Minding my own business, as usual, awoke to the boisterous man at the front desk informing me that 400 cops were coming and they needed my room ASAP. Not for any bust of any sort. Just a convention moving in. And Yours Truly was being evicted from her seaside abode high above the large-scale folks walking back and forth the Myrtle Beach prime real estate. So I moved out and then did some art shooting that already has a fine fine title - Towards the Ocean. Shots made from the high parking ramp where I'd been docking my rented Chrysler cherry red convertible Sebring that in a flash would have one way way over any limit of speed or prudence.
So I says to my self, Nance I sez, You have not been on a beach in a year or more and why the hell not meander down there. So I did and then proceeded to sleep for the next three or so hours, scorching my face a bit which has now evolved into a tan = egads.
Heard from JW,Esq. today who informs me, as usual, that he hit a grand show and I did not. He saw Brian Wilson on the Smile Tour.
Back to chaos, back to the mountain that is the to-do list, the holy shit you had best do this NOW list, the emails, the calls. The past three days of beach and work and pals a hovering dream. Like the blissful dreams one can have only on an autumn beach.

Love Beach.

This is it, shoulders walking strong with the rest of it, eyes looking at ideas of art swirling inside after seeing a masterwork again and again and now the haze of music that matches the outdoors and the interior perfect and also the mood collective at least among people that matter that are personal that wanted change but did not get change. And today, a question that surprised, about now an hour ago, from someone suggesting big changes and that idea hovers like the masterwork, in the dark, the messenger.
Shot last night Dem big winners, big surprises some. Walked with someone over to the bar to merrily discover that all was pro free-o, what with all the work accomplished, the lit drops, the canvassing, the stumping, and more. The spotlit crowd watching results and projections and then people up on stage until their attentions drifted back to the television set next to the stage. Big winners, big surprises. Stood on stage alongside Brian Higgins, a new congressperson, as he thanked everyone and sent out mad props to his forefathers, etc. Talked to pocket-squared Byron Brown, got a hard hug from Sam Hoyt. Got earfuls of gossip and news from various Middling City others.
Back to Mazzy Star, the stars and art and the like.

Like Love.

Yes, I am farting about with my template and that is why there are pixels askew.
File under How Democrats and Republicans Are So Like Cats and Dogs.
Takes place this Middling City morn, gray sky blazing and politics hovering in the air like tragedy or holiday anxiety.
Yours Truly: Hey Chuck (bowtied man who owns photo lab whose rent I pay, essentially), did you go out and vote already. But, wait, I do not want you to vote today, Chuck. (Chuck is a well-known Rep, a conservative one to boot, a lover of the prez, in the political sense as he's also an avowed hetero).
Chuck: Hey, Nance, remember to go out and vote tomorrow.
cue chortles.
As I just told Deb, I am preparing a dinner of flounder or sole, in honour of all the floundering souls out there who cannot get the lead (not Led, not today anyhoo) out and vote. My beloved sister is one of the lax. Oh, gravlax is another good choice for an entree today - in honour of those who are gravely lax in their inalienable right to freakin' vote.

Entree to Love.

Tenterhooks.
Collectively, good or bad/evil/anti-choice/pro-war, we are on tenterhooks - the old-school means of stretching fabric to its limit to work upon it.
Did you think these hooks were for meat, the meat of your anticipatory flesh.
The art world appropriated the def of the hook and it's what said world calls an 'L' bracket sometimes. The little L's that bend and cause one to smash one's finger(s) with hammer whilst installing artwork.
Today is Election Day's Eve and this is, historically, the one to make the difference we are ever collectively bantering about like earnest grad students. Difference keeps us apart, hopeful, suspicious.
If You have your shit together, have registered, know where in hell your polling place is, have the inclination, make the time and listen to the wise recorded words of Caroline Kennedy, professional orphan, that her pops nearly lost his prez election by 1% of a vote in each state (read differencemaking) then get the fuck out and greet the canvassers, the ladies with the boxes of doughnuts, pull the lever and impassively, prosportlike, move, tomorrow.

Moving Love.

ps: happy election day's eve with my whole dem heart pumping the B+

Had good discussion this week with X, AcademeGuru, regarding this my most favoured holiday. He gets this, always got this, about me. Halloween is adopting another persona, getting caramel stuck in one's teeth, trying to be terrified to get the ol' adrenal juices flowing, thinking of the dead and the morbid and the dying smell of rotting plants, Witkin photos that are elegant death. Halloween is not and never will be adorable Hallmark crap, cute and adorable smiling pumpkins. No, Halloween (and please toggle over to archive from last year's All Hallow's Eve) is the aforementioned as well as prankishness and smashing of jack-o-lanterns when it's proper to do so = under cover of darkness, in the middle of public streets and when the day/night is done. It is sad, but it must be done. It dispels the ghosts and after Halloween there is nothing sadder than a jack-o-lantern forlornly smirking as it implodes. Memory: Mr. Hung (whose handy diagram of the extro/into-vert dialectic I've hung alongside my desk) scooping 2-inch white fuzzy mold out of my jack-o-lantern last year, afraid I might be overly saddened that it had done its job and was sitting on a radiator festering. Fercrissakes, get that thing into the trashroom pronto, I suggested.
Be bad, be good, be everything in between.

Love, Pronto.

ps: My Annual Conceptual H'Ween Costume?
This year I am, I so am, Condoleeza Rice. Put that in yer corncob pipe and be terrified.

Hop aboard this thrilling train of Yours Truly thought.
Go to Parsons online course and holy crapskis someone actually POSTED. Instructress says read this and this and this and this and this. All of the readings pertain (very important grad word, like signify, rubicon, student loan, mentor and paradigm shift) to images of the Other. As in xenophobia and the capturing thereof. Or jungle fever and the capturing therof.
One of the links/readings is of images made, turn-of-C-style, of women of Algiers.
Go to CIA's factsheet on Algeria.
Read about Morocco, another former France-occupied spot.
Start thinking of France.
Start thinking of gai Paris.
Go to site listing apartments for rent in gai Paris.
Note that they are not très expensive, off-season, mon favori.
Meander back in memory to last visit in gai Paris, walking streets, echoing feet, speaking the tongue of gai Paris, eating the food on the tongue of gai Paris.
Jump off train speeding like the TGV, hit ground hard and body rolls until it comes to rest against a seeded, gone to autumn butterfly bush.

No love for Bush.

Blogger offers a special memo on how to blog a novel and, as much as I adore all my Perfection-loving epinw fans, I just cannot imagine tossing your collectivity into the midst of This Middling City, a sizzler, a bestseller if ever there was one.
Today's shooting included an anti-drug parade and hoopla. So I decorated the golden Forester and showed up to rep the other team. In seriosity I arrived to discover about 100 screaming children, dressed in red and holding red balloons. New special thought: hire these screamers to line my driveway for my annual red dinner in February. What a send-on for my guests as they arrive for dinner and drinks. So this parade was not a parade at all but a simple line of screamers and I could not make out the phrase that was screamed again and again and to me it sounded Japanese. Finally, I approached one of the children wranglers to ask the big question, to solve the mystery of the moment. BEEP THE HORN, BEEP THE HORN, BEEP THE HORN, BEEP THE HORN.
So when innocent motorists motored by they were greeted by this arcane phrase ordering them to beep so the children would scream louder and the motorists, if lucky and passing by at a slow rate of speed, could glean why in fuck they were beeping.
Nancy's special thoughts on baseball, parting thoughts.
The sport's uniforms are okay, varying slightly from team to team. Some look like really cheap poly. Some look better. When soiled mid-game I wonder if players are allowed to change into a clean one for telegenics's sake.
There are no supremely handsome baseball players and they tend towards awkward hairstyles. In keeping with my formula that the ire level of professional athletes is in proportion to the stylishness of their jerseys baseball players like so fit in. Hockey players look ridiculous suited up for the game and they fight most. Football players's natural looks are obscured and they are rather angry. Baseball players's physiques are open as are their faces and they are least prone to fisticuffs. Soccer players are most exposed and stylish and they don't fight. I rest my sporty case.

Sporty Spice Love.

So I had a Bon Voyage Koji party and concurrent old-fashioned throwdown to which seemingly thousands meandered into and stumbled out of. AJ brought a bday prez for me, one of his empty shotglass paintings, a marvel. I hung it immediately during a break in the baseball action - Kennedy and other fellas watched the game in my chamber and that is exactly where the painting needed to be. So up on a chair with work, hammer, nail and a wapping. AJ told me three times during the party how much he hates my new 'do. The red chunks, specifically. Had a very trying day yesterday which nearly began with the Middling City's mayor smiling into my lens after I asked his handler to Please hold the mayor's trenchcoat, and ended placidly at Kennedy's home as I drifted into SnoozleLand, the newest copy of SPIN still resting quietly in my hands. They did a fine job of amassing a chart to teach the masses of youngters and hipsters the big diffs betwixt the candidates. Shot Nader (again) on Sunday as he spoke not too far from here at the Ukrainian Party HQ on Genesee Street. It was packed with the usuals: Birkenstocks, Green Parties, Hippies, Crunchies, Crabbies - all holding oddly homogenous signs. I realized one of the Nader people had made the cheesey signs and passed them out.
Example:
Bush and Kerry make me want to Ralph.
Now really. Should a self-proclaimed peace candidate, self-reffed spoiler joke about his name being a euphemism for a politically-inspired barf, regardless of the barf's emeticlike source.
Ralph spoke of democracy, how he's not allowed to debate so therefore on his website he debates the other two sports virtually. How does one get a nose like Nader. Why does he always look like he awoke from a weeklong train ride in his suit. Did he. Stumpingly, he signed copies of his newest book, Crash!ing the Party. And sold merch, like any disaffected man with a following on the peripheries must.

Love Votes.

politico ps (pps):
Received the Pentagon conspiracy theory jet v. missile 9/11 video today. Art critique: a bit inconsistent, no firm conclusions, hearsay-ridden, no thrilling conclusion ie: links, deep facts. From me gets a big thumbs mid-way, another blip of fact to add to the heap of election year banter and warfare.

When life gives you lemons, make mojitos.
When life puts assholes along your path, make foxholes.
About to see Jon about shaping up the head of hair and will give him the same directive I gave the jaunty Israeli: short, saucey, sexy.
Ka-slosh ka-slosh ka-slosh last night, speaking of assholes and mojitos, not in that order, exactly.
No time to delve into the context of the assholes but my girlie tribe knows the slew of details.
So, on to the mojitos.
I get a call from Sam and Beth Dearest. One of those We are here and you are so there calls that has me nearly driving to the airport. But, alas, responsibility. So the Wish you were heres. No, wish I was There. Have not been in Middling City's embrace as long as I was gone so I'm still in what I call Post-Travel Limbo as my heart is split in two and I'm a distance learner, a distance yearner.
Have REM's Call Me Leper from New Adventures in Hi-Fi on the play and replay and rererererereplay mode.
Now to Jon for some good old-fashioned rockstar, Harley-driving, Marlboro-smoking, dog-loving high times.

Tribal Love.

Well. Well well well.
It's really real, the new newspaper, Buffalo Examiner - or - in epinw parlance, Middling City Examiner. I am the senior editor which means I've gathered up all the decades of journalistic experience into one big ink-spattered heap.
Received today four cd's made by Kevin Norton featuring fab fotos by Yours Truly of the quartet as a unit and then individuals. I wonder, did I recall that this disc would be featuring these or is this a surprise. Wondering still.
Got turned on to an Aboriginal artist today by a guy I shot at Middling City U - Gordon Bennett whose work reminds me in a flash of Basquiat.
All for now and over and out, think I'll attempt studenthood.

Love charade.

Completely, and I mean utterly, minding my own business yesterday after a gig, you know, sort of la-dee-dah humming and driving along Sheridan Drive in the Middling City suburbs, the golden Forester was magnetized into the lot of Shoe Universe - a place that is a port of sorts for women of all ages, trolling the aisles with intense purpose, eyes searching, boxes under arms, frenzy in the air. So, whilst talking to Beth Dearest, I find not one - but two - perfect pairs (that equals four) shoes. They are mine. Is there also guilt hovering in the air of Shoe Universe. Does the pope have the best interests of pro-choice people in his craggly heart.
Made portraits yesterday of an Iranian femme who's writing a book about Iranian contract/temp marriages - for pleasure (male) + money (female). A sort of fictionalized account of things, a là Rushdie, to be sure. I asked if she'd read Memoirs of a Geisha. But of course. Her house was a carpet museum of sorts and she made me a cup of coffee that had me whirring along the rest of the day.
Onwards to deadlines, the adrenalized onslaught I manage the best.

Best Love.

Just completed as in like so two hours ago the Coronation of Middling City U's newest baddest prez, John Simpson. Lots of my signature people looking human moments, looking ecstatic in bursts. Two nights of grazing on party food, those mysterious cheesey nuggets. Found Laura amidst all today's chaos and invited her to join me alongside one of the tables laden with crudites out the wazoo.
And just back from Philly yesterday, several days of walking through a small town, emptying (with assistance from Bill, Kennedy's bestest pal) a bottle of Oban, and best of all filming for art's sake. Just wrote to JR to inform him of such.
Onwards now to points ever beyonder.
Beyond Love.

Song du jour, du moment, is Beth Orton's Someone's Daughter.
Jaunty, rollicking, chock full of insight perfect for a day that has a chill that squeezes the remainder of life out of the perennials.
So Christopher Reeve died. And I recall shooting him near the Rainbow Bridge where one can cross from polluted Niagara Falls, NY to Vegaslike Niagara Fall, CA. His hands amazed me, all puffed out from meds and flakey. I made images of his body, his talking head, and those hands. At that time he had had no feelings yet in his body and speaking was laborious for him, intake of oxygen, phrase, repeat. It was painful to watch, I found myself holding my own breath and releasing it when he spoke. And I felt like death was upon him then, several years ago. Why was he on the Rainbow Bridge. For a film fest that never happened again, in Ontario over There.
This past weekend, post-wedding, I spoke with Father Jim of the Greek Orthodox Church in the Middling City, a man who if any, has a spirituality hovering around him - uncommon, I believe, in people of the Cloth. I helped him scoop the tray holding jordan almonds, the dual crown used in the ceremony, and some other nuptial paraphernalia, into a plastic bag. I spied the almonds. Are those jordan almonds. Yes, he said, have one for luck. I did. THEN he tells me about two seventy-year old sisters who kept jordan almonds from every wedding at that church, who put them under their respective pillows - for years - as it's superstition that the man of your dreams will come to you in the REM state. Did they ever marry, I asked. No. So much for lucky jordan almonds. I, too, now am assured a life of spinsterhood. Oh well.
Mad props to Beth Dearest for giving me her secret code to print out school readings as my own account with sheister-ridden XanEdu.com wouldn't recognize me as one who had reluctantly and yet diligently shuttled $80 or so at them for the same priviledge to discover last night that Holy Crap I can't access a thing and I'm on the road in minutes and what in hell shall I read on the trip if not good ol' snoozearific Michel Foucault et al. So now I'm armed with Foucault brilliance and won't have to pick up the latest MC News, USA Today or crapmag that I would not usually purchase but for that mysterious state of airport consciousness when suddenly flourescently-lit trash pubs look so... enticing.

Fluxes of Love.

Today I came out into the world. So therefore a bunch of us met up at the Middling City's most eldest of juicejoints, Ulrich's, for revelry's sake. Frosting, cake, gifts, singing, dancing to leder-hosed music, rat scampering quietly around a corner out of the corner of my eye, the debate raging overhead for a portion, more scotch, more dance, more frosting, cards, laughing with head tipped back. Good times were had by Yours Truly, most importantly. Then morning rolled around and it was full-throttle work all day, John Lennon's day.
Today a crisp apple day and, as is my custom, I called my mother who sprung me to discover my father, the other third of the equation, must have been online so no Hello at the exact minute - 2:01PM. Blogging now in my studio/live space getting well wisher calls and emails as the Hispanic evangels rock on for the almighty mightily and I work on various projects before ultimately heading to Kennedy's where I have a huge desire to bake sweet potatoes stuffed with crab or lobster. Tomorrow we jet off to another city for a while.
Older, wiser, stronger, faster, that's what I just told Justy.
Life might be for the living but birthdays are for the birthed.

Nascent Love.

Um, so minding my own stinkin' business (need I say - as USUAL) I'm having a, as in uno, drink with one of my most beloved editors, the Liz. Then more.
So then I query so what IS the next cover story of the next issue of the Shiny Happy. Well, wouldn't You know, it's the Asian Trends Pulitzer Piece by Yours Truly. Very Truly. Truly truly.
While out and about we are speaking to the bar owners, the chef of the joint, and assorted (not sordid) others.
Now here. Where I have the proverbial gun to the head, where I am flailing away and am assuredly looking at an old-school, charming night sans sleep. Hello! Journalism! This, kids, is what it's all about. The over-indulgence, the grace, the caffeine, the deadline pressure, the tension, the creativity. The ebb. The flow.
Love it, live it.
Called Beth in the midst of the throes of it. Noted she has not called back. She is scared. This is frightening. This is Get the fuck out of my way or I steamroll right the fuck over y'all time.
Onwards to crime.
Onwards to less time.

Onwards to Love.

Open thought to Kodak, one of several pains in mine arse. Whyowhy discontinue a winner, namely, your CN41 b&w film. I mean really. A grand film. Now to be replaced by a more expensive model, curiously named VW. Does Volkswagen know of this.
End of letter to misdirected corporation Kodak.
And just finished pondering the big questions raised by snapshots, papparazzi and daguerreotypes for skewel. Dragged philosopher Paul Virlio into it all, about his thoughts on what he dubbed the telepresence, what we all imagistically experience en masse, to global result.
“Since all presence is presence only at a distance, the telepresence of the era of the globalization of exchanges could only be established across the widest possible gap,” he writes.
Rock on, philsopher man.
Makes for further great cocktail party conversation.
Planning a bon voyage party for video artist Koji Tambaata at my joint, somewhere in the 20s. Full-on booze-a-thon with video people and rockstars and others. Or not. We have to hold a summit meeting.
And, on the subject of the day you should really be shopping for already, my bday soiree is happening Friday night at 9PM at the oldest grindingly sloppy bar in the Middling City, Ulrich's. German band live, in those cute little leather short sets.
So, if you are in the MC and are of revelling age, come and be.
Time to further my education, edit some marriage images and then, and THEN, watch the veep debate at 9PM EST. Cheney the Corporate Evil One v. The Dubiously-Credentialed Edwards.
All.

Debate on Love.
Parliamentary Rules and Roberts's Rules of Order in Full Effect.

Holy guacamole a first just happened seconds ago, when I lifted the half-full, nay, half-empty bottle of Oban to my lips and sucked its essence into my soul following this marathon - and I mean MARAfuckinTHON - two days. Today was an oldschool Perfect Me 18 hour day that ended with the dual Harvey Breverman gig at two galleries. First the one, then the other. Made hundreds of digital images of the beloved Harvey and his students, former students, art people, my art people, my pals, etc. etc. I think at the Harvey gig I may have spent about 60% of the time talking. Oh, if the woman who hired me finds this on the ol' internet system that was but a joke. It was more like... oh, 10%. Another sip of Oban, hello nectar of the gods. And tomorrow early to rise and meeting and the wedding of the diva bride and her man until it's time to meander into the final moments of Kennedy's show across the way. Interpol, Oban, a change of clothing, bane. You will be oso shocked and happy to note the Shiny Happy Mag story is complete, a genius array of over 2K words. And happy happy happiests to JW,Esq. who turned, uhhhh, according to some tripped-out femme at a recent concert, 28 or 29. But I know, ever-diligent fact-searching and soothsaying journalist that I am and will forever be, that he is over the age of 30. But never will he reach my age as I'm ahead by five or so.
And, really, there are eight shopping days and what in hell are you waiting for.
Search this blogpost for super-secret bday gift ideas.

Ideas about love.

If You did not take the time to watch tonight's Aspirational Debate, indulge in a firsthand document instead of predictable spin and snippets, I am impatient with You at this moment - or could it be the spate of tea and afterbuzz bordering on hyper-freneticism.
Most troubling phrase uttered by BadW was I know how this world works.
My maddest props to Kerry (who should be buying better suits, in my not very humble opinion as I've got the blood of a bespoke tailor and generations of seamstresses and sewers within) was his comment on certainty. That the hook or by crook BadW is ascertaining wrongly - his words were that there may be certainty but the facts or beliefs behind that certainty may be wrong.
This half-arsed certainty is parallel to beliefs that lead one to follow terrorism or to engage in acts of terrorism - beliefs that are certain and certainly not benefiting many or putting forth the concepts of co-existence, acceptance or peace.
There was one moment, near the end, when Prez43 garbled several words together, just a mash of sounds. Arresting it was. Reminded me of the Martianspeak (KLAATU BARADA NIKTO - to which I replied EEP OP ORK AH AH....... which any self-resepcting fan of the Jetsons will know as well as they will know what the initials WMD or WTO or OPEC stand for, fercrissakes) in the movie Kennedy showed me last evening, The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Oh, and one final parting shot/blow/thought.
Money, and the having of money, mean nothing. It might make the ugly men of the world fuckable or charities creak along. Or prevent historic buildings from collapsing. But. It never means taste or kindness or style ensue.
So. Post talkpoints up come the families. Kerry had only his date, the ketchup heiress. The Bushies had to share their portion of their limelight with the Kookie Twins. Ketchup lady looked like hell. Hair askew, a bad suit choice. And both first lady contestants wore winter white. At moments of appealing to the masses the whites, the pinks and pastels turn up.
Out on her own Hillary showed up in black and that is, seemingly, her colour of choice. Theresa Heinz needs a stylist. Kerry needs a better-fitting suit. Think these things don't matter. In a battle this important every factor counts - demeanour, thoughts, suits, slogans. Frumps and the weak don't win.
Rah Rah Rah.
Eep Op Ork Ah Ah.
epinw readers vote.

epinw Army of Love.

Not that this will alarm You but the ol' piece for the Shiny Happy Mag is l.a.t.e. Once again I am creating stress wrinkles in the visage of an editor. But, as I always say, it's researched, fact-checked out the literal wazoo and will arrive Pulitzer-ready. Just when I think I'm done researching - kablam - along comes more fun facts, a new joint to investigate. On the advice of GoodW, bona-fide & head-to-toe Banana Republic Boy, meandered into BanRep today for the FallSale and later spread the good cheer, telling Deb post-standing Wednesday breakfast engagement that indeed it was worth the suburban foray. Thanks to GoodW en route to the Luxe Card. What with all the Parsons School of Demands purchases I should be well on my way to the New School U plutonium card. Favoured new word, speaking of things invisible yet oso powerful: allotropic (an element that can appear in more than one form, sort of like multiple personality disorder). Use it, love it.
$5 Word Love.

Returned from ad agency gig at Middling City Zoo post asscrack of dawn. The femme who hired Yours Truly says Be there at 930. So I am. Along with some construction workers hard at work making Otter City, a display of... otters, and workers engaged in poo management. Finally, the event. For the dessert, if you will, of the hoopla, zoo workers had the elder statesman elephant meander out for a photo op. I saw this as Republican Party propaganda and will be PhotoShopping a Dem donkey into all the elephantine images. Sitting in my car parked in the center of the Middling City's largest park/golf course I talked to Beth and collaboratively we noted that our grad program is so peripheral in our minds. On that note onwards to homework and its attendant focuslike activities.

Focus on Love.