25 December 2013

painted onto, painted gold

pop took this photo of me when i was 19 and sick, visiting him and his now ex-wife somewhere in the english countryside. we took some photos that visit that were in line with our traditional sitting. i recall the roll of film that i got back, having not yet declared my own interest in photography. in the photo i have of pop he wears a salmon colored shirt and charcoal jeans with wellies. he is fiddling with his glasses when i take the photo. behind him is a bright green field. the sky is grey. it is flat and underwhelming. as with most years documented after a certain age i recall the size and fit of the jacket i was wearing, the pants, the buttons, etc. the general 'era' of the photograph conjures up for me things so mundane that i don't really understand how they had such a profound effect on my day to day. with distance, i see that i never really looked so much different from myself in any other year, and yet in the every day i was so far removed from myself that i was on a daily basis having a somewhat out-of-body experience, meaning: anywhere but here.
here i see a face, swollen and sad. pained, and now painted. i know the face to be the SOS of a person removed, bushwhacked, uncertain, lost at sea, falling under, overwhelmed. what was it i could not carry? i know the face to be sitting against her will, i know the face to be trying to put forth, but not that cleverly so as to fool a few functioning adults. whose responsibility am i, at 19? my own, i always thought.
i wasn't seen entirely, here. and if not seen, then life can be avoided. the logic is a labyrinth and it is flawed.
{once, when i was 4, my mom brought me to a tap dance class. we were late. i recall the rows of excited young gals lined up in front of me. i would not let go of my mother's leg, though it was really more of a could not, i could not let go. i believe now that she relished me holding on to her}
{later, much later, i moved closer to the mirrors and ignored the rows of excited young women around me}
{later, much later, i go to most things alone. it's on you, i will tell you}
{every woman is only looking at herself, they ain't lookin' at you, i said, and thank god for that}
lastima lastima,
lagrimas
lacrimosa
la hermosa
la niña, forever la niña.
no doubt paused in time. that shit remains difficult, remains the conversation, remains, though i can call the art my own, and acknowledge the vessel simply with bare feet on studio floors. in recent years i have rejected conversation that needs me, simply because i apparently have come so full-circle that i don't want to be needed, if this is what needing is. i have always been a judgmental confidante, but was painted as a good listener. as a child i owned the masters, but couldn't make any sense of the content or the edit.

24 May 2013

this is osquito. he lives over a broad, broad, broader than broadway street in the bronx. his subway exit is the size of an underground stadium. urban underground sprawl. the details of who he lived with was completely unclear and actually still remain unclear. just details, i guess. from his window the intersection seemed full of nothing, but you know how when you first see a place if it doesn't dazzle you it sort of just is. then later, as you traverse back and forth, lugging this or that bag at this or that time the place begins to relay its nuances to you in a way you were unable to receive when you first saw the place. i bet 245th street in the bronx is like that; i bet it opens up a bit after you've decided to look at it. osquito works where i work, in the same building at least. what strikes me is how much easier it is for me to speak to him, or Cy, or Kiko, rather than the suits on my floor who do or do not say hello to me. i don't really care, to be completely honest, for in fact, those office lines and office-isms and office-dronery is still very much alive! and i would almost rather have a conversation about drill bits than be in another elevator, talk about how cold it is on the tenth floor, or hear the words 'circle back' ever again. yes, why don't we talk about drill bits - at least its very short, but hard assonance is interesting! (drilllll-bitttttz). osquito works in a blue shirt and black pants and often has to wear a black hat. his smile is broad and he walks with confidence. he is going to be an accountant, after 6 years of working for this corporation, he is off on his own. i owe him these pictures and more, of course, but so far every time i see him downstairs i go "ahhh oscarrrrrrrrrrrrrrr i have to buy a new hard drive and then i have to scan the negatives but soon i'm so sorrrrry!" and he is still that patient gentleman who walked me to the train station after the shoot and i find myself to be the same hectic motherfucker i always was running around from here to there, with a curly pile of beginning sentences and 1/2 phrases, comebacks, regrets, book cover ideas and titles, and rooftop fantasies of mine playing out in my head, a never ending film spool spooling shit out of my proverbial bag - all at the same time, everything always, everything always at the same time, for christ's sake. . . seriously though, i will scan those negatives for you soon, son. i know that the photo of you by the window with the cross on the wall behind you is all i need to know about your history right now. and your bed, dark thoroughbred brown, veneer plastine, like one of those fresh from the furniture depots on broadway under the J-train, next to refrigerator row! the furniture depots that look as though they never sell anything, to anyone, ever...and where every piece comes already built. but fuck, here is one of those beds. . . oscar and kiko and cy are the real stories in this building. the stories are not about how to get a flatter tummy in 8 minutes or how to cook a sirloin steak, no maam. the stories have nothing to do with 'looping' me in, about transitions, page views, acquisitions, or users, no maam. ugh, every ugly word lives in this building; they interact all day and make fucking ugly phrases, boring ass babies, irrelevant strings of words aimed at no one coming from no mother, ugh, every ugly word in the air, all day, in here. rather, the stories are on the 3rd floor with kiko and cy and osquito, whose very faces imply america in the realest sense. it always amazes me who i can or cannot, talk to. in every town of every year it seems to be the same.

every few weeks i see a sign in the lobby that says "blood drive today" and i scoff audibly wishing i could talk to someone about this. i, sahara borja, am going to give you my blood, in exchange for ningun pinche health care plan? incredible. blood drive! this is charity for whom by who for why? i am going to give you my blood?! i think this is incredible - does anyone else? i still scoff, and i spread word of this ludicrous suggestion over dinner with friends. blood drive. i can't get it out of my head! ! ! my blood! ahahahaha MI PURA SANNNNNNNNGRE! don't think so, william randolph. regardless, we are all embroiled and tangled up inside here. we leave and we make b-lines for our real lives, fine. to be expected, the usual, etc. osquito and cy and kiko and i work in the same building. i have a camera that they let me use to take their photos. it is not just that i am more able to speak to them than the suits on my floor who do or do not say hello to me, it is that they actually said hello. 

18 April 2013

#TheGall



 














in the hospital i had a cellphone and diego's camara, pero sin ningun puto rollo, oh well. 

11 April 2013

3 photos LP will not like




decisions, incisions


february came and went, march was long and full of too many birthdays but eventually did the same. here, i lost a friend, and then another one still, and another one remained so far removed that i couldn't care with much of me. others came back from out of the rainy blue to my surprise and to further that sense i entertained their ideas only to watch them slip back into the nothingness where they should stay. towards the beginning of march i clarified myself to a greater extent with others still who reached out grabbing for something but who were scared to receive the full meaning... the whole / full / moon / the big / blue / ball / the / huge / open / self... and after receiving my return messages could do nothing much with the information save roll it up and smoke its meaning into useless marijuana smoke while staring out the window onto some grand avenue not thinking of me at all, but rather of things that might end easier, or that might just end. i do not end easy. i do not serve as tunnel, highway, vehicle, through way, i am not your via, ni vista, ni punto, ni puta. all of it is fine. everything becomes clearer as we get older...i figure when we know it all we die. when we know everything there is to know, we implode. like with this earth, we approach and attempt at understanding and at that point the cousin of that russian meteor busts this shit open and on the dawn of our global reckoning it all flashes by and we get it and that is it. so i guess i try and understand nothing because the story is already writing itself - like that photo i took of myself pressing into the tip of a knife -  you don't need to write it at all, it is already riding on. now i breathe deep, i walk slow. in march i also spent some time worrying about how to write a piece about a beautiful human i know in san francisco. i did him justice, of this i'm sure. of his bright, light voice calling me on my birthday, i am also sure. in the chaos of my 6th new york move, i threw out half my belongings - now i have only 9 boxes to call my own, 85 pairs of underwear, 2 cameras, 15 jackets, 13 lipsticks, 349 pieces of unorganized papers and envelopes, 6 books, because i cannot yet commit to a fucking bookshelf, or a home, or a job, or a dream, or a plan. and of the others, in march, some continued on without awareness, others opened up like only old friends can, others opened up like i always hoped they would, others got shy, others proved me wrong, others maintained their weight in my chest, they are gold and lapiz, gold and lapiz forever. i continued to recognize patterns of situations i had been in before, some 10 years prior, and i said i could not be that. some took an interest in me for silly reasons, like territory. some let it go, some watched me out of the corners of their eyes, some included me, some i excluded. it is flotsam and jetsam, out here... and then april, forever the cruelest month, forever uninspiring, forever coded, forever the hardest beginning, forever the roughest transition, april opened up on the 5th and once again bore aries horns into my side without even a half-block head start. april met me on the operating table under men in masks in a neon-lighted room saying "don't worry hon, we're gonna take good care of you," and i wanted to marry them all, but my hair was matted and my eyelids couldn't stop spilling over with tears. we die alone; it was so clear! i took 3 deep breaths of whatever gets you to heaven and woke up hard two and a half hours later, eyelids fluttering in the basement of a hospital trying to emerge from a dreamless, blank sleep because spring had begun without me outside, and because i was now apparently free from everything that had been hurting, prior, free from that faulty gut that had misinformed and mislead me year after year. these incisions were someone else's decision, as if to say i was both responsible for - but - only leasing my body.
i am up for grabs, i am grabbing it all. fuck april, but thank you, my loves, for the flowers.
they are on my window sill, looking red orange yellow and pink, stems green blue and tips are violet, enmeshed like the newest iteration of my aura, save that dark spot over my tummy that sarita and i saw in the auragraph taken on canal street. oh crystal ball, the gall, the gall, it was the gall you saw!

15 February 2013

www.anandavanderpluijm.com

god i love the dutch, those crazy chinese of europe. http://www.anandavanderpluijm.nl/12-nights-liege

xx/b

the xx can do whatever. but the answer is always no, it wouldn't feel the same. everything has it's place i guess, like knives in drawers and negs in sleeves.

14 February 2013

© sunshine shokrae

congrats to this beauty. lucky dude. 

30 January 2013

14 January 2013

© nadav kander

will be naming all my children variants of nadav. 

08 January 2013

01 January 2013

santa cruz a past july, things i give away


i got rid of this dress just because, i think. i get rid of shit without thought, without organization, without thinking that i will miss it, without wanting to miss it, in fact, acting as if i do not need it at all. i never look back - i give things away and i never think about them again. i like releasing things. i like the idea of things coming and falling through my fingertips for just some short amount of time and i like to test myself, seeing if things matter to me or do not, if i am that materialistic or am not, if all i need is what i have, or if not. of course this does not hold true for things that take a long time to 'acquire' - a hasselblad, a beautiful bike, shoes that make you feel like a 5th grader for how much you want, a crush you've had for 10 years, etc...this M.O. proves heartbreaking when we're talking about things like money..."things like money." more than that, the whole condition suffers, but ok. i guess they are all the same in the end.

december jan