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

Canned Love.

Excerpt from a true exchange.

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

Maxi & Mini Loves.

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

Love's cocktail.

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

Anyway Love.

Bonne Chance, Bob.

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

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

Vrai Love.

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

All Love.

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

Real Love.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stewed Love, not prunes.

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

Love's Peeps.

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

Speech-impeded Love.

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

Out Loved.

Well thank the gods and saints (like Patrick) for All Wheel Drive - that's AWD in common and motorhead parlance - as it was like so needed today whilst parking in one sub190 parking lot this morn. Left the car teetering at a 45 or so degree angle as I left it to go shoot Match Day, the day that 100+ med students find out their fate, where they'll be residencing their next five years. Much hugging, gripping of envelopes, cell phones whipped out to tell news to folks off in afar. And, as is Match Day tradition, not one single person ventured forth to cut or taste the dual sheetcakes emblazoned with Middling City U Med School medallions and such. Not one fork hit those plasticky and pastiched cakes.
Beth Dearest emailed me today from her temp gig to inquire just what in hell this Saint Patrick Day is about and who he was. To that I gleefully replied He rid the Emerald Isle of SNAKES. He lifted up his walking stick/shelalaigh/rod/staff/weapon, dressed head to toe in green satin, wearing a hat in the style that the popes would later pilfer like oso many things, and, with a mighty heave of the stick into the air uttered these words, in an ancient Gaelic dialect:
OUT OUT DAMNED SNAKES, LET MY PEOPLE BE FREE.
The snakes, it should be noted, were in actuality those who had not one tiny shred of Christianity, for they were heathens, hooligans and heretics.
And Saint Patrick, after his ridding, headed over to an ancient saloon and ordered up some fine mead and then some shots of scotch from a nearby isle.
And, centuries later, Irish-Americans took up the wearing of the green satin and the slurping of the mead and such and the brandishing of weapons and the wearing of stupid headgear.
Any more questions.

Questionable Love.

File under Gee, How Shocking. Now is that technically under G, or S.
UPS has my indestructible new portfolio hostage somewhere on a truck, in transit and the burning question is When. And how.
Reese is traipsing all over New Zealand, undoubtedly drinking the local vinted products and have not received any e-correspondence as of yet.
A few days ago had a gig photographing a hardened, wizened lady cop who counsels her peers about work stress disorders and abuse of substances, prevalent as can be, as one might imagine.
During my shoot there were a gaggle of thick guy cops sitting in a boardroom and she pantomimed counsel as I shot away, conversation taking surprising revelatory and confidential turns. Fellow cops not in attendance spoken of by name. Lady cop describes cuffing some of her colleagues over the years and dropping them off, kicking and screaming, at Middling City Drunk Tank, the Hoozgow for Hyper-revelers. And all the while Yours Truly thinking Should I really be hearing this, apparently they do not know that I'll be blogging this momentarily.
And yesterday, whilst getting ingredients at Ye Olde Foode Shoppe literally ran into the attorney who wanted to haul me off to the Hoozgow for Bad Journalists regarding the famed Gripping the Podium Shot, and her hubby. I was looking at him and saw her over his shoulder and, when she spotted YT, she turned on her righteous heel and fled the scene. I proceeded onwards with my shoppeing.
So it's officially Kittie Season and the cats are roamiing and moaning and my dear little eunich, Extra, has nothing to do with all this melodrama. Sanguinely waiting for his next doling of wet food, Pounce brand treats, loving pats on his regal and near-feral head.

Feral Love.

The Middling City is covered with a thin layer of white hot spotlit snow, a sunny day for the saintly and self-imported Irish parade down one of the triad of main and parallel roadways. As I have homework and lost a full day to freelance maneuverings yesterday I passed up my bi-annual and favoured chance to capture likeness molecules of girls with guns for my ongoing series. And the new Woca, Holga's more ritzy cousin, is bereft. For you non-photogs the Woca is a Holga with a - get this - glass lens.
Talked to Beth Dearest moments ago and said that Yours Truly needs to get art into mainstream and not think of the "Program" where we are all art-directed, making the most and such.
Found out moments ago that there's a check from a mag in the Shiney Apple floating about in same. Can't recall which Shiney Apple address I may have given them so that's another Perfect mystery and the editor is remaking my check and remailing to boot.
Have been missing both Midtown East and SoHo sites and attendant and daily routines of where to eat, where to imbibe the caffeine, where to sit a spell, and more. And add to the list Portland, ME, which unexpectedly crept towards me today as a place to be missed. Thought of making a dramatic and somewhat faux narrative digvid piece about missing places, places that haunt, and why.
I am really supposed to be doing readings and homework and there is big emphasis on supposed.
So here I go, off to suppose and suppose some more.

Love suppose.

ps: thirty days until Sam's birthday.

Veritas rockus.
Hearing NYC live last night in the 30s-ish theatre in Crackville at Interpol gig was waking dream.
And for the first time ever in my unshockable rock demeanour, near-lifetime of hanging at gigs, backstage tales beyond belief of rockstar hijinx, fraternizing with boys of all rock genres, I shut my eyes during a show to let every molecule of this one song hit me like light therapy (and, speaking of capturing light, shot a few phonal images of the stage and one of them, I pointed out to Laura, resembled images of the WhiteSnake rock inferno a few years back = computerized lights ablaze like so many foam cushions sparked by pyros) and felt emotion well up. Momentary bon voyage to Perfect unshockable rock demeanour.
Proud to report that fellow Interpol people and I drained all scotch out of the Dome. Laura went to refresh and came back with the bad news so it was onto other items.
Had a hell of a time finding the right crack-addled boulevard and wended through the numbered streets and at one point we were approached by a youngish man with wild eyes holding onto a piece of paper like it was real important. Which way to the border, he queried. Like I knew. But I had a guess U-turn, make a left and look for Rainbrow Bridge signs like a pro. And onwards we drifted. Mid-gig I looked at ticket and fuckinlo, behold there was a clue - address.
After the gig Laura and I learned some fun facts about the practice of crack from a humourist manning the front podium of a sketchy gas station. First he pretended to know no english. Then he informs us he lives in Rocheter. Then he points out the copper scrubbing pads avail in shoppe are in high demand in the neighborhood as they're used for stuffing crack pipes. Then he pulls out some small glass "pens" from behind counter. "Pens"? Um, hell no. Crack pipes.
Poetic, life-enhancing, perfect set and encore from Interpol.

Love's Encore.

Latest brilliant thought in a lifetime of chain of them. Newly-sprung, shawl-toting Martha Stewart has her mag Everyday Food and just thought Fercrissakes I too can have a fine shiney oso informative mag = Everyday Chaos.
v1 n1.
Yours truly, offuckincourse, on cover, looking adorable yet mildly tortured.
This entire concept might be reminiscent of Reader's Digest's famed feature Drama in Real Life - a childhood fav, just another factor that made me so who I am.
There is an uncomfortable silence in an office building's elevator, lights blaringly and screamingly awake-driven as four (YT included) grownups stand around a large handcart packed with new reams of paper. There are two men and two women and the woman who is not YT comments Gee, look at all that newww paper. Inane elevator words. A few more seconds of silence and then I look over at the man not operating or about to resume operating the handcart and say You know, if I had lost my foot in that door I would have seen you again in court. A few seconds of silence. Then good old-fashioned laughter. For what happened? Well, I will tell you what. In a gesture of insane kindness I had thrust my right foot over the new reams of paper on the cart towards the shutting stainless steel doors so Skippy could join us. I did not think he appreciated my selfless, near-body-part-losing geture so I mentioned the litigational possibilites that hung in the air like all those fluorescent molecules making our brains sputter with all their miliseconds of bursts of light wave explosions.

Explosive Love.

After a week(end) of reading about transgressive art, or, in common parlance, what might be deemed !shocking, have come to some interesting and deep conclusion.
Nothing, I repeat nothing, is shocking.
Still battling right now (on phone with a rep) with a clerical error on my mortgage payments and escrow overage.
One envelope + two tickets + one address = massive corporate chaos.
OK, now that's cleared up. Hip hip.
Back to the transgressive.
Thinking about the Chelsea art couple, dealers of all things artful, who said that they thought our MFA class's work is safe, not taking chances, is not messy. Harumph.
Transgressive is cliché right about now.
Thanks for your attention in this matter.
Had coffee yesterday with Laura who suggested wisely a trip of sorts to be inspired to make and do. Think this is a suggestion most sanguine and, as luck might have had it, super discount trips to gai Paris were noted in today's online digiworld.
Paris. Art. Dreams of photographing people walking through beams of sun (oops, first typed sin) at Grand Central.

Love Central.

Listening to classique roque radio where Fat Bottomed Girls via Queen still reigns supreme. So Interpol comes to Toxicville north of the Middling City this pending week and called Laura to see if she'd like to go as this is an Event.
About to embark on a gig capturing the high times and hijinx of the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site's gala hoopla, replete with Mark Russell hamboning the night away and a TR impersonator in attendance. ! Can you shout out photo ops galore.
Thinking - I repeat thinking - of homework. Doing is another thing, another delicate facet yet to be wrangled with. Look, these deep grad student thoughts take time. Looking to dreams for divine art inspiration for the art-directed Parsons School of Desires career and so far I've produced one sorry dream whereby I was excited about going to see Sarah McLaughlan in concert in TO. Why.
Was having a conversation today and was informed that word on the street is the Hillary Clinton Pre-Faint org ladies are pondering suing Yours Truly. Puh-Leez. For fucksakes let's recap: no contract signing over rights, photog always owns rights sans contract, ethics decree I was in right to dispense with them as I wished. The End.
Shiney Happy Mag appeared yesterday with my Pulitzer-ready piece on those t.v. design shows - a triumph. Editrix changed one thing in first paragraph I don't really get but hey, it's HER domain/gig/trip.
Off to work, would love to regale You with more more more but someone has to pay the bills around here.

Here's Love.

Limbo. And I don't mean the archetypal party dance. I would explain but I'd rather not. Had a poem simmering for a long time and today it poured out onto my laptop in a fairly tight formation of ten syllables per line and fourteen lines and 104 words and that's all very important, significant even.
Just had to shoot the gig at Middling City U and amongst the players was one kum-bay-yah singer I know very well and she always turns up at kum-bay-yah moments far and wide.
Re-read the obit of Samuel Beckett, sparked by a Kennergy comment yesterday. Rolled around in a few good SBB quotations about his working process. One, when asked by a producer who Godot was. His answer: If I knew I would have said so.
Onwards to retrieving numerous articles from electronic bowels of hell.

Love is Hell.

Inquired to Middling City news editrix of Yours Truly if cannon balls were on agenda for tomorrow afternoon's photo op as I envision such sailing through the air, passing the trio of flags flapping in the breeze, maybe even still at half-mast for some reason but I argue, as only grad students can, that it should be always at half-state as there's always something to be aggrieving in the world, landing with soft kaflops in the loop in a snowbank alongside the curbs in the loop in suburbs just beyond national chain stores sinking silently into a former wetlands.
Tonight Justy et al in the band sort of named by Yours Truly hits the infamed stage of CBGBs and I am sad to miss it. As in the Shiney Apple just last week it seemed a bit of a stretch to be back mere hours later but it is where I would really dig being later later.
It was a week ago I got the last of the last airbuses out of JFK before the closing of that wi-fi and travel and mag-reading venue.
Today it's freelance org day and later meeting up with Brucey who had to make plans later as he's driving out to an exurb. A rather uncommon exurb but one which houses a Big House. Why there, I queried. After some hezzing it was revealed to meet up with a pal of his who's in the BH for a rather Coen Bros. reason: he told me and I burst out laughing. Brucey did not match my guffawed outburst or cinematic wonderment, wrapped instead in concern for Big Housee.
It's onward to working on freelance matters, thinking deep art and grad thoughts.
Happiest b-day to Ron who always asks that each of his pals do something self-loving rather than walloping him with cards, congrats, cellophane-wrapped treats. And he likes to know what we've all done.
3/3 Ron B-day Plan was this: drive to Starbucks drive-thru, order venti Americano in honour of the man who turned me on to my premier cuppa Starbucks coffee about - wow - 15 years ago.

Historical Love.