Completely, and I mean utterly, minding my own business yesterday after a gig, you know, sort of la-dee-dah humming and driving along Sheridan Drive in the Middling City suburbs, the golden Forester was magnetized into the lot of Shoe Universe - a place that is a port of sorts for women of all ages, trolling the aisles with intense purpose, eyes searching, boxes under arms, frenzy in the air. So, whilst talking to Beth Dearest, I find not one - but two - perfect pairs (that equals four) shoes. They are mine. Is there also guilt hovering in the air of Shoe Universe. Does the pope have the best interests of pro-choice people in his craggly heart.
Made portraits yesterday of an Iranian femme who's writing a book about Iranian contract/temp marriages - for pleasure (male) + money (female). A sort of fictionalized account of things, a là Rushdie, to be sure. I asked if she'd read Memoirs of a Geisha. But of course. Her house was a carpet museum of sorts and she made me a cup of coffee that had me whirring along the rest of the day.
Onwards to deadlines, the adrenalized onslaught I manage the best.

Best Love.

Just completed as in like so two hours ago the Coronation of Middling City U's newest baddest prez, John Simpson. Lots of my signature people looking human moments, looking ecstatic in bursts. Two nights of grazing on party food, those mysterious cheesey nuggets. Found Laura amidst all today's chaos and invited her to join me alongside one of the tables laden with crudites out the wazoo.
And just back from Philly yesterday, several days of walking through a small town, emptying (with assistance from Bill, Kennedy's bestest pal) a bottle of Oban, and best of all filming for art's sake. Just wrote to JR to inform him of such.
Onwards now to points ever beyonder.
Beyond Love.

Song du jour, du moment, is Beth Orton's Someone's Daughter.
Jaunty, rollicking, chock full of insight perfect for a day that has a chill that squeezes the remainder of life out of the perennials.
So Christopher Reeve died. And I recall shooting him near the Rainbow Bridge where one can cross from polluted Niagara Falls, NY to Vegaslike Niagara Fall, CA. His hands amazed me, all puffed out from meds and flakey. I made images of his body, his talking head, and those hands. At that time he had had no feelings yet in his body and speaking was laborious for him, intake of oxygen, phrase, repeat. It was painful to watch, I found myself holding my own breath and releasing it when he spoke. And I felt like death was upon him then, several years ago. Why was he on the Rainbow Bridge. For a film fest that never happened again, in Ontario over There.
This past weekend, post-wedding, I spoke with Father Jim of the Greek Orthodox Church in the Middling City, a man who if any, has a spirituality hovering around him - uncommon, I believe, in people of the Cloth. I helped him scoop the tray holding jordan almonds, the dual crown used in the ceremony, and some other nuptial paraphernalia, into a plastic bag. I spied the almonds. Are those jordan almonds. Yes, he said, have one for luck. I did. THEN he tells me about two seventy-year old sisters who kept jordan almonds from every wedding at that church, who put them under their respective pillows - for years - as it's superstition that the man of your dreams will come to you in the REM state. Did they ever marry, I asked. No. So much for lucky jordan almonds. I, too, now am assured a life of spinsterhood. Oh well.
Mad props to Beth Dearest for giving me her secret code to print out school readings as my own account with sheister-ridden XanEdu.com wouldn't recognize me as one who had reluctantly and yet diligently shuttled $80 or so at them for the same priviledge to discover last night that Holy Crap I can't access a thing and I'm on the road in minutes and what in hell shall I read on the trip if not good ol' snoozearific Michel Foucault et al. So now I'm armed with Foucault brilliance and won't have to pick up the latest MC News, USA Today or crapmag that I would not usually purchase but for that mysterious state of airport consciousness when suddenly flourescently-lit trash pubs look so... enticing.

Fluxes of Love.

Today I came out into the world. So therefore a bunch of us met up at the Middling City's most eldest of juicejoints, Ulrich's, for revelry's sake. Frosting, cake, gifts, singing, dancing to leder-hosed music, rat scampering quietly around a corner out of the corner of my eye, the debate raging overhead for a portion, more scotch, more dance, more frosting, cards, laughing with head tipped back. Good times were had by Yours Truly, most importantly. Then morning rolled around and it was full-throttle work all day, John Lennon's day.
Today a crisp apple day and, as is my custom, I called my mother who sprung me to discover my father, the other third of the equation, must have been online so no Hello at the exact minute - 2:01PM. Blogging now in my studio/live space getting well wisher calls and emails as the Hispanic evangels rock on for the almighty mightily and I work on various projects before ultimately heading to Kennedy's where I have a huge desire to bake sweet potatoes stuffed with crab or lobster. Tomorrow we jet off to another city for a while.
Older, wiser, stronger, faster, that's what I just told Justy.
Life might be for the living but birthdays are for the birthed.

Nascent Love.

Um, so minding my own stinkin' business (need I say - as USUAL) I'm having a, as in uno, drink with one of my most beloved editors, the Liz. Then more.
So then I query so what IS the next cover story of the next issue of the Shiny Happy. Well, wouldn't You know, it's the Asian Trends Pulitzer Piece by Yours Truly. Very Truly. Truly truly.
While out and about we are speaking to the bar owners, the chef of the joint, and assorted (not sordid) others.
Now here. Where I have the proverbial gun to the head, where I am flailing away and am assuredly looking at an old-school, charming night sans sleep. Hello! Journalism! This, kids, is what it's all about. The over-indulgence, the grace, the caffeine, the deadline pressure, the tension, the creativity. The ebb. The flow.
Love it, live it.
Called Beth in the midst of the throes of it. Noted she has not called back. She is scared. This is frightening. This is Get the fuck out of my way or I steamroll right the fuck over y'all time.
Onwards to crime.
Onwards to less time.

Onwards to Love.

Open thought to Kodak, one of several pains in mine arse. Whyowhy discontinue a winner, namely, your CN41 b&w film. I mean really. A grand film. Now to be replaced by a more expensive model, curiously named VW. Does Volkswagen know of this.
End of letter to misdirected corporation Kodak.
And just finished pondering the big questions raised by snapshots, papparazzi and daguerreotypes for skewel. Dragged philosopher Paul Virlio into it all, about his thoughts on what he dubbed the telepresence, what we all imagistically experience en masse, to global result.
“Since all presence is presence only at a distance, the telepresence of the era of the globalization of exchanges could only be established across the widest possible gap,” he writes.
Rock on, philsopher man.
Makes for further great cocktail party conversation.
Planning a bon voyage party for video artist Koji Tambaata at my joint, somewhere in the 20s. Full-on booze-a-thon with video people and rockstars and others. Or not. We have to hold a summit meeting.
And, on the subject of the day you should really be shopping for already, my bday soiree is happening Friday night at 9PM at the oldest grindingly sloppy bar in the Middling City, Ulrich's. German band live, in those cute little leather short sets.
So, if you are in the MC and are of revelling age, come and be.
Time to further my education, edit some marriage images and then, and THEN, watch the veep debate at 9PM EST. Cheney the Corporate Evil One v. The Dubiously-Credentialed Edwards.
All.

Debate on Love.
Parliamentary Rules and Roberts's Rules of Order in Full Effect.

Holy guacamole a first just happened seconds ago, when I lifted the half-full, nay, half-empty bottle of Oban to my lips and sucked its essence into my soul following this marathon - and I mean MARAfuckinTHON - two days. Today was an oldschool Perfect Me 18 hour day that ended with the dual Harvey Breverman gig at two galleries. First the one, then the other. Made hundreds of digital images of the beloved Harvey and his students, former students, art people, my art people, my pals, etc. etc. I think at the Harvey gig I may have spent about 60% of the time talking. Oh, if the woman who hired me finds this on the ol' internet system that was but a joke. It was more like... oh, 10%. Another sip of Oban, hello nectar of the gods. And tomorrow early to rise and meeting and the wedding of the diva bride and her man until it's time to meander into the final moments of Kennedy's show across the way. Interpol, Oban, a change of clothing, bane. You will be oso shocked and happy to note the Shiny Happy Mag story is complete, a genius array of over 2K words. And happy happy happiests to JW,Esq. who turned, uhhhh, according to some tripped-out femme at a recent concert, 28 or 29. But I know, ever-diligent fact-searching and soothsaying journalist that I am and will forever be, that he is over the age of 30. But never will he reach my age as I'm ahead by five or so.
And, really, there are eight shopping days and what in hell are you waiting for.
Search this blogpost for super-secret bday gift ideas.

Ideas about love.

If You did not take the time to watch tonight's Aspirational Debate, indulge in a firsthand document instead of predictable spin and snippets, I am impatient with You at this moment - or could it be the spate of tea and afterbuzz bordering on hyper-freneticism.
Most troubling phrase uttered by BadW was I know how this world works.
My maddest props to Kerry (who should be buying better suits, in my not very humble opinion as I've got the blood of a bespoke tailor and generations of seamstresses and sewers within) was his comment on certainty. That the hook or by crook BadW is ascertaining wrongly - his words were that there may be certainty but the facts or beliefs behind that certainty may be wrong.
This half-arsed certainty is parallel to beliefs that lead one to follow terrorism or to engage in acts of terrorism - beliefs that are certain and certainly not benefiting many or putting forth the concepts of co-existence, acceptance or peace.
There was one moment, near the end, when Prez43 garbled several words together, just a mash of sounds. Arresting it was. Reminded me of the Martianspeak (KLAATU BARADA NIKTO - to which I replied EEP OP ORK AH AH....... which any self-resepcting fan of the Jetsons will know as well as they will know what the initials WMD or WTO or OPEC stand for, fercrissakes) in the movie Kennedy showed me last evening, The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Oh, and one final parting shot/blow/thought.
Money, and the having of money, mean nothing. It might make the ugly men of the world fuckable or charities creak along. Or prevent historic buildings from collapsing. But. It never means taste or kindness or style ensue.
So. Post talkpoints up come the families. Kerry had only his date, the ketchup heiress. The Bushies had to share their portion of their limelight with the Kookie Twins. Ketchup lady looked like hell. Hair askew, a bad suit choice. And both first lady contestants wore winter white. At moments of appealing to the masses the whites, the pinks and pastels turn up.
Out on her own Hillary showed up in black and that is, seemingly, her colour of choice. Theresa Heinz needs a stylist. Kerry needs a better-fitting suit. Think these things don't matter. In a battle this important every factor counts - demeanour, thoughts, suits, slogans. Frumps and the weak don't win.
Rah Rah Rah.
Eep Op Ork Ah Ah.
epinw readers vote.

epinw Army of Love.

Not that this will alarm You but the ol' piece for the Shiny Happy Mag is l.a.t.e. Once again I am creating stress wrinkles in the visage of an editor. But, as I always say, it's researched, fact-checked out the literal wazoo and will arrive Pulitzer-ready. Just when I think I'm done researching - kablam - along comes more fun facts, a new joint to investigate. On the advice of GoodW, bona-fide & head-to-toe Banana Republic Boy, meandered into BanRep today for the FallSale and later spread the good cheer, telling Deb post-standing Wednesday breakfast engagement that indeed it was worth the suburban foray. Thanks to GoodW en route to the Luxe Card. What with all the Parsons School of Demands purchases I should be well on my way to the New School U plutonium card. Favoured new word, speaking of things invisible yet oso powerful: allotropic (an element that can appear in more than one form, sort of like multiple personality disorder). Use it, love it.
$5 Word Love.

Returned from ad agency gig at Middling City Zoo post asscrack of dawn. The femme who hired Yours Truly says Be there at 930. So I am. Along with some construction workers hard at work making Otter City, a display of... otters, and workers engaged in poo management. Finally, the event. For the dessert, if you will, of the hoopla, zoo workers had the elder statesman elephant meander out for a photo op. I saw this as Republican Party propaganda and will be PhotoShopping a Dem donkey into all the elephantine images. Sitting in my car parked in the center of the Middling City's largest park/golf course I talked to Beth and collaboratively we noted that our grad program is so peripheral in our minds. On that note onwards to homework and its attendant focuslike activities.

Focus on Love.

Swearing on the souls of the venerable and very dead founders of New School U (the corporate giant to the start-up Parsons School of Desirability), I was like so trying to do homework today in the wi-fi-rich teahouse. But. But what. I will so tell you what. There was a deep-throated - woopsies - let us say she was whisky-voiced, woman in the joint who boomed on and on and on and on about cancer, meditation, members of the Middling City U English Department Faculty of Yore who Yours Truly studied and partied her balls off with, and much much more. My ears and mind wandered. But, Beth Dearest and I have duly dually noted that the online seminar is so... off-kilter. There is no discussion as of yet despite the prodding efforts of, You guessed it correctly, Perfect Student Me. BTW and ink this on the calendar, there are thirteen shopping days until the day that I plunged into the world the day after the birthday of John Lennon. I count my b-day as a shop day as it's a dimanche fercrissakes and who the hell can't muster up some energy to shop on that day of non-rest, especially for such an important holiday. Supreme likes, should you need ideas: green, green tea, green, green tourmaline (ask the nice counter girlies at Me & Ro about my drooling over their exquisite green tourmaline ring), and world peace.
Oh, another distraction in the tea joint was a familiar disc playing up above so I asked Jennifer to refresh my memory. Over the Rhine. But of course. Then she tells me they have a new one, a double cd and it's for freakin' sale in the tea/jewelry/cd outlet. It is now mine and Blair would be oso proud of me as he manages them.

Love Outlet.

After the priest railed against gay marriage in a political way, preaching to the assumed choir about how Christians/Catholics/The Zealous do not need legislation to tell them that marriage is absolutely between a man and a woman, and a few other matters on the platform, a terrier ran from behind the altar, prancing and yipping all the way. A few congregants/wedding guests asked if I, the paid shooter, captured this Greenpeace-worthy, PETA-like activity. I did not, I said, as I was trying to catch the little beast more than capture it.
I gave the terrier mad props for attempting to fluster Father Blowhard.
Oh, and also, the groom's eight year old son nearly passed out on the oppressive altar. I later asked him how this happened, nearly. He showed me how his tie was tied so tightly that his lips had turned blue. And he nearly passed out again to illustrate.
In the midst of a love song, one that inspires couples to press their bodies together and to press their misty memories together, the dj boomed mid-song over the PA - THIS IS ONE OF THE WORLD'S MOST POPULAR LOVE SONGS. I mean really.
Just once I'd like to request a mic for my unfettered and sporadic epinw-style commentary throughout a wedding day. An example: Who the hell's idea was it to serve so MANY starches for dinner. & Uh, Father Blowhard, this one goes out to you, howzabout we stick to phantasmagoric ideals of a marital nature and keep the Republic out of this.

Dem dere Love.

Again listening, in obsessive fashion, to soundtrack from Lost in Translation x-specially track 5 that is Girls by Death in Vegas.
When life does not spring a Virgin Megastore in one's path one must make do, embrace the rehashing of a collection like a gallery on the skids without funding.
Last night, what small surrealisms in parts. After a solid night of working spun out of my Jetson Heliport in the most wee of hours and, as I had sipped mega-watt green tea all the night long, I was like so up to the task at hand for meeting Good W and his pals. Once I called him W and his response was that I was never to call him that again due to the alleged president's co-opting of the letter - I told him the right thing to do was to reclaim the, his, letter.
Four of us walked a few long blocks to the former offices of Middling City Orchestra, now housing several on its three stories. The MC Orchestra was one of my clients so to revisit this building and be able to meander into its nooks and crannies with abandon was a treat. Up in the attic (who the hell on the orchestra staff had to toil away the workday up in that hovel) one of the residents has a lovingly-organized display of death dolls from a graphic novel apparently. Rivalling anything I saw in the Satanists's home a while back, all black, intricate, ready for battling. It was at that point that Good W's pal Colleen told me of causing the jettisoning off of a young man on a water bed, as we looked down upon an air mattress resembling a water bed.
The residents shared stories of ghosts wandering this old home, about people drowning babies there when it was a home for unwed girls, about people slipping on the wooden stairs and feeling embracing arms about them. Not nearly as spooky as the shelves of death dolls.
Off now again to points beyond.

No love for death dolls.

THIS JUST IN:
I AM BACK ONLINE CHEZ MOI, AFTER ABOUT HALF AN HOUR WITH A FACELESS, NAMELESS TECHIE. CHECK UNCHECK CHECK CLOSE OUT OPEN UP CHECK UNCHECK AND VOI-FUCKIN-LA... ONLINE BRAINAL ACTIVITY UP AND RUNNING. YOU WANT MISERY. OFFLINE MY DSL. STOP.

Well cheese and crackers how the h-e-double-crisscrossed-hockey-weapons did it get to be thirsty Thursday already.
Yesterday's gig was at the home of the parents who brought one of the favoured ones of Yours Truly out into the world, Rio. Her parents, parents-in-law of Ron. So I show up and note most notably that there is a giant grill on the front Middling City lawn rivalling any of the suburbs. And, manning the grill, is Smoker Bob, in shorts, tan, cowboy hat, etc. So the food was insuredly good. John the CW Rocker was there and that was a bonus. Inside, a celebration of 50 years of marital union and guests manhandled programs and sang while Ron and I shot each other blood-curdling-oh-fuck-I-may-just-break-out-into-heathenistic-cackle looks.
You will be not too surprised to know that Yours Truly has once again painted herself into a grand corner and has oso many deadlines on her head that it might just implode like an old pumpkin.
And, speaking of pumpkins, one of my pumpkin-smashing students from last year's late-night seminar, taught from within my golden Forester, was inquiring if class will be in session this season. To which Yours Truly replied Do upraised pumpkins experience velocity and gravitas and gravity and elicit jubilation in equal measure.

Tutorials of Love.

Went to hardcore girlie wedding shower yesterday, sunny yesterday, for MaryB, in Deb's backyard. A real pleasure, a gathering of so many revelling babes and pals and throwdown party girlies. And somehow, despite its being an EstFest, there in the corner lurked Jack Daniels. I left before he was cracked. I left just after Sarah and I played London Bridge is Fallin' Down with our manicured toes (Sarah is 2.3 years old) and talked to nearly one and all. Got the lowdown on the re-opening of Royal Pheasant from Molly "Mad-In-Charge" Q, co-owner. The beets on the menu stay. The Rat Pack banquettes stay. Live lobsters? Staying. Gaggle of barflies? Not so sure.
Saw Festival Express and Janice Joplin's filmed performances gave me bona fide, 100% skin-keep goosebumps. The footage is unforgettable, the editing stellar. But where were the groupies, the boobies, I ask.
For what is R&R without a little r&r.
I rest my rollicking case.
Rolllllicking, documentary Love.

A fun fact.
The only thing Yours Truly can think of that I share with the US hook or by crook president is that we both like to assign nicknames to others.
Put that in your pipe.
Smoke it.
Inhale.
So, according to Beth, we have a School Assignment. I mean, really. School Assignment. Don't these people know I have work to do, money to make, magazines to read. And art to ponder and create.
In mere moments I'll be toodling over to the New School U site to see what is in store for me.
Had a whirlwind of visiting with gal pals this week. Lunch with sister Soups and then Laura. Plethora of drinks with Cheryl, Liz and Annie. To say that some of these minglings didn't devolve into, ramble willingly, into full-fledged revelry would be a complete and utter lie. I regaled Beth, in Harrisburg for the !happynewyeartojews!, with some of the details, always carefully and measuredly beginning with I was minding my own business when...
Trying to get her to the Middling City for another visit, this time hopefully without pyrotechnics of personal disaster.
Haunting phrase du jour/time:
at the end of the day.
Keith the Wired Instructor - as in the material learnt and not in his upper intake - said ...At the end of the day every day we PSD13 were instructees. JamMasterV even found a way to insert that phrase into a report she reported and when she said it, a cloud of irony over her head, we all silently chortled and glanced at each other. Behind me, in the tea house where I am stealing wi-fi molecules, a jewelry designer is listening to something, watching something, on her laptop.
That phrase came out of the micro-mini speakers moments ago.
Do not use this phrase.
I propose that there is no end to any day. Think more linearly, stop thinking 24 hours, 24 hours, 24 hours. Confuse day with night, dreams with wake.
Waking Love.

Well. Well well well well.
No grotto could be found at the Middling City's answer to Hef's Joint. But what I did find was a MC version of Fabio, long golden silken tresses and all. At some point in the evening, whilst speaking to a fun gal at the bar I noted that Fabio had unloosed his mane and was supine on the marble floor, in front of the classical musicians whom no one could hear above the party din.
I spoke with Fabio. His name is Arthur. He is a jazz musician. Who dances while he's playing. Or that is at least what I thought his handler, standing alongside him, said.
With a gown on my body and short hairs on my head - as well as my Don't-Fuck-Wit-Me physique some in the throng who I know did not know Yours Truly. One client of mine of about six months or so back, post several martinis, said to me You look like a movie star. I wanted to say to her Yes, internally I so AM a movie star and have been for decades - only YOU see my true, exterior movie star. And I thank you.
No other party notables except that the white wine ran low to dry and then it was high time to move along to scotch fercrissakes.
Up in the attic/third floor rumpus area I asked pal Sam for a coin to feed the very naughtily racist bank to see if, in sooth, the eyeballs rolled back to white as Kennedy swore they would. And, by gum and by crackie, they freakin' did.
And Happy New Year to all my faithful epinw readers of the Jewish faith.

Faithful Love Forever Now.

Tonight would be the night that me and Kennedy get all gussied up and walk over to a black tie affair hosted by Rick the Sex Man. Owner of sundry boobie bars in the Middling City and in Vegas and god only knows where else. This man bought one of Hef's former rides and I imagine a replication of The Grotto somewhere in the basement. I told Kennedy I imagine losing him at the soiree, only to find him hours later, tux MIA and floating in The Grotto whilst grabbing onto a slippery, frothy bevvie and a slippery, frothy stripper.
Time will party tell.
Love's Tell.

Minding my own business, completely, I found myself in the basement of Middling City Historical Society (wow, what a somewhat elucidating shithole) during a charity art auction in which I was particating. In mere hours my wondrous tripartite piece of graphite drawings on paper would be on the ol' block.
But first, research. Hence the basement. Kennedy and I prowled the depths, gleaning information. We pondered over the model Middling City of Yore, from the way-early 19th Century.
The flats, now not so flat with buildings.
My neck of the Middling city just off the map at my craning feet.
I suddenly became much more inspired by the pioneer days room displays.
I was so inspired by higher learning that I jumped the rail and sat in the "pioneer" rocking chair, rocking slowly, wine in hand, pondering life in pioneer days as well as the state of this Middling City institution.
I checked out the boots in the next "room." I lifted up the bed warmer, clearly a ye olde replication, and pretended to warm the pioneer bed with the missing mattress.
I moved on to a display of photos of the Fishkill Dump where all that remained post-9/11 remain. All the lost art.
Moved on to art on the block, not the dump (yet) and did one purchase - #93 in the air - until it was time to take the learning elsewhere.

Love or Else.

Cheez and crackers. OK more consistent blogposts, more words of wisdom and freewheelin' revelry here... and there.
Again on borrowed time/computer as the new fucking modem is not working and perhaps it is the port of ethernet magic that is a-fried out but that will only be gleaned after a long and intense and recurrent SOS call to some techie person who hopefully I can comprehend - as in their accent. The last techie was a gruff older man so gruff the gruffness obscured the actual words he spake.
Last night we landed after 3.5 hours in car, Kennedy and I that is, in front of the storefront gallery where some jazz happened starring our pal Peter Brotzmann. He was out in front having his customary Starbucks Americano and dark smoke when I unfurled the window to toodle out the window Excuuuuse me, which way to Buffalo. He stared blankly, then away. I toodled again. Same response. So we meandered towards him across the near-barren street of half-baked and half-assed businesses and decrepit row houses until familiarity swam across his face. We talked. The show began. I shot. Intermission. As I was on a road trip and had not had venison jerky it was beer time. Lame-o gallery (with a name like Faulty Metaphors or some such thing) had none. Grabbed $10 out of my bag and wandered to the convenience store. Found there some choice greeting cards. One to send to an accident victim. Birdhouses on the front. I ask, what do birdhouses have to do with accidents. Next. To a wondrous friend. Image on front is a cat, wearing a hat, sitting in a basket. At his feet, a bird, apparently dead. Inside. Sentiment is about You are a fab acquaintance.
And this fucking store has no beer.
Really.
Asking about in line waiting to purchase the excellent cards I met a woman named Janice.
Janice, a mom just off of work, ended up offering me a ride to a pizza parlour where I could buy a six pack. Janice explained excitedly that this joint had a wall of beer and she knew of this despite the fact that she does not drink.
Her car was a purple sedan with 10 pine tree air freshners and on the back seat were eight bags of snaxx for her two teenaged kids.
I did not have my seatbelt on in case Janice turned out to be a nut and I had to dive and roll.
Janice drove me 1 mile. We got out of the car and walked into the pizza parlour together. Janice explaining all the way about how I should trust no one else in the gallery's neighborhood and, most importantly, I should tell NO ONE that I am from the Middling City, as they'd take advantage of my naivete.
So, Janice drives me back to the gallery and Peter is there to witness me exiting a purple sedan. He raises his two eyebrows. I tell him about my new pal, Janice. I show him the greeting cards. May send him the one with the cat and limpy bird.
Ended the night at some Indian restaurant where I was served my scotch and soda with a deathly blue glowing ice cube. Upon leaving I placed the faux glo-stik cube in the to-go box in front of Peter.
The waiter nervously ran up to say
That ice cube remains the property of the restaurant.

I remain Your Perfect correspondent to all things Me.

Corresponding Love.

Well Well Well.
No, not so well for the DSL modem which fried out.
So no internet system for me, yet.
Apparently the trouble is far deeper and darker than I can figure out.
So borrowed internet time for now.
But onwards.
And onwards right now to Pittsburgh to see Peter Brotzmann, sax artiste, for the night with Kennedy.
So more later so all for now.
School officially begins again Monday, fercrissakes. So new cyber pencils must be sharpened, then, fer sher.
Love for now.

Maintenant.
Thank god for iTunes, headphones, volume controls and earplugs as Yours Truly is once again loitering at JFK and my perfect self is hopelessly and helplessly surrounded by pizza gulping, child indulging gum-chomping young families. M'Aidez.

Yesterday.
Had a disconnected lunch with Dorota who is not abreast of any situations in the life of Yours Truly yet remains highly judgmental: not a joy.
Moved along to protest(s) at Union Square and filmed several moments of that special tension that is created when the morass of media, armed militia and protesters circle one another. One false move and the morass is chaos.
Bought a few fab tshirts as well as a set of dress-up Bushie magnets, like paper dolls, only way better.
Had to move along to B&H and that's when things got really interesting.
(The Mess We're In hit iTunes as I am telling You this story, most appropriate as it references helicopters in New York, sung by Thom Yorke on this Polly Jean song. Keep this in mind. Dig.)
Took L to 8th Avenue after being chuted into the Union Square stop, under watchful copful gazes.
At 8th Ave caught the C up to Penn Station.
Tried to get out to street but noted that all was taped and barricaded and guarded and then had to walk two blocks, including down another platform, to get O.U.T.
Once up on the street I saw how the world here had changed. Streets shut off, orange safety cones all about, cops and dopey-looking delegates in spangles and vests and hats and more barricades. Crossing the street I noted I was entering a zone where all were subject to search. A cop with baton was crossing one and all and right up behind him I asked into his left ear if he was our crossing guard. I was followed then for a block by three cops, until I got to B&H.
Escaping B&H I opted for a cab in lieu of the subject to search choice.
Later later later I digvid'd helicopters in the sky as there were many. I noted that the Fuji blimp featured prominently the letters N Y P D.
A real bummer to a fan of the Fuji.
Time to board, read, snooze, deplane.

Deplaned and Delovely Love.

A fellow fan of the wi-fi molecule came to my e-motional rescue moments ago as I was supping in Rialto on wine wine and chop salad. The chef was on his wi-fi'd laptop at the bar as I meandered in. Spying wi-fi molecules hovering in the air like a pack of earnest hornets I said There's wi-fi here. To which he replied affirmatively. Then no luck on this very laptop. So he sat alongside me and together we figured the secret of getting me into the super-secret rialto network. Mind you, I am trying - trying - to write as a woman teeters at the edge of the bannister just outside the open door with her pal/date, drunk to a highly-decibeled degree and now she's doing a pantomime that has him in embarassed stitches.
I saw The Brown Bunny.
Review: eight thick inches of raw talent.
And searing Vinnie eyes, chin, nose, yum.
There are some trying moments but mainly not. It reminded me a bit of my grad student art, surprisingly in static contrast to a personality rich in non-static practice. Another love story. This one more psychological, deliberate, gestural. Ending is yeah chock full of the big... moment but it's a sad end, really, to a broken man's pathos path across the USofA.

+

Yesterday was truly a What the Fuck kind of day.
Began the day, nearly, by attending a funeral with Kennedy. And who the hell puts fun into a funeral like born agains. We arrived early. We sat in the back row. We looked damned fine.
The priest began to speak. That cookie cutter evangelical hands all aflutter evangelical banter. Hands a blend of rockstar, self-help guru and televised chef. Maybe a dash of qi gong practitioner. And the hair, a slick wave signifying the coast of the sea of galilea. I sang, probably much to the chagrin of the lady of a certain age in front of me with the fall rivalling any of the deep south. Kennedy would not sing, despite my raised eyebrows and voce.
So finally the high priest gets around to feting the dead man. And it ends. I am teetering on hysterics because of the lilt of the voice and hands.
And then.
And then.
He takes a turn.
(NB: man who is my waiter sees me writing up a storm merrily and brought bottle over to give me a glass on the ol' house - there is a god, apparently)
He says This is not usually done at funerals but oh what the HELL. or something to that effect.
Folks (I paraphrase) bow your heads. Well, now that your eyes are shut (they are, I quickly look about the new build church that has a slight reek of mildew) please raise your hand if you'd like to find the Lord - no one is looking but me and the Lord so raise your hand.
It is at this point I have both hands over my mouth and am trying to suppress probably the largest guffaw of my fucking laugh, rushing for the door, eyes streaming tears, thinking thank the fucking peeking Lord that laughter sounds like sobbing to the ears of the aggrieved. I charged 100' out into the parking lot and lowered my hands and the laugh filled the countryside where the new build church rests, down into the valley, down into the gorge, alarming not only fishermen but the trout.
Last night, following a gig supplemented by the lights and bear hug of Lead Boy Colleague, I saw a sight most gorgeous.
A laundromat was alight and encircled by firetrucks. The flourescent lights and giant picture windows left a giant lime green cube on the suburban landscape. Unforgettable.
I am out in moments into the Shiney Apple where I am bumping into Art and Ideas.
I am alive in ideas and Vinnie Gallo makes movies and I make videos.
Some head for the wilderness,
some for the shores,
some for the comfort of familiar arms.
I head towards Serendipity.

Towards Love.

Oh this is such a day for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
And here they are at 60dB and suddenly I am more at peace with the Middling City where the urban chief (ie mayorissimo) reports to patronage duty at the asscrack of dawn, offering condolences to the owners of the blazen pizza joint on the MC's west side. I can report on the pizza joint thusly. It was a disco kind of joint, chock full of mirrors so that when your drunken face was at the chest-high counter ordering up a slice or so there you were, all Picassoed out, sliced out yourself. And, oh, the disco balls. And pinball machines. A saucey isle in the midst of what was once working class, now crack cultured. All about the fades, the petit larceny, the pockets of attempts at cuh-lean living rather than leaving. So, the mayor reports in to say gee whiz and sorry. Off again to the Shiney Apple tomorrow and the making and doing of art and fine french coffee and the like. Into the eye of the hurricaine as this week happens to be the one in which most of my SA pals have been inspired to avoid: the target-rich RNC. Thought JetBlue would be offering up Hey Dem, Come Fly With Us discounts but nogo. Hope to digvid in peace, far from the madding crowds never to see eye to eye. But, then again, one does never know what forces forces one into the midst of protest and dissent. Some arresting news: JW,Esq. reports he's off to Burning Man in a customized orange fuzzy hoodie. In lieu of glo-stix, should I ever find myself there, I'd probably lean more towards masked rogue and mischief - less fluffy hoodie, more flakey hood.
Contrasted Love.

If the evil insect rushing about overhead divebombs my glass of Oban things will get ugly. Oh, wait, it'll presumably be dead and drownt. So things must get ugly now. (Imagine clapping of hands, as if Yours Truly hears a distant and gleeful folk melody which inspires such maneuvering.) (sidenote: it is with minor sadness that I report Justin believes/knows that I have within my body a voice not so VH1-ready. This evidently evident post-drunk Chinese midget night of songs for a dollar.) And I am not, repeat, not, speaking of the insouciant and diabolical evangels next door fond of marathon praising the high powers to the beat of a drummer I'd like to send off to remedial drumming camp.
Implorement du jour.
O, high power, if there is indeed one, please let there be a remedial drumming camp and let it not only be far far away but require the inept and tireless drummer of next door to be enrolled and away for aeons.
Invited straycat Extra in for a dose of petting and conversation until he got carried away with night-addled claws beseeching spaces in my skin. And the nouveau primitif thing is as off the mark as Mr. Inept searching for a beat.
Hanging - in the proverbial time passing sense - is unfamiliar to me right now in the realm of the Middling City. More familiar with how to make & do in the Shiny Apple, it is a challenge here and now.
Despite the Republicans heading there soon soon soon.
Watched a moment of Kerry in '71, in uniform, in C-Span schedule, and glad to have done so to witness the historical doc in its state, not spun upon by spinners far and wide.
Fleet boat veracity or not, this choice is the better choice.
And, as my favoured wife beater states:
The only bush I trust is my own.

Bushels of Love.

Mark these words.
I will never - like so ever - participate or watch the Olympics, cold or hot, unless the sport of Jarts is admitted to the playbill. And once I hear this sport of danger is part of sporting matters then I will train like Charles Dickens (sipping Noni juice, practicing yoga and meditation, doing extra cardio workouts) to make the grade. Speaking of grades. Me and other members of the roster of sporting student life members of Parsons School of Disintegration have compared and contrasted our grade reports. What I lovingly refer to as our Approval Ratings. I rated fairly well, except for the obvious snag. Onwards.
Back to jarts. A memory. Jarting about one fine summer evening I nearly impaled the teacup poodle of my pal Sheryl. It was then that I duly noted, even in the midst of a wild yet geeksome youth, that this was really a fabulous and exhilerating game wrenched from the conceptualists of hell.
So many interesting things reported to me as of late. Like injuries sustained from dogs. Like dreams of sharing drugs with higher-ups in the political realm. Like fantasies of others that are far from what might be respectable. And so much more. I cannot even name a name, even though I suspect that some of these shards might be sent onwards to Yours Truly in hopes that they appear on this illustrious, ever informative page.
One last item.
Erin called to invite me to a Vinnie Gallo/Sean Lennon gig ce soir. I faltered. A gig in the Middling City. An invite in the Shiny Apple. What was a girl to do. No. The answer. But a sweet consolation is that I will watch the celluloid blowjob with Erin next week in the form of Brown Bunny. And to see if Vinnie has once again eked out quiet and swimmingly contra mainstream art as I suspect or if he has completely gone nutty bumpers.

Love bumpers in the night.

In addition to the wise Lead Boy Colleague words here a snippet from Sam, opened unto in the most serendipitous manner, from From an Abandoned Work as Interpol sends out decibels from a world without sun, safety net, assurances and routine.
Sam says:
...I might be sprawling in the sun now sucking my pipe and patting the bottoms of the third generation, looked up to and respected, wondering what there was for dinner, instead of stravaging the same old roads in all weathers, I was never much of a one for new ground.
There is sun and now I must be going to forage for visions then images then pixels then further fame.
I leave you.

Left of Love.

Remarkably, just as I thought there was no way I could possible feel more rancour towards insurance companies this transpired. Or, more accurately, continues to transpire. Geico is like a leech on my back, between my shoulder blades and I cannot get it off. I called them to say, hmmmm... months ago, You are no longer my insurance co., I have another, we are done, thanks for the memories. So then they report that I have no insurance to the authorities, which is not the case. Calls are made to new insurance co and to the leeches. Now I have here a letter from the State stating Hi asshole you have no insurance and we are about to not only take away yer license but your patience.
Heard from JR, who I had presumed dead. Well no, and let this be a lesson to You, that even mentors need breaks. JR was hiding out, having a proverbial breather.
I am off now to shoot giants in kilts tossing heavy objects in a controlled environment - ie the Scottish Festival and Highland Games. Then onwards to a wedding.
From plaid skirts to synchronized nylon dresses.
Just another Perfect Day.

Love of Perfection.

On the L&I Express reached the Shiny Apple in what seemed to be mere hours despite a pitstop at a pie joint called Bingham's. Pies of all colors and Yours Truly exclaimed Beautiful. Had a massive turkey cobb salad, extra bacon, giving props to my roadtrip fav, salty and sinewy jerkey. When there's no time to arrest travel for jerkey strips, bacon must suffice. And that's my hot travel tip du jour.
Meeting in several hours with Thomas Werner to show and tell - stills and video. Bought a blazing firewire external DVD burner to discover that my rissa-rassa startup disc is stuffed to the rafters so it's burning off tiffs, jpegs and the like.
It's going to rain in the Shiny Apple so out will come the $3 umbrella and the digvid camera to capture and render drops dropping like so many dropper drips.
From the highbeams of angels to drops of water in the urban centre of the universe.
Finished a few articles about Vincent's Brown Bunny this morning, reading that is. My journalism pen is resting at the moment. He, with assistance from filmmaker Kenneth Anger (creator of Lucifer Rising, just turned on to me via Kennedy, the soundtrack, not images but I did read about them and they do seem alligned with my minimalism) foisted a curse upon a critic who shall not be named. But, more shockingly, pretty (and balding) boy Gallo admits to not having read a book, ever. That is just something one should so not admit in this non-voting and non-reading apathetic age. And from a man who is an obsessive non-delegator.

Delegations of Love.

With the assistance of Kennedy delivered an artwork so metaphorical, musty and engigmatic to Tom the Auto Guru. Whereupon he grabbed power tool and installed in a most appropriate Zen-like fashion, pell-mell to hell with measurements and the like. And there it is for all the customers to see: disembodied head floating over a Mt. Fuji-like mountain as a red and passionate cloud roils over the head. It is a sight.
Afterwards a French, vraiment, joint nearby and then on to do some filming of angels' high beams in the Basilica, resting point of Rt. Rev. Fr. Nelson Baker. Dead soon-to-be-saint, en route to canonization and resting amid a grotto in Lackawanna. Filmed the marble and passages of light and bursts of shadow and am thinking, previsualizing, a fast clippy loop of high beams and light beams. Titleism, the first step in my conceptual art practice. Title. Idea. Execution. Edit. And freakin' voilà.
Conceptual Love.

Apparently, according to Gary's message, all my faved Boy Colleagues are down at the dismal and former glorious Central Train Terminal of the Middling City shooting away, merrily. What. They are shooting all the naked MC residents collectively posing for a new image by Spencer Tunic, or howmever it's spelled. And I am so not there, just having nearly completed my list of properties to hit for the next Secrets of Allentown book (my third consecutive year as shooter) and then now onwards to shoot the nuptials of pal Donnie and Heidi in the Delaware Park, MC's version of Shiny Apple's Central Park. In keeping with Centrality as theme du jour.
Received correspondence from Loomis who is heading back east, she thinks, after a school-related indiscretion involving a lyrical poem. Suggested strongly she think of relocating upstairs from Yours Truly. Home of Succour.
Back to Shiny Apple most expediently this week for a few short days, mainly to show work to Thomas Werner of TW Gallery, where I showed a print at his Chelsea joint this summer. He sat in on my endcrit and was most positive and wants to See.
Then to meet with JR and strategize technically for the fall and beyond. To draw, states JR, electronically, the moments in time on timeline of software to tell or not tell a story. With my new technique I see many moments ahead. Some black & white and some figurative. And all very compellingly gorgeous. To state so my art self.
Onwards to readying.
Onwards to image making.
Onwards to doing in the hot hot sun.
A fan of all the above but not the hot hot.

Not hot love.

Note to self:
Being hung-over in JFK is bad for the head as the booming PA system, always indiscernible and bass-heavy, rattles around the mind like a coconut bouncing about in an elevator falling through its shaft in space. Now that's an analogy to remember. Not ©'d, yet, so use it, love it.
Met up with JW,Esq. at Gotham for high times and softshell crab and wine and more wine last evening.
Dougie Fresh called so we met up with him at the joint where JW,Esq.'s dj pal was to be doing his thing. The joint so over-chilled I not only felt the sea monkeys swimming back into my left knee, but asked the barlady to turn the damned chill down.
Afterwards the three of us meandered over to the East Village and I revisited my halcyon days on E7 between A & B. Discovered the age-old shithole on the corner not only hasn't changed a bit but has a photo booth - where we put our rock and roll graphic knowledge to good solid use, making images that rival the best of any album cover. Some post-teens were next in line and they were such ditzy girls that I kept sticking my hand in giving my famed Rock On! salute which Lead Boy Colleague adopted around 1997 or so. (as if the PA system were not miserating enough now there's Paul McCartney's insufferable voice warbling through the air. ow.)
My digvids yesterday were received most positively and I did have the butterflied insides when I saw one of the four for the first time. Equivalent to the sloshing in the trays and the coming up of a magical image of silvers and other toxins.
Time to wend my way to Gate 01. And yes, I can assist should the crew need my buff ass to help should we need to ditch the plane fast and ferociously.

Ditches of Love.

Thinking of nothing and shooting stars.
Post wired seminar wrap-up, the wrangling together of dangling concepts and links as well as heated repartée regarding laptop and cellphone use in public green spaces (the tossed-in salty ingredients, if you will, into this unchallenging bouilliabase was that such conservative banter teeters on the fascistic - and my additional shocking utterance that to some of us the wailing of babies is as offensive, for example, as chatter into a cellphone is to some), I escaped to Lincoln Center on a rec to see The Naked Spur, part of a retro. Starring James Stewart, an actually enthralling western whose landscape is masterfully rendered by Anthony Mann (like a back country rogue he, too, has an alias: Emil Anton Bundmann) back when the world was Technicolor, shot in Technicolor and there were shoot-outs. Wait a second, there still are shoot-outs.
So following all the boy action and guns and the like I was sorely disappointed that the ending was most girlie and smoochie. Yes, I will follow you, stranger, to god really knows where and marry you. *barf*barf*barf*. My eyes rolled like credits, despite this nonsense it was primo.
After leaving the movie I walked into a happening happening happening, replete with spontanteous dance, stringy students from Julliard, Indian lady dancers, painted faces, a man holding a stuffed sun on a pole (can not we ever have a fucking festival without these Slaves of Whimsy), a slight dose of mayhem. Insert here my wish against wishes that artsy school had this sort of enthralling energy. Watched a photog from a distance, one of those hobbyists who fantasizes that he's part of a more seasoned and serious pack. These sorts usually tow a few unnecessary props. This guy got it all wrong and wore his backbrace outside his shirt, I think to signify that he works damn hard and has the battered spine to prove it. So I walked amongst the revelers which inspired me to ponder where I am, like where I AM, man, and then stood in front of The Met's schedule thinking which I'd go see and further if I should buy tix to the Bill Viola staging of L'Opéra in gai Paris in early pringtemps. Rain came down to rinse away my joie and it was back to art for crit's sake. Returned to loft to work on the digvid and spoke with JW,Esq who had an equally challenging day, his involving those difficult to pinpoint planes, amorphous flight plans, a sidetrip to Maine, etc. As he stated Our biorhythms are in synch - in synch with minor discomforts. He pointed out that I'd found myself in yet another Perfect scrape. Namely, there I was/am face-to-face with the PowerBook and it needed to work with me, not against me, to spew art forth from the cockles of its electronic intricacies to match mine own.

Matched Love.

Minding my own business, as You can assuredly mind Your own, so many things happened today.
Most notably is that I am going to see my music-savvy attorney in the Shiny Apple. But, to be fair, I do not know the musical proclivities of mine other attorney. And, not surprisingly, JW,Esq tells Me - ME!, bedraggled yet savvy urbane gradgirl - about some hip-hoppening gig here that we will most undoubtedly pop into after dinner on jeudi.
Was most fascinated today by the terrorist-ready armed men standing at attention outside and around the Forbes building, right next to Parsons School of Deconstruction.
Phillip and I puffed away as I watched one of the attentive kevlared men attentively watch girls jiggle by. I meandered over and stated, patriotically: Umm, excuse me officer, but my homeland security is at stake here. Could you puh-leez refrain from checking out the derrières and the frontières of the ladies for one fucking minute.
I pointed out to Phillip that all a terrorist had to do to get Forbes would be to drive recklessly (like any ol' cabbie) down Fifth, wrench wheel at appropriate moment to the right, jump curb (one of my absolute specialties), careen down sidewalk about 50 feet, drive through green scaffolding outside Forbes's joint and do their business. Mr. Boobie Guard and his buddy would be fairly ineffective I am sure should that transpire. The Parsons School of Detachment door/security man told us the armed people were out there as there had been a Threat. When I left after the critique (not a reaming, as I had imagined after the snappiest of snappy emails I got from Misery Seminar instructress, the verysame who thinks I've done no class readings and am a general flaked-out distraction to one and all and recourse is to not recourse until said course is fini) of my artist statement, the AK47 holders were gone.
The scaffolding and the Forbes building remained.
All back to status code yellow, or perhaps a nice soothing seafoam green alert.
As all you loyalest of epinw readers/groupies know I am a gigantic fan of the Wild Animal in Urban Setting tale/newstory. So today in my beloved Post was yet ANOTHER story about a beast in the Shiny Apple. This was a most challenging snippet of a story (with byline no less - but is Laura Italiano really a flesh & blood & sweat & tears reporter, You be the judge) and it took me a few read-throughs to catch its nuances. It centers on The mother of Harlem's notorious Tiger Man. The mother is 70 and her son kept a tiger - Ming - in his pad. Here comes the best part, a quote floating out in space, disconnected from logic, from Antoine, the son: She doesn't know whether to be happy or sad.
Who, I ask, is happy or sad. Ming. The mother. Linda Italiano. The girl who was bitten by the tiger. The woman cop who was recently injured in her struggle to capture another wild cat last week in the Shiny Apple. Fact check please.
My mother always told me to believe in myself, Antoine added.
I ask You, believe in what. The ability to keep a 250 pound tiger in a Harlem apartment, undoubtedly flinging raw chickens through a doorcrack. Apparently Antoine traveled with Ming to South Carolina. And he had Suspicious bites at one time, which he was treated for, on his legs. Conclusion, if there could ever be one in this convoluted story:
Antoine tearfully pleaded guilty last month to keeping a deadly wild animal, in a deal that got his mother off the hook.
Do You feel like there are details that slipped through epinw cracks, down its slippery slope.
If I were Lou Grant, as he was in Mary's from bell bottoms to cheeseball pantsuits show (even though it was a television station), with scotch in the drawer and a song in his heart, I'd be shouting Italiano, your ass is on the line, go out and get me another TIGER STORY with more scarring, scaring, details. And bring a photog - and clarity - this time.

Grant Tough Love.

Today's JetBlue landing on the JFK strip awoke me rudely. And then one of the attendants informed all of us buckled-in people that we'd be Taxiing for a few hours. I shuddered to think. Now in Marquet having the day's first tankard of java, reading up on what is happening in the world and just re-read my artist statement for perusal by the theoretical instructress. Last night had Kennedy read said statement over and over to his vast amusement. Economy of language nuthin', he pointed out the flotsams, the jetsoms.
Slipped in to the Middling City Sonic Youth gig for a moment Saturday night and found myself standing between my bandmates, Ben and Scott. Behind me were more Middling City band and art types and in the space of mere minutes I had seen a dozen quality citizens.
With a votive candle, with untrimmed wick, set a wicker basket in my house's back room ablaze which I tossed out the back door and then fired upon it with garden hose, all to the wonderment of Extra, my stray cat pal.
Onwards to eating, walking, learning, musing.

Love's Muse.

Perhaps the majormost pinnacle of things that have happened this summer is the singing of Dream Weaver, with Luke, the drunk midget, last night during my foray to (what was it called) Wanda's, Wilma's, Wilhemina's, with Justin. I did not remember that the song rambles on at moments, nearly spoken word-style, and realized that it's the chorus that I dig so completely. All that other filler of words about whatever, astral plane references. Higher planes. Planes, planes, planes. Summer not of Love but of Planes.
The midget, I felt, was not trying hard enough. Was it the language barrier. He is Chinese and we were deep in the bowels of China Town. Was it his blood-alcohol levels. Was it stage fright. Was it a madcap independent streak that flies in the face of karaoke law and order.
And this all is for yet another short (no pun intended, for real) story, a collection, of stories about midgets.
Last night, in the midst of fabricating/creating an artist statement, a short fiction piece sprung forth, a story about M called The Tell. It's about 500 words and I'm very happy with it, thus far.
Met Dorota for lunch today at the usual joint and as we were leaving she recalled a shoe sale on Fifth. Where was the question, exactly where. I asked What, you are a Shoe Girl, how is this not emblazoned onto your consciousness.
We found said sale. And what did I find but an Italian pair of sky blue jobbers that are rather complicated.

Sky Blue Shoe Love.

Nothing like a few grand Middling City gigs, late-night conversation with Academie Guru, a select PJHarvey song and a little class skipping to raise one's spirits and reinvigorate the��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������

Nothing like a few grand Middling City gigs, late-night conversation with Academie Guru, a select PJHarvey song and a little class skipping to raise one's spirits and reinvigorate the head. Told JR it's been weeks, three, to be exact, since I fondled the digvid camera. And here I hear the voice of Kennedy, half-growling/half-groaning And this is art school. Yes, where is the art. So a break to find art, again.
Reading a book about experiencing art and just garbage picked a passage about John Cage and Robert Rauschenberg, specifically RR's White Canvases. Cage wrote that these paintings were Airports for particles of dust and shadows that are in the environment.
Your assignment: read that over, twice. Then have coffee. Or Oban.
Ron of KY wrote of trying to wrangle some Oban out of a KY situation and though I was lost in the nuances of it I admired his wherewithall to at least try some quality booze acquisition in that bourbon-soaked region of those collectively known to Yours Truly as Team B.
As the plume poppies continue to make a pergola without my assistance, and the bee balm lists after bee visits, and the moon flowers push up the brick house, I do my own thing.

Love Thing.

Nothing like a few grand Middling City gigs, late-night conversation with Academie Guru, a select PJHarvey song and a little class skipping to raise one's spirits and reinvigorate the head. Told JR it's been weeks, three, to be exact, since I fondled the digvid camera. And here I hear the voice of Kennedy, half-growling/half-groaning And this is art school. Yes, where is the art. So a break to find art, again.
Reading a book about experiencing art and just garbage picked a passage about John Cage and Robert Rauschengerg, specifically RR's White Canvases. Cage wrote that these paintings were Airports for particles of dust and shadows that are in the environment.
Your assignment: read that over, twice. Then have coffee. Or Oban.
Ron of KY wrote of trying to wrangle some Oban out of a KY situation and though I was lost in the nuances of it I admired his wherewithall to at least try some quality booze acquisition in that bourbon-soaked region of those collectively known to Yours Truly as Team B.
As the plume poppies continue to make a pergola without my assistance, and the bee balm lists after bee visits, and the moon flowers push up the brick house, I do my own thing.

Love Thing.

OK,
last post deleted.
Onwards.

Minding nobody's business but my absolute own I arrived at Middling City JetPort to discover that my plane was to be one hour late not only due to terroristic possibilities in the Shiny Apple (the runways were closed last evening, the nice pilot told us), but to a missing hunk of rubber on one of the plane's wheels.
So time for not a snooze but a small joe.
And then I nearly missed said flight when, paying attention to pilot and his timely announcement that changing a plane's tire takes a good 30 or so minutes (fun fact!), I gave myself half an hour to do above. When I rounded the corner 25 or so minutes later all my planemates had vanished and Steve (the JetBlue guy who knows me from my 2x/week stint at his counter) said he was on the verge of worrying wholeheartedly about my whereabouts and paging me. I was nearly one of those MIA travelers. The ones that have their names boomed through the echoing spaces of the airport and you ponder Who in HELL are THEY that they get a special ComeOnDown and where in HELL are they, anyhow. And now I know. It's due to following instructions/orders/directives. And this drove home the fact that the flying world is an amorphous blob of a world.
Arriving in the SA acquired the day's Post to learn that a tiger had escaped a circus and did his own share of terrorizing, causing some unfortunate and extreme injuries to a femme cop in Brooklyn.
I had just regaled Kennedy's dogs with a short tale about alligators escaping in the city and how tigers are usually left alone in apartments and feed upon raw chicken meat that is tossed through apartment doors opened a mere crack.
Terrorizing humans teaching the animals how to do same.
Terrorized Love.

Now Blogger has made it easier to upload images so I've got no good and solid reason not to be thrilling You with images, too.
La Dolce Vita on big screen is so big screen, the Fellini moments that one needs to see XL include the moment near end when several characters are standing among trees about to walk to see a very large fish. The moment that they are standing needs to be seen that arms wide open big.
Speaking of arms wide open, or not, about to jet back to the Middling City for the weekend.
The swing from right to left, from here to there.
Heard from Nick who is marrying, there goes sweet Julian down the aisle. Hopefully towards utter happiness.
Heard from RR in KY who laid down a red carpet of utter awe at my swingin' to and fro lifestyle, a balmish email for sure.
Blogging at Geek HQ, the Mac Clubhouse and now it really is time to sign off and log off and step off.
Steps of Love.

Not exactly a Courtney Love carcrash but one nonetheless is the state of exhaustion, intensity and deprivation that marks the rounding of the summer bend toward the end of what is best referred to as bootcamp. When everyone's eyes suddenly develop a certain glossiness and faces reveal a pallour that says I've been having more coffee than naps. Spoke to Newbie Andrew last night about the oddball Parsons School of Bootcamp Proportions switcheroo from summer to autumn session style when suddenly the community, frazzlements, arguments, bumping into each other goes *poof* in the night and one is left to one's own online/distance learning devices.
Here I must absolutely thank Phillip for coming to my rescue last night as I was immobilized (see above) on a park bench on Thompson near Spring, and that handsome French (though he swore he is Spanish but we spoke French as only Yours Truly can do after wrangling the foreign syllables, post-bevvie) bartender who took pity upon my sobbing self propped up on stool by Phillip and made a record-setting scotch & soda - smattering of latter. And he deposited two double shots of same in front of Yours Truly as special mood-enhancement.
Back in the saddle, reading for Misery Seminar (of which there are 15 hours remaining, count 'em), editing video and being my usual dazzling self.

Specious Love.

Completely, well, sort of, captivated by the story of Jackson taking an entire family hostage. Asked one of my schoolpals how much money it'd take her to go along with a Jackson-related captivation. As if anyone of sound body and/or mind couldn't knock that fucker to the ground and escape NeverLand whenever they chose.
About to call my attorney (Mercure, not JW, Esq. as the latter is probably too busy contemplating strategies for making Oracle a more ferocious corporate presence. Either that or he's out watching the hottest, newest band out at some joint in SFCA.) as I am going to get all litigational at Parsons School of Hepped-Up Concepts as we traipsed our diligent gradschool asses on the 4 to Fulton Street to get to South Street Seaport to interview a man from a Shiny Apple company to tell us all about wi-fi down there in the SE.
And now I am sunburned. And furious.
Thinking complex thoughts each and every day does not include the remembering of 45 SPF.
Kennedy tells me he has a zit.
To that I state I have 3rd degree burns.
And a tendency to exaggerate.
Tendency towards Love.

To quote one of my gradschoolmates, the seminar we have on Tuesdays and Thursdays is Dense. I have another few, choice words such as unenjoyable, stultifying, and draggy. La Dolce Vita is being shown at Film Forum and heading there this fine rainy evening is next or so on the list as I've seen it small but not XL. The same unnamed colleague last night at a throw-down at the 79th Street Boat Basin spoke of a nonfiction warning to one in the past to wear Knife-proof earmuffs. I asked for him to repeat the phrase, to make sure that I'd heard him correctly. And it was true and my eyes gleamed with imagistic possibilities, you know, being in a band named Knife Call and all. The Knife-proof earmuff tale involved the cutting off of a man's ear as the offender had spat into another's ear and, to make him an example, his ear was Van Goghed. As I wrote this, on my too-short break from the Dense seminar, I imagined the critical gaze and voice of the seminar leader and how she'd tell Yours Truly how all I'd just blogged was incorrect. And then I'd cite some passages and pages to say Uh, nope, I didn't hallucinate this, see here. If not for all this seminar time Yours Truly would be merrily plodding and trolling the Shiny Apple streets for images digital and beautiful. All for now, time to head back up to 8, to Hell, to the most unenjoyable portion of the summer.
Unenjoyable unsummer unlove.

Per executive decision have not been gleaning wartime info via telemessages, rather, via print. So, imagine the wonder of Yours Truly, this asscrack of dawn, when I was confronted by not only the archetypal CNN graphics, but the title of this segment of the Iraq Thing: The Final Chapter.
Now, being a writer, does one know certainly that one's chapter currently open and worked-upon is the final. Does one ever think I am on chapter 10 and therefore must call this thing called book a wrap. Does the agent, the press agent dictate the duration, length of a book. So, who dictates the length of war, this war. How is this chapter the ultimate.
Back now now in the Shiny Apple, happily ensconced in newspaper (print media of indeterminate, infinite length = no chapters, only sections) and coffee numero duo and about to become en route to Parsons, Joint of Higher Learning.
Was greeted off the 5 at Union Square by first a 6'7" self-proclaimed Jew as Jesus who can freestyle rap at the drop of a eucharist, or a buck.
Then, around the bend, a homeless guy who lingers always at University & 14th with a brand new sign proclaiming him the most handsome bum in the Shiny Apple.
Jubilant sun, signage, synchronicity.

S'Love

+
Today is the day that Beth first burst forth from her mom in the state of PA so happiest of coming out days, dear Beth.

Note to self:
Korean "vodka," steer abso-freakin-lootly clear of this liquid in future.
Accidentally sipped some with Phillip last night in Korea Town and am now reaping the benefits of a beverage I gave the benefit of a doubt to, despite its yellowish cast.
Now in the midst of critiques, day number two. Presented my new works yesterday to good reviews and this pending week am meeting with JR to discuss their better, bigger, beyonder presentation = projections on other surfaces, compositing them together to view, for example, three at once, in all their looped glories.
Have ditched shoes, off in a corner, as they were soaked by the Shiny Apple's monsoon this morning. Humoured the Parsons School of Thoughtful Industry doorman (the chain smoker) by dumping a cup of brackish water from each sad, leather shoe.
Back to critiques, back to Middling City and all that entails, in mere hours.
Soju/Rotgot Love.

The Roots's nouveau is what I imagined, pure hip-hop perfect.
Squeezed in a listen this earliest of AM's before readings, ruminations and rooting about in the Academie, and the trek to Parsons and points beyond. As is the scholastic usual, a study jag from 7AM to classtime, in this case a solid 4.5 hours, slightly longerish on Tuesdays and Thursdays when punch-in time is 3. Lest you think all that happens in this Perfect School World is long walks, puffs on American Splendours and a smattering of shoe shopping. Well, no comment.
Blogging from Bowling Green for wi-fi-oriented class, allegedly this the oldest park in the Shiny Apple. Makes sense as it is so south and where did those that lived under Stuyvesant's rule live but down here, on the tip. The tip of farmland, downhome development.
After some bantering about with a record shop boy acquired also a fine fine recording by a Shiny Apple band, Ambulance Ltd. Terrible name, wondrous 80s-like sounds that are all pepped up and highly recommended to my music geeks.
Back to class, focus, studenthood, brown-nosiness.
Reminds me of my classic remake of the Julio Iglesias smash hit:
To All the Noses I've Loved Before.
Love of Noses.

+
Since the most current newstale of a possible leave-taker, muck-maker and deserter have been thinking of what it is to repatriot one. The shoving back in, the shoveling out, of ideas. A term that might be used in oso many day-to-day situs: I return from a voyage and then You get to repatriot Yours Truly. The whos, whats, whens, wheretofors, whereuntos, whichevers and the like.

Upon hearing that the Middling City is yet again at the cusp, or in the midst, of further economic miasma - this from a reliable source this shiny Shiny Apple day beginning - I toggled over to the virtual edition of Middling City News. And what a collection of hard-hitting, pensivity it is: in-depth stories about saving personality-free suburban buildings and the like, a columnist's whining about not making deadline of Middling City-area beaches that close at 7PM while she is a "drone" until 5 and must stop off at home first to get her beachgear and snack, bad slices & dices of wire service stories, loads of human interest stories from the Curio Division, broad appeals and shouts and murmurs to whomever to help save a small-yet-heartstring-tugging condiment business from financial ruination due to loss of commercial rates on utilities, and insipid reviews of The Roots's new one (which, along with the latest Tuxedo Moon I'm drifting towards today) and a restaurant where the reviewer apologizes - apologizes - to the management for reviewing them under the header of Cheap Eats while she delves into her cheeseburger.
Orders to every citizen of the Middling City: get your news elsewhere. But to find out where you can sup on cheeseburgers you must read MCNews. And apologies to my boy colleagues but the picture makers are not the taste makers. And ever the twain shall lie in journalism in separate, twin beds.

Beds of Love.

Sometimes, after a foray down deep into gradstudentness, it is time to head to the more swank end of the spectrum. And so, with trusty day assistant, Beth, meandered in to Balthazar for civility - before foraying back again to the curriculum.
Last Friday, en route to the Middling City and at JFK, saw flames on the runway. Like Conflagration art collaborative project style, only bigger, angrier. Flights were delayed. The news trucks were not present but I watched from the elevated walkway the foaming of the fire and the spreading of the fire and the foaming of the fire and the eventual cessation.
Today, en route to school after leaving the MC, had to wait and wait for the A as the engineer ran through a red light, tripping off a chain of alarms that meant extended concern and locked doors and sitting train and worrisome workers.
But still, despite Americano onslaught yesterday, a freelance gig timeline conducted with gimp knee, a stressload that might have killed one less determined, and about 1.5 hours of sleep, managed to be student numero uno at seminar today. Gold stars are shooting out of my ass.
Was nearly capitulated back to Middling City today/tonight to shoot a Kerry/Edwards fun-raiser but, alas, there are not enough schekels in the coffers to have me running back to the 6 to the 4 to the A to the AirTrain to the JetBlue to the Middling City to the gig. Lather, sip coffee, rinse, repeat.

Repeated Love.

Bicoastally, unconfusedly, for the most part, working on freelance gigs and non-free school. Only one massive loss of personal GPS when I was sitting in last Monday's seminar, fresh from Kennedy/Kennedy and looked around the room and thought Am I in the Middling City or Shiny Apple.
Decided to leave crutches for weekend in Shiny Apple as they, I believe, are more injurious to a person than injury.
Shot/imaged at the Salamanca Pow-Wow half of yesterday and drove down with Neal and his son Steven and ate bear sausage, most notably. Talked to man who made/acquired said meat and he apparently shot the black bear I was chewing alongside the ching-ching casino on the Rez, followed by some preparations and the stuffing of the bear's flesh into casing with other herbs and spices.
Unabashed carnivore, my Libran nature swingin' from tofu to venison jerkey in a flash.

Flashes of Love.

Was it the grappa or was Justy sooth saying that he'd get a gig for my laptop band, Knife Call, on a double header of a bill with his own not blunt but sharply -named band, Knife Fight. For the musical record: I told him my band's name well before his quote unquote Knife Fight was a twittering blink in any guitar monger's eye. I rest my pickless feckless case.
Amongst other things learned today was this: Stuyvesant built a wall to keep out pesky native people and hence that's where Wall Street got its name.
I also learned that the depths of some people's pedantic tendencies is fathomless, striking an ire-inducing chord of sorts in Yours Truly. Talked to JR aobut this, during our Perfect Art meet-up this fine evening. A seminar, in my mind, should be an open-ended conversation, one in which relevant ideas are tossed about and adding to a collage of thought - as opposed to the I'm giving correct answers at the teacher methodology.
Discovered that pineapple lilies are what grows in Kennedy's garden's northeastern quadrant, via thrilling gardening mag appropriated from that knee jerk reaction doctor's office.
Had a horrid fright as I crutched along to the 6 Train. Thought, out of corner of one eye, the left, same side as bum knee, that my X was approaching and my instinct was to run in opposite direction. It was a mournful stranger, giving a hairy eyeball to a homeless wanderer.
Art art and more art.
And Love.
+
And Joyeux Bastille Day, belatedly. Bastille Day signifies the ancient pagan festival of towers where both the insane and political prisoners were mercilessly kept, beaten and released and, annually, they were made to run alongside a troupe of bulls who could, at a moment's notice, gore them and/or ungainly tourists. In celebration of Bastille Day the French have been known to put plastic babies in "King Cakes" and to toss handfuls of red pigment at their foreheads. Holidays, as it is known, is a delightful mishmash of myth, reality and practicality.

Humourless Doctor Howard Levy did not give Beth the ol' backstage photo pass to shoot the knee procedure of Yours Truly. Well, actually, the knee procedure of tapping like a maple was nixed by Humourless Doctor Howard Levy who said all will be virtually evaporated like maple syrup in a sunny bucket in the woods.
Crutches I did get. Navigating on the streets of Manhattan is a workout and I did ask the Humourless Doctor Howard Levy to mentor me in the usage of them. He declined. I did, however, encounter an MTA man, working outside the hospital, in orange hard hat with tools hanging off his belt and other macho regalia, who, without prompting, gave me a very thorough tutorial. Hey, slow down. Get your rhythm going. Get the swing down. Then he meandered alongside me and showed me the technique for navigating subway steps. He, unlike Humourless Doctor Howard Levy, knew the Zen of crutches.
Tonight opening of Yours Truly et al at Thomas Werner Gallery in Chelsea.
Hello white wine. Hello cheese cubes. Hello crutch art opening tottering.
Tottered Love.

Me (in snark) to doctor (in sandals), mere moments ago.
Under glare of mandatory medical fluorescence, surrounded by health concerns, re-re-xeroxed NYT health-related articles, helpful hints.

I am a Francophile, this much is true/vrai. However. I don't want to live - LIVE - a vrai Jerry Lewis and furthermore Chaplin moment by wrangling my limbs and attendant bags/sacs up and down the subway/le metro all the day/jour long with borrowed crutches angling out and about.
Mercury buckets/thanks... thanks for the ref, thanks for the memory, thanks for not tossing my western medicine-skepticizing self out of your swell office/bureau.

Equipment malfunction, left knee is still all peculiar and so tomorrow, not today, I go off to a knee specialist. I wonder about a person who only looks at knees all day.
No crutches, just a bunch of grad school readings to plow through in my bag, and a song in my heart.
The song.
A nice techno one You would really really like.
Off to Chelsea gallery to deliver the piece that was mis-delivered by post orifice, for the show that happens momentarily.

Momentary Love.

Just in case you didn't comprehend that Yours Truly completely, utterly, certifiably rocks I have a few free-wheelin' statements. Of sorts.
1. The review is in and it does not look so good. Of course I do not blog of any art gig or show, I blog of my performance a few weeks ago in the role of wedding date to Mr. Daniels. Heretofore known as Mr. Daniels, he once had another brandishment that shall not be continued.
Yours truly, in true form, schmoozed merrily and you may recall the regale of the story I conjured of me committing circumstantial homicide (just toggle back if you don't know what in heck I'm criminally referring to) and recalling a much previous meet-up with a boy named Obediah.
Onwards.
So Mr. Daniels sends me a letter, one dramatic page, deconstructing what I thought was a fine fine job of role-playing. I had had my nails done and I looked damn good. Apparently, in a gesture of jest, in my sub-role as castmember of the show "The Three Siblings, The 40-year Old and The Gay Guy," brilliant and hilarious and being pitched as I blog to folks at MiraMax, I touched lips with one of The Sibs. Much to the astonishment, the righteous indignation of a gaggle of MidWesterners. And to those of you so in the know, you know how I feel about the righteous. Down with the righteous ones, no tolerance for the intolerant.
Mr. Daniels sent me a check with the letter, payment for a piece of art by Yours Truly which was a most suitable and luxe wedding gift. And to that I say Thanks and Sayonara.
Mr. D says my "impish, rockstar and blogger" ways just don't gel with those of the MidWest. Oh well, other stellar roles and roads await my luminosity in the northeast, the east, the north, the south, the outwest, the northwest and the west.
2. In the throes of working a gig on Saturday, the rooms of the building chilled to ice cream happiness levels (niveaux that is in the country of France), my knee did a wonky snappy thing and now I am hobbling about with a left red knee. While mid-break during seminar Teaching Methods I practiced some good old-fashioned chalk & talk by approaching the green black board and diagramming out the two knees - for comparing, for contrasting. JamMasterV, Madge, Justice Wild Bill, S.S., Phillippe, Pam, Beth (in rockstar ballcap and shades because of a three-day migraine), Yong, Lexie and Lori gleaned much from the kneely psa.
3. My Knife Call bandmates are coming to the Shiny Apple for some music event at Coney Island, with Michael Baumann. To that I say bring on the noise, bring on the funk, bring on the Oban and pass the joie de vivre.

Tales of love, never woe.

Worked on the novel last night into wee hours, amongst other tasks more Academy-based.
Minding my own business meandered into the midst of the launch party (after observing revelers on a fire escape, after blending in with three frenchies and a solo femme clutching an invite/directions) of a tshirt silkscreening guru, he in a light saffron robe and matching sandals, his wares or product or Work hanging from his lofty pipes - about 15 samples/works/wares in all. A woman photographed Perfect Me looking up at the ceiling/art/shirts and I thought You know, those men in Customs were SO right, I do look better with shorter hair, it suits things better, the Look... I'm here but not so here thing. And through this all, and a glass of mediocre pinot grigio, I was still clutching a whiteboard from the morning when I met Yong on the steps of The Academy to work on our collaborative web-design project.
Us: Hi, we're grad students at Parsons and we're...
Them: No.
Us: (trying another person, other strategy) Hi, would you like to be photographed holding this whiteboard with a special message of your own devising that we will digitally document and beam to the Earth's four corners.
Them: Fuck yeah.
Our yesterday victims included a french couple who I spoke with in their lingua franca, a heavy (as in large, as in serious) punker who used the whiteboard to send out major props to his very own band's gig, and an actor guy who used the whiteboard to draw a cartoon of himself.
So I'm still holding the fucking whiteboard as I'm looking up at the pipes and shirts of the launch party. The guru kept glancing at me (maybe because I was hanging off his robes to glean some guru wisdom, oracle style) and at the whiteboard perhaps thinking I was going to proffer up a score of sorts for the whole affair.
Score: 8.5

Scores of Love.

+
See today is birth anniversary of an early art prototype of Yours Truly. Wherever you are, happiness to you Greg Sader, sorry for nearly killing you with my vehicle that night and you missed your deadline.

Dark Side of the Moon of Yours Truly.

Point in the summer when the Division Bell between Empire State's left and right spheres is so great that there is an implosion into delightful, self-centered Art.
The Greatest Gig (not in the Sky, on plane) is that of meandering entropy-rich streets of Shiny Apple, unfettered. And this does not include anything mandatory, xeroxed or purposefully collaborative.

When Middling City becomes Pluto.

Went to a classical, vocal, Anglican mid-day concert at historic and under-scaffolding Grace Church to witness talents of OllieB, britboy met upon CDG-JFK flight.
Seating Plan: A/Yours Truly; B/as in Beth; and C/OllieB, 6'2" 20year old, bedimpled and chatteur par excellence.
Wandered into Grace's place about 15 late and made my way up the aisle and there was OllieB with three other britboys and two britgirls, singing like their lives depended upon it, like they were, like the wailing wall recently viewed, our transmitters, our hopes for something celestial.
Moved along to Marquet to read, etc. and it was there that I discovered that NYPost made an error grande - on their front page, for all the world to see, was their lead story about horsefaced Kerry's selection of running mate, sprayheaded Gephart. I had read about an hour earlier that, in truth, the r.m. was/is John Edwards, another man of sprayed proportions.
So this is a collector's item, which I pitched into trash as I left Marquet, which I several hours later came to regret and I sprinted out of the computer lab, out of Parsons's 5th Avenue digs, across the Ave to acquire another, and another, and another. To discover all were gone at what I've dubbed The Studio/the deli on the west side of the street. So I charged over to the lesser deli and purchased their last. This, I'm speculating, will pay my grad student debts. Or those of my heirs. Or theirs. If eBay's still around.
Back to digvid editing, walk to another french joint for coffee noir to go, to art, to lecture, to listening, to collaborative seminar, to meeting with JR, to more reading, to move through the streets, to think, to think, to move, to more.
Blooper Love.

Tortured I was mere moments ago by - count 'em - seven crash scenes so far, via Cronenberg movie CRASH, based on JG Ballard's novel. As You may recall Yours Truly was nearly exeunted by a drunk who decided to drive through the Middling City at a brisk 50 mph one night, and whizz through a light most sanguine.
If not for James Spader (aahh) the film is a complete visual fiasco, usual gray layerings that scream HiThisIsSo80s. Read the novel whilst in San Francisco and staying with an interesting assortment of people.
Movie last night, Time of the Wolf/ Temps du Loup, a Kennedy rec, was good. Visually arresting at moments and spare in terms of dialogue, the narrative moseys along at a deliberate pace. Wiping her just-kilt husband's blood from her cheek, Isabelle Huppert is still so Hot.
Gave JR his contraband, multi-packs of Marlboro Mediums. We have a meeting scheduled for tomorrow after the Collaborative Seminar, at which time I'll regale him with more travel tales, digvid shot in foreign lands, and oso much more.
All for now and over and out.
Medium Love.

Back in the Shiny Apple where, unlike anywhere else on ze planet, one can eat to one's heart's content around the stinkin' clock.
Have been reading The Rules of Engagement by Anita Brookner since procuring it from CDG yesterday, after le metro ride to airport, when I had to arouse Beth from her above-ground and bumpy slumber to say Beth, dearest, we are on the wrong track, we must go back two stops to catch B3. And on. I had noted there were too many butterfly bushes (which grow wildly in France) and not enough gypsy encampments.

Sojourn Fun Facts about Yours Truly:

* Number of multi-coloured shots imbibed by Yours Truly at the wedding of Inbal & Gideon in Tiberias, rolled out or carried out onto disco-ball-adorned (4 total) dance floor by the Tippler Sisters, twin shotgirls in fun fur cowgal hats.
= Indeterminate.

* Number of American Splendours puffed out over Sea of Galilea during aforementioned wedding.
= 4.

* Total number of feet of Yours Truly soaked in Sea of Galilea night of wedding.
= 2.

* Percentage of times Yours Truly successfully infiltrated AirFrance First Class lounge for coffee and wi-fi.
= 50%.

* Number of officious French bitches who gave Yours Truly one of her very own paintmelt stares over counter when attempting to infiltrate AirFrance VIP lounge.
= 1.

* Number of times Yours Truly misheard (due to 20 years of attending/shooting rock & roll extravaganzas) French waiter and believed he'd said I've ordered you gizzard for after your lunch (while lunching at Musée d'Orsay) instead of what questioning me as to what I'd like for dessert.
= 1.

* Number of times Beth thought I was joking about the gizzard/dessert mix-up.
= 1.

* Believing me to be Française, due to blatant savoir-faire, total number of Parisians asking Yours Truly for directions.
= 3.

* Total number of Francis Bacon paintings that blew head off of Perfect me, so to speak.
= 5, including favored one, ironically from Middling City's Albright-Knox Art Gallery (a piece that, to my Perfect memory, has never graced their walls).

* Number of kir royals slargled by Yours Truly.
= Not enough.

Into the cab jumps Mohammed (armed with handy Glock) with a half-drunk bottle of red wine, from the lights-a-blinkin' squadcar to our trundling vehicle. He passes off his handcuffs to Rafi, the cabbie, who I'm sitting next to.
Oh, note to self: Next time in Israel, specifically Jerusalem, when wanting to acquire the front seat next to driver do not holler S-H-O-T-G-U-N into the winding and shadowy street.
So Rafi, Mohammed, Yours Truly, Beth and Sandra go to see DisneyHolyLand - the place where myth and martyrs collide. Every spot pointed out I'd inquire, being the star journalistically-minded femme you know me and love me to be, Oh yeah, really, is that true... Shrine to the BlahBlahBlah... Is THAT true, is THAT the spot.
Did some digvid shooting at the wailing wall and of some adjoining wall with weeds gently blowing against a shocking array of disarray.
So Jerusalem was left behind as we made our way back to Tel Aviv, via Peugot 505 manned by the hairiest, smelliest human known to ourkind, Asher. Having a propensity to drive in other countries (illegally, non-illegally, public transportationally like the jeepney in Philippines, etc.), and beginning to suggest to Asher the Stank that I do some driving I began to think how I'd be sitting on the same seat that he'd been sweating and farting into for who the hell knows, so I declined, realizing I'd have to fumigate my self and dispose of my outfit soon after arrival.
Speaking of arrivals, my departure out of Tel Aviv airport was an utter fiasco as security could not comprehend the very quick pitstop of a travel to their land of DisneyHolyLands. I showed them travel itinerary, explaining planular fiasco at JFK. I showed wedding favour. I showed them email from the bride. After 1.5 hours it was decided that I was not, am not, a terrorist. Bags were x-rayed, many times, shoes and camera equipment were examined for explosive residues (and it was at that moment I was so relieved I'd not shot off the Glock the previous night), this very same laptop was examined and manhandled and re-examined. Thanks to my dear little canine pal Ollie, who, once upon a time, leapt off Kennedy's sofa so vehemently that she pulled wire and laptop and nearly the lap of Yours Truly, too, several feet away, resulting in an unsightly bulge near the MacLatch. This created much consternation for Tel Aviv security. I re-enacted, with graceful and over-baked hand gestures, the moment when Ollie leapt and the man fondling this laptop (which I will be having disinfected shortly) was not moved. At all. I was, near the end of my security infringement, led off by a femme to a partitioned room and I thought This is not the metal detector test, this is the biological detector test. But nope, no derobing happened.
Upstairs, searching for Marlboro Mediums for JR and for lunch medium, spotted one of my security pals. Her unsmiling misery made me oso glad I'm not in the security racket, and glad I was leaving Israel for gai Paris.
Where I am now.
Where I must go drink more café noir.
Where I must go see a show of Francis Bacon paintings.
And shoot more digvid.
And blow smoke, it's mandatory, into the ancient streets.
And then, when that list is accompli, jet off to the Shiny Apple for more more more.

Particular Love.

Minding my own business I was jettisoned from my plane seat due to ticket misprinting. This did not please Yours Truly as they wanted to move me to the rear of the plane, in a center seat... for an international flight of interminable hours. So I grumbled. Said Look, I need some sleep, etc.
Suddenly a new seating op opened up, a nice roomy one with a next door neighbor who was in Air France's 1,000,000 club. No lie. So he's angling to get bumped up. Then he is. Now I've got no neighbor and the flight, or so I thought, was leaving imminently. Nope. The entertainment system was kaput and suddenly some kid got sick and had to himself be jettisoned. Then they couldn't find the luggage of the family who was deplaning. This all equals 2 hours. Suddenly Perfect Me is approached by a nice crewperson who had heard my stellar grumbles and this femme moved me up to 1st class. But the next flight was missed so instead of Tel Aviv I'm in Paris. Where I've been wandering for 12 hours. So tomorrow CDG for another attempt at Israel for Inbal and Gideon's wedding.
Today Paris was sunny and in its summery heyday packed with gawkers and wanderers and lookers and bona fide citizens.
Headed for the George Pampelmousse Centre and got lost in some good, some bad, art there.
Onwards to dozing and jetting afterwards.

Doze of Love.

Rimbaud believed that the poet became a true visionary by a systematic 'deranging of the senses' and by absorbing all 'poisons.' William Blake coined the maxim, 'The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.'

On an overly school-imbued day like today Yours Truly might think of days of yore when poets and artists were just that. Were they grad students. No. Did they jet to and fro to do things. No. Were they required to be other than somewhat irresponsible creatives. Nope. Did they hunker down and make art. Yes. Did they enjoy the thickening joys of wormwood-enhanced Green Fairy juice. Yup.

Where does that leave Perfect Me on a day. Like today.
Full of poisons of the caffeine variety. Full of excess of ideas ilk.
Wending my way to that palace of wisdom.
In my mind it's a ring road, not a path, to Wisdom Palace, an approach, a leaving, another approaching and on.

Approach Love.

If anyone suggests to you that you MUST see (misogynistic) The Saddest Music in the World (starring Isabella Rosellini), don't just respectfully decline, vehemently do so - peppered with words of both slang and salty varieties. Wasted two hours last week doing so, well, it wasn't a complete wash as I used said time to update my contacts in my cell phones.
Arrived in Shiny Apple mere hours ago. And speaking of salty, a renowned woman with a salty tongue who shall not be named, former top administrator of Middling City Hospital for the Unwell, was alongside JetBlue Yours Truly. I have done work for her in the past, political and personal, years ago. I intended to say hello when I saw her terminally in the Middling City and, as I fall into Travel Coma before planes are rolling, didn't actually realize she was next to me until I awoke from the deepest of pre-liquid nap (read coffee) zoo snoozes with my head back at a 90º angle and mouth at Venus Fly Trap ready. Then we deplaned. Public transpo was sought. On the way to JFK a few days ago started talking to two teens who shared with me some of their top slang words that they've coined and that they're trying to get into the public sphere. I did alert them that I'd be stealing some of these words. I did not, however, tell them that I blog and that I'd be bloging on their words in the near future. First word: chillaxin'. Second great word: conversayshuh (short for conversation, a short conversation).
Three or four times used and they are so yours.
From Kennedy to Kennedy to Parsons to Kennedy to Kennedy.
My jubilant whirlwind.
Whirled Love.