Hey. I blogged earlier and posted it to epinw but it evaporated into thin air - perhaps because it was all about boobies. Photographed two more sets for my upcoming charitable delving into the world of bra designing for the upcoming charity boob-a-thon called BRAvo for Women's Stories for survivors of breast cancer and for breast cancer research.
And for this girlie pals graciously doffed tops.
I will be cutting small black & white photos into elliptical shapes, grommeting them (excellent little red grommets I found this week) together and thin red ribboning them together.
The straps will be strips of contact sheets.
Where nipples appear I'm adhering tiny faux rubies.
Onwards.
Watched a moment of CNN and saw a segment on a man traveling to become a human shield in Afghanistan. Would I do this? Although I agree with the sentiment I think of the speedfreak motherfuckers who kill Canadians, innocents and each other and think perhaps not.
Chris Gallant is doing a short doc and looking for volunteers so I said I have about of 20 seconds of opinion that I'm willing to share with him for the project.
The Jayhawks canceled for Mon. night which has Reese in a tailspin. One of the guys in the band had a heart disease. Another argument for yoga, or exercise.
Ryan Adams warbles out at me before I head out for the evening's art and music and booze destinations.
Boobs and boobs of love.

Look, defenestration's no joke.
That movie last night, The Hours (or, as I've lovingly redubbed it - The Horrors), involved some minor defenestration. Any movie that begins and ends with dreamy footage of Virginia Woolf's river suicide is going at your heartstrings with a scalpel. I realized about 20 minutes into The Hours/Horrors that I was in a chick flick and I have a strict No Chick Flick Policy. At any moment I expected Julia Roberts and her teeth to come sashaying into a well-styled scene. I did like the movie, one of our little watching throng wept uproariously at it.
At a late hour the phone rang. Anne Loomis Roberts.
Quite a surprise, pleasant present.
She divulged the call was prompted by her concurrent viewing of Vinny's Buffalo 66 so, of course, I had to re-regale her with my favorite VG stories.
And somehow we always seem to reinvestigate our private and shared horrors during our time at the private girlie school. Still wondering, after all these years, Just what in hell was that.
Evil anti-choice folks to descend upon the Middling City today.
Armed with camera for hateful doc I will be for non-violent shooting, contrary to their terroristic style.
Choice, always, love.

The weekend's rock & roll notes:
1. Slobbered all over the front of Showplace's stage during Jon Spencer's set last night. He rocked those skinny leather pants like nobody's beeswax - jumping to and from the mic in his trademarked manner, like coming up for air from under water. Only one boy colleague was there and we both tossed on our flashes as the lights at the venue completely suck. Opening act, The Black Keys, apparently only had a single song, played about twelve or so times. Jon Spencer, yum.
2. The weekend's music purchases = Barrrrrrrry White All-Time Greatest Hits (for pending Red Dinner when I cook all red food and the house is lit all red and the house is crammed with guests wearing, what else, their best crimson ensembles), Matthew Good Band Beautiful Midnight, Damon & Naomi Song to the Siren (former 2/3 of all-time fav Galaxie 500) and The Jesus and Mary Chain 21 Singles (enough span of time between me and one of the x's to be able to enjoy JMC again).
3. I apparently emasculated Simon Chardiet of Simon and the Bar Sinisters so during his gig, visited with Doug who I rescued from the terrifying Middling City train stop, and afterwards, he would not acknowledge us as I gave him $10 for gas money last time he was in town. But Doug and I tipsily helped ourselves to his rock star pizza afterwards saying Well screw Simon, eat up!
4. Saw one of the Middling City's better new bands, Alla, Saturday amid stops far and wide and that's the band that my former hairstylist, Jon, was formerly in before he prima donna'd out and alienated the girls on guitar and drums. Thinking that Jon will be furious and possibly not speak to me (again) for a few years when he sees Alla in my photo column.
5. There's hope that the music scene here is not absolutely dwindling to nothing with the announcement of a few good shows like BB King, Tori and the Goos (as openers with Bon Jovi). Think at the Goo/Bon Jovi gig everyone will see that Johnny and BJ have the same hair do.
End of rock notes, time to drink some day old coffee and attack deadlines with gusto.
Blues explosion love.

Multi-tasking.
As I blog I'm on hold with Nikon to find out how come my camera is no longer willing to autofocus after it was fixed by them (camera was ass-crunched by a pal on New Year's Eve and the hotshoe was bent).
A sad tale. Which is sadder... the tech problems or the holding to speak to tech problem shooters.

Thinking back to Disney on Ice and what I learned from it.

*wow, I have a real person on the line...*

The Long & Short = they want the camera to come back to them to fix the AF probs.

Onwards to happier Disney thoughts:
young girls are victims of fate and victims of older and uglier women - on skates or not.
When bad or dramatic things happen sparks shoot from the sky. Hello pyros!!!
And, as we all know, every story ends with a cute guy in tights giving a big smooch to the girl.
Disney-styled love.

Technology schmechnology.
Look under the post of the 14th for the post of early the 15th.
I just figured it out. I'm in EST, Blogger is in SF, CA so if I post earlier than 3AM their computer says midnight.
Color me confused. Confused and happy in my ignorance and ever-questioning status.
Tonight it's Disney on Ice with niece on nephew.
Have to budget how many dollars I'm willing to spend on program, shirts, other items and glo-stick chokers.
Glo-stick chokers are critical to having a good time, I think.
Love glo.

Sip Oban. Listen to baby rockstar's band's cd. Take break from all-day writing marathon. (repeat as needed)
Today a nincompoop mis-dialed, reaching my super-secret cell phone. A caller from Wisconsin.
Call 262-203-0318 and say Hi, Perfect Nancy in the Middling City says you're a nincompoop - true or false?
Speaking of strange communiques, RR in KY sent an email moments ago that read, in part, I am a Raelian.
Now I won't indulge those cultos with a hit on their site lest that is their name but are the Raelians the cult that believes we've all morphed from the grays? Or that we all stem from newborn-looking aliens?
RR says that now that he's Raelian smoking is non-lethal.

RR: do not contact me to donate fund to your Raelian cause.
And don't come crying to me when you realize you've been duped, all spent in your flowing cult robe.

Do Raelians wear robes?
Why not join that cult (article about them in my personal archives/fridge door) that believed the apocalypse was imminent so they ditched their clothing and a dozen or so of them jumped into a mid-sized American car and drove like hell to...
well they drove until they crashed into a tree.
A badass cult with a purpose.
Rock on, newbie Raelian.

Travel Queen Dorota is on the online prowl for el cheapo tix to Barcelona. The Land of Gaudi, Spanish rice, Spanish prisoners, probably some sort of turbo-powered booze and spices... and let us not forget Spanish fly.
D is painting (no, flailing) away for her big NYC début next month and I offered some important advice:
1. your new work sounds great (I asked her to be more specific about the 'candy' colors) but how about buying jugs of artificial flavours and creating one painting that has flavour, à la Willie Wonka?
2. and, of course, sound shoe advice to push her ensemble over the artworld edge.

Whyowhy should anyone care about the American Music Awards?
Apparently Eminem did not. Nor the Dixie Chixxx. And fat-headed S. Stapp of Creed and band stayed away.
This was the sound clip I heard this AM from the AMA:
I want to BLEEEEEP this BLEEEEEEPPP and BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPP off. Thanks.

Can you imagine being the poor BLEEEEP who has to man the BLEEPING bleeper? That person must be drug tested to insure positive focus.

Back to AOL matters at hand.

DNA swirling somewhat the same, me and my sister and five girl cousins (1 missing as she's currently residing in gai Paris) simultaneously pallbore and experienced feisty and low-volumed outbursts of laughter.
My sister, the youngest niece of maiden Aunt Marion, brought up the rear and when she complained I said Listen, Sue, in the cousinly productions we did as kids you always played the Mexican visitor in the straw hat, so just deal with it.
We realized that the old North Buffalo church aisle was ill-equipped for a modern/wider coffin (according to the funeral guy) plus bodies on either side. My sister was right behind me and had both her hands planted under the coffin as if she were driving it solo down the aisle. She suddenly (and thankfully) noted that at that speed the six of us on either side were having a rough time managing the space between the old pews... and that she would also be mowing down the funeral director at the helm (and back to coffin/gurney/us) any second.
Then when it was time to bring up the gifts to the priest me + 2 cousins were like the Keystone Cops, heading off into various directions, reconvening at the steps then gathering up said gifts and then heading into three new and differing directions. More suppressed laughter.
Later a non-deceased aunt said There should have been arrows painted on the floor to direct you girls.
Better laughter than hysterical sobbing, I say. Life is for the living, and the laughing, dig?
The priest gave me my intro and called Wallace Stevens one of this country's greatest poets.
I don't usually but I really liked this Catholic priest, very hip to things cultural.
I read Stevens' words without a hitch and in my little intro added that my aunt loved LAUGHTER, and looked up at the cousins in front of me.
When the last drops of water were flung by the hipster priest onto the steely box the sun came out and shot through a rose window on the northernly side somehow and when we left the sun was blazing.
Now back to my familiar and comforting world of deadlines and wordy purpose.
Words and words and words.
Love.

Last night several told me how much they enjoyed my drawings now hanging in the Hallwalls members' show, pencil renderings of drive-thrus and mentioned previously in a blogpost when I had a run-in with the fuzz at a KFC.
This week maiden aunt Marion left this world, as did Liz's mom, Anne.
This morning I delivered my homemade floral arrangement to the funereal parlor and was greeted by a doe-eyed man running the joint who was not so sure he wanted to allow me to enter Aunt Marion's viewing chamber. Are you immediate family, was his question. Are you the florist?
I stated (thinking Listen Mr. Important, I've dealt with bigger, burlier and snarlier men than you and won backstage at concerts galore and you're a graham cracker crust compared to them) I'm her niece until he let me in... for god's sake.
Due to the shortage of men in the fam arranged that six nieces will be pallbearers and told various relatives that my aunt would have totally dug this. One cousin, Patty, of Cali, is still not too comfortable with the concept of us pallbearing. The coffin will be on a gurney, on wheels, I said, it's not like we'll be heaving and hoing.
I am going to read Wallace Stevens's Evening Without Angels as a reading tomorrow at the funeral service and think, as I reread it, it's a complicated poem - thematically obtuse though beautiful. There's also one line with a shitload of s's so sibilance will be slithering throughout the vaulted space as I read into the mic.
... Desire for rest, that that descending sea/ Of dark, which in its very darkening/ Is rest and silence spreading into sleep.
Loads of s's.
My dad said It's not a tear-jerker is it? I assured him it is not.
How can a poem that mentions a coiffeur of haloes be sniffly?
It's about how we elevate our lives to holiness, how what we have is our life and the sun and the moon.
It ends
Where the voice that is great within us rises up,/ As we stand gazing at the rounded moon.
Rock on, Aunt Marion, wherever you've floated off to.
And same to you, Anne.
Literary and lifeful love.

How many of YOU can state that you began YOUR day in a worldclass cemetery following a tractor guiding you to the gravesite of a dead president?
Millard Fillmore (or Mill Fill as I lovingly call him), to be exact, was in my sights, sort of, this AM.
This was my traditional university assignment to capture the magic of the graveside fete and laying of wreaths in honour of his b-day.
Onwards. More dark.
Sad to learn that Stereolab singer Mary Hansen is no longer - and neither is her band.
She was hit by a truck whilst she was riding her bike in London. Rolling Stone could only muster up a tiny few-inch plot of words (with small yet exuberant photo) of her. At least they gave Joe Strummer a full two pages and, in usual RS fashion, tooted their own archival horn by running the last cover of theirs that he appeared on and at quick small glance he looks like Springsteen.
Today coffee, dark and deep, is my serious pal (go to this ultra-related site this instant) as I trundle from deadline to deadline like a French piglet on a truffle-rustling run.
Listening now to airy Parker and Lily and just noticed a hilarious typo up the spine of the cd where they renamed the band Parker and Illy. She be illin'. Or not.
Beastie and indie rock love.

Successfully attended today's baby shower for Jen & Tom's pending son, mingled with their moms, aunts, young professionals and a few of my co-workers... and then plotted my bye bye/escape.
Of course following a smattering of heartfelt oohs & ahhs (earlier I led a quick how-to seminar on the finer points of convincing oohs & ahhs).
There was a delegation of ladies lobbying the holder of a purse joint to go up to the third floor clubhouse to toke. But the holder was horrified at the idea of being high at a shower so she kept sippin' on the Pepto pink punch with floating raspberries (a bevvie I steered clear of. why does no one have the good sense to serve scotch at showers?)
Began today AM by listening to music and matting and framing the drawings to be dropped at the art joint tomorrow for the members' show - Sat. night. Four in a frame and I am proud.
Last night's live music documentation, nutshell-sized: pint-sized punk rockers, CW-luvvin diva and boys, stoner rockers, baseball bat-smashing punk rockers and wimpy folkster.
Dreams of big city and attendant big there fun.

Drawing all-American drive-thrus today was fantastic until I drew the attention of the KFC staffers who then called Buffalo's Finest on me. Was parked in the lot drawing madly for a while until I saw the cops pulling into the driveway = Time to Go.
At the end of the driveway a cop came over. What are you doing, the staff would like to know.
Making drawings for an art show. They saw you taking pictures.
I then showed her my assemblage of great drawings, explaining all the while how I was moving on from there to BK and then McD's.
Well, good luck to you, the lady copy said.
My drawing career is now sealed with Finest wishes.
No other scrapes with the Law after that... yet.
Last night ended the evening by watching the band of baby rockstar's bro = Parachute Adams. And they were amazing, even better than before their sabbatical and sans ska-style thin neckties. Baby rockstar introduced me to his mother and I said And I'm...
I know who you are, she said.
Call me surprised as a calf caught in a July storm drain.
Dorota called mid-aft to ask shopping advice: should she spend an even $300 on a great new suede bag. How perfect it is to confer with a photog who has ongoing bag and portage needs. Will you use it every day? Are there details about it that you admire greatly? Then run topspeed back to that bag joint and acquire, acquire, acquire.
Big waterproof bags of Love.

Well tie me to the spit and roast me twice.
(secret NY rez is to coin new hick sayings)
Have not been able to blog as I've been locked up in jail for my NYE badass activities.
I'm lying.
But what could I have been jailed for, in a nutshell?
Transporting a cache of pyrotechnics over state lines. Spotted an advert for Mess's Fireworks and followed signage to a VERY discreet operation where what I thought was a ferocious pitbull welcomed me.
It turned out to be an American bulldog and he was armed with a bag of potato chips in his muzzle.
And I nearly pooped my pants with glee when I saw what was inside... miles of neatly-packaged pyros. The dog's name was Pyro. And he slobbered all over me.
As the sign requested, and as I was not a PA citizen, I did not ask to fondle or buy the guns on display.
So onwards to the Middling City, to evening plans of Janet Reno Fan Club variety.
Meaning.
Dinner, drinks, bad behaviour.
I decided to resurrect the Chinese Fire Drill phenom and called for one on one of the city's busiest avenues, clapping my hands and yelling GO GO GO to everyone.
Along the way we picked up a few who needed a jolt of mischief (Jen and Jamal) and I treated them to a CFD.
We met up with them at a rooftop party at which my lungs were pruned by a fire rigged with that poison lighter fluid that should be fucking outlawed.
So at that party champagned and snarfled the buffet and, oh yes, gravitated topspeed to a provided basket of pyros like an early Easter present from a way-hip Easter bunny who knows my heart.
So Doug and I were figuring out how to blow up these 2 large bundles of joy with one wick each when one of the party elders got quite concerned and stated thusly:
You CANNOT blow those off up on this roof - you'll set fire to our neighbors' rooftops.
After a quick survey and summation of the environs (and my cursory Middling City expertise of our location) I thought And what the hell harm will that do here in Crack Heights.
So down we climbed, others in tow, to the street where we made sparks the size of cottages, smoke and danced madly in the street and then sped off to more more more.
More.
All about more, not less.
More love.
Less seriousness.
More Oban.
Less art dreaming.
More art doing.

Eureka!!!
this fancy-ass hotel and their high-powered business centre - The Pierre on 5th Avenue - has blogging capabilities.
NYC for high times and no misdemeanors and about to engage in another full evening of debauchery.
Ended the evening, as is custom, at Clay with Edward the owner excusing all the hired help and after the last customer leaves hopping behind the bar to pour forth his hospitality.
Last night had to suffer through what seemend an eternal Dylan Fest and Edward playing air organ and/or guitar along whilst singing. This transpiring as Jason asks my special journalistic and humanistic impressions of B.D. and me giving my uncensored opinion(s). His farty behaviour regarding hating photogs and even the mere thought that someone like me could or would capture his craggly likeness on stage. ie: what I call ARSS (aging rock star syndrome).
Or, as I put forth to Jason, perhaps a life of people poring over one's garbage makes one rather paranoid.
Onwards.
Finally got Edward to move on to PJ Harvey, more appropriate to the night.
Today happy wending down the streets here, now onwards to aforementioned.
Walked again through thee park and failed to intersect with Strawberry Fields, not to be.
But the loving spirit of John Lennon hanging over my life.
Tomorrow is 2003's eve and there is the driving back to the Middling City to join others in a banquet and party points beyond.
NYC love, for now.

Resolutions for 2003... and beyond.
Mine: to continue being the very best and most perfect Nancy possible.
And to travel to more and new far-flung lands whilst photographing.
Yours: to continue reading blogged-out words by Yours Truly.

So wasn't I consumed by the roving and undulating party blob about me these past several days.
Highlights, and lowlights, merged:
1. freak wine bottle/opener accident at parents' home which nearly cost me my right thumb
2. creating a stellar cake topper for Jen and Eric's wedding on 12/27, it reaching a height of 2.5 feet and weighing the same as a full bottle of vino. Thank goodness that Dr. Eric baked a by-scratch cake dense with cake molecules. Live flowers, large marshmallows, ribbon, beads and assorted do-dads were all spared for my breathtaking project.
3. cavorting at Marty Boratin's excellent eve of the birth of JC party, only marred (ever so slightly) by the reelings of Bad Penny, who lunged at various people to tell them how much she hated them. As I left the party in the wee hours I spotted her amid a pile of coats on one of his several beds in the expansive exurban home and contemplated her angelic face sleeping off the stew of substances in her. I've been hearing how many people saw her sleeping and contemplated quietly smothering her Bad Sleepiness.
4. post-holiday joy upon hearing - finally - a good show is touring into the Middling City. Apples in Stereo about a month + away after I thought they must absolutely be dufunct.
5. receiving the world's oddest belt from sister and feigning delight and tactfully answering where it was purchased.
6. planning a car-dash to NYC for a trans-state bacchanalia as my newspaper is taking an unpaid-holiday respite = byesville but back for the Janet Reno Fan Club outing and column rootin' tootin' shootin'.

Onwards and onwardly love.

Ended the evening on a barstool at Dorota's side, in the lavish steakhouse, watching giant and thick-necked Buffalo Bills cavorting about with their girlie toys. One of them, the final Bill, tried to leave without paying his other sort of bill until the barkeep called his attention to that little slip of the mind. To (over)compensate the Buffalo Bill tossed a large bill in his grateful, now-obsequious direction.
And from the velvet curtain heading out this Buffalo Bill pronounced I'll be back with my wife, she'll love this place, as he left arm in arm with his lady friend.
The lavish steakhouse, unbelievably, was OUT OF OBAN and I had to settle for a lesser, less peaty scotch which, like the Buffalo Bill, is not worth naming.
Earlier had been the Janet Reno Fan Club Christmas banquet with usual mayhem following wine, gift exchanging, Polaroid documentation by Yours Truly, then a drive to the airport to p/u Dorota, a house party then the sad scotch moment.
Today is the eve of Christmas, the day when Jesus was allegedly born although once I read he was truly a Libra as is Your Favored Nancy. Of course Jesus was a Libra, a fairminded Buddhist who liked the drink.
December was when those dusty, scraggly-assed wisemen found him.
Happy days, happy holidays and happy nights.

Hansel and Gretel were bitches.
I had to shoot them, their rents, a witch, a fairy and assorted gingerbread kids and angels for the Middling City Orchestra (MCO) today, moments ago.
Not only were they both female, but both approaching middle age and, when I saw them backstage at halftime, they saw the camera and decided to give me small bits of diva attitude.
What, a camera, no flash... and on, and on.
The hirers told Hansel and Gretel that all was cool, that I had been shooting the first half of their performance and would forge on, all unobtrusive like.
What lesson can be learnt from Hansel and Gretel, the story, not the backstage gripers?
Well, some parents can be downright forgetful and neglectful, thus tossing their children into Fate's sometimes evil clutches.
And nothing is more jubilant, heartwarming, than the reunification of the Aryan nuclear family, after a hungry and pedocidal witch (Das Kinder Killer) has been gassed in an oven.
The End.
Onwards to an early newspaper deadline, an early AOL deadline and thenothen the Janet Reno Fan Club Christmas Banquet tomorrow evening, replete with nametags - per my request.
I am to be labeled as archivist.
I am always the archivist.
Archived Love.

Playing John and Mary's new cd, Pinwheel Galaxy, and it's beautiful though not fitting this mood. Time for more classic rock, a little rough drumming. Mary's vocals sit on top of the mix in a very odd way.
Onwards to Flaming Lips' Do You Realize, on the new one.
... do you realize that you have... the most beautiful face. do you realize... we're floating in space.
Speaking of Okies, dug out a favored holiday image made by the Okie Ex, a Christmas manger scene comprised of day-glo painted lawn jockeys and a B.V.M. front and center, a burro and a babe at her side.
Just returned from delivering holiday gifts to a refugee family that lives two doors down from Yours Truly. Deb called to say that her and Grandma Peggy were at my back door and so I accompanied their good cheer and purchases. The father, Sunday, showed us a video of the overarching evilness of Shell Oil in their former homeland, Nigeria. The fam has 6 beautiful kids and Sunday was laid off from the nearby processed meat plant (makers of surreal olive loaf, amongst others) and is in school and Deb and Peggy et al purchased hundreds of dollars worth of clothing, toys and food.
I have made my usual end-of-year donations to arts orgs and donation to the News Neediest Fund, lest you think Your Favored Nancy is a lump coalhearted bitch - not in this context.
Last night the final stop, avec Laura, was rocked-out Mohawk Place where Barrel Harbor and Ice Boom Theory (I think) played their collective hearts out and I presented Marty B a b-day gift of artful cheese cutting set for his pending holiday party (and 12/19 b-day) on the 24th. I gave him 42 hardass spanks and asked Is it 42? When he responded 46 I whacked him 4 times more, with relish.
Robyn reported that a femmette had puked all over the femme lavatory which perfectly explained the sour looks on faces of post-pee girls. So I and a stranger headed into the boy bathroom, where I collected my quote of the month, perhaps year:
(as I'm in the stall with girl stationed at the door and a guy who was peeing into the urinal is STILL THERE and I've asked What, is he STILL peeing?)
girl: What's that white thing?
guy: That's my dick.
Back in the fray Robyn points out Barfgirl and said she had to clean up the barf twice, as she's the only chick Mohawk Place employee who had the misfortune of being there.
We discuss said girl and determined that she's underage, or must be, given her lack of finesse.
I marched over and asked to see her id.
As she's fishing out the id her pal decided to pretend that I had chipped her front tooth to which I sent one of my famed paint-melting glances and waited further for the id.
And the barfer was legit.
Laura and I had been earlier wined & dined - gratis - at the new steak emporium in town, a lavish affair for sure, teeming with hardballers, highrollers, harddrinkers.
Owner, in a holiday-induced change of personality, was gracious and insisted that L and I eat there so we split the 32 ounces of USDA flesh before us, and sides. Afterwards he asked if we'd like a cocktail and in the blink of a dead cow's eye I gushed OBAN, THREE ROCKS to the man's concurrent amazement and impression.
Today work. A small wedding in the mix to shoot from the hip.

Tonight.
An exclusive whispered in my ear during set number two of John and Mary et al. And the voice saying It is so minty, not boozey, and I am confused - this voice is always whiskey-laden, not Scope-rich. Again my implorement that this photo op be offered only to me, not to the daily and the tv stations.
And how were John and Mary? Excellent, excellent I shout. I stood next to the former manager of 10,000 Maniacs who wasn't digging the scenario and I was pitching what was good with the presentation and he was not buying It. Bought him a drink (O'Doul's - ???) and talked about the bands he manages, including a Canadian band I always thought deserved huge fame, far huger than the doofaloppolises of Barenaked Ladies, The Hip, etc.
And I realize that in these parts those words invite firebombing of my home but to hell with peer pressurized nonsense.
So Ani was at John and Mary but I could not rope her into the small and impromptu twist moment to one of the more bopped-out versions of an older song. When she left, with my friend Tanya, I shouted after Tanya Goodbye Sexy Mama and Ani turned her head. That sentiment was not intended for her but I pursed my lips and sent her out the door with a pantomimend big sloshy kiss.
'Tis the season for big sloppy and earnest kisses.
Slobber on, vials of love.

It's a snack, techno & Oban sort of evening to finish the column. In lieu of some semblance of dinner.
All this following the gospel funeral of bebop pianist Al Tinney.
One of the uniformed church ladies on hand, all in crisp whites, asked if I wanted a seat but I said No, I want to move around and take photos and I don't want to bother anyone.
When the preacher was preaching another lady came over to tell me that no photos were allowed at that moment. I said I want the choir and then they noted my note taking and they understood and started saying Excuse me as they ferried others to seats and passed me.

The preacher talked about how life was hard for Al because he had music in him and heard all sorts of vibrations. I think he's right. Al had a placid zone about him, an enlightenment. I had two portrait sessions with him, one in color and one in black & white and it was hard to make Al laugh though I do think I have one image of him that is him. I shot him playing frequently and I can picture his wide open eyes always looking up at the other players, tunes interspersed with bars of classical or children's music.

Sip, sip, sip.
We all want, though do not deserve, a gospel funeral, or, for that matter, a New Orleans jazz funeral like the one I shot for Ernie K. Doe under the hot sun.

Onwards Al.