i see what i want to

the original LP thinks i ramble sometimes, too much, on this bloggerooney...i could see that. anyway mom: http://laloborja-gmail.blogspot.com/2007/02/la-pupila-de-laura.html
<3

a regretless egret in the distance

JJ con Bufanda, Prospect Heights

are you indifferent about this photo? i'm not. jj's is a face capable of exquisite expressions. animated, i guess, would be one of a million words i could use to describe him... this is not one i ever really see. i mean, yes i've seen him blink before...but not pause. forever. what a punim. with regards to the scarf, that was neither prop nor folly nor funny nor on purpose...

fyi.

Bubble Bath / Ocean

...yesterday a 'killer' whale aka an orca killed one of his trainers in orlando, florida...that makes all the sense in the world to me...you? regarding foam: when i was standing looking at it and trying to avoid its seeping into my canvas sneakers on the quicksand beach, it looked like 1 shade of white, not three shades of créme...it's weird - imagine you look at people and you see one shade of brilliant white and in reality (is that through a lens?) they're three shades of yellow?! i think this has happened to me.
this is california's ocean beach...up the road it turns green, grey, and windy...jagged, even. world class. here is where the word crisp was invented...and where my Pops took a photograph of me in my grey jacket on my 5th birthday. it was windy and my hair was not exactly curly but wispy, and the wisps were blowing across my face and i remember that detail very clearly. the light was gold and i held stiller than still for that photograph...it was as if we thought we were doing something very, very important...

and i think we were; we're a serious brood...

*

Hey, it's Al on film. Hi There. We are not here to preach about film or get romantic about it (although that is altogether possible my favorite soap box activity) just to say don't i look juicier, deeper, mauver (sp/wd), on film? ironically film is fucking expensive and remains a luxury because photography itself is a luxurious endeavor (although it rarely seems that way) and elitist and so it shall remain. elite/for the people - gotcha! ...some times the people you might choose to shoot do not make more than what your kodak roll is worth or maybe you don't make photos worth the price of your kodak roll but then again you might shoot stacks of chairs in abandoned schools or the entrance to a forest so green you see 12 greens and so there is no guilt there - just re-discovery and sometimes surprise and that there is the drugs...depending on who you are...anyway...I tried to explain to my mom once what the difference was between the pixelated photo and the emulsified one and all I could come up with, of course, was a fruit metaphor. I likened one to a ripe, heavy, marigold colored mango...dense, drippy, tangible, tasty...and the other to a mealy apple...red green or blue (RGB/CMYK, yo), it doesn't really matter.

Drama Queen!! then again i hear you can buy b/w film in bulk and load/change it in your bathtub so of course to each their own ETC and everything has its place and love is but one point in time and one man's contax is another woman's canon 5D so there you go...

Al - Bushwick

Left Eye Lopes / Lucky Left Hand

There are Those Who Can Sleep Anywhere

Asia comprises 60% of the world's total population. The US 8%, and Europe 11%. I learned that on Saturday, at my last ESL teaching course. I also learned about 'infectious disease' control, taught by one Svetlana, from Uzbekistan (thank you Svetlana -- all portals of entry NOTED) as well as a lesson on continents (thank you Abu), the present perfect, causative clauses, and on the future tense. Good night from me and 60% of the world's population.

sol / sol

i got sunshine in february, whatCHU got?!

grace plaza although i imagine plazas in DF and Milano are nicer...

...I've won the MacArthur Genius AWARD?! Phenomenal I'll stop the presses. Ps I like how your right leg slash your hip or your butt or whatever is stuck higher on the bench than your left and for some reason you don't feel like moving your shit evenly and so your right leg is swinging weirdly above the ground like you're 5 and you're on the 5-Fulton line on a hot day in June and you don't even care that your dress is hiked up because lord knows your thighs are sweating and all you can think about as you stare at that paper in your hand is how you should have put johnson and johnson talcum powder there, because then maybe you could concentrate on what you're reading...it could be the guggenheim foundation for christ's sake.

Rawr

I mean, if I had just taken this film to Walgreens instead of actually trying to develop it myself you could see what a wonderful thing this new species is. It's teeny and lionish and on birthdays smells flowers. Here the lioness is turning 28.

Lou, Emmers, Chlo

...3 people who will, conversely, most definitely be in the same frame/room several hundred times more in this lifetime...These girls are loyalists. Fiercely loyal. And I love and respect them for that, among all the other wonderful traits...I think they are more loyal to me than I am, to me...By extension, they know what's good for me, while I do not. They know who loves me, and who does not. Who to keep and who to shake. They let me rail, and they bring me back. And they see me, but I don't think they judge. And they give: a fucking lot. And it's weird sometimes, to meet people at 18, but only really seem vulnerable in front of them until a decade later when the training wheels have come off, and we're supposedly adults! And there I am with Katie on a non-descript Saturday night in a borrowed car in mid-December and I hate all of my winter clothes but I know I should be grateful and everything that everyone else is doing seems to be at my expense andddddddddddddddd yes - THAT train of thought and I'm bawling and we're sitting there hazard lights blinking and everything has not come full circle like it was supposed to but just unravelled and nothing is how it is supposed to be and I am two again and fuck your christmas lights and nothing...nothing nothing nothing nothing...can fix it. And it's embarrassing but only because in truth I do this a lot but usually I'm alone and I guess we all keep these protective coats on, as we cavort or skip, or barrel or wade or force our way through our 20s, and maybe our 30s, I don't know...some coats are transparent and some will never come off and some are impossible to get inside of and some wouldn't even let you borrow theirs if you were freezing and not used to winter and if my shit cost $500 and you wanted it for your birthday - I would give it to you!...there is nothing else TO give, really...and I guess by these standards, it'd be a rarity for an outsider meeting us just now to want to stay in this picture with us, no? So much responsibility, so much to care for! - - - but that would be the point, and the privilege...

4 people who will most likely never be in the same frame or room again in this lifetime

pictures are so odd. some people who take pictures 'strive' for the 'truth' aka their truth or some version of it slash not even a version of the 'truth' but really just a 'take' on something they saw, no? (paired-down wednesdays over here...)..but as we know sometimes we get things that are so far from the truth it's funny and that's why i said up there that pictures are odd. the blonde in the photo is a very unique photographer with a great sense of self and style and a great lover of people and vice versa and could probably have someone start writing the beginning stages of her memoirs with all that she's gone through and she is around 26 or something like that...this year, her hair is fire engine red. on this night (3/13/09) i ended up giving her my shirt (!??!?!!) that simply reads "USA" and is sort of boxy and short it was 10 dollars and all she said was "i like your shirt" and since it was my birthday, i was in the giving mood...the kid next to me i hadn't seen since 2003 but since we spent 4 years in the same place in poughkeepsie, ny, it kind of doesn't matter how much time has spanned....? debatable! you should hear jj do a jaime impression...or better yet, jj doing jay doing jaime...and for the fuck of it, jj doing jay doing derek jose doing jaime...this is what we did in college. i am wearing a finger puppet (thank you felisia) and tending to a colt45 (classy danes) and sort of miss that curl on my forehead because for all of oct/nov/dec/jan/feb i have been cutting my hair back and back and back and back and it has lost its curl and softness and it is now not even a comma or an apostrophe - it's a 'pffzzzzzzz'...do you know what that looks like? the kid holding the peace sign was a private guy most of the school year and i didn't even know he was there that night, but i knew the honey pot was...all i know about him is that his first name is "Facking" and he acted in ways on days too close to eachother with two women who would probably be friends by now if only they didn't think that the only thing they had in common was him.

*Little Known Blog Rules About The Posting of Babies*

...yes, they ruin your cred as a serious journalist but what does that mean ANYWAY --- at present that means you hire qualified people to work for you for free...that IS serious shit my dudes and dudettes...

*Anyway, back to the rules: "Sec II Column IV: if said baby is from your family or extended family or baby of a friend as far back as elementary school you are allowed to post as many photos of it/she/him in any format, size, color or medium that you wish without losing street cred, as it were...taking photographic interest in the folds of its neck, the fat of its legs, the stupid tranquility under which it sleeps shall go unnoticed by photographic communities but also noticed because what person doesn't like babies? OTHER PEOPLES' BABIES, I SAID, other peoples' babies...I know that the community of photographers I am familiar with ain't producin' anything as wonderful as this ball of idiocy any time soon!!! RELAX. (More on that in the chapter entitled "Self-Involved Photographers" -- shh, i'm mentioned on the first page, column 3!). In conclusion, use of the words "stupid" and "fat" can and will be used as many times as possible as this is what babies are and I don't have one problem with either of these words in this context, although Sarah Palin might.

So that's what is written in "Serious Blogging For Serious Journalists," Chapter 2.

Thx.

Color / Large Format / Tu Madre

Yeah Yeah Yeah...I saw Paul Graham's "stuff" at the New Museum last year. I didn't read much about it before seeing the show. It was, in visual terms, photos of places around the U.S. (man mowing lawn / afternoon light, people at crosswalk, man holding cup) and kinda drab pallet wise...(it's a matter of taste people...). That was the first reaction! Then, I was like, "oh really. you're going to show us 3 photos taken within the same 10 minutes in the same setting? Pssh." And then I was like, "hold up borja...why aren't you moving from his photos..." and then I was glued and I was staring into his scenes trying to figure out what the fuck was going on (like the first time I saw Stephen Shore's photo of that intersection in New Mexico...was it NM?)(so many intersections Shore, so many gas stations...) and it wasn't pretentious and it wasn't vacant and it was honest AND staid and it was oddball...slash I think what I really want to emphasize is honest. It was honest work. I.E. he had something that was his and that may have been the intent behind the photos but it was his and it was kind of like he accidentally slipped onto the walls given the company around him or had a curatorial hook up and then you realize he wasn't lucky he was true to himself and goddamnit why aren't more people like him 'represented' and he was neither fact nor fiction and belonged to NO photographic camps...and that is a triumph, albeit unrewarded...producing unpretentious work seems risky, no? As walls are STILL where it's at...

ANYWAY --- Breezy aka Sergeant Chipper has passed along a poignant piece of writing (would I say seminal?!) by Mr. Graham that was apparently READ at the NY SHMOMA this past week but according to Breeze he "had no clue" about it as he lives "in a cocoon unfettered and uncontaminated." Yes BREEZY! The first rule of being a photographer is that you don't talk to photographers!

Point being, the man is on point. And this young philly is on board...and appreciates that he has managed to get enough distance from the clusterfuck that is whatever photography scene is around him to call attention to a few very serious topics relating to outdated terms and definitions, the scope of photography, its uses versus the THING itself....oooo lordy it just keeps getting deeper this photography thing...it's juicy at the meat of the matter...MEAT! If this doesn't interest you, just look at me vacantly, and I'll put your face up on the fucking wall.

Leer es Poder: http://www.paulgrahamarchive.com/writings_by.html
Please note the use of the words "dance" "just" "snapping" "shooting" "documentary" "real" "life"

Also, apples are key here...but you've known that since you were 5!

Getting Down To Brass Tacks

Mr. Foo, in fine form. Reppin' Dee-Troit harder than hard.

Te Veo Lola (BK Version - shorthand)

...streets is watchin'...
and so,
i watch back
because that is the policy
and,
we move along this odyssey
akin to,
blood -- as if through my arteries
in turn we,
navigate the treacherous
and simultaneously,
we make it seem effortless.

Pretty Flaco said that.

AL - Bushwick

...25 year resident of Bushwick, Brooklyn. We had an awkward interaction but only because it ended with me hanging around a liiiitle too long. He had brought out black trash bags and was going behind a snow mound to pick up garbage I did not see and so I said, "What? You're going to put snow in the garbage?!!!?"

So that was awkward. I didn't grow up with snow, you know. And I'm not from around here. For all I know people recycle snow, shit...

although imagination can be a wonderful thing, sometimes you just have to see it.

Bogie

marilyn you're beautiful, but we two are frogs...

sic volo, sic iubeo (caca / phony)

last wednesday i was sitting on the 20th floor of the condé nast building, safe-like and day-dreamy, privileged but contract-less, watching snow swirl and fall and rise like there was no top and no bottom and it was coming into itself at every angle...the flakes were in complete cacophony, like the winds affected some but not others, there was no rhyme or reason; they just darted around, and eventually down, and it was never-ending (well, 24 hours later...it was...) but the dance, i mean, the dance was never ending...my eyes would start on one large flake by the window and watch as it disappeared into the rest and another would catch my attention and now i was darting around with this one...until, it was...out of sight...and eventually - were the flakes people - out of mind...the beauty of it was that the same dance would never happen again and no one could ever have choreographed such a thing...nope, we just swirl and dart and fall and sometimes rise and new york was my snow globe if not for one evening and i remained in this trance and selfish stance all the way home and on that train ride i saw a familiar 'flake waiting on the platform but my car passed in an instant, an instant enough, and i didn't flinch or blink or even feel and i thought that was sad but also not my loss...the face had unfazed me, and the moment was as compelling as the smell of snow, maybe --- i.e., nill, baby - not at all, baller --- so poker face got off (it was the last stop, after all) and i moved unnoticed in a red and black hunting cap alllllllllll the way home to the warmest apartment in brooklyn and i shuffled up franklin and 4 flights of stairs to the moss green of the living room and there we ate pralines and cream and discussed the poetics of text, the transparency of their intent, and to whom she should send her valentines...she was in the process of mailing hers, and i was in the process of silently appreciating those who actually do, faze me...

MattiCorn

...i have found the most wonderful beast in the universe...it holds still for photos, gives unconditionally, is gentle with self and others but will fuck you up if you fall on the other side of good...it is loyal, funny, talented, and hardworking. it will gouge you if you wrong me and stick you with a nickname that will make you wish you had never learned english. it gets me, as well as the tangential thought and made up words that sometimes fall out of my head without permission. it requires no leash, because, like i've said, all that good shit that travels down 2 way streets is something that requires no cage, leash, radar, or tracking device...it's around, let's you come and go as you please, withholds nothing, and is not scared of assuming responsibility for its actions towards you --- good beasts exist.

in the young bush

...i have walked down this street mayyyyybe as many times as my own but never under so much snow. for the record - nice from inside, with friends, blankets, and tv...otherwise, snow could go...so here is a bushwick street aka the young bush, the 'whack, the brizzwick...ok no one calls it that last thing but who cares...the walk to 248 mcKibbs is a fave of mine. that won't change, even though everything else always does.

snow globes, brooklyn

those with delicate constitutions...

...need not apply. not sure where you woke up on valentine's day but i woke up in the warmest apartment in brooklyn, hands down...we waited 364 days to wear these glasses and FIIIIIIIINALLYYYYYYYYYYYYY...anyway, thank god it was overcast...it's a problem knowing the girls that i know. they're divine, special, deserving, thoughtful, unique, intelligent, giving, ambitious, warm, beautiful, patient, honest, opinionated, and passionate...it's a problem, when you get out there, and begin to see the battles these girls fight...

anyway, for a some days in january i stayed with these two on 967 bergen and for a week just now i stayed again...i love their space and their smell and their apple butter and warm beds and some times i wonder what i will do when prince charming times two comes a knockin???? i wonder about this often. replace prince with good and charming with dude.

just be a good dude...that's all.

Eyes Closed, Tie Tied

i know the chair looks familiar, as does the set up and the background...AND what?! the nice thing about loving something is that you could look at endless frames of that same thing and never get bored or never not want to look at it, you know? even if what differentiates one frame from another is miniscule, or redundant to a less loving eye.

ironies in 2010 / year of the tiger, the olive, and the desert

(by her)(by her)

Other Lauras Bear No Relevance

Ahem, I realized this month that I engage in ad hominem attacks in my very small world and somehow I think that's ok. Also, not so slick, my ad hominem attacks. And then I think, I could make peace with anyone, I am a peaceful type - I was awarded the hypothetical nobel peace prize in 8th grade and I can be that, surely, but I understand power to be both sides of nobel peace AND ad hominem and other such reserves and the only thing that makes me more peaceful than on the constant attack, I believe, is knowing my worth and that comes from Laura holding up a mirror up for me...Here is Laura, making me a star...your eye goes straight to where it is NOT supposed to, but such is the nature of bright, shiny things...

You Are Boring Me, Gringa

I wish we played dress up every day lil' b, and I wish I could send you to Juilliard and bring you with me to dance class and wave a wand and lay before you the tools you need to be the star you are...if not for the general public, for yourself...but it seems you already know this, and that is a powerful way to start anything...from the foundation.

boom, rise, sparkle, and shine.