Odd Signs

A Visit to the Frida Khalo Show at the Philadelphia Museum

Seeing the Frida show at the Philadelphia Museum was like visiting an old friend that you hadn't seen for a long time although you didn't really know why you drifted apart. Suspiciously absent from the narrative, although curated by Hayden Herrera, one of my original sources for all things Frida, were her affairs with women. I found this odd because they did mention Noguchi and Trotsky and of course those of Diego the frogs'. It was however lovely to see the beautiful Frida cross-dressing in her family photos and no one seemed to mind.

Of course I enjoyed seeing Frieda in the collection of Dolores Huerta that I saw when in Xochimillo, Mexico after a ride in the floating gardens. The paintings somehow belonged there, in their context. I couldn't help thinking what Madge has in her collection--I think the great one with the white lace around the face. I was compelled to buy that image as a scarf.

A highlight was the mini Moses mural--a cross between something you'd see in El Barrio and a head shop for it's cosmic elements. Damn, she packed a cast of Cecil B. DeMille in such a relatively small frame!

The overarching theme of intense pain made my spine curl into a spiral twist, but all was greatly assuaged by the excellent mini-mall of visual merchandising; life sized, 3-Dimensional representations of the best portraits bowled you over as if one of the baskets of bloody fruits that you just left seeing in the show hit you smack in the head—I got dizzy! Her work became one giant vanitas, and, I had to cling to life by swiping my credit card mightily with big swoops and my friend’s 10% off membership discount. He had to hold me back from buying coffee mugs with any of the more bloody depictions, but I’m sorry I did not buy the fake mustache kit!

13+1

Photo Hunt: Glass...as in Shattered

Photo Hunt Theme: High

HIGH above Washington Square Park, the view from NYU's Skirball Center reveals an urban crop circle. When they go to renovate this amazing urban gathering space, they reveal...a potter's field....How ironic for all the partying and pot smoking that has gone on here.

This Week's Photo Hunt Theme: PARTY

It's a party in motion; the Colombian chiva.
I caught this chiva in the town of Evigado just outside the wonderful city of Medillin that I got to visit one Christmas. What a terrific trip!

PhotoHunter 2/16: Free

Somewhere on 23rd Street, a hand opened, and some balloons went...
freee....

PhotoHunter Theme: Heavy

Downtown Medellin, Colombia, the main plaza is full of sculptures created by the city's native son: Bottero. I was so lucky to see so many Botero's all at once and loved being in Medellin.

This Week's Photo Hunt Theme: Narrow

Down in Jamaica, Mun, a visit to Bob Marley's house/shrine, people just want to sell anything, in
any way possible!

PhotoHunter Theme: Old-Fashioned

It's 75 year old tea brewing up just outside London in Camberwell, UK.

Photo Hunter: This week's theme: Important!

I usually try to post this every weekend, (discipline.) But because I am going away again, I'll post this important image now. Dedicated to my Burmese student-friends...

This was in a very central square in Milano when I was there in November. It's across from La Scala, the opera house and right by the what inspired the shopping mall: Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galleria_Vittorio_Emanuele_II

The Metamorphosis

Nano-fiction (must have an exact word count of 55 words, including the title)


On one of those deep night piss calls, she became startled; a large green creature had landed on the full-length bedroom mirror. Determined, photographed it-finally captured in its glory. There in the Brooklyn night, she fell back to sleep, having no idea how it left. She knew it was time for a change…

Photo-Hunter: This week's theme: skinny

PhotoHunt

PhotoHunter: This week's theme: Delicious

This man, sitting on a random bench, in a not really there, pretend, "green-space"? (I guess), sitting on Flatbush Avenue was savoring his meat.

NY at Night; a place still most special

I attended an event at the Winter Garden...then I went out walking....

At night there is always a magic and a little danger, 'specially for a Steppenwolf.




The mess that this place is is metaphor for the rest. Although, yesterday I hear they are zooming up the engines to "pave paradise and put up a parking lot", read 3 tower sky scrappers of shopping malls....just what the doctor (mayor) ordered.

Nocturnal Emission

Having traveled through many countries and their respected time zones, I decided to go early to shop at the Coop when it opened at 6am. With nothing in the fridge, I hoped to find something open, to sip, before I could get to the store.

I entered the heavy summer night air and passed the lines of trash in their neat bundles representing an anthropological study of the middle class; a homeless man startled me, (or I he) as his body moved and eyes fluttered from the niche his body had formed into the Methodist Church steps. Bagel stores gates were half rolled and bakery deliveries ambled down making big truck noises. Another homeless fellow with a packed shopping cart was doing push-ups on the corner of Third and that burst of energy made me cross over and turn back on Seventh and head to my destination instead of meandering in the dark.

Passing PS 321 on Second Street I saw a very wasted black prostitute servicing a rather young white male. She on the stoop, he standing. How very sacrilegious on our pristine public school, known as the best in the city.

Summertime, and the living ain't easy...

Barbecues turn into bombings someplace else in the universe-- it's connected to your inner psyche, you see a world spinning out of control; inside/outside, BUT sometimes just sometimes you get to eat fish with friends with fresh lemon labels too! Love to all!

Twin Light Towers Where there Once were Two

Staring in the Pit of Death

New Yorkers are truly some of the most resilient people in the world. Then again, perhaps all war-torn people have this great resiliency; the second skin, like a coat of Teflon upon which the affective filter turned up so high that the negative emotion does not effect one outwardly; the daily motions are still in place, while inside there may be a great sense of eternal havoc. In some ways our courage is testament to the human spirit which transcends the daily grind. And perhaps it is here, in NY, where we as artists display this spirit on a constant basis through our productions of dance, theatre, music, writing and the visual arts. Theses are the testaments that there is a spirit, a collective soul that we chose to let out or allow others in through our words, gestures, and various productions, even in the acceptance of the other by allowing them to look into our eyes.