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

Onwards, Love.

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

Murgo, Etro, vino Love.

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

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

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

Poetic, far-away Love.

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

Seaside love, Love.

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

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

Travelling Love.

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

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

Watch your back, Love.

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

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

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

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

Sad sad art day, Love.

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

The End.

Not the end of Love, Love, ever.

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

Flashes of Love.

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

Happy Rosey Day.

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

Scenic, hideout Love.

Was informed today by one whose op I rather treasure in parts that today We are to wear pink as a sign of solidarnosc for Anna Nicole.
Her fav colour was pink, You see.
I was not wearing pink earlier, nor now, although I looked at a pink sweater (subconsciously) and chose to wear purple instead.
I found her curious.
Did I think she was like Marilyn, as she blathered.
Only in the faux blondeness, the exuberant sexuality, the selling themselves to men in a rather gross manner, becoming a caricature.
Marilyn was more of a talent, in my non-humble op.
Heard from JW,Esq. who has informed me that for a Cali pal's b-day soirée where one and all were asked to come as a rock star or behave as one, he chose to dress an none other than Ozzy.
As not in and Harriet but thee Ozzy, one of the most kind-hearted rockers of all.
When JW,Esq. sends along a jpeg of himself in his costume (which was described in great detail and it had all the Ozzy bells & whistles) it will be appearing on epinw.
I did warn him of this.
Perhaps it will not arrive.
Off to points beyond and that is how all weekends should begin after a day of slogging and editing and the like.

Like editing, Love.

That very yumbalicious Jonny Lang performs at The Native American Money Sucking Pavilion tomorrow night.
First photographed that lanky blues man when he was about seventeen and glad to see his cheekbones have only improved with age.
Dined with Literal Harold last night at Republic on the square, as in Union.
Dorota breezed in for a quick Hello and marveled at how the joint was hiding some work being done on the ceiling above the kitchen and bar areas with red construction paper affixed with duct tape. It seemed so Middling City.
After goodbyes meandered into the Barnes and Noble over there to pick up Tiffany's pick for the book club, Fear of Flying, apparently most famed for coining phrase zipless fuck. I am like so not impressed with this book, which reads like a screeching proto-feminist tract that rails on about analysis and being liberated.
This book was published during the most seminal of years, '73, when Dark Side of the Moon emerged on the rock scene.
Always glad to be reading a tome for moiself and scanning ahead it seems it becomes a bit more of a narrative but as I was reading it in LaGuardia whilst waiting and then spotting someone who shall not be named who I know I did tuck it away, realizing it's just not the sort of book you want just everyone to know that you're reading.
Would Erica Jong state, back in the 70s or in these wartimes, that that makes me oso unliberated.
Geez, I really do not give a jot.
So, away the book is tucked, the flight was miraculously on time and Yours Truly is lightly humming the praises of both Delta and USAir, kind of leaving jetBlue alone for a while.

Lang Love.

Whilst dining last night in the Shiney Apple spotted Savion Glover, that tapdancing sensation. And, really, if he wanted to not be spotted he'd have a hell of a time with all those enchanting dreads and all.
Had a spectacular day of wending and wending and looking and watching. And, of course, thinking.
Found myself amongst the clothing of dead Nan Kempner, the socialite who wrote a book about entertaining, a sort of gossipy cookbook. The Met now owns her clothes. Laura and I marvelled at some items, chortled at others, mainly the 80s-era brandishments.
Why were we all so excited about such brandishments - the complicated collars, wrapping coats. I told Laura that I had a gray coat I was especially proud of back Then - a wrap coat that required scads of patience to get all affixed into place with its Japonaise, kimono-inspired wrapping on the inside.
The tour guide gave her quippicisms to the gaggle of ladies following her, marvelling at the cuts and fabrics (Yours Truly was truly aghast at the jacket lined with ... squirrel) and such and concluded with a controlled Q&A. She did proffer up the fact that Nan Kempner (who was about seven feet tall and from the looks of her clothing weighed about eighty pounds) has three children and her daughter, an artist, lives in the Village and is overweight. I said aloud, somewhat loud enough for the tour guide all dressed in orange and short of stature and also peculiar of stature so that she did resemble an Oompa-Loompa could hear - Geez, that isn't very kind.
Onwards now to more more more.
Before planing and deplaning once again.

Art starry Love.

Back in the Shiney Apple, spice snots streaming down my merry face.
For Yours Truly is happily seated in the front window (perhaps the nice girls behind counter will tap me on shoulder and say You know, every time you come here you eat a half bottle of our nuclear El Yucateco green hot sauce and scare pedestrians with your snot face, could you be so kind as to relocate to this more distant, less public table.) of Cubano Cafe Habana which has unfortunately painted over their colourful murals and have gone very minimalist.
Jumped off the J/Z on the Bowery and rushed over to Prince @ Elizabeth.

A funny, short tale, a YT highlight.
So there I am, post-asscrack of dawn, fumbling with the self-checker for USAir, having booked online via grand expedia.com for same.
Nothing. No getting of me on docket, no recognition of flight number.
I stand in line. A man calls to me I'll help you with the machine. I'm warbling I tried that already. Grimace, grimace. Man shouts Come down here and I'll help you and if it doesn't work HE (gesturing to man behind counter) will help you.
I shuffle down there. I say Well, maybe it's because it was booked online.
Swipe credit card. Nothing. Grumble.
I pull out my print-out of itinerary.
He takes a quick look.
Well, he says, the trouble is you're on Delta.
Oh.
Problem Solved.
So, for Your Enlightening, Delta is a good Choice B, C, or A for jetting from the Middling City to Shiney Apple.

Over and out.

Elizabeth@Prince Love.

So today is like the Super Bowl.
But it's about movies, not football thugs.
And, really, not wanting to be a giant party pooper, but I'm not into the Oscars.
My pal Karen cringes as she reads this.
And my mind zooms back to some Oscar Night parties I attended that were fun, to a point.
Now, mind you, I am an ultra-proud card-carrying member of Film Forum and watch more movies classique than the average public popcorn muncher (pet peeve numero uno), but this whole commercialized, let's gossip about rich folk thing really doesn't inspire.
I suppose I might like to see who is tripping along the red carpet.
And I will read which movie captured the hearts and souls of the Academy voters.
Only saw two of the movies, The Queen and Departed.
And as Yours Truly wrote the word Departed I queried internally thusly Is it really Departure.
I rest my Oscar-ambivalent case.

Last night met up with Brucey and parked in Allentown and trekked to the Saarinen-made Kleinhans Music Hall to be supportive of our wine and beer-pouring pal, Paul Safy, young crooner on the rise.
He sang with the Middling City Orchestra, three showy tunes, and did an amazing job.
I both beamed like a proud relative and worried that he'd fall on the cord, or fall of the stage. I was, let Us say, a proud wreck.
Saw him afterwards and we exchanged shouted greetings as he signed copies of his cd for those who just discovered his rich barritone.
And when he's all famous and shit YT can state He sang Happy Birthday to YT way back when.

Way back, cinematic Love.

What did Yours Truly photograph on this fine Middling City day.
Well, YT will tell you.
A bot war.
You know, as in (ro)bot, war.
Made by young met at the U, guys who were either resembling lumberjacks in plaid shirts, huge of stature, or resembling little thin branches that lumberjacks would send crashing to the ground.
The branch guys involved in this bot war were the ones, YT noted, who manned the remote controls of the bots.
There was a plexi cage, a roof of chix wire, a small door. All this elevated.
It rather reminded me of the cock rings in the Philippines with its ring of shouting watchers, the door, and the feeling of a minor, imminent doom.
Poked around the crowd and made images from outside the door and then leaning into the bot war ring when there were adjustments being made - until a concerned citizen type said it was time to get the hell out.
These bots were impressive, not quite Mark Pauline in that they did not shoot out fire, but they were heavy, metal, and caused great damage.
Back to cock fights. Talked my way into one cock ring and did not feel that if a cock with 4-inch blade flopped my way that I'd be cut to ribbons.
Made images at end of all rounds that one sweltering day when the cock owners and handlers butchered the cocks who had lost.
Runner-ups are gone, as in roost in sky gone.
Speaking of destruction,
there is a jungle rot thing happening on one of YT's fingers, something I squirted Bactine on for a few days. Well now it's angrier. So now it's being swabbed with something more serious.
The medically-minded sister got rather hysterical upon hearing about the jungle rot, at one point suggesting, dig this, that it could, just Could, be a flesh-eating spider bite.
She got hysterical after I mentioned the swollen lymph node.
After she hystericed I suggested that that only means that my body is working to get rid of the, well, whatever it is.
Promised her that if this ebola thing is worse on sunday I will, promise, no fingers crossed, head to some authority on such matters.
Perhaps the zoo. Maybe botanical gardens.
Hospital.
Santa Ria practioner.
I just do not know.

Flesh-Eating Love.

First off, my nouveau poly-carbon shovel just completely kicks ass and worked wonders on the horrid sno-cone-esque quote-unquote snow that lingers.
Today is that day that some folks in the Middling City roam about with smudges on their foreheads, something that always takes me slightly aback–not aback to any past, or roots, or scholastic endeavour.
I did ask Leah Rico today, who I bumped into, if she'd like me to provide her forehead with a smudge, whilst looking about for some dust or whatnot. She declined.
Last night met up with some of the bookclub girls at DiGiulio's for a wine and cheese fest, avoiding the melee that is the MC's version of Mardi Gras.
I pronounced to no one in particular, but was surrounded in a small subdining room by others heaping salad plates with cheeses, that Yours Truly was in cheese heaven.
Is there a better thing to eat than cheese.
I think not.
I tried to tell the wine rep onhand how much I was rather into loathing New York State wines, and absolutely the one he was holding aloft.
Ever being the good sport, succumbed to his wish that I try it.
My head was overcome with the sweet and chemical scent of concord.
He pointed to the reject bucket and in it went. From glass, not from mouth.
Things picked up after that.
We girls sat in the restaurant's circular booth and ended up inviting the wine rep and his beleaguered wife to join us. He told some jokes. She shook her head. He made disparaging comments about her. She reacted as I'm sure she has for decades, a quiet recession followed by a gulp of vino.
Got a few notes of thanks for my Red Dinner, one celebrant referring to it as a Blood bath due to all the red beverages.
Speaking of celebratory red colours, one thing I so dug about Japan in the spring were the red bibs placed on statuary around temples. Red = celebrate.
Just read in NYT that Vegas's MGM Grand had to do a big re-do of their building's entryway from the giant head of a lion as all the Asians refused to enter the head of an animal. Bad luck. Lion demo'd. All is swell.
Speaking of that desert community, received today a box and in that box a silver, serious-looking attaché case. Question mark.
Inside is a serious poker kit with chips, dice, cards.
This is a post-junket gesture from those nice people at Midway Games, a thanks for just being YT.
YT who grooved on all things Midway Games for a few.

Grooving on Love.

PB-related p.s.
Peter sent me an email with a slammin poster for BrötFest, happening in Nippon next month, it ebellished with a PB likeness by YT.
See here.

Was there a more odd news day than this one.
I think not.
Bald Britney, for starters, got a little pink and red lips tattoo on her wrist.
What a bad tattoo choice, this just proves she really is white trash at heart.
And, as all gals know, there is the revenge/trauma diet as well as the revenge/trauma hair adjustment.
Oh and then the story about how the formerly-plump Anna got embalmed.
And has James Brown been buried yet.
And has his ensemble been changed - again.
Last night met Little Laura out for a quick jaunt and visit and we suddenly became aware that there was a man lurking nearby, hanging onto our words.
We sort of talked to him, a transplanted southerner in shock about the weather.
I mean really.
Who even pays attention to the weather.
Forge onwards, get some nice accessories, pay your heating bill, get over the complaining crap.
Today had a gig at the Middling City Museum of Science and Yours Truly was most thrilled to note that the leadership of the sad joint did not see a need to replace the ridiculous nametags for the stuffed mammals in one of the (YT thinks) endangered halls of actual artful installation.
One bright spot was the MCMS had their stuffed polar bear in a place of prominence.
As well as some stuffed caninus lupi.
Made some images of the endangered halls as YT imagines that the ineptitude over there is spreading like ice crystals on a cold MC window.

Weather or not, Love.

When the Whip Comes Down, Stones song classique about working It on the mean streets, was emanating from that Middling City rock & roll station that embraces not only their steadfast playlist con brio but attendant rock philosophies - machismo, and blue-collarism, for example.
97 Rock, in common parlance, was blaring a bit as Yours Truly was wending about the MC's downtown en route to a Dorothy visit - that quippalicious femme fatale who chops hairs collectively for a living. YT stomped and stomped some more along the Pergo© floor to de-snow and rounded the corner to note that everyone in the floofparlour had disengaged from conversation and was looking up directly - or in mirrors - to see just what in h.e.l.l. was calamitying around the corner. Voi-freakin-là! Moi!

sidebar: (the haircut script)
YT: Hi, Dorothy, it's Nancy.
D: Hi, Nancy.
YT: I woke up today and I hate my hair, can you squeeze me in.
D: Yeah, sure, no problem Nancy, how is 1 p.m.?
YT: Yay! See you then, thanks!

As I listened to Mick's emphatic embrace of the song's phrases I was struck that as a frontman he must like so believe in these repetitive words, as an actor might with a part, to pull off the whole damned presentation. Refrains. Hand gestures. Hip thursts. More refraining.
This all, YT went on to further conclude, is a fine musical thesis to carry into any rock performance or karaoke session. Karaoke might be on agenda soon with some pals who take the big K real seriouslike.
What kills a karaoke presentation worse than just not believing in the lyrics (as Mick must or any other primo frontman/gal), or worser yetter, one's own veracity/profusion/rock&rollness?
Breaking down into a fit of laughter.
That's what.
In a midwestern town YT had a barroom in her grips during a tune. But suddenly the spell was broken, I began to hate the selection and then chortled through the second half of the song, leaving the elevated stage in a somewhat-authentic cloud of disgrace.
I did just regale Kennedy last night with my most triumphant karaoke tale.
I was in Japan, in a private karaoke room with a group.
Table, banquette seating. Killer hi-fi (any ol' joint in Japan has such), killer amenities for such a gathering (read drinks).
YT brought down the high-rise with a sparkling and searing rendition of ABBA's Dancing Queen.
FF to another, later Japan karaoke incident. And I do mean incident.
I had scoped out during the day while making images a few bars.
Later, after some official business, grabbed two artists and made our way to this bar, which I later dubbed Danger Bar as it was festooned with DANGER ZONE plastic tape (in English, assuredly a prized, kitsch touch).
We three sang into the cordless mic for hours and hours, at one point YT getting on top of the bar and strutting along to an early Madonna tune.
Well, when it was time to leave we were saddled with the heftiest of bills.
Not understanding that this particular joint charged per song.
So we scraped together the Y(en) and split.

Moral: know when Art and freedom of expression are just that.

Free, expressed Love.

For Your edification, the annual Valentine-related blogpost about Valentine.
We have all heard that this gushy, red-infused day is named for two martyrs and is celebrated a day before the ancient pagan holiday of Lupercal.
Lupercal was celebrated by shepherds, word has it, who ran naked through streets, whacking the crap out of anyone on the streets with shaggy horns.
Another entry about Lupercal mentions human sacrifice that gave way to the sacrifice of two male goats and a dog and the rubbing of blood on young, selected Luperci's faces.
To this I say a big Yikes and thank goodness that nowadays it is all overwroughtly about cards, chocolate, flowers.
At a post office today talking to a non-postal employee, discussed the day.
He bought his Love some chocolate-covered molasses treats.
For my near and dear I tossed together my annual Red Dinner, a Bacchanalian of sorts with all-red foods, red drinks, guests in crimson.
This all transpired this past Saturday night and the floor still has a few wine-red spots, party tattoos, if You will.
Happiest of Lupercal/Valentine wishes to You.
May you run naked in Your mind through warm streets, pelted by chocolate kisses, Your path strewn with red rose petals.
Today the Middling City is frigid, began the day in a chaotic manner I'd best forget.
Onwards to happy, Lupercal times.

Red Red Wine, and Love.
As Neil, that great harbinger of all things passionate, might intone.

An appropriate, seasonal Middling City tale.
When one grows up in the MC one has accoutrements that are both sporty and wintry.
One might find in one's holdings things such as snowshoes, x-c skiis, hockey sticks (2), hockey balls for warm and cold weather, gaitors, and the like.
Attempting to try out new snowshoes headed down to what is termed the South Towns, a.k.a. Ski Country, to strap them on and give them a whirl but was thwarted by seasonal white-outs along the way - on Routes 219 and 20A specifically.
Left the former for the latter and was looking at one giant wall of snow, not unlike the venerable Wall of Sound so popularized by Phil Spector of gunplay fame.
Turned back, if You will, abandoning the snowshoe plan, returning to the Middling City which was all sun. This all happened on Our national sporty holiday, Super Bowl Sunday. A holiday like most other USofA holidays, focusing on food, gathering, and cheer(ing).
Writing an informative piece for the Shiney Happy Mag about area diners, the best around which, unsurprisingly, have unsurprising menus that creatively re-assemble house ingredients and serve up coffee both tepid and strong.
Have two more on the list but one of these, in the MC's so-called Cobblestone District, has rather odd hours that are sometimes disregarded.
The other on the list of remaining sites is the east side diner of note, Gigi's, serving soul food in a real diner setting peppered with 8x10 glossies of notables who have darkened the doorstep.
Off to points beyond for documentation and oso much more.

Diner documentation Love.

Ahhh, it's that time of year when the word prognostication gets dragged out of the lexicon into the light of day for it is Groundhog Day. At least in the northeastern portion of the USofA.
This is thee day when rodents, viable and stuffed, get to do just that regarding the duration of the season at hand. Prognostication of snaps, fronts, bands, accumulation.
Today at the university, between buildings, Ridge Lee Larry worked his deader-than-doorknob magic.
He, stuffed and adorned, and mounted onto a sliver of a log, is placed on a mound of snow in front of a faux groundhog hole and stares glassily out, in a twenty-yard stare, to tell the assembled if there will be more weeks of winter.
Or not.
There was no shadow (surprise) and so it is more winter.
While waiting for the festivities attached to the mounting of the dead and mounted Larry spoke to a few safety officers who showed up. They had nice, embroidered jackets and were there, they said, to check up on things. They had just run a fire alarm check but thought they'd check to see if the crockpots in a vestibule were not in danger of shortcircuiting. They said. I asked if perhaps they might also be concerned that Ridge Lee Larry was in harm's way - Larry's handler left him rather precariously next to the gas grill where dogs and burgers were roasting away. He is stuffed, old. I'm sure his pelt is quite crisp. I have never touched Larry. There was, in a scrapbook, an image of a student kissing Larry's face.
In conclusion:
Happy Ridge Lee Larry Day, Middling City.

Rodential Love.

Jubilant Immature Moment (a JIM, if You will) #87,433.
If You are like really incensed by generalizations, breeze along.
backstory: Middling City cabs are frightening and if viewed on any MC roadway steer clear for they are, generally speaking, un-maintained cabins of death. Their drivers are, generally speaking once again, people who are unaware, or perhaps on the lam. They are smoking. The cars have missing hubcaps. They are rust buckets, as we say in this grand Rust Belt. The cabbies resemble the little rectangles of photographic images of those who have done something grave in mags of distinction amid a harrowing piece of non-fiction.
In a more edgy sector of the MC I was being waved down by a cabbie. Immediate thought was of carjacking or something until the next thought was Of course, they have no GPS in the vehicle, nor maps, I presume, so he is lost and in need of coordinates. But I really was not into stopping where I was and rolling down passenger window and shouting directions across a thoroughfare so I did the natural thing. I pretended to not notice the large flailing arm rising out of the cab window. I motored along at law-abiding speed and the cabbie was driving alongside my vehicle flailing wildly. I pretended to be not only not noticing but singing along to a phantom loud tune on the radio. He began beeping madly. Still I stared emphatically ahead, singing along to … rien.
I was priding myself on not laughing and continued the ruse through a red light and a left turn.
The cabbie flagged down a poor, defenseless pedestrian.

Met Liz last night for vino. She does not get the whole Perfect Nancy Gun Moll Thing.
I tried to explain. It did not work. You either groove on the adrenaline of shooting targets well – or not.

Jubilant, immature Love.

Shoot for New Era went photographically, swimmingly.
Spike Lee of 40 Acres and a Mule fame directed this commercial featuring about eight or so national league baseball players - most surprisingly huge. One of average height, the rest sky high.
The shoot took place in front of the New Era joint (in honour of Spike and his Joints that select word) on e4. The baseballers were queued up, as were other fans, outside of the store meant to look as if they're waiting for ... caps.
A player arrives, a Twin. Number 33.
He stands in front of a lifesized cut-out of himself. There is a ruckus. A hotdog is thrown, a metal spatula is brandished. But this intrepid player will not go to the end of the line. He barges into the store as, as luck would have it, an actor playing a New Era employee shows up to unlock the stylish cap co.
Number 33 (have not yet given him a Google) enters and the others mutter GGGRRR, MVP, GRRR.
Justin Morneau.
Yayyyyyyyyyyyyy Twins, Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy Google.
So there Yours Truly is all brushed up against these players and I'm trying to overhear who in hell they might be. There were Mets, Yankees, uhhh, Devils. Nope, no Devils.
There was a prevalent Detroit brunette.
Spike is, as I had witnessed live and in person before, hesitant to show any type of joie de vivre, the man is all biz. Show biz.
It was only here and there when he'd pat a player on the back or praise one of their takes that he'd smile. Some t.v. newscrews asked him about the commercial but mostly about football. He gushed about going to the You-know-what.
At the lunch break I made some images of him demi-reposed in the front window of the New Era shoppe on some stylish chairs, Blackberrying away.
Notez bien: Mr. Lee is wearing a model of New Era cap that takes a special head and demeanour. I tried on said cap at the New Era grand op in the Middling City. It was so not me and I opted for the greenest of choices, sans earflaps.
I asked one of the New Era execs if they'd like an image with Mr. Lee.
Made some happy snaps of Spike with John of New Era and then of him and another New Era other.
Back to the Middling City shortly.
Happy in my vagabond state.

Spiked Love.

Realized that to date there was no epinw-based images of Yours Truly foisting firearm for Your beseeching eyes.

Spent yesterday in Perfect zone of looking, drifted from Kiki Smith show to a meander through the Whitney. I learned to absolutely love the Whitney several years ago after a strange belief that the venue was too department storelike - 4th floor Lingerie! 3rd floor Comestibles! But the stairwell is so warrenlike and soothing to YT now between the glowing exhibitions. The Kiki show was a swim in her many many objects and trials of different materials, all body/myth/Nature/wondrousness.

Hopped onto a bus a few blocks and debussed for the Met to see the Tiffany Laurelton Hall installation as I saw his magnolia windows in print and had to see these in the flesh/glass/lead/wood casements. And then found myself spending much time looking at metalworks from the Middle Ages, reliquaries mainly, metal arms outstretched with spots for the bone fragments of whomever, and silver birds, and Byzantine wonders. A treat, this whole journey, like a crispy Cortland with perfect white flesh on an equally crisp and perfect October day.

Also of note: opening in TriBeCa with Jason and Dorota up up up a rickety stairwell in a building on Walker that seemed near-demo quality to be met with a room of seated watchers watching a triad of digvids projected. Next room an atomic burst of flourescent tubes lashed together and forming a very large kind of non-functional shelter and the ineffectual volunteer was having a helluva time keeping tipplers and patrons from walking amid the glowing white that seered the eyes in a most KMart way. Much after had dinner with a bunch of Brooklyn creatives at Pink Pony and finangled the rock star circular booth in the back. Then onwards to the Knife Fight gig which was excellent, a complete 180, if You will, from the venue itself. Top floor jungled and smokey hanging. Second level people walking from back to front, club employees handling colored laser pointers randomly pointing them at people as if they were cattle to be controlled, moved, cajoled. Basement, where the music happened, was the most Middling Citylike of the levels, very Continental. Knife Fight was on. Their drummer, Foxy, is moving from the Shiney Apple back to KY. I thought that Geez, this kid will wake up one fine morn down there and rush right back on the next Greyhound to recapture the magic of being a rockstar and noticed and imbued with Shiney Apple purpose.

Speaking of such, time for out again into the Shiney Apple for more more and more.

Crisp fragment of Love.

Taxi'd over to The Gun Store on Tropicana Boulevard, named for the casino that is now showing that Bodies show of cadavers injected with plastiques. Sadly, no time left for that. But The Gun Store. There was scheduled time for that.
Arrived and chose the Saddam Hussein target.
Literal Harold (who'd never shot before) and I split rounds for two automatic weapons, the M16 with holographic scope, and the FBI-sanctioned MP5. Really not to be confused with the ol' MP3.
Got some quick coaching from gun guy Sean, and, after putting on the Ears and eyes, got down to target practice.
Preferred the smooth-firing M16 and obliterated the face of the paper target.
Sean said We need you for our SWAT team.
Not sure if he was on a real or virtual SWAT team.
Speaking of virtual v. real, went to Midway's computer gaming event yesterday and watched as there was a group launching of games and then as the chosen gamers merrily gamed away.
We were all fairly starved and glanced periodically at the Hard Rock's concert venue perimeters to see if the chafing dishes were chafed yet.
Games were played and played and then some nice food arrived.
Ran into the chef AGAIN, this time on the toppermost floor of the hotel, him sitting solo in an adjoining elegant-looking restaurant.
Wandered about in interconnected casinos and such for a while and now, quite now, it's time to smash things back into the bag and jet back east.

Back East Love.

Jetted way early a.m. from Middling City to the JFK, my former hangout of several years where I'd blog/email/wait/read/study.
On the flight from the far Rockaways to Las Vegas, where Yours Truly is presently for a junket to Midway's computer games extravaganza to make scintillating images of such for VH1, I spotted thee Alfred Portale of Gotham fame.
I fairly gushed that on Sunday night, as I'll be wending back towards that other, rightmost timezone of the USofA Friday and then shooting stills from a shoot for a commerical for New Era Cap Co of Derby, NY - for real - fame, that Dorota and I will be plunked down at a table somewhere in his joint at 12e12 in the Shiney Apple.
Yesterday on the flight, when I wasn't soundly snoozing, watched a marathon, apparently, of Top Chef. Think I saw about five seconds of this once but watched their challenges and, despite the fact that I would say my cooking skills are fairly unfair in the sense that they rock, that I do have a lot to learn indeed. When the cooks were faced with the challenge of what to do with mounds of offal (think chef Mario Batali of orange clog fame) I mused that I would not know a god-danged thing to do with chicken feet, cow tongue, maybe something with sweetbreads, but never kidneys. No. Never.
Also to be noted is that YT did not note that the flight was five hours and did not have more than a light breakfast at the JFK so watching all this food prep was torturous. JetBlue tossed some snacks at us a few times. A man two seats down opened up a sub/hoagey/hero and I nearly shouted Geez Up There! A FIRE so I could grab this white bread monstrosity for a bite to assuage the pangs.
Once in Vegas, in this desert, and then once in Mandalay Bay, noted and remembered the grandness of Vegas in the most mallacious way. It's all big and brash and sort of tasteful but sort of way way too.
In one transem of the Mandalay lobby were tiered Andy Warhol cammie paintings, eight in all, up the wall. Across more art. There is really art in Vegas. Not as plentiful as the faux boobs, but there is a lot.
Worked out in the Mandalay gym and it was also elegant.
Seconds ago got a call from Literal Harold (VH1's computer gaming blog star) who is down the hall, asking if I'd collect some hotel soaps for him, apparently he collects hotel soaps. I should probably share with him that I grabbed about 6 bottles of water at the workout centre as I'd paid $20 for the daypass and I'll be dang-blamed if I'll shell out another $3.25 for a small bottle of water.
Should humans have to pay for water. In posh hotels.
In gymnasiums.
Onwards to the desert momentum, this city ringed with gray mountains off on the landscape's horizon.

Desert, not always Dessert, Love.

veni vidi rolli.
Went to Queen City Roller Girls benefit Saturday night to roll and not derby.
In vehicle was also Annie and Jana and up north met up with Cheryl, Liz, Erin and saw The Jens as well as rockabilly and art types.
As well as one Middling City politico whose hippie wedding I shot a number of years ago. They wore sandals. It did not last.
There is a moral there.
So what did last in his closet were some 80s acid-wash jeans that had some streaks of bedazzlement, worn as the night was themed 80s-era prom.
On the wooden floor was a panoply of hideous bridesmaid dresses, corsages.
The QCRG team, numbering at about thirty, is half bruisers and half lithe types who, if they were your grocery checkout girl, you'd feel the need, perhaps, depending upon mood, to help her foist a grocery bag into the cart.
Witnessed were, de rigeur, some stupendous wipeouts (not to be confused of the top ten selection of Yours Truly) with limbs akimbo, people holding onto wall, people holding the wobbly up, some scoping, and lipgloss.
I made sure that, while blading along, lipgloss was firmly applied.
And one of my dearest, Liz, gets my ribbon for roller gumption, lacing up and, in grand Liz style, hitting the activity con brio. I whizzed past her at one point as she was falling and had to go around before I could find her again. I was helping her with some technique issues and she said the greatest quote of all, to be included on the calendar of YT if ever there is to be one, accompanied with image of Liz on skates,
I don't mind falling.
Now those are words to muster up and forge ahead with on a diurnal basis.
Also of special note was the boy in drag who wore a rather unflattering maxi dress that happened to match the odd ochre of the rental skates.
Onwards after the rink headed more north to find a dismal hotel bar so that Jana could review it for some reason, assumedly to assuage those in Niagara County who feel that if ever there is news about their limping burg it is about what transpires (entertainmently speaking) over at the former convention center, The Jackpot Centre.
The bar is not worth discussing (special mention deserved for the bar owner's dyed eyebrows ... no man should dye his eyebrows, and the unchilled white box wine, so Niagara Falls, so OUcH) but the activities of YT and pals are - dancing to a dj who busted out all the party tunes, a stranger (a woman) doing the forbidden dance with YT and I thought it was Jana until she meandered by and then I discovered this elfish drunkish lady behind me all juicey-goosey, and the earnest cover band onhand (A-List, such a grabby name) who not only proffered up one primo homonym typo on their set list (If You Don't No Me By Now), but did a rather overly-syncopatic but welcomed rendition of Neil's Sweet Caroline. To which I did an interpretive solo dance to express my deepest love for Neil, not the A-Team.
You see, the love of Neil is spread far and wide.
To the south, to the north.
In homes, in cars, in cheezey hotel bars the world over.
Wherever It may be, there is Neil Love.

Neil Love, Love.

Went to Cowboy Junkies last night, comps from Blair, their manager.
As per riders, Margot had her fresh flowers next to her mic stand.
And she had less of the snarks than usual.
The new material was fine and about halfway into their gig I felt like I'd had the CJ experience, and was essentially waiting for their Sweet Jane.
From there went over to Liz's, for the tail end of her writerly meeting.
Everyone was in the proverbial bag when I arrived, as writers are wont to be all toasty when gathered, when discussing such arduous things such as serial commas.
Off to see those cute Canadians, Sloan, tonight with Annie and Michele, or Mish, as she prefers to be dubbed.
Sloan, the foursome most famed in the mind of Yours Truly for onstage instrument swaps.
In mere minutes I'll be running over to Trinity Church with another art donation that will hopefully fetch a good price so the joint won't have to shut its art-encouraging doors.
All for now and over and out the door.

Rock on Canadian rockers Love.

The Middling City News today is so slim that I believe an average PennySaver is beefier - section A today is several pages of ads, wire service stories, a few pages of hard, local fact.
If You were motoring in a west to easterly fashion down Hertel Avenue last night you, if You glanced into the convoluted window displays and saw beyond the neon and piñatas and such of that rather awful cheese fiesta known as Gramma Mora's, You may have noted a person wearing a sombrero the size of a golf umbrella, outsizing any respectable Parisian café table by at least 125%.
That was Yours Truly.
Met the Art Mentor last night at the Mexjoint and noted a stack of sombreros and asked barkeep about said stack. He tried to warble out a tune about how you had to imbibe a certain amount of tequila or whatnot to earn the right to wear a sombrero. I would have none of that and wrangled the largest onto my head.
The thing was heavy, a real neck workout.
This was sort of an r&d foray as one of my back-burnered concepts is to market public laptop work sombreros for those who wish to be unnoticed, undisturbed whilst working on their machines. A rollable, flexible sombrero.
Last night's sombrero was not only heavy but inflexible.
It also prevented me from watching the end of the Sabres game properly as looking up at the television over my head to the left was a slippery slope.
But, mark these words.
If I do ever acquire a burro I am definitely getting that Gramma Mora's sombrero.
The Sabres won, I won.
Today, in mere moments, Yours Truly is heading down to the very bunkeresque and uncheering MC Convention Center for a rubber chix lunch, a charity event honouring several for their community contribs, including one of my art pals, Gerald Mead.
Something for Your mulling pleasure.
Doing the (rubber) chicken dance wearing an XL sombrero would be quite a feat, a test of will, neck, derring-do.

Obliterated Love.

Big and great Middling City news - in grand banner style - is that the Bike Path Rapist has been apprehended after over two decades.
I had a gig out at Middling City U this fine morning and was informed by an official there that this very rapist (a wily, sociopath who was a church-attending, lawn mowing, model dad in cahoots with his dark self) registered to run in the annual Linda Yalem Memorial Run - named for his first victim who he also murdered.
I said Incomprehensible.
And just now, with all that horrid news somewhere in the mind, wrote a one-page artist statement full of joy and love and hopefulness about making art and such for a grant. Granted, the thing was due yesterday, on Martin's Day, but there were no po's open and so they should just say What the hell, c'mon in and let us have a look, and then, oh then, they should cry Eu-fuckin-reka, give this woman a grant.
Well, now that I have blogged about this all it will not happen, as that's how these art things work. Say and reveal too much and *ka-poof* there it goes.
Planning a Girlie Roller Outing via eVite which is so very new millennium. This event is a mere handful of dollars and all the dollars go to the Middling City roller derby team.
Everyone has a bat story. Everyone has a ghost story. Everyone has an I got my heart smashed like an atom story. Everyone, seemingly, also has a rollerskating story.
Mine.
I was an athlete. I was very thin. Read between the lines.
All the other girls lined up against the wall would get picked for the boy choice skate. I would be nearly the last but, You know, the boys were usually so bad at skating and had such gross, sweaty hands that it was usually, in retrospect always, better to skate solo and emulate Raquel Welch than be subjected to that nonsense.
And everyone has a song or bevy of songs they attribute to skating.
On all these divergent notes I end, skating away to the post office to get this hopeful packet of documentation and such off to wherever, whomever.

Rolling, Love.

First things first.
Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day's Eve.
There is a movement to make this holiday a national day of service and at an event shot by Yours Truly on Friday night there was big emphasis on literacy and helping non-readers to love words.
Tomorrow was the actual b-day and, renewing knowledge of MLKjr Fun Facts, retrieved the one that notes he began college at the age of fifteen.
Just read the harrowing tale of a former child soldier in Sierra Leone, Ishmael Beah, in the NYT mag.

Sometimes I feel that living in New York City, having a good family and friends, and just being alive is a dream.

There was just, it should be noted, a Middling City skyclatter, thunder like nobody's business. Today it hailed. This is NOT snow, I shouted into the sky. It's time for snow. The snow shovel looks bereft and I do imagine that all the plowing guys are digging their long run of contracted coffee breaks.

It is time to edit like the wind, like the blustering wind in the dark Middling City clouds.
It should be noted that YT will be at a press junket for VH1 soon for a few out in the freaky desert bowl that is Las Vegas. In Spanish that means The Chips.
Scouting out shooting ops, the sort with rented guns, not the other, renowning sort.

Scouting, hailing Love.

Patti Smith and REM, two of the toppermost of this blogger's poppermost.
And do either Patti or the solid GA guys of REM give a damn about their inductions into the Hall of Fame in the Land of Cleves in OH?
There was, post-announcement, some alleged gushy quotes from Michael Stipe who was in London, about this rock honour and that he got a call from rock poet Patti saying big congrats and he got to congrat her back and isn't it just so supernuts being so super-famed and inducted.
Lest You have not been, here is my super-famed and inducted take on the R&R Hall of Fame, which I traipsed to several years ago for the John Lennon show which I did not regret.
You arrive and, as with all Cleveland lakeside attractions, there is efficency, and expense.
Not Middling City expense, but real, bona fide pay for the priviledge expense.
You ditch the car and meander into what could be a mall. A mall of music and high ceilings and windows and wondrous electronics and a cheesey stage in one corner and, if You are really lucky, there will be someone on the stage warbling, earnestly.
There are escalators and you might think of the Pompidou Centre but you can stop right now if You are. You escalate and have not paid any ransom and you might think Hey I am like so in but You are not. You still must pay and, when wandering amongst the attractions, the perma-collection, if You will, You will be overwhelmed by two, concurrent things.
The girth and age of several of Your fellow attendees.
Then it will possibly occur that Hell, this is a rather old genre, after all, I came along in nineteen-whatever and righto these folks were rocking around the clock a long while before that. So there's that.
Then you will see do-dads, trinkets, broken guitars, signed picks, signed jockstraps, signed pizza boxes, just about every thing signed and splintered and oso rock and oso roll.
You will begin to not only feel amazed like You're at one of those travelling curiosity shows maybe gleaned here and there in Life but you will be thinking perhaps a trip out to Seattle's Experience Music joint with the Gehry lines is in order.
So a telling thing is that the Rock & Roll induction gig with this year's all worthy and hexcellent inductees - Ronettes, VH, Run DMC, and aforementioned - happens in the Shiney Apple. Not over there down 90 in Cleveland. Not at the M/Hall of Fame, not in any other COH venue. The Shiney Apple, the city that is more rock than over there and, frankly, anywhere.
Long Live Rock. Long Live the Shining Shiney Apple.

Long Live Love.

afterthought:
Google the COH R&R Hall of Fame and a troubling message flits across the backlit world. Going to that site will harm your computer. Forewarned is forehappy.

So Vincenzo hands me a bag last night. A reused holiday giftbag.

*sidenote, to be read/thought in bitchy intonations: I hate giftbags, especially those bedecked with Whimsy. Wrapping with personality is the way to go, is my gifto credo. End bitchy sidenote*

I open the bag to learn what the trinket, as he'd described it, is.
Two cd's with John Lennon's ultimate radio interview burnt upon them.
His vibrancy about the pending album and how grand his life was feeling that day, December 8, 1980, his last one.
I looked down at the cd's and, after Vincenzo told me what they are, I felt almost like I did when I peered into the plexi box those several years ago at Rock and Roll Hall O' Fame at the brown paper shopping bag from the hospital containing his personal objets, and the broken and blood-spattered iconic lunettes.
Just overcome with It.
I have not listened, yet.
+ +
With assurance I can say that Yours Truly began her day in a manner in which You did not.
I began my day, nearly, at Forest Lawn Cemetery hunting for the god-danged gravesite of one Millard Fillmore who did some nice philanthropical things for the Middling City and who, according to some, was the anti-christ who prolonged slavery via The Compromise of 1850 of which YT needs to learn more about.
To get to the designated photospot I had to wend and wend some more back to Forest Lawn's gatehouse where I checked in and checked out their bitchin' 2007 calendar. Actually, they need some art direction. There was a ledger on the front desk and my hands were doing their own wending toward it but really I needed to find MillFill's space amongst the still-wrecked trees, rolling hills, restive vibes in a flash. Please enjoy my small photo pun now.
A small woman with large hair with the features and make up choices and such that seemed utterly perfect in such a setting (a stone gatehouse in a sprawl of eternal repose) grabbed a map and drew a line for YT to follow.
I shoot this every year and I can't find, I follow the YELLOW line, right.
She, The Diminutive Messenger of Deathly Orientation, said YESS, follow the yellow line until here (gesturing, drawing) and continue here to here and you'll see it.
It was found.
The regular KofC gentlemen were not at graveside and, to be quite journalistically honest and photojournalistically frank, it was a loss visually but a treat to not have to shoot above and around the epaulettes, the swords, the Columbus-worthy caps with plumes out the Wazoo.
In lieu of the annual freeze-out today was all graveside mud.
+ +
I dreamed last night of dancing/swimming through familiar and sunny Shiney Apple streets, directed at one point by two aproned waiters on the patio of a French restaurant and then swam over to a flower shop where I swam/flew into a hummingbird.
It was magical and is stuck for a while.

So like MillFill, stuck in his mud.

Muddy Hummingbird Muse Love.

Yours Truly has decided that in this newewst of world years to create an exciting new twist on the resolution concept.
This year YT is doling out corporate resolutions to benefit me.
1. Starbucks will deliver to me, via the location closest to me to be determined by GPS device, a grande coffee du jour as needed. Black.
2. DSW, recognizing the magnitude of their allure on this blogger, will offer me a special discount in this new year of 50% on all styles.
3. Subaru, recognizing me as a longtime consumer or participant in their brand, is to extend to me a special few months of lease free in exchange for my thoughts and feelings about said brand.
Tooling about on the internet last fine evening whilst researching an article for the Shiney Happy Mag (before stepping out for a party) Googled the following keywords: patron saint internet.
Lo, Behold, and Alle-freakin-lujah there is a proposed patron saint (a karmic lookout, if You will) for the masses who spend time reading from The Backlit World.
Saint Isidore:
And here's a snippet of the invocation for Isidore to guide You through the dodgey online landscape:

... through the intercession of Saint Isidore,
bishop and doctor,
during our journeys through the internet we will direct our hands and eyes only to that which is pleasing to Thee
and treat with charity and patience all those souls whom we encounter.

If this whole wobbly patron saint thing does not work for You, give dance pioneer Isadora Duncan a whirl.

Patronizing, Dancing Love.

Just completed shooting a house wedding, truly the most enchanting of the wedding genres usually. There was much tear-shedding by bride, groom, two singers (one of which was Sean whose drag name cannot be recalled at this juncture), various guests, and Yours Truly. As I am wont to say Any wedding that inspires a few tears out of this wizened/hardened photog must have Something.
Annual Friend Dinner was fab, as usual. Actually, there was some early sniping and I pointed out that as a gang of old pals this was actually very good that we could verbalize our various annoyances whereas with family and others less familiar all that irritation is encased.
So today is the final day of this year.
A year that was fairly positive and suddenly I am recalling a most horrid year, I think it was 2003, and I shouted from Matt Kantar's rooftop on East Huron out into the fireworks before our faces GOODBYE 2003 YOU SUCKED with such vitriol. That is past.
Onwards to another year of travel, art, friendship, general bon vivant ways tempered with general workaholism.
At today's wedding I had a brief, parting conversation with the mom of the bride as we stood near some true Anglican Christmas cake, aka fruitcake. The real fruit cake. Actually, I can imagine legions of Americans still not digging this but who cares about their pedestrian tastes for fast and fried foods, religious zealotry and Republicanisms.
So, there we are, mom of bride and YT grooving on the fruitcake. I asked her, the mom of the bride, Paula, So, do you find that you are the only person that you know who loves fruitcake.
She replied a Yes.
I said Same for me. Did not mention I've been known to enjoy very antique fruitcake found in and on top of refrigerators.
We merrily munched through some slender slices when the groom and groom's father (both Scots) appeared from around a corner.
I merrily blurted This is the besssst fruitcake I have EVER had.
To which the mother of the bride/Paula spit out her mouthful of the imported cake crumbs in a quick, heaving gesture.
I pretended to not notice, as did the Scotsmen.
I was not sure, as I made my exit then, if she spit uproariously because of my unbridled enthusiasm or because she thought I was a fruitcake newbie.
In either event YT wishes she had more.

More Love.

parting. thought.
Passed a bunch of flagstaffs the past few days and marvelled that the Middling City was so musical, so on top of pop milestones. Wow, City Hall's flags at half-mast for the passing of James Brown. Only about an hour or so later did the sooth emerge that it was all, that half-masting, for departed Gerald, who YT sent a fan letter to as a very young person despite the fact that deep within my heart even back then I knew that I was a liberal Democrat.
The body of James Brown, I must docublog, made its way from the Shiney Apple to Augusta, GA this week.
And there was a wardrobe change - purple suit in the Apollo. Black and red in James Brown Stadium.
What next.

Added to my list of accomps is the following.
But premierly a little backstory.
There was - past like tense - a doorknob situation and there was another doorknob situation. Things like old locks suddenly springing into action and then a staged break-in of the home office hovel from a second story window featuring smashed pane and crawling. Then the replacement of the offending knob.
Then another knob issue. This all takes place over several years and the second-last knob was, Yours Truly learnt today, designed for indoors. This $6 knob finally spun its last turn today as YT had a new and improved model that was purchased from the big box for $28.
Then came the truly interesting part, the putting together and, in retrospect, it was not harder than the sump pump situation. But patience. I mean, after drinking coffee with Kunji, Allen, Laura, Geoff and then some it was a real trial.
But done, finally.
And, it's one of those nice Euro numbers. Some strange lady in the big box assured me it was easy. Hell, I've got an MFA fercrissakes from that school over there in the Shiney Apple. What's a little forged steel and such after the wending to and fro and mastery of gradstudentspeak and digvids.
I rest my locksmithy case.
I had to break some bad party news to Molly last night while we were inspecting the tray of stuffed shells Laura made for her soiree.
I noted the several giant cloves of garlic. Molly insisted that they were white beans. I disagreed. She disagreed even after I pulled one from the red sauce.
White bean. Garlic clove.
Molly had eaten one and still was convinced it was a bean. This is a potential party disaster. Hot party noshing tip: Always inspect what You suspect are white beans.
Off to points beyond and beyond.

Beyond garlic Love.

Subtheme of this day was fab accomps of two Shiney Apple boys, Dragon Boy and Literal Harold. Dragon Boy has a new site replete with his fun facts and images of his very serene-looking self taken in Chinatown not too far from where Yours Truly rested and rests still her weary head in that woodneck. The Shiney Apple is where I dream the best dreams and have the best sleeps. And serendipity. And dinners. And lunches. And ideas.
So there is Dragon Boy all famed and such and I felt such a tsunami swell of pride for him. When he doubted himself I was his cheerleading YouCanDoIt gal. There is no more generous heart than that of Dragon Boy.
Then there's Literal Harold all denoted by Newsweek as a kryptonite to stupid re: his VH1 Game Break blog and again the pride parade of YT.
Me, I'm over here in the Middling City writing about lame-arsed film projects and posting them chock full of fun facts and then getting the bizness from one of the film project harpies who states the film crew and such is not Comfortable - dig that - with what was written. I not only rebut the stupidity with statements such as You will, you realize, not be able to control the media once your precious film hits the international cinema, but daydream about gigs much superior and full of import again with people who just know what is what and are not teeming with nonsensical MC trifles.
*A beautiful Neil interlude.*You are the words I am the tune come play me.*You are the sun, I am the moon.*
Last stop du jour a conflation, a carcrash, of friends from several venues all mixed together in the sodium-lit large windows of a west side joint with pretensions.
It is time to dream small MC dreams.

Small-dreamed Love.

Papa's got a brand new bag alright.
Like up in the heavens, from which some good things flow.
Some people die at the age of 73. Like James Brown, Ray Charles and Mr. Cochrane.
The time I first recall really - and I do mean really - grooving on the music of James Brown was when Tony Billoni was dj'ing at The Pink somewhere in the 80s and suddenly in that throng it all just worked (for me) for the first time.
I did see and photograph him once that I recall.
Now as I blog (but Blogger is in Cali time so this may still be dated as Christmas), it is Boxing Day which is the holiday that not too many people understand. Pugilism. Day to gift at helpers in life. Whatever. Point is Christmas is done and now it is time to wend one's way toward the new year.
I did blog over on Buffalo Rising Online about how to avoid death in traffic circles (aka rotaries, not to be confused with that nice, fraternal order that sent Yours Truly over to the Philippines for one month in her salad days), my special gift to the Middling City.
Goodbye James Brown.
Goodbye Christmas.
Goodbye legions of sad, wasted evergreen trees, sad misunderstood pagan icon.

Evergreen Love.
Not to be confused with Babs l.p. of same name, Love.

Yesterday, all deadlines/parties/driving, was also about music.
Ran top speed post-gig into a Starbucks conveniently located next to a Middling City discshoppe, suddenly recalling I had not yet purchased At War witih the Mystics, the new Flaming Lips.
It is a triumph.
And Yours Truly is going on record for this important discovery made by YT a long time ago. And I do recall telling Artie this, so You may call him for confirmation.
Track 7 on any given disc is usually a winner.
And good ol It Overtakes Me/The Stars Are So Big...I Am So Small...Do I Stand A Chance?
does not disappoint.
All other tracks - Perfect.
So on another errand acquiring a pal's holiday gift via a big box pharm if You can believe this I spot a bin of discs and the benevolent powers of the universe pulled me towards said bin where I spotted 20th Century Masters: The Best of Neil Diamond. Now YT has many Neil collections, discs, programmes, you name it. But this collection has a few not usually on his comps. The only real minus is no Cherry Cherry. But the photos on back and front make up for that - on the front there's Neil when his hair was at its poofiest, sort of way atop and brushing out away from his intent eyes which are gazing at his left hand, perhaps the mic stand, perhaps a woman in the near rows about to flash him.
On the back there is Neil in a white shirt gazing into Your eyes so intently. Neil is about to sing you a song to warm your heart. Neil, in other words, is about to say I Love YOU. You.
And then you look at the lips. No, not Lips as in Flaming Lips.
Neil is about to tell you something but he's holding it back.
Neil is kind of sneering and now you might doubt his intentions.
But you remember This is Neil. The singer of Stones, Holly Holy, Play Me.
Suddenly you think Is there more, more images of Neil and open the jewel case and so begins a brilliant essay by someone named Joseph F. Laredo who opens with
The distinctive, romantic baritone voice of Neil Diamond is one of the most recognizable sounds in popular music.
There's more but really the important thing is the vertical image of Neil in some fantastic brown suede, square-toed boots and one of those embarassing fringey jackets people wore back then. Now suddenly his hairy chest is visible beyond that jacket and wackily-printed shirt.
This is all a lot of pleasure for $6.99.
The Lips's disc was more than double that but just as pleasurable.
So ends the music/pleasure report.
Time for more deadlines/driving/shooting/erranding and a lunch date with Vincenzo before more of the d/d/s/e routine and a few more events this fine evening which Jamal reports, is Synchronized Global Orgasm day.
It should also be noted that this very same Jamal sent YT a truly deft Nancycentric rap that was accidentally ejected out of the inbox.
It was a work of art.

Happy Global Neil and Lips and Art Day, Love.

This just in.

Miss USA Tara Conner, who had come under criticism amid rumors she had been frequenting bars while underage, will be allowed to keep her title, Donald Trump announced Tuesday.
"I've always been a believer in second chances," Trump, who owns the
Miss Universe Organization with NBC, said with Conner at his side.

The only thing, well, one thing, Yours Truly has to say about the above is Are you freakin' kidding me.
For one, the Middling City has few joints suitable for teens and demi-adults to congregate and engage in social, bonding activities. Bars filled and continue to fill this gap. Marjorie and I would enter our teen haven, Checker's, with assurance as we took turns holding the lit cig and the other swinging car keys ever so casually. See, these iconic gestures were to signify, we are like so relaxed about driving, about smoking in public. Now, mind you, the legal age is older, smoking in bars is punishable by death, and underage drinking in bars remains a strong American tradition.
So Miss Conner has to live up to some unreasonable goals and standards.
Her teeth must glimmer, her breasts must be seamless, her hair must shimmer, her moods must not simmer, and she is never to have posed for a nudie mag nor done a few Jäger shots as a teen. But thank the good goddesses of beauty up above - Venus and Aphrodite - that Trump steps in for redemption a man, to be sure, with the highest scruples of all.
Speaking of nudie mags, tomorrow's gigs includes a photo shoot with a femme who wishes to be all erotic in front of the cam of YT for gifting to her beau.
She mentioned a sable coat. And a few other props.
As I am wont to say
Bring on the props but do not forget the confidence from within.

Confident, nude Love.

Today I experienced some band name confusion.
I was hired today to make some in-store images of the band Newfound Glory at New Era Cap Co., You know, the company responsible for providing def lids for rockstars, sportsmen, sportsgals, urbanites, and the like the world over.
Newfound Glory is at this time already done with their set at the annual Kissmas Bash that happens at the venue where the drunken lady tried to drive through bricks.
See a few posts ago.
So in come three of the five members of Newfound Glory, one in very interesting shoes, all three of them nice-looking gentlemen. No egoes. Or were they just half-asleep. One member was clutching one of those canned Starbucks quadruply-super-charged bevvies. They had, they told me, just rolled off their tour bus, having played in Poughkeepsie last night. They had rolled off their bus and into a black stretch Hummer - a lot of car for three guys, even if they were rather large in scale.
So between this shoot and edits I somehow mismanaged my memory of their bandname and altered it into Bound for Glory.
Not sure how this transpired but before I wrote up the invoice and such I thought I'd Google away just for double-checking's sake and Geeeez wasn't Yours Truly quite astonished by the latter, a quote-unquote pro-white band.
Let us erase this bandname for forever.
Did take a drive yesterday with Jana up to Castle Annie's (i.e. what YT has dubbed Castellani Art Museum, one of my old stomping grounds of sorts with Liz et al) and was most sad to not see the Longo print of Janus-like heads that inspired that one digvid I made. The Basquiat was also put away but there was a very fab Motherwell collage out on the wall, the best thing in the joint du jour. Any time I've been in front of a Motherwell I have been aware of what we in the rigid and erudite academia realm call aura. That Motherwell is a mother of an aura maker.
Over and out.
Onwards to more pixel management.

Splendid Aura Love.