Ensconced in a super suburban hot spot to edit & burn images for gigs.
At noon today I shot a parade of students et al marching in an anti-sexual assaults protest which featured the requisite signs and yelling into megaphones as well as men in high-heeled shoes that were being sold on the collegiate scene by AmVets - all size 10, all hideous. I asked the AmVets workers alongside the shoe spread about the provenance of the shoes (hundreds) and was told these were all unsellable - some clearly from the 80s, near classics, unloved.
*sidebar: one of those much in the news, ultra-overweight families is nearby, everyone from grandmother to elementary sibs hauling loads of heft, devouring a starch and sugar feast.*
Yesterday went to the delightful, annual brunch at Olga and Ted's home and brought with me a few gifts - a red and white, gorgeous columbine plant, and a flourless chocolate cake probably weighing as much as one of those kids over yonder.
Upon seeing the cake Anya remarked Where's the rest of it.
As Alexi soaked my plate with Veuve Cliquot I became a bit distracted from eating and spent more time enjoying VC than victuals.
I was already saddened by the crackhead-induced death of a Middling City diner owner and the VC sped introspective matters along, culminating in me dropping my potted plant from Olga and Ted off at the shooting scene - along with a somewhat rambling note to the bandits.
I stopped by the diner this AM en route to MCU to snatch back the sign and arrived to see a table set up manned by volunteers collecting money for the late owner - George's - funeral, as well as people dropping more flowers. I felt rather odd about taking my sign just then, especially after I watched a woman reading it and then bursting into tears, so I left it but did give my last five dollar bill to the funereal fund.
One of the volunteers said the diner will prevail, reopened by George's family and renamed eponymously, and undoubtedly still serving grits. She told me that one of the bandits was arrested already, that this guy (a crackhead, shocking) was always broke and George would feed him, pro bono.
The crackhead and his buddy sat nearby after the shooting, watching the ambulances, etc. arrive.
The note penned by Yours Truly in a nutshell stated that in lieu of spending billions on a war in Iraq I wish the so-called president spent it funding schools, rehab programs, to keep more gendarmes on the scene.
While meeting with my tax femme Valerie, who also teaches GED classes, we talked a long while about the lessening of literacy in this country.
No education, no hope, no future, no control, no shortage of crack, no shortage of handguns added up to a whole lot of loss of joy along the Middling City's Main Street on Friday, when a small business owner with a good heart was shot in same by two sans any.

Love Love Love.

Although it is reported to be the thirteenth he was never quite sure but did relish that the anniversary of his emergence was this very auspicious day on the calendar of Christians.
Happy Birthday Number 100 to You, dear Sam.

Neglected to state one thing that I did witness at the teahouse the other day, the near-death experience of a famed Middling City draft dodger who now leads a very nautical life.
As I laptopped away there first came some voices down the twisty stairwell, and Jen and I observed the MCdd falling forward whilst holding a tray of tea-related items.
He plunged forward, hitting his large head on his tall body *crash* into the bar about five feet from where I sat. He was still. I thought he had expired.
A small bit of blood was on his chin. I called 911. He awoke, insisting he was fine.
I suggested that he not move. He did. I guess that comes from being a draft dodger, that resistance to law, strong suggestion.
Last night watched Beth Elkins's dance performance on Allen Street featuring three, count 'em, three, video projectors, some stiff folding chairs, good dancers, a narrator, snippets of music, snippets of Geisel's Butter Battle Book. Afterwards I told Beth that she should be proud of what she made, a combo platter of girlie experience and wizening as well as anti-war sentiment that at one point verged on hysteria. There were curious breaks for vino and hummus.
Afterwards traipsed about with Cheryl and Liz, ultimately meeting two Michaels at one of the MC's better bars de gaiment. Both work at the ad agency I did a gig for about a month ago. They knew the work and basically it was decided we would like to cross our farflungish paths again.
Listening to Damon and Naomi but the vrai song du semaine has been Bjork's Real Life Sensuality. That missing blogpost a few days back due to my generous and perfect heart wanting to share with You an mp3 file of said song and suddenly Blogger went all to hell.
Oh, speaking of hell. I am going there.
Today I exclaimed Jesus H. Christ on the very day he sipped vinegar on a sponge, croaked his final words, and then the sky got very dark when he died.
That is why, my Perfect theory, that black jelly beans/eggs are ingested. They represent death. As do Peeps with their odd, somewhat crumbly exterior and liver-coagulating materials (not to mention lethal faux colourings), that do same.
Tomorrow I meet with my maternal and lovely tax lady, Valerie.
I am bringing her some beautiful dianthus as she, Valerie, reps all things lovely about (no, not taxes) femme charms and super powers.

Power of Taxing Love.

I finally took the plunge I had been so yearning for and bought a chainsaw.
Not really the Husqvarna of my dreams but a good starter Remington, despite the admonitions and such of Everyone.
I tell you, in this Perfect World when Yours Truly wants something she does get it.
And also in this Perfect World YT will not, repeat, will not lop off any limbs - except those that are evergreen in nature.
Brucey asked how long the something-or-other was.
The what.
The casing, the chain.
Oh, YT, answered, glancing over at the box, Ten inches.
It's a small one.
A starter one, YT rebutted.
As luck might have it the father of YT noted that a critical piece of the machine was missing, the trigger, so my dreamy moment was (temporarily) dashed on the rocks like a ruined and rusty chainsaw blade.
I feel power.
I have tools.
I have a goal.
I have things to slice and dice.

Sliced, diced, dreamy Love.

Working/blogging/editing at the teahouse, basking in the glow of Teahouse Jen who has an actually, surprisingly good Muzak station on... nu-lounge.
Yours Truly has gleaned some info over the years being on the scene and documenting it all and this includes this Fun Fact: Those who work in secret ways are, generally speaking, kooks.
Note yesterday, gig #3 in a tight series of 4.
A super-secret laboratory with contraptions that could be looked at by YT but not photographed in any way. I might not even be allowed to be blogging all this to You.
The address was approximated... look for a tree with a little curved branch, walk 10 paces towards the north and when you spot a little yellow, seemingly-random mark on the ground you are within 5 feet of the lab and suss out the rest.
YT asked a handily on-hand cleaning man where in blazes said lab was. He pointed to a door.
The door had blinds and was locked. They were expecting me and the cam but still it took them a while to open the freakin' door. A woman opened it and basically marched me in about 2 feet, imploring me to stay there. After about 1 minute I queried thusly, seeing her fluttering nearby. Am I really supposed to stay right here. She moved me into a very odd area with partitions and no humans where YT read the NYT until all was ready.
What was most enjoyable was the booth designed for training those to interrogate, I was sealed into it for effect. I had enough effect after, oh, about 30 seconds.
I asked about the small, de rigeur, badly-painted landscape on one of the booth's walls, propped against an alcove of sorts. Oh, the lab leader stated, That is for helping those who are being interrogated to feel less confined, that they have a psychological escape if need be.
Have You ever heard such nonsense.
There You are, in a sealed interrogation booth, a man with a clipboard asking questions, five cameras pointed towards you, an infra-red cam noting your twitches and sweat, a super-secret device to your right monitoring your heart. In the midst of this sound-proofed moment you glance to the right and AHHHHH, a moment of serenity wafts across your mind as a representational bit of hillock evokes.

Love the POWER of Art.

SuperBonus:
Go here for some Art Power.

Most of this day, motoring from gig to gig, I've been listening to Bjork's first release as her post-Sugarcube self, Debut - most notably one of the world's to-date heppingest songs, Big Time Sensuality.

BTS:
I can sense it
Something important
Is about to happen
It's coming up
It takes courage to enjoy it
The hard-core and the gentle
Big time sensuality
I don't know my future after this weekend
And I don't want to
It takes courage to enjoy it
The hard-core and the gentle
Big time sensuality

+ cannot wait until the release of Drawing Restraint 9, the movie with Bjork and her big man, Matthew Barney.

Drawing Love.

Whilst singing Youuu are the TYMPANIST Yours Truly clapped her hands most enthusiastically, to the utter surprise of Middling City Orchestra's Jesse Kregal, spotted in Coda, the site of Michele's swinging b-day gathering last night. He was so overcome by the claps and con brio singing that he did not note that it was YT who was cheering his entry.
Coda brought out a flight of ice creams for Michele and it seemed the challenge there was to out-do the former flavour. Kate Elliot explained them - Tarragon/blah-blah, peanut butter/garlic, roasted beet/blah-blah... Despite the wacky iced concoctions all else rocked.
Deb says the owner/chef is superb of visage, did not get a look.
To facilitate getting to Coda in a safe and timely fashion TY pressed the Forester along Kleinhans Music Hall, in a spot labeled For Middling City News Music Reviewer. It was 8:05, if said slacker reviewer was that late, oh well and hoof it.
Yesterday was my faux b-day. The date selected by me to glean some faux docs to hang with my older high school pals who were of legal limits.
I do accept gifts for the faux b-day, much like the other. Same sizes and such apply.
I fauxly thank You.

Non-Faux Love.

Never saw a stage door that I did not burst through, never having had appropriate respect for that Third Wall.
Or is that the Fifth Wall. Wailing Wall. Fifth Wheel. You know, the barricade of Imagine.
At the play last night was, amongst others, directress Debra Cole, and Mike of FLYNN'S fame. Zut alors! Yours Truly shouted internatlly upon seeing him in all his Buddha reserve, serenity.
Katharine and I had business to attend to - getting Annie her much-deserved giant bouquet of pink fleurs. So what if it wasn't yet the end and it was only half-time.
We were running up some institutional stairs, arm-in-arm, when I saw the designating sign on the door. And there we found ourselves, cramped behind a curtain with all the players, hunting for Annie's face in the small crowd. We gave her some hugs, kisses, and left the greenish roomish area. Being an aunt I got the children hepped-up on cookies and Skittles, Jake fishing about for them the whole rest of Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. What did Jake the teen find most engaging about the drama. The talk of boobies. Me, too.
Just got back from photographing a man who has made his life work about mushrooms small, large, fetid, and oso much more. Mushrooms. He does not hunt them, I was told by his über-wife, He says you should get them from the market.

Puffball Love.

Here is the likeness of the Kenmore copy who pulled Yours Truly over today for - of all things - talking on my cellphone. Oh, oops, nope, that is the image of the missing link between sea and land creatures. My mistake.
So there I am talking work matters when I see the flash and dazzle of a new cop car. Me and another were pulled over for same reason. He came back to the car with my rap/plea sheet and sort of - believe this or not - apologized. He said It's not a moving violation at least, you can appeal. Squalling children, loud music, piping hot beverages, I still argue, are more a threat to public safety and well-being than holding a phone to my head. My cellphone, ironically enough, has a speaker phone feature but it's so hard to hear the person that it's usually in front of my head about 8" away. So how is that legal, and having it moved over 6" or so around to one side of my head not.
I rest my case. Onwards. Phone floating in legal car space.

Defendant Love.

Yours Truly was tipped off by Pam yesterday that a diploma from Parsons/NSU might be heading my way and lo, behold, there was an oversized cardboard envelope in the side door. A very expensive doc to be sure. Immediate relaying of news to the various followed by immediate query if the doc is framed yet. In lieu of custom framejob by Penny the Framing Mistress I think I might opt for the readymades at Target. I like that this piece of $60K paper will be surrounded by foreign-made glass and wood particles for about $20.
And, always relishing the Ironic, my premier invoice to repay the student loans arrived yesterday. And what a sobering piece of mail that was, it might cut into my shoe budget.
Sped from the teahouse and attendant laughs to the suburban MCU campus where there were snowflakes twirling in the air. I made some ports of a femme in the dramatic arts whose business it is to traipse all over the world for educational purposes and YT thought Hell, sign me up for those frequent flier miles.
Bought the stray cat contingent and the wild birds some healthy snacks en route back to downtown, always searching for Favoured Person Status amongst The Feral.

Feral, suet-rich Love.

In case Yours Truly disappears from this shithole suburban wi-fi centre this perhaps is the suspect of my demise - 70-something, striped shirt, slovenly, has a really filthy iBook, glasses, crooked mustache. Walked in to work on the MCUniversity deadline as I have no *bleepin'* wi-fi on campus and spotted this - shall We say - character across the room. He was all crumpled up on a nearby sofa. As I got to work he shuffled over sputtering about moving things out of my way to which I replied It's fine. He laughed and is now sitting right next to me. I am shoved as far to the right as can be. Yikes and more yikes. Not to beat a homesick horse to death but in the Shiney Apple one's chances of bumping up against a veritable Mr. Creepy like the one to the east of me is fairly slim. I have my headphones on and he just tried asking me if I've ever forgotten my password and that he's downloading . . . something. Online porn the thought bubble over my head queried.
Onwards to my deadline of two back-to-back, enthralling portraitees.

Portraits of Love not appropriate for this skeeved-out moment.

*this just in*
It went away. Here's to The Perfected Really You Could Be Writhing on the Ground with Some Sort of Attack and I Just Really Would Not Give a Flying Phlegm vibe.

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

Cuspy Love.

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

Call in Love.

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

Howls of Love.

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

Procrastinational Love.

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

Life is for the Living, Love.

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

Love them slices of the 80s.

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

Swirls of Love.

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

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

Love now, Love later.

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

No Love for crashes, loads of natural Love.

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


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

Flotsam, jetsom are like so loved.

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

Eye-Hand Love.

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

Love of orchestras.

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

Public access to Love.

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

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

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

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

Believe., Love., Believe.

*This just in from poetry editor RDPohl:

Dear Nancy,

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

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

Happy, flapping Love.

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

Hand me Love.

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

Scenic and Installed Love.

Bandmate Scott's band, or some formation thereof, is going to appear on Love, the Greg Sterlace show replacement next month. And for the occasion the band is all geared up regarding decibels, video projections and oso much more. Wondering if pyros and spandex may also be involved.
To be filed under S as in Shocking . . . or So Outta Touch.
A non-loyal epinw reader of sorts last evening commented upon the self-focused nature of epinw. A blog. Yours Truly repeats - a freakin' blog. What is the title of this Perfect blog, I ask You. Correct - it focuses on all the fiascoes, the triumphs, the odd sightings in this world. Not YOUR world, My world. Thanks for your attention in this matter and, really, if this irritates you then shove off and read something less Perfect. Onwards. Oh, but first.
As you will correctly find foremost in Your own Perfect memory bank, epinw does seem, from time to time, to also examine and feature frequent appearances by a rag-tag cast of characters, including: adrenaline-raising editors, rodents of note, JW,Esq., erstwhile and hard-partying respectable member of corporate society, Sterlace, politicoes, boy colleagues, pals, and the odder denizens of the Middling City.
On a differing note.
Cheney's Got a Gun-style t-shirts are still hotties on cafepress.
Time to wend back to Land O'Meetings and suchlike.

Like, such Love.

Got an email from Harold last night, him musing on his Vegas junket still in progress. He had just watched gondoliers (yeah yeah in quotes) downstairs on the canal, You know, the one under the ever-changing sky sans planes, acid rain, birds and the like. Can one ever think of Vegas without opining about what is real or not. I think not. And I remarked about my two days there witnessing, literally & journalistically, many weddings as Yours Truly would, at most of these affairs, be the sole person in attendance/the audience and would be asked to be a witness. And in the beginning (no, not the word became flesh) I thought it was cheeseball, faux, plastic (well there were many wedding chapels featuring plastic cakes that couples could pose with - for a fee), sad. But gradually I thought This is no less real or fake than any other wedding. As I'm sure some soul singer crooned (I fantastically paraphrase) If it is love and passion then it is like so real, baby, so real.
Speaking of real v. fake and all, YT is embarking shortly to photograph the annual Middling City U engineering student contest of designing and then destroying tiny bridges to see which team can create the strongest fake little bridge. And, as if that were not enough, there is a bonus event - the annual and much-loved egg drop contest whereby engineering students design contraptions and containers to drop eggs and - hopefully - not end up with non-intact eggs.

Faux v. Real Love.

* This just in, from YT.
I heard from my beloved Rio that the sponge candy that I sent down to KY for her and her famille (that would be also-beloved Ron and their two perfect children) was not a raging success. Well, to further elucidate. SHE is enjoying the sponge candy to an orgasmic degree and is actually hoarding it whereas her roomies so to speak do not see what the hoopla is all about, them not originating from the environs of the Middling City. Those from the MC as well as certain corners of Pennsyltucky love les bonbons eponges whereas les autres say what is le grand deal stinké.

Important lesson gleaned by Yours Tuly a few days ago involving a case of champagne and a delicate houseplant of African Mask variety. Attempting to shop like one shops in the Shiney Apple within the boundaries of the Middling City, tragedy ensued. You see, in the Shiney Apple one moves from one store to another whilst weighed down with baggage - both emotional and mercantile. Nobody looks at you oddly when you waddle through their shoppe doors in such a condition. Now, mind You, if one were to purchase a case of champagne in the Shiney Apple one would sensibly have it delivered, but YT digresses. So I am meandering from one shop to another in the same plaza and, in lieu of moving the car, decide to move instead a cart with lamp shade and aforementioned African Mask to get champagne. Bumping back out to car the case shifts and tragedy befalls plant. Moral: When in the Middling City, adopt appropriate MCesque shopping practices for sometimes what works in the Shiney Apple, however modified, is one large flaming fiasco on the state's left side.
Time to wend again towards a moderne dance troupe and document their twirls and such.

Twirling, sashaying Love.

What sort of began as self-amusement has become a fab piece of merch by Yours Truly and it will be uploaded shortly onto my favoured merchstop, cafepress.com.
Being no PhotoShop wiz, humbly admitted, I am still trying to incorporate a good rendering of the NYT illustration of where Cheney's pal, Whittington, endured the buckshot blast.
And another thing.
For the fete/feast of Valentine dungeness crab was ordered, they were to be nude. They arrived in all their armorous glory.
Upshot: delicious but my hands suffered in the battle to wrangle them into the pan.
Moral: the sea always wins.

The sea, Love.

Yours Truly just discovered a gorgeous mystery bouquet of roses at the door. No card.
If You are the sender, thank you beaucouply.
Following is my annual saintly analysis of Saint Valentine, ol' Mysterioso.
As You epinw fans do know, Valentine remains a special combo platter, an amalgamation of two persons, possibly both saints – a veritable tag team of lovelorn, perhaps matchmaking, men of circa 269, to be rather exact in a circa fashion.
According to the yellowed Dictionary of Saints in the collection, Valentine had not a dangblamed thing to do with courting couples but, rather, in some geographical places birds court each other this very day. Courting birds. . . courting couples. Birds of a feather. . . commercialization.
Makes complete and utter sense to YT.
Geo-san moments ago reminded me of the glories of the Acme HeartMaker, a bona fide (since we are also speaking of saintly matters) treat.
As I blog I should like to note my excellent, Valentine (whomever the h.e.l.l. he really is, somewhere)-approved cd choices: a compilation (who says friend-made compilations are like so dead) of love-ly tunes by Reese, as well as a comp of re-done classic love tunes acquired yesterday at Starbucks. The re-do of the Smiths's (lovingly referred to by me as Smiffs) There Is a Light That Never Goes Out is remarkable.
Lisa Forrest sent a beautiful VDay poem today to her friends.
Geo-san also turned me onto this, go there at once.

All my Love, imagined & possible.

The Danish bomb. So this is what all the hoopla is about, lest You have not seen it, as Yours Truly did not - until moments ago. Yesterday there was a radio tale that several editors and a reporter walked off NYPress because their higher-ups believed any curiosity-seeking reader should google this to have a peek.

From the GM of NYP, Peter Polimino:

New York Press takes our responsibility to our community as a “Free Press” very seriously. We came to the same conclusion as many other responsible newspapers and media outlets that have chosen to not run the Danish cartoons. We felt the images were not critical for the editorial content to have merit, would not hinder our readers from making an informed opinion and only served to further fan the flame of a volatile situation.

And from the former editor, Harry Siegel:
We have no desire to be free speech martyrs, but it would have been nakedly hypocritical to avoid the same cartoons we'd criticized others for not running, cartoons that however absurdly have inspired arson, kidnapping and murder and forced cartoonists in at least two continents to go into hiding. Editors have already been forced to leave papers in Jordan and France for having run these cartoons. We have no illusions about the power of the Press (NY Press, we mean), but even on the far margins of the world-historical stage, we are not willing to side with the enemies of the values we hold dear, a free press not least among them.

YT has a long history of working with alternative publications and found this story, given the sad state of first amendment rights in this wartime, under the auspices of an unbalanced prez and the fearfulness of speaking out, epinw-worthy.

No Love for censorship.

PS: and if YT ever shoots a pal of hers, I do hope that it will be referred to as one Mishap, as the shooting of Cheney's hunting buddy by himself was in the NYT.
&
*This just in via epinw LeftCoast Correspondent JW,Esq:
He tells me that tomorrow, for the date commemorating the life + times of mysterious Saint Valentine, he's attending this affair.
The Middlling City could use its own v of the pillow fight. Niagara Square.

Last night I co-co-hosted the Greg Sterlace show with Paula and from the moment of my arrival at Home of the Future I thought Wow, this is going to be one. . . how shall Yours Truly say. . . odd show. And my hunch was right on, the show featuring, amongst other things, a warbling guitar player with total recall of every time he's met YT (to the point that I regaled Paula with the recent email about one of the Middling City's most ranting weirdos and my suspicion that this could be, theoretically, one and the same - he was not, as I later realized), an earnest femme poet, GS removing his shirt and tucking himself under Paula's dress for an interminable amount of time, and on.
YT hosts - I repeat - hosts the show on March 10th and I think I'm dubbing it LoveFest as a wry ref to the mag I founded and published during fourth grade - Love Magazine. A hit.
I've already lined up a few grand guests and have to speak to BandmateScott about performing on LoveFest.
This is how I described the GS show to one of my pending guests: Kind of a show about nothing. I'll give you beers. (he went for the bribe)
And now one of my patented sayings:
Time to g.o. go.

Going Love.

So things have taken a turn toward Interesting, at the corner of Serendipity.
As in last evening's forwarding of nutty bumpersness of the strange man rantings in the bar via the art student. We emailed to and fro about not-so-fun facts and ultimately, or penultimately, I wrote Let's end this more positively, let's tell each other what we're doing as creative people.
So we did. Suddenly Yours Truly had a fab idea so I wrote the student back and said
Let's collaborate on an art project of sorts
and YT also wondered if he could be my roadie, my tech support for the pending art project in June when I'll be projecting some elemental images far and wide in a historic Middling City church that teeters on transcendentalism (i.e. not too heavy on the schtick, if You catch me).
Moral: make weird and bad, despite their kicking and screaming, be something good, even delving upwards into the realms of art, if possible.
Call me the lion tamestress of beasts weird, bad, and ferocious.

Taming Love.

This just in from BizarroLand.

Hi nancy,sorry to bug you, you dont know me. my name is (omitted by Yours Truly), im a film/photography student at UB. i thought i would tell you something strange that happened to me last night...
i was out at a bar with some friends and had my camera on me. this very strange man who was obviously drunk and possibly more came up to
me freaking out. he kept asking me if i was 'nancy parisi'. he had long grayish hair and glasses. he told me he was a felon and that he
would kill me. he kept asking me if i was you... he was quite strange....he told me that he thought i was pretty and
would say all these sexually explicit things he wanted to do to me, and then he would tell me that if i am involved with YOU he would
track me down and murder me. he tried kissing me, holding me, and then asked me to fight. he told me many times that he would kill me, but he
was clearly not in a clear state of mind and i didnt take him very seriously....he couldnt even stand up straight.it doesnt bother me, im not upset or anything, i just found it
bizarre. i recognized your name, and thought i would tell you....haha.

haha.
I did write this alleged student, harbinger
of wack behaviour (and possible practioner of same) to inquire thusly: How in H-E-double hockey sticks
did you get my email address.
Onwards.
Time to meander off to Foster Kid event #2 in a series of 3 and then
points beyond.
Had a pharmaceutically-related gig today, shooting some reps from the ill-fated
Pfizer Corp making nice, spreading robust karma by tossing millions at
the university for yet another center/centre of excellence.
Philosophical quest(ion): do so many centres of fabness dilute the excellent
powers.

Fab, undiluted Love.

Here he is. Who, You ask. Ridge Lee Larry, fercrissakes, the rodent prognosticator of Middling City U who Yours Truly photographed last Thursday. Note the green grass behind RL Larry. Today the MC is coated in beautiful flakes of wintry goodness. According to RL Larry, who did not see his shadow, spring is a stone's throw. Meanwhile, back at the weathered ranch, down south that is, in PA, RL Larry's mentor Phil did see his shadow. I might add here that Larry is deader than a doorknob, taxidermied if You will, and his chin strap is not under his chin, as he has no chin, but in his mouth. Is this dignity, I ask You.
So JW,Esq., being a big epinw booster, reads my touting of I Will Survive recently and sent me a little QT movie of a JC-looking character (NB: middle eastern, thick-bodied, not a CK-lookin' boy) lip-synching away to the same tune, ultimately meeting a sad end via a big city bus. And he informs me that he's heading to South America. Kennedy and I watched A Fish Called Wanda last night and now I believe JW,Esq., despite the Esq., is running from the law.
Out to a delivery of work, a show&tell of artwork, points beyond.

Signed, sealed, delivered Love.

Yours Truly first recalls writing a poem in the garden of her parents, and it was about forget-me-nots. Today the first of the duo of pomes pennyeach hit the stands via Middling City News. Here's Your link to it.
Next month, first Sunday of mars, is the Creeleypome, printed in honour of the year anniversary of his sneaky TX dying.
HAPPY SNOOPY BOWL today!

Cartoons of Yore Love.

*This just in, from Jerry Mead:
"Nancy - Just read your poem "Valentine" in the Buffalo News - How cool was that... - Could
you become more fabulous? You just did! Congrats-Jerry."
Super bonus points for Jerry!

Caught up with Leah today over tea at the teahouse and stayed on to work on the ol' laptop. Georgisan phoned then he and Simon came to visit. They were looking for MattK and I said Well, you just missed Leah, Matt's apparently dogracing in Montana. They expressed as much disbelief as I had, but it's true. Had plans to see Liz at Thursday's hangout and told the guys to see me there. They arrived as I was trying to redesign my business card and after I got yet another haircut to fix the previous cut that had zero flow. Both Geo and Simon say they liked the previous, that it did have flow. Went to salon that Teahouse Jen suggested next door and gave the guy some parameters - I want flow, I want sexy, I'm growing this out, and you have twenty minutes. He did it.
Time to rush out to Middling City U for a gig and then many points beyond.

Flowing, hairy Love.

Homework assignment:
1. Drink too much
a. coffee
b. alcohol
2. Make a quick list (jot, if you will) of various members of the rodent genus.
3. Ponder differences (biologically, aesthetically, sociopolitically) between different rodent species and write 50 words on why one may favour one species over another.
4. Look at image above. If this groundhog were your pet what would her/his name be?
5. Bonus question: Why are rodents cuter than birds? (worth 10 points)

Yours truly is off to photograph the Middling City v of Groundhog Day. Good ol' taxidermied Ridge Lee Larry, festooned in his annual hat and sash, will once again emerge from the bowels of the Geology Department at MCU to maybe see a shadow, to maybe fall over, to just take in the fresh air and loving looks of those gathered in the parking lot where show/magic happens.

Magical Love.

UNABASHEDLY
and I do mean un-fuhreakin-bash-edly listening to disco. Disco. And Goria Gaynor's I Will Survive (although co-opted by millions of dragqueens and I can envision all the merry lip-synched versions I have seen of this anthemic beaty tune onstage, accompanied by boas and the like, is so Everygirl) is on right now and I just got up from the office chair to do some hai-karate kicks.
This just in:
Received email today informing Yours Truly that YT appears inside a sonic relelase by The Spoons. Apparently I'm holding one of my cameras, am in the pit of one of their shows.
Fame by Irene Cara (you see, it's a greatest of the Disco hits), appropriately enough, is like so on right now.

Dance Fever, Love.

Had a most pleasant DIY car inspection experience today, just like days of yore when Yours Truly drove questionable vehicles and would arrive on the scene at an equally questionable car repair shop where you'd be asked It's a good car - to which the reply would/should be Ohh, yes, it's a great car and then there'd be an exchange of some cash for a sticker, which would be affixed not by said inspector but by the faux-inspectee.
So I arrived as scheduled and there was a look-over and, with a mere 16K on the odometer, I was put in charge of filling in all the numbers and such on the computer which apparently is linked to some wired NYS office of inspectional matters.
No pesky car on lift, no removal of any car tires for brake look-see. With socializing the visit was about 45 minutes, far more efficient than the hour+ a down&dirty inspection would be.
Onwards.
Today was a day of official business accomplished and to celebrate YT purchased her first-ever (and probably only-ever eyelash curler).
After all that motorheading about I think subconsciously I needed a good girlie fix.

Motorhead/Girlie Love.

NB:
If anyone has found my art impetus please tell it to come back to Yours Truly. Like now.
Events as of late have conspired to keep general creative endeavors from being within reach. But, in prep-mode, things are organized, the car is clean (outside), the sketch books are full, art supplies are at the ready.
Suddenly realized in a panic today that I have forgotten to register for the NC-based HGTV dream house, and I promised Loomis I'd be diligently doing so. I informed Lauren over coffee at SPoT last week that I will possibly be hanging out in the NC mountains until the utilities get shut off as I'm sure HGTV is not footing all the future bills and who in hell can heat a 1,200,000 s/f home.
Now, suddenly, the slogan The road to hell is paved with good intentions simmers in my mind like that Coldplay song was much earlier this fine springy day (and who can truly enjoy fifty degree dead-of-winter days, warmest in over a century, and not ponder how we are roasting away the atmosphere with CFCs, SUVs, BYOBs, and that NYT story detailed how an environmental whistle blower/freaker-outer has been quieted by Bush et al). And, speaking of perfect homes, home improvements, paving jobs, somewhere, I imagine, someone has fabricated paving stones that read 'good' and 'intentions' for some alternatingly, hilarious garden times.
As I waited to speak to Lawyer Tom today to wrap up smatters I caught up on the fandom vortex, the weekly journal of amnesiac fun fact: People mag.
YT is both an inhaler of pop culture and mag addict yet somehow the whole Eminem/Kim story fell through the cerebral cracks. The reconciliation that tops all somehow slid right by my astuteness. I think I might be the only person I know who saw Eight Mile, in the Shiney Apple, and dug it, and (super-bonus points)photographed him as he was ascending.
So how did I just not know.

Love, sometimes you just do not ever know.

Yours Truly is planning to post this day's blogpost as parts A & B.
Post A will be the before, so to speak, and B later in this day.
What is this day, You might wander as you wonder.
A:
Today is the day that X finally - finally - not only picks up his flotsam and jetsom that have been hunkering in the far reaches of my home, but signs off on the deed. As well as the MIA third party who was still on the deed despite the fauxfact that X told me that this thirdly person was off the deed years ago. So for the last how long (Deb and Kennedy would probably know better than Yours Truly who does not want to succumb to the reality that this has been dragging along for two years, and this final stage for three months) an orchestration of concerns, emails, lawyerly conversations, moola, times, movings, groovings.
An interesting cast of characters will be on the scene (including my lawyer, Intrepid Tom) planned for early afternoon: several have referred to all this as having the potential of being a Jerry Springerlike event.
Hope it's more Here's your hat what's your hurry than A flurry of fury, and tossed items.
As I hand off the (extortion) money to X I would like to say
Here you go. . . now please go away.
Cheryl advised more snark, (I did invite her to come and videotape this moment, thinking it'd be a grand project).

Legal extricational love.


B:
Things are wrapped up. MIA and X showed up, as did Lawyer Tom, Kennedy, and Steve the Bouncer. Things did wrap up after things seemed heated for a moment. Then there was a flurry of signing (not singing, repeat, not singing) and then the removal of objets under vigilance.
It is done.

Rarity to follow.
I admit that at this juncture I was so not minding my own business and this ref goes back to April when I was participating/performing for Urban Epiphany, I think the fourth annual, and RD Pohl was amongst those in attendance. So I read some new pomes pennyeach (by YT of course) and each writer is given a slot of two minutes and, like in the digvid world, You say two minutes all the time, two minutes is like the amount of time it took for coffee from the barista, the time at a red traffic light and other, urbane situs.
So I read two minutes and I recall that I had blustered into the auditorium, overly-caffeinated and in a general state of grad student flux and freak-out. Afterwards, RD Pohl, who edits poetry for the Middling City Snooze, amongst others, came up to say in a nutshell Hey, dug them words, &C. Pohl said to send him some fine specimens and I, in my usual people-pleasing fashion, said something to the effect of Abso-freakin-lutely.
Months strolled by. I was not a grad student in a state of flux any longer but had moved on to newer types of flux and freak-outs of a generalized grownup sort.
So last week I decide I should email two to Editor Pohl. Two - Valentine. and Believe.
Upon receiving them EP calls excitedly to do various things:
-tell me that the poems are great
-tell me that both are going to be published
-tell me that the MCNews pays for publication of pomework
-tell me that above has never printed two by one in two consecutive months but one is timely for V-Day, one timely for the year anniversary of tragic death of Creeley
-tell me that he can't believe I was holding out on him for decades.
I returned his call and did not tell him that I was once a rabid public pomereader, an organizer of poetry readings at UB and via my Writers Cramp Series that I ran with Paul T. Hogan.
So words are coming forth on a printed page and although I have imbued myself in online work, reading, blogging since It happened, there is still beauty in/on printed pages.

Love, beautiful in both online and printed versions.

In the midst of what I now refer to as Asphalt Planet, the suburbs outside Middling City, where driving is de rigeur and the landscape is all about shopping, trees in smatters.
En route to the morning gig saw what appeared to be a highly disgruntled hired hand for Liberty Tax Services, in full Lady Liberty neoprene regalia, heading away from her/his post at the busy corner a stone's throw from the expressway, heading down an embankment, torch low.
I feigned enthusing, beeping my horn madly, so Lady Liberty would cheer up. And she did, turning and raising the torch at me in a commuter-worthy salute. Bartholdi shone down upon the moment.
Listening to Canadian radio the young announcer announced that yesterday, the country's national election day, was the saddest in a very long time – much like the aghast feeling when the current president of the US (you know, the one mucking up all foreign relations save a few, the overnetworked rube) allegedly won here in the lower 48 +2 – as now their gov is the big C.
Kennedy and I saw that new Pocahontas movie and I forgot to sing Neil's (as in second-fav Neil love, Young) song of same name. Actually, this movie has the forgettable title The New World and I imagine that its Euro title will have more poesie about it. Jewel's cousin, the femme of same last name (Kircher) and complicated first name beginning with Q, did a fine job of being beautiful in deerskin. Not so much later in gingham and such. I would not know Colin Farrell if he literally bit Yours Truly on mine arse and I found myself cringing at his mutant eyebrows and could not get the horrific thought of Scott Stapp formerly of Creed out of my mind. He also did a fine job of reminding YT of her college pal David Coleman, another introspector.
Time to burn a cd of primo images and drop and dash and more business as usual.

Love, usually.

Generosity flows in abundance within Yours Truly. You know this.
*sidebar:
As I'm thinking of flowing, i.e. coursing blood and guts, I am transported back to yesterday's photo shoot with yet another mad scientist dealing in RNA. Being an M.S. he would take my 101 questions and run with them charmingly, breathlessly, at one point trotting me across the hallway to see a special reusable plate, its viewing light table of sorts, and the scanner upon which the molecular info on the plate is recorded and printed out after I think I may have queried about some shadowy shapes pasted into his notebook. After spotting it, I was going to comment upon his very Euro and artful-looking handwriting but thought he'd suss me out as a hyper-curious chronicler interested in most things and a follower of scientific developments - to a serious novice point.
Cryptology, I am certain, would not have been among his mad scientific interests.
*sidebar complete.
To prove this point Perfectly go here, enter, and if You do win and YT does not (nor Loomis, who turned me on to this dream thing), I get a key to the joint and the op to drop in any time. I will also demand that a Japanese tea house be constructed in the garden, I have one in mind. And within the house there will be a studio for YT. I mean really, I told you about this stinkin' contest.

Love, a good contest.

Explosions of good vibes out to boypals Last Conservative, opening for (wretch, small one) Bon Jovi of gigantic teeth and tight leather-wrapped arse fame.
As MikeZ is no longer in LC I am so not all over shooting this gig and heard this week from his cousin James that MikeZ is going to be re-emerging with his brother, and other familial ensemble in a rollicking blues band. Apparently they've had a gig and people were essentially throwing veritable undies and the like in glee.
Last night's Soup Night like totally rocked, with Yours Truly preparing a newbie - roasted carrot and parsnip with ginger and it really was fab - as were Blair's two soupy constructions.
Good people and then met Hilary notClinton out and that was high times, a few misdemeanours, especially some really bad art that persists in this venue. The bad art in question involves a lightbulb and I sort of mentioned I would buy it for Hilary and her fiancé Matthew for a wedding gift as they'd never be short a lightbulb. Unless, of course, they did not replenish that upon the bad art.
Yesterday dropped an art piece at Trinity for Colleen's art bennie tonight that I will breeze into and today dropped two portraits of the Foster kids for a show of sorts opening early next month.
A dose of Mercury Rev before rejoining the public of this unseasonally warm Middling City with eveningdreams of hightailing it to the Shiney Apple as homesickness is raging and Dorota et al beckon.

Love is a beckon.

In this crazy online world one can find virtually everything for sale, including ponderous and zany Evangelware such as this tshirt above.
The designer of it has another few gems for kids, too, like shirts emblazoned with cryptic messages about cleanliness.

No love for ill-hitting irony.

Had an unfortunate run-in with the talents and scissors of one Middling City hair stylist who swore he was adept at all things Bumble and Bumble. His interpretation of the haircut I had had was to send me out into the world with an oddball suburban 'do, slathered in product - as they love to say. I washed out said product and took some nice sharp little scissors I bought to cut Kennedy's hair to the bangs that I did so like and which were a disastrous heap. To more interesting result. As I like to say, It's only hair. In months and months it'll look, it'll be ready to take another stab at trust and cut.
On a less hairy note, I photographed the bald new Chancellor of SUNY system twice today - on his special tour of the earthquake center where all of us watched a 3 on the Richter scale faux quake, and later at a speecherific thing. He is John Ryan, very humble, referred to himself as Your bald Chancellor.
After the second gig and the furious burn of cd's for my editrix I saw the just-completed catastrophe of a two-car crash via one driver having sped through a red light.
Nobody was able to get out of their respective cars and three firetrucks were on the scene.
Do not, repeat, do not run red lights.
Oh, on a very light light note I laptopped at a very mediocre lunch joint near a puppy salon so, of course, I had to rush in and play with a few pups. Later, at the second portion of Chancellor Love, while talking to a few others, I realized I was covered in delicious puppy stank.

Puppy Stank Love.

Today the Native-financed wrecking ball was raised and lowered, raised and lowered, raised and lowered on the brick portion of HO Oats. The duet of Empire Dismantling apparently not taking a federal-style MLK, Jr. Holiday. No matter when I stray over to the site there seems to be several on foot or in cars stopping to watch the destruction and, as a matter of Perfect fact, saw Liz & Alan in the shadow of HOO yesterday afternoon.
Above, for your edification and plaisir, are two images from yesterday's foray: if, for whatever reason, You find yourself not understanding why these constructions deserve to live I will link you for a quick - and mind-altering - lesson in most matters grain elevatorial.
Did the post-Druidical people of the Land o' Windsors, windsor ties, curries and such rush to wreck freakin' Stonehenge fercrissakes.
I rest my grain elevator-adorationializing case.
Super BONUS:
A fine fab link to a smattering of work made by my pal Mark Maio of the constructions in question.
The Middling City does not have many things but one thing it does have is a fine assembly of its complicated industrial past.

Love is oso complicated.

This day's blogpost could begin much like the former.
But premierly, a word about dumplings or what Yours Truly is now dubbing puffballs.
Last night I made old-fangled beef stew and decided to, following culinary guidelines, mix up dumplings for the first time. One thing to dig about cooking is gathering some know-how, riffs of sorts, favs, standbys, tricks, avoidances: but the first time with a recipe means following along, usually. So, not ever having made dumplings/puffballs Yours Truly (as is so not my wont) followed rules. And when I got to the part about adding in baking powder YT did some measuring of sorts and then actually became a bit alarmed as the baking powder hit the wet ingredients with the now fizzing concoction resembling the neat baking soda/vinegar science experiment of yore, emulating volcanos. But, adding in some flour, disaster was assuaged. Then the delightful plopping of dough into the magma stew, covering the pot, and then the voilà moment – dumped-up dumplings.
At the Hallwalls opening last night I talked cooking with a few pals who had already discovered the joys, the scientific mystery, of dumplings.
Artist Suzy Lake strolled about, as did about 700 others, down corridors until it was time to gather up the entourage and move along to Prespa for some background techno music, some more hijinx and then onwards into the icy Middling City night.

Onwards, Love.

Last night was the grand hoopla of The Church, the Limelightlike former congregation centre turned into a concert/revelling venue. Ani was there and had her tresses dyed darker than I've ever seen them before and we exchanged a nice embrace and a few words before Scot whisked her away, so she could stand at attention whilst some requisite speeches were proffered up. People paid attention until they did the B.S. (that'd be the Bored Shuffle, the weight-shift from left to right). Saw a myriad of good people and had a pleasant social onslaught.
Courtney Grimm and I walked arm-in-arm to the snack table (some sooth - poor aesthetics and an unappetizing mound of wraps... we sampled greasy crab cakes and moved along) until I became much more interested in introducing myself and her to the most interesting-looking man in the room. His name - Junior. He, as all Juniors and Tinies are, is huge, maybe 6'something" and he weighed in at about 300lbs. There was a woman hovering nearby and I asked if she was in Junior's entourage. That's my wife, Junior said.
Deb said she was there and I did not, sadly, see her. Dr. John, for whatever reason was there, I did see him and his spindly date.
The space: what was the big-assed church is now painted well in greens and gold (as in color, not leafing), is lit better, has no more pigeons, and is going to be the big-assed rock & roll venue.
That is impressive. The Hallwalls spaces I found less so - the gallery has a nice basswood floor and much has been made of its malleable wall formations. I thought their basement screening/rumpus room was disappointingly small. I imagined the org having to turn away scads of would-be viewers as the room's capacity is a mere 65. Think big. Think bigger.
Glad to see Hallwalls finally in their new home and it is impressive what's transpired under the renovated spires. Good for the Middling City.
Today it is a smattering of snow, a day to work and work and work before play and play and play.

Love to play.

Well. Well well well.
Very well, indeed.
Yours Truly has been, off and on and mostly on, imbued in the oeuvre and it has been a Pleasure, wallowing in this huge collection of art, publication samples, words, even old posters from the feted and fated Writers Cramp Series that Paul Hogan and I ran for aeons.
Found some surprises, like old coins from dead Uncle Richard, personal and historical photographs, a stash of forgotten ca$h. But not even what I am searching for - yet. When and if this objet is found I will then say what it is.
Delivered some super-fine images I shot for a campaign for a Middling City org to an MC ad agency and while going up I nearly lost my foot in the steel doors for one who came a-runnin'. The proverbial voice of Holdit. And what a one he was, a visual surprise, a Shiney Apple-like man that one does not usually see on this edge of things. As we noted that YT nearly lost a foot he got off on 8, wishing me a fine weekend. Manners to boot.
Tonight Kennedy and I are attending the righteous Hallwalls/Righteous Babe Records grand hoopla, the one that shows off what is nearly done. Tomorrow night is the Hallwalls-only opening of a show of work by unimpressive Suzy Lake. This event is to trumpet a grand addition to the MC art scene. I discussed this with Bruce who asked What art scene.
My pal Pam is catering tomorrow's affair and she told me she's donated all the food, roughly to the tune of $1K. Absolutely one of the most generous people ever.
Amongst stops and sojourns last evening stopped into Charlie Quill's b-day fiesta at Nietzsche's and was happy to see Kelly et al and then on to the usual spot to see Shana and Jeremy and the music was surprisingly quite compelling.

Love is compelling.

The theme du jour is rubbernecking.
Good, old-fashioned swivel-heading, as Yours Truly prefers to call this phenom that swims deep within our human genome, to witness with our own eyes, via reality or other, handy media, the turmoil of others.
En route to a gig this fine and magical AM with the Middling City air teeming with the vibes of spring, I nearly landed in the midst of a parking lot freeway situ but exited promptly on one of those handy north-south streets that one discovers only from having a freelance career involving deadlines, and loads of driving to the sub and ex urbs.
When I arrived at my gig I was informed that this traffic miasma was due to a truck lying on its side, an accident that happened yesterday.
En route back from the gig I could see the truck, still ominously occupying the left shoulder and the backed-up traffic behind it so everyone could get a good gander and a half.
While at the gig YT photographed various people who use the facilities in which I had set up my temp studio and then made secondary images of said facilities. While wending through the sweat-infused gymnasium and weight room and rooms full of those silly machines, there in front of us was one MC newscaster femme fatale. Attempting to avoid rubbernecking, she had outfitted herself with very dark sunglasses. The sporty portion of this joint is not bright. The newscaster f.f. was just looking to not be noticed. I was fantasizing about rushing her with a Sharpie, asking that she sign... something, anything.
And I culled from the Memory Centre how once, perhaps a decade and a half ago how YT was in a fashion show at a television studio, produced by a couture collector. If you can imagine some such thing in the MC. While readying ourselves for our face time, I'll use that phrase as it's so... now, so industry-savvy, we were bombarded by the very same femme newscaster who burst into the dressing room where about five of us were getting made up. She blustered in, bitching fiercely about her blow dryer. Now, not ever having been much of a television afficianado, I asked one of my fellow models, as the blustery newscaster f.f. was, I thought, just out of earshot Who the HELL was that bitch.
As You may have guessed. Yes.
We have necks, we use them. We have insights, we use them.

Rubbernecked Love.

As is my wont, I was minding my own business and found myself looking at a large display of seeds, following a business meeting. I first looked at the oversized packages of vegetable seeds and then moved around to the flowers, thinking all the while just what and where and how.
Then I followed along the quite remarkably gigantic half-aisle of bird feeders (oh, did I tell You that I recently bought the absolute Cadillac Escalade of squirrel-proof bird feeders) to the shelves of confused houseplants and found myself then shoving three of these sad little orphans into the cart. And then moved on to the nearly-free racks of narcissi, buying two. It is not too late in the season to force bulbs as, in this Perfect world, bulbs can be forced until it's the season of deep-fried skin and popsicles. I rest my flower-luvvin' case.
Speaking of case(s), what needs to happen to keep that forgetful racist Alito out of the Supreme Court, short of driving down to Warshington to protest. NPR did a wacky thing today, calling one Al Ito to ask him some trivial questions.
Blogs do rule and they may just become the sole way to keep up up and away with the news.
Lest you have missed this grand blog, go here now.

Memory of shooting FBI-issued firearms love.

This just in, from a loyal epinw peruser.
Yours Truly awaiting rock & roll action. I look very unpsyched, must've been Bon Jovi or some such nonsense.
Misty water-coloured memories...

Misty Love.

The Shiney Happy Mag piece is done. The jubilation which follows the hand-in/the email-in is incomparable. Really. I mean, really, would Yours Truly lie to You.
A scintillating piece of hard-hittingness about where in Blazes to purchase excellent crap and the like for your joint. To make it, shall we say, sophisticated.
Here is a shining example of my flavour:

Décor, like a wardrobe, is a personal collection ever in a state of flux – assuming, of course, that one is not clinging stubbornly (or ironically) to tired, decades-old articles. In both matters home and sartorial, pieces illustrating personality are amassed in the same ways, on jaunts of all sorts, and as gifts. And both may suddenly fall out of favor and be taken out of circulation in a jiffy.

Now that's writing. A dash of irony, some handfuls of fact, some Perfect personality all melded together in one informative, cohesive stream.
I began the finishing across the table from Laura (who was knee-deep in homework) and now I am across the table (kittie-korner) from a stranger named Gina. A teacher. A person who sings to herself. If she had kept that little habit up I would have dashed the rest of my venti coffee du jour at her. She stopped. I sipped. I split.

Love's split.