chower

how does one wash anything out ones hair, let alone cut synapses and memories, if one is a feeling, visually associative type? meditate? go to target more? eat pasta? busy work, keep busy, keep work. ramble. check.

püm püm

what i own

i am 29. this is what i own. mm. i pause a lot to think about this. i never ascribed numbers to anything...really, in terms of what a number would mean, REALLY, if it were of any significance, etc...because i guess, in general, my numbers never added up. i just met a dude, a savvy business dude, who told me in all seriousness, that: 'it doesn't have to be this way.' he believed himself right out of debt. when you're down, almost everyone is a prophet. and you look to believe almost everyone. and you owe almost everyone - not just economically. or it feels that way. it feels that i look to almost everyone, every sign, every blue and yellow and green parakeet on the street, every graffiti word scrawled on my way to work, every thing a stranger says to me, as SOMETHING. meaning-in-everything...as you strive to make meaning. or MAKE something. or MAKE yourself. and then you look up, right? and maybe you're the last girl on the dance floor, and it's 6 am, and it's time to go home. and at that point i would, yes, like to have a bed and a home and a spot and a nook to roll in to. a permanent parking spot. monday through sunday.

plata

for example

my favorite kind of travel photos are of awkward people standing awkwardly in front of huge, monumental things. it's a funny thing, no? to place yourself there? and snap? as if there were some connection between that thing and you? it's almost instinctual, too, to be moved to stand in front of something like the eiffel tower, or the taj mahal, or the rosebowl(?), the gg bridge, that bull with the bollz down on wall street, etc...it differs completely from the idea of how the hot shots at 'nat geo' or even of the '24 hours in charlotesville, n.c.' section of the times would shoot a place, but...i guess that's what makes us amateur webcammers...as of late this idea of pedestrian has been tapped into by FINE artists, and there is now a lot of 'casual' / 'snap shots' / 'me flipping off the great wall of china' hanging on the porcelain walls of some chelsea galleries...recently, i went to one of those...the walls were covered in glossy 4x6 walgreens prints...i tried, i tried very hard to find the magical in the mundane, but it wasn't there...i even stared at a piece of shit (in the grass - dog shit on grass - glossy print - thanks) for a few minutes wondering what was wrong with me that i couldn't find the 'cool' in this situation...(answer: 'cause we hot shit???). i couldn't find the cool.

...anyway, two things that are tricky about photography: it can and does lie...but it also cannot transpose feeling onto an image/situation where there is none...it does not create intent, character, innocence, talent - where there is none. it remains transparent, or as obvious as the image.

here is young jay in front of the taj mahal in 2001. it is nothing more (and all that) than him here. it is so far removed from pretense that it becomes a gorgeous thing. he is, in fact, quite connected to the huge, stately monument...it was with awkward affection that he gave me this photo when he returned from his sojourn to india. i love it less awkwardly than i do straight preciously...

dia de los muertos - queens

honey pot / booster seat

...honey pot had a show open last friday in italy. i wished i could have been there. when we went to see the bresson exhibit at the moma last month we stood in front of the wall-sized-mural-map tracing everywhere bresson had traveled with his stupid (jealous) leica throughout his life...i meannnnnnnn, everywhere...we stood in front of the boot and she showed me where her show would be in a few weeks, and where her friend gianni was from...she then showed me the path of a fantastical roadtrip along the coast that she wanted to take me on when i get my ass to italy. when will that be? when could that ever be?! she returns to italy in august, or september. she is unlike anyone from the united states of america, and unlike anyone i have ever known born in december. i realized today that maybe even our physical stature affects the type of photographs we take (that might be obvious - i don't know)...i thought of her immediately, and of her photographs of people, fauna, cement, houses, beds, felines, friends, rooms, chairs, etc....AMIDST everything, she is amidst everything in her photos...more there and more inside and even more present, maybe, than the thing itself ever intended to be.

GTI / The Ten

katie told me when it was ready to leave, it would leave. she was right...then again, she is ever the ballerina and consistently on pointe...

we're all 'going through it,' as katie calls it, or rather, "G.T.I....."...."IT" could be the ringer or a bunch of shit or the blues or whatever...but she understands, that wise ol' fish...she offers one of a kind advice at no extra price...k.t. is that rare human who appreciates her alone time. she's good at structuring her days, getting shit done, airing grievances, understanding, going for walks, harmonizing, etc...mostly, she appreciates fresh air ; i think it gets heavy under the sea sometimes...

i get my weekly ration of dark greens at the Wood-Goode Residence. i love them to a dependent degree. When they have a child i will be jealous of it but i suppose if it must, it can stay in the 'borja' room, as it was designated by jj and kate when they moved to the fort...it was the first room i slept in upon arriving back in NYC the summer of 2008...i am grateful for that room - and as it extends into metaphor i am more grateful and more in love with the both of them. sigh.

here jj and kate are getting married at city hall...jj is flower head and k.t. is out of focus - - - i think it doesn't really matter though - - - we're just documenting something and as such, is much less important than the real thing...the actual document, the physical them, the extraordinary ideal.

december

the professor might be the only person in modesto, california, who wears berets...this was a big deal a long time ago, when we were all afraid of being unlike the other...most of those girls actually did turn out like their mothers...it might be a good, smart choice. they seem happy, from the faces of their smiling children on facebook, and from what i hear from mom now and again...the star soccer player, the most beautiful 13 year old i knew, the scrappy rebekah, the queen of summer camp, mike's little sister, everyones' little sister, actually...they're all mothers...sarah, also a mother, once told me that she thought NOT having children was a pretty selfish way to live...i realized we hadn't had a conversation, a real one, for an obnoxiously long time, because i didn't remember her as being so pompous, but...i suppose having a baby for some is sort of just 'what happens'...when you're in that life space, or of a certain age, or whatever...i'm not sure...i can't remember anything in my life related to growing up just 'happening.' in my selfishness i have found a lot of time to worry, be anxious, push forward, scramble, see movies alone, consider and simultaneously fight all the 'options' the modern work situation offers a college educated gal, make 1 cup of coffee at a time, feng-shui my 29301 rooms between now and 2000, etc...traditionally, i'm untraditional, but not on purpose...it's sort of just what has 'happened.' don't think my mom ever intended it to be that way...it is in this general subject area that all the questions concerning 'me' arise.

i have no answers.

Young Things - 2004

i had no idea about photography but i sure did about people.

Shaq Panda Plays Shy By The Piano

framboise

edible negatives.

same same (for the great dame)

we are all the same, we are all fans of the same things, we all ride the same train, we all hide our eyes behind plastics, we all go to the same shows, we all fight for the same jobs, we all know the same people, we all celebrate the same birthdays, we all use the same tools, we all covet the same looks and to stroke juergen teller books, we all read about the same winners, we all know the same judges, we all congratulate, or else we all stray from congratulating, we get tired of congratulating, we are all envious but only of our future selves, we are all scared, we are all the same...we are all green, but some stand out.

my girl's a tall, brave palma.

5/20/10

Anaranjada

that's a good word. well done spain.

instamatic (this/is/that)

la mas podida / la mas encendida

"...era un jardin sonriente / era una tranquila fuente / una rosa immaculada / de maquilate / la mas delicada / rosa la mas encendida, fragante y podida / que cuidé...

...era un jardín sonriente, 
era una tranquila fuente de cristal..."

granny smith / macintosh / pink lady

100 ISO SITUATION SNAFU

...uh huh, a roll of film, with a lady i don't know on frames 1-5, colors turned green once red, grey now yellow, black used to be green, once orange now black and white...everything all fucked up, situation straight pineapple upside down cake! ancient and expired, beyond the grave, from the middle ages, wrong, all wrong never ever right...objects rendered eons away from their original self...a heart dressed as a leaf, a sprinkler dressed as a tree, a woman named mary dressed as a statue, a boat hiding on cement, an 'A' on its side...(still pronounced 'A')...sometimes things feel out of control...sometimes...sometimes, sometimes...

crutches when the roof blows off or threatens to do so

for jay and jay juh.

modes of representation

tim burton show / no crowds.

nerdy endeavors

...once, i found myself in the middle of a city-wide pillow fight in union square...a few minutes after the whole thing had commenced, i was smacked in the face really hard by a stranger's pillow. i wasn't even armed. i had been digging myself deeper and deeper into the mob, down feathers flying everywhere, me protecting the camera lens in my armpit, kids shrieking "pillllllllllllllllllllllllow fiiiiiiiiiiight!", me pushing through sweaty NYU kids, me in a quilt of oddities and stranger/strange interactions. my nose hurt. i felt stupid. it was funny. kind of. i laughed by myself by myself to myself with myself, hiding under my forearms and my closed eyes...that's all you need to do when faced with feather assault - close your eyes and call it tickling. it tapped into something really innocent, the whole event, i guess, and that was appealing.

wii in real life / me in real hoop

...today, on my way to a bathroom break from the oprah-party-at-jacob-javits-convention-center where i was working, i stumbled upon a 'wii fun/activities booth'...the only thing is that you're making the shape of what you THINK hula hooping would be like, swirling your hips like a tourist-hawaiian but the problem is that if you were ever actually given a hula hoop you'd actually not be able to do it, because you were only familiar with wii? is this a problem or i'm just taking it too seriously? it's fun right? with the guitars and you sing and stuff? anyway, last week i went to chloe's and she pulled out her home made hula hoops. she has named one, the gold and black one, beyonce. we climbed on the roof and saw sunset over brooklyn and took in the air and talked under the departing flights that i love so much and i drank a silly cider and she had a real beer and we hooped. i was pleased to find out it is indeed easier the second and third times around...pause....
she can do two at once, or walk in circles, and transfer weight around; all this fancy stuff...and when she does it, she looks nothing like what those without real hula hoops look like, when they do what they do when they think they're really hula hooping...in fact, pros barely move at all...it's more of a forward n' back baller stance...and as it turns out, the bigger the hoop, the slower the wind...

the artist formerly known as nice

...tater wants to know since when is 'nice' a TRULY bad thing? my roommate told me this, too ('but you're never mean to people')...as if being dismissive / aggressive was the only route to take with humans whose scent doesn't sit well with us...then how do people know if you really like them?! she said...this is where the concern for niceness really lies, i guess...with the ego.

...later, a similar sentiment was expressed - that i am too accommodating with people (my words), at the expense of myself (my words)...this coming in the form of him miming me taking a dagger to the side, slowly...sort of like he knew, actually, how one might deliver that kind of wound - period.

accommodating, kind, open, vulnerable, sensitive, patient, trustworthy, trustING - not all synonyms, by the way...that some who are new to my life choose to see me in this way is of no consequence. the reason people want to be in my life, love me, and respect me, has little to do with 'nice....'

to the kid who told me i was too nice : eat a dick.

<3

ese lunar que tienes / cielito lindo

...man...my girls were cranky this month, myself included...the moon is a crazy thing and we don't pretend that when they wane new or wax full that it doesn't affect us...in december i was riding the train into manhattan and a solo mariachi began playing 'cielito lindo' on his guitar. very simple song. but that is only if you're hard. weather or not the moon had anything to do with the heaviness and quickness with which my salty gotas dripped from my cheeks to chin to floor, i'm not sure...i remember thinking that everything was so heavy...why does everything have to be so heavy? if you have it does it cease to weigh?

Ese lunar que tienes,
Cielito lindo, junto a la boca,
No se lo des a nadie,
Cielito lindo, que a mí me toca.

the fruit whisperer

...we are clamoring for summer, and so are the fruits, sweating through plastic on franklin avenue...as a youngun' in cali wayyy back i was given my own toddler-table, where i was placed, desnudita y gordita, with fat yellow mangoes. i shall tap into that this summer...i know a kid here in new york who hates all fruit...really?! not even a motherfucking seedless green grape you ungrateful ingrate?! a pluot? one framboise? tamarindo juice with ice on 24th street or central valley oranges ripened at 20 degrees, foggy farenheit? just bitter greens, nuts, and grains, no? exactly what a horned goat would eat, i guess...you'd be right to assume that this manifests - can't be bothered for sweetness, for kind slices, for saccharine words and most of all no sugar in your bowl - no way baby. amazing because the mouth is akin / to a thing / dripping off the tree in spring...but whatevs, sweetness gets too sticky sometimes, i understand... i live in honey ; not my problem you can only swim in pools.

this note from my beloved Karlene:

"Spring is a time for new beginnings; start over, tater.  Farewell to last spring and everything that it brought with it, hello to Spring 2010, with new loves and new excitements and new apartments and new jobs and new everything."
 
yes, boo.

fruit punch

DUMPLING HOUSE

you agree, don't you? i tried to crop the photo but the dumpling's hair was too tall, spiky like the grey/black stripes of grampa's shirt...SMUSH face like a bud before sunrise, peonies blooming, and peonies blooming on your stupid dumpling blouse, branches like arms and baby hands, twigs or bushes, petals or fingernails, blossoms like a nose and your nose to the blossom, skin and veins / skin and veins, black or grey or white or grey or black, pink like your peony mouth like your ears like all those flowers like every season...it all blends, it's all your crib, it all echoes echoes (echoes echoes)...flesh and flowers your pillow - from now 'til the end.

TJ - Cerezo

andando bajo las cerezas...

o sea LA FERIA DE...las cerezas.