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.