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

Not hot love.

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

Ditches of Love.

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

Matched Love.

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

Grant Tough Love.

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

Love's Muse.

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

Sky Blue Shoe Love.

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

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

Love Thing.

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

Love Thing.

OK,
last post deleted.
Onwards.

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

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

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

Specious Love.

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

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

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

S'Love

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

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

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

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

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

Beds of Love.

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

Repeated Love.