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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Buddha Love.

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

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

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

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

dreams.

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

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

Somnamulistic Love.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chorus:

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

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

repeat Chorus

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

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

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