Running Woman 9

Am I running from autonomy or towards it?
..................................................................Almost made the mile mark.

Butoh in the Box

I went to see this man, Imre, perform last night. The most beautifully bizarre, demented dance form I've ever witnessed.

Luton

I met an 80 plus year old gentleman in Luton, who moved here from Ireland by way of a passenger train. He jumped off nearly breaking his toes with not a pence in his pocket. It would be a better life, he thought. A future for his Irish gypsy bride, too. She was a jealous one. Always watching like a hawk to see if there were any flirty false moves. "I can't help it," he told me she'd say. He, on the other hand, stood proudly at 6'2" when men at the pub so obviously admired her beauty. This Irish gentle giant had boxed his way through a rebellious youth until they met. Indentations and scars. A crooked nose. Though fighting was quite lucrative in gypsy world, his wife wouldn't have it. Can you blame her? She was tough and devoted. And all her insecurities spilled out over tea and then beer. Time passed in Luton - the stories repeating each time with a brighter twinkle in the old man's eye. When the sun started to set, we both realized it was a miracle to remember the sky blue.

lower east side

Below is part of an art exhibit my buddy, Bill, curated on Valentine's Day. The peeping tom snapshots of the photos are mine, but the text is all his. View and read at will.

A Relationship Left for Dead on the Lower East Side
Cuchifritos Gallery / Project Space

A few years back my old friend, Patrick Cunningham, handed me a photo album he'd found lying on the curb somewhere on the Lower East Side. He knew that I had a soft spot for "found photography" and figured I'd appreciate the anonymous trove.

I went home that day and spent a considerable amount of time pouring over the album. From what I can tell, it is the chronicle of a gay couple's relationship through a good number of years in the 90's. The pictures are intimate, personal, and, as one might expect, range from silly to sober. Haircuts evolve, fashions change, weight is gained and lost. A collection of tiny moments memorialized but nothing special, really, aside from the fact that this carefully constructed record of a relationship was left on a curb in the Lower East Side.

Revisiting the album after some time, I noticed something unique about it: The two men never appear in the same picture. They never sit next to nor hold one another. They never ask friends, relatives, or strangers to take a snapshot of them together. Each man simply poses for the other, the camera lens uniting them. These pictures tell a story of isolated admiration/adoration made manifest only through the architect of the album itself.

I often wonder if the couple is still together. I hope to meet them one day and, as difficult as it would be for me to part with it, return the album to one or both of them.

--Bill Previdi,
Independent Curator, NYC

Here's hoping what we find in this life is worth keeping a while. I'm off to make some images of my own. Overseas. Heading EAST.

the big O

  ran out of crocks,
  so i settled for a giant coffee cup
  to host a hearty, homemade
  Onion soup. not quite
  as good as what i had in Paris,
  but pretty damn tasty for
  my very first time.

Seen & Heard

* My father's feet gliding across the wooden floor to a tango-waltz as I hold on tight.
* "It's awesome going through stuff with you. Thank you, thank you for loving me." - Jewels

Sleepless in the Hills

I had lots to drink tonight. Lots could mean an entire bottle or just 1 wine glass. In this case, it was 3. I spilled some... and do remember not filling them up to the rim... Perhaps it's more appropriate to say that tonight was one goblet the size of my fist that got me drunk. Forgive my rambling on. I've been startled out of a deep slumber. Socks still on (oooh, I hate that). My friend drank along with me. My dear friend, who was kind enough to listen to a story about a fear of mine the size of my fist. In fear-speak, that's just too f*cking big. We shared ideas about having fear. Understanding what is. I dare say, even accepting its existence in our respective worlds. In my drunken haze, I told about an incident with the patriarch in my family and opened a wound. But, I also told him how this experience lead to the healing of another. Our conversation then jumped into the aging process, confidence versus not caring, who affects us, what doesn't matter, where art falls into the love equation... ah yes, and then we decided that "love is not something you find, it's something you build." In this instance, just now, I realized what startled me.

We ended our night with Indian food and a rather goofy conversation about years from now when we are too old to drink up and hopefully still building.

Sleepy now... zzz

Deliver Us...

"The only time Christ ever got angry was when he went to church."
- Father Tom Doyle

Darkroom Diaries

Tires © 2008
Part of the "land series" still in working progress.

Lyre

Wondering why I have trouble hearing his call. Shshshsh...

The Three Amigos

1. Wasabi asked me to meet her for some good old fashion girl talk. Considering our recession-proof wallets, we decided on soup-only meals at Legal Seafood and some contraband wine. Yes, the L.S. New England Clam Chowder is totally worth the trouble. First we needed to hit the mall to "window shop," so the wine came in travel cups. We got buzzed at Jcrew, Victoria's Secret, then LEGAL Seafood. Last stop was Barnes & Noble. Wasabi brought a chess set and tried to teach me how to be an "intellectual"'cause reading just doesn't cut it. Does anyone actually read at B&N? Anyhoo, we polished the bottle (in our plastic travel cups) and our little aristocratic board game got quite lively. I don't know if it was the wine or the fact that she's refreshingly unapologetic about the unimportance of intellect, just the mock appearance of such, but we tied. She might have let me tie.

2. Ritz and I went to see "He's Just Not Into You." I'm sure this joke has been used to bits in various movie reviews, but here goes... I was just not into this movie (laugh track). The characters were so flat, I kept hoping Jason would pop in with hockey mask and machete (trailer for Friday the 13th was sicker than actual movie) in tow to beat some life into them. Jason's not pro-life, I don't think. Ritz, on the other hand, is! Her belly is beautiful. I got dinner & the movie, so she got dessert. Reese's Pieces and Kit Kats. Now that I'm into. We managed to giggle our way through the sweet night.

3. On a sunny Sunday, the one forecasters were drooling over, Derelict and I walked around Williamsburg. Both of us are from the Die-Yuppy-Scum Era, so we reverted back to throwing F bombs in every hipster's direction. The bright sky was tainted with our angst! Poor American Apparel clad, afro or dreaded sporting, flip flopped vegans never had a chance. In their defense, they have cleaned up the hood. In their offense, they've destroyed anything remotely original about the Burg and managed to lure the same greedy developers that infiltrated downtown in the 90s. Note the missing view of the pier from 6th & Berry. Derelict and I are often quite jaded, and when it's bad, apathetic (yikes), but put us together on a street corner and fireworks! All in the name of fun, of course. Too old to be too serious. We listened and jumped around to all sorts of rowdy music with ginormous headphones (not mine, I swear). D did his best Peter Murphy impression and I pretended not to be embarrassed. The moments mattered more than sunny piers.

Meet Munch

Never mind The Scream. This opulent painting I saw once in Brussels - or was it London - in the early 90s, when I was young and bemused and it was all I knew about love.

Darkroom Diaries

Untitled © 2008
Part of the "land series" in progress and also untitled.

Seen & Heard

* A dusty and uncorked 1999 bottle of Chateau Latif and, to my surprise, in excellent drinking condition.
* "A curious mind to the point of self-destruction. That makes the great artist." - Uncle P & Tipsy

When I Consider How My Light Is Spent

So the story goes like this. MM wants to send me a link to a Milton poem because the first line is exactly how he feels. I ask if it's long on account of my ADD, which I don't actually have, but remember his poems being bloody books long. He sends, I read...

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,...

I gasp and get up recalling an elegy by Milton somewhere in my library. My memory stinks. Shortly after, I inform MM that I've given up because the light is out, so I can't f*cking see. MM screams via instant messenger, "Eureka!"... (ok, let me indulge). He concludes that
I AM THE POEM!

Fin

The story doesn't suck as much if you were a part of my cyber convo. Mostly what it does do is remind me of what I miss.

Running Woman 8

It was a perfect day to run from love texts, a professor's Mavis invitation, calls from Mr Marketing. The crunching of the leaves louder than A Summer Wind martini or the Go Baby Go blasting in my ear. I ran from two lonely, English women, whose world of books and a boy could no longer contain them. I ran from the crepes party, compliments of a real Frenchman, the shoe designer, who runs to Italy to find herself running back, and the artist whose wife simply wasn't there. All the runners were, so I ran, too, faster than the scandalous Sunday green. When does it fall?

I Killed Cyrus

And in my leather gloved hand I carry 3 bottles to clink and taunt my enemies with. I'm such a badass bopper.

Darkroom Diaries

Pitch black. I turn the wheels hoping the film's hooked and moving along. A G*d damn miracle I'm doing it without a hitch. My mind is on industry. Mass production. Machine versus nature. The theme I'm considering for further exploration. It's not a new concept and has probably been recycled a million times over. So f*cking what?! That IS industry. It all started when I found a dead tractor on the field yesterday. There were weeds and berries and shrubbery growing all around it. Swallowing the engine. I thought about the land that once was. What is. If I had been standing 5 feet away those berries would have been grapes and hell, I'd kick the dust, too. Makes no difference. Nature always wins. My Canon will be ready.

Garbage is Good

You're such a delicate boy
In a hysterical realm
Of an emotional landslide
In physical terms

Go baby go

Darkroom Diaries

I'm taking a photography class to satisfy my creative urges. Music & dance are lulling a bit and The Pink Room is closed for renovations. I used to be an art major once you know. But my Venus must have been in retrograde because I became incredibly indecisive about burnt amber, shading techniques, what angle to sketch on the angle of a cube, etc... I simply lacked conviction. It's also full circle for me. In high school, photography was serving the same purpose. I desperately needed a new medium and there it was in black-n-white. The science of it all was a relief. Surprisingly enough, it still is today. I live in the dark room. Strange things happen there in "Mars," as I like to call it. Time is folded in half and I come out with gray hair, a meager 4 prints, and into the night. Developing is a whole other planet. Or just outer space. Blindness. I'm a terrible blind person, fumbling with things that can hurt. Scissors & can openers. Anyway, I'm loving darkness. It's not pretty. It stinks actually. Lots of toxic chemicals. Very Dr. Frankenstein. He had creative urges, too. Hopefully, with a little luck and trays full of conviction, I will create a print that's luminous and alive.