Having a very 4AD kind of aujourdhui.
To glean a much better spin on things in general bought Dead Can Dance and Cocteau Twins, major aural nod to Justyworld. Only glitch thus far was the few holiday tunes covered by the latter. Why. Onwards.
So then spun along the biway to do some major retail therapy and bought a Dorota-worthy bag. It is much more her than I but think it will do wonders to perk up the bag wardrobe and, as You know, all photographers and commuter gals live out of bags.
Blue hyacinths, still-snow-drenched earth, flashes of images for art's sake, and more of spring.
And the other day I wondered why there are not more words for spring, much as autumn is a fine word for that season.
Now that it is done I can say on epinw that I snuck out of town whilst a deadline loomed over my sunshiney head. With a virtual gun to my head I completed my profiles that dragged on and on on the campus of UMass in Amherst and, with assistance from a teeny-boppin' frosh, tapped into their wi-fi and filed, missing only mere minutes of the ICP set.
Had a plethora of fun romping with Eremite, Miss Swinson, Merry Mary, Han, some newbies.
92nd Street Y is doing a Sam-centric event and I'm sure that I won't be able to sneak out of the MC again for that, planned for about a week before what would have been his b-day numero hundredo.
Sam at 100.
Yours Truly at the cusp.

Cuspy Love.

On this day, Yours Truly's mother's birthday, I saw the season's first bee - a skinny yellow jacket - in Kennedy's garden, meandering about over what will soon be real & live flowers.
En route to the latest in a series of wakes I was listening to the new WKBW, now a leftcentric radio station whose website, curiously, is still under construction. Their on-air afternoon host, Stephanie Miller, railed about the choice of Scarlette Johannsen (really, I don't much feel like Googling the correct spelling of her name and if this bums You out o velcro, as Yours Truly is wont to say) as FHM mag's sexiest woman list. Top of the heap. Pick of the crop. High on the hog. Were You wondering just how many other snappy agri-refs YT could make. I end here.
Dragon Boy dug FHM, amongst others. It has all the usual things - boobs, cars, boobs, butts, etc. Their website has along its banner a 'Send in your boobs video' contest of sorts. They refer to boobs as chesticles in the blurb about how to send along the vid via cellphone for perusal. So this Stephanie Miller, who, she says, commutes between LA and Buffalo (right), apparently has the same hair colorist as the starlette, who, once upon a time, did not like the blonde that was fabricated upon her and had the color guy work on the tones for 2.5 hours. Then Miller took calls. I called and was on the air within a few minutes, before arriving at the funeral parlour. I did some fabricating myself, I became a caller who really was not up on her starlettes - at all. I said Well, she's DEAD but I think Audrey Hepburn is one of the sexiest women. But for living, sexy women I think it has to be two Laurens - Hutton and Bacall. They're CLASSY, they seem SMART, they're OLDER, they're soo sexy. And they haven't had work done, surgically, they're aging naturally - like in FRANCE.
And then I warbled, like most of my predecessors, And Angelina Jolie is hottt, too.
Stephanie Miller said Well, thanks for that, Nancy.

Call in Love.

So I just heard from JW,Esq. that he is a dodgeball player. So not only is he an erstwile hostile takeover corporate Esq., p/t raver, but a purveyor of this violent sport. This here image is one of my favoured ones from that mayhem that they call intramural dodgeball, with five balls whizzing by at most times until nobody is left walking without a wince in their step.
Made some ports today of a group of mad scientists. One of them had a brainiac idea that the theorists amongst them should each hold a green Sharpie to denote who was who. Thought I would share with You this snippet of scientific humour.
Hardy petri dish har.

Howls of Love.

Being of Libran affiliation and persuasion and such I so grooved on the balanced dichotomy of yesterday. Largely the day was spent doing product shots of bottles of Patron tequila, rushing to rock-memories-of-yore-infused Clark Gym on Middling City U's urban campus to document intramural DODGEBALL, and then back to studio for more shiney bottle shooting.
Let us just say that upon leaving the sportier portion of my day my shins really smarted. I took three or four good wollops with the ball. Let us also say that that sport is probably not on my list of favoured things to shoot. A few weeks back I was sent to shoot a rollicking night of activities planned for MCU students, pre-mid-terms. I wended my way into the divided Triple Gym and made some photos of peaceniks shooting shuttlecocks about as on the other side of the heavy vinyl ersatz wall came a hurling body and screams. I wended over there and thought, in the interest of my favoured lens, I would move along. It was a mad, dodgeball free-for-all.
One guy last night got his face kicked, I'm not sure if that happened when he was down or not. There was a sound you could hear through the screams, kind of like when Jim Reddon did a sort of jitterbug maneuver to the best man at Leah and Todd's wedding reception at the Middling City Hysterical Society and garnered him one fractured skull after contact with the very impassive marble flooring.
The best team spirit witnessed at the dodgeball fete was that emanating from Team Jager, with their team name emblazoned on ultra-homemade t's, the team name scribbled in Sharpie.
Eight weeks until gardening season.
To date Yours Truly has spent approximately sixty dollars on perennial seeds, a few annuals, tossed in, as well as $100 in summer bulbs - hostas, gladioli, astilbe, and oso much more that suddenly I am filled with that wondrous and sunny feeling of sticking my hands in the earth, sprinkling the water, watching, watching every day until *ka-poof,* magic ensues. Kind of like the magic of the darkroom, only brighter.
Off to dealine hell once again after this pleasant blogly pitstop.

Procrastinational Love.

Adam Cvijanovic, lanky Shiney Apple painter, tricked out Lightwell Gallery as a giant Niagara Falls. I showed him the back of the camera so he could see some of the deft images I made of him as he talked the talk and told him that you could see clearly that he had had ballet training in the way he kept his arms all out all over the place in graceful curves. He did find this amusing. I suggested, also, that he might have named his installation something more . . . challenging than for what it is, like, for example, Beaver Island State Park. He said he had considered naming the installation for the Three Stooges bit on the Falls, Slowly I Turn (step by step). Whilst talking to him again later over the snack centre he mentioned he was desperately missing the Shiney Apple. How long have you been away, Yours Truly queried. Ten days, the reply. I said CHEEEESE and CRACKERS, I haven't been there since November. I got a pitied look, and it was accepted.
Off to the funeral for Mr. Ganey, aka Skip.
Patrick is giving the good words, sure to be cutting to the core of matters while maintaining his always-primo use of his mother tongue.

Life is for the Living, Love.

This just in, via The 80s Desk.
So Yours Truly is wending her way down one of the famed Middling City expressways (in quotes as it has a few pesky lights, a few moments where one must careen out of the way of those who are merging meagerly from stopsigns, a lower-than-normal speed limit) and is sitting at the light at Parkside Avenue, heading toward the east which will bank off to head out to the north, to the marshy campus of Middling City U.
Being ever-vigilant, I glance over at the car in the parallel lane, an oddly-coloured (let us say it was a pinkish terra cotta, a beige) TownCar with a torn ragtop. There is a heavy bleachedblonde sitting in the back seat looking out at me. In the front seat I see two equally-heavy men. They are all in their 50s. I note that the woman is rubbing her nose non-stop, she looks fairly haggard. In the front seat then I note the driver is handing a pack of cigarettes to his front-seat passenger. But no, it is not a pack of smokes, it is a faux pack of smokes. The passenger shakes some white powder onto his crumpled hand and takes an exaggerated Sniff.
The faux pack is white, baby blue, navy blue. The trio screech away from the now-green light, heading towards the airport, to, undoubtedly, parties parties beyond.

Love them slices of the 80s.

Yesterday photog Spencer Tunick made this image in Caracas Venezuala, the taut bodies a bit different than the ones he photographed in the Middling City at the waiting-for-reassignment Central Train Terminal. The artist remarked that in the MC he was surprised at the number of older people who arrived for the image. I recall being surprised that depite a promise to his posers that media would not be present, they were.
Got this link yesterday to Alan's online, somewhat interactive novel and thanks to him and his emailed update for Flash, I was able to finally view it. Met with Paul Hogan yesterday and we discussed that we both had had freezing episodes when looking at the onscreen drama.
Reading this AM my online insider pub (as in mags, not tipplers) newsletter, I gleaned info about this girlie site. What girl doesn't need a sartorial (or related) break from time to time. Gleefully I report that I received a call last week from the Shiney Apple from beloved Dorota who was thinking of me as she was fondling shoes in a boutique. Keep up the good work, DK!
And for anyone saddled to their laptop and needing a good alternative music fix and the wi-fi is streaming about and the caffeine levels are in order go to this spot. They even played some Wishing Chair last night. How... retro, memories swirled about from those very different times.

Swirls of Love.

Some scrappy images from today's Old First Ward Saint Patrick's Day parade: a rather made up Saint (with an attendant who suggested prayers for one councilman) in traditional flowing robes, and some peaceniks protesting the Iraq War (a fine contrast to the marching veterans and police. Sadly, there were no Girls with Guns.
Other items of note were the traditional walking with a carton of beer under the arm, the tossing of the candies to onlooker children, the rowdy rugby players, the p.a. blasting Van Morrison.
Parade of Love.

The virtual epinw anniversary fete is being masterminded as this is being blogged and You are invited, fercrissakes. Five years. That is a semi-narrative feat if You ask Yours Truly.
Gleaned some slammin' new pharmaceutical rep pens at last night's gig, one is that Euro sort of pen that You just cannot find in this USofA sans help of over-eager men all giddy about some new pill.
Shot this year's Match Day, the day that all the med students learn their fate, where they will be residents for the next X amount of years. Only had one bummer, a guy who got his third choice. Lots of screams, fists in the air, good, solid reaction shots. Oh, the other bummer was when pre-event-start I saw the Middling City's former parks der commissar, Dan Durawa, and his wife and they offered me up a snack off their snack platter and, to not be rude, I grabbed the least of the worries. I had no idea what any of the brown ovals were... I bit into it. It was one of those cheese-stuffed jalapeño pepper poppers. I warbled out a Merci and moved along.
After the matching I headed back to the car that I had hidden around the corner in another of my special, invented parking spots. Suddenly I was stricken with a grand idea: Get this horrid haircut fixed up. And so I did. And it is. Now it is on its auburn way to being long and longer and in solid, non-annoying shape. The woman who cut it marveled at the work of the former stylist, wondering where he found sense in all the non-layered layers.
She actually knew the incompetent who cut my hair. She said Yeah, he likes to say that he studied at Bumble and Bumble but he studied at Continental School of Beauty on Kenmore Avenue.
Onwards to more fine moments now now now.

Love now, Love later.

Furuncle.
That is today's new and astonishing vocab word, gleaned from gig number two this fine AM. A scientific word, a furuncle (think carbuncle but more, shall We say, insectual), or so the nice man from the NYS Department of Health explained, is that pesky bump that one acquires after a pesky thing like a maggot or other flesh-residing creature lives under the skin. You know, subcutaneously. The diagrams, the stories, the super details all horrifying, yet another prime way that Nature crashes up against us.
Heard from the officiants who have contacted me about rating the performance of my pal Laura. Everyone and everything gets rated, so to speak (oh, maybe that is why bandmateScott will not return my call), on epinw, but this is like way more ponderous.

No Love for crashes, loads of natural Love.

Today's special image is of one of the best extant artists, Sam Taylor-Wood. And she is so hot to boot.


Along the toxicmost stretch of the 190, post-gig, spotted one of those pickup trucks so like the great tattooed wave - You know, emblazoned with a belief system, a (here's a primo grad student word for You, toss it around sans gigantic expenses associated with the former) real tautology. The pickup was telling Yours Truly the occupant was Addicted to Antlers and frequented a taxidermist in what is called the South Towns in and around the Middling City. Half-expected to see blood dripping down the bed, like one of those horrid, adolescent Krims images.
This year Passover falls on the perhaps b-day of Beckett, who always alleged he was born on Good Friday and that does always mark the anniversary of epinw.
As I was organizing some sketching materials in the studio saw my email address of yore, back when only pals at the U had them: aw600@freenet.buffalo.edu - I had a handful of people I corresponded with, including Liz, Chaz, and Andy.
Beginning a new journal, hard-copy-style, for the upcoming exhibition and reading so when the small flotsam and jetsom meander by YT will have the wherewithall, the goods, to react, grab, make, do.

Flotsam, jetsom are like so loved.

Did not burn the kitchen, and, subsequently, the house down whilst shooting the brand new piece for the CEPA Auction, an image I had sketched and then constructed to the best of my (and some spikey tulips's) abilities. Emailed the image off earlier this AM to the gallery for the catalogue and just penned one of those eery, third-person short bios. She did this, and then that. Eschewed the title I had been obsessing over for another, leaner one - Still Life with Fire. Nice and to the freakin' point.
Making a fab-sounding corned beef dish later today, in part once again to prove that a dish can be better than one has had before. This recipe features an in-part Irish orange marmalade glaze which sounds pan-lick worthy.
Ran into a whole lot of Perfect girlies this past weekend and two tea dates are pending as Yours Truly is suddenly slammed again with requests for the eye-hand coordination that is photojournalism.

Eye-Hand Love.

Last night was The Love Show, with Yours Truly taking over the hosting responsibilities for one vacationing Greg Sterlace.
I arrived at Home of the Future to find most of my guests already there: Annie, Michele, niece Katharine, nephew Jake, their dad/handler du jour, and no band yet. Within about twenty minutes the band, Bare Flames, arrived, with enough equipment to rock out in the ol' Aud fercrissakes. I had no idea that live drums are not allowed at HOTF and there was a tense show-down between Richard and Jim, the drummer. My husband, Bad Ronald, showed up to co-host and the two of us tossed several suggestions at the band. My favoured suggestion was mine, bien sur, that the band lip-sync along to an mp3 we could download from their MySpace site. They said No, in unison, all four of them. Bad Ronald and I suggested that they fumble about with their chords and such as the music played, kind of like a Spinal Tap moment. They again said No. Finally, they were interviewed. They were a tough interview, kind of all in repose, one-syllable answers. Not a lick of irony abounding. We went to one of their mp3's, played along with a video that Tim Leary made for them. Brilliant.
Back to interview and in the interim I had suggested to Bare Flames that they pep it up a bit and they did. Better second-part interview and then another tune.
More interview and they were d.o.n.e.
Onwards to Katharine and her clarinet doing Love Me Tender as Annie sang.
Then some more talk, with me and Bad Ronald interviewing the niece and nephew.
Then interview time with Michele and Annie.
Now I was really studying the clock, counting down to thirty minutes which, when you're in the midst of the segment, seems interminable.
Time for the group jam/dance I stated and all in the studio shuffled in. Jim the drummer hit some mad sounds on the electronic drumpad as Katharine did her thing and Scott made some guitar sounds, plugged into the wall monitor.
We all sang some Love-related tunes, and danced. It went on and on and on and on and on and on. I suggested we all watch the playback, mainly to see if in fact the show was as much a flaming fiasco as I believed it was. It was not. Happily.
Television production, who knew it was such a Perfect challenge, sort of like orchestrating a shot with a group of about one hundred people as you're sweating and fretting and all the while keeping it real and jubilant on the exterior.

Love of orchestras.

Well where have I been.
Yours Truly has been shooting like a madwoman - events, portraits, weird happenstances, and the usual like.
Have been hearing from most of the Shiney Apple pals who keep wondering Where in HELL are you. I have been wondering much the same. The artworld sights beckon, most notably the latest incarnation of the Whitney Biennial and memory cannot help but zoom back to the last one with all its video possibilities. So that is on the list, as well as the culinary explorations, and shooting of the artful variety.
CEPA Gallery bellows for my piece and I've been working on a new thing in lieu of an older thing. Tomorrow night is the public access show and at this moment there is uncertainty looming around all the guestly possibilies and there are subsequent visions of YT looking into the camera and delivering a half-hour monologue. What a treat, what a terror.
Time to wend back towards Middling City U and points far beyond.

Public access to Love.

To be filed under W, for What the...
Whilst in Kennedy's backyard this AM heard a nearby woman's voice yelling that she had a gun, yelling to someone else to Go get the gun. And I am the attorney for the Buffalo Police, she added.
Yours Truly took all this information, computed that a stray bullet from this hysterical person would probably zing through the nearby stockade fence and Yikes I said and scrammed.
Police then were on the scene.
So the question is did this femme think YT was a culprit, an intruder, or did she actually see one.
Off to interview the president of Middlling City U for a story for the Shiney Happy Mag.

No love for potentially being misunderstood as a culprit, or encountering one.

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The Middling City is ablow with new fluffy accumulation, this day Yours Truly is to document the announcing of government money to preserve some fine old buildings around Johnson Park. The announcement and procs happen later today at New Phoenix Theatre, teeming with history and preservation needs itself.
Last night's gig was shooting production stills for Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge, a heavy story loaded with immigrants, incestual lustings, poverty, in no particular order. One of the male leads, before start time, was standing next to me as I was seated in the front row, waiting. He asked if his costumely coat and hat were nearby and YT noted that they were on the seat next to me - I thought he was being a wacky actor. He said I am blind without my glasses. Someone else pointed out the costume parts and then YT asked So how do you get off and on stage. Apparently, he aims for the highlights, follows the voices.
And still yet, before the drama unfolded, a voice from above instructed one from backstage to meet a woman halfway across the stage for a gray, bentwood chair. The woman and chair appeared, the two met halfway and the chair was handed over. They returned to backstage left and right, respectively. I turned and asked Brendan Is this part of the show. There was minor discussion that that had been a parfait Beckett moment. And it was.
You see, no matter the day, the location, the situation, One can always find the beautiful Beckett shinings.
On a literary note, my poem for Creeley appears this pending Sunday in the MCNews - Believe., about his words sticking in the world, and oso much more.

Believe., Love., Believe.

*This just in from poetry editor RDPohl:

Dear Nancy,

Thanks for writing. Just want to let you that I'm probably going use "Believe" on the May 7th Poetry Page, as that will coincide with the UB/Just Buffalo/Hallwalls/Talking Leaves celebration of what would have been Bob's 80th birthday on May 21. I hope this is OK with you.

This image is from Friday night's gig and Your Perfect Heroine is in a dance studio where students are learning to salsa. Me, I dig salsa just fine, from time to time, despite the tomato component - it's dance salsa that kicks me in the ass, harder than a couple of tomatoes. These students heard direction and off they'd salsa ... with partners. The instructress asked if I would mind participating, as they were short on femmes.
I got out of that one, happily for the feet of one of the male students.
Received some mail today from Dem National H.Q. - an appeal masking as a survey.
I like this question, under Part V: Foreign Policy.
How comfortable do you feel with the President's handling of the War in Iraq?
( ) Very Comfortable
( ) Slightly Uncomfortable
( ) Somewhat Comfortable
( ) Very Uncomfortable.
Comfort. Feelings.
My answer: Regarding the Presidential Handling on War Matters I find myself feeling very uncomfortable, way less comfortable than I am on my Aeron office chair. And no roadside threats, to boot.
Today's second gig found Yours Truly ensnared in a medical school maze that brought me alongside a very long hallway devoted to storing corpse holders/cozies for Gross Anatomy. I felt I might chance upon one with the top down, the chicken-looking skin exposed, wondered how I might feel in that Witkin moment. It did not happen, just the long line of stainless conveyors of dead for research like a used car lot - sans happy flapping flags.

Happy, flapping Love.

To be filed under L, as in Lynch, David.
There is a rather unspoken Middling City rule that no denizen is to crit too harshly any institution - cultural or landmark - within city limits. General urban demise and corruption are fine, just not the former. You will hear whispers of some thing/place not being très wonderful but there is such an underdog undercurrent that it seems there's a meme that if any soothsaying happens complete implosion might ensue.
Lest you yearn for a tip-off, I speak in part of the dreadful Hotel Lenox where last night's Squeaky Wheel event happened. The world is dotted with gorgeous hotels that, when successful, merge the best of functionality and architectural form, with the bonus (usually) of a fine in situ restaurant and complimentary and noteworthy periodicals.
The Lenox has been an eyesore for a long time with its decrepit sign, seedy lobby with filthy furniture and just on and on. Once I saw a photograph made just after the Lenox went up and noted the façade must have been updated some time in the 40s or 50s - and, in the process, ruined. Like the equally-tragic Hotel Lafayette, the Lenox stumbles along but is not the jewel it should be. But there are attempts in the Lenox: Nina Freudenheim made a respectable gallery on the ground floor, there are rooms being refurbished. But the hallways to that newly-sanded and newly-painted room are David Lynch-worthy with curious combos of faded-out carpeting, old light fixtures, mix-and-match mirrors, and (this comes up later) faulty elevators.
Yesterday a volunteer helped me hang seamless on a window and wall and she told me she's an interior design student. I said she should make the Lenox Hotel a project and then we looked around the lobby. We agreed, where would one start.
Of special note was the staffer who, as I was setting up, came by with a spray bottle of something, squirting all over the place and into the corners. She came to my portion of the lobby and sprayed as she made a circle around me. It's Febreze, she said. I thanked her.
So last night at the end of the event, sort of, Annie and I wended our way about. I needed to get back to my photo booth and left her and Michele and Gary on 8. Having heard several times as I set up various Lenox residents inquire if the elevators were working I opted for the stairs back down.
On 6, as I walked across the hallway to the down stairwell, I saw the elevator doors open and then noted that the elevator had stopped three feet below the floor. A guy held open the doors as I reached and helped half the elevator entrappedees get the hell out. Half did not need help. I asked if any of them had panicked or freaked out or called anyone on their cell phones. They all said No.
A maintenance guy showed up, glass of red wine in his hands. He handed that off to a stranger as he looked up into the gears. I looked with him. Let's just say that when one sees the tiny combination of gears and bike chain and dusty other parts that keep an elevator up (at least in the Lenox), one may opt for stairs.
Other notable moments include getting faux tattooes from Tony Conrad and his petite French helper Maria up in one of the more seedy suites and then discovering a small metal door that would give a plumber or onsite maintenance guy, if there were ones, oh, there was one, access to plumbing for repair. But it was a parfait Being John Malkovitch portal and I pretended to go down into it, while also trying to spy some long-forgotten treasure down in the crud.
There was another odd moment. Annie and I got a tour of a fixed-up room on 4. A real estate type was in there, chirping about the wonders of living at The Lenox. The restaurant will be reopening. Free basic cable. It was not very cheap but was, by Shiney Apple standards, a lot of basic space for a good price. And a fine view. But there was that feeling in the air, the I'm not as psyched about all this hoopla as I think you think I am supposed to be feeling.
Onwards to a lot of work at hand.

Hand me Love.

By now, this gray-skied day the Foster Kid Expo chalk&talk, deft slide presentation about hot photo tips, should have been completed. Only, mere moments after completing the slide show, the contact lady called to inform me, dig this, that the Expo attendees really wanted to discover how to acquire Foster kids, not glean hot photo tips. So that didn't happen and Yours Truly is on to the next matter at hand, readying my Polaroid photo booth for tonight's Squeaky Wheel benefit, entitled Peep Show. It's to be all about, shocker, love and sex and whatever other political issues installation artists wish to slay. I am making my fun and interactive Peep Shots, outfitted with some props, captions, and oso much more. Wondering how the Hotel Lenox staffers will feel about me taping crap up all over their abused wooden walls. As well as their large plate glass window. But if yesterday was any indication, the staff may be in drug stupours as YT wandered in, stood in my to-become installation space for a good fifteen minutes, checking outlet locations, touching walls like a lost and blind person and none of the employees ever asked Uhhh, lady, you need help. Or Uhhh, what in hell is up with the touching the wall thing.
Time to compile, leave, set up, collect money for Squeaky Wheel, as well as yet more party scenario memories.

Scenic and Installed Love.