a gem of a conversation

pete:  you can use some rusty washers from my personal stash...

boss: you have a stash of rusty washers?!  

pete: of course.  when i'm out walking i just can't help myself from picking them up off the ground when i see them.

boss:  you've got problems.  

me:  ...and you're one to talk, mr. dead dog!   

boss:  so i own a couple of dead dogs....so what?  

festive ramblings

if you know me you know that i'm loopy for holidays.  when i was a kid, despite not having a christmas tree in the house (and I promise that will be the only ex-jovie reference in this post!), come december 1st, i would wage my own subversive holiday by switching to red pen in my journal for the duration of the month.

it's that daily spirit, that anticipation of something (and yes, i know, something so arbitrary and meaningless, considering i am not religious and also considering i haven't the budget for lavishing gifts on people) that warms my heart throughout december.  it's walking through the red and white striped tents of the christmas fair at union square on my way to class from the subway (i'm speaking of a few years past on that one), it's buying hot apple cider instead of coffee, it's trekking out to far-flung brooklyn neighborhoods that go crazy with lights--and for the past seven or eight years it's been hearing the holiday music and the sound of a quick electric saw when one of my neighbors bought a christmas tree off the sidewalk opposite my apartment.

for all of those years i have been charmed and appreciative of the toothless french canadians who come with their truckloads of trees and strand of lights and camp out in their little security outhouse.  i buy a charlie brown tree from them early on and always cross the street on my way out of the house to walk through the smell of christmas.  that little stand has been a steady, underlying source of my christmas cheer.  when christmas is close and it gets really really cold, i bring them loaves of pumpkin bread and gingerbread still steaming from the oven.

i feel giddy with anticipation on the morning after thanksgiving when their 2x4 tree pens appear, ready to receive the trees.  and so it was last friday night that i felt concern when the pens weren't there by bedtime.  jade comforted my anxiety--or attempted to--by insisting they never came that early.  and i got crazy righteous and indignant, counting on my fingers the years that i have heralded their prompt post thanksgiving day arrival.

and here it is, december 1st, and still no toothless french canadians.  still no trees!  jade, with the concern and discomfort of a parent watching their child lose, inquired at the local bodega (that's deli for non-new yorkers), whose sidewalk the trees customarily grace.  dispute with the landlord, was the report.

my holiday spirit crushed over $100 in unpaid electrical bills and a mess of stray pine needles?!  say it ain't so!  but even more sadly, i think the economy plays a bigger roll in the decision not to return.  i noticed considerably fewer cuts on the electric saw in the past couple of years.  a christmas tree is a luxury item that's pretty easy to trim from your overextended budget.

and yes, i'm speaking frivolously here, i recognize that.  there are a lot more important things to be concerned about even in relation to this story than my childish desire for festivity.  but we think about those things all the time.  for now, i'm taking my distraction in a plaid santa mug full of trader joe's gingerbread coffee blend.  welcome december!

don't i feel like a heel.

i was joking yesterday when i told the tattoo artists at the shop that i was probably high from breathing primer all day.  kind of.
but apparently i lost more brain cells than i realized.  see i spent the day as i have the last many, coordinating the renovation of a new tattoo shop.  it's wildly exciting and all, and i've been happy to log extra hours watching this space which had formerly been brutalized by bad color choices transform into ours.

yet all day i felt vaguely that i was forgetting something.  i chocked it up to the overwhelming list of things to be done and proceeded to pinch my finger in the door on the way out.

any plans tonight? my friend who'd hung new sheetrock asked.
oh no, just this.

and after i finally closed the roll-down gate and looked back at our progress, feeling a great sense of satisfaction, i dropped some artwork off at the studio, swung by my friend's place to give hugs to counteract her blues, wandered aimlessly into target (yes, my wild 11pm on a saturday night outing to target), then got hit on by the guy in a truck on atlantic avenue making me the best falafel i've ever had.

while ALL THE WHILE, friends who i really care about were toasting their birthdays!   it started at 6:30 while i was still huffing primer fumes, with ben, who usually receives a loaf of fresh-from-the-oven pumpkin bread from me (i even bought the pumpkin earlier in the morning!).    then continued at 8:30, probably not too long before i closed up the construction site for the night, with dear barbara, who i haven't seen in god knows how long.  damnit!!

and the only way i realized my mistake was to see barbara this morning on facebook.  here is what prompted my 'oh shit' moment:

back to the shop today.  if you are my friend and i've committed to some kind of plans, clearly my leftover brain cells need a reminder!  

12 april 2009 easter sunday: keith

11 april 2009: heather loop

10 april 2009: abi

click to enlarge.

two years later and i'm still posting '98 pictures of 98 people'.  it's interesting what distance from a project will do.  i'm startled to look back on it now and realize how unfinished i was when finals came around.  so many of the images, like this one, never got text.  in my memory it was only a few, but now it's showing to be quite a substantial chunk.  i vowed i'd come right back to those neglected "few", but now it's just how they are.  maybe a welcome breath in a long rattling story.  some of the text was successful, some just long winded.  

you miss spackleshot? how about some ranting?!

i miss blogging.  i miss the pre-facebook world when i read people's blogs and they read mine.  i'm not saying it was better.  i think it's terrific that everyone participates in the micro-blogging of facebbook.  i just miss it.

so i resist the urge to post the following rant to facebook and instead will post it here (this post will automatically post there anyway--not than anyone even clicks away from facebook to read a blogpost anymore...).  even though it is absolutely as exhibitionistly public as can be, somehow it seems more...privately mine.

so here i wind up.

dear man in line behind me at the bodega,

can you please explain to me what exactly you hope to accomplish by arguing with me "last word in" style that chicken stock tastes better than vegetable stock?  are you really all that concerned that i'm missing some nuanced flavor difference?  did i even ask you?  did i, a voluntary vegetarian of 23 years, seem like i was wavering and you thought you'd put your two cents in to help me with this tough decision?

this is a really stupid thing to rant about.  it just gets so exhausting to talk about it EVERY DAY.  


and while i've got the petty gloves on, let me address another daily conundrum that seems to be of utmost importance in these trivial, nothing-to-talk-about times.  if i didn't have lady parts, would you feel the need to ask me WHY i buzz my hair?  think of how ludicrous it would seem if a man had to answer that question 10 times a day, or if a woman had to explain her bob or ponytail...  

and by the way, man in line behind me at the bodega--i double dog dare you to make a butternut squash soup that tastes better than mine.  

like dominos they fall...

it is true that i have finally mostly transitioned, though kicking and screaming, into the digital realm of photography in my general practice.  it is true that my entire darkroom set up currently haunts, in boxes, every spec of storage space available in my small brooklyn apartment.  that is not to say that i don't fantasize about letting it breathe again in some mythical blacked out barn on some imaginary property in the country i'll have when i win the lottery.  but for now, yes, i acknowledge that digital has taken me over.
  
i know it's the way the world of photography has gone, but i enjoy partially blaming some of it on the New School.  for two years leading up to my enrollment at said university, i flipped through the course guide and circled countless darkroom classes i planned to take.  although i expressed these intentions in my application, i embarked upon my first semester clueless to the fact that the darkroom where these fabled classes would occur had been torn down. when i finally became hip to this change, i was told that all of the equipment from the new school darkroom had been donated to the parsons darkroom, where i would be allowed to take classes.  but when parsons figured out ways to get around that promise i was funneled to the Educational Alliance, an incredible community force whose art school boasted alumnus such as Barnett Newman, Adolph Gottlieb and Mark Rothko.  it was at the Educational Alliance, not the New School as I'd imagined, where i found a home in a darkroom.  


now the Art School at the Educational Alliance faces a similarly vague and sneaky fate at the hands of a building renovation.  


To read a very thorough explanatory article by the Lo-Down:  click here

To Sign a petition of support:  click here

My petition comment below: 
I came to the Educational Alliance in 2005 when the New School University replaced its historic (built during Berenice Abbott's reign as instructor) darkroom with a wide hallway. The betrayal I felt by the mindless demolition of the very reason I enrolled at the New School has not faded in the passing years. I was lucky at that time, however, to be welcomed by The Educational Alliance to finish my current semester at their lovely darkroom. I had such a great experience that I continued for several semesters at the Educational Alliance, despite continuing my full course-load at the New School. Michael Macioce was one of the finest and most inspiring instructors I have had the honor to learn from. It makes me very sad to contemplate the thought of the endangering of another historic and important art program due to thoughtless plans for renovation.



and finally, me standing proudly by my work displayed at credit suisse, an opportunity brought to me by the educational alliance--not the new school.

quote of the day: i should be able to decipher this by now...

me: what's the make and model of your boat?

boss: it's a pissin commanda

me: pissin? Like P-I-S-S-I-N?

boss: nah...that's the accent. P-E-A-R-S-O-N C-O-M-M-A-N-D-E-R

me: ah...boston.

when i repeat his words, questions or instructions to people i never know when they are going to look at me like i'm speaking gibberish, as i don't quite have the massachusetts scallywag swagger down pat....

gettin' gone!

in 24 hours jade and i will depart this sweaty state of summer insanity and head for the glorious and mild mountains of colorardo. actually, the mountains are quite dramatic, but the weather, oh so lovely and mild.

colorardo is one of those trigger happy places for me. it's so stunningly beautiful that i can't stop taking photo after photo, never satisfied with my inability to do its stunning landscapes any justice. maybe if i were a nature photographer....

but having toted my camera around and shot thousands of photos last year, as seen here and here and here and here and here and jeez, now, a newly processed set here, i'm still bringing my camera, but in the interest of not being even more redundant, i'm going to TRY to restrain myself. maybe use the point and shoot a little more and relax.

and relax is the key word. no phone, no computer, no work. nothing but wilderness and campfires and myriads of really nice townsends running around and veggie burgers on the grill. yes, for those of you who wonder what a vegetarian does on a week long fishing trip, i turn you over to the wise words of my friend ben, who on a soho street corner last weekend declared to me, "I've found that fishing is just a good excuse to spend time on a beautiful river..."