So there I was, perfectly documenting the race, the Corporate Challenge, for Middling City U in the swelteration and the good people under the tent gave Yours Truly a nice straw cowgirl hat for sunproofing. I asked Laura, who works at MCU, if, with my bitchin' shades I resembled Kid Rock. Her reply was a weak affirmative. Saddled with approximately 30-40 pounds of gear, trekking to the start, course and then finish lines I nearly faded out. Me + Heat = Bad. Memory drifted to the sun stroke I'd had in the Phillipines, when I hallucinated that I saw a man's head where the pig's should have been at a roast one beautiful evening. The daytime found me splashing in the South China Sea, and then hiding in the shade - with SPF a gazillion all the while. Then I nearly passed out in a bathroom but not before spotting one of the planet's largest cockroaches and then was put to bed for a day and a half in the bedroom of the family I stayed with, wealthy enough to have a generator-powered AC situation despite brownouts. And, once I drifted back to non-dream land, the fever dreamscape, I discovered the Qu'ran on her bedside table and read much of it. She, a Muslim, despite the sweltering Catholicism of the island Luzon, and the family she was in. Like many of the rooms of the wealthiest Filipinos, the walls were mahogany, restive mahogany left to its primal coloration, like the walls now of the room where I dream at the edge of the Middling City. Time for volunteer biz, to help Jon et al set up for Music Is Art Fest at the edge of Allentown's own, history-saddled fest.

Edgey Love.

So apparently, whilst attempting a way-rad stunt of sort, nephew careened off his bike and shattered his forearm and elbow, resulting in several plates and screws to keep it all - theoretically - together. Rushed to hospital to see his post-op self, armed with a gift bag full of mags and candy. One of the mags is all about skateboarding so I penned in a caveat about trying this out post-hosp.
As he drifted into a morphine dream he sweetly said Peace out, Auntie.
Time to rush off and shoot a bunch of ladies having tea at the presidential manor of Middling City's U's Simpson et al.

Elbow Love.

Let Us say that this shall be filed under H, for Hardy Freakin' Har.
Middling City U gig this noontime was to capture the likeness, steal the soul of one Senator Chuck Schumer (of GOFORIT Fame), weeks ago highlighted within epinw, Your source for Perfect news, advice, tidbits tantalizing and fraiche.
So Schumer, as is politco wont, is missing. Then he appears, and so does his crackerjack team. I know one member of the team quite well, we sat on an artsy committee aeons ago. So he gives me the ol' kissonthecheek and then says You know, Nance, I just told X that if Schumer gets sick, I'm breaking your camera. There is a moment's pause, a quizzical aura hovering over my head and a near violent one to boot as who in hell wants to hear that one's trade tool(s) is being threatened. It takes me a moment to realize he's wryly reffing the Hillary moment, the ol' Gripping the Podium shot. He said, Well now, I didn't choose sides. And on and on and then I said a few words. I mean really. Wasn't that about one hundred years ago, wasn't it news, wasn't it an elected official in my sights. Onwards.
Made art today, this fine AM before the gig, all shallow depth-of-field wispiness I cannot divulge too much of. But let us say it is Perfect, it Rocks. It is going to be shown in a gallery in the Shiney Apple on Fifth Avenue this fine, pending summer.
I pre-rest on my pre-set laurels.

Love of laurels.

Have an op to go to Lollapalloowhatever this summer and the big question is this: can Yours Truly dig on a two-day rock extravaganza sans camera. Think Who can I get some creds from to shoot it so at least I'm not another sweaty pedestrian. Thinking still.
So art is afoot and it goes well, need to make several days to edit them all but there are actual story boards to remember what's on all the tapes.
Yesterday shot a wedding which was a good time, knew a lot of the guests so it made it more breezy than not and engaged in a conversation with two about the differences between the sexes - processing of info and all.
Steve S cornered me at some point, as he does, to ask a shitload of prodding questions and I know he means well but allright already I say to that.
Questions about where I'm on the map, so to speak.

Speaking of Love.

And the Middling City crumbles further still.
Apparently the housing gendarmes who filter violent activity between nearby bad people and nearby decent people is fading out. Meaning. Yours Truly lives on the DMZ between Project Land and Working Class Land. Housing Cops are going bye-bye and allegedly during the summer they expect a blaze of activity, that the scene will be "busy." Heard on one MC radio program that two people were stabbed yesterday on Fulton Street en plain air and that'd be a stone's throw or so from where I blog.
Onwards.
Yesterday, while Judy Jetsoning out, saw four cop cars speeding westward (perhaps to scene du crime du jour) and in front of the pizza parlour a youngish guy watched the approaching cars and nervously wrapped his t-shirt, that he had removed and was holding, around his right fist as if getting ready for a throwdown.
Urban Pioneer Reality at its most real.
Then I went out to Middling City U to shoot another EC-produced event, this time featuring a man whose big thing is e-poetics. And he explained to sleepy students how poets working in this media hide some of their words within html code. And I thought What the hell, I like reading pomes pennyeach but who has that kind of wherewithall to be dragging an online pome's code into the light of day to read it in its entirety. Give me the word on the printed page, s'il vous plait.
He went on to say that Duncan (that'd be late great Robert Duncan), when he became himself a hotshot, would dictate to printers and publishers what font he wanted his work to appear, that he chose Times Roman for its spacing. First time I'd heard that and I find it rather suspect but oh well, let us run with it.
Today is a bad day for filming anything in the grayscape.
Time to gather the work to be delivered and disseminate images . . . and miles of smiles.

Love's Smile.

Latest in the cavalcade of hotshots photographed by Yours Truly was a hotshot from a certain Ivy League joint - this afternoon in the Middling City while said hotshot had a beetle crawling about his collar, unbeknownstingly. Hours afterward, whilst speaking to the person who had hired me for the gig - thee Elliott "GimmeAnEmmy" Caplan - I remarked on the progress (and perhaps even prowess, or prowling capabilities) of the bug. EC said he wanted to reach over and flick the dang-blamed thang. I also commented upon the fact that the man in my sights (i.e. subject) was gripping his venti Starbucks (swoon) paper cup like a shield, a prop, a signifier to such an extent I wanted to fling the goddamned thing more than the bug.
Now it is night and it is time to shoot video of things at night that you are accustomed to seeing during the daylight. My first recollection of the day for night for day or whatever phenom was when I found myself on a curious date of sorts in a large public garden at night and realizing how different nature or penned-in nature looks in the dark hours. Onwards. Today, in the garden store a man urged me to help him look for eggplants. Being ever-pleasant or rather always looking for a good blogpost and sensing one in this oversized odd man, I searched for young eggplant plants. And found him three, chatting all the while. He actually asked if my hair was a natural shade. Or, rather, he was going to pose that rather prying question until I bent over to fetch an eggplant young plant from a shelf and he saw that in sooth I am a happy natural light brunette with tinges of reddishness rather than faded primary red with scrapes of yellow faded into an interesting mélange of who can freakin' say. All thanks to beloved Jon who is in throes of working on his Music is Art Festival happening on the 11th and 12th in Allentown, a quadrant of the Middling City. Jon promises it will be one freakin' fab time with more artists, a collective of body challenging/punishing artists and more more more. Music by the usual suspects and then some more more more.
I explain to people quite frequently that my hair lies in the hands of Jon, that I like sitting down in his chair and tossing him all my trust and not really knowing what the hell I'll look like when I embark.

Love's Surprises.

Latest in the cavalcade of hotshots photographed by Yours Truly was a hotshot from a certain Ivy League joint - this afternoon in the Middling City while said hotshot had a beetle crawling about his collar, unbeknownstingly. Hours afterward, whilst speaking to the person who had hired me for the gig - thee Elliott "GimmeAnEmmy" Caplan - I remarked on the progress (and perhaps even prowess, or prowling capabilities) of the bug. EC said he wanted to reach over and flick the dang-blamed thang. I also commented upon the fact that the man in my sights (i.e. subject) was gripping his venti Starbucks (swoon) paper cup like a shield, a prop, a signifier to such an extent I wanted to fling the goddamned thing more than the bug.
Now it is night and it is time to shoot video of things at night that you are accustomed to seeing during the daylight. My first recollection of the day for night for day or whatever phenom was when I found myself on a curious date of sorts in a large public garden at night and realizing how different nature or penned-in nature looks in the dark hours. Onwards. Today, in the garden store a man urged me to help him look for eggplants. Being ever-pleasant or rather always looking for a good blogpost and sensing one in this oversized odd man, I searched for young eggplant plants. And found him three, chatting all the while. He actually asked if my hair was a natural shade. Or, rather, he was going to pose that rather prying question until I bent over to fetch an eggplant young plant from a shelf and he saw that in sooth I am a happy natural light brunette with tinges of reddishness rather than faded primary red with scrapes of yellow faded into an interesting mélange of who can freakin' say. All thanks to beloved Jon who is in throes of working on his Music is Art Festival happening on the 11th and 12th in Allentown, a quadrant of the Middling City. Jon promises it will be one freakin' fab time with more artists, a collective of body challenging/punishing artists and more more more. Music by the usual suspects and then some more more more.
I explain to people quite frequently that my hair lies in the hands of Jon, that I like sitting down in his chair and tossing him all my trust and not really knowing what the hell I'll look like when I embark.

Love's Surprises.

Was just, scant moments ago, delivered news most shocking and disturbing. Maybe even life-altering.
Over time Sharpies are, according to a colleague, as noxious to a cd as lead paint.
So, what does this mean in this Perfect World.
Well, in a petite nutshell I will tell You.
Come, realistically, September, month of new scholastic beginnings, Yours Truly will be placing all digital files currently on cd's - annotated with Sharpies fercrissakes - onto external harddrives. Conservatively, with a digital archive this size, it will take weeks. This is news one does not want to hear. That all your digital archive is quietly fading into oblivion. Allegedly another, mutual colleague, cannot open up cd's from the dawn of our collective digworld - roughly 1997.
I will never look at Sharpies the same way.
Sharpies, poison seepers.
So, I ask You, what are they doing to the hands of YT, when errant marks mark YT.

Sharpie Dubious Love.

5.30.05
Dearest Dave,
You know that I love you. I really, really do.
I loved you even when you got all hefty and you grew a beard, as some menfolk do, to hide that fact/expansion.
You may recall that I am the photog who, backstage three times to date, has shouted DAVE I LOVE YOU - YOU ROCK. Whilst flashing the ASL sign for I Love You.
It's me, Perfect Nance.
Now, about the new release.
Forgetting that I had it in my cd changer (and that I even had purchased the dang thang weeks ago) in my vehicle it played a song. Onwards to slight confusion. Looking down (ever cautiously as I am one safe fuckin' driver) at the car's hi-fi panel. Yes, cd is on. Not the radio. So WHY in blazes in Sting warbling a tune out of my hi-fi. And then it sadly hit me, Dearest Dave.
Please do not make any more singles whilst sounding like Sting. And please try to rock a bit harder as it makes me self-conscious in a way, that perhaps all my boy pals and boy colleagues were right, that I might be a geek for loving you so.
Love, Love, Love,
NJP

PS: Crit Love.

Gee, that was fun.
According to my meager and somewhat impressionistic calculations I think it just took me nearly two hours to book my tix for jetting to and fro this fine summer to get my Perfect self to school. Sort of like taking the cheese bus but a whole lot more expensive than school taxes, nobody is yelling their stinkin' head off in the aisle (well, okay sometimes the wailing of infants - cringe - happens upon lift-off and lift-down), and in lieu of a crotchety bus driver there is a whole ensemble of perky staffers, armed with strong arms to lift baggage snacks and drink items. And, mid-June, I'm officially over 100 super-sonic-bonus points and can traverse off to a swell spot of my choosing and at this moment I just might head to the furthest destination sight unseen but I've probably been there and it's probably LA or SF. Tokyo would be nice, been craving the fruity dry air scent of that island, the food that surprises you, the wack juxtapositions of things, the flora. JetBlue doesn't fly left of Cali.
Shot a wedding today and informed the couple that when the photog gets misty at a wedding it is good luck. And that quippitude is bound to end up on the special epinw calendar, chock full of wizened words, helpful hints and good old-fashioned snark. It has to be good luck if the core of the day, oh, you know, the sentiment of these two people, creeps down their bodies, across the floor, up your leg and into your brain, rendering things slightly swirly for a few moments. I mean, really, I've seen it all. All. Seen. All. And that's just the backstage antics at rock gigs. Then the weddings. All. The only snag du jour was the seemingly benign priest cornering me after all was said, done and official to tell me that basically I'd thrown his whole gig off course as I had gotten too close to a moment onstage. I feel bad for individuals at times like those, having to divert anger and negativity towards someone who they deem their easiest mark. In lieu of Uhh, excuse me Father Malarkey, don't you have something better to do like administer to the bereft instead of invading my time with your fear of losing one centimeter of control over your regimented scene (and keep your hands off the kids), it was Well, it was important to the bride and groom to get a shot of that and I was quite quick about it.
Then drove to a nearby exurb (you know the one, where everyone is wearing a blank smile, walks at half-speed and is wearing sensible shoes) to purchase, on behalf of Yours Truly and Cheryl and Liz, a gift for the pending baby of Jen and Jamal. I decided to call Jen from the sto - JEN, I shouted, I'm in a gift store, did it come out yet. Do you know what it is. So I have to buy yellows and greens. It is imminent. Jen sweet Jen is about to be a mom and I forgot to ask if Jamal still has the scruffity beard he had in the winter as I think his new child should see him at his best and that beard is not included. Jen suggested instead of posting the gifts that I hand deliver them. I considered. Drive to Boston. New baby. School beginning any second. Maybe pile.

Maybe love.

This is a stilled moment from a brainy concept I had that never really got past the "TheArtistIsFuckingAboutWithAConceptThatMayNeitherSeeTheLightOfDayNorOtherSubjets - NorEspeciallyBreathlessAndEnthusedStrangersInGallery" stage. Let us just say that its title could be Sing Into My Hairbrush.
Models were lined up. Concept was so light-tight. Well, crap, I'd best not give it all away lest I'm trolling for said concepts later this art-making cycle.
Have been having odd dreams where I'm being visited or am visiting with a parade of people who I know who have drifted away. Last night I saw Chaz and we hung out for a while and it was like the heady and adrenalized and blatanly strange old days.
So where did Laura's jpeg escape to, the one of the man in Central Park lurking behind me and my digvid camera. Buzznet (below on a past epinw post), so not working with me at this moment.
Oh, note to self:
Remember that on warm days driving around with too many layers, not opening up window for fresh air, and not turning AC on high enough results in snappiness with unwitting photo subject who is not only awkwardly self-conscious but just trying to break the ol' photo ice. Then all improved, went swimmingly, &c.

Swimming in Love.

Mere moments ago Yours Truly was trying to Perfect her mind even further by listening to a scientific radio program about the space program. Now, all due respect to my colleagues and full range of pals who dig the big S as in science and all the engineers and rocket boosters. However. After giving it about a good twenty minute college try I was like so done with it. Onwards to Daft Punk I say.
Having what I love to call a ping-pong day - suburbs, city, suburbs, beach in suburbs (for a photo shoot fercrissakes, really), city, suburbs and - finally - city for some vino with Liz.
Back to Middling City U deadlines fast and deep.

Deep deeper love.

Late morning, today, outside the big box store, you know, the one that chokes you with the aroma of popcorn when you enter and where in HELL are their greeters of yore, or is that another box store, a man gave me a choice. Are you running a cat clinic or are you a crazy cat lady, I bet you're not a crazy cat lady. Oh, I said, I am the crazy cat lady of my neighborhood, I feed all the cats. Then I went on to tell him how Extra is the original cat, how he's had shots, is neutered, and the rest are all transients, as the man smiled said an odd Thanks and turned quickly towards his car, stating weakly that he, too, was some sort of cat lady.
Just weeded and dropped some perennial seeds in a flurry as it's time to hit the road again and the sun is for seedlings, not for Yours Truly.

Seeds of Love.

About to embark out to Middling City U to shoot the difficult donor wall, a respendent and very reflective surfaced creation that necessitates Yours Truly shooting from behind dark fabric.
Saw several noise bands last evening with Kennedy at Matt Kantar's joint, Kitchen Distribution, a warehouse at the terminus of Auburn just a quarter's toss from the toll booths where now an additional quarter is charged to bring the toll for the ol' Niagara Extension up to 75¢. Scott's band - Caustic Solution (another clever as hell band name) played first and were truly the best, followed by noisemakers from Rochester and some from points beyond. The bricks quite possibly are still reverberating, I'm sure the foundation is a little weaker for the sonic wear and tear.
Yesterday, driving away from photo lab spotted a young girl with snow shovel, already this season an odd sight but she was shovelling out her home's front hallway. Glancing towards the open door I could see another person with another shovel. Happy to report I've never had to shovel out my hallway.
Came up with, in a dream yesterday, the way to show my digvid work this summer at the thesis show. A self- contained enviro of semi-darkness.
Off to donor wall shooting.

Shoot Love.

As we say in the biz, Gee Willikers, whomever happened to be epinw reader numero 20000 please speak up as I'm sure there's a prize around here somewhere for you. And a friendly reminder that Yours Truly never put a counter on epinw until well into the second year so really the count and amount (a wry ref to Dialing for Dollars - a slice of Middling City television arcania) would be higher.
Second off the amazing and stellar and tear-wrangling news is that Neil Diamond, epicenter of the universe, is working with Rick "pleez breath relevance into my career bro" Rubin. And RR knows, understands the austere beauty of Neil's early work.
A quote from today's NYT article:

In fact, the two men have much in common. Both are transplanted New Yorkers, dropouts from New York University. Both have played with the ethnic and racial makeup of American music, Mr. Diamond as the star of the 1980 "Jazz Singer" remake, Mr. Rubin as producer of the Beastie Boys. Mr. Diamond grew up wanting to be a doctor; Mr. Rubin, a lawyer. When they eventually met in 2003, in Mr. Rubin's house in the Hollywood Hills, Mr. Diamond was impressed by the living room. "It's only got a Steinway piano and a huge Buddha that goes up to the ceiling and out about half the wall," he said. "And a rug in the middle of the floor, and that's it. I've been thorough a few of these, uh, transcendental situations before, and I understood where he's coming from, what can I say?"

Neil, a transcendentalist.

Allright, let us all collectively forget the surreal memory of Neil in blackface in Jazz Singer but otherwise it is a fine article. Rubin, a wise wise man.

So, being a Diamond Girl and all, I do know that Neil is coming to the Middling City late August and I really must get some tix soon as assuredly it'll be packed. Part(y)ing thought: Cherry Cherry. Only one of the world's most perfect songs.

Cherry Cherry Love.

Special combo blogpost - begun Thursday, finished Friday.

Finally, I found a cop. In Canada, the fair land to the north of the Middling City, that's an OPP officer. And there he was, in a well-equipped ride (probably inside and out like that of the Niagara Co's Coroner), idling outside - of all freakin' things - a donut shop. In Canada, the fair land to the north, that is donut shoppe.
I was lost. And, if You truly and perfectly know Me, You know that this could be an eventuality when faced with an unknown highway. And Canada wasn't helping, having created a highway system so faceless and so intertwined with the same and recurrent artifacts to make the NYS thruway look like a charming two-lane country road.
So I was on the 407 ETR (that's Electronic Toll Road to the newbies) heading back to the Middling City for a gig and a vino engagement and was heading west/ouest. For miles and smiles and miles until I thought that the next roadway should have been making itself known and, sans helpful distance markers or signage, it was all one stinkin' guess. So west/ouest then thoughts of No, it's east/est. Then more miles/kilometres. Then the cop.
So I pull up snugly next to his car and am waving around my MapQuested print-out like I was contemplating tossing it into his vehicle. He snatched the paper out of my hand with a smile and draws me directions. One straight line. One line and the number 407 underneath. You'll be on the 407 in one minute, straight ahead. Then stay on it for 45 minutes.
45 minutes mine arse, I had a gig to get to and vino afterwards to engage in. So with the keeping up with the Canadian drivers at high speeds it was more like half that. Then onwards to photograph over-the-top and tipsified law students glowingly celebrating the demise of their educations and such. Read: commencement.
Shot one of the season's final commencement this afternoon. No senator. No repeated speech. No beach balls flying overhead for this was the dignified pomp and circumstantial and velvet cap-wearing of med students.
Best quote: medicine is art and science.
Art: science and zen. No medicine.
Well, the recreational sorts.

Sorted Love.

So, here's a visual treat for Your perusal, a fine image from Middling City U, parked outside the commencement ceremonies. Why, I ask, was the coroner on site.
Why does the coroner drive such a bitchin' ride.
Why, look at how squat Yours Truly appears in the hi-gloss surface.

Surface of Love.

To be filed today under O for Oh, No! Not That Anecdotal Story... Again.
Today's gig, Middling City U's general commencement ceremony (read: multiple hours, multiple grads, multiple mortarboards), included a special message from NYS senator Chuck Shumer. Or is that Schumer. You look it up. Anyhoo. Moving along into the proceedings I tell one of my boy colleagues, Derek, You know, I bet he'll be telling the same anecdotal story I've heard three times to date. He needs a remindful booster shot. You know, I begin, the story about the scholarship. The trip around the world. The dusting yourself off. The not getting the girl. His face lights up. YES! I think I HAVE heard that story. I said Well if you've been on the commencement tour you sure as hell have. So the senator begins. I turn to Derek You see, the same story. He still didn't get the girl. One wizened audience member shouted out Take the scholarship, nearly derailing his narrative choo-choo.
Saw Elliott there, in cap and ballgown, looking quite beleagured under the ceremonial garb. I heard someone calling my name and there was his cinematic face.
It should be noted here that as the platform party made their way past Yours Truly many of them greeted me as if I were master of ceremonious hoopla or some such thing. Why, even the senator of repetitive anecdote shook my hand after quickly deciding, I could see, not to give YT a kiss on the cheek. His handshake had my very important hand, the one responsible for lifestyle, &c, nearly shaking. A grip to be sure.
Here I must end.
The online course is done and if I was sure that You would read my brilliance I would post it below. But You would only not read the whole fucking thing, you would not glow at me about it. And I do so deserve it for creating a new branch of aesthetics. Voilà thesis.
Onwards I must float.
JW,Esq it's your turn for correspondence and I do hope this publique shaming hastens such. Or perhaps your head is far too emburdened with things litigational, corporation takeoverish, or rockish.

I rest my case, my adrenalized self-employed and over-achieving case.

Cases of Love.

So, there I was. Minding my own business.
A postcard came to my newspaper office from Parsons School of Design, a Manhattan school. Suddenly I was applying to said institution. And then I was accepted, a call from Jim Ramer told me so and the night was Mardi Gras and I had been out shooting for hours. Glee. Panic.
Now, years later, about two, I find myself writing another research paper for an online course with a photographer instructor named Brian Moss who lives somewhere near Los Angeles. He's upbeat, savvy, very nurturing in his comments. As is JR, my art mentor and leader of the small and efficient Team Ramer.
I am tossing words about in this nearly-ultimate research paper like nobody's business, pulling out all the grad student stops, if you will.
Why, topology is even used. And scads of others that perhaps a few years ago would never have flown out of me. At that time I was still (sort of) living with a pro academic who was landslided into words and theory and I, throughout those ten or so years, tossed myself into the Real - the real world's images, the real world's happenings and descriptions of those. So now I am balanced between academia and realia which is, in my truly humble grad student opinion, the way to go.
Speaking of go, off I go to finish this burdensome task to proceed along to a small mountain of freelance deadlines and assignments and hell, where's the fun.

Hellacious Love.

Phones are all off. As are the bets.
Can Yours Truly finish the Pulitzer-worthy research paper of 3K tonight, or by tomorrow at 5PM. That is the question. Writing about Sam Taylor-Wood, Gary Hill, Bill Viola. And me. Aesthetics of Stillness.
So, comedic interlude during tonight's commencement gig was when PhD's were becoming such and as they were being conferred their thesis title was announced. One, Fiona Apple-worthy one had approximately thirty words in its title. Me and an usher glanced at one another in faux understanding of what this biomedical person had achieved behind such a hefty title.
My thesis has three words. Six syllables.
Scott is aiding me in the quest to locate the email address of cello boy, to tell him to tell his bandmate that he owes me $51 due to an international credit card fraud scare, or shitheel international practices of zappos.com - or both. Zappos, lest you wonder, is thee place to buy shoes online. They have the best, the obscure, the pedestrian. And one of the tentet ordered, with assistance from YT, some fine Chuck Taylors for his kid.
A rearch paper is afoot. I am ablaze with ideas.
I am off, as Brucey says, like a turd of hurdles.
At times like these the tough just get coffee chugging.
Or something to that chestnut effect.

Love's Hurdle.