Twelve year old song, Girl, by Tori, on the hi-fi, a perfect match to the iced-over world out there, the rant surprisingly rising from fingers.
This. Dig.
To those faux-concerned, vrai-concerned, jealous and clenched to the physical Middling City concept that it is natural to watch a body spread from age to age due to too much driving, fried food, lardiness, negativity.
I work out. I work out 3-5 hours per week via Pilates and amazingly difficult Firm workouts. I don't drink excessive amounts of alcohol. I eat, for the most part, fresh and organic food. I am in school part-time in NYC and, as most people do there, I venture out with a MetroCard in my back pocket and no qualms about Walking.
Do the above for many years (you can skip the school bits), approximately five or more and you'll avoid the Middling City Rising.
Bodily Love.

I am not addicted to grrrande Americanos, I am not addicted to grrrande Americanos, I am not addicted to grrrande Americanos, I am not addicted to grrrande Americanos...
she muttered earnestly, self-delusionally.
This just in, from Lead Boy Colleague, in regards to the Televised Boob Incident during that gladiator orgy yesterday that I had the pleasure of ignoring as I was engaged in documenting Japanese Noh theatre at Middling City U instead. But crapskis, (or rather, fartskis) that meant missing some arse-flamin' chile, as goes the American tradition of pack football viewing, or so my memory recalls.
Off to legalistic reading, for art school.
Litigational Love.

Well, minding my own dangblamed business out and about on Saturday night I ended the fine evening at the Middling City's longest-running tavern, Ulrich's, past the edge of what most MC residents find acceptably close to the Elmwood Strip, what they believe to be the crux of matters.
At Ulrich's was a goodbye party to a duo moving to Manhattan. Amongst the revelers were a few rockstars, some video types, artistes, my beloved shiny happy mag editrix/pal and a few members of the Middling City police squad.
One of them, Ken B, stated that we had met before. I didn't recall. Then he mentioned the event and (believe this or not) up from the developing tray kasloshing in my mind's darkroom, I could see his face at an art opening at Art "Dialogue."
He is a photo student with my friend Ken. So this cop/photog tells me et al standing in a circle near the bar how he pulled me over one day and I, in a snarky and crafty nutshell, said to paraphrase a cop paraphrasing me in a moment that passed oh about, to his recollection, ten years ago:
Hi, I'm Nancy J. Parisi, I'm a photographer, I'm en route to shoot something for the commissioner.
He let me go. He finds it hilarious. It makes me a little uneasy thinking of my poor self back then all defensive yet composed and thinking I'll be goddamned if I'm getting a ticket. You walk that very small line when pulled over - charming, yes, but too charming and you're becoming patronizing and annoying.
And ladies, I've heard this from many a p.o. - never cry or say you're sorry when you're pulled over. You help the coply testosterone bubble up to the surface and you'll be writing a check for your small driving indiscretion in no time flat.
Ever-helpful Love.

In the futile quest for the procurement of my legally binding document binding me for another $5K or so to my gilded Forester, I chanced upon, to my utter astonishment, the following:
1. Video of Motley Crue and a bio of a way-fledgling metal rocker named Jace, along with his portrait. In black leather, of course. I was to, some time ago, watch the enclosed video and then Jace was going to get back to me for doing a photo shoot with him, in the style of... you guess it... the Crue. NB to all smartypants/record store types and Germanophiles. I am fully aware of the umlaut situation of the band's name. However. Blogger does not recognize, allow for, such dots. Thank you for your attention in this troubling matter.
2. Broadsheet-sized pink sheet of paper, folded four times. On it is Bruce Nauman's sort of Yoko Ono-esque directional poem/piece entitled "Body Pressure." I quote: "Press very hard and concentrate." Concentrate indeed.
3. "Gold" initial pins of my deceased grandmother Victoria Plumsteel, taken from the lapels of one of her suits, by my namesaked Aunt outside of Houston, Texas.
4. A complete shitload more but also
5. The Action Sampler, published by the Lomographic Society. Still find it 4-up sort of interesting.

Time for more caffeine, more inspiration, more -no- -yes- merry procrastination before finishing the shiny happy mag piece.
More Love.

CentricS, who, as some, noted his epinwlessness, which I always thought perhaps a blessing rather than a chagrin, turned me on to this hotspot, this genius e-place that you must traverse to soon.
Over & Out.

Was severely ma'am'ed today.
A(n unhinged) guy working at the UPS store greeted me with an amped-up
HI MA'AM MELPEW.
There I was, minding my own art business, entering an overpriced national photo contest (via ASMP - which I thought to join for approximately half an hour until I noted what a rigamarole their application process is with requests for tearsheets, two org sponsors, and more) at $20 a shot/image/jpeg.
The last thing I needed was overzealous counter help.
Or a counter helper in need of a nic break, I noted a cigarette awaiting a breaker, balanced on the cash register.
First place. Digital camera. Show.
The counter guy yelled MA'AM a few more times and he had so not instilled my confidence that I could not entrust him with my envelope of entry goods.
Nuhnuh no, that's okay I'll mail it. Then I left and marched over to the mailbox ten feet away from UPS's door. MA'AM indeed.
Tomorrow is CEPA Gallery's dropoff for their member show and as I've missed all other Middling City gallery member gigs this, I feel in my bones, is the one to not be Yours Truily missed.
Back to the story overdue over at the shiny happy mag offices.
Overdue, overamped Love.

Old home 80s dance joint days besieged me while minding my own business, hanging with Karen following her dad's untimely wake. Being the super-pal that I am I whisked her away from Amigone Funeral Home (listed somewhere in Ripley's for its namely uncanniness) to O - sushi and cocktail emporium. There we were greeted by someliere Bryan who brandished an excellent chard and then some comp snacks. We sat in the lounge and supped and drank and lounged until the cheeseball rock-type trio began to play their decibels into our left ears. One bottle down and Karen turned to me stating Well that did nothing for me, I'm getting another. Then more. Then drinks with the rock stars. Then more and more of the cast of characters from 80s-era Continental flowed into O and we all marvelled at our sticktoitiveness, our undying love for the niteliphe, the glowing bar embers of blue that, I was musing, reminded me of another bar where I practically lived during the 90s, Icon, where I became after-hours conscious of many things, including my fleeting and uneven affair with Jagermeister, my burgeoning friendship with Dorota and the realization that art and merrymaking can and should live side by jowl. At O the rock stars took a much for us needed break, we lounged some more and made our way back into the 10 degree F night.
Onwards to more. An art opening that I forgot to submit work to, an other night of gladheartedness I will not forget to submit to.
Glad glad Love.

Wow.
(or in Taiwanese WAU, I learnt, from Sienna's PalmPilotesque translating device)
Mere moments ago I splurted out the phrase That nice young man... as I'm in the Apple store (sigh... I'm up to date with all but who knows when the nextest shiniest newest magdaddiest and gigalicious machine rolls in, stealing my geek heart) and a nice young man wanted to help me but I stated, with a usual smirk... Oh, that nice young man just sold me something and now I'm checking me email. Like hell I'm checking my email. I fucking want to blog on the Stephen Spielberg screen, all 58,000 inches of it.
So I fell asleep, as is my wont, while music videos danced like sugar plums.
Awoke to Kellis's sexy milkshake song, a video I had not yet seen. Snapping to full attention in my mind I watched, being the new digvid mogul that I have become. (For JR's benefit if he is, and I believe him to be, a true blue-eyed epinw fan)
Her milkshake attracts the boys. And their life is better than yours.
So then the diner scene shows a milkshake shaker shaking like Kellis all over. Then the vanilla milkshake flies in every direction, spattering both women and men.
I ask you.
Does the vanilla milkshake signify jizz.
Is Kellis saying that she is one of the ejaculatory girls on the planet.
Color me questionable.
This, to date, is the only iTune tune I've purchased and it sounds like c-r-a-p emanating from the PowerBook's speaker(s).
Signing off, with some gladness in my heart that my bro Dems in Iowa saw through Dean, saw him for the Hitler-gesticulating hothead that he is.
Politico Love.

To hell with the ol' chestnut
Too many shoe styles, too little time.
Now, in this Perfect World, it is
Too many tiffs to find, too many computers to search.
Explication:
There is the aged iMac DV special edition. Attached, the mega cd burner.
There is the aging and for sale iBook.
There is the necessary newest PowerBook for skewel.
And where in fuck are the tiffs of John Simpson, brand Spanking new Middling City U president. I ask you.
Fired up machine #2 and nowhere on its desktop is Simpson. Search. Search again. There, whew!!!, is the slew of tiffs.
To be sent off to an eager p.r. type - asap - the freelancer's mantra.
To hell with Om, it's asap.
Had a funny overheard quote, via the airport, but it's gone the way of airplane wing de-icer on a windy night.
Fired off a note to mentor JR saying, in a nutshell, Hi and thanks and you rock for getting my brain into a new media direction.
Howard Dean, I have just learnt, lost bigly in Iowa. And that is no surprise to Perfect me. You cannot finger the air like so in this day and age. You cannot smile a sinister smile in this day and age. You cannot trade on the disappearance of your bro in Laos in this day and age. You cannot trot out your wife for the premier time in such a late fashion, if a spousal touch is to be employed, in this day and age.
In this day and age one cannot afford to be less than Perfect.
Aged Love.

Showed the seven, as in digital video shorts, yesterday to the schoolmates, the profs, the visitors, the visiting artistes.
Swimmingly is how I'd describe the hour.
Peter Turnley, the photojournalist in our midst, liked the whole jumping from stills to videos with the Middling City grain elevator piece, Square Sign.
Whenst the snow does melt I'll tromp to the ge's and shoot the symbols that I've shot before. The odd hobo markings I imagine.
All for now, back to marathon crit day.
Then points beyond. And what points they promise to be.
Pointed Love.

Tonight is the secret (now, as I post this, not oso secret) 30th birthdate feting of Doug, tallest member of Janet Reno Fan Club.
Tonight is the night I showed JR the newest and latest digvid, Messenger Hand, a dark short video taking Bill Viola's The Messenger submerging and re-emerging as a good oldfashioned leap/rip-off.
Meandered to the village (really, to be in fashion the v should be a big one) with Beth and Phillip first for a foray at Caffe Reggio, the perennial favored dark place in NYC of Yours Truly and then to the Diane Arbus show at NYU.

Conclusions:
1. Doug is older, therefore so am I.
2. If you are going to rip someone off, Bill Viola's work is a grand place to start.
3. JR is smart, unpretentious and knows how to pry my sometimes clinging thoughts out of my mouth.
4. Diane Arbus, I clearly witnessed/experienced, had some awkward moments interacting with her subjects, visible in her at moments painful contact sheets exhibited at NYU. I said to Beth: She makes me feel like a complete and utter portraiture champ. She might be more famed and feted but I believe that I rock harder.

And so on that big big note I end.
Off to a night of digvid editing.
Processional Love.

Look. You hardly ever get a homework assignment via this e-space. And when you do you must admit, fercrissakes, it is fuckin' good for you.
You. Buy. Lost in Translation.
Listen.
Track 5.
Girls/Death in Vegas. Breathy. Building. Flowing. Inspiring.
Dinner tonight with Christy Rupp, Liz, Cheryl and Kate at Satisfactory Cafe. Liz noted 10oz. glasses at nextdoor table. Waitress warbled out some cheeseball blather about higher end vinos meriting the big gal glasses. That's when all hell broke loose and we tipped the table over and went on a rampage, burning all the cheesey paper products that Satisfactory Cafe places out on their high-class table settings.
Listen to Track 5 of Lost in Translation s/t and get back to me. Oh, do get back to me.
Christy and I discussed this movie. I lurved it. She did not. Her man did. He lived in Japan. I lived in Japan. You live in Japan, you dig the nuances.
I never felt my heart tweak more than in that Sophia movie.
Time for me to edit a video and garner more fame.
I'd love to stay and chat but really. Now's so not the time.
Timely Love.

If heaven has a ghetto we know you runnin' it.
That is my favored quote in a long while, spotted on a concrete pillar in the Middling City's dying and depressing Broadway Market, alongside the t-shirt-making stall where I was purchasing iron-on letters. Where the proprietress was taking Forever to install the letters on my already-made shirts and then, when she reappeared from the back room, I knew so absolutely why.
I had asked her to space the letters along the image on the front of two shirts. Instead of taping the letters to the shirt, in a sensible and time-saving manner, she was lying them on a table and then taping them together and then removing them for a readjustment if they weren't spaced well. For nearly an hour.
When I suggested the other method, taping them to the actual shirt, she looked at me like I had just saved her from hours of needless toil. Oh, I had.

Speaking of toil, cannot get excited about Howard Dean. Or any of the Dems. O wa do dem. Dem Dem Dem, to quote some reggae tune of yore.
Dean is too rumpled, cranky, non-telegenic.
Being a lookist I want a telegenic Prez.

Onwards to art.
All my stumping, ghetto-centric sloganizing Love.

Series of surreal moments have been drifting about like bad Karma around the Bush Family dinner table - or snow molecules whirling through the Middling City.
Just did Pilates for some healthy procrastination against making miniature people out of fresh flower petals for a fab art project (this right now seems fabbish but I began thinking as I was rushing out to Mr. FedEx's joint to get the stellar DVD off to JR and it had to kerplunk to the bottom of the cold metal box as I'd missed them by 20 minutes and the plane was sitting there but oh velcro JR will see them - exported into QT - day after now, how, as a child I thought it'd be feasible to make a kite out of one sheet of rectangular paper, some string and a piece of tape and the mentally challenged older kid down the street shouted at me That's NOT a kite. But I gave it the burgeoning rock star try.) and then noted I had missed a call from Beth. So it's well into tomorrow. Doesn't everyone sip vintage coffee, working past the midnight dip of energy to blaze new trails of art and concentration. Got her voicemail... Hi, I'm doing a survey to see how many grad students I know are still awake.
Driving mid-day to Rochester, Silver Halide City, to do an interview for the shiny-happy mag and, time permitting, rush into Light Impressions and photo points beyond.
Photo Lovo.

What deserves a re-post this Saturday, this day three of month one of millenial quirk number four.
Well, slap my ass and call me Sally, I came back to the abode after a good old fashioned Fuck I can't look at this computer screen any more respite, and erased a message about a prospect, a freelance gig in my attempt to turn up the decibels.
It is gone and I called two phoneco folks with an imploration. The first person suggested that I get the police involved.
Hmm, I said to myself, so I called in the fuzz. The fuzz's response? What are you fucking nuts, you want us to do what? Find out who called you two messages ago? Ever heard of a caller ID box.
Caller ID box, $20 of plastic and wires. Would have been just salvation item.
Moving along to relevant current music desire. Fleetwood Mac, Rumours. Silver Spring. I feel worse for Stevie than I do for myself. I lost one fucking phone message. The woman might call back, maybe not. But Stevie nearly lost her nose, lost her man, and I imagine her alone in her canyon home with some pals and her puffy ass resting on her laurels she's got strewn about her home, festooned with witchy organza and stinky-stanky candles.
Love of Relevance.

Re-working/re-rendering of the ol' chestnut
Been down so long it's beginning to look like up.
=
Been editing so long it's beginning to look like life.
Meaning I can FF over whatever I choose, Command8 and capture moments and then render all into a snazzedelic primo amassment of clips.
In case you are reading this, JR, I am working. You may not have evidence but on my grad student honour it's veracity.
En route to meet Lead Boy Colleague today for coffee, although he has proudly never had a cuppa joe, I dispatched him needlessly towards a cooling wreck caused by the soupy fog that blanketed the Middling City earlier.
He made it in time for the cleanup crew.
Catching a whiff of my sister's adrenaline joined her and ended last night at, believe it or not, Evil Native American Den of Sleaze & Bankrupty - the casino in toxicmost Niagara Falls. NF, CA, not NY, is where a developer is to build not a 5-er but a 4-star hotel (for high rollers, of course) on the other side of the brink - in the belly of the Canadian gambling beast, to accomodate the bimbos, hardasses, galaxians, MIT students and the like.
quickcut edit
I was up up up, then down lower, then upper as I rendered this reality:
I had not had enough free weak cocktails (Esmerelda, I bellowed) and the man two doors down on slots had won the super jackpot (casino worker stuck a special colorful wedge of paper into his slot to pronounce that this contraption had exuded so much luck, fortune) so whatinhell were my chances.
Time to roll.
And not in the craps fashion.
Love Crap.

Welcomed this year with arms outstretched screaming ya-hoo from the rooftop on East Huron where both Matt K and Lars Brose reside, in different lofty lofts. Fire marshals across the way, atop the NiMo building, with flashlights in hands were yelling at us, beaming at us, telling us to vacate the premises. We did not. We hid around the corner out of their view guarded by the elevator shaft structure, about 30 of us, hiding until 1 minute to midnight (2004) and then stormed around the corner for a celestial view of the pyros blown off the roof across the street. Fireballs, streams of sparkles, whoops of delight, poppings of corks. Lars had handed me at 10 to 2004 a magnum of champagne and as I exploded it I wondered where in Hell he was - I think he stayed in his loft fearing that the marshals would storm the roof and haul our collective asses off to the paddy wagon. They did not. Towards the end of the city-sponsored pyros I set off a shower Romanesque on the rooftop which caused small amounts of consternation amongst the 30. But the men with flashlights were too busy making sure that the fireballs didn't incinerate the venerable NiMo h.q.
Onwards we stormed to a few other parties, ending the night at Left Bank, where Laura sometimes works, a cascade of beer lolling across the floor at our feet as one tipsy barback had dropped a case of Sam Adams, tragically.
Now it's back to the video project. And points beyond.
New Year Love.

One day, two posts. But urgency hung in the air as I read:

"how come ME and all my Genious GLORIOUSNESS is absent
from your blog. Should I be relieved or concerned?" from dearest Beth, fellow Parsons School of Art Magnitude and Design graduate experiment subject.

My response:
Relieved that you are not the object of my snarkiness.
And concerned at the heightened level of my snarkiness.

I am at Code Burnt Siena (kind of like Code Amber, JW, for your benefit) with art angst as all is not being disseminating in a stick-to-deadline manner.
But don't fret, I'm still as Perfect as ever, wise epinw soldiers.
Today is snark and stress but tomorrow is a backpack fullah booze and pyros.
Danger Love.

Mercenary is the word that has been rolling along slowly, picking up speed, watching for cops whilst chatting on the cell to see if consensus (internal and otherwise) has it that this word is bound too tightly to a French Foreign Legion-like military coupness.
Too bad if it be.
Mercenary is the word wrapped around my 2004 resolution.
More self-centered, more self-regarding for art's sake, reading when I should be looking over the reading material or coffee cup to engage at whomever is sitting over there on the other side of the table, thinking of Numero Uno primo.
Does this mean I will no longer be nice, a vrai people pleaser, stop & sniff daisies without crushing them.
One word, one resolution, does not a personality un-make and what is resolution if not an experiment in semantics, in practices, gesture.
Mercenary Love.
And pass the Brut.

So believing in his newfound, Fab Five empowerment, the maxed-out Queen wedding planner was a-flippin' as I was fucking up the pending wedding reception's country club regal vibe by having the dining room's lights blazing for formal portraits. I disguised my paint-melt stare and, feeling holiday empathy/pity, reassured him that all would be absolutely fine by Show Time.
The bride wore a white cape.
And odd fingerless gloves.
I understood neither.
The groom wore his heart on his sleeve.
Their vibes, homemade, were truly touching and had my jaded ass all teary. Truly.
I left the gig and, in the fog, could not find my way out of the property. Half an hour later, with the Forester fog lights on, I had encircled the property twice, had gone down some false starts and had nearly driven off the road - twice.
I revisited fellow Libra pal into the wee hours and would not give him the roadmap to this blog. He threatened Google search. I said, most jauntily, and don't forget the J. You forget the J and you are shit outta finesse.
So, Your homework assignment follows:
Link to here and get busy with your summation.
Yours Truly's Nutshell (not bombshell):

Simultaneous Americano and grad school addictions. Slight derailment of career. Love and art experiments. Less booze, more workouts, thinner moi.

All My.