To be filed under L, like as in Like I needed this nonsense.
And if I didn't just have a bizarre threat of having a gun pulled on me by a perhaps post-partum nutcase this past spring (You may recall John, get the GUN, FREEZE, etc.) while galomphing happily in the snow at Kennedy's house.
Search back in epinw and You will find it. Onwards.
There I was, You know, minding my own business, settling into laptopping at the teahouse. Tea was sipped once, twice, and then all heck is breaking loose.
The tenant calls. Brinks calls. Tenant calls again.
He tells me that whilst he was bounding down the stairs the door to my space opened - and then, as paid for, the VERY LOUD ALARM blasted through the air.
He mutters something about thinking the alarm was his alarm clock and how he ran back up to check and then down again. If you heard this (usual) alarm you would find this ponderous.
He does think to call me, however and I say these things - Stay there, I'm ten minutes away, cops will be coming.
I arrive.
There is a cop car in front of the building, I see tenant at side door, his door.
I open my door, enter, am moving toward the keypad when I am about five feet away from a member of Middling City's finest, gun drawn. Not pointed directly at me but up in the air.
We both express air from our lungs in surprise. He then tells me I was very close to getting shot and why didn't I not enter or yell out. Because it looked like you were talking to the tenant who should have told you that this was a false alarm, that the door set off the motion detector in my apartment. Because this is my home. And again, I knew this was a false alarm, the tenant knew this was a false alarm.
This same scenario unfolded several years ago when Dorota and Jason stayed upstairs for a week and the crap lock on my door was not truly locked down and the door popped open, sending the cops over - but not indoors, with guns drawn.
Major diff today was the tenant not explaining this all to the officer, who entered my space and walked all through it inspecting for foul play.
So the tenant scrams (more on this later) and the patrolman and I are standing in the space discussing my photographs, him all questions, eyes.
This is the very same day that one of my colleagues informed me that this tenant has a very beer-guzzalicious blog that has him in some hot waters at his place of temp employment. Had I seen his blog I might have opted out of handing over the keys.
Any more episodes of odd and impaired judgment, I have told him, any brouhaha, will result in an end to this chapter.
Onwards. Time to enjoy some girlies, including b-day girl Lauren.

Patio Love.
NOT lanterns, as that Canadian rockstar geek of yore sang of decades ago.

Feels so real, I got the steering wheel.
So sang those bitchin' gals of punkrock, L7, about one excellent femme, Shirley Muldowney, racing legend.
Let us just say that today I spent the usual large amount of time in the car but the dessert if You will of vehicular interaction was had during the golf tourney Yours Truly was paid to doc today out at the lakeside, sort of, club, where I still have a few pals who work, who make the magic happen. I was speaking to Jana as I arrived at the country club, wending down their hillock driveway, anticipating. I nearly wrote c.c. in lieu of country club and the memory bank sent up kid years with my dad pronouncing from the front seat that our family exurb country club had a sign up - C.C. - for club closed along their weed-edged access road, met with our squalls of half-horror . . . and half-knowing that dad did this to harangue us and that it amused him to hear our ardent vociferations.
Onwards.
I said goodbye to Jana, ditched my car somewhere, and, like a super hero morphing from pedestrian to caped alterself switched from 2-handed driver to Intrepid Journalist and, concurrently, grinning golf cart go-getter. Let us just say that that Go-Kart was put through its paces today. Like Shirley, I gunned the little motor, I did not let up on any of the curves, I zigged and zagged amongst the old and wise and young and wispy trees, I took hills like a trooper, thoughts merged to what if, what if I roll this damned thing, but I kept it moving. Oh, sure, I jumped a few curbs but nobody was injured, no lenses were jolted from the bag, nobody was hurt, no screams. I was so thrilled to have the wind whizzing past my ears, flattening my eyebrows to my head like racing stripes, I wanted to share the moment with my beloved sister who was always by my side, my accomplice, when we slipped off as my parents enjoyed cocktails with other clubbers after dinner, to forage for carts with keys left in ignitions, to floor the pedals and make off into the dusk. My sister would not be at work and chances are she would not answer her semi-neglected cellie so off I sped and told her about it later. I am still smiling. I saw yellow finches. I made beautiful pictures.
To update the semi-oft-repeated quote of Winston Churchill.
Golf is not a ruined walk in the country but a good, thrilling, somewhat perilous ride in a Go-Kart with pesky pedestrians wacking a ball about.

Love of Muldowney.

Today in the Middling City there is a brash warning that has those, like Yours Truly, in need of maneuvering mowers, in throes of joi: the air is in an agitated, polluted state and it has been advised from higher-up meteorologists that heavy lifting and such be avoided. Like the plague. Like touching mower blades. Like petting raccoons.
Yesterday had a marathon Starbucks editing day, five straight hours in their hyper-ac'd place until I looked down and noted that my legs were a neato shade of violet.
Today, for the sake of balance and reportage and science, I am working in a locally-owned coffee joint that has no ac on and I am sweltering.
Lesson learned. Always opt for cold when working on laptop.
When I first arrived here there were three women reading newspapers as a toddler that assumedly belonged to one of them tottered about, occasionally cracking his head on things and then screaming until one of them scooped him up and carried him outdoors. Then they'd knock on the large plate glass window amusing their little group hugely. Me and another laptopper were just not as amused.
Lesson learned. Always opt for cold, and child-free zones.
And never ever forget earbuds again to keep the screeches out, the soundtrack in.
On Thursday night went out with Kennedy and the jazz musicians, Bandmate Scott, and a couple of filmmakers for a post-concert repast. The music, speaking of soundtracks, overhead was a hideous blend of bad rock tunes, short on ironic inflections, just bad. Two of the bandmates are Brits and it was quickly noted that most of the badtunes were from their homeland. Suddenly Billy Joel came on and I noted loudly that now the quote unquote mix had reached rock bottom. Discussion turned to Mr. Joel and I regaled them with my Billy Joel lore: You know, the teleprompter on the piano, the pre-Mr. Joel stage arrival reading of The Rules (no requests, no Happy Birthday, no handing of any tapes whatsoever to Mr. Joel ... he had gone to court over stealing the riff of an aspirant). I then told them of how one of my Richmond Avenue roomies announed to me and Constance one evening that her younger brother had been living in our attic. We had heard music. He loved listening to Billy Joel. We let him continue living in the attic. We charged him dearly for the priviledge. But things took a weird turn when he listened to Mr. Joel louder and louder and Constance and I one night, arm-in-arm sung along to She's Only a Woman as if we were the deepest revellers in an earthy rathskellar. Tom/Attic Boy never spoke another word to either of us. Well, he never usually did. For he never usually left the attic, save for when he went to his engineerng classes. Then he moved back to Pennsyltucky.

Sweaty, working Love.

Had two divergent gigs today, the last one in the epicenter of the quaintness of Hamburg. You know, the place where thee hamburger originated.
On the way to said quaint gig I spotted a caffeine joint I had not seen before and whilst talking to my photo subject asked if she'd ever been there. She swore by their caffeine, and added another option. Common Ground. Since it was getting to be rush hour traffic I opted for the latter choice, it being on the same side of the street that I was wending along. First weird thing was the parking lot was empty save for four Amish-type men, all in hats, functionalware, like over-alls. I parked across the street. Inside the joint, billed as a restaurant/cafe I was overwhelmed by my solitude. I called out to see if anyone was inside. A zonked-out looking woman appeared from the shadows, in plainclothes. They were open for coffee. Looking around the room Yours Truly was amazed that this place had been airlifted from about three decades ago, replete with macrame wall-hangings, earthy artifacts, rough-hewn wooden furniture.
Some Biblical quotes on the wall gave this place away as thee Common Ground associated with the bakery, a religious commune, some would say cult. My pal Michael Niman reported extensively on this group, noting their zeal at having youngsters working, some anti-Semitic sentiment in their brochures, and on. The Buffalo Food Co-Op felt so strongly about these matters that they stopped carrying Common Ground bread after Niman's articles were published.
The zonked-out girl asked if I knew much about their community. For the sake of escaping in under several hours YT replied Nope.
Had the meager coffee, elated it was not drugged and my name is not now Sykirah or whatever. The muffin thing was okay. Zonky Girl had baked it.
Let us just file this under Fieldtrips that need not be repeated.

Common Love.

*NB: new, better Ana Mendieta link below for You*

As usual, there I was, minding my own business.
The business at hand was documenting art and happenstance at the Cuban American (no hyphen) exhibition yesterday. Upstairs, in the other gallery space, were four prints by none other than superstar Ana Mendieta, the artist who Yours Truly believes is responsible for planting a lucrative seed in the mind of Cindy Sherman. Mendieta had a fab Whitney retro a while ago, one of those altering experiences. What in earlier times (70's) was called an earth artist, site-specific, gender issues tossed in.
You may also recall the story of her untimely ending as I do - neighbors hear yelling, scream, thud. Ana Mendieta tossed out a window by her sculptor beau, Carl Andre. Who walks freely amongst us.
It's time for YT once again to wend my way out to the suburbs to begin attempt #2 to make some portraits of a doc (that's doctor to those in the non-know) who gave me the slip on Friday, leaving out the back door after a meeting as he had not shaved. This is Diana Ross behaviour. Not many can get away with this type of thing. Carl Andre defenestrates at will. Diana Ross can slap whomever she pleases. And docs can stiff photogs any time they wish.
Is this a democratic world.
Is Gitmo a Club Fed.
I rest my case.

Weaving, wending Love.

Have no delightful evidence just yet but will in sooth have some primo, eye-pleasers soon as twice this week I was hired to photograph (God only knows who is reading so Yours Truly will not say bootylicious) Mikhail Baryshnakov - at a last dress for the premier of three new pieces and then for last night's VIP hoopla where Himself appeared in troubling brown shoes with a dark suit, yearning for a glass of wine. I approximated that it took him about one hour to traverse the room from wine station to snack centre as in the gulley between were about fifty people who wanted to touch him, to do the usual and adulatory things.
During the last dress I was sitting after some set-ups for the NYT and Middling City News at the edge of the stage when Himself came towards me. Enjoying? he queried.
Suddenly I demi-gushed, replete with fluttering hands thusly.
Oh it's GREAT, so much action.
Action.
The special visual treat for You is forthcoming, I think a nice solo shot of him where the light is hitting his eyes in an arresting way.
In one of the pieces Baryshnakov dances before a digvid projection of him as a teen, all jumpy lithe energy. It was not my favourite part but was a great use of digvid for sure and I did think of aeons ago when I was Cultural & Performing Arts Chair at UUAB (that would be univ union activities brd) and programmed an evening with Kathy Rose, who danced in front of her own animations to a funky funky beat.
Across the room where I am blogging and soaking up the wi-fi molecules is a Native man bare-chested save for a brown leather vest. He's wearing a brown suede cowboy hat with a gold chain around its crown. He looks like he's wearing eye makeup. This is something one just does not see each and every day. My thoughts, naturally, lead to Johnny Depp.

Depp in Love.

Here are two images made by Richard Wicka at the premier party for Sweet Jesus last night at Otis's joint, Century Grille. Richard Lambert did a primo job playing Jesus, as some said perhaps a bit too dead(pun intended)-on. The soundtrack was excellent, Michel Weber's song a typically-dark number which all her work is infused with. At some moments, however, of the film, I would have yelled CUT if I had been sitting in the director's chair for they went on a bit too long, visual trails that could have been a bit more tidy, chopped. The above left image is Yours Truly with Kimmie and Tony Billoni, who are both in the film. Richard was photographing them and I snuck into the frame and then this happened. When I saw the results on the back of Richard's camera I let out a skuh-reem - look at that tongue. The other image is YT attempting a supermodel look to no avail while Annie gets the job done. There were no snaxx at said party and the former Studio G (upstairs from CGrille) is now an odd, emptied space for hearing live music. Oh, one of my most fervent stalkers who shall remain unnamed, was there being avoided deftly for he had seen me upon arriving at the movie theatre and I barely escaped his overzealous and discomfiting attentions.
Had popcorn for dinner, as well as some deep and hearty laughs. What more could one wish from a movie premier. Oh, a gift bag. Where in hell is my freakin' gift bag.

Love of gifts, and bags.

Here is a very jubilant image of Hillary, I like this image, it shows her radiance, confidence, love of (still) the pant suit, the crowd's adoration.
Thought You would dig this.
Tonight is the downtown, red-carpeted premier of No Budget Films's Sweet Jesus, written and directed by Greg Sterlace, Middling City luminary. Greg asked if I'd be interested in a part in his next film, the part of a psychiatrist. Will I pursue this, my first filmic role in quite some time. Does the thought (as I wrote last night to Curly) of seeing my face about fifteen feet wide terrify me. Well, I rest my case, and will give it my precious little time.
Time to zoom off to the land of celluloid promise.
Cut to me rushing home as a kid to tell my parents of some political event where I landed in front of some television camera. Mom, Dad, I think I'm going to be on the news at 6. Then we'd sort of listen or watch and then, in several instances, my parents would say Looks like you ended up on the cutting room floor.

No Love for that floor.

Well, here is a nice visual treat for You - Yours Truly plus Mr. Chairman Denny Farrell of the Shiney Apple as well as the Empire State Capitol. Note how YT is showing a bit of meager cleavage. And do note the lapel pins that I and Mr. Chairman Denny Farrell are wearing, the little rectangles depicting an enamelized NYS. This pin meant that anywhere YT wished to roam she could, with impunity. Backstage to grab a shot of Bill + Hill, no problem. The downstaters were not impressed, nor should they have been, with the state of the Middling City's downtown. No plethora of WelcomeDelegates signage, floral plantings in front of buildings, a sense that things were tidy. The VIP delegation I rolled with commented upon the lack of pedestrians, lack of cabs (I told them that I tip people who wish to taxi anywhere that they allow a good hour), lack of a bon vivant vibe. I found Andrew Cuomo surprisingly real, watching him at a few tent soirees mingling with ease, and the way he adores his three daughters for real. I dubiously watched Hill hold a small snowglobe aloft with a buffalo inside it as she told the tale of a maid at The Mansion who took good care of her. No name to fact check. I told one of the Chairman's handlers, one of three Franks, that I found the story not only smarmy but questionable. He noted that a few years ago she would have remembered the name of the maid. If there was a maid. Despite this vibe I will still vote for her. I kept my last Hillary sign which I had inside my window so it would not get swiped in the night. Eliot Spitzer, as I already knew, is a keeper, is a charmer, is as real as Cuomo. He unabashedly left a fundraiser to return to the hockey game he was missing. One of the most notable happenstances that happened to YT was suddenly being sprawled upon the dirty carpet of the Hyatt Regency Grand (in quotes) Ballroom, after a tiny Chinese lady with giant round specs plowed into me as she ran for the stage at top speed. She got tangled up in my right leg and kaboom, we were both on the ground, her head nearly landing in the center of the drumkit that had been in use by the gospel choir that got things rolling on DemCon Day 2. The little Chinese lady and I were both lying there, I immediately worrying about the cam. She got up, never looking behind her, and showed up on stage alongside the Dem committee secretary in moments. I got scooped up by a giant delegate. In a short while I was laughing uproariously about the collision with some security men who had witnessed the entire impact, them telling me to keep a healthy distance from them. Ironically enough, and I always dig the big I, I bumped into the little Chinese lady later as we both whirled around in the revolving doors and THEN the following morning as I departed from the parking garage. There she was, walking down the sidewalk. And, when she saw me, her mean and pinchy eyes glared serious hatred. For she believes that I sort of tripped her unintentionally, that my foot was jutting out unreasonably far from my body. She told one of the security men this.
The balloon drop was a flop. The coffee was all bad. The hours were all long. But mostly it was fun, educational in some ways, adrenalizing.
Time to leave my secret corner of the teahouse and the orbit of happy vibes and to depart for the happy vibes of the little, woman-owned and women-run Italian joint not too far from here. And then more edits. And then more edits.

Edit, Love, Edit Love.

Went to the Shadow with Erin and Justy last night, after their sporty evening downtown. A non-feeble cover band replete with horn section had begun Honky Tonk Woman when there coming into the joint was thee Honky Tonk Woman, a vision in black georgette, gold lamé, and straw. Straw for the hat. She was the arm candy of a fella who, it was quite obvious, had her at the center of his libidinous sphere.
And, along the country line, the previous night was primo girlie night and, en route to our final and sushi-rich destination, we spotted what in the Middling City (in some circles) is what they call a big deal - the former mechanical bull now coated in thick brown fuzz to resemble a buffalo. Get it.
For a moment I watched the tipplers board the buffalo and hang on, first doing their best and most sexiest humping moves until the man manning the buffalo controls got this wicked look on his face, punched a few other buttons resulting in sideways fast bucks and the tippler would topple.
Geez, with consonance like this I really should be a banner engineer for New York Post.
DKNY has invited me to rent the lofty sofa for the summer.
On this wistful note I end, wending my way towards shooting the fourth wedding of a Middling City pal. I reserve snark at this moment, as is so not my wont.

Wont Love.

Ryan Adams's Demolition seemed the perfect afternoon choice, a collection of jangly rock with a political undertow.
Good news came at me about half an hour ago, I've been selected to be Eliot Spitzer's shadow for three days during the Middling City's Dem convention. I am a fan, I wanted this.
As I got The Call Dorothy was doing my nails, painting them a most femmey light pink, a good luck gesture I forged, in addition to a hair fine-tuning.
Now it's time to do a little homework.
Found frames yesterday for the show, ready-mades that will suffice at an affordable price. Now just the creating of images to be trapped underneath the glass. Have to alert Todd the Printer that images are coming his way soon, the realizations of what is in the sketchbooks and in the head of Yours Truly. The newly fine-tuned head.

Outward Appearances Love.

To be filed under A.
For Are you freakin' kidding me.
A pregnant femme was referred to me by several pals who I have made portraits of over the years. I call said pf and reassure her that not only has Yours Truly been doing this artsy-craftsy-journalistico thing for, oh, decades and more to come, but that I have photographed the mid to very pregnant before.
She tells me that her sister-in-law has had some pp's done in The Shiney Apple (cue the photog reaction of Oh, here we go. . . ).
Cutting to the good bits, the smarmiest of the bunch featured a butterfly, faux, on the belly of the femme in the photo. A faux butterfly, as if the belly were a force of nature, a giant flower to be alighted upon.
Thoughts wander to this femme is probably going to Google images and such under my name and I'll never hear from her again but this must be said
You are pregnant, the human body is usually quite alarmingly beautiful in all its dimensions, and pregnancy should strive for the primal end of the aesthetics spectrum rather than dumb down into what includes Precious Moments figurines.
And no paired wedding rings around your navel, either.
Here I end my anti-pregnant-art-smarm rant.

Love, in all shapes, in all sizes.

Like trundling through a new recipe, wearing a pair of smart & smartly-designed shoes that make you feel in touch with some very great part of your self, like a pal allowing you a turn driving a new and fast car.
What, You ask.
My first time out with my newest lens, one of the Nikkors made solely for work on digital bodies. A 17-55. A dream. Fast, sharp, lovely. Its first gig was a hoopla celebrating the ritualistic noting of manhood. A Bar Mitzvah. Fab images of children in throes of sugar mayhem, high on my list of images to make and do. And, as I have blogged before, one of my few life regrets is that I did not start amassing such images twenty years ago in lieu of a few. When they're ready I will probably post a few of the more, shall We say, chaotic ones here.
One in particular shows a near-drooling, wild-eyed six-year old girl coming at me and the 17-55 with a party favour. Another, a chocolate-smeared face of a pre-teen. There were no teen lust images to make, no slow dancing amongst the young and hormone-addled.
But there was waltzing, as the parents are both South American. And some (read between lines) Interesting ensembles. The barkeep nearby diagrammed out the ladies's attire for me thusly.
This is quite and ODD one, isn't it.
How so, Yours Truly inquired.
Well, you've got the lady over there (head nod) in the pink plastic cocktail dress, then you've got some in jeans and sandals. Then you've got Annie Hall over here (another nod).
And there, coming at us was Annie Hall, in unspringlike, dark fabrics.
The Middling City grows more verdant by the hour and the flower seeds beckon to be buried from 1/4"-1" but it is still too on the other side of warm for that.
Today is the first gathering of the girlie reading club.
We read Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury riffs well on action-adventure moments whereas his dialogue inspires thoughts of corrective red pencil tracings.
Just read the NYT article about architectural travails in China and at U of VA.
Compare & Contrast:
-China, go for it (gee, reminds me of Sen. Schumer's famed and fabled speech YT has heard to date 4 or is it 5 times... I didn't get the job and I didn't get the girl... which ends with his fist-up and resounding GOFORIT)
-U VA, we'll see.

We'll see, Love.

Gravitating towards - ever - the merch table at the Whitney, post-biennial, snatched up (and paid for) a copy of the new Bjork/Barney cd, soundtrack for Drawing Restraint 9.
Let Yours Truly just say that yesterday was a fulfilling day, running and rushing the gamut from puppets to pasties.
Had a dinner most perfect at some Lower East Side hotspot, the little Italian chef looking up periodically wild-eyed. I liked his combos. I did not (and Dorota and Jason would concur) dig his chair selections, they cheapened up the joint.
Time to rush.
For that is my nature.

Natural Love, running the gamut.

Flung myself into the visual strata of a few Shiney Apple art joints, drawing parallels, sketches, and conclusions.
First off the 4 from the A from the AirTrain from the plane from the car, I wended my way around the old school haunts noting that my favoured pedicure joint has unceremoniously folded up their mysterious tent so to speak.
Spotted some old ghosts around Parsons School of Disconnectedness and moved along in the rain that turned to sunshine to the upper regions alongside the park to just soak in creation.
Found amazing reference materials in the show of Kara Walker, who makes those political and violent, usually, silhouettes. Some Dutch artists who noted the powers of the elements, mostly water. Something I needed to see as that's what I am making and setting afire in the studio.
I thought, for the sake of safety, about making a simple lean-to of transluscent material to filter out a lot of natural light in a controlled manner.
Had one of those memorable dinners at Pink Pony on the Lower East Side - and then a few at a poseur rock hangout - with a gang who kept it light light and light.
Awoke to Dorota and Jason's newbie kitties scrambling down my legs before nestling in to steal some of my lithe body heat.
Time to walk to Elizabeth Street and then to points much beyond for more more more visual language.

Languid language of Love.

Have a firm date of sorts for the opening of the next show to happen early next month, as in June, as in mere weeks away, as in good, old-fashioned adrenalizing p.a.n.i.c.
The making/printing/framing/hanging dance.
And opening banquet to plan.
And postcard to design.

Therefore it's time for R&D which has been happening in sketches, readings, but now the grand R&D Centre for Visualizing - The Shiney Apple.
Heading there for moments as that's all about that can be crammed in around working.
Longer blogpost later, there's coffee to catch, planes to catch, A trains to catch. And then the green line to catch.

Caught up in Love.

Been in ultimate throes of commencement/wedding/freelance world. Photographed a delegation from Singapore last night, the ladies in colorful silks.
Speaking of colorful garb, this past weekend, in the Middling City's gray downtown district, saw throngs in white, flowing robes, red ceremonial-looking headwear, and white suits for the men. Upon closer, casual inspection saw that they were of the Ismalia Temple, an interesting contrast to the bright yellows of the Lions.
The Middling City is awash in Sabres Pride, Sabres magnetized flagpoles affixed to cars everywhere, and a general sense of adrenaline in the air obvious even to the most casual of sporty spectators - Yours Truly.
Dropped a big box of golf balls off at the public yet fee-grubbing golf course yesterday for the man who drove me about the course for my book gig. The book, a historical docu-drama about the US Open, is to appear in the world this autumn.
Speaking of autumn, Mrs. Ganey died, surrounded by five of her eight children, a few days ago. As sick as she was it seemed that her awesome will for more life would carry her along for months to come. Today is her wake and tomorrow the funeral and my thoughts are full of not only how the family was still reeling from the death of Mr. Ganey about a month ago, but of her strength, talents, quiet intensity. She was one of my lifetime's greatest inspirations as she painted, drew, wrote, pursued an advanced degree as a non-traditional student, cooked well, gardened, socialized madly, loved music, and all her children. One remarkable thing to me as a younger person was how both the Ganey parents welcomed challenges to their authority, if presented in a logical manner - something that did not happen where I lived. Mrs. Ganey inspired everyone who knew her (students she had at Nardin, friends, kids) to push to experience innate, creative gifts as well as the creative efforts out there in the world.
Despite waning, her last week she watched her beloved Sabres, went to a concert, played bridge, and talked to all her children.
One of the last things she said to me was Put pen to paper.

Creative, vibrant Love.

The Middling City is demi-sun today, another full day of gigs for Yours Truly.
Just had a gig for the U and had to battle my way through hundreds of Lions, the ballroom foyer awash with yellow vests, wacky hats expressing individuality to fly in the face so to speak of said vests, stalls of info about home care aids like giant-buttoned phones as well as helper dogs, and a general sense of conventioneer camaraderie and fraternity et egalité.
Sipping on coffee that the U had put out for its own attendees I decided to see what the buzz was around a certain booth that had attracted about a dozen or so Lionesses. I was immediately pounced upon by a Lion who noted I'd infiltrated, also noting that I did not fit in in my business suit. Now You can ask me any fun fact about Lions - I have them all.
Photographed E.O. Wilson, Pulitzer Prize winning scientist, who has studied ants. His talk was sobering, noting how collectively We are completely ruining bio-diversity - even our own.
On that note I'd heard enough and meandered back through the outer activity, seeking out the live demo dogs.
Yesterday's ultimate gig ended quite miserably, the chef in charge of banquetly matters really sucking and enraging those in charge who could not believe that one hour after the first dinner plates hit tables some were still sans dinners. The tension in and around the kitchen tasted like white vinegar and the woman who'd hired Yours Truly worried about the status of her job after this comestible fiasco. She informed me I was finished, and could leave a bit earlier than planned because the photographic meter was running and there was no end in sight of the plating. He is an artiste, she said, the chef wants each and every plate to look like a work of art. As any artist worth their art supplies will tell You, art may be made in a timely fashion.
As YT will tell You, regarding the pending art show allegedly to happen next month.
Where is the art, I ask You.
Expediently, when the time is free and right, it will turn from idea and sketches into real bona fide, on-the-walls work.
Parting shot is that art is work. Just like real work.
The drummer and priest at the unfortunate church next door are practicing - beats and on mic. Just not what a jangled workaholic wants to hear so up go mine own decibels, white and rollicking noise.

Rollllicking, noisey Love.

Self-humoured Moment du Jour.
The premier of a slew of gigs featured a very animated translator for the hearing impaired, all big flourishes and mouth shapes, hands in concert-worthy gestures, him near half-standing for emphasis. Made some pictures of him as he was a visually-interesting part of the event. At one point, about mid-programme, I noted that the man and woman next to me were also intently watching the translator. I sort of leaned over and said He's really fun to watch, isn't he. They both just looked at me. I repeated. They watched my lips. Then they gave small, quick nods and went back to watching the translating. Oh, I says to Myself, this is not just a state-mandated service, people actually use it, too.
Amongst the varied and various stops of yesterday was one at the Nowhereseville estate of a Middling City billionaire where I saw my pianist pal, Richie. While milling about, waiting for our services to be oso needed, I learned this fun fact, proving once again that You just never ever can guess what secrets, fetishes, and fascinations lurk in the minds of others.
Turns out he's a self-proclaimed gun freak, just bought a very serious and kick-ass gun, and is going to be buying his girlie a Taser.
The high rollers came into the parlour and we snapped to our respective attentions, being fabulous yet blending as best as we could into the nouveau yet faux-haggard woodwork. Reward after: T&Ts on the richest of verandas, The Roycroft, with one of the Life Coaches, Brucey, for some good old-fashioned Rah-rah You can do it talk.
Do what, You ask.
It all.

5/5 Love - halfway to 10/10, the day YT most Perfectly emerged.
+
Happy Birthday to Dragon Boy.

So, dig this.
En route to the poesie extravaganza I saw a spectacular car fire (NB: this image is via Google Images, not moi) not too far from the bridge that bridges the Middling City and The Land of Mackintosh Toffee.
The car fire was in its beginning stages as I was approaching, that stage when it seems perhaps there's just an overly-hot cuppa Starbucks in the cup holder, or something akimbo with some trash alongside the vehicle. Then that sight of the upholstery catching, that fearful thought that something is really going to ExPlOdE. But it does not. Somehow Yours Truly has managed to see a lot of car fires and subsequently I consider myself a bit of an authority on them, having also, You see, discussed them with emergency car fire anti-abettors - i.e. firemen/killjoys.
So I am stopped in traffic but all the world around the roaring car fire had stopped. Then the firemen arrived and the show was like so over. My camera was not on hand. I have soul-searched and I am allright with this.
Memory bank offers up another car fire on an overpass of a biway of the MC and, as I approached the blaze up ahead and above, I reached for my camera and shot away madly through the windshield. Very dramatic - both the shooting and the fire.
That's far down south and down and over in the southwest.
Urban Epiphany, like the fire/far, was a raging success, although running behind. I read and read and read some more. Actually cutting down to about one-third of what I had penned & planned as the hour was laterific. I felt solid reading, really digging the words. And enjoying most of the words of the others. I needed to leave and upon leaving was followed by one of the readers who asked me to be a featured writer/reader at a series that he produces.
Now another memory.
The Writers' Cramp Series that YT ran for years with partner Paul T. Hogan. This series freakin' rocked: two free reading per month, and always featuring one newbie, one established, one superstar of sorts. I moved the WCS from the somewhat obscure Bethune Gallery (sigh) to Central Park Grill. Thursdays. MCd alternatingly with Paul and I gave readers souvenir WCS tshirts I hand silkscreened. Ahh, the 80s.
So somewhere sometime YT will be a featured person.
Arose at the asscrack of dawn to wend my way to a golf course to make poetry in the form of digital images for a book to be published internationally about the History of the U.S. Open. Part of such took place aeons ago on the green greens of Grover Cleveland GC.
Had a sherpa, Paul, who took me out on the cart and who guided me about so all's I had to do was focus, look, think, compose, think, focus, chat, laugh, focus, repeat.
Let Us just put it this succinct way. With my imPerfect sense of direction and maply impatience, I might still be out there looking for freakin' 18.

Hole 19 Love.

Minding my own business, of course, I said Yes to the annual pome marathon. And, lest You not know (or knot now) pomes is the old-farty word for poems.
In a matter of moments I'll be facing a (hopefully unhostile) bunch of amassed listeners, reading, amongst other things, my new and sketchy Element Song.
Element Song is meant as a sketch of sorts for the pending photo images for the show.
Secret: this is what Yours Truly does, makes lit for visual shows. If there's not a good bit of poesie for the work then there is trouble abrew. So there is Element Song and all is swell.
Think I'm most happy with Fire. Then Earth. Then Water. Then Air.
But Air is how I'll be ending this Urban Epiphany reading as it has some hale advice for how to read the air, how to groove on what surrounds us. That, Everyone, is always the matter at my hand regarding visuals. And what I tried to say in that grad school - put a visual on the world teeming with air/fire/water/life/rock & roll/earth/shoes.

Love's Teem.

Got together with Les Girlies last night to celebrate the birth of Janine, who was in her rare form. Got her some crocheted tights and a Middling City mag for her Shiney Apple joint, her being The Crochet Girl and all, crafting hats, or at least she did in the past.
Slated for the other Shiney item, the Shiney Happy Mag, Yours Truly will be inking away furiously, or, rather, laptopping madly, a story about those who live literally in the long shadows of the grain elevators. I plan on knocking on doors, the camera bag disguised for wisdom's sake. Hope to not encounter any secret cockfighting rings, crackheads, and the like.
Script.
YT: Hello, pardon me, but may we rap about how and why you live here. I want to hear stories of high times, union riots, the scent of Cheerios, lay it on me.
OFW resident: Plethora of witticisms with mad quotes peppered in.
Onwards.
Cannot say just yet what the other is about, today switching from something else.
This AM shot two gigs out at Middling City U, the first being a crafting extravaganza for children along for the Take Your (Snivveling) Kid(s) to Work Day.
Crafting. I ask You.
Supposing this is a respite for the children who don't give a hoot about water cooler convos.
Time to wend away for errands and then the usual laptop moments.

Tethered to the laptop, Love.

Looking for venture capitalists for a new business I'm going to hopefully launch soon, inspired by a daytrip of sorts I took yesterday, leading Harold along the two-lane to Niagara Falls, New York with a stop at what was once, and always will be, the buried (both the canal, and the chems) Love Canal. I dubbed our daytrip Toxic Tours. First stop Love Canal, nestled behind a facade of concrete and expressway, hard to find. Where the school was is now a fenced-off area with the newer addition of vents and guages and metal contraptions you would definitely not want to mess around with. I have had an ongoing fascination with Lois Gibbs, housewife turned activista, as well as what remains. Occasionally I've gone up there and made images of the perennials that persist where there were gardens and now it's harder to find them. Yesterday I shot this tree trunk that was uplifted for some reason, maybe new development like the senior residences nearby. I decided there must be something of note in the mud in the roots and poked about until I came up with a broken green shard and a white porcelain animal face, all that's left of some figurine. Shot more trees that have been cut down but that are coming back ferociously and noted a huge birch tree with a long green stripe of moss down (You guessed it) its north side. Onwards then to closed chemical factories with rather elegant facades that look like movie theatre marquees. There's nothing quite like the expanse of sunny Niagara Falls desolation. Such natural beauty, raging green waters with an unforgettable smell, producing such pathetic attempts at cashing in.
Time to make more art.

Love Canal Love.

This just in, from the What the Hell Desk.
Well, the poetry reading in sooth is not at all happening tomorrow. It's next week.
And this means more time to hover over pages.
You know, Yours Truly has a lot on her plate at this moment with the usuals plus readying for the next solo show and such.
Bought a lith print intro kit for consideration for the above and have not yet poked about into its chem possibilities. From what YT saw lith prints resemble infra-red but in more golden tones.
This also just in, from the Metro Closures Department.
Harold informs me that the other good and small contiguous suburban diner near the best of the MC area's Olmsted Parks (that would be South Park with its delightful ring road that is actually bucolic and beautiful and not sidling alongside the Bad Karma Expressway like one Delaware Park) has closed. Went there once with Kennedy and did not make it back for their odd diner menu featuring real live French fare. He tells me it's now going to be a hotdog stand. And, sadly, this site was The Coffee Pot which had 8x10 glossies covering every square greasy inch of the joint. This all makes me think I should visit soon the other super-secret diner location in what YT lovingly refers to as Little Appalachia - the Grant Street area.
On that geographical note YT signs off and rushes out into Freelance World.

My ongoing, erstwhile, earnest, and dinerific Love.

After a break in the morning's throttled work schedule slipped off the grid for a respite to the SW, at one of the contiguous Middling City suburbs, at one of the favoured secret diners. Then slipped into the Botanicus Gardenus for a little sniffing business and the orchid room was unforgettably sticky. I had to rush out of their when a gaggle of aged loudspeakers straggled in with inane observations. And then went back, looked at petals for flame-like characteristics. Brushed my hands over everything and felt the softest pre-bloomed flower of a Lollipop plant. Not its namus Latinus.
Time for more more more work before a gap in work and then more work and then less work and then tomorrow a full day of working.
Poetry reading on Sunday. Details to follow, like on Monday.

Follower of Love.

In lieu of Neil the Y - not the D - Velour of yore is on the hi-fi, emanating that fin de siècle songcraft that I was so imbued in so then. So much so that I was invited to their dress rehearsal to give notes on The Impressions. I recall a bandshoot I did with them near the grain elevators, they were all into their hair, not wanting to get dirty. Boys, rock, noise, hai-karate kicks.
And You know what. I will tell You. They still completely rock the loud-decibeled stratosphere.
I sold myself to a blue-eyed devil, she'll never get the best of me.
That, my Perfect epinw readers, is what rock is all about - the operatic moments of life and love, presented in a somewhat vulnerable manner with teeth, so to speak.
So when your sun begins to fall, was it worth your weight in gold.
Here is another primo example of what makes the rock the rock. The above sounds great as a rock lyric, sung. But, in retrospect, upon close(r) inspection, what in blazes does this mean.
This leads me to the real matter at hand, the Neil Young movie.
It's not exactly that I feel that there are 1.5 hours I can never regain, that is too strong a sentiment and such, but really. The shots of Ryman tip me off to what I did not see down there in Nashville when TunaTwin and I traversed this fair land for the first time together, wending our way up and down the main drag, dragging ourselves into and out of famed joints.
Actually, we became the Tuna Twins down there when a very old man spoke to the two of us and, noting our similar faces, and YT ends that snippet here.
So, back to Neil.
The first demi of the movie is, assumedly, the first night of two, is all new material and that material had me nearly in nap mode. I looked at Brucey and said So he had an aneurism, must we all suffer. That bad. Smarm. Smarm. Smarm.
Second half is the second night, the old shit You love.
Here, a trib:
High school nights of spring when the self begins to crocus out into the world and Neil was on the jukebox of one Checker's. He became part of the soundtrack for our wobbly, young lives of borrowed cars, borrowed apartments, raging intellects, hitched-up uniform box-pleated skirts, and hitching-to-school thumbs up. Loomis's rooms with Neil warbling out of what today would be an iPod was then a boombox.
So long ago and so far away.
Neil Y's Unplugged is an item you must have in the NY collection - if for only what is usually on most discs the cherished track, #6. You Are Like a Hurricane. This version is one of three songs that ever stopped me dead in tracks, gave the goosebump. This is all Life molecules, all Art gestures, All Green, in one fell swoop.
Said tonight to a friend Of course you are your age, think of all the things you have done, all the wondrous things you have seen.
YT rests her wondrous case. Once again.
I am the dreamer, You are the dream. Dig.

Sentimental journeyed Love.

The person in the photo is Richie English, a portrait I made of him in situ at tonight's gig.
Remember that name, he is an en route star.

To be filed under M, formerly as in Dragon Boy, but presently for Middling City Classique.
Funny how time changes our personal alphabetical refs.
A certain pal of Yours Truly, who shall not be named (You know, as Sam wrote, God is a witness that cannot be named), has relocated to the Shiney Apple for work as the MC path had gone completely vapid for him. So there he went. So there he was this fine evening along with a few others who thrive and do this & proverbial that wherever need be. He was, I swear to You, eating a platter of chicken wings as heartily as any rubber-necker/do-gooder/erstwhile visitor hunkering down for MC good times might do.
Thoughts run to what else suchtypes might do in the MC.
Those who were but now are former but who have a surprising leaning toward the, YT searches for a suitable and diplomatic word, textbook attraction.
Yes, the textbook.

Not so sure about Textbook Love.

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.