31 August 2010

the fiery type (...turns 29)

no, not latinas - redheads. i know this from experience. years of slammed doors, tantrums, attitude, ego, disappointments, competition, uuuf, the competition...for years she was mad at me b/c when our cat finally had a litter of kittens, the three of them held still in a photo with me (all three heads perfectly in line), while when she tried to hold them for the photo, they scrambled this way and the other...neither is less becoming of a kitten, you should know...and both photos still hold. in this photo we might be out of focus; her father liked to use the 200 mm lens. . . . her son mather is a joyous bounty of red. plump cheeks, a sweet smell, a melon balloon head, a happy dimple smile... i am secure that when it comes to him, from what i have seen, it is less 'the fiery type,' than it is just 'mom,' the most taken-for-granted three letter word in the english language, the disciplinarian, the giver of love and home, the designer and facilitator of his happiness and well being...and it still blows my curly dome...

happy birthday distant sister.
<3

30 August 2010

Gatas Blancas

the one who got away

it was either him or me, i'm not sure...

pura brown sugar

LP

enfócate en la foca

the tragedy in this mini-cuento is, of course, the death of a beautiful sea creature and the subsequent plucking out of its eyes by seagulls (monsters), yes, but beyond that, a very selfish, photographic tragedy lies. what life would show you, then, for taking 36 photographs, on a roll, the only roll, of a death scene (this one) (as if the seal, without any eyes, was less sacred or lacking in dignity), would be an even more beautiful scene, pura magia, made of symmetry and washed up rocks shaped like seal skulls attached to seaweed parts that looked like a spine and sea weed skirts that looked like flippers...the two entities would lie across from each other, making an obtuse 'V', as if the center fold were nothing but a mirror...they would be closer at the 'heads,' as if talking, communicating from one cave to the next, where eyes were poked out by vultures would be carved out by waves and sand and rocks...where a flipper lay useless was a mass of seaweed, as smooth and as tough, and where i saw decrepit flesh around the back of the beast i saw the stem of a thick stalk of seaweed...all of these things were connected and if the center fold was not there to reflect one thing off of the next i would still think they were connected, somehow...ash to ash, sea weed to sea wreath to sea girl to sea lion to sea gull to stem to spine to spies to eye spy...what you would find on your way back home, without film, would be these two creatures, designed and placed by the pace of waves, nothing more...i cursed several times, knowing the plucked eyes had been used on me...but i have no proof of these two beautiful things represented as such, and to recreate anything similar would be an affront to all that i find magic...

the great dame leans back

she's tall, subject : not. flexi pants over here...i always thought she was the most graceful. she claims she was the more awkward between her and her older sister, and if THAT'S awkward...

this weekend she celebrated with her jan their union one more time, amongst friends and family and familiar landscapes and familiar language...she wore a floor length strapless gown of an indiscernible pattern...if you get it, you get it...and that's what we feel about the photos, too.

pacencia, princesa...it comes, and life will be as long as you are exquisite.

the tudors


www.saharamarinaborja.com is still in business thanks to my past present and future best amiga/sister, tater murray barrett. it's funny, in person we are not this awkward. there is something about phoning + imagery that is not like conversing where imagery -the person- is involved. in october tudor and i are going to try on wedding dresses in new york...betcha can't guess which one of us is getting hitched!??!?! meow.

i'm ready to get my grown-up on, if i may borrow, sean...i'm not sure how to do that. butor has always been generous, with information or otherwise. i will ask her, as i always, always, always do...for the why, the how, the what...the only thing she doesn't know is WHEN. that must mean some of it is in my control.

butor...
<3

27 August 2010

olive

she always stands willingly. her instincts tell her "cheeeeeeeeeeze!" and i go, "no, tiny." the wind knocked these roses out of her hands (and how did we stumble onto a bouquet of roses on a bench anyway?). she was shivering, so she humored me, and then i threw each stem into the water, one at a time. we had missed tuesday's usual 'story time' so we did it there instead. always me making up words to the songs to see if she even knows the words which of course she does and my substitute (i call them better) lyrics always infuriate her. "NO!" and i just learned the simplest way to nill a "NO!" is to yell "NO!" right back...so one by one we threw flowers into the muddy, grey-green atlantic...singing: one for my master / one for my dane / and one for tiny, who lives down the lane...

the fishermen could give a shit, about symbolism, as they stand there, being symbols.

estrella del mar

era morada, como yo dorada.

what the fish are doin'?

suzy leaves the country for her country on saturday. the great dame baked her a cake with lovely details! (please read).

broadway in brooklyn is not the coast i know, but neither is this





baltika (through velum)

tuesday, torrents (the bw in b and w)


coney isle, hot dogs hiding behind palm trees. i wanted to take photos of lil' O on our last day of 'work' together but obviously it was 60 and rainy. we covered her knees with the only umbrella we had, and i squinted, sans jacket (still packed), pushing the stroller from brighton onwards toward coney, where of course, the photo booth i had set out to use, would be closed for the day. lil' o didn't mind; she she was dry. in this sense, all was, thankfully, good.

17 August 2010

heart on a fence

it's a heart on the fence. in the end, the sum total of the (broader) exchange was 2 t-shirts. i get a sincere kick out of this...as karma is a bitch...? or i guess it is also a really wonderful paying forward of your entire self ! i realize my m.o. is different from others, girls or boys, i said, and sometimes i am reminded of this. slow biking in the rain. and i go at my own pace, as per the usual. and mine is the last word, as per the usual.

hiya, bush.

i just moved to bushwick. i would never bring my mother here. so far, inside, everything is pretty much still on the floor, and outside, most people don't pick up their dog shit. the other morning, i was walking to the train, and i passed a homeless guy on the street. the population was sparse out. three seconds later he goes 'hey!' i turned around. 'is that yours?' he pointed across the street, to a lavender balloon sleeping on the corner, under the rusted elevated j tracks. 'no, it's not.'

this bush, by the way, is located in midwood, where the houses have gardens. across the street from my apartment is another apartment with a bush just as green, but much more guarded. on the bush reads a home made sign: "be nice. just try it."

the only thing i have bought so far within a 5 block radius is a 1-dollar coconut slushy at the deli that smells like microwaved ham or other meats. the attendant's hair is thinning but he still uses gel, which accentuates the baldness as it dries. in front of this store i met the meanest looking pit bull, but then she wasn't. her owner named her 'canela,' like 'agua de....panela.....' i asked him if he was raising her to be sweet. he said yes.

tinytown






todo tiene su final, eh? todo impermeable, no? aprendi mucho (about me) con la nena.