Very sad to hear that this afternoon Middling City native Tim Russert collapsed at his gig and passed away.
Was trolling through my mental archive to recall what images I made of him and they're coming in a bit more vividly - a wildly crowded reception for him when he was a Distinguished Speaker at the BigU.
Affable, flushed, lots of guffaws and slaps on the back, and stopped to sign every item that fans wanted autographed. Much like equally-affable, equally-shaped Michael Moore when he was at the BigU for his own Distinguished Speaker trip.
Watched the Steve Kurtz big screen release Strange Culture after yet another marathon day that included freelance gigs, a wake, a memorial service, a stop at a coffee joint mid-afternoon, the munching of an excellent maple cookie from Quaker Bonnet, and oso much more.
Before film watching dined at DiGiulio's and saw both Sandy and Deanna from the elementary days.
Pre-DiGiulio's motored out to Botanicus Gardenus to see their wonderful new exhibits in honour of The Everglades, and The Rainforest. More orchids at the viewing venue, more bromeliads, more big palms, more statuesque grasses. Just lovely. Afterwards, a brief look at the works of Roland Wise, another person no longer in this sphere photographed by YT at several arts events. He studied at Art Students League, where Brucey also gleaned some fun facts about making & doing.
Yours Truly began today with laptop working and then documentation of the high school graduation at the private school on the rolling and perfectly picturesque parcel.
After that ran for some healthbev and ran into Victor (also from elementary days) in Snyder - as I told him, I do not seem to ever go to Snyder and its juicebar without seeing Victor.
What is trad about high school graduations? Nearly same for the next level of graduating.
Apprehension, cockiness, flowers, parents and other relatives who are somewhat displaced. Some live music, school songs, incantations for all good wishes.
Today, as the headmaster sent out a love-packed adieu to the grads-in-making a large branch snapped off of a nearby tree with a huge crack.
Nature was adding itself to the program.

Nature, ever on the program, like it or not, notice it or not.
Today, I stopped to look at a departed bumble bee, fat, on its side.

Bombus Fervidus Love.

Yours Truly was minding her own freakin' business.
And she was at the inner-city gas station/deli/icecream stand/car wash to glean some over-priced, governmental and inter-nationally taxed and gouged out the wazoo gasoline.
At the pump in the shade YT looked up to see a man in his 60s at his own temporary pump.
High, he said.
YT, ever having problems with homonyms, having shot a plethora of rock concerts in her lifetime, heard Hi.
Hi, YT semi-shouted back at the man at his own temporary pump.
To his quizzical look.
Oh, he stated, kind of looking the direction of YT, I meant High, as in the prices.
Oh, YT stated, I thought you were saying Hi.
Glancing at his vanity plate, YT asked him if his name was indeed the name on the plate.
He did not see YT first looking at his plate before the question so he was amazed that YT quite possibly knew him.
Your plate, YT said, pointing.
There was a great degree of confusion at that inner-city gas emporium, the very same joint where YT was able to purchase sustenance after the October Surprise Storm: cheese, coffee (limited - only 1 tall/customer ... rations!), and water.

Tonight, as YT left a gig a chef pal and another asked What, You are leaving without some cheese, we have cheese put aside for you.
This type of conversational thread makes YT oso gleeful.
Nearby a dog snores.
Nearby another peony blooms and lets off an amazing scent ready for a good, deep sniff.

Good, deep Love.

Beginning of blogpost and Pandora spits out NYC by Interpol.
One of those serendipitous moments (today) that confirms I am living in Everything's Perfect in Nancy's World – the movie.
flashback moment: (heart aching, memory ridden of any negative spin on the following) Writing a brilliant term paper for intellectual property law course at Parsons in Shiney Apple sitting in (somewhat lame-assed) library at Parsons (in photo building, not the other across Fifth) as I had this very song on repeat, peat, and repeat for hours.
I have done this repeat of NYC on a few other occasions. Also with song Blue Thunder by Galaxie 500.
Today has been a most curious day, emotionally and visually.
A moving truck the size of Delaware – State of – was parked across the Kennedy driveway and had to shoehorn around it to leave to visit an ill pal of Yours Truly.
En route to visit spotted a woman in throes of meltdown running down Delaware Avenue S-curves, occasionally throwing her arms in the air and waving them (like she just don't care). She'd run a way, wave her arms for a bit.
Followed a fleet of emergency vehicles to lo and behold corner of Del and Forest where an accident had just transpired. And, whew!, YT was not involved.
Took long while to pass as everyone had to have a long look to analyze the situ, what in the media biz is called The Rubbernecking Effect.
Photographed Steve Kurtz at his show Seized at Hallwalls: toppermost and belowermost.


Federal agents left behind 30 pizza boxes for three days of seizing, snooping, and the like.
Wondered how none of those lemmings spoke up with a craving for Chinese, Greek, something less ... 2-D to eat.
Time to make and do, and wend and deliver bushels of pixel happiness.

Bushels of Love.

Latest in the ongoing, scintillating Accidental Series.
This image is entitled "Cops Coming: Corporate Challenge's Beginning, Blurred from the hip."
After a day of gigging, and showing the Middling City sites to Chicago cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm (including those cataracts near the casinos), made images of Corporate Challenge. As is tradition.
The stretching, the hydrating, the puzzling pre-race beer sippers, the pinnings of paper numbers, the hoopla of the half-day tent complex of an array of company barbecues. Some orgs/companies (such as the BigU) go all out with tent, buffet, goodie bags, whereas other companies have little more than a 10x10 tent with a party sub sliced up on a card table and a cooler full of bevvies.
Fred wanted wings and, of course, Yours Truly took him for take-out at Gabriel's.
He wavered at his choice but ordered bbq wings.
We took them back to Kennedy's and we three ate pre-gig wings (Fred played last night at Hallwalls); YT ate four wings, as many as YT has eaten in the last six years.
After hosing off the bbq slop, Fred dropped me off at an edge of the race boundary and YT trotted madly to the U.B. tent on the other, far side of the meadow.
At the cataracts Fred revealed himself to be quite the Nikolai Tesla scholar.
A lifelong scholar of all things DC.
I announced that a bonus to our Niagara Falls day trip would be that Fred could not only see the Tesla bronze near the edge on Goat Island, but that he could crawl up onto Tesla's lap.
He was skeptical, even after we'd parked in the nearby lot, walked to the sculpture, and YT pointed to the very burnished spots on Tesla's hands and lapbones.
See, YT, said, so many people clamber onto him that he's shining.
After some more additional, gentle prodding, Fred took the plunge, and climbed atop the opened lap of Tesla.


His gig last night, replete with Canadianathusiasm to the max, with Steve and Ravi was super as the outside skies first lightened with increasing intensity and then a thunderstorm assailed the MC – the first of an audacious series by Nature.

Rain rain Love.

Well add that all to the section of the bio to do with Artists & Models involvement. As I looked over the images made by YT that evening (those kept and not sold for cash money to bennie Hallwalls), I pondered the event's 21 incarnations - different venues, changing cast of characters, sense of cohesion, dancefloors, and other stand-out mems.

One that popped into foremind was the third A&M, at Great Arrow Building on Great Arrow and Elmwood, how there was a corridor lined with living Rodin sculptures, buff men up on pedestals, their bodies painted what else ... buh-ronze.
Or the one on Main Street when Pahts and I were a living Calvin Klein ad and YT had the buzziest and shortest 'do ever for the occasion.

Onwards to now. Or then, the near then, of Saturday evening.
This inception of YT's interactive Polaroid booth was prop-happy, and props were shopped for for weeks. Office art, just the right sort of name badges were critical for the nursing staff, bathrobes, and the usual signage and Polaroid-related goods.

Gave the nursing staff their tequila-related names: Nurse Mezcal (SherryB), Nurse Sauza (Jana), Nurse Cuervo (Annie), Nurse Lime (Mish), Nurse Proof (JenM), and Nurse Worm (YT). We were a bitchin', saucy, nurturing staff prone to feeling scalps as we consulted our phrenology charts, shouts of RELAX, and our Nurse Sauza capping off most nursely statements with a shriek of Stat. YT had one straightjacketed patient spit out his gum into a gloved hand. Give me that gum, YT ordered. Are you joking, the strapped-down man asked. You cannot go into SURGERY with gum, yelled Nurse Cuervo, and out the gum came.

The Ward was busy all the livelong night, solidly from half an hour after start time until 1 a.m. - when it was time to call it a wrap and get most of the props and items hoisted onto my gurney and rolled out to the nearby vehicle.

Had a break only when ValT insisted that YT see her installation across the way, a couple of rooms that focused on mania, and depression. The next day, as YT cleaned up the remaining residue (the soothing framed office art and a few other items), observed that Nurse Sauza's shoes that were left behind were completely missing, and what else remained was a tiny plastic shot glass, a Little Mermaid crayon (from my Ward's artist and crafts table where patients were led and robed so that they could make happy pictures on their Polaroid folders), and the two small pots of faux fleurs.

What the above images are, top to bottom:
1. Nurse Sauza doing intake.
2. One of the Ward's phrenology charts. Know phrenology. Love phrenology.
3. The staff - (l. to r.) Nurse Proof, Nurse Lime, Nurse Worm, Nurse Cuervo, and Nurse Sauza. Nurse Mezcal was out triaging.
4. Nurse Mezcal, with patient Scott V. NB: Mezcal's neat sutures.
5. Staffers working on Steve Kurtz, media artiste Paul Vanouse assisting, between Sauza and Mezcal.

Recall: Kurtz's exhibition SEIZED opens at Oilwells this Saturday, 8-11.
YT will be there, with cam and a few bells on.

Wards teeming with safe, happy Love.

(For absolute, complete erudition about above, go here).

Well, there Yours Truly was, minding her very own beeswax, scooping up the Middling City News in its festive orange plastic wrapping.
Unfurled the paper to see - OMG - my head above the banner.
In pose crafted this past week with SharonC, holding aloft a small plate of my famed Red Devil Eggs. (1 part hard-boiled eggs, dollops of mayonnaise, jars of red caviar)
Separated sections and then *ka-pow* there was YT again, half-paged.
A few newspeople emailed promptly with OMGs about the size of said likeness.
YT, ever-inquisitive, compared and contrasted the half-page likeness that appeared in the past week of the now-defunct, long-serving (sexist, racist, anti-intellectual) mayor Jimmy Griffin.
My head wins.
My head is larger.
And, as the accompanying story is about the annual Red Dinner created by YT, there are images in colour. His front page screamer photo was printed in black & white.
The newspaper rarely runs photos in larger sizes so it's a rarity, something all urbane denizens note with curious, designcraft abandon.
As I told a pal, there are no misquotes that have me looking at new homebase destinations.
In the past YT has been severely misquoted by reporters for the paper but not today, the day that the 21st annual Artists & Models comes together for one glorious, art party burst of creative high times.
Many details, images, descriptions to follow - I'm fairly certain in a post-party haze of laughter, adrenaline, and tequila breath.

Jubilant Love.

These pieces are entitled Hand and Hanging Grapes, and Hands and Scary Licorice. The Creeleys purchased a copy of the latter.

Voi-freakin-là the two images selected by Jerry for a pending art exhib at Kenan Center, opening in August. Artists who make snappy work centering on food.
Today is the birth anniversary of Kennedy and cannot wait to give him his excellent presents. I, quite possibly, get more excited about birthdays than anyone I know.
For that I am proud.
Setting up of the sanitarium went quite nicely amid the rubble and dust and other effluvium that is Central Terminal.
My sister and I painted a backdrop and Geo did some manipulation of seamless and other materials, and Jana came and helped with the fine tunation of how the flow will flow in the installation tomorrow evening at Unhinged.
Many images certainly to follow.
Did go online, in an experiment of sorts, and ordered yet more Polaroid 600 film that Yours Truly is Perfectly hoarding.

Hordes of Love.

What in h-e-double-Stanley-Cup-Finals-parallel-hockey-sticks is this image.
Well, I will tell You.
This is: AEDM, nouvelle pal SherryB, Yours Truly, and Sparky. All smilingly captured at Ani Hoover's and AJ Fries's swingin' studio party this past samedi soir at 701 Seneca Street. The ol' Larkin Soap Factory.
This was sent over by SherryB, who may be one of The Nurses for my installation at Artists & Models.
Who else was at the A/AJ studio soirée.
Gordo, Bryan, Todd&Steph, Jana&Deano, Kerly, Ed, Cheryl, and a plethora of other bon vivants and demi-n'er-do-wells.
And cheeses galore, as mentioned previously.

Sometimes Yours Truly really and truly self-amazes.
Today, for example, YT decided to finally check out what was creeping over the edge of her left black ballet flat.
What appeared to be a lining, beige in colour, revealed itself to be a form-keeping piece of cardboard made after shoe in question left the factory in China where it was assembled from dyed cow hides, petroleum-based plastic soles, and the like.
A piece of cardboard.
No wonder the left shoe was a little irritating to the foot.
Onwards.
Just fired off an email to the nurses-to-Artists & Models-be about appropriate uniform regalia, tequila and Polaroid policies.

Yesterday the Middling City News came to the YT World Headquarters to interview me about Red Dinner, the annual hoopla that brings together both a smorgasbord of wondrously wonderful people, and a smorgasbord of red foods - all prepared by moi.
I fired up the stovetop and made a small batch of my totally famous Nance's Red Devil Eggs - made with red caviar.
The reporter, JaneK, kind of turned a little red and declined a try.
Sharon, on the other hand, as intrepid and creative photog type, took the plunge ... and loved the little squidgy treats.

Jerry Mead was over after the MCNews gals and there was overlapping and Jerry pronounced his like of Nance's Red Devil Eggs, and ate one.
The cockles of my heart were warmed through.
Jerry picked two of the Touching Green series - hanging grapes, and Hands and Scary Licorice. The latter was purchased by Penelope & Bob Creeley as she, as some did, had an odd association with the nonpareils captured in the piece.
The show opens late August at Kenan Center (that's Center, not Centre) and includes others who make work about food.

Time to wend, and make more pixel-related happy times.

Happy, Pixel Pixie Love, Love.

Yesterday, a portion of it anyhoo, became Studio Management Moment, a slight variation (although similar of focus) of Pixel Management: order, and delivery of happiness.
Did not find anything forgotten, although I did finally unearth the lost pair of secondary lunettes underneath some cam-related cords and the like.
This is the pair of lunettes purchased up in TO whilst up there with Karen to see a full day and pair of eyeballs' worth of films, docs, and movies.
Yesterday evening made some fine portraits of Steve Kurtz of recent dismissal fame for the Shiney Happy Mag.


One day motoring down Steve's street it occurred to me that his home's facade is rather iconic at this point - see the image used for his pending Hallwalls show, Seized. The corner of Mass and College was transformed into HazMat @ FreakOut with a guy being de-scuzzed in his HazMat ensemble as curious/bemused/empathetic neighbors look on.
As Steve and Lucia pointed out last evening, the neighbor's are within legshot of this mysterious anti-bacteria chem that is being sprayed with abandon.
So, here is Steve on his porch, in very a very different phase of his life.
He said last night that he feels that he is in the midst of a type of post-traumatic stress disorder. Assuredly, he is.
His Hallwalls gig opens on Saturday, June 7th with usual hoopla.
I plan on spending time with him the week of the installation and making more images of him during said op.

Last night, after Kurtz ports, and dinner with Annie, headed over to AJ and Ani's studio party and ended up staying there long enough to meet some new characters, visit with several friends, learn some new fun facts, and skip the bands at Adam Mickeys'.
Some of the SGB girls and I spoke to a guy we saw at Adam Mickey's on Dyngus Day, a man who was enthralled with the op to speak to a grouping of interesting ladies en masse.
And he rose to the occasion, bragging about how he loves to love the ladies.
So last night I asked him if he did recall his spiel about Pleasure.
He assured me that he did not.
Annie went on to paraphrase a not-so-funny joke he told us about the diff between Polish and German people stuck on a deserted island. Proof that he may have indeed enjoyed some bragadoccio this past DD.
I met a feisty femme who regaled Yours Truly with a tale about having a wee bit too much tequila and literally kicking a guy out her car - while it was motoring along Pine Street in Niagara Falls.
I liked her sass.
I asked if she'd like to be one of my arts and crafts ladies during Artists & Models.
I told her she could not let people leave my installation unless they'd decorated the folders that their Polaroids will be sold to them in, to her approval.
Kerly and Sparky showed up, AJ and Ani were doing the host-hostess dance of skirmishing about making sure to replenish the cheese boards and such.
As Ani knows circles, AJ knows cheese.

Just back from a quick jaunt to see the still-unfinished, newly-opened Erie Canal Terminus and scatterbrained environs.





YT finds it rare that wall/site-notes really explicate matters at hand.
There are some large holes left in the terminus narrative, but it's a fab start.
One real klunker are the large plastic letters on the steel bridge that spell out COMMERCIALSLIP. The wiring to make them glow is hanging. These words really cheapen up the joint.
A lunch counter or dining option other than the onsite hotdog pushcart should be next on the docket.

Docked Love.

Today is a merry string of hours, part of string of holiday weekend hours and days, that are lush, curious, newsy, and productive.

Artists & Models happens in one week exactement so this is a week of amassing props, readying the space I am allotted, making it all drunk/public-proof, and oso much more. Last year's installation by moi was several huge, drywall-panel-sized panels painted and I had a team of workers building bases for the paintings that were free-standing. I believe there were nine panels. Power tools were involved. I burned the tip of my right forefinger after attempting to screw a screw into a drywall panel. After that I left the power tooling up to others.

This inception of A&M Yours Truly is creating a - or recreating a - ward in a mental hospital, a sanatorium, a joint for mind adjusting under watchful care of two nurses - Jana and Annie cast as the ever-helpful nurses. Got the straight jacket in the mail yesterday, not a high-end model. YT realized in a flash that one could spend upwards of hundreds of dollars on very nicely crafted straight jackets. This model, via eBay, will work for four to six hours of random members of the general public getting strapped in. Hopefully.

Found this quote, in most recent VF, article about RFK and his mourning his bro.
It's from Shakey-Babe, his torrid teen love tale, Romeo and Juliet:

When he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he shall make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.

Somehow, rather unsurprisingly, do not recall this quote from the drama.

Someone very significant to Yours Truly, who has previously been dubbed an Art/Life Mentor, has become very ill over the past several months and has been waning. Less of self, less of laughing, less of bon vivant status, and we both knew (I believe) that something was seriously askew. And it is. Now that things are officially diagnosed it's time to treat, listen, give, research, and more.

On a slightly different note/path received the used Band of Horses disc via a nice seller on Amazon. Band of Horses was a recurrent band on Pandora and it was love at first aural gleaning, they along the high poetical lines of Galaxie 500, best REM early songs heard first in a Tokyo flat, best Mazzy Star beseechings, and Tim Buckley haunting.

Haunted Love.

So many minutes, so many newsbites.
Premierly, my former pubgig, Artvoice, previewed Artists & Models which Yours Truly is part of this pending 31st.
The theme of this year's A&M is Unhinged so YT is fashioning an insane asylum in which any prospective loonie bin customer may purchase a $10 Polaroid (extinct, I might add) of themselves strapped into a straightjacket and restrained upon a gurney.
I have my two bawdy nurses at the ready.
As well as my compensatory tequila.
And oso many props.

So here is the mention:

Nancy J. Parisi allows you to experience what it’s like to be strapped in a gurney in a mental ward, recording the episode with a Polaroid.

Did YT mention that the Polaroid is on the endangered list and is fairly worth the $10. Also, every purchaser will be made to partake of therapeutic arts and crafts and decorate a Polaroid folder that will hold their precious precious souvenir.

Moments ago the Middling City News phoned YT to inquire about my fab, annual Red Dinner. Seems several people living in these environs kept mentioning the party and now a reporter and photog will be showing up next week to give due mad props to this swinging affair completely fashioned as a mid-winter cocktail buffet as a milestone around the time of Saint Valentine's feast.

Feast of Love, Love.

This image is entitled "Accidental Frame, The Wedding at Night."
Made this past Saturday, You know, the Saturday upon which Yours Truly felt hypothermia coming on as the wedding was a tented one this past quite chilly weekend.
Afterwards, the hoopla continued with a smattering of kerosene heaters ablaze, that kind that toss heat up over the edge and along the metal Japanese rice paddy hats - allegedly heating a wide area around them.
The wedding featured a bridegroom who was green from the night before. He was hunting for aspirin or a pain reliever of any type. I told him that I had chewable Motrin in the car but that I would not rec it in his condition as it makes any ol' person want to gag and then ... You know.
There was also a Viet Nam vet at the wedding, a lady in gold spangles, and a fellow anti-Papist. I sat with the aforementioned, talking through dinner to the man on my right, the anti-Papist who was an altar boy in his earlier days.
He told me of a randy priest who got You know what On with a nun, and how the two would reek afterwards and how his young little nose had a nose for something randy going on.
It was the latter detail that nearly had me spitting out my twice-baked potato with mysterious orange topping.

After this wedding Deb had the very good timing of calling Yours Truly as I was on the highway heading back towards the Middling City. She was at a rollicking gig and invited me to join her et al, which I sensibly did.
Saw end of one band and beginning of the headliners.
Deb said demi-half band was called Road Buzz. At least that's what YT heard.
Later, whilst looking at an official type of roster in the MCNews saw that that band was, in actuality, called Rosebud.

Onwards at the moment to tackle the very high grass growing like a weed.
And the weeds are growing like themselves to boot.

Weedy, grassy Love.

Made some lush images yesterday for the pending Book.
Things, Nature, Vibes.
Centenary oaks standing despite lots of change underneath and alongside.
Party on the Portico at Hysterical Society was a nice and varied mix of people and John and Mary were playing - didn't get a chance to talk to Mary as I jetted out to get to a wake, and then Cheryl and Mark's b-day dinner soirée.
Did manage to park car in rock star manner just beyond the front Hysterical steps and ran top speed away from car as if it were going to blow. Elderly volunteer parking lot attendant didn't know quite what to make of the scene.
Especially since Yours Truly had a meatball sandwich that I crafted for Heady, who was hungry, and YT was flush in meatball department, having just ran to Santasiero's for same - for YT, for Kennedy, for Mark's birthday gift certificate to enable him to (after a long night in his Niagara Street studio) wend down and eat approximately 28 meatballs. Or so.
The Middling City sky is darkening, and darkening more as I blog and it's looking like it will be one drenched and wind-whipped wedding today out in the hilly exurb.
Did hear back from Senator Schumer who, as is de rigeur, thanked me for my contacting him about the important matter at hand.
Of saving Pandora radio, in my case.
Time to make, do, edit, and suburban and exurban wending.

Dendritic, Arboreal Love.

Solid Gold Bookers (above) met up last night at Trattoria Aroma, formerly Just Pasta and formerly some other joint with a cheezball Sinatra-themed bar, for dinner and vino. And to fete our two May b-day girls, Tiff and Jana.

Just notified a bit earlier by Kerly that Pandora is nearly endangered, due to the RIAA (probably nearly as corrupt as the AMA) charging them and other internet radio sites twice what their satellite radio strong-armed competitors are charged.
Charges, You ask.
Charges are licensing fees that enable recording artists' work to be played on this site. Any listener can link on over to learn more about the artists being played, and also purchase what they hear via iTunes or Amazon.

Called and wrote Senator Chuck Schumer to ask that he support something called the Brownback Internet Radio Equality amendment that will be considered in the Judiciary Committee meet-up tomorrow.

Inch by inch, lest You have not considered it, the world is being capitalized upon. Internet radio may be abolished, and all radio music will have to be a paid subscription if you choose to listen online.

I sent off my note to Chuck Schumer noting that I just made images of him this past Sunday at the BigU's Big C. And that I missed hearing his trad "GoForIt" speech. Yours Truly to date had heard the "GoForIt" speech six times. The new commencement speech is just as rousing. Senator says there's a site out there devoted to his speech.
The old speech.
The newer speech doesn't have the following - yet.

If You are interested in preserving internet radio as We know it, go HERE.

Here Love, There Love, Everywhere a Love-Love.

There Yours Truly was, on a job, minding my own business ... as usual.
YT was in a swankedelic setting, a library of wood paneling to be quite exact.
YT was waiting for a lull in action to make some more images and began to peruse the titles in the nearby bookcases.
Amongst the old tomes of medical know-how, encyclopedias of scientific bric-a-brac, and the like was the above white volume – LSD: A Total Study, by Sankar.
Ever-intrepid, YT went to Amazon to see if this book is very in demand: it sells for about $160 per copy, was pubbed in '75, and is nearly 1K pages.
About a hippie drug.
The Middling City had some curious news, a commuter nightmare situ yesterday when a Viet Nam veteran beat his girlfriend as he drove south on the 190 alongside the mighty Niagara River.
A commuter in a nearby car spotted the violence and phoned the police.
Police stopped the VV's truck and the woman ran away from the vehicle.
Then the man held a handgun to his throat with one hand and in the other chatted for hours to a negotiator.
A colleague was on hand documenting the action, or slight action, or near inaction.
YT was nearly on that 190 when all this minor chaos was happening and for once had the good fortune to avoid a major traffic snarl as all traffic to north and south was made to exit here and there onto aptly-named Niagara Street and environs.
Four or so hours later and kapoof, all was over with a device that they toss at the beleaguered and self-endangered, what local media called a flash-bang device.
YT things that she should like a flash-bang device: a newly-fangled, YT-designed flash that emulated the flash bars of yore that employed a trough of black powder that was carefully lit by a photog to make flash, artificially-illuminated images of sitters.
Only this device, in addition to a giant, extra-powerful flash of light, would make a racket. It could render portraits of subjects all looking rather terrified. Perhaps the sound aspect could be adjusted down, like an aperture.

A parting note.
Perhaps the most exciting portion of this blogpost.

YT found herself this past weekend in a true This is Spinal Tap moment.
Walking along with a platform party, led by a newbie leader, took a wrong turn in a labyrinth of hallway.
The leader asked YT the way.
YT stated that I am forever the maker of document, not of the way, so never paid much attention to the path, just snapped along.
So a wrong turn was made.
I said to a prof nearby Have you ever seen This Is Spinal Tap, this is a This Is Spinal Tap moment.
The platform party had to double-back on itself to correct the direction and finally the way was found, to thee platform.

Love, on a platform.

Put on your seer cap (NB: NOT to be confused with your seersucker cap) to see that the image provided for your erudition above is the Artists & Models installation of Yours Truly.
As this year's A&M theme in Unhinged, YT is fashioning a homemade insane asylum ward, replete with gadgetry and staff associated with such a place. Including the coffin gurney that YT discovered with its twin in North Tonawanda, a hilarious early summer evening with JenB when, thank the lucky stars of YT, she was driving an elongated Subaru.
Onwards.
Met with Hallwalls people who are handlers of A&M artists (John, Polly, Carolyn) and was given lay of the YT land. This corner of the sadly ruined Central Terminal will be said installation - an uproarious, interactive installation.
Onwards again to points beyond.

No one beyond Love.

Photographing a man wearing an exceptional pair of loafers (black, smooth-topped), and watch. A very nice tank watch (black, gold accents).
He has salted and peppered curly long hair.
In short, he is John Kapoor, a donor to the BigU.
In shorter, time to zoom off to the next portion of the gig to document the events held in his honour.

Longer post later.

Later, Love.

Whilst big-boxing out in the former wetlands alongside the Middling City - and utterly minding my own shares of my own business - found myself looking at heaps of nouveau book titles, including The Daring Book for Girls at BJ's. Hardcovered, and sparkles to boot, like made to last.
BJ's is where I happen quarterly to buy giant bags of catfood to feed the feline masses (as well as raccoons, skunks, and random others in need of snack/sustenance), magnums of DVDs/CDs, and critical office supplies. And replacement knock-off brand vacuum cleaner after the age-old vacuum stopped sucking and became most irritating. Most.

sidebar: Yours Truly is a cart-dropper, my rendition of eavesdropping. At the earth-toned grocery chain or co-op I spend some time checking out what others have in their carts. I buy no processed food so sometimes do marvel at things like frozen breakfast amalgamations, self-rising pizza, prepared dishes, and the like. Oh, and creepy juices.

So there YT is, looking at a heap of that best-selling book of girlie know-how. And YT bought two copies, one for the niece and one for her fashion/spiritual adviser, her godmother, YT.
Let me tell You.
Page 112 = Women Inventors and Scientists.
Page 213 = Robert's Rules of Order.
Page 192 = Diagram of how to do a Sun Salutation.
And oso much more.
This book rocks.

Daring Love & Love of Derring-Do.

Yours Truly truly needs to unloose a Major Pet Peeve: men in sandals.
As I just wrote to Liz moments ago, the sight of men in sandals makes me uncomfortably grossed out.
I try to be tolerant in matters of shoe choices but the sight of men's feet hanging out of strappy bits is just not Perfect.
In my Perfect world men would be required to wear, in hot climes, canvas.
(sidebar: in Asia somehow men in sandals does not seem utterly revolting - perhaps it is the lack of body hair/foot hair ... or that ol' when in Rome concept.)
With or without socks, no matter.
Young or old, with shorts or nice linen pants above, just the same. If sandals are the footwear of choice on a man's feet YT wants to not only avert my gaze but to tell that they should rethink things down there.
Why such shoey vitriole, You may ask.
YT is working on laptop on a fab mag deadline and is facing a window where co-eds are flittering to and fro. I have occasionally glanced up to see unmentionable men-in-sandals fiascoes.
To regale: one x-l guy looked nearly naked in his cheap shower shoes, very minimal nylon shorts, and tank top. To contrast: YT also just saw, mere moments ago, a woman in a hooded jacket. It is not beach season quite yet in the Middling City.
And, really, even if it were.
Well, that's now out in the open.
Onwards.

No Love for Hominid Sandaloid.

Here, for Your viewing happiness, is my new favoured mistake frame du jour.
One of those images that happens as I'm holding my cam and fire off a random slip-of-finger shot from hip – or thereabouts.
I have entitled it Abstract Figures, it could be available to You in wallet, laptop, or sofa sizes ... all appropriate for this nouveau artcentric century.
What a whirlwind weekend of shooting, more shooting, and then more shooting, amid some fun moments – including lovely dinner party gathering of old friends at Marty & Susan's alongside the cornfield.
Deb and I got mysteriously caught in a Lost Loop, missing the discreet split-off of 75 from 62.
It was dark and rainy, we stopped at a nice old restaurant/saloon for directions and were assisted out of our lost condition by about nine helpful regulars.
I stated that if we continued to be lost we'd phone in our fish fry order.
We did eventually locate Eckhart and all became very obvious.
Marty and Susan made paella, so Yours Truly brought two bottles of a nice white Spanish wine – or whatever that might happen to be in that lingua.
A glass was broken in a jubilant greeting, Mary and Bob's new rescue dog wandered about, there was much cajoling and laughter, and we left many hours later amid a hearty glow.
Have another sweet little gig tomorrow a.m., this one for Nature magazine.
Outside the tulips wave a bit in the breeze, hanging onto their delicate wrappings of petal, while inside YT edits and orders pixels about for happy dissemination tomorrow.

Tulip, two-lipped Love, Love.