting features) in his palm, his eyes glancing up anxiously every few seconds.
A thin woman running across a street in four-inch pumps, wearing a thin trenchcoat, a diamond stud in her nose. She is in a hurry. It seems like she's wearing nothing under the trenchcoat but that just cannot be verified by YT.
Lesson.
Some days give up the visual treats. Some do not.
One of the most interesting happenstances this past weekend featured YT ambling about a very strange 30s-era building out in the MC exurbs, whilst shooting a wedding of very young people. It was one of those weddings which has guests so young that some have braces, some teen acne, and a glance around the room confusingly computes as prom.
So the reception is packed into a dining room, low ceiling, very warm in the temp.
The middle area is a bar and some guests were intently following the latest match-up in the World Cup.
In a further room was what was the newest addition, the rumpus room with bad decorating of Home Depot proportions, some mirrors on one wall to indicate this is a party room that may or may not feature a dance floor. There is a patch of wood squares, dance floor.
On this dance floor YT chanced upon about two dozen young Christian women, overflow guests sitting in the far reaches, doing a Christian cheer, a synchronized dance with arm gestures, the vociferousness that screams ChEeR.
Instantly the thought This is why I love my job sprung into the forefront of the frontal lobal region.
Those, if You will, Diane Arbus moments.
I ate with this group of women, all students at Franciscan College in OH, and asked armloads of questions about their cheer, their campus, why they are all divvied up into what they called Households. Not a sorority, but a conceptual kind of grouping, I was told.
I met a femme who is the den mom of sorts, great sense of humour, my age and who has six - count 'em - six children.
From there I had to mosey quickly along to another gig for a fam for who I shot a wedding several years ago. This occasion was anniversary numero fiftyo of the mom and dad. This photo op happened in a very mod building, an exurban seminary (I think an endangered architectural species) that nearly drove me to distraction thinking how YT would redesign it to be a bit less oppressive. It was a renewal of vows in the round, very interactive. However, Father Bunchie (as in undies all in an uncomfortable bunch) asked that I refrain (as in a hymn) from photos for a while.
Outwardly: Yes, of course.
Inwardly: Hmmph. (turn off flash, bump up ISO, shoot avail light).
As I told the fam later, during cocktails and such, I have become THAT kind of photog.
Well, in sooth, I have been this type for some long years.
Intrepid. Headstrong. Just out to tell the story.

Storied Love.

Minding my own business at the tea joint I did mention to Teahouse Jen that the back of my hair-do was a bother and now it is altered most subtly.
She took large, functional scissors to hair on the stoop outside the teahouse and this is the second time she's whisked the unruly and unsightly away in a flash.
I have just been asked if I'd like to show art - again - and, unlike the rock fest planned by Justy in Brooklyn, this will happen. I think. Soon. And this will take place in the Middling City in the gallery not a soggy teabag's toss from where I'm sitting. The Justy rock fest was to happen on a date that Yours Truly is booked and I would have not been at the op and we agreed to do something else some other time.
Leaving Kennedy's house passed the Albright-Knox where there was a giant crane on the demesne lifting up some new sculpture and from my vehicular vantage point it did resemble a sort of artful bus shelter but I imagine this is not the veritable case.
Time to speed off to the suburban campus, and rush about before I see Little Laura this fine evening. Blair informed me that he and Monique are having a summer v. of Soup Night and this only means one this to YT - a pot of my famed green gazpacho.

Green, green Love.

Well, as Al says, all h-e-double-hockey-sticks is busting loose in Warshington as the IRS and points beyond are facing a deluge. Computers all soggy, Warshington floating back to its primal, marshy roots.
Speaking of soggy.
The Middling City is also awash in rain, disenabling any garden or mowing plans.
Not too sad about the latter, and neither are the saplings sprouting up amongst the grasses and weeds.
Tonight is a bennie for Squeaky Wheel and Pam informs me that she is doing more of her super-primo catering for it.
sidebar: Perfect day for Murmur, still an REM gem.
Saw a film crew today in the MC hard at work shooting a character exiting one of the city's ineffectual buses, two squadcars behind the bus, flashers ablaze. Two. Not one, two.
This is zealousness at its finest.
Decided to give myself an art assignment last night and it was to draw a dragon from memory. Try this.
So there I was with a page-sized creature that resembled the iconic dragon of the beloved club of yore, Pipe Dragon. This Perfect subconscious grabbed onto the rock memory of then and transmogrified it into this on the page.
Funny how the rock memory works. Rock memories, a terrible thing to waste.

Rue du Dragon Love.

Off to shoot a kind of vehicular event taking place next to the baseball stadium. The event has not a thing to do with sports and usually this event takes place at the zoo, and it has not a thing to do with caged live animals either.
Speaking of such, went to see An Inconvenient Truth last night (with Jana and behind us sat Scott, Ron, Don) and was thrilled that Al Gore has what is called in the industry face time, loads of it. Yours Truly cannot get enough looking at his nose, one of the finest. There's also just the right amount of back story about Al to know how he did come to be this type of emissary. YT nearly wrote missionary but that word has baggage, to my understanding, that would fill JFK's missing luggage area and each and every terminal of the complex. Speaking of that depot, I'm missing in a strange way my weekly commute to its familiarity and points beyond. That and the hard-boiled eggs. And did I tell You. The last time I snatched up a packet of hard-boiled eggs the eggs were frozen solid. It was like an evil trick, standing on the platform waiting for the A, cracking the egg and not being able to break my fast.
Homework assignment. Go see this movie or at the very least spend time on the related web page. If not for the future of the world, then to look at Al's nose.
Time to Judy Jetson to the gig.

Outer Space Love.

This just in.
Back from the gig, a pitstop of sorts to disemmiate the images at large. Well, not so large as they're electronic information, all 1's and 0's, not even an image as yet.
Saw my former division director Bill Hooley et al at the shoot, from when I was cultural and performing arts chair of UUAB out at UB. He reminded me of all the old high times, cast of characters, how he had wanted me to succeed him as the director. Shudder to think how I could have gone down the admin rather than photog path. Then there was that time in Philly when I had had another bout of thinking I was an admin person only to realize Uhhh, Nope. And then I escaped a seminar, called Dave Harrod from a payphone and he rescued me from that Bad Idea in a jiff, and on the back of his motorcycle all that Bad Idea just blew away.
Forgot to mention that on the answering machine there was, a few days ago, a message from a man I've never met that went something like this, edited hearily as it rambled.
Thanks, Nancy, I want to thank you and Jennifer for the novenas for my mother. She passed, it was a bad end, Hospice was great, thanks again for all your novenas. (giddily) I'm starting an Italian-American Women's Club, you know, I like women a lot more than men. I've decided it's time to settle down. And on. And on.
I do not know this man and I would not know a novena if one bit me on mine arse.
There is another Nancy Parisi in the Middling City, about, I've heard, 20 years older than YT. We once banked at the same bank, Permanent Savings Bank. This confused the heck out of the do-gooders behind the counter. I was about 9 with a meager Christmas Club account. I'm sure she had more than I. This, You see, was in the passbook days of yore. When you were forced to speak to the do-gooders.
All and out.

To be filed under L, like as in Like I needed this nonsense.
And if I didn't just have a bizarre threat of having a gun pulled on me by a perhaps post-partum nutcase this past spring (You may recall John, get the GUN, FREEZE, etc.) while galomphing happily in the snow at Kennedy's house.
Search back in epinw and You will find it. Onwards.
There I was, You know, minding my own business, settling into laptopping at the teahouse. Tea was sipped once, twice, and then all heck is breaking loose.
The tenant calls. Brinks calls. Tenant calls again.
He tells me that whilst he was bounding down the stairs the door to my space opened - and then, as paid for, the VERY LOUD ALARM blasted through the air.
He mutters something about thinking the alarm was his alarm clock and how he ran back up to check and then down again. If you heard this (usual) alarm you would find this ponderous.
He does think to call me, however and I say these things - Stay there, I'm ten minutes away, cops will be coming.
I arrive.
There is a cop car in front of the building, I see tenant at side door, his door.
I open my door, enter, am moving toward the keypad when I am about five feet away from a member of Middling City's finest, gun drawn. Not pointed directly at me but up in the air.
We both express air from our lungs in surprise. He then tells me I was very close to getting shot and why didn't I not enter or yell out. Because it looked like you were talking to the tenant who should have told you that this was a false alarm, that the door set off the motion detector in my apartment. Because this is my home. And again, I knew this was a false alarm, the tenant knew this was a false alarm.
This same scenario unfolded several years ago when Dorota and Jason stayed upstairs for a week and the crap lock on my door was not truly locked down and the door popped open, sending the cops over - but not indoors, with guns drawn.
Major diff today was the tenant not explaining this all to the officer, who entered my space and walked all through it inspecting for foul play.
So the tenant scrams (more on this later) and the patrolman and I are standing in the space discussing my photographs, him all questions, eyes.
This is the very same day that one of my colleagues informed me that this tenant has a very beer-guzzalicious blog that has him in some hot waters at his place of temp employment. Had I seen his blog I might have opted out of handing over the keys.
Any more episodes of odd and impaired judgment, I have told him, any brouhaha, will result in an end to this chapter.
Onwards. Time to enjoy some girlies, including b-day girl Lauren.

Patio Love.
NOT lanterns, as that Canadian rockstar geek of yore sang of decades ago.

Feels so real, I got the steering wheel.
So sang those bitchin' gals of punkrock, L7, about one excellent femme, Shirley Muldowney, racing legend.
Let us just say that today I spent the usual large amount of time in the car but the dessert if You will of vehicular interaction was had during the golf tourney Yours Truly was paid to doc today out at the lakeside, sort of, club, where I still have a few pals who work, who make the magic happen. I was speaking to Jana as I arrived at the country club, wending down their hillock driveway, anticipating. I nearly wrote c.c. in lieu of country club and the memory bank sent up kid years with my dad pronouncing from the front seat that our family exurb country club had a sign up - C.C. - for club closed along their weed-edged access road, met with our squalls of half-horror . . . and half-knowing that dad did this to harangue us and that it amused him to hear our ardent vociferations.
Onwards.
I said goodbye to Jana, ditched my car somewhere, and, like a super hero morphing from pedestrian to caped alterself switched from 2-handed driver to Intrepid Journalist and, concurrently, grinning golf cart go-getter. Let us just say that that Go-Kart was put through its paces today. Like Shirley, I gunned the little motor, I did not let up on any of the curves, I zigged and zagged amongst the old and wise and young and wispy trees, I took hills like a trooper, thoughts merged to what if, what if I roll this damned thing, but I kept it moving. Oh, sure, I jumped a few curbs but nobody was injured, no lenses were jolted from the bag, nobody was hurt, no screams. I was so thrilled to have the wind whizzing past my ears, flattening my eyebrows to my head like racing stripes, I wanted to share the moment with my beloved sister who was always by my side, my accomplice, when we slipped off as my parents enjoyed cocktails with other clubbers after dinner, to forage for carts with keys left in ignitions, to floor the pedals and make off into the dusk. My sister would not be at work and chances are she would not answer her semi-neglected cellie so off I sped and told her about it later. I am still smiling. I saw yellow finches. I made beautiful pictures.
To update the semi-oft-repeated quote of Winston Churchill.
Golf is not a ruined walk in the country but a good, thrilling, somewhat perilous ride in a Go-Kart with pesky pedestrians wacking a ball about.

Love of Muldowney.

Today in the Middling City there is a brash warning that has those, like Yours Truly, in need of maneuvering mowers, in throes of joi: the air is in an agitated, polluted state and it has been advised from higher-up meteorologists that heavy lifting and such be avoided. Like the plague. Like touching mower blades. Like petting raccoons.
Yesterday had a marathon Starbucks editing day, five straight hours in their hyper-ac'd place until I looked down and noted that my legs were a neato shade of violet.
Today, for the sake of balance and reportage and science, I am working in a locally-owned coffee joint that has no ac on and I am sweltering.
Lesson learned. Always opt for cold when working on laptop.
When I first arrived here there were three women reading newspapers as a toddler that assumedly belonged to one of them tottered about, occasionally cracking his head on things and then screaming until one of them scooped him up and carried him outdoors. Then they'd knock on the large plate glass window amusing their little group hugely. Me and another laptopper were just not as amused.
Lesson learned. Always opt for cold, and child-free zones.
And never ever forget earbuds again to keep the screeches out, the soundtrack in.
On Thursday night went out with Kennedy and the jazz musicians, Bandmate Scott, and a couple of filmmakers for a post-concert repast. The music, speaking of soundtracks, overhead was a hideous blend of bad rock tunes, short on ironic inflections, just bad. Two of the bandmates are Brits and it was quickly noted that most of the badtunes were from their homeland. Suddenly Billy Joel came on and I noted loudly that now the quote unquote mix had reached rock bottom. Discussion turned to Mr. Joel and I regaled them with my Billy Joel lore: You know, the teleprompter on the piano, the pre-Mr. Joel stage arrival reading of The Rules (no requests, no Happy Birthday, no handing of any tapes whatsoever to Mr. Joel ... he had gone to court over stealing the riff of an aspirant). I then told them of how one of my Richmond Avenue roomies announed to me and Constance one evening that her younger brother had been living in our attic. We had heard music. He loved listening to Billy Joel. We let him continue living in the attic. We charged him dearly for the priviledge. But things took a weird turn when he listened to Mr. Joel louder and louder and Constance and I one night, arm-in-arm sung along to She's Only a Woman as if we were the deepest revellers in an earthy rathskellar. Tom/Attic Boy never spoke another word to either of us. Well, he never usually did. For he never usually left the attic, save for when he went to his engineerng classes. Then he moved back to Pennsyltucky.

Sweaty, working Love.

Had two divergent gigs today, the last one in the epicenter of the quaintness of Hamburg. You know, the place where thee hamburger originated.
On the way to said quaint gig I spotted a caffeine joint I had not seen before and whilst talking to my photo subject asked if she'd ever been there. She swore by their caffeine, and added another option. Common Ground. Since it was getting to be rush hour traffic I opted for the latter choice, it being on the same side of the street that I was wending along. First weird thing was the parking lot was empty save for four Amish-type men, all in hats, functionalware, like over-alls. I parked across the street. Inside the joint, billed as a restaurant/cafe I was overwhelmed by my solitude. I called out to see if anyone was inside. A zonked-out looking woman appeared from the shadows, in plainclothes. They were open for coffee. Looking around the room Yours Truly was amazed that this place had been airlifted from about three decades ago, replete with macrame wall-hangings, earthy artifacts, rough-hewn wooden furniture.
Some Biblical quotes on the wall gave this place away as thee Common Ground associated with the bakery, a religious commune, some would say cult. My pal Michael Niman reported extensively on this group, noting their zeal at having youngsters working, some anti-Semitic sentiment in their brochures, and on. The Buffalo Food Co-Op felt so strongly about these matters that they stopped carrying Common Ground bread after Niman's articles were published.
The zonked-out girl asked if I knew much about their community. For the sake of escaping in under several hours YT replied Nope.
Had the meager coffee, elated it was not drugged and my name is not now Sykirah or whatever. The muffin thing was okay. Zonky Girl had baked it.
Let us just file this under Fieldtrips that need not be repeated.

Common Love.

*NB: new, better Ana Mendieta link below for You*

As usual, there I was, minding my own business.
The business at hand was documenting art and happenstance at the Cuban American (no hyphen) exhibition yesterday. Upstairs, in the other gallery space, were four prints by none other than superstar Ana Mendieta, the artist who Yours Truly believes is responsible for planting a lucrative seed in the mind of Cindy Sherman. Mendieta had a fab Whitney retro a while ago, one of those altering experiences. What in earlier times (70's) was called an earth artist, site-specific, gender issues tossed in.
You may also recall the story of her untimely ending as I do - neighbors hear yelling, scream, thud. Ana Mendieta tossed out a window by her sculptor beau, Carl Andre. Who walks freely amongst us.
It's time for YT once again to wend my way out to the suburbs to begin attempt #2 to make some portraits of a doc (that's doctor to those in the non-know) who gave me the slip on Friday, leaving out the back door after a meeting as he had not shaved. This is Diana Ross behaviour. Not many can get away with this type of thing. Carl Andre defenestrates at will. Diana Ross can slap whomever she pleases. And docs can stiff photogs any time they wish.
Is this a democratic world.
Is Gitmo a Club Fed.
I rest my case.

Weaving, wending Love.

Have no delightful evidence just yet but will in sooth have some primo, eye-pleasers soon as twice this week I was hired to photograph (God only knows who is reading so Yours Truly will not say bootylicious) Mikhail Baryshnakov - at a last dress for the premier of three new pieces and then for last night's VIP hoopla where Himself appeared in troubling brown shoes with a dark suit, yearning for a glass of wine. I approximated that it took him about one hour to traverse the room from wine station to snack centre as in the gulley between were about fifty people who wanted to touch him, to do the usual and adulatory things.
During the last dress I was sitting after some set-ups for the NYT and Middling City News at the edge of the stage when Himself came towards me. Enjoying? he queried.
Suddenly I demi-gushed, replete with fluttering hands thusly.
Oh it's GREAT, so much action.
Action.
The special visual treat for You is forthcoming, I think a nice solo shot of him where the light is hitting his eyes in an arresting way.
In one of the pieces Baryshnakov dances before a digvid projection of him as a teen, all jumpy lithe energy. It was not my favourite part but was a great use of digvid for sure and I did think of aeons ago when I was Cultural & Performing Arts Chair at UUAB (that would be univ union activities brd) and programmed an evening with Kathy Rose, who danced in front of her own animations to a funky funky beat.
Across the room where I am blogging and soaking up the wi-fi molecules is a Native man bare-chested save for a brown leather vest. He's wearing a brown suede cowboy hat with a gold chain around its crown. He looks like he's wearing eye makeup. This is something one just does not see each and every day. My thoughts, naturally, lead to Johnny Depp.

Depp in Love.

Here are two images made by Richard Wicka at the premier party for Sweet Jesus last night at Otis's joint, Century Grille. Richard Lambert did a primo job playing Jesus, as some said perhaps a bit too dead(pun intended)-on. The soundtrack was excellent, Michel Weber's song a typically-dark number which all her work is infused with. At some moments, however, of the film, I would have yelled CUT if I had been sitting in the director's chair for they went on a bit too long, visual trails that could have been a bit more tidy, chopped. The above left image is Yours Truly with Kimmie and Tony Billoni, who are both in the film. Richard was photographing them and I snuck into the frame and then this happened. When I saw the results on the back of Richard's camera I let out a skuh-reem - look at that tongue. The other image is YT attempting a supermodel look to no avail while Annie gets the job done. There were no snaxx at said party and the former Studio G (upstairs from CGrille) is now an odd, emptied space for hearing live music. Oh, one of my most fervent stalkers who shall remain unnamed, was there being avoided deftly for he had seen me upon arriving at the movie theatre and I barely escaped his overzealous and discomfiting attentions.
Had popcorn for dinner, as well as some deep and hearty laughs. What more could one wish from a movie premier. Oh, a gift bag. Where in hell is my freakin' gift bag.

Love of gifts, and bags.

Here is a very jubilant image of Hillary, I like this image, it shows her radiance, confidence, love of (still) the pant suit, the crowd's adoration.
Thought You would dig this.
Tonight is the downtown, red-carpeted premier of No Budget Films's Sweet Jesus, written and directed by Greg Sterlace, Middling City luminary. Greg asked if I'd be interested in a part in his next film, the part of a psychiatrist. Will I pursue this, my first filmic role in quite some time. Does the thought (as I wrote last night to Curly) of seeing my face about fifteen feet wide terrify me. Well, I rest my case, and will give it my precious little time.
Time to zoom off to the land of celluloid promise.
Cut to me rushing home as a kid to tell my parents of some political event where I landed in front of some television camera. Mom, Dad, I think I'm going to be on the news at 6. Then we'd sort of listen or watch and then, in several instances, my parents would say Looks like you ended up on the cutting room floor.

No Love for that floor.

Well, here is a nice visual treat for You - Yours Truly plus Mr. Chairman Denny Farrell of the Shiney Apple as well as the Empire State Capitol. Note how YT is showing a bit of meager cleavage. And do note the lapel pins that I and Mr. Chairman Denny Farrell are wearing, the little rectangles depicting an enamelized NYS. This pin meant that anywhere YT wished to roam she could, with impunity. Backstage to grab a shot of Bill + Hill, no problem. The downstaters were not impressed, nor should they have been, with the state of the Middling City's downtown. No plethora of WelcomeDelegates signage, floral plantings in front of buildings, a sense that things were tidy. The VIP delegation I rolled with commented upon the lack of pedestrians, lack of cabs (I told them that I tip people who wish to taxi anywhere that they allow a good hour), lack of a bon vivant vibe. I found Andrew Cuomo surprisingly real, watching him at a few tent soirees mingling with ease, and the way he adores his three daughters for real. I dubiously watched Hill hold a small snowglobe aloft with a buffalo inside it as she told the tale of a maid at The Mansion who took good care of her. No name to fact check. I told one of the Chairman's handlers, one of three Franks, that I found the story not only smarmy but questionable. He noted that a few years ago she would have remembered the name of the maid. If there was a maid. Despite this vibe I will still vote for her. I kept my last Hillary sign which I had inside my window so it would not get swiped in the night. Eliot Spitzer, as I already knew, is a keeper, is a charmer, is as real as Cuomo. He unabashedly left a fundraiser to return to the hockey game he was missing. One of the most notable happenstances that happened to YT was suddenly being sprawled upon the dirty carpet of the Hyatt Regency Grand (in quotes) Ballroom, after a tiny Chinese lady with giant round specs plowed into me as she ran for the stage at top speed. She got tangled up in my right leg and kaboom, we were both on the ground, her head nearly landing in the center of the drumkit that had been in use by the gospel choir that got things rolling on DemCon Day 2. The little Chinese lady and I were both lying there, I immediately worrying about the cam. She got up, never looking behind her, and showed up on stage alongside the Dem committee secretary in moments. I got scooped up by a giant delegate. In a short while I was laughing uproariously about the collision with some security men who had witnessed the entire impact, them telling me to keep a healthy distance from them. Ironically enough, and I always dig the big I, I bumped into the little Chinese lady later as we both whirled around in the revolving doors and THEN the following morning as I departed from the parking garage. There she was, walking down the sidewalk. And, when she saw me, her mean and pinchy eyes glared serious hatred. For she believes that I sort of tripped her unintentionally, that my foot was jutting out unreasonably far from my body. She told one of the security men this.
The balloon drop was a flop. The coffee was all bad. The hours were all long. But mostly it was fun, educational in some ways, adrenalizing.
Time to leave my secret corner of the teahouse and the orbit of happy vibes and to depart for the happy vibes of the little, woman-owned and women-run Italian joint not too far from here. And then more edits. And then more edits.

Edit, Love, Edit Love.

Went to the Shadow with Erin and Justy last night, after their sporty evening downtown. A non-feeble cover band replete with horn section had begun Honky Tonk Woman when there coming into the joint was thee Honky Tonk Woman, a vision in black georgette, gold lamé, and straw. Straw for the hat. She was the arm candy of a fella who, it was quite obvious, had her at the center of his libidinous sphere.
And, along the country line, the previous night was primo girlie night and, en route to our final and sushi-rich destination, we spotted what in the Middling City (in some circles) is what they call a big deal - the former mechanical bull now coated in thick brown fuzz to resemble a buffalo. Get it.
For a moment I watched the tipplers board the buffalo and hang on, first doing their best and most sexiest humping moves until the man manning the buffalo controls got this wicked look on his face, punched a few other buttons resulting in sideways fast bucks and the tippler would topple.
Geez, with consonance like this I really should be a banner engineer for New York Post.
DKNY has invited me to rent the lofty sofa for the summer.
On this wistful note I end, wending my way towards shooting the fourth wedding of a Middling City pal. I reserve snark at this moment, as is so not my wont.

Wont Love.

Ryan Adams's Demolition seemed the perfect afternoon choice, a collection of jangly rock with a political undertow.
Good news came at me about half an hour ago, I've been selected to be Eliot Spitzer's shadow for three days during the Middling City's Dem convention. I am a fan, I wanted this.
As I got The Call Dorothy was doing my nails, painting them a most femmey light pink, a good luck gesture I forged, in addition to a hair fine-tuning.
Now it's time to do a little homework.
Found frames yesterday for the show, ready-mades that will suffice at an affordable price. Now just the creating of images to be trapped underneath the glass. Have to alert Todd the Printer that images are coming his way soon, the realizations of what is in the sketchbooks and in the head of Yours Truly. The newly fine-tuned head.

Outward Appearances Love.

To be filed under A.
For Are you freakin' kidding me.
A pregnant femme was referred to me by several pals who I have made portraits of over the years. I call said pf and reassure her that not only has Yours Truly been doing this artsy-craftsy-journalistico thing for, oh, decades and more to come, but that I have photographed the mid to very pregnant before.
She tells me that her sister-in-law has had some pp's done in The Shiney Apple (cue the photog reaction of Oh, here we go. . . ).
Cutting to the good bits, the smarmiest of the bunch featured a butterfly, faux, on the belly of the femme in the photo. A faux butterfly, as if the belly were a force of nature, a giant flower to be alighted upon.
Thoughts wander to this femme is probably going to Google images and such under my name and I'll never hear from her again but this must be said
You are pregnant, the human body is usually quite alarmingly beautiful in all its dimensions, and pregnancy should strive for the primal end of the aesthetics spectrum rather than dumb down into what includes Precious Moments figurines.
And no paired wedding rings around your navel, either.
Here I end my anti-pregnant-art-smarm rant.

Love, in all shapes, in all sizes.

Like trundling through a new recipe, wearing a pair of smart & smartly-designed shoes that make you feel in touch with some very great part of your self, like a pal allowing you a turn driving a new and fast car.
What, You ask.
My first time out with my newest lens, one of the Nikkors made solely for work on digital bodies. A 17-55. A dream. Fast, sharp, lovely. Its first gig was a hoopla celebrating the ritualistic noting of manhood. A Bar Mitzvah. Fab images of children in throes of sugar mayhem, high on my list of images to make and do. And, as I have blogged before, one of my few life regrets is that I did not start amassing such images twenty years ago in lieu of a few. When they're ready I will probably post a few of the more, shall We say, chaotic ones here.
One in particular shows a near-drooling, wild-eyed six-year old girl coming at me and the 17-55 with a party favour. Another, a chocolate-smeared face of a pre-teen. There were no teen lust images to make, no slow dancing amongst the young and hormone-addled.
But there was waltzing, as the parents are both South American. And some (read between lines) Interesting ensembles. The barkeep nearby diagrammed out the ladies's attire for me thusly.
This is quite and ODD one, isn't it.
How so, Yours Truly inquired.
Well, you've got the lady over there (head nod) in the pink plastic cocktail dress, then you've got some in jeans and sandals. Then you've got Annie Hall over here (another nod).
And there, coming at us was Annie Hall, in unspringlike, dark fabrics.
The Middling City grows more verdant by the hour and the flower seeds beckon to be buried from 1/4"-1" but it is still too on the other side of warm for that.
Today is the first gathering of the girlie reading club.
We read Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury riffs well on action-adventure moments whereas his dialogue inspires thoughts of corrective red pencil tracings.
Just read the NYT article about architectural travails in China and at U of VA.
Compare & Contrast:
-China, go for it (gee, reminds me of Sen. Schumer's famed and fabled speech YT has heard to date 4 or is it 5 times... I didn't get the job and I didn't get the girl... which ends with his fist-up and resounding GOFORIT)
-U VA, we'll see.

We'll see, Love.

Gravitating towards - ever - the merch table at the Whitney, post-biennial, snatched up (and paid for) a copy of the new Bjork/Barney cd, soundtrack for Drawing Restraint 9.
Let Yours Truly just say that yesterday was a fulfilling day, running and rushing the gamut from puppets to pasties.
Had a dinner most perfect at some Lower East Side hotspot, the little Italian chef looking up periodically wild-eyed. I liked his combos. I did not (and Dorota and Jason would concur) dig his chair selections, they cheapened up the joint.
Time to rush.
For that is my nature.

Natural Love, running the gamut.

Flung myself into the visual strata of a few Shiney Apple art joints, drawing parallels, sketches, and conclusions.
First off the 4 from the A from the AirTrain from the plane from the car, I wended my way around the old school haunts noting that my favoured pedicure joint has unceremoniously folded up their mysterious tent so to speak.
Spotted some old ghosts around Parsons School of Disconnectedness and moved along in the rain that turned to sunshine to the upper regions alongside the park to just soak in creation.
Found amazing reference materials in the show of Kara Walker, who makes those political and violent, usually, silhouettes. Some Dutch artists who noted the powers of the elements, mostly water. Something I needed to see as that's what I am making and setting afire in the studio.
I thought, for the sake of safety, about making a simple lean-to of transluscent material to filter out a lot of natural light in a controlled manner.
Had one of those memorable dinners at Pink Pony on the Lower East Side - and then a few at a poseur rock hangout - with a gang who kept it light light and light.
Awoke to Dorota and Jason's newbie kitties scrambling down my legs before nestling in to steal some of my lithe body heat.
Time to walk to Elizabeth Street and then to points much beyond for more more more visual language.

Languid language of Love.

Have a firm date of sorts for the opening of the next show to happen early next month, as in June, as in mere weeks away, as in good, old-fashioned adrenalizing p.a.n.i.c.
The making/printing/framing/hanging dance.
And opening banquet to plan.
And postcard to design.

Therefore it's time for R&D which has been happening in sketches, readings, but now the grand R&D Centre for Visualizing - The Shiney Apple.
Heading there for moments as that's all about that can be crammed in around working.
Longer blogpost later, there's coffee to catch, planes to catch, A trains to catch. And then the green line to catch.

Caught up in Love.

Been in ultimate throes of commencement/wedding/freelance world. Photographed a delegation from Singapore last night, the ladies in colorful silks.
Speaking of colorful garb, this past weekend, in the Middling City's gray downtown district, saw throngs in white, flowing robes, red ceremonial-looking headwear, and white suits for the men. Upon closer, casual inspection saw that they were of the Ismalia Temple, an interesting contrast to the bright yellows of the Lions.
The Middling City is awash in Sabres Pride, Sabres magnetized flagpoles affixed to cars everywhere, and a general sense of adrenaline in the air obvious even to the most casual of sporty spectators - Yours Truly.
Dropped a big box of golf balls off at the public yet fee-grubbing golf course yesterday for the man who drove me about the course for my book gig. The book, a historical docu-drama about the US Open, is to appear in the world this autumn.
Speaking of autumn, Mrs. Ganey died, surrounded by five of her eight children, a few days ago. As sick as she was it seemed that her awesome will for more life would carry her along for months to come. Today is her wake and tomorrow the funeral and my thoughts are full of not only how the family was still reeling from the death of Mr. Ganey about a month ago, but of her strength, talents, quiet intensity. She was one of my lifetime's greatest inspirations as she painted, drew, wrote, pursued an advanced degree as a non-traditional student, cooked well, gardened, socialized madly, loved music, and all her children. One remarkable thing to me as a younger person was how both the Ganey parents welcomed challenges to their authority, if presented in a logical manner - something that did not happen where I lived. Mrs. Ganey inspired everyone who knew her (students she had at Nardin, friends, kids) to push to experience innate, creative gifts as well as the creative efforts out there in the world.
Despite waning, her last week she watched her beloved Sabres, went to a concert, played bridge, and talked to all her children.
One of the last things she said to me was Put pen to paper.

Creative, vibrant Love.

The Middling City is demi-sun today, another full day of gigs for Yours Truly.
Just had a gig for the U and had to battle my way through hundreds of Lions, the ballroom foyer awash with yellow vests, wacky hats expressing individuality to fly in the face so to speak of said vests, stalls of info about home care aids like giant-buttoned phones as well as helper dogs, and a general sense of conventioneer camaraderie and fraternity et egalité.
Sipping on coffee that the U had put out for its own attendees I decided to see what the buzz was around a certain booth that had attracted about a dozen or so Lionesses. I was immediately pounced upon by a Lion who noted I'd infiltrated, also noting that I did not fit in in my business suit. Now You can ask me any fun fact about Lions - I have them all.
Photographed E.O. Wilson, Pulitzer Prize winning scientist, who has studied ants. His talk was sobering, noting how collectively We are completely ruining bio-diversity - even our own.
On that note I'd heard enough and meandered back through the outer activity, seeking out the live demo dogs.
Yesterday's ultimate gig ended quite miserably, the chef in charge of banquetly matters really sucking and enraging those in charge who could not believe that one hour after the first dinner plates hit tables some were still sans dinners. The tension in and around the kitchen tasted like white vinegar and the woman who'd hired Yours Truly worried about the status of her job after this comestible fiasco. She informed me I was finished, and could leave a bit earlier than planned because the photographic meter was running and there was no end in sight of the plating. He is an artiste, she said, the chef wants each and every plate to look like a work of art. As any artist worth their art supplies will tell You, art may be made in a timely fashion.
As YT will tell You, regarding the pending art show allegedly to happen next month.
Where is the art, I ask You.
Expediently, when the time is free and right, it will turn from idea and sketches into real bona fide, on-the-walls work.
Parting shot is that art is work. Just like real work.
The drummer and priest at the unfortunate church next door are practicing - beats and on mic. Just not what a jangled workaholic wants to hear so up go mine own decibels, white and rollicking noise.

Rollllicking, noisey Love.

Self-humoured Moment du Jour.
The premier of a slew of gigs featured a very animated translator for the hearing impaired, all big flourishes and mouth shapes, hands in concert-worthy gestures, him near half-standing for emphasis. Made some pictures of him as he was a visually-interesting part of the event. At one point, about mid-programme, I noted that the man and woman next to me were also intently watching the translator. I sort of leaned over and said He's really fun to watch, isn't he. They both just looked at me. I repeated. They watched my lips. Then they gave small, quick nods and went back to watching the translating. Oh, I says to Myself, this is not just a state-mandated service, people actually use it, too.
Amongst the varied and various stops of yesterday was one at the Nowhereseville estate of a Middling City billionaire where I saw my pianist pal, Richie. While milling about, waiting for our services to be oso needed, I learned this fun fact, proving once again that You just never ever can guess what secrets, fetishes, and fascinations lurk in the minds of others.
Turns out he's a self-proclaimed gun freak, just bought a very serious and kick-ass gun, and is going to be buying his girlie a Taser.
The high rollers came into the parlour and we snapped to our respective attentions, being fabulous yet blending as best as we could into the nouveau yet faux-haggard woodwork. Reward after: T&Ts on the richest of verandas, The Roycroft, with one of the Life Coaches, Brucey, for some good old-fashioned Rah-rah You can do it talk.
Do what, You ask.
It all.

5/5 Love - halfway to 10/10, the day YT most Perfectly emerged.
+
Happy Birthday to Dragon Boy.

So, dig this.
En route to the poesie extravaganza I saw a spectacular car fire (NB: this image is via Google Images, not moi) not too far from the bridge that bridges the Middling City and The Land of Mackintosh Toffee.
The car fire was in its beginning stages as I was approaching, that stage when it seems perhaps there's just an overly-hot cuppa Starbucks in the cup holder, or something akimbo with some trash alongside the vehicle. Then that sight of the upholstery catching, that fearful thought that something is really going to ExPlOdE. But it does not. Somehow Yours Truly has managed to see a lot of car fires and subsequently I consider myself a bit of an authority on them, having also, You see, discussed them with emergency car fire anti-abettors - i.e. firemen/killjoys.
So I am stopped in traffic but all the world around the roaring car fire had stopped. Then the firemen arrived and the show was like so over. My camera was not on hand. I have soul-searched and I am allright with this.
Memory bank offers up another car fire on an overpass of a biway of the MC and, as I approached the blaze up ahead and above, I reached for my camera and shot away madly through the windshield. Very dramatic - both the shooting and the fire.
That's far down south and down and over in the southwest.
Urban Epiphany, like the fire/far, was a raging success, although running behind. I read and read and read some more. Actually cutting down to about one-third of what I had penned & planned as the hour was laterific. I felt solid reading, really digging the words. And enjoying most of the words of the others. I needed to leave and upon leaving was followed by one of the readers who asked me to be a featured writer/reader at a series that he produces.
Now another memory.
The Writers' Cramp Series that YT ran for years with partner Paul T. Hogan. This series freakin' rocked: two free reading per month, and always featuring one newbie, one established, one superstar of sorts. I moved the WCS from the somewhat obscure Bethune Gallery (sigh) to Central Park Grill. Thursdays. MCd alternatingly with Paul and I gave readers souvenir WCS tshirts I hand silkscreened. Ahh, the 80s.
So somewhere sometime YT will be a featured person.
Arose at the asscrack of dawn to wend my way to a golf course to make poetry in the form of digital images for a book to be published internationally about the History of the U.S. Open. Part of such took place aeons ago on the green greens of Grover Cleveland GC.
Had a sherpa, Paul, who took me out on the cart and who guided me about so all's I had to do was focus, look, think, compose, think, focus, chat, laugh, focus, repeat.
Let Us just put it this succinct way. With my imPerfect sense of direction and maply impatience, I might still be out there looking for freakin' 18.

Hole 19 Love.

Minding my own business, of course, I said Yes to the annual pome marathon. And, lest You not know (or knot now) pomes is the old-farty word for poems.
In a matter of moments I'll be facing a (hopefully unhostile) bunch of amassed listeners, reading, amongst other things, my new and sketchy Element Song.
Element Song is meant as a sketch of sorts for the pending photo images for the show.
Secret: this is what Yours Truly does, makes lit for visual shows. If there's not a good bit of poesie for the work then there is trouble abrew. So there is Element Song and all is swell.
Think I'm most happy with Fire. Then Earth. Then Water. Then Air.
But Air is how I'll be ending this Urban Epiphany reading as it has some hale advice for how to read the air, how to groove on what surrounds us. That, Everyone, is always the matter at my hand regarding visuals. And what I tried to say in that grad school - put a visual on the world teeming with air/fire/water/life/rock & roll/earth/shoes.

Love's Teem.

Got together with Les Girlies last night to celebrate the birth of Janine, who was in her rare form. Got her some crocheted tights and a Middling City mag for her Shiney Apple joint, her being The Crochet Girl and all, crafting hats, or at least she did in the past.
Slated for the other Shiney item, the Shiney Happy Mag, Yours Truly will be inking away furiously, or, rather, laptopping madly, a story about those who live literally in the long shadows of the grain elevators. I plan on knocking on doors, the camera bag disguised for wisdom's sake. Hope to not encounter any secret cockfighting rings, crackheads, and the like.
Script.
YT: Hello, pardon me, but may we rap about how and why you live here. I want to hear stories of high times, union riots, the scent of Cheerios, lay it on me.
OFW resident: Plethora of witticisms with mad quotes peppered in.
Onwards.
Cannot say just yet what the other is about, today switching from something else.
This AM shot two gigs out at Middling City U, the first being a crafting extravaganza for children along for the Take Your (Snivveling) Kid(s) to Work Day.
Crafting. I ask You.
Supposing this is a respite for the children who don't give a hoot about water cooler convos.
Time to wend away for errands and then the usual laptop moments.

Tethered to the laptop, Love.

Looking for venture capitalists for a new business I'm going to hopefully launch soon, inspired by a daytrip of sorts I took yesterday, leading Harold along the two-lane to Niagara Falls, New York with a stop at what was once, and always will be, the buried (both the canal, and the chems) Love Canal. I dubbed our daytrip Toxic Tours. First stop Love Canal, nestled behind a facade of concrete and expressway, hard to find. Where the school was is now a fenced-off area with the newer addition of vents and guages and metal contraptions you would definitely not want to mess around with. I have had an ongoing fascination with Lois Gibbs, housewife turned activista, as well as what remains. Occasionally I've gone up there and made images of the perennials that persist where there were gardens and now it's harder to find them. Yesterday I shot this tree trunk that was uplifted for some reason, maybe new development like the senior residences nearby. I decided there must be something of note in the mud in the roots and poked about until I came up with a broken green shard and a white porcelain animal face, all that's left of some figurine. Shot more trees that have been cut down but that are coming back ferociously and noted a huge birch tree with a long green stripe of moss down (You guessed it) its north side. Onwards then to closed chemical factories with rather elegant facades that look like movie theatre marquees. There's nothing quite like the expanse of sunny Niagara Falls desolation. Such natural beauty, raging green waters with an unforgettable smell, producing such pathetic attempts at cashing in.
Time to make more art.

Love Canal Love.

This just in, from the What the Hell Desk.
Well, the poetry reading in sooth is not at all happening tomorrow. It's next week.
And this means more time to hover over pages.
You know, Yours Truly has a lot on her plate at this moment with the usuals plus readying for the next solo show and such.
Bought a lith print intro kit for consideration for the above and have not yet poked about into its chem possibilities. From what YT saw lith prints resemble infra-red but in more golden tones.
This also just in, from the Metro Closures Department.
Harold informs me that the other good and small contiguous suburban diner near the best of the MC area's Olmsted Parks (that would be South Park with its delightful ring road that is actually bucolic and beautiful and not sidling alongside the Bad Karma Expressway like one Delaware Park) has closed. Went there once with Kennedy and did not make it back for their odd diner menu featuring real live French fare. He tells me it's now going to be a hotdog stand. And, sadly, this site was The Coffee Pot which had 8x10 glossies covering every square greasy inch of the joint. This all makes me think I should visit soon the other super-secret diner location in what YT lovingly refers to as Little Appalachia - the Grant Street area.
On that geographical note YT signs off and rushes out into Freelance World.

My ongoing, erstwhile, earnest, and dinerific Love.

After a break in the morning's throttled work schedule slipped off the grid for a respite to the SW, at one of the contiguous Middling City suburbs, at one of the favoured secret diners. Then slipped into the Botanicus Gardenus for a little sniffing business and the orchid room was unforgettably sticky. I had to rush out of their when a gaggle of aged loudspeakers straggled in with inane observations. And then went back, looked at petals for flame-like characteristics. Brushed my hands over everything and felt the softest pre-bloomed flower of a Lollipop plant. Not its namus Latinus.
Time for more more more work before a gap in work and then more work and then less work and then tomorrow a full day of working.
Poetry reading on Sunday. Details to follow, like on Monday.

Follower of Love.

In lieu of Neil the Y - not the D - Velour of yore is on the hi-fi, emanating that fin de siècle songcraft that I was so imbued in so then. So much so that I was invited to their dress rehearsal to give notes on The Impressions. I recall a bandshoot I did with them near the grain elevators, they were all into their hair, not wanting to get dirty. Boys, rock, noise, hai-karate kicks.
And You know what. I will tell You. They still completely rock the loud-decibeled stratosphere.
I sold myself to a blue-eyed devil, she'll never get the best of me.
That, my Perfect epinw readers, is what rock is all about - the operatic moments of life and love, presented in a somewhat vulnerable manner with teeth, so to speak.
So when your sun begins to fall, was it worth your weight in gold.
Here is another primo example of what makes the rock the rock. The above sounds great as a rock lyric, sung. But, in retrospect, upon close(r) inspection, what in blazes does this mean.
This leads me to the real matter at hand, the Neil Young movie.
It's not exactly that I feel that there are 1.5 hours I can never regain, that is too strong a sentiment and such, but really. The shots of Ryman tip me off to what I did not see down there in Nashville when TunaTwin and I traversed this fair land for the first time together, wending our way up and down the main drag, dragging ourselves into and out of famed joints.
Actually, we became the Tuna Twins down there when a very old man spoke to the two of us and, noting our similar faces, and YT ends that snippet here.
So, back to Neil.
The first demi of the movie is, assumedly, the first night of two, is all new material and that material had me nearly in nap mode. I looked at Brucey and said So he had an aneurism, must we all suffer. That bad. Smarm. Smarm. Smarm.
Second half is the second night, the old shit You love.
Here, a trib:
High school nights of spring when the self begins to crocus out into the world and Neil was on the jukebox of one Checker's. He became part of the soundtrack for our wobbly, young lives of borrowed cars, borrowed apartments, raging intellects, hitched-up uniform box-pleated skirts, and hitching-to-school thumbs up. Loomis's rooms with Neil warbling out of what today would be an iPod was then a boombox.
So long ago and so far away.
Neil Y's Unplugged is an item you must have in the NY collection - if for only what is usually on most discs the cherished track, #6. You Are Like a Hurricane. This version is one of three songs that ever stopped me dead in tracks, gave the goosebump. This is all Life molecules, all Art gestures, All Green, in one fell swoop.
Said tonight to a friend Of course you are your age, think of all the things you have done, all the wondrous things you have seen.
YT rests her wondrous case. Once again.
I am the dreamer, You are the dream. Dig.

Sentimental journeyed Love.

The person in the photo is Richie English, a portrait I made of him in situ at tonight's gig.
Remember that name, he is an en route star.

To be filed under M, formerly as in Dragon Boy, but presently for Middling City Classique.
Funny how time changes our personal alphabetical refs.
A certain pal of Yours Truly, who shall not be named (You know, as Sam wrote, God is a witness that cannot be named), has relocated to the Shiney Apple for work as the MC path had gone completely vapid for him. So there he went. So there he was this fine evening along with a few others who thrive and do this & proverbial that wherever need be. He was, I swear to You, eating a platter of chicken wings as heartily as any rubber-necker/do-gooder/erstwhile visitor hunkering down for MC good times might do.
Thoughts run to what else suchtypes might do in the MC.
Those who were but now are former but who have a surprising leaning toward the, YT searches for a suitable and diplomatic word, textbook attraction.
Yes, the textbook.

Not so sure about Textbook Love.

Ensconced in a super suburban hot spot to edit & burn images for gigs.
At noon today I shot a parade of students et al marching in an anti-sexual assaults protest which featured the requisite signs and yelling into megaphones as well as men in high-heeled shoes that were being sold on the collegiate scene by AmVets - all size 10, all hideous. I asked the AmVets workers alongside the shoe spread about the provenance of the shoes (hundreds) and was told these were all unsellable - some clearly from the 80s, near classics, unloved.
*sidebar: one of those much in the news, ultra-overweight families is nearby, everyone from grandmother to elementary sibs hauling loads of heft, devouring a starch and sugar feast.*
Yesterday went to the delightful, annual brunch at Olga and Ted's home and brought with me a few gifts - a red and white, gorgeous columbine plant, and a flourless chocolate cake probably weighing as much as one of those kids over yonder.
Upon seeing the cake Anya remarked Where's the rest of it.
As Alexi soaked my plate with Veuve Cliquot I became a bit distracted from eating and spent more time enjoying VC than victuals.
I was already saddened by the crackhead-induced death of a Middling City diner owner and the VC sped introspective matters along, culminating in me dropping my potted plant from Olga and Ted off at the shooting scene - along with a somewhat rambling note to the bandits.
I stopped by the diner this AM en route to MCU to snatch back the sign and arrived to see a table set up manned by volunteers collecting money for the late owner - George's - funeral, as well as people dropping more flowers. I felt rather odd about taking my sign just then, especially after I watched a woman reading it and then bursting into tears, so I left it but did give my last five dollar bill to the funereal fund.
One of the volunteers said the diner will prevail, reopened by George's family and renamed eponymously, and undoubtedly still serving grits. She told me that one of the bandits was arrested already, that this guy (a crackhead, shocking) was always broke and George would feed him, pro bono.
The crackhead and his buddy sat nearby after the shooting, watching the ambulances, etc. arrive.
The note penned by Yours Truly in a nutshell stated that in lieu of spending billions on a war in Iraq I wish the so-called president spent it funding schools, rehab programs, to keep more gendarmes on the scene.
While meeting with my tax femme Valerie, who also teaches GED classes, we talked a long while about the lessening of literacy in this country.
No education, no hope, no future, no control, no shortage of crack, no shortage of handguns added up to a whole lot of loss of joy along the Middling City's Main Street on Friday, when a small business owner with a good heart was shot in same by two sans any.

Love Love Love.

Although it is reported to be the thirteenth he was never quite sure but did relish that the anniversary of his emergence was this very auspicious day on the calendar of Christians.
Happy Birthday Number 100 to You, dear Sam.

Neglected to state one thing that I did witness at the teahouse the other day, the near-death experience of a famed Middling City draft dodger who now leads a very nautical life.
As I laptopped away there first came some voices down the twisty stairwell, and Jen and I observed the MCdd falling forward whilst holding a tray of tea-related items.
He plunged forward, hitting his large head on his tall body *crash* into the bar about five feet from where I sat. He was still. I thought he had expired.
A small bit of blood was on his chin. I called 911. He awoke, insisting he was fine.
I suggested that he not move. He did. I guess that comes from being a draft dodger, that resistance to law, strong suggestion.
Last night watched Beth Elkins's dance performance on Allen Street featuring three, count 'em, three, video projectors, some stiff folding chairs, good dancers, a narrator, snippets of music, snippets of Geisel's Butter Battle Book. Afterwards I told Beth that she should be proud of what she made, a combo platter of girlie experience and wizening as well as anti-war sentiment that at one point verged on hysteria. There were curious breaks for vino and hummus.
Afterwards traipsed about with Cheryl and Liz, ultimately meeting two Michaels at one of the MC's better bars de gaiment. Both work at the ad agency I did a gig for about a month ago. They knew the work and basically it was decided we would like to cross our farflungish paths again.
Listening to Damon and Naomi but the vrai song du semaine has been Bjork's Real Life Sensuality. That missing blogpost a few days back due to my generous and perfect heart wanting to share with You an mp3 file of said song and suddenly Blogger went all to hell.
Oh, speaking of hell. I am going there.
Today I exclaimed Jesus H. Christ on the very day he sipped vinegar on a sponge, croaked his final words, and then the sky got very dark when he died.
That is why, my Perfect theory, that black jelly beans/eggs are ingested. They represent death. As do Peeps with their odd, somewhat crumbly exterior and liver-coagulating materials (not to mention lethal faux colourings), that do same.
Tomorrow I meet with my maternal and lovely tax lady, Valerie.
I am bringing her some beautiful dianthus as she, Valerie, reps all things lovely about (no, not taxes) femme charms and super powers.

Power of Taxing Love.

I finally took the plunge I had been so yearning for and bought a chainsaw.
Not really the Husqvarna of my dreams but a good starter Remington, despite the admonitions and such of Everyone.
I tell you, in this Perfect World when Yours Truly wants something she does get it.
And also in this Perfect World YT will not, repeat, will not lop off any limbs - except those that are evergreen in nature.
Brucey asked how long the something-or-other was.
The what.
The casing, the chain.
Oh, YT, answered, glancing over at the box, Ten inches.
It's a small one.
A starter one, YT rebutted.
As luck might have it the father of YT noted that a critical piece of the machine was missing, the trigger, so my dreamy moment was (temporarily) dashed on the rocks like a ruined and rusty chainsaw blade.
I feel power.
I have tools.
I have a goal.
I have things to slice and dice.

Sliced, diced, dreamy Love.

Working/blogging/editing at the teahouse, basking in the glow of Teahouse Jen who has an actually, surprisingly good Muzak station on... nu-lounge.
Yours Truly has gleaned some info over the years being on the scene and documenting it all and this includes this Fun Fact: Those who work in secret ways are, generally speaking, kooks.
Note yesterday, gig #3 in a tight series of 4.
A super-secret laboratory with contraptions that could be looked at by YT but not photographed in any way. I might not even be allowed to be blogging all this to You.
The address was approximated... look for a tree with a little curved branch, walk 10 paces towards the north and when you spot a little yellow, seemingly-random mark on the ground you are within 5 feet of the lab and suss out the rest.
YT asked a handily on-hand cleaning man where in blazes said lab was. He pointed to a door.
The door had blinds and was locked. They were expecting me and the cam but still it took them a while to open the freakin' door. A woman opened it and basically marched me in about 2 feet, imploring me to stay there. After about 1 minute I queried thusly, seeing her fluttering nearby. Am I really supposed to stay right here. She moved me into a very odd area with partitions and no humans where YT read the NYT until all was ready.
What was most enjoyable was the booth designed for training those to interrogate, I was sealed into it for effect. I had enough effect after, oh, about 30 seconds.
I asked about the small, de rigeur, badly-painted landscape on one of the booth's walls, propped against an alcove of sorts. Oh, the lab leader stated, That is for helping those who are being interrogated to feel less confined, that they have a psychological escape if need be.
Have You ever heard such nonsense.
There You are, in a sealed interrogation booth, a man with a clipboard asking questions, five cameras pointed towards you, an infra-red cam noting your twitches and sweat, a super-secret device to your right monitoring your heart. In the midst of this sound-proofed moment you glance to the right and AHHHHH, a moment of serenity wafts across your mind as a representational bit of hillock evokes.

Love the POWER of Art.

SuperBonus:
Go here for some Art Power.

Most of this day, motoring from gig to gig, I've been listening to Bjork's first release as her post-Sugarcube self, Debut - most notably one of the world's to-date heppingest songs, Big Time Sensuality.

BTS:
I can sense it
Something important
Is about to happen
It's coming up
It takes courage to enjoy it
The hard-core and the gentle
Big time sensuality
I don't know my future after this weekend
And I don't want to
It takes courage to enjoy it
The hard-core and the gentle
Big time sensuality

+ cannot wait until the release of Drawing Restraint 9, the movie with Bjork and her big man, Matthew Barney.

Drawing Love.

Whilst singing Youuu are the TYMPANIST Yours Truly clapped her hands most enthusiastically, to the utter surprise of Middling City Orchestra's Jesse Kregal, spotted in Coda, the site of Michele's swinging b-day gathering last night. He was so overcome by the claps and con brio singing that he did not note that it was YT who was cheering his entry.
Coda brought out a flight of ice creams for Michele and it seemed the challenge there was to out-do the former flavour. Kate Elliot explained them - Tarragon/blah-blah, peanut butter/garlic, roasted beet/blah-blah... Despite the wacky iced concoctions all else rocked.
Deb says the owner/chef is superb of visage, did not get a look.
To facilitate getting to Coda in a safe and timely fashion TY pressed the Forester along Kleinhans Music Hall, in a spot labeled For Middling City News Music Reviewer. It was 8:05, if said slacker reviewer was that late, oh well and hoof it.
Yesterday was my faux b-day. The date selected by me to glean some faux docs to hang with my older high school pals who were of legal limits.
I do accept gifts for the faux b-day, much like the other. Same sizes and such apply.
I fauxly thank You.

Non-Faux Love.

Never saw a stage door that I did not burst through, never having had appropriate respect for that Third Wall.
Or is that the Fifth Wall. Wailing Wall. Fifth Wheel. You know, the barricade of Imagine.
At the play last night was, amongst others, directress Debra Cole, and Mike of FLYNN'S fame. Zut alors! Yours Truly shouted internatlly upon seeing him in all his Buddha reserve, serenity.
Katharine and I had business to attend to - getting Annie her much-deserved giant bouquet of pink fleurs. So what if it wasn't yet the end and it was only half-time.
We were running up some institutional stairs, arm-in-arm, when I saw the designating sign on the door. And there we found ourselves, cramped behind a curtain with all the players, hunting for Annie's face in the small crowd. We gave her some hugs, kisses, and left the greenish roomish area. Being an aunt I got the children hepped-up on cookies and Skittles, Jake fishing about for them the whole rest of Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. What did Jake the teen find most engaging about the drama. The talk of boobies. Me, too.
Just got back from photographing a man who has made his life work about mushrooms small, large, fetid, and oso much more. Mushrooms. He does not hunt them, I was told by his über-wife, He says you should get them from the market.

Puffball Love.

Here is the likeness of the Kenmore copy who pulled Yours Truly over today for - of all things - talking on my cellphone. Oh, oops, nope, that is the image of the missing link between sea and land creatures. My mistake.
So there I am talking work matters when I see the flash and dazzle of a new cop car. Me and another were pulled over for same reason. He came back to the car with my rap/plea sheet and sort of - believe this or not - apologized. He said It's not a moving violation at least, you can appeal. Squalling children, loud music, piping hot beverages, I still argue, are more a threat to public safety and well-being than holding a phone to my head. My cellphone, ironically enough, has a speaker phone feature but it's so hard to hear the person that it's usually in front of my head about 8" away. So how is that legal, and having it moved over 6" or so around to one side of my head not.
I rest my case. Onwards. Phone floating in legal car space.

Defendant Love.

Yours Truly was tipped off by Pam yesterday that a diploma from Parsons/NSU might be heading my way and lo, behold, there was an oversized cardboard envelope in the side door. A very expensive doc to be sure. Immediate relaying of news to the various followed by immediate query if the doc is framed yet. In lieu of custom framejob by Penny the Framing Mistress I think I might opt for the readymades at Target. I like that this piece of $60K paper will be surrounded by foreign-made glass and wood particles for about $20.
And, always relishing the Ironic, my premier invoice to repay the student loans arrived yesterday. And what a sobering piece of mail that was, it might cut into my shoe budget.
Sped from the teahouse and attendant laughs to the suburban MCU campus where there were snowflakes twirling in the air. I made some ports of a femme in the dramatic arts whose business it is to traipse all over the world for educational purposes and YT thought Hell, sign me up for those frequent flier miles.
Bought the stray cat contingent and the wild birds some healthy snacks en route back to downtown, always searching for Favoured Person Status amongst The Feral.

Feral, suet-rich Love.

In case Yours Truly disappears from this shithole suburban wi-fi centre this perhaps is the suspect of my demise - 70-something, striped shirt, slovenly, has a really filthy iBook, glasses, crooked mustache. Walked in to work on the MCUniversity deadline as I have no *bleepin'* wi-fi on campus and spotted this - shall We say - character across the room. He was all crumpled up on a nearby sofa. As I got to work he shuffled over sputtering about moving things out of my way to which I replied It's fine. He laughed and is now sitting right next to me. I am shoved as far to the right as can be. Yikes and more yikes. Not to beat a homesick horse to death but in the Shiney Apple one's chances of bumping up against a veritable Mr. Creepy like the one to the east of me is fairly slim. I have my headphones on and he just tried asking me if I've ever forgotten my password and that he's downloading . . . something. Online porn the thought bubble over my head queried.
Onwards to my deadline of two back-to-back, enthralling portraitees.

Portraits of Love not appropriate for this skeeved-out moment.

*this just in*
It went away. Here's to The Perfected Really You Could Be Writhing on the Ground with Some Sort of Attack and I Just Really Would Not Give a Flying Phlegm vibe.