I think Eloise taught me this.

Find a picture. Look at it and then close your eyes. Enter that world. Listen, smell, touch, taste, look around. Let the words come to you like a flash. Open your eyes. Write them down.

Small is relative.

I hope I feel this mischievous on my wedding day.

"Oh grandma, are you sure your legs aren't healed yet?"

This might turn out to be the happiest moment of both of their lives.

"Yea, put your fingers like so-- that makes the whole thing look really authentic."

If you lived here you'd be home now.

or

I really like yellow.

or

"Did she say meet her in the ultimate or the penultimate one on the left?"

the pictures are by the wonderful and amazing Peter Turnley from his take on "Family of Man." The link to the pictures are here. He is a good man and has photographed the estimable Codman Academy.

these modest facts

I wrote this 20 days ago but wasn't connected to the internet so then I forgot about it until today. Since I have been so remiss in posting here I'm scraping together even the ones I had forgotten.

John Updike wrote a poem called “Peggy Lutz, Fred Murth” on December 13th, 2008. He died shortly after Christmas, less than two weeks later. Several poems from his final months were published in a recent issue of the New Yorker and it took me several times with the issue before I got through more than a line or two of each. Poetry for me requires a very specific state of mind. Patience. Generosity. Curiosity. Patience again… And compassion, or a willingness to be open and sensitive. To let down the guard of my workhorse self and let the cogs in the machine in my head move about, float a bit, and maybe—hopefully—re-attach in some new and different, transformed way. I can’t be doing three or four things at once and I can’t be thinking about any other thing—at least not until moved to do so by the words on the page. Surprisingly, rare as it is in my day-to-day life—this mode, the state poetry is in-- is probably my favorite. Because, it is also the state where I can really feel. Really think. And really listen.
[I love Mach-4 (as in flight not razor) mode too, don’t get me wrong—and I love feeling fast, efficient, productive. But there’s a little something special about that dreamy other place—where the rules of punctuation and linearity fall away.

from the poem:
“I’ve written these before, these modest facts,

but their meaning has no bottom in my mind.
The fragments in their jiggled scope collide
To form more sacred windows. I had to move
To beautiful New England—its triple
Deckers, whited churches, unplowed streets—
To learn how dreary and deadly life can be.”

I really love this poem and this part of it. I grew up in a triple-decker on a hill in Dorchester that the plows often overlooked. Snowstorms meant going out into the world knowing that more than likely the trip home at the end would include a group effort push of the car up the hill.
In the past few months I have been filling out a lot of applications (fellowships, grants) and prepping for some interviews where questions like "tell us about yourself as an artist" laser at me with terrifying frequency. It was terrifying until I really organized my 'story' -- of truths of course-- but where the ordering and delivery can really shape a stranger's understanding. I lined up and made sense of my modest facts. And I am finding Updike's observation to hold true-- their meaning has a sort of infinite bottom.

this happened yesterday

On one subway car three men with distinct causes
One man all in white (dress) chanting voodoo and stomping out the bad spirits, and shaking arms like quaking aspens.
One man a young-ish black guy who had a boom box and wanted to throwdown some moves, probably-- virtuosic.
And a white older guy who was maybe part blind.
When the young guy started in at the voodoo guy like “oh please mister, I gots this car find another train to do your voodoo shit on, Go back to Bellevue” this and that—the older guy was like “chill man, we all got our own show going on, our own talent-like”
There was a mother and daughter on the train too who when the voodoo man/woman came stomping near them they would sorta get smaller and the mom would look straight ahead like there was nothing happening but too stiff-like and the daughter was almost laughing and just whispered, “is this for real?”
I think maybe they were tourists, at least the mother most likely.
Everybody was looking around. Almost breaking up laughing or some people looked sad. Raw deal some people got. Its not really funny I guess.

I remember Philip Newby

A few weeks ago the world lost a great, great, hilarious, generous, kind, thoughtful, brilliant STAR. I was lucky enough to share the stage with Philip in Ivona, Princess of Burgundia at Sacred Fools in May & June 2005 and at Soop Sok in Koreatown at my 25th birthday. We sang Time after Time and any time anyone else sang all night Philip pressed the 'applause' button on the console like it was his job. The birthday card he wrote said "get outta my dreams and into my car" and he called his beat-up old car the "pussy wagon." The time that we really knew each other was short-- but quality. Every time I saw him at the theater, or around town, he was ready with a big hug, a smile, and his brawny wit. I too loved spotting him on tv because it made me happy to know Philip was getting paid for what he was so brilliant at... He was so unique, and so comfortable in his own skin. As my friend, and another friend of Philip's said: "you can never know what a person's life is truly like. You can know what they do and how they spend some or even much of their time. But you don't ever know the pain some people feel. Deep, constant pain. It's impossible to understand. has got to be one of the greatest mysteries of life - how someone can get to such a low place where they do not want to exist in this world anymore."

I just wish I could have seen Philip at least one more time.

I kept thinking of Newbs when I heard this song Skinny Love by Bon Iver and I keep looking at pictures of him, and the amazing things people have said on his facebook page. I wonder if he knew how much people love him. I wonder if it would have changed anything. I put together this little video so some of the images and words would be in one place. My friend Bob and I talked a lot about how weird what happens to someone's facebook page is when they die. I don't know-- for some reason going there has been sort of comforting to me. He was a bright bright light and just thinking of him makes me feel a little brighter.

heroes

Yesterday morning I watched Hilary's farewell speech to the Senate. She reflected on the past eight years, being a brand-new Senator during 9/11, on the challenges she has faced, the successes that have occurred, and as she was speaking I got a little teary. I felt so proud to know and love New York as much as I do, and I felt like a real New Yorker. [This is a feeling I am somewhat oriented towards listening to since I have been such a tumbleweed/gypsy lately.]
Yesterday afternoon I followed the news on the US Airways flight and the 'hero of the Hudson' (Why is the NYPost so brilliant with its headlines?!) and I felt moved to tears again.
Watching Bloomberg's press conference this morning-- again-- MOVED. As the Mayor put it-- we should all be grateful and go forth into the day with a smile on our faces...
Now, to paraphrase passenger Vince Spera--'if anything bad has to happen to me or anyone I love-- I pray that it happens in the great city of New York.'

limb loss

Sometimes I take my limbs for granted. I forget how much they do for me, how much they mean to me, how they effect me and other people. Once I really was within an actual window of possibility as far as losing an arm. One of the nights in the hospital a loved one had a conversation with my arm over the phone. Since I moved the phone to the area just above my elbow and I don't have speakerphone I couldn't hear what was said-- but I imagine it was something along the lines of "I love you, arm. I love all that you are, arm. Get well soon, arm... so you can go back to being your true arm self." Maybe?
I lost my whole hard drive this week. I actually am in mourning. I haven't been able to fall asleep at night as I think of all the things I lost. I wake up in a sweat in the middle of the night with an image in my head of a photo that I took-- that is gone now. Or some writing I have been working on. Some video. Actually about 1200 photos... I think I am freaked out because the past means a lot to me-- maybe more than is normal or it should. I pride myself on remembering things, moments, experiences-- but I notice my memory is a lot foggier than it was a couple years ago.
Also, because the past nine months have been so important to me. I am sad to have lost almost all documentation of my adventures, projects, etc.
I don't want to be one of those people who has to check in with the electronic device in their pocket every time there is a moment of idleness. I don't want to be a pack rat or someone who doesn't have perspective about material possessions. At the moment though, it's still raw.
And the great irony, well-- wouldn't you know what I was doing when my old pal gave out-- the hard drive had just started sending my whole nine months over to the external hard drive... when, KAPUT.
RIP my first new wave Mac. I will miss you. I appreciate all that you held for me-- even if it was ephemeral.
Anyway though, it's not so bad. On New Year's Eve an older couple who lived near my aunt and uncle lost the last 50 years of their life. It all went up in a blaze.
Happy New Year everyone.

how might it have been any different?

In my opinion, the only way to really move forward is to move THROUGH. I'm pretty sure there was a quote to that effect I saw on the wall in some middle-school classroom-- I vaguely remember referencing it here in fact... but sure enough-- it has stood the test of (some) time and some experience-- and in a variety of different arenas of my life.

You might not have pegged me or this blog as a likely participant in the conversation on the financial crisis and economics-- but since I am a firm believer in understanding a thing BY discussing it... and I want to explore any element of my or others' lives that may be of interest to me, and hopefully others'-- I think the topic itself is ripe for the blog-block.

Mostly though.. I want to say--
READ this article by Michael Lewis from Portfolio called
"The End".

I was turned on to it by David Brook's editorial "The Sidney Awards" in yesterday's NYTime-- an editorial which in and of itself-- on the constant and increasingly shorter-forminification of all things-- is FABULOUS and I also strongly recommend.

Lewis' editorial is great and one of the most concise forays into the current economic crisis I have read. It is also makes a fascinating point on the almost inevitability of America's current financial situation and the correlation between the questionable but status-quo morality practiced in the name of 'Capitalism' in America, as well as our obsession with re-invention, change, all things "new," and youth. I first remember being concerned during one of George W. Bush's State of the Union speeches fairly early on-- he talked about how there were more people buying houses than ever. That struck me as strange-- who were these people, and how on Earth could they afford it? Everyone I knew had less money than ever before and couldn't even afford their rent-- and these were all college-educated working professionals! Also, the proliferation of the freeway exit ramp posters encouraging everyone and their sister to "Buy a House! No money down!!" seemed oddly makeshift and casual for so serious an undertaking as buying a house has always seemed to be to me...