The Dalai Lama events are done and I realized I had not posted any images yet from that and decided on this image of the mandala deconstruction. I am thinking of my favoured parallel to make of this gesture right now. Could this deconstruction be likened to the throwing of a party in one's home. The invitations, the floral arrangements, the spending, cooking, arriving. And then it's over and there are bags and bags of garbage to lug out to the tote and some glasses have been busted and maybe someone accidentally broke another item but all in all there is the lush memory of a great party and the glow of it lasts. Or growing a garden and all the toiling and then it's late September and the light has changed and the sogginess starts and all is getting toward the downward arc of lush.
Watched a short vid on NYT's site yesterday, an interview with very troubled Cat Power/Chan Marshall who seems to be hanging on to sanity and life by a claw. At one point in the interview she began popping her knuckles and I nearly ended up on the ceiling.
Parting thought is about honesty. Honesty is not omitting detail or fact. Honesty is open communication and there is no love or respect without that. Not telling a fact (fun or otherwise) that will be or could be hurtful is not ever my policy and isn't something I seek out in any event. It rains hard here today in the Middling City and despite all that dropping the colours in this small slice of the world are vibrant in a dusky, early morning way.

Vibrant and dusky Love.

At left are artifacts, besides a plethora of images by Yours Truly, what is left–unripped tix, and sand mandala sand from its deconstruction.
Yesterday was the day of collective awareness boosting, a large-scale teach-in ending with an hourlong, wind-swept (read difficult to hear in parts due to such) talk by HHDL. Enjoyed seeing the boy colleagues, squeezing in a coffee break with Marky Mulville, and an unscheduled stop and shoot at the mandala un-do. That was the most powerful part of the three-day affair-the making and unmaking of the mandala and its attendant ritual with music. And Philip Glass pre-HHDL was sublime and I saw him leaving with another Philip to catch a plane and told him so, awakening him out of a small revery. He did solo piano pieces and then performed with a Tibetan musician and this has inspired me to track down some Glass solowerks. Yesterday night was onwards to an 80th b-day party for Will Clarkson, and then a show at SoundLab by Kayo Dot of the Shiney Apple. An all-around, well-rounded primo day.
All colorful glass sands merged together equals gray.

Gray, glassy Love.

This was submitted to Yours Truly by one very loyal epinw follower and YT appreciates this enthusiasm greatly.
This images = super bonus points.
Not quite sure what a cruise night is but I imagine it might have nothing to do with a Love Boat. The concept of a streetcentric cruise makes YT nearly automatically think of the large photos of Lauren Greenfield of kids of all stripes and such in cars doing just that whilst oogling, googling, &C.
I sent along the following Buddhist thought du jour to both Jana and Liz (as just about the entire Middling City is aglow with anticipation of the arrival of who is now nearly always referred to as HHDL... Dalai Lama v14), an all-purpose gem. And do note that loads of the most devout of Buddhists tend toward tipplerism.

Let us live gladly! Quite certainly we are free to do it. Perhaps it is our only freedom, but ours it is, and it is only phenomenally a freedom. 'Living free' is being 'as one is'. Can we not do it now? Indeed can we not-do-it? It is not even a 'doing': it is beyond doing and not-doing. It is being as-we-are. This is the only 'practice'. 'All Else is Bondage; Non-Volitional Living' - Wei Wu Wei

Wu wei is a little flowering branch of Taoism, knowing when to do and when not. Wei Wu Wei (who preceded the other www by about four decades) is an Irish-born scholar.

Moral offering: we should all live gladly, with gratitude - and the occasional, life-enhancing mental or physical cruise.

Glad, grateful Love.

Because it is this day, a short story to tell of images.
Henry the Dog, a very large dog who exuded puppyness, lived with me for a week as Tony went out of town with his fiancée et al. Because of the 11th five years ago he couldn't fly back to the Middling City and it took quite a while to secure a van and drive cross-country so Henry and I hung much longer and I spoilt him quite a bit as I knew he missed Tony. But I also knew their days together were numbered as the fiancée concocted an allergy to Henry the Dog so it was in the air, so to speak, that I might end up living with Henry for much longer. I did not. He's large, as I mentioned, and now has sweet digs in the country.
So when things settled a bit, and Henry went home, it was time for Yours Truly to visit those in my heart in the Shiney Apple and as the JetBlue jet approached the island the pilot flew us over Ground Zero, tipping the plane as we circled around it and my side of the plane was able to look - unforgettably - down into the cavern.
Stayed at the loft and, armed with a plan and a camera, I walked to the site and blocks away the scent of burned things still hung in the air. I spent some time walking around but was there mainly to shoot the sand mandala creation in The Museum of the Native American (where I have some images on permanent display of Natives making beadwork) nearby, so I escaped the overwhelming grief for the much-darker space and became entranced by the monks's work, and the sounds of the scraping of their tools to unloose the coloured sands.
I bought a ring from Me and Ro with the Tibetan word for compassion on it.
I asked a monk if this was truly the word (thinking maybe a benchman working one floor above us on Broome Street could have had a wangin' hangover and for all I knew etched in the word bird dropping instead) and he took a while looking at it but then did confirm. Compassion.

Love, don't hate.

See this.
This is my contrib to Paint the Town, the annual Hysterical Society bennie that takes place now. Sent the parents as Yours Truly was predisposed and they so dig it.
Here is a tale.
YT sits on the Michigan Ave. bridge, lap full of sketchbook, graphite, the like.
Suddenly there's a small racket to the right and a glance yields this sight. An older guy on a touring bike. Helmet, jersey, that kind of gear that is meant to scream I AM SO SERIOUS ABOUT MY HOBBY.
He is approaching but I am merrily sketching in the gorgeous autumn light.
He passes and I hear him speak. He yells. Yes, yells.
Thanks for getting out of my way. Rreeaall polite.
Yours Truly was abso-freakin-lutely flabbergasted.
As if.
As if I'd just jump up upon seeing his eminence, scattering pencils and the like.
Mind you there is a sidewalk of sorts on either side of the lift bridge that is about four feet wide, puh-lenty of space for an arsehole on a stoopid bike with 1/4" tires to breeze by a drawer of small size.
Keep the vibes good an happy, I am wont to say.
And don't fuck with the cheritable of heart, who shall inherit the entire fucking universe.
Onwards.

Painting the Town Love.

Pop lovers, photograph makers, Yours Truly poses a question.
Can one make an image employing a background wall of cheezball 70s-era paneling and not conjure up one Calvin. As in Klein.
I think not.
Made some excellent images of a femme yesterday and amongst my pre-planned settings, venues if You will, and clothing ops, opted for this femme in throes of poring over items in an archive. I am not naming names. Dig.
So now I'm editing away and all I see, well, demi-see, is this 70s wall.
Playful, sporty, poppy.
To matters more musical.
Absolute guilty pleasure is the new Nelly Furtado, Loose, esp track 1 - Afraid. And track 4 - Glow. Always liked Nelly.
And also Cat Power's The Greatest. It is so oodles better than what the B'lyn Boys played out of hi-fi's. This is coherent. But images do waft back of Chan/Cat head on piano in a post-cocktail stupour, crying jag mid-gig - described most eloquently by Troust Sibs.
Out in moments. On the Middling City if You will.

If You Love.

At moments there are brilliant flashes of a Perfect image and there's no camera onhand so the image stays très virtually virtual.
Yesterday spotted a boy leaning on a running gas lawnmower, stopping for a break to lick one of those noxiously-coloured popsicles, azure blue. Especially azure blue in the light of dusk.
Summer is so like over and for those out in the world such as Yours Truly, the freelancers, this is back to normalcy. Less reports of everyone known trekking all over the place, basking on beaches, or wherever. As I wrote to Justy earlier today, he being another worker who works wonders of design all the summer long, I've thought of summer for these last two decades as one prolonged New Year's Eve - so much pressure to be having Fun. To be personifying Fun. Sure, there's Fun in those sneaked-in moments but summer is, in my non-humble op, one long and blazing stretch in which others perform Fun.
I was on a beach twice this summer, I think. Both occasions I was freelancing, making stunning pictures of happy people.
+
Spent afternoon with niece and nephew, who I took shopping. Chopping is always an ear-catching substitute.
Bought them each an auntie-sanctioned Halloween t, as they share my adoration of this holiday, as well as two school shirts each. Their choice on the two shirts each. Tried to steer their little minds toward the colour green, but, really, this was to be their special school shirt selections.
Time to make and do.

Ch/Sh-op Love.

The
site
is
finally,
repeat,
finally,
up and running.
Run and see.
So I've been a faithful blogger via Blogger since 2001, made a mandatory Parsons School of Design website via the horrid DreamWeaver, and now - now - have finally made a real website that may be administered by Yours Truly.

Administration of Love.

* This just in, image at left.
Shown is one disingenuous person, one person caught up in a rather surreal moment knowing that she's meeting The Man, repping tape as red as his necktie resulting in over half the refugees of Hurricane Katrina still being displaced.
George Bush has visited (I imagine at this moment he's jetted out, maybe even back to Maine) New Orleans on the anniversary of the natural disaster that killed 1700 people. He had breakfast, visited sites, he posed for photos, he promised things.
This exchange was reported by BBC:

As the president walked into the restaurant, waitress Joyce Labruzzo asked: "Mr President, are you going to turn your back on me?"

"No ma'am, not again," he replied to laughter.

This acknowledgement of lack of Help requires some spin, I'd imagine.
And laughter.
Would that be Omigosh, we're in the international spotlight uncomfortable laughter.

To be filed under the numeral one, as in One More Reason to Love the Internet System.
One of my most beloved campers from days of yore up over in the corner of Maine just found me on the internet and all signs point to the fact that she seems to be her same, rock-loving, word-playing self. She's 28 now, and I think she was about 8 when she first came to the summer camp and hung with me in my art building and I recall that she didn't like to do much else of the camp activities and I told the camp foundress, my pal Big Nancy, that I liked having AnnMarie/Cougar (at that time) hanging about. So she stayed and came back to camp long after the cut-off age of 12.
I was at camp ten years, I think she might have had nearly the same run.
Yesterday should be filed under D, as in Dang, THIS was One Miserable Day.
Because of a snafu here, a snafu there, created by the mishaps of others, Yours Truly was rushing much of the day in a bedraggled fashion - fixing snaf, altering u.
One wondrous thing witnessed this past weekend was the girl of honour at a Bat Mitzvah wormin' in her little black cocktail dress across the dancefloor not once - but twice. She wormed well, and did not make a spectacle of herself as she did such. She was the only teen that attempted this old school maneuver and it was impressive.
Off shortly to make a formal and glowing portrait of the president of a college for all the world to see. As Jackie DeShannon might warble What the world needs now is photos, more photos, it's the only thing that there's just too little of.

Too Little Love.

woah nancy, you DID blog the BR. i'll pass on the mv/ee.
This is what Eremite (aka Mo' Jiggs) wrote back upon seeing The Bummer Road (translated, curiously, with mysterious nods to illusory tactics, perhaps, as la route de déception by Babel Fish just seconds ago) had been blogged by Yours Truly.
In mere hours the fun-loving band Sloan plays that Middling City drunkfest aka Thursday at the Square which has, concurrently, inspired legions of motorcyclists to congregate downtown and terrorize one and all with their loud pipes that they believe save lives. I think a better plan would be to share the road wisely with motorists as I've witnessed this summer some incredible, irresponsible motorcyclist weaving and bobbing amongst vehicles doing about 55.
Forgot to note this past Sunday Westfield, NY was a destination for a piece for the Shiney Happy Mag and took the scenicest way down, stopping along the way at The Rez for some petrol and did truly marvel at a $6.99 lighter shaped perfectly as a miniature double-barreled shotgun.
With dual flames, bien sur.
While lunching in the beloved, vintage diner of the town I read the local (downturn of voice) daily and how a fugitive of prowess as of late had been spotted in the town. They did not, curiously, run a photo of said fugitive which I found rather interesting as if townspeople spotted a man who they did not happen to know from the diner, from the watering hole, wherever, how could they accurately do some fingering.
On the same topic here's a short tale of fingering.
A pal reported that his very backroads pal was surrounded, upon leaving a WalMart conveniently located in the midst of what some cityfolk might term Nowhere, by scads of troopers. A WalMart shopper, perhaps even a greeter (for we know they are all probably, safe to say, senile), fingered the pal of the pal. Incorrectly.
Moral:
Finger only with resolve and, if possible, consult newspaper file photos.

Fingering Love.

* This just in, added for erudition's sake.
One embedded blogpost image shows Bucky, the fugitive.
One embedded blogpost image shows Bucky, the mascot.
Lest you encounter a shadowy, becapped, strutting figure.

Here They are.
Ladies and Gentlemen, hippies and dog lovers, free jazz associates, and anarchic genre benders.
The Bummer Road.
Why now, as they played the Middling City oh but exactly three weeks ago during the MC's most hottest of a slew of days that inspired Yours Truly to purchase a/c for their stay.
As Mo' Jiggs, as pictured in scarlet, asked for a quick batch for a mag that will be featuring musings on their musings. I emailed Mo' Jiggs, as pictured in - yes - Birks, a selection of eight. Last time they played the MC some photos of them by YT appeared on that bountiful blog/site controlled by Thurston.
Note the dog, beloved Zuma, who has never given my hand a chomp.
Today, after a few gigs at MCU I wended to a bookstore and purchased one of those Dummies books to help someone land a 747 of sorts but could not offer up much help as the password for the unloosing of the machine's every bits and bytes could not be recalled by its newbie owner.
Well, YT stated, I can't do a thing.
If it ain't got that swing.
If it ain't got that admin password issue all under control.
And off I faded into the heavily-aired afternoon.

Heavy, airy Love.

Yours Truly is taking a long shot here. You may recall that I am not only a super-secret dart player of Zen proportions, but a keen shooter with both gun and camera. Recall that the FBI asked if I may have an interest in joining up with them after indulging in their for-the-media shoot-a-thon with guns of all ilks. So when I am taking a clichéd long shot, it is going, probably, to be dead on.
So here is an image of something blue, obviously a fishy member of the animal kingdom, a swimming part of Nature.
You are terrified of it, as I was. It is something that Literal Harold just informed me of, yet another frightening image supplied by a pal. And I am even more perplexed that after my decade of being the Arts and Crafts teacher at for The Summer Camp up in the corner of Maine, replete with nights off spent on the coast, and a very informative and chefly beau there, that YT never - ever - heard of this beast, this mola mola. I doubted Literal Harold and ran to Wikipedia to just see if LH was fabricating this creature that, allegedly, propels itself into the air, out of the water, to rid itself of barnacles.
It eats jellyfish. It is a sunfish. It likes to be alone.

From Wikipedia:
Breaching has also been observed. This is when sunfish jump out of the water as whales sometimes do. They are reported to jump up to ten feet out of the water. This is probably done to dislodge the large number of parasites on their body. Molas also seek drifting kelp in search of small fish to remove their abundant parasites.

Thinking of a nice, solid parallel to how we everyday people jump to rid ourselves of parasites and all I can come up with is how we might jump into another situ - coffee joint, bar, restaurant - to change our bodies, dump those existential parasites.
Off now to photograph the creepy Scientology Palace for the last of the Secrets of Allentown images for the small, shiney booklet for the tour on September 16th.

Mola Mola Love. (no)
Idea of Mola Mola Love. (yes)

New chestnut, compliments of Yours Truly.
Chronic dreams, chronic schemes.
So had the chronic scheming dream where I am trying to get to the Shiney Apple and am doing just about anything to catch the plane - wading through waist-high water, trying to catch elusive cabs. Then the other part of the dream is actually being in the Shiney Apple and deciding to prolong my time there, indefinitely. Calling whomever in the Middling City to say Well, I am going to be here much longer. How much longer, I cannot say for certain.
All this means YT is in desperate need of wending along the art-yielding streets.
One part of the SA portion of the dreamscape was someone wanted to cook me a dinner and I was thinking how I just wanted to sneak off to one of my favoured restaurants instead.
JT stopped by last night, after her melanoma-related visit to Roswell Park Cancer Institute, part of the expanding medical corridor that will transform the MC into a different kind of town, a white collar town. She described for YT how a mole may grow down into the skin several inches, a column of death. This visual will be haunting me for a while, as will the Shiney Apple chronic dream.
Today is a gray-skied day and will make the finishing up of the Secrets of Allentown images murky. So instead it's laptopping and editing like a madwoman.

Chronic, chronic Love.

So there I was, as You know, or might assume, minding my own business.
I was out in the hot Middling City sun and I'd forgotten to slather the 1.5K SPF lotion all about so I was silently being microwaved as I shot architectural images for the traipsingly wondrous Secrets of Allentown - highly recommended for its snoop-enabling possibilities as one wends along as a self-guidee poking one's curiosity into converted mansions, small former cottages, luxe middle class establishments on veritable Free Pass Day.
On the list was 388 Franklin Street and it was completely in hiding. I circled and then circled some more about the one-ways and finally just freakin' parked. I saw a woman in a yard on the corner of Edward and Franklin and asked if the place was 388. It was. And it's a much-viewed mystery building, a brick building with a somewhat-wobbly rainbow painted on two sides. It seems to be a daycare center but upon introducing myself to the lady, who is a nun, I was informed the building is not a daycare center but a pre-K situation. And a convent. I got a tour, the same that the public will have and amongst the architectural features were artifacts of both ilks. The guide, Brazilian-born Sister Victoria, asked, when I asked about her religious order, if I'd like to join the order, The Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, to be all about exactitude.
I was stupefied.
Thanks, I said, but no. Then I suggested that she have brochures handy for the tourists - about joining up with the four conventioneers, as well as about the charming, warm school for mainly immigrant children from 3-7.
Yours Truly was not a taker, in this religious matter.
Time to wend toward freelance gigs of a more secular nature.

Love of Nature, and Order.

Had a gig that drug me into the Middling City Museum of Science this fine morning, to document a team of scientific types setting into motion the forlorn Foucault pendulum there, an unloved item one can spy when going up and down the terrazzo steps in lieu of the vintage elevator that does not instill confidence.
On my way out I decided I must have a look around as it's been a while since my last visit.
This, Yours Truly believes, is a sad sad building whose architectural magnificence has been stolen in the name of progress - and, obvious lack of funds. The grand entrance reminiscent of The Met in the Shiney Apple, AKAG in this city, and on, is not used. Instead an entrance has been fashioned between the old portion of things scientific and a new build which features a science magnet school. Displays are unloved, dishevelled. There was a good photo exhibit of Tibetan images made at the dawn of the twentieth century when it took about a year to get to this place that no longer exists, really. YT is seeing a parallel. But this exhibit is to coincide with the Dalai Lama visit next month, the nineteenth of September, a grand event.
I spent time with the Marchand wild flower models, and an overview of the dioramas nearby, encased in oak with untouched floors and a gravitas that is precious, elicits memories of Sugimoto work documenting similar showcases. These showcases need some cleaning and some had (I stress had) names of flora and fauna taped to the glass for those who could not make the leap from wall note to showcase easily. Moth. Raccoon. Bear. And more. YT ripped off these small print-outs sometimes taped right in front of a taxidermied face - it seemed disrespectful, not to mention idiotic.
On the way out (mind You I have only passed a small group of children making crafts and some very suspicious handlers, in addition to the scientific types I documented) I noted with special special interest the showcase devoted to two beloved MC primates - Jonesie and Eddie.
I remember them both. There was no showcase devoted to Sampson, who terrorized my dreams when I was very young. Jonesie, I learned, was named for a local milk company. There was the photo documentation of each of them and in front there were their taxidermied selves. Eddie's nameplate had fallen but from the photos behind him you just knew - EDDIE.
One photograph showed Eddie Doing his part for the war effort and shaving a man who appeared to be very dead in a wheelchair. His face was not only lathered but contorted.
Alongside Eddie's memorabilia was a large drywalled area where folks could jot down a fond memory of Eddie and affix it to the wall. From the scribbled penmanship it was obvious that most of the memories were being left by the very young who only knew taxidermied Eddie, not the banana-munching ape so beloved by the freakin' city.
One child wrote this, my favourite.
I don't trust Eddie.
Another wrote
I am looking at Eddie and his eyes are following me.
Your homework assignment is obvious.

Eddie, Sampson, Jonesie Love.

Really not thee biggest question at hand but Yours Truly is rolling in deep procrastination and was distracted by the pretty header on the letterhead - LEADERSHIP BUFFALO. Their Class of 2007 Application. This org's been on my tail annually since a client pal handed over my namely goods about six years ago. I have hemmed, I have hawed. I asked hipster congressman Brian Higgins, who I saw out and about this week, if he'd ever done it. Always searching for signs YT says to herself and not aloud Hey, if the congressman's done it, so shall I. Well, he did not. But I am still hemming, hawing.
*sidebar: NYT ran a very bouncey piece on young Belgian-born designer Olivier Theyskens, and it did include one quotable quote, it goes something like this and has been added to my Smart Words folder.
“I’m forced to think ahead, to imagine what a girl should look like in a year from now. That makes your mind sensitive to signs. And looking for signs makes life more logical in a way: you are always ready for the future.” *
In the poo poo column of Leadership Buffalo is that there's tuition and said tuition hovers over $3K. Also there are sleep-overs. And there's homework.
Lately YT has been the imperfect IT Girl. And I do not mean It girl, I mean IT girl, helping others with their computer glitches, improvements, transitions. A bit of my own laptop issues tossed into the chaotic salad but let's just say that I am getting to know the guys at the Genius Bar out in the mall in the former wetlands well. But not as well as a few distressed iPod users who always seem to be facing one of two raging problems - heat surges, and drop-related fiascoes. YT is happy to report that my own iPod, like my PalmPilot, is safely nestled onto the non-virtual desktop, unused and unloved. The iPod has twelve songs imported by the X and there they remain. And not even my favoured selections to boot.
Listening to the new Sonic Youth, again. It's good and I float along with it but really, with a gun to my head, could I name any track titles, could I say (yet) Oh, yes, this is blankety-blank, not blinkety-blink. I think not. Plus this is a copy made by Bandmate Scott so, in my defense, I have no liner notes to make any of the list more stickable.
Speaking of sticking, today is the death anniversary of Jerry (jeez, Garcia, get like so with it), as opposed to his birth anniversary on the first of this month. Told Kennedy I'm making a cake for Jerry, a nice vegan recipe supplied by Vegan Queen Amy Beeman.
Came out of Liz's house with a supersized glass of white and found that I was standing right next to a guy reporting his name and status amid the circle of gathered freelancers and scant staffers for the Shiney Happy Mag Idea Toss. Tossed in several fine ones of my own of varying degrees of servitude (funny how certain words just pop out on their own), seriousness, irreverence. We splintered off into smaller groups where the ideas were bandied about and me and Lawyer Bill did our usual good-natured sparring. One '07 story idea I'm rather excited about is a piece on pool-hopping which I fear may be a lost (or waning) art.
I deemed it oso necessary to have an illustration tracing our (Lawyer Bill and I said we'd co-write this) steps and dives, just like those endearing "Billy's Path of Ruination" illustrations in Family Circus that, as a child, one could get lost in for possibly a whole fifteen minutes.

Fifteen minutes of Love.

Usually grandmothers are the seers and/or the saints, the family members who've crawled on their bellies through raging fires of personal experiences, put some out with a handful of flour onhand in the larder, held most of the adults in the room when they were newbies. My own beloved grandmother, Victoria, I felt, looked in upon my soul as nobody else could for this lady not only knew me from the first hours, but was a wisdom conduit. If you asked, if you listened.
But yesterday, shooting an ultra-country wedding, the grandmother in the room was like so wrong. And I didn't want her to be wrong, going along with the beliefs outlined above. But when Country Gram wandered about, telling everyone that the wedding cake collapsed because of the wedge the couple removed for that choice photo op, I tried to reason with her frail self. Yours Truly said No, they cut the wedge here (gesturing) while the collapsing is here (gesturing again). She would not look, nor see the truth. It was that the base (not visible under what appears to be seaweed) was not level itself, sending all tiers into a dramatic and slow-motion whump. YT was seated nearby, as luck had it, with a divorcé whose wedding I shot several years ago, her dairy farmer date (who I peppered with questions about his transformation to the world of organics. . . and expressing my unfettered negative reaction when he told me about the lifespan of machine-pumped/chem-addled cows who yield an excessive six years as opposed to happier, organic cows who can live about four times longer), a woman I knew from Darien Lake's rock & roll venue, and some exurban tavern owners. Someone muttered that the cake was collapsing and I turned most quickly as my camera happened to be resting near the cake on the very same table. As it were, the collapse happened at six o'clock whereas the d2x was at 10 o'clock and it was not necessary to lick sugared shortening out of its delicate crevices. I documented the minimal wedding-day debacle and even assisted a youngster with his cell phone with getting the best shot until the caterer said We would prefer as few photographs of this as possible. To which YT stifled a gut-wrenching guffaw. Scouted out some fab locations for going off the grid as I wended to and fro the Middling City. And, lest You are unaware, all this happened, and this landscape may be gleaned, in under fifty miles from currently sani-wrapped City Hall.

Landscape Love.

Today is the tiny window of opportunity (two hours, cheesh) to drop off donated work for Children's Hospital of the Middling City and I'm looking at the clock wondering if I have time to rush north before I need to drive way east. This is a Middling City Society of Artists Plan.
Yours Truly did the same a few years back for Roswell Park Cancer Institute, donating the piece Touching Green that I totally dig.
Think I'll have to contact Jerry Mead and say it's coming, on a later day.
Speaking of art and logistics, signed on for Secrets of Allentown another year, despite the oddness of last year when my parents were standing at the starting point's ticket table and being told that, despite their daughter's hard work and nominal honorarium and agreed-upon four comps, they were going to have to pay. I had my dad pass his cellie to the SoA leader and was told by him that Several people donate their time and services and . . .
YT said, as politely as possible, give my parents their effin comps, s'il vous plait.
We'll see if this year is as fraught with discombobulation.
Speaking of such, JW,Esq. informs me that he is loftless but owns a sailboat now that he does not know how to operate.
In my non-humble op, I believe this corporate counsel has perhaps embraced too richly the rock & roll lifestyle, tossing his concerns to the four winds and such.
Speaking of r&r, shot some ports of The Bummer Road in front of closed Happy Corner Store. The band says they just might entitle their next release On the Happy Corner.
I asked if we should have the rotund lady in Cleopatra sandals move out of the way and Matt Valentine said Extras are GOOD.

Extra extra Love.

Although some, if they did in fact see a snapshot of Yours Truly entering the car dealership, might proffer up that it was the strappy sandals, the preferred raison would be my keen bargaining skills, a raging and recurrent audaciousness.

*sidebar tell-taling is that I was selecting blogmusic and hit the hi-fi's eject and out popped several that YT had not inserted - discs placed in the carousel by the most-recent outta sight/outta town guests, The Bummer Road, who played a subterranean Middling City gig this past Tuesday. Reflecting influences, collective m.o., and chemstate, they listened to Mazzy Star, Love, Miles. Of course, of course, and of course.*

So there I am, at the dealership, full of pique, up to my discerning eyeballs with the Mildewmobile, its exhaustive issues, its short list of lemony quirks that should have stayed away from the 1.5 year-old vehicle. But no. So, having had enough, I am there, in the strappy sandals, as I mentioned. I was shuttled over by a greeter type, a femme in training, to a young former film student and grip (one shares personal fun facts over such wheelings) taking the first bite of a sandwich. In a nutshell, two hours later, I was signing a contract for a new Subaru lease. I picked it out from the slim manual transmission pickings - dark gray. Do you want to drive it, Matt the former film student/grip asked. No, that's allright, I shot back. Two hours later it had been detailed and I was again on my mildewless way. Happily.
Onwards. Literally.

Recently I horrified a pal with my strong summertime, male-related belief system that, in a nutshell, is a most unratifiable short list.
1. Men should not ever be shirtless in public, no matter their age, follicle level, social status. Except on a beach.
2. No sandals for men. YT has never seen a man in a pair of sandals and thought Geez, he does look smart and sassy and great in those. No sandals for men, ever.
Not even on the beach.
And I do thank You in advance for your attention to these important, seasonal matters.

I just hauled three pals into the new Woody Allen movie. There went two hours of our lives, eight hours of wasted life time in all.
The best part of the movie was some shots of gardens, I saw some of my beloved plume poppies. Of course the plume poppies were much more controlled than what appears in the personal jungle.

Jungle Love.
It's driving me mad, it's driving me crazy.
As Steve Miller et al are wont to say.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not thoughts, Love.