The Park Sitter's Gaze

We really know nothing about each other do we?

Marcelita Riomalo y La Mamá

...de Bogotá. Lower East Side.

*Sidenote: Pardon the wire. I am not really familiar with viewfinder cameras aaaaaaand all of a sudden this world is showing up on the film and/or disappearing that I thought was accounted for. It's a precise, scientific world--photography--and I am a spacey dreamette with a laissez faire 'tude...

Sunshine Talking To Sunshine

Sally Sells Seashells by the Seaside

Sally is the little dog. Replace 'sells' with 'humps' and 'seashells' with 'bigger dogs.' Whistable, England 2009.

Matty (Matt Mc Donough)

A young Irish lass. Bushwick. Kate Winslet. Window Panes. Photo Books. And mad pesto. Holler.

LuLu, Benny, and Fae

A Stoop. Fae is Jamaican. The kids are twins. She has been with them since they were 2.5 months old. Lulu is funny; I got that in 4 seconds. Very authoritative. Benny is a concerned type. When their Mother shows up, Benny tells Fae she can go home. Fae feeds them love. She says the job is impossible without love.
The job is impossible without love.
The job is impossible without love.
The job is impossible without love.
There it is! That's the thing. The whole thing is the 'job' y sin amor no funciona.

STATUS: O.G.

In this case, the Brooklyn hat means something. This is outside of the laundromat. His name is John. He gave me his entire address, up to the apartment number. His 'caretaker' was behind us, watching us interact. She didn't say one word, though, until I left. John didn't want a copy of the photo. Which is great, fine, etc., unless it's because word has gotten out that I don't follow through...maaaaaaaaaaaaaaan.

What In God's Name is Behind That Tree?!

PP Dubbs, as I have named one of my cross streets is home to this little church that I stare at everytime I walk past it...I never took a photo of it until this very windy windy windy windy Thursday...when the only things unaffected were tree trunks and jesus pieces.

Shades of Grey (That Includes the Heart)

Ninth Street is a long, broad tree lined street that cuts through the middle of Park Slope. This house has a padlock on it. Rare to see that in this hood on a huge Brownstone.

You Are a Man In a Suit In a Big, Big City.

For Yusuf, who doesn't read my blog. And might never ever ever ever see this post. Actually, the odds of him finding my blog are 1 in a millie. He is an original, dedicated Turkish photographer engaged in the lifelong hustle...He has a voice ten times that of James Earl Jones. I told him he should pursue voice over work, seriously, he could get paid. But he wants to be a photographer...what am I gonna say to that?

Broadway Dance Center (for Jackie)

as He could-a-been-a-contendah, i should-a-been-a-dancer...i mean, i am...i was...earlier in life...and now..i actually consider myself somewhat of a mover...my dance profe says i have a lot of 'swag' when i dance...maybe. but i don't think so. it's all a front. in real life i have no swag. just some pride. but in dance classrooms we're all effecting some sense of ourselves that lays dormant when we are expected to be sitting or walking, or even jogging, or yoga-ing...the beautiful thing about dancing is that it is like a fingerprint...have i said this before? i know in conversation i have...we could all be learning the same steps, but we are all going to express ourselves differently...we will look as unique as we actually are...the way we move is another type of fingerprint, no? body language? for starters? anyway, at broadway dance center there are professionals and amateurs, foreign students and old lady ballerinas, people like me and allegria who dance because it disconnects us from 'the world' and connects us with life. there is nothing better. but then, i have never been in love, just hungout in its greenroom a few times.

sin titulo

San Balentín y La Luna

What a strange whack incensing week I had...was it the moon? No sé. But they say it was...is, the moon...Things, after a joyous Sunday night, were off. Interactions were strained. Sleep was anxious. The winds came in from San Francisco. Tears made themselves cozy in the hammock of my lower lids. I felt like I had been smoking as there was a general fog that coated my days and thoughts. I rode uptown when I meant to go downtown. I strolled down 12th Avenue. And then I hallucinated that money grew in gum ball machines.

The White Light

The White Light that maybe actually does greet us all. Not sure. That or overexposure, however we want to look at life...science and the supernatural. both exist no?

Happiness

Pretty sure this is what happiness looks like...happiness, ignorant bliss maybe? or this is just what your feet looked like 5 millenia ago?! and that's ok, we were all baby walruses once. except for those of you who practice bad karma in which case you were maybe just a male praying mantis, i.e. food for thought. handle it.

The Dancer

This is Kitty Lunn. I wanted you to see this first before I explain everything below.

Piggy's Pink Feet and Kitty Lunn the Dancer

The Artistic Director of "Infinity Dance Group," resting outside of her wheelchair at La Guardia High School after performing 5 pieces for yours truly. Some topics of her choreography include Mary Magdalene, Frida K., Judaism, Air, also Fire. Her husband Andrew was on hand as a stage hand, also, a stand - in for Diegito Rivera.

MIRRORS AND WINDOWS (and the dancer Kitty Lunn)

...what you need to know right now is that she feels no pain when she dances, she used to be on broadway, she is a scholar of scripture, she is beautiful with cheekbones, and skin that always looks as if she's just taken off a face mask and applied expensive skin cream to it, she adores Frida...and this is where it eclipses interesting and settles into epiphany-ville...right here, when she was explaining her take on Frida, while I was thinking of mine, I realized yet again that we take away from anything and anyone whatever we want to take...you want to believe in obama? fine. nobody can say anything or write anything that could dissuade you. you take away from an infinitum of paintings/sculptures/photos just as far as your own intelligence or emotions/depth can take you...a black and white (mostly white) walker evans photo of a fallen ionic column is iconic, renegade, and telling to a number of people; a watershed photo!!! while the rest think it is exactly the former: little. else. nuttin' honey...so, i guess i always took from frida what i needed, or how she translated through my vessel (she was an atheist, she clinged to life and earth and dirt and soil and indigenous culture and faces and tradition and pain and honesty and roses and color color color and self-portraits and alcohol and love...ferocious. singular. independent. feminine.)...while what kitty most takes away from frida is that she never made herself into life's victim, even after 3 miscarriages, polio, and later in life, an amputated leg...she sees that all of Frida's pain went straight into her life's work; and this is what kitty needs to see. wants to see. sees. isn't that amazing? nothing but mirrors and windows, ladies and germs...mirrors and windows.

kitty has choreographed a 3-piece solo performance set to lila downs' 'gracias a la vida,' wherein she channels frida in mini acts and flashes frida's self-portraits in the background at various points throughout the performance. kitty dances in and out of the chair.

i hope to be able to show you more of kitty's life as the months go by. she has a show in may. maybe so do i.

tonight i learned a whole hell of a lot. and all i can do is swear in place of deep breathing, exhale heavily and sigh a lot, and think about my four limbs WHILE sighing a lot, and well up at the delicacy and ferocity that is, si lila, la vida.

happy thanksgiving.

STUBBS' NOBLE STEED (AND THE COUPLE IN PINK)

National Gallery, Londres. Couple in pink inspects Stubbs' painting of a horse. Not that big of a deal, right? No. The eyes of the horse are the painting. Somehow Stubbs took the wild-eyed look that horses sometimes have, and painted it. Incredible. Impossible. I guess most things are in the eyes, hands, and hooves. And I have not brought any of those things back for you.

wabbit huntin!

On this evening I was crunching through snow in my red and black elmer fudd hat hoping that the light from the lamp posts would be enough for what I was trying to do...which was what...not sure. Anyway, I crossed the street to catch the last day of a Eugene Richards show, whose prints I had never seen, but who is the only photographer-thus far- to ever make me cry. And then I went home (pause) to Brooklyn to eat dinner with my good friend Sarah who comes from THE warmest family in Westchestah County, and then some. Sarah's laugh rivals the clarity and pleasantness of the triangle (the instrument, not the 2-d shape), and she has just this month embarked on a whole new life plan.

Photo of Mom and Me cavorting in the water (any year, any place)

Portrait of My Father Without Swim Trunks

Hi Pop. Lookin' good in there.

hailing a taxi, or, staying alive

we don't have to be so black and white about such things, do we?

ISI's BRILLIANT EXISTENCE VERSUS THE FUCKING POPE

This week I read some shit about Pope Benedict XVI bringing back into his circle a Holocaust-denying Bishop. Ooops. Maybe read a book? Get out of the cloisters? Listen to something other than G_D? Meet Isi, my friend Shira's wonderful, lucid Grandfather. ISI. A couple of Saturdays ago, a group of us left the city for Teaneck, New Jersey, where Isi has lived for over 50 years. We spent a few hours listening and looking through his letters, photos, visas, postcards, and ID cards from the early 20th century, leading up to/through/after WWII, which he was, unfortunately, a part and a victim of. His wife experienced the same, but has since passed away. Isi carries on. As he has always only done. The name of the game is not "how are you?" "i'm ok. kind of stressed. got a lot of homework. things kind of shitty at work." No, the name of the game is "how are you?" "i'm good grandpa. i'm alive." His M.O. is one of survival, and self-preservation, and love/laughter, and looking at the past and understanding that it has shaped him and that he will never be able to mentally escape from all the shit even though he has physically escaped, safely, home-free, etc...shit....his memory lane is less an historical, nostalgic amble...and more of a crevice that he could potential fall into and find hell at the bottom, once again.

GAMS

These...Legs...Of...Miiiiiiiiiiiiine...they are yearrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrning...These legs belong to a magnificent human who also possesses a passionate set of lungs and a confident continent of body, voice, mouth, hair. I could stand to have some of that rub off on this.

key words of the evening:
Feathers, Brooklyn / Smooth, Voices / Stages, Heat / Odes, Homages, Respect

Smiling Seaman

All dressed up and somewhere to go. The National Mall, Washington D.C.

Cav Wins

I have never met this young fella, but I have been listening to his songs for a while. Smeekies made me a cd of his music and sent it with love all the way to Colombia, where I was in Cali, listening to the same hip-hop songs over and again, missing the hardness of the R, the deliberateness of the D, F, or T, the obnoxiousness of the long AAAAAAAAA, etc. I had come to realize that I was much more gringa/nyc/sf than salsera, obviously, and while I loved the beauty and sing-song nature of the Spanish language, I craved the jokes and the meaning and the references and the couplets that I grew up listening to...and me, much much much less than many...I remember feeling proud singing in my hammock in barrio toño, even if I was not born and raised in BK. This man on stage is a chief, a capitan, a boxer, a commander, a samurai, whatever...his words are equally spoken and woven, his movements equally graceful and forced. It's like there are a hundred more men inside of him when he performs. Anyway, he made this one song called "Dionne" that I fell in love with. It never gets old. Not sure why. It has something to do with the fact that it never crests, and something to do with the way he ends/doesn't end his sentences/thoughts...it's like the song was torn out of a paragraph in an unfinished chapter of an unpublished diary of incomplete thoughts that he was writing in throughout his high school years...and so, it never peaks...we are suspended.

Here he is performing with a feather in his hair, last Saturday in Brooklyn.