Happy Birthday to Sam.
Happy Birthday to epinw.

Today photographed a feeding frenzy of sorts for students at the big U, a way to thank them for being good customers of food services there. Photographed some with sky-high foodstuffs carefully balanced before the students had to walk about one hundred feet to a seating area. I imagine there was a spilling crisis at some point. Student carrying sky-high plate, student running for a bus, kapow.
Tomorrow I am shooting a house made of haybales. Yes, haybales.
And the Shiney Happy has asked me to review the pending Eastman show of Ansel, as in Adams.
Just perused the catalogue of workshops and travel possibs via Santa Fe Workshops and a few sound just fab, one week of cavorting somewhere exotic with the like-minded.
About to embark to appear on the Greg Sterlace Show, sans Greg.
But featuring pals Annie and Michele.
Greg has had a meltdown.
He always had me on as a co-host and it was often commented upon that I was able to quote unquote hold my own with him. We would usually end up conversing or shouting at each other and forgetting the guests onhand. Or we would kind of harangue the guests, if need be.
I will be talking about the aforementioned b-days. Of course.
Am I glad that that Imus character is expunged.
You bet your straw cowboy hat.
As in the one sitting on my printer, the one I was given by some nice people at a race, probably as they noted my SPF 8000 was wearing a bit thin.
Time to regroup, depart, offshoot.

Offshot Love.

so he goes
Shiney Apple DK just wrote to hear more about Sicily (apparently I did not provide enough big details and a few readers have inquired, there is another, trip-related blog in the works, Trinacria Tour) and to extend an open invite to languish in the happy, lofty vibes before the Big Move. In essence the Big E as in Eviction. Not Easy, and there is another slew of negative connotations now with that E. To ruminate completely.
She says she is awaiting a call from Mr. Fong. I know that feeling of waiting for phonecalls in the Shiney Apple - to find gigs, to find a place to rest one's weary head.
Just revisited an at-precipice moment, the one involving the overly-wrought mid-career photog who advertised a room for rent in her midtown east place. How she freaked when Yours Truly put a camera case on the bed. That is about the second I realized I needed to split *quick fast in a hurry* and call Dorota, the aforementioned DK (the other Perfect DK of this sphere).
An SOS was met with a Walton-worthy Come back home.
And the sad sidebar is that lofty days are coming to an end after over a decade as the building owner has decided to rent instead to a day spa and day care centre for caninus domesticus. She told me their shocking rent amount, what one could pay to purchase a modest Middling City home.
I told someone recently it seems like I've spent more time at the loft than at the building that I own, so much so that I know the quirks of the loft's wiring, dripping faucets and the like. Whereas the home office hovel remains a place for storage, occasional naps, wardrobe changes, and stray cat feeding.
Speaking of SCF, there is a newbie, a young female who seems in peril. I think the boys (and this excludes my precious darling Extra, as he is a ca(s)trati) have been hitting on her and she hunches at the door, ready to charge in.
Moments ago was editing a gig just shot at a smaller college in the region, a joint that is a pleasure to intertwine with, reconnecting with a femme who YT has known for a long time, who has joined their staff. I was just editing/flailing away and looked up to note that the cast of characters who were surrounding me when I began have all drifted away. That is intensity of purpose.

Today read two obits for Kurt Vonnegut, the more complete in the NYT.
Commented to Kennedy that KVJR (as Loomis and I lovingly always called him) and Woody Allen provided a glimpse into lovely, creative planets for young and impressionable teen writers and thinkers. That and an uncle named Billy (yes, as in Pilgrim) who played the harpsichord and was a priest and who absolutely lived the high life.
KVJR, just like Dr. Atkins, died from brain injury from a fall.
Never underestimate Balance.

Balanced Love, body/mind/spirit

... Born sour or does the problem go deeper.
Now that is a question.
Your homework assignment is to check out this educational, health-related vid via Internet Archive. Sound only is fine for flailing away. It is still educational.
At least fur keeps you warm.

The latest of Perfect, jazz-related post-gig feasts was another raging success with PB at the helm of the table, after full-blast trio of him and equally-imported rhythm section - Marino Pliakas and Michael Wertmüller. Told Michael and Marino, way late into the post-dessert musings, that the moment they created with a simple beat that spanned into for a terminal but interminal-in-moment moment made all sorts of blocked art ideas in the head of Yours Truly slip out. They were visibly pleased.
It was one of my most favoured PB gigs and I told him that the big triad of events in the month of my merry birth (nine days later, to be quite Perfectly pushing exactitude) in Chicago is not only inked in but looked forward to. An exhibition, a concert, a publishing party.
PB invited me to bend myself into his suitcase so I could mosey along on this full-blast tour. With all the yoga and pilates it could be quite possible. But then, of course, it is a real hazard with sub-zero temps happening out in outer space where planes fly.
Two shopping days until Sam's b-day and the anniversary of epinw.

Shop and rock on, Love.

+ this just in.
two jpegs arrived of YT with a whole shitload of flowing hair, just after a Phish show and before some other rock hoopla - cameras present in both instances, of course. I look forward to its re-emergence soon.

As most people Yours Truly knows, and this includes YT, have turned that vernal pagan-x'n holiday hybrid–a.k.a. Easter–into Imbibathon, all plans for Dyngus Day sort of fell by the wayside/fell out the window.
Entertained, with Kennedy, ICP (Instant Composers Pool, not International Center of ... not for ... Photography, nor Insane Clown Posse although YT has witnessed and photographed them onstage) on Saturday night after their incredible gig at Hallwalls in The Cavernous Church of Ani. A large black curtain was added to the Gothic skyward arch but the sound still booms around the room. This was duly noted by Bandmate Scott and I who sat on the second level peering down at the mass of watchers and this tentet from Holland.
After the show sped back to the EasyBake Oven etc. where the hunks of lamb legs were baking away.
Served 18 supper and it all began with Oyster Shooters (raw, in a citron vodka/lemon/soy concoction) with raw quail egg atop each and dainty thin scallions. Bandmate Scott broke out into a sweat as he helped me construct them ... Are these raw, is this raw, he queried. He did shoot one. They are sublime.
After that lobster and crab salad in a YT-created tarragon dressing. Then the legs of lamb, Tandoori chicken, Americana meatloaf, buttery green beans, rosemary roasted potatoes, a few salmon filets for a chocolate-loving vegetarian who does eat the fish. And on the table I had a butter lamb, a Middling City specialty.
This perplexed just about everyone at the table.
Susannah, ICP's manager, had an incident with her Oyster Shooter and I had a flash of having to rush to get the vacuum to dislodge the oyster from her gullet.
Off to a marathon big U day, including documentation of thee man who created Earth Day, Denis Hayes.
Earth Day, yes, is each and every day. But it is truly on the calendar on the fifteenth of this month. Two days after the festive celebration of the anniversary of the appearance of epinw.
Dig.
As YT was merrily wending her way through life yesterday received some frantic messages from editrix at the Shiney Happy, looking for some fun facts to add to the behemoth piece on this and that. Fhonecalls, fixed, filled, finished in a flash.
Onwards to there, there, there, there, and there, too.

There, Love.

Yesterday was the day that the drive is usually blocked at the home office hovel, blocked by over-eager pastry purchasers who, in their holiday frenzies, park just wherever. Had a fire engine blocking it at one point and beep-beeped and had firemen waving merrily. I was rushing out to the big U for an assignment and their really big red truck needed to move in a jiff.
Went to Michele's b-day soiree last night and gave her a remarkable bowl that looked like it had been fashioned from Pucci fabric.
Tonight is the ICP at Hallwalls and Kennedy and I have created a late-night feast for all ten of them, plus their manager, et al and et al.
Saw them in Amherst, Mass. a little over a year ago and enjoyed them v. much.
Only worry is that the easy-bake oven will not bake the lamb leg portions in the amount of time that it should, about 2.5 hours.
There are enough prepped courses before the main to keep everyone from resorting to cannibalism at table.
Dreaming of a convection oven, all that forced air shaving off baking times.
Finished the mammoth piece for the Shiney Happy Mag yesterday, a triumph.
Of course I chose to write about divergent and farflung places and spent many hours driving before note-taking, shooting, writing.
But that is done. Now for the lamb legs. And the rest of it.
Off to points beyond, the concert, the final push of the feast.
Tomorrow the pagan-christian hybrid holiday that really is a jumble of both - eggs, lambs, resurrections, lilies, jelly eggs, mysterious crypts, peeps, pig meat.

Hybrid Love.

Tomorrow night is what Yours Truly has dubbed Summit Meeting - gatherings with Polly/Liz/Cheryl and the designated joint is a Middling City Scene Newbie, a place with pretensions but nicely designed.
We decided there were too many weeks that'd go by and we would not connect so now these Summit Meetings, as Martha says, A good thing.
Drove out to the big U's Confusement Centre, a.k.a. Ellicott Complex, to not only get my fair share of daily confusion, but to enjoy the sight of meandering ducks.
One seasonally-thematic thing is that the Middling City is enjoying a new trad, a Dyngus Day parade from the B'Way Market to the Central Terminal. Thinking that paraders and maskers and marauders and revelers should probably dress like pussy willows (whilst also brandishing same) or as Polish sausages. Or maybe butter lambs.
Will be again, as is tradition, at the Lownies's Ukrainian Easter brunch and, as is also trad, will lop head off the butter lamb.
hot tip: the butter lamb features two peppercorn eyes, lopping head off yields a spicey, buttery spread for whatever one has designated a spreadee on the table.
Spring and itchy eyes are in the air, as is the scent of earth warming.
The crocii and daffodils are unleashing their magic and coming up next are the most beloved spring arrivistes of all - the hyacinths.
Ahhh, the hyacinths.


Pepper-eyed Love.

+
this just in.
Literal Harold, who You may recall collects hotel/resort/motel soaps, received his package from YT bearing same. He, safe to say, is t.h.r.i.l.l.e.d.
And You should note, all of Yous, that the 13th is, bien sur, the hap-slappy anniversary of the premier and Perfect blogpost of epinw - b-day of Sam.
Please do send gifts of all shapes and sizes to me. At once, for timely delivery.
I thank You in advance.
And also I proclaim that it is truly uly spring.
I have evidentiary allergies.

This is one images Yours Truly is especially happy with from the latest nuptials socially documented in early March, and, desite the big chill in the air, the couple agreed to pose outdoors at Glen Falls with Nature all nude.

Yesterday was the book clubbing and, as is our wont, there was some discussion of the book at hand (Fear of Flying, that early feminist book all concerned about liberation, and therapy), but more about life in general over several goblets of thematic beverages. Next book is Tristram Shandy, a college fav, and just ordered a new copy as mine from college was severely yellowed and annotated by my 18-year old hand. Along with some plans for t-shirt designs and ruminations that were so ... heavy in my undergraduate mind.
Soon or now is the year anniversary of the death of Mr. Ganey and then that of Mrs. Ganey. What a sad time that was, good to see the fam, but tragic when she passed one month after his. Same funeral home, same room, same cast of characters.

Celebrated the birth of my mother yesterday at a middling restaurant on Hertel Avenue. As I said to the parents, it seemed a bit dishevelled at the edges but the food was passable.
The lag of the jets (3 in total) has passed, thankfully, no more operating on 3 cylinders.

Onwards to edits galore.

Love galore.

Harry N. Konst, Esq. of the Sicilian trip just emailed the lot of us to inform that the day after we left Sicily Mount Etna blew some vulanized molecules into the crisp air.

CBS News RAW: The southeastern crater of Sicily's snow-covered Mt. Etna volcano belched lava, smoke and ash. Vulcanologists say this latest eruptive spell poses no danger to people.

When You witness how closely people live near the craters You do wonder.
Yours Truly has met her fair share of vulcanologists at the big U and have concluded thusly: Vulcanologists are a nutty bunch.
Do we trust their words, these magma weather people.

One of the more unforgettable Sicily images emblazoned is the hardened, antique lava flows that remain on the landscape - deep, black rock, in Euro parlance a few meters high/deep. The devastation possibilites of these wide paths of lava is there, right there, remaining from every flow.

Last night had a job for the big U and had to shuffle dozens upon dozens of awardees to and fro, a real work-out. I had an excellent suggestion to the event planners to efficiently keep groups of awardees (You see, they are categorically photographed, without getting into too many details) together - duct tape. They'd only be un-duct taped when they needed to be photographed - to heck with worries about delicate fabrics, documentation is more important. Left a cable behind at the locale (a pool-scented Holiday Inn in the suburbs) and had to return today to fetch it and discovered that the room so full of students last night was today full of evangels who were lunching ... books on Mother Theresa, paraphernalia on merch tables and confessions being heard in another, smaller banquet room.

In midst of another gig right now, in sub-midst of a break and need to head out to ghostful East Aurora soon. Exact locale is Roycroft, home of the best verandas in Western New York, in my non-humble op. A fine destination for sniffing their courtyard garden, enjoying a cocktail, maybe some light shopping.

Onwards to that crafty exurb of the Middling City.
After my absence the MC looks flat, dark. Where are the cactii, the vibrant flowers.
I ask. Coming, You reply.

Magmatic Love.

This is a very quick pick from the 600 or so Sicily images made during the past 9 or so days, made in the mountaintop city of Taormina, outside Saint Caterina Church near a shady piazza filled with gelato, people, taxis.
Inside, there are electric candles - plop in the Euros and screw in the candle's bulb of your choice. I suppose a good way to prevent fires, pesky wax drippings. I made images of these candles, as well as other churchly features like relics, and select marble floors.

Just finished several hours of judging a SUNY-wide photo contest for publications that promote various colleges and U's. Did so with boy colleague Marky Mulville of Middling City News fame, Deborah Parks of Canisius College. Claire Jones of Buffalo State College invited us to judge (I judged the newsletter category two years ago) and hosted our time together which we ended discussing the nature of students in this day and age of media saturation and the phenom of hellicopter parents.
The judging went swimmingly and we proffered up comments to the first and second place winners and the honorary mention.
One comment was written by Yours Truly - We enjoyed your images very much but would like to suggest that you pull back on the usage of PhotoShop filters.
Anyone in this racket, or who has ever played with that hyper-expansive software know the allures and massive pitfalls of using filters which, as I am wont to say, include the horrendous shower door filter.
Mulville and I stood in the sun afterwards discussing the diffs between Nikon and Canon, my adorable new Leica DLux2, cars, and other equipment matters.
Always good to talk shop, especially in the sun.
Onwards to deadlines both real and imagined.

Imaginary and real Love.

If only Yours Truly had figured out this neato little techno bonus trick earlier I would have saved several Euros.
Someone on the hotel staff was, obviously, looking at internet porn whilst we were all eating our ultimate (as in final, not as in best) dinner on this Sicilian tour.
So I sit down at machine ready to fire it up with my paid-for i.d. number for access with meter running when I see a lurid page open and ready.
Actually, the window is underneath this window and the url is www.archiviosex.net etc. etc.
(There was just now a colossal crash that came from the kitchen and/or dining room and then the traditional and subsequent roar of the crowd.
And now the sad sad sound of the sweeping up of glass.)
From here I zipped in the Yahoo url and then onwards to Blogger.
At one point the King, also referred to as The Godfather (the hotel proprietor who lurks about and does on occasion even sit in a carved, wooden chair resembling a throne in the lobby), hovered over me wondering what YT was up to.
We have caught suspicious eyes in the lobby, that King and I.
Today we bussed on over to Catania. Not to be confused with Calabria.
I did witness the parched and kind of mummified black hands, well, just bone, of a cardinal in a glass case. I was mesmerized. This viewing took place during a mid-day mass and so the lights in the showcase were on. A priest was singing quite well, a far far cry from the folkie-suffused warbling one usually hears from priests over there in the USofA.
Mass over. Lights in showcase off.
Show's over, leave.
Exeunt YT to the sunny sunny street and felt, as the day was moseying along, to walk at a Shiney Apple pace solo up a hillacious street toward a city wall or gate.
I did so at an alarmingly speedy pace, just breathing in the diesel fumes and feeling my face roasting in the sun.
I stopped for only the oddest of sights which included a traffic cop looking like he was holding a nice red lolly to direct the comings and goings around traffic.
I stopped also for a taste of grilled artichoke, 1 Euro.
Wended back to the less ghetto quarter and began looking for a motherly birthday gift as her birthday is the 28th, tomorrow, as we begin the 24-hour sojourn.
I could not find It.
In lieu of That I did find a Perfect pair of canvas cowboy boots which, despite my rule about buying European shoes, found themselves not only being purchased, but on my feet and walking out the store.
Amongst other stops stopped into an artist's studio and managed to be in there and made one single image of it and soaked up the trumpet-featured classical piece blaring from a hi-fi sans being noticed.
I later said to a few fellow tourmembers that I pondered making a citizen's arrest.
Dorota will get this joke.
But I will explain it to You.
There is a dearth of heart-stopping modern art in parts of Europe.
Onwards.
Mary and I co-hostessed a cocktail party for our fellows and it was fun.
Everyone felt our view was worth the shakedown extra Euros.
Onwards to the final night and the long trek back to Kennedy and the rest of the US.

Onwards, Love.

Yesterday was a day most Perfect, back in Taormina.
Wending through tight alleys, making some images, looking up at the stoney mountain I traipsed up and was surprised by the lady in shadows, not our lady of sorrows.
Ate at Nino's joint, a fine trattoria near the sea, and he insisted or strongly suggested we have a familyesque and trad Sicilian feast for the four of us. Out came the courses of fresh fishes, locally-grown vegetables, a sweet pea pod each for a taste refresher, vino, an apertif. All again just Perfect-perfetto.
On way to Nino's directions were asked to see if in sooth numero 37 was just up ahead on Via Pirandello. It and it were.
I strongly suggested to a man getting on his very stylish Italian motorbike that he give me a ride up around the bend to my luncheon.
He handed me his helmet, put down the passengerial footpegs and off we zoomed. I had a few moments of that travel wonderment (always solo) whilst standing on a stone wall overlooking the sea and down at greenery still unfamiliar - cactii, lush bouganvillea (Liz can send in corrections), camellia, et al.
Onwards.
Today was Mount Etna day.
Picked up loads of little lava rocks and lest You do not catch the joke here, so Euro, so geological, lava rocks are light you see for the magma that bursts forth as lava catches air when it is arrabiata up in the sky and after it has scorched the earth. Dried to sponge candy perfection.
(Luca is meandering behind me, hands crossed behind him so officially as he makes his way from lobby to kitchen, disappearing, as Julie the Cat would always like to do, into the cucina).
Mount Etna air is so crisp and the fog wraps around your face when the weather shifts.
Men in a Jeep show up looking all muddy about the knees and you can see in the back of the Jeep that there are provisions. From their dazed conditions you reckon they have peered into the crater. Or have been lost for days.
We more adventurous journeyers forge onwards and wonder at the chestnut trees, the endless rocks, the flora just awakening.
Onwards again.
Another twisting and turning of the bus to another hillock farm and vineyard owned by a Baron, Emanuele Scammacca del Murgo, who insisted upon meeting me and then images were made of the two of us together. He presented me with one of his books, as You see, he is also a photog. We photogs seek each other out. We talk or gesticulate moments, gadgets, glass, ops, chips, and the like.
He signed my book For Nancy Emanuele.
His wine was the best here yet, Murgo is the label.
Onwards to the pool where a nice glass of Asti awaits me.
I have new Etro shades and I may contact them to see if the corp would like to become my corporate sponsor.

Murgo, Etro, vino Love.

postscript for Literal Harold.
have some rather odd images quite appropriate for VH1, will send upon return to Middling City.

postscript for LH and all You others.
no postcards sent out by YT, they are all too hideous. Really.
You know I dig that oldschool tradition, they are really all too ugly, not a trace of irony upon them.

Today Mary and I have given the group the slip.
We are off shortly to Taormina, the fav spot so far, a hilly city with sea and mountains in the distances.
The place where I wended up the stone steps.
Yesterday was the mainland, Calabria, where I decided to procure a present for me (the usual something to wear from Europa) and where we later bussed off to farm country where we served a lavish lunch of products made on the farm - vino, cheese, meats, etc. There were goats tied to trees, herbs minding their business.
One of our two buses, the one Yours Truly was on, got stuck coming and going on the tight and winding roadway that no one ever imagined would see the likes of a bus such as this Mercedes-Benz behemoth. All the neighbors were out on their terraces watching. The owner of the joint heard the ruckus and drove his car down to witness and to join in some helpful gesticulations.
The slip was necessary to have less of the school marm thing going on and to get back to more of the poesie.
There are two minutes left on this internet card so it is time to exit, right out the lobby, past Julie the hotelcat, out into the cloudy day and toss myself into a taxi.

Poetic, far-away Love.

And how is Sicily Trip going, You may ask.
And ask You may and shall.
Let Us put it this way.
Yours Truly just returned from historical out the wazoo Taormina with cohort Mary of LaTeeDa fame in a man named Nino's luxe automobile after giving our expensive tour group the slip (as well as the pesky intra-ear devices one of the guides called the whisper but which YT calls just plain annoying) and YT trekked to the highest point of the city basking in sunshine and wild plants and aloe vera and cactii as big as cars. We gave the slip as I am wont to do and that is when best photos and mems are made. After my trek to the top and making some images of a demi-grotto church and all and talking to some scientists in for a gathering of same, found Mary at bottom of stone steps (all 6 million or so of them) and wended about a different direction, toward the sea. It was several moments-miles later that we realized we might never see that piazza and designated time. Oh well and hell we both said and proceeded to further enjoy the sun and view and time.
Mary said let's hitch.
Four seconds later we were in Nino's luxe car, the three of us singing How Deep Is Your Love by the ever-famous Australian Brotherly Outfit the BeeGees.
Nino, seemingly like all extra-tour men we have met, owns a trattoria.
Trattoria Nino.
I mentioned the bus stop and that we would like to end up near the one about 10 minutes from our hotel - Sant Alphio Garden Hotel (run by a hardass, ever-beshaded quasi-mafioso who is about 4'7" and who shook me and Mary down for another 35Euros each to upgrade to a shared suite with balcony over sea after we saw our own respective and deplorably under-starred chambers). This was very kind of Nino and only about 2 minutes out of his way. This means that we not only gave the group the slip but saw several more momentous things and met yet another local ... and beat these groupies back to the hotel which I stated looks like something out of Vegas or Israel. Mary has redubbed it, more appropriately, Salvatore's Italian Gardens.
And so it is.
Time to have some Asti by the pool, under the palm trees.
Is it that warm.
Uhh, nope, but hell if I'll admit to that.

Seaside love, Love.

Above is from Spartacus, which starred Sparky as thee best-ever slave who emoted better than all the rest of her oppressed fellows.
Went with Mish, Annie, Jana, and Heather to witness Sparky's wonders and to see the ballet. Afterwards, the after-party with cheese cubes - thank goodness as Yours Truly was beyond a famished condition. At the party saw several desirables of the art and judicial spheres.
Talked to TMO yesterday to wish him a super 5-O. He was angry that Karen, his loving spouse, published a photo of him in the local journal of him from a Bar Mitzvah from several years ago. He is wearing a tiara in the shot. He said You know, the person that prints a picture of you is supposed to use a humiliating shot of you when you're 4 or 5, not 48. I could not stop laughing.

Tomorrow jet off to the Shiney Apple and then point beyond, Sicilia, with former Congressman John LaFalce, the rents, et al et al totalling about seventy. As I wrote to Dorota, it appears to be loads of couples but then discovered this past Thursday evening that Mary of LaTeeDas will be coming on this journey, filling in for a traveller who had to unmake travel plans. I also bring along the new sweet compact Leica which replaces the abused former fav mini dig cam which got its lens coating rubbed right off.
I look forward to seeing Mount Etna and the dogs that live near there, hounds. And some olive trees. And shores.
All for now, time to zip up the bag and spend q.t. with Kennedy.

Travelling Love.

As Holly Golightly would say Quel day.
Up and running at crack of the dawning hour to see the smattering of snow.
I do not complain about snow, never - notez bien.
Skipped out to Park School to document a great keynote talk by brain and learning researcher (and pal of Tom Wolfe's, a point that perked up my small ears) Dr. Mel Levine who, apparently, has been on some of those self-help or book-help television shows.
Then onwards to park in the Hallwalls lot and catch the above-ground subway where it's gratis at West Tupper. I heard the helpful ringing bells that are rung maniacally to warn potentially off-kilter drivers, I presume, who are on verge of driving/diving down into the tunnel. This does happen periodically and Yours Truly follows these tales with intent, much like the stories of the bodies that turn up in the East River.
So on the above-ground subway I was.
Standing. Eavesdropping.
I heard a man at the back of the stench-ridden car telling a rapt femme about Lackawanna, how Lackawanna is a District of the Middling City.
And then his thoughts drifted to Converse Chuck Taylors the colour of pollution, deep black. And then he rambled about Bethlehem Steel and inter-racial strife.
I was on this stinkbomb, lest You wonder, as I was forewarned by those at the big U that, due to the NCAA proceedings, parking was nil.
I arrived and shot the heck out of the annual Match Day, an annual fav, whereby med students discover (via envelopes and computer print-outs) where they'll be jettisoning off to for the following year (definitely) and beyond.
There are squeals of delight, some grimaces, many draft pints of beer.
I was at the podium awaiting the onslaught and helped thee Dr. Nancy Nielsen shuffle all the envelopes so that they were no longer alphabetical as all the matchees are asked to drop a dollar in a basket and then the final matchee collects all the dough.
It is serious business. Maybe not as serious as the matching at hand. But really.
Traditions exist on all planes of import.

I am merrily chained to the laptop, editing like there is no tomorrow.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, happy Ides of March.

Watch your back, Love.

Sloan last night was a rollicking throwdown.
My ticket was a holiday gift from Michele and the show was rescheduled due to some sort of border or licensing meltdown.
Me, Annie, Michele, Gary, the nephew, et about 7K other al, grooved to these Canadian boys this past summer at the Middling City's pro bono outdoor concert series, Thursday at the Square.
At one point during last night's concert I misheard Michele.
Another band, I queried.
No, she replied, The Other Man, seconds before they launched into her fav Sloan number.
Last night, pre-concert, supped with the fam at the downtown restaurant/boozehall Laughlin's and had to send back my few saladtop grilled shrimp as someone in the kitchen had forgotten the grilled part and I realized this halfway into one raw creature.
At some point between din and gig spoke with Sparky about her upcoming appearance as a slave in the Neglia production Spartacus.
We discussed at length earlier this week the controversial poster that featured the prominent ass of the company founder, Sergio Neglia. It appeared naked, completely devoid of dancerly tight.
In sooth the tights were so tight and flesh-coloured that they appeared invisible.
A protest of sorts ensued, the image was removed from a billboard and perhaps more.
Then it was someone's PhotoShop job to PhotoShop out the asscrack, to create a uni-cheek for Sergio.
Ahh, all is ass well in the Middling City, where the deaccession appears to be imminent despite protests, raucous meetings, threat of lawsuits, etc.
As You may recall, YT posted via Buffalo Rising online, a concise freakout about this tragic event.
What has been most shocking is the shortsightedness of those who wish these deftly-crafted items, 200 in all, to be scattered to the four winds, no longer a visual excitation for anyone traipsing through Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
The older should merge with the new and YT's thoughts immediately visits some of the finest galleries and musees in this human, hubris-filled world.
Where old and young pieces of all media mingle.
The gallery of RISD is a primo example of this style of curating and presentation.
My beloved Whitney always features the shows that visit as well as their wondrous collection which is there sans surprises. As I have written and stated many times.
You love that Kiki Smith/Jasper Johns/Whatever.
It is where you saw it last visit, same wall, waiting for you.
There is an article in today's NYT about the Albright-Knox sale.
The piece begins in a manner that makes the MC look most sad.

For a city that has lost so much unwillingly over the last several decades — industries, prestige, jobs and more than half its population — perhaps it was inevitable that a decision to allow anything of great value to leave here willingly would be met with howls of protest.

The AKAG ditches priceless objets for speculative newbies on the scene.
This prospecting amid an art market that has gone mad in favour of artists, yes, but prices soar and the curators at this mid-sized gallery clamor for pieces on the top-40 lists - so the collection resembles more and more a greatest hits compilation.

Toss in the unexpected priceless links between ideas and cultures.
To see examples of what's to be auctioned off viewers will have to daytrip or fewdaytrip to Cleveland, TO, Rochester.

Sad sad art day, Love.

As Kennedy so astutely noted, no one ever claims to have been purposely landing on the Middling City's ranging cable access station.
They were just noodling about.
So at this moment there is a handful of people who have reported that they saw the televisional likeness of Yours Truly on same electronic outpost.
Back story.
A few years back You may recall that YT blogged about the surreal circumstances of that breakup of about four years ago.
And Richard Wicka asked about three or so years ago if I'd participate in his five minute series whereby individuals sit in front of his vid cam and, with camera rollin' rollin', talk and tell.
My narrative was about the above. Following that humourous retelling Richard peppered me with about fifty questions ranging from serious to utterly ridiculous, fashioned to eke out responses galore.
One of these questions was What was the worst gift you have ever received.
Sans hesitation I replied that it was a Valentine's gift from the young man inferred to above. His odd forays into the realm of humour were usually painful, sometimes just plain annoying.
For Valentine's Day one year he thought it'd be fun and funny to purchase me a vibrator.
I found it to be an odd sentiment, choice, gift, message.
I was going to run a classified ad in the newspaper where I was working.
Unused vibrator for sale. $5.00 or best offer.
Then I did not.
Instead, YT left it on the bar at Nietzsche's one fine evening after a full night of roaming and shooting.
I left it running.
I moved away from it and enjoyed the reactions of men and women confronted with an odd bartop embellishment.

The End.

Not the end of Love, Love, ever.

Today.
Two boy colleagues sent me, and they do not know each other, Remember When emails.
One sent a beautiful black & white image of thee John, of Toppermost of the Poppermost fame.
The other sent two images of the likeness of Yours Truly from several years ago, me swaggering and loaded down with gear, making my way into a venue and from the looks of the situ it is the Middling City's downtown baseball centre/diamond.
So that would be one of the all-day fests that transpire there.
My hair was very long, as it's aiming to become again, and I think there's a pager - a pager - clipped to my belt loop.
There was an era, like around before when digital hit the mainstream, that we journalistos had pagers and YT knew, absolutely, the locale of each and every danged payphone in this Western New York.
And, lest you forgot, one could receive pages from parties that ended or began their phone numbers to be returned with a 911 meaning Jeez, call me like PRoNTo.
The latter sender, Chris Borkowski (he's himself + the dotcom if You wish to see his site), catapulted from MC artsy venues to a gig at the Guggenheim, as in that snaily viewing venue that, in this op, worked best for the overtakage of Matthew Barney.
Onwards.
The biggest and perhaps, no, def the best, news to hit this frigid village is that Albright-Knox Art Gallery is to show the work of Francis Bacon in May.
That is correct, Bacon.
This may be the verysame show YT saw in Paris a while back - popes, dogs, twisted countenances, and ever ever those lush topographies.
Just typing those last two words made me have a micro-pang for grad school and truly this reason has escaped just as quickly as my little fingers typed that all in a flash.

Flashes of Love.

Well can You say that Your day included, perfectly, as Mine did, a special proximity to a faux, life-sized skeleton.
I think not.
Yours Truly was called to make some ports of a femme at the big U and we meandered a bit after getting a feel for how best to illustrate her craft and craftiness.
Gallery, hallway, foyer, window port, monitors and then, o then, discovered that my pal Jeff Sherven has, for some reason, this skeleton in the check-out area for media equipment.
The photo subjet du jour deals not only with epidemiology but with media so this quite handily worked most parfait.
Stand in between the monitor and the skeleton, YT directed.
And I bet this phrase will just never be repeated ever again.
Now on the rock classique station is that wondrous sonic piece of art the Stones made with Keith's ragged vocals - Happy.
Today is one freakin' Happy Day.
Last night, whilst shopping for fresh fleurs (dig french, dig) spotted #61 - Max Afinogenov - of thee Buffalo Sabres, jaw clenched tightly, circling some roses, obviously in a state of flusterment. I nearly stepped in but amused myself greatly by watching his typical boy quagmire of which to give - the reds, the pinks, the non-roses. Then back to roses. He was in a flowery pickle, to be sure.
Boys/men attach too much to flowers, well, some anyhow. My most recent X always thought, or believed, erroneously, that I preferred to receive a delicious gourmet sandwich to some nice flowers. Not that that stopped the flower gifts but his belief was like so wrong.
Just like bats, I believe everyone has a good flower story - giving or receiving.
YT has her share, to be perfectly sure.

Happy Rosey Day.

'Tis nearly the wearin' o the green so therefore in the Middling City this means 'tis the runnin' o the tipplers. In essence Yours Truly means the annual Shamrock Run of course, the pesky race that wends its way throughout the historic Old First Ward, in plain view of the majestic grain elevators, the train tracks, the swill halls that remain.
This means that YT was dodging barricades and warmer-uppers en route to meeting in the suburb of Hamburg and am now in hiding with Blogger and NYT to amuse me until I am certain the coast will be clear, as military planners are wont to say.
Last night was a girlie meet-up with Jana at Ikea-ful Brodo which is never half full before adding Liz to the cast of characters, meeting her over at the nouvelle Scarlet on Virginia Alley.
This joint is confused, not confusing.
It is in the former Crash Club where crazed events and things transpired in the 90s and they have taken out all the mirrors, carpeting, brass railings and general architectural disguises to reveal a place with antique character - exposed bricks and beams.
The ol' b&b.
The owners or management were, apparently, not so sure if they wanted to make this a sports bar or an upscale dining venue so they aimed for a 50/50 aesthetical split.
There are sets prominent on the two-story wall with tastefully-arranged bottles of spirits placed just so, as well as some botanical embellishments.
Then there was the overwhelming scent of fish, obviously the exhausting of vapours was not thought out enough. It was strong enough that it made YT consider making an about-face and leaving as who wishes to subsume oneself in the wafting scent of fried foods and fishticuffs. We stayed. Liz came. We cocktailed. We left.
Will I return.
That is a question.
If it's on someone's to-do list and I am into seeing the to-doer yes.
Time to see if the runners, walkers, barricades, cops have left the scene.

Scenic, hideout Love.