70 cents

"Billie Holiday died in the Metropolitan Hospital, New York, on Friday, July 17, 1959, in the bed in which she had been arrested for illegal possession of narcotics a little more than a month before, as she lay mortally ill; in the room from which a police guard had been removed – by court order – only a few hours before her death, which, like her life, was disorderly and pitiful. She had been strikingly beautiful, but she was wasted physically to a small, grotesque caricature of herself. The worms of every kind of excess – drugs were only one – had eaten her. ... The likelihood exists that among the last thoughts of this cynical, sentimental, profane, generous and greatly talented woman of 44 was the belief that she was to be arraigned the following morning. She would have been, eventually, although possibly not that quickly. In any case, she removed herself finally from the jurisdiction of any court here below." - Gilbert Millstein

When Billie Holiday died she had .70 in her bank account.

At dinner with friends

Nothing much to tell today. I save a lot of pictures that make no sense, that seem to capture some thing unseen, eery glimpses into a place the eye knows but the mind can only imagine, or perhaps recognize.

I don't even remember what it was I was doing when I took this one, nor they. I was at dinner with my neighbors in the Lower East Side, and this was the result.

The Seine, dancing

I love cities. I love the perspective they afford you. I love nature for this same reason but I suppose between the two, at least thus far in my life, I've been drawn to the city. As my wife and I were walking along the Seine we came across a group of people dancing, nothing out of the ordinary, though the music and the dancing did seem to have a unique "French-ness" to it, which of course filled us with that sense of romance that Paris is so famous for. If one were able to turn their head left from this picture and look back down the river then they'd see The Cathedral of Notre Dame across the river on the island. We walked further west up the river from here and meandered across the bridges.

I like this picture because my eye seems to read it from left to right, where you first see the black and white couple, something you seem to see much more of in Paris than you see in New York, then there is another couple that almost serve as a bookend couple to them, then the eye follows the line of dancers to the couple of women dancing together. I suppose because I hadn't noticed them the first time or two that I looked at the picture I tended to like them even more when I did discover them.

The music was being played from one of those old portable stereo systems that were known as "ghetto-blasters." It was arranged on a set of steps above the river where we were standing, facing them, playing a sort of French-swing. They've seemed to make a resurgence in New York as well, those portable stereos, jamboxes, boomboxes....

(photographer unknown, found on internet)

a plea...

A friend of mine is sick. Nobody knows what is wrong yet.

I will kneel and ask the universe for you,

ask for everything, for you.

I will whisper pleas to the tress and moon,

bring kindness and benevolence,

and mercy soon

Grimbergen

I've been putting together a web gallery of pics from my honeymoon with my wife. She takes offense at this picture, stating that its only purpose is to focus on alcohol. That might be true, though she is at the spiritual center of the composition. She's practically a Christian saint the way that I've adorned her with gold, and Frankenstein, and Mr. stir... She says that she doesn't want our honeymoon pictures to focus on drinking. I maintain that's virtually all we did and we're very lucky to have any pictures at all suggesting otherwise. This picture is especially offensive to her as it seems to focus on an excessive amount of alcohol, which happens to be delicious Grimbergen bier. When she went away to the restroom I tried to order two beers, in French of course. The word "deux" wasn't the first thing that came to my mind, instead "trois" seemed much closer (phonetically) to two, so that's what I ordered, "trois biers." The beers arrived at our table right about the same time my wife re-appeared from the restroom, much to everyone's surprise and confusion. To avoid any more awkwardness I simply agreed that all was right and this is what we wanted and I sat there with my wife, acting as if there was perhaps a third person coming to meet us, all the while sipping two beers in the perfectly normal manner of a man drinking beer anywhere, happy to be on holiday.

I suspect this picture might not make it into the final selection of honeymoon pics, and there was a story to tell, however meager. I simply didn't want the story of the extra Grimbergen to be lost.

There are other pictures that were never in any danger of making their way into the final cut of our Francey-moon pics. Ones that somehow never got deleted from within the camera, oddly-angled mistakes, some drunken, some just shots of nothing seemingly interesting, the glowing warmth of alcohol and love imbuing the moment with some special transitory significance that, for whatever reason, left no evidence of itself in the resulting picture.

But I like this picture of my wife. It reminds me of times we spent together when we were younger, before being married, partying, and drinking, and wearing sunglasses while drinking beer... in Manchester, or Los Angeles, or Costa Rica, even New York. It reminds me of a less encumbered time, one in which we gladly gave up to one another the very postures we were projecting, when we were falling in love, and laughing and finding our way through it all. And yes, we were drinking, and still laughing more, and pretending. But I still see her now sometimes like I saw her then: lovely and tipsy and silly, and becoming mine.

I think I might have even shared the third bier with her, such was my intoxication with the moment.

Draught, mirrors, beer...

My buddy from Florida came to New York to visit. So I doubled the amount of beer I normally drink.

He is a photographer so I brought my camera with me everywhere I went, hoping to learn more. I learned that I want another camera, and probably would be better off with a small camera bag. Cargo-shorts have their limitations.

We drank wine and beer and went to the museums:

There is this great parabolic mirror at The Metropolitan. I take my picture in it every time I am there. It is next to a decaying shark by Damien Hirst. If you stand several meters behind the mirror you can hear everything that is being whispered by anybody who stands directly in front of the mirror, but most people don't know this. It is fun for a few minutes each time I go to the museum. If it were up to me I would record what was being said and then broadcast it in the next room a minute later, so as they left one room they would re-hear what they said in the next. Is that cruel?

A nap with the bust of Guillaume Apollinaire

"Come to the edge, he said. They said: we are afraid. Come to the edge, he said. They came, he pushed them and they flew." - Apollinaire

While in France with my wife we decided to stop and take a nap in a church courtyard. This is approximately what we saw as we reclined on the grass, chatting, as we fell towards sleep, what we saw as we awoke, dreams still drifting across our eyes, rising above our heads, forever away from us.

We had walked most of the day, not knowing exactly where we were going, stopping occasionally for cheese, wine, etc.

At the entrance to the church courtyard there was a bust of the poet Apollinaire.

"It's raining my soul, it's raining, but it's raining dead eyes."

I thought this was an interesting poet's bust to have at the entrance of a church courtyard. My memory of him was not as a Christian, quite otherwise in fact, a modernist, a living sacrilege.

"Memories are hunting horns whose sound dies on the wind."

Perhaps everyone in France is considered a Christian...

"Haven't we drifted far and lost, From fair dawn to dreary dusk?"

At least they must all be considered Catholics, I wondered.

Abbey Road, Paris

My wife and I just returned from our honeymoon to France. She is a Beatle's fan, so we went to the exact spot where John, Paul, George, and Ringo never once stood together, and took this picture. The very next frame I believe she shows her panties. She'll probably make me delete this... the sentence, not the picture.

More pictures to follow. I've discovered that I save about 1 picture for every 12 that I take. I am lucky to have discovered this hobby after the digital revolution. Though it costs me no extra money to shoot in RAW, I am still shooting in JPEG format. I've been told all that will change...

A destructive invitation. Shiva, the creator, etc.

Perhaps this picture better says what I was trying to in my last post.

I

I keep taking pictures of people's eyes. When done just right nobody looks old and everything seems interesting. I know this is how a little girl must approach photography, but it is letting me get closer to my friends, they all seem to want pictures of their eyes, and I DO like looking at them.

There is a delicate and foreign beauty to it, it is like a flower turned on its side, but has the natural moistness of genitals, and also has the genital's odd invitation, and projection, the warm and welcome warning.

My friends quite like the pictures, but also tell me that there 'are more eyes in the see', etc.

snapshot of a lunch with trees

"Old and young, we are all on our last cruise." - Robert Louis Stevenson

E. 12th, facing West, head slightly back, upwards

Spring is stirring. One Way.

New York is a wonderful place to experience it. The color temperature suddenly compliments, where recently there was only the harsh, gelid light. New York's winter has famously long, cold and recognizable shadows, they are widely known to narrowly lean away from the sun, as if by choice.

Today the world seems rich in promise, with forgiving embraces.

Millions of yes.

Yes. yes. yes...

Winter is neither hell nor death, but only inasmuch as it is buttressed by that distant autumn and this, this yes, yes, yes's.

walking the dog in the rain

(picture taken the night before the rain started)

We awake to cold rain where we must walk the dog. It has rained for days, it will continue for days. It is to be avoided, but there is little way to do so. It hangs over everything, always coming down, though seemingly never complete. It reminds, always. Even the dog seems pensive when entering it. The playfulness is there but not in full. There is an eagerness to return home.

There is an eagerness to return home.

merely a question of life...

"When it is a question of writing, one is scrupulous, one examines things meticulously, one rejects all that is not truth. But when it is merely a question of life, one ruins oneself, makes oneself ill, kills oneself all for lies. It is true that these lies are a reservoir from which, if one has passed the age for writing poetry, one can at least extract a little truth." - Marcel Proust

her former bodyguard, Bernard Shaw

This picture reminds me of Patty Hearst, Tania, The Symbionese Liberation Army, the M1 Carbine, etc., etc.

"...she ultimately joined her captors in furthering their cause. " from the Wikipedia article on Patty Hearst

"She was later granted a presidential pardon by President Bill Clinton in his last official act before leaving office." - Ibid

"the SLA demanded that the captive's family distribute $70 worth of food to every needy Californian." Ibid

"Among her few close friends she counted Patricia Tobin, whose family founded the Hibernia Bank, a branch of which Hearst would later aid in robbing." Ibid

"Tell everybody that I'm smiling, that I feel free and strong and I send my greetings and love to all the sisters and brothers out there." A prison communique from our beloved revolutionary sweetheart

"Hearst's actions have also been attributed to Stockholm syndrome." Ibid

"After her release from prison, she married her former bodyguard, Bernard Shaw." Ibid

"...she refused to give evidence against the other captured SLA members." Ibid

(SLA publicity photo)

Poughkeepsie

This can be seen out the train window on the way up the Hudson to Poughkeepsie from Grand Central.

3-6-10, we went.

Google History

I wish that Google Maps had a feature that would allow you to also see the history of a location, if not in time-lapse images, then at least in text, or a link to any relevant info. There are so many places that leave me wondering. I have lived in the East Village for more than 10 years now and there is an area of vacant lots that always brings me curiosity. These properties must be hung up in litigation, but it's as if a time capsule to the graffiti era of the mid 80's exploded there, sort of. As I was taking the picture above and below somebody asked me what the deal was with that property. There clearly was a structure there at one point but all that is left is evenly distributed rubble. There are quite a few buildings like that in the neighborhood, valuable properties suspended in legal limbo. Law makes all things possible, no?

Among my other Google wishes.... I wish that it was able to save your browsing history so that you could re-visit any of your previous searches. All that it would take would be to have a cache file designated to the searches made when you were logged in to either your Gmail or any other Google account. Though I suppose at some point safety and privacy concerns become paramount. For the traveler though it would be quite a clever addition, especially considering the societal trend towards extreme subjectivity as evidenced by Facebook, Twitter, and the like.

Why is most graffiti so terrible? It's tyrannical in its unrelenting assertion of the blandness and unoriginality of the individual. Like most current "hip-hop", it's always in the time signature of: I/u

Most of it simply fails in the meager goal it sets for itself.

The hemisphere that sees

This picture reminds me of a bull moving in towards a matador, seen from his retreating perspective, his tenuous stance. It has a near-frantic feeling of imminent danger, a diminishing circularity, though without as much threat of unpredictability, of horns, of goring; the cheers and then sudden gasps of such a thing. Modern city life is dull and flat when considered thusly. "No bulls would die today..."

I wonder what long term effects, if any, drugs have on the mind, or the mind's desire to see a certain way. I like some of the photos I take that make little or no sense. The chaotic dance of urban lights, caught only in partial and at a pace. Blurred, distorted, out of focus glimpses of a world that is always there, though the eye retreats from it under most given circumstances, the mind defers. Looking back through the 20th and 19th century there is much evidence to support the idea that the mind had a desire to see things differently long before drugs produced the effect.

Ah, the momentary view of youth... the spring glimpse.

My days of doing drugs are mostly over, though I fondly remember some of the things I saw there, the unique way of leisurely distorting the senses, just for fun. I question many, if not all, of the "truths" I found there, but I still sometimes long to view the world through that wonderful barrel of distortion. To enter that unique magical landscape where much is marvelous and weird. The mistake was believing that the landscape there was ever-changing, it turned out to be quite the opposite.

Many of the pictures that I find fascinating are so because the camera has caught some mystery of light, unattainable to my mind in its current condition. Perhaps they actually are tedious or uninteresting, like other people's dreams. Such is the power and indifference of subjectivity. Such is the power of sight...

Then take me disappearin’ through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

-Bob Dylan, Mr. Tambourine Man

ripened with legends

My heart of silk
is filled with lights,
with lost bells,
with lilies and bees.
I will go very far,
farther than those hills,
farther than the seas,
close to the stars,
to beg Christ the Lord
to give back the soul I had
of old, when I was a child,
ripened with legends,
with a feathered cap
and a wooden sword.

- Federico Garcia Lorca

Produce

I walk home from work every night - up from Soho, into the East Village, past many deli's and shops. This one grabbed my attention. They were bold enough to put produce out early, in the cold. I only took one picture. I enhanced the colors and adjusted it here and there but this is how my mind saw it, I promise. Longing for Spring and everything the tilted earth promises, all the fruits the world can bring, angels of frivolity, bring them.