Observations from the Library 7.20

I took a day off from the gallery to work on some photos and find that it's so hot the creaky old air-conditioning in our building can’t compete with the returning heatpocalypse and it’s cool but muggy in our apartment. I managed to drag myself from my usual working spot, which happens to be my uber size bed, and headed off to the library to work in some air conditioned splendor. It seemed as if every street I crossed on my way to the library was on the verge of melting and attaching itself to my sandals. Thankfully I learned my lessons last time the inferno came to town and the only black I have on are my shorts. The stripped down me with no makeup at all, a white t-shirt on, and my hair pulled back might not look so hot but it feels a little better. Even my backpack carries the minimum laptop, camera, and sketch/writing pad so this is as bare bones as I get. Still with the current real feel temperature at 103° it doesn’t seem to matter, it's just hot as hell.

So for now I plan on working a bit before I venture back out. Problem with my working on my projects is I sometimes get frustrated and find myself easily sidetracked. You know, with blog writing and such things. What with the idiots in Washington prepared to crash the world's economy, the Phillies continuing to have the best record in baseball, and Sunday's first gay and lesbian marriages in New York, well, my mind is just always wondering off somewhere. I should explain that New York City will be holding weddings on Sunday, the very first day they are legal. A lottery is being held to pick 734 couples to be married by 60 judges who volunteered to work Sunday. Mayor Bloomberg said the lottery was being held to avoid couples needlessly standing in line only to be turned away. "We are going to make history on Sunday, with the eyes of the nation once again turning to New York City," Mayor Bloomberg said.

I have been thinking about the totally awesome suggestion of a friend that I start a new Flickr just to handle my blog photos. At the moment I have them spread out net wide with some on Picasa, some on Photobucket, and my own work on Flickr. I first used Photobucket because it's possible to use photos from there in comments on Flickr something which I didn't think possible with Picasa but that turns out to be untrue. That pretty much ends the Photobucket part of the decision. I like the Flickr idea because I have used it for years now and I'm comfortable with it, I know what I want to do and how to do it. Being a Google product Picasa is so easy to use with this blog and with my phone, a droid. I'm a late comer to the Google world but for better or worse I now use it everywhere and everything is linked. That brings up an entirely different set of problems when my blog photos end up on my phone of there own free will, even after I deleted them, and I don’t even want to think about what happens if my phone gets jacked. For now I'm leaning towards a new Flickr but haven't decided yet.

See how easy I get sidetracked?

The Airborne Toxic Event - Changing

Observations on Art 7.20

Jimmy Indra is an Indonesian film maker/artist who Court had first told me about a few months ago. As film making is Court's forte I didn't get around to looking until now but I was glad I finally did. I quickly fell for this short video called "Dark Passenger." Maybe because I think if I ever made a video it would look something like this. Scary thought indeed.

Dark Passenger from jimmy indra on Vimeo.

Observations from the Coffee Shop 7.18, The Hope Solo Tribute edition

You could say I wanted to pass along some Hope Solo post game comments or you could say I still can't put that game behind me. Both might be true but the real reason is that I wanted to use this photo again. The video under it is from the Nike Women "Make Yourself" campaign which was shot by Annie Leibovitz. The quotes below that were posted on the US Soccer website immediately following the game.

From Hope Solo

Link

On the disappointment of the result:
“We lost to a great team, we really did. Japan is a team that I’ve always had a lot of respect for, and I truly believe that something bigger was pulling for this team. As much as I’ve always wanted this, if there was any other team I could give this to it would have to be Japan. I’m happy for them and they do deserve it.”

On missing out on a World Cup title:
“This is something everybody’s wanted their entire lives. I’m realistic. It doesn’t always go your way. I felt like it was going to go our way this entire time and I felt like this was our tournament to win. I think we played great soccer tonight. I think the fans were incredibly entertained. We were attacking, we had chances on goal. It was fun to watch. It was a fun game. What can I say? Let’s just hope I can stick around for another four years so I can go after the gold.”

I know I'm hoping she can.

"Tears in the Sake," Observations from the Bar on the Women's World Cup Final

Sitting in a bar isn’t always how I spend a gorgeous sunny summer afternoon but there is a World Cup Soccer final to watch. I could think of worse ways to spend an afternoon than watching Hope Solo on six screens and drinking cold beer. The sixth Women's World Cup comes to a close as two time winning US team goes up against first time finalist Japan in Frankfurt, Germany. As a pre-game activity we were watching the Tour de France and something struck me as funny. Now I was always a big Lance Armstrong fan and watched the Tour without fail but without Armstrong honestly it's just guys riding bikes. That is until somebody tumbles and takes out half the peloton than it's excitement. But this is a day for soccer and Hope Solo, all of the 5' 10" long legged dark haired beauty of her, I mean 5' 10" keeper for the US team. Damnit I have to be serious here but it's hard because she is seriously hot. Shift to the compulsory tsunami story and how a win would be so good for the national psyche of Japan. It may be cold but to say today I totally don't care.

From Hope Solo

Solo looks like a giant tweety bird in her yellow uniform. My artistic side doesn't take this as a very auspicious start to the game as the black warm-ups looked much better. But this isn’t a style blog so I will move on to the game. The beginning reminds me of one of those games I always hated to play in with US shots peppering the goal only to clang off the post or sail over the net. In a game like this I always knew it was only a matter of time until the other team scored. Because of games like that I first developed a taste for my fingernails, alcohol came later. Dear god we are wasting chances here, not good. The first half ends with the score locked at zero. Phillies are beating the Mets 5-1 in the 8th inning I suppose it's a tradeoff. Why couldn't they play the final yesterday when the Mets handily spanked my Phils? My mystical side is beginning to worry the sports gods didn't like my tsunami comment but I was just complimented on my Penn State soccer jersey so there is that.

Finally Alex Morgan scores to give the US the lead at the 69 minute mark and now it seem the gods do love me or maybe just have a sense of humor. And than just as fast it's back to nail biting time as the clock is down to ten minutes and Japan begins to take more and more chances than finally score to tie the game and the bar becomes eerily quiet even as we are informed the US team has never lost a World Cup game in which it has scored first, 24-0-3 coming into this game. The game heads to extra time as full time ends tied at 1, I'm just glad it isn't sudden death but penalty kicks loom on the horizon.

Extra time with my nails about gone and for the first time I wish I could smoke a cigarette in this bar. Two minutes left in extra time and any goal scored now will be the latest in Women's World Cup Final history and just like that Abby Wambach scores in the 104th minute to give the US the lead and the bar erupts. Old guys are beginning to tear up now but I'm not quite sure if it's the soccer game or the fact that the Mets truly do suck this year, losing to the Phillies 8-5 today. Omfg Japan scores on a corner just after Solo spent time on the ground recovering from a hard dive and I begin to wonder if there is some drinking game for penalty shots, my mind can't take much more. Penalty shots, the most hellish thing ever invented for a sport.

By now you prob know how it ended, Japan winning in penalty shots with the US missing three of its 4 shots. Totally awesome game but one that should have never been this close. The US just blew too many early chances when they could have put the game away. That’s what they call a heartbreaking loss, enough to make me cry in my sake.

Go Phillies!

Observations on Art 7.16

No matter what I do I still always consider myself a painter first, a painter before anything else. Even as I spend most of my time on photos I still love to dabble in my paints just mixing one color or shade with another than dabbing some on an old canvas to see if I like it or if it is worth saving. Just a couple days ago I had lunch with my fav art guy who is going to get me some samples of a new Atelier acrylic that supposedly is easier to blend and comes in 75 colors and shades. I'm so excited because honestly I like to play with paint as much now as I did when I was a little girl with watercolors.

After my last post it came up that I can't seem to paint and do any serious photo work at the same time. My brain just doesn’t seem to function that way at all. To me photography is a much more externally generated art while painting is created internally. What I mean by that is that when I take a photo I am showing you what I see with my eyes. It may be distorted, modified, or transformed in some way but it is still what I actually saw and my brain has little to do with it. When I paint I am showing you what my brain sees which is a totally different and sometimes scary thing. I paint in abstract because I sometimes see the world in abstract which is something I won’t even try to explain now. What is strange is that my eyes see a simple world of b&w while my brain sees a colorful world yet totally distorted. Like I said hard to explain so I'll leave it to the shrinks.

As I said before my painting can involve days of isolation and a lot of tequila, nicotine, and caffeine with little if any food. I get in a zone where I'm totally into the painting and nothing else. It's what I do. For the first time in awhile I seem to be in the mood to paint. Not play with my paints but seriously paint something. It's a feeling I haven't had in almost two years now but it feels different in that I don't feel the need to run off to the liquor store to stock up on tequila and cigarettes. Not that I won’t be heading there but in ways I feel like a muse now lurks in the back of my brain and that inspiration replaces the need for some things. I was never one to feel inspired because inspiration seems such a random thing which always points you in the direction you were already heading anyway. It's also a fickle beast that comes and goes at its own time and place, usually when you least expect it. In the end it's best just to go with the wave and not try to force it because it simply goes where it will.

Things seem to change even as they remain the same. See what comes of it.

Keep in mind that I started this before my last post or what I'll call my 'insanity' post. So if it seems a little confusing no worries, my brain is confusing. Actually I have been writing this over so many days now I have no idea what it means.

The Good Natured - Skeleton

Observations on Art 7.12

Artists, particularly painters, as a group can be self-centered, arrogant, vain, egotistical, and in some instances simply brilliant. But hiding beneath that favorable surface lays a secret. A great many of them are just insane and I'm not even talking about myself. Of my own favorite painters Van Gogh and Picasso were debatably insane while Goya and Pollock suffered from depression. There is even a term for it, outsider art or art brut was first used by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created in an insane asylum.

The idea of a 'mad genius' actually goes as far back as ancient Greece, where Socrates dismissed any poet "untouched by the madness of the muses." Socrates warned that such poets are doomed to find their "sane compositions never reach perfection, but are utterly eclipsed by the inspired madman." In Phaedrus Plato wrote that artists were bestowed with a divine madness, and Aristotle was in all probability the first to connect creativity with depression.

In 1991 Dr. Arnold M. Ludwig, a psychiatrist at the University of Kentucky, did survey of 1,000 famous 20th-century artists and writers, comparing their mental health with those of normal professions. Ludwig discovered that artists and writers had two to three times the rate of psychosis, suicide attempts, mood disorders, and substance abuse than did successful people in business or science. Freudian psychiatry offers an explanation in the theory that people who are creative are much more in touch with their unconscious which makes them more creative which makes them think in crazier ways which makes them more creative. God, no wonder we all need therapy.

Once again I have taken forever to get to my point of writing this. I have been in a very artistic mood this week to the point that I was thinking about painting something. Always my dark guardian angel Ash took it upon herself to remind me of what I'm like when I paint. Pretty much it involves days of isolation and copious quantities of tequila, nicotine, and caffeine with very little or no food at all. Totally immersed I will paint until that moment comes when I stand back and realize that one way or another it's finished. Hopefully what I saw in my head is on the canvas because one time I did take a scissors to a painting and I have been known to burn others.

So those thoughts led to all the insanity thoughts which led to this post. I started to write a post about art and my thinking of painting again but I finished this post first so when it seems I'm out of order here, well, just another sign of my insanity.

Nine Inch Nails - The Hand That Feeds

(Love the coloring of that vid.)

Observations

I never watch The View but this is worth a look just to hear Whoopi Goldberg ripping Michele Bachmann this morning for signing "The Marriage Vow, A Declaration of Dependence Upon Marriage and Family", a requirement for earning the Iowa conservative group The Family Leader's endorsement. The pledge states that homosexuality is a choice, requires opposition to Sharia law, and supports the banning pornography. No I'm not going to say a word about that pornography part.


Link

Observations from the Coffee Shop 7.11

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?"
Mahatma Gandhi

I started this post with that quote because it pretty much sums up my feelings and thoughts on war. Problem is no matter how much we would like war to be a thing of the past it will always be with us. The fall of the Berlin wall saw the 'end of war' until it didn't any longer. World War II was finally the end of war in Europe because it was just to terrible to ever let it happen again. After a millennium Europeans had finally learned their lesson until the former Yugoslavia exploded into the pieces of which it had been patched together after World War I, the first 'war to end all wars.' The history of every great empire, religion, nation, or people is drenched in blood. It may sound overly cynical but it's just a fact of human existence. Sometimes history haunts as well as teaches.

So why did I even bring this up? A couple days ago I posted a photo of a woman soldier in Afghanistan who is one of the first serving with the Army Special Forces (l). I was totally surprised when I ended up getting a couple of emails questioning why I was 'glorifying' war. I said she made me feel proud and I still feel that way but I thought maybe I should explain myself a little better. I'm proud because I see a woman doing the job she wants to, whether you agree with it or not, and in the process proving a woman is able to do any job a man can do. It's as simple as that.

As for glorifying war, read the opening quote.

Now I’ll get ready for the email that says I hate men. I’m sure I can count on my brother for that one.

Observations from the Window 7.9

I had been saying how I thought I needed to re-charge somehow and last weekend seems to have helped some but may have had one unintended consequence. I have always been a morning person, I should say a dawn person. I love the sunrise so much more than sunset, the light and color being totally different as the sun pushes into the sky. If you ever look at my flickr you will find that most of the few color photos in it were taken at the shore at dawn. I just love the solitary feeling of sunrise and I always found it to be my artistic time of day. Maybe not literally but mentally in that I think better, clearer, and come up with better ideas.

Since I moved to the Village I've gotten away from the dawn more and more. Maybe it's the influence of the VQs or maybe just it's being so much busier than I once was but most days I find myself staying up later and sleeping later than I had before. That changed a little this past week when I found myself awake, totally awake, at 4AM and loved every minute of it. One day I even had coffee on the roof as the sun came up. I'm not sure if it's a temporary change or I'm reverting to a previous life, as always time will tell.

As much as I can be a tech-geek I love books, real paper books and magazines. I like to hold them in my hands and feel the paper while I read. I like big glossy photo magazines printed on coated paper. That being said I want a Kindle and I want it bad, well I want the Kindle to play with but I want the app for my netbook. I think I need to do some Amazon shopping. One book I want to check out is Power: Portraits of World Leaders by Platon (Photographer) with the text by New Yorker editor David Remnick. It is the portraits of 150 world leaders shot over a year at the United Nations. Platon is staff photographer for the New Yorker, and recipient of the World Press Photo Award and National Magazine Photo Portfolio Award.

A couple days ago a new shaved ice stand opened just a couple blocks from the gallery. It gets all its fruit from the Greenmarket at Union Square and it's so damn good but I can't figure out why anybody pays $3 for frozen flavored water when the dude at the corner is still selling it for a buck. Maybe buying it from temporary wooden stand makes it better than buying from a vendor with a cart. I'm thinking I might have to open an alcoholic shaved ice stand. I'll just use flavored vodka instead of juice.

And so it goes.

Observations

I don't often do this but I saw this photo today and I had to share it. I can't tell for sure who took the shot so I can't give proper credit but I'll post a link to the article. I'm not posting it because it's a technically perfect shot or because it's anything different. Really there isn't anything at all special about it other than the content itself.

While I admittedly owned a gun at one time and I am a fan of good combat/war photography I am in no way a fan of guns nor am I pro-war. I am far from either and actually the older I get the more anti-gun I become. I am posting it because I looked at this photo of a woman on the far side of the globe and I was proud of her. I have no idea who she is and I doubt very much we would agree on anything at all but I am proud of her. I think that In her own way she is doing as much for equality in this country as the first gay couple to be married in New York.

Other than that I'll let the photo speak for itself.

Female Special Operators Now in Combat

Observations from the Coffee Shop 7.7

Today are the debt ceiling and budget talks between President Obama and Congressional leaders but I don't think anything will come of it yet. The Republicans seem to be itching to take the country over the proverbial cliff just to prove Obama is a lousy president and make sure he doesn't get re-elected. They don't seem to mind the prospect of taking the rest of the world's economy along down for the ride.

What I don't understand is why we don't see more in any mass media about a constitutional answer to the debt ceiling game of chicken they seem to be playing. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution states “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.” Many leading economists, the Treasury Secretary, and even a few Republican Senators think this gives the President the authority to do anything necessary to ensure the nation's debts are paid. Basically he could say the Congress won’t pay the bills so I will, yet we don't hear a thing about it in any of the major media outlets.

This might not sound good, and I'm sorry if it pisses anybody off, but one thing I'm totally tired of is seeing and hearing rich white men with perfect teeth and tans tell us that we all have to sacrifice while they hand the richest Americans bigger and bigger tax cuts. I saw last night that some schools will be going to 4 day school weeks this year because they can't afford to keep the schools open for 5 days a week and yet we hand billions and billions to oil companies, corporate farms, and banks.

Honestly I don't know why some people just can't wake up and see what is happening before we end up a third world country taking handouts wherever we can. Below is a kind of CliffNote of The Rachel Maddow Show from June 27th that for me says it best.

"In 2005, four Republican senators decided to bring back something called PAYGO, basically a rule that says if the government spends something, it has to compensate for that somewhere else in the budget....
And even though four Republican senators, including John McCain, had supported legislation to do that in the past, when President Obama said, “OK, I will do this thing that you want,” those same Republicans decided that they did not want PAYGO anymore....
The idea of Congress setting up a bipartisan blue ribbon panel to work on bringing down the deficit was an idea Republicans had signed on for. Seven Republican senators co-sponsored legislation to establish that sort of commission last year....
And then when President Obama said "I like this idea of yours, let‘s go forward with this" those same seven Republicans decided they were against it....
Same thing on cap and trade. Democrats wanted to just ban certain levels of pollution in the air, but Republicans said, no, no, no, we have to use the market, Cap and trade was the Republican idea. Republicans were for it. Then, so was President Obama. So, now, Republicans are against it....
Democrats wanted to require that businesses cover all of their employees. Republicans said, no, no, we Republicans, we like bumper stickers about individual responsibility.
So, their counterproposal, the Republican idea on health reform was that business would be required to cover all their employees, but individuals, individual responsible, individuals would be required to get insurance.
The individuals mandate, Republicans were for it. Then so was President Obama. So, now, Republicans are against it....
Republicans were for terrorism trials in the United States when George W. Bush was president. Then so was President Obama, so now Republicans are against it.....
During the Bush presidency, the current Republican leaders in Congress voted 19 times to increase the debt ceiling by a total of $4 trillion. But now, they have discovered a desire to take a stand on this issue....
The kind way to understand this is shameless, craven, unprincipled partisan hackery."
She finished with, "Given the choice between thinking of them as that evil and thinking of them as just disgusting, I would rather think of them as just disgusting."

Observations from the Window 7.6

Really nothing exciting here. As I vegged on the deck recovering from the pig roast on the 4th I was tweeting some quotes that I thought were fitting for the day. I was amazed at how they all still resonate today, some even two hundred years later. Anyway I thought I would put them all together in one place so here they are, all in one place. The first is a Sinclair Lewis quote that has been one of my favs for years.

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
Sinclair Lewis

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." Abraham Lincoln

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."
Thomas Jefferson

"Liberty, once lost, is lost forever."
John Adams

"If tyranny and oppression come to this land it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
James Madison

"Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder."
George Washington

"The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government."
Thomas Paine

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"
Benjamin Franklin

So there you have three of the loves of my strange life in one easy to read package. History, politics, and quotes. I often think the wingnuts should read the quotes of the people they are so fond of quoting. For what it's worth that was your history lesson for today. Don't say they didn't warn you.

Observations from the Road 7.4

So my 4th of July weekend at home draws to an end with my return to the Village postponed until morning so I can enjoy my family, the Phillies, and all the leftover pig roast beer just a little bit longer. It was an awesome long weekend with just a touch of sadness at the realization that all we kids are finished with high school, really the realization that none of us are kids anymore. Still that can't take away from just how awesome a weekend it was.

I was so into recharging the brain that I didn't even bother getting myself a New York Times Sunday morning although I was tempted to get one later in the day just to sit by the pool and be a smart-ass. But I decided against it and played the good daughter, sis, and pseudo hostess all day. And a long day it was. Sunday began early, with the pig roasting on a hot humid morning, and it continued well into Monday morning with candles burning in the garden and a small fire on the deck. I finally crashed around 1:30 Monday morning and eventually found myself sleeping on the deck just like old times.

Dumb luck made the weekend just a little more special as my cousin Tess just happened to be visiting from the other coast. Tess is a year older than me and it has been years since I last saw her so Friday night the two of us and my brother went out to do some catching up. As I’m always thinking I came up with a photo idea involving Tess and her dad's totally awesome Ford Mustang that we shot on Sunday morning. Last I saw her the girl had tats but nothing like the complete body art she is sporting now and, just an observation, she looks hot. Looking at the photo later made me think that if my sis is my mini-me I might just be Tess' mini-me, just not so mini.

So in the end I did some swimming, some tanning (don't laugh!), re-bonded with my cousin, and spent a lot of time with my family. Along the way I drank too much cheap beer, ate too much pork, and accidentally fired a bottle rocket in the direction of a police cruiser that just happened into my line of fire. OK, so I wasn't the perfect hostess all the time. I did very little thinking about the Village, politics, or even art. I just vegged, recharged, and had pretty much the kind of weekend I was hoping for. I even added to my bucket list as Tess and I concocted a plan to cruise the left coast on Harley's one day.

Sometimes the t-shirts are right, life really is good.

Finally let me wish you a late happy 4th of July. Hope it was a good one with lots of alcohol and fireworks though I hope they weren’t combined in any way. That’s how police cruisers get shot up this time of year.

"Freedom is the right to write the wrong words." Patti Smith

Bruce Springsteen - Born In The USA, Live in Paris

Observations from the Coffee Shop 7.1

It has been a week since the vote in Albany and the buzz in the air has begun to die down a little, replaced by a feeling more resembling a hangover. We haven’t lost that feeling I can only describe as comfort or joy that the thought of what happened still brings. Just that time brings the realization that there are still so many states where not only is a gay marriage not legal but it is actually constitutionally banned. So much yet to be done. I'm also sure it will all change again in a few weeks when the law takes effect and the first weddings take place in New York. I already know of one wedding I might be attending but for the record, no, the VQs currently have no such plans.

It's been a gorgeous couple of days in the Village but I'm totally ready to get out of town for the weekend. I don't know why but I just feel like I need a couple of days to re-charge the brain and body. It's that time of the year when I normally spend a week at the beach house in Stone Harbor, just vegging on the deck, drinking Corona, and hanging at Fred's, something that just didn't happen yet this year. But Sunday is my sister' big grad party slash pig-roast and that should do the trick just fine. Hopefully the weather holds but I have been informed there is a heat advisory on for central PA. this weekend. Than again drinking cold Corona while I float around the pool doesn't sound at all bad either.

Going into Toronto today the Phillies are at the half way point of their season with a record of 51 wins and 31 losses. The new question seems to be can they not only return to and win the World Series but along the way can they break the team record of 101 wins in a season. Over the past few years they finish the regular season much better than they start it so anything seems possible. On Sunday Cliff Lee will attempt to become the first major league pitcher to throw four shutouts in a row since the Dodgers' Orel Hershiser had five in a row in 1988. He is already the first Phillie pitcher to have three in a row since Hall of Famer Robin Roberts in 1950. Also on Sunday the All-Star Game lineups are announced and in all likelihood Halladay, Hamels, and Lee will all be in the starting rotation for the NL team. I might actually have to watch this one but I hate all-star games in any sport.

And yes I do love my Phillies.

Now you know this is nothing like the tunes I listen to but it is the 4th of July weekend and I have the sad suspicion I’m going to be hearing more of these tunes than Lady Gaga at the pig-roast. May as well prepare myself. Than again maybe I'll have to hijack the tunes at some point.

Toby Keith - Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue