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Friday, March 3rd, 2006
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12:19 am - Well doesn't this look like fun...
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Blackkat.org, Complacent Nation,
T. Beale, and Nine90 invite you to:
Wild Wild Brooklyn
A real-time exploration of the out-of-control.
This Saturday, March 4th
Arrive after 10pm and stay until much later.
At our new 9,000+ sqft. home of danger:
313 Meserole St. - East Williamsburg Brooklyn
Details: http://www.wildwildbrooklyn.com
What is it?
Big music; intimate spaces; sultry dance floors; dangerous
art; glimpses of nudity; climbable sculpture; fantastic
costumes; fire and moonshine; hidden spaces; beautiful
stars; floor shaking bass; kisses from strangers; the
Brooklyn frontier; the inescapable dream; the sweetness of
sweat; the never-expected; the exploration; the free; the
you putting the Wild into Wild Wild Brooklyn.
How does is it sound?
A touch of techno and a glimmer of breaks with dub, house
and live experiments of flavor. In the Wild you are
guaranteed to dance.
In the room of wood:
Lenny Dee [Industrial Strength], David Hollands
[Minimalwage.Com], +Liondub+ [Chopstick], Jason Bk
[Blackkat.Org]; and performances starting at 10pm from:
Jimmy Jackson [Howie Wreckhords] Spinning vintage rare field
recordings from Africa, Asia, and Polynesia then Hopfrog's
Drum Jester Devotional [NightonEarth Los Angeles] a
Middle-Eastern inspired lofi dub duo.
In the room of brick:
*Live* tight experiments in sound/dance design from Riipiit:
[Riposte Records, Paris], Tzii [NightOnEarth, Belgium],
Lance Blisters [Share NYC], David Last [The Agriculture]
Madaro [Blackkat.Org], Naked Slice [Renegadevirus].
How does it look?
This is the start of a six week interactive art installation
focused on climbable sculpture, interactive video nooks, and
discreet performance spaces featuring the Village of Shadows
by will (nation) with hookahs from Balk Tick, gift costumes
and live painting by C-Spot Designs, explore Fort Box built
by Bunny, the big visual by Olga Naiman, video projections
and the magic laser box by ImageNode, plus the foundation of
the big sculpture by Thomas Beale the woodsman.
How to get there?
The L train isn't running this weekend but you love
adventure and a bike/cab ride through Brooklyn is as
good as it gets.
The location is at:
313 Meserole St.
Between Bushwick Ave. and Morgan Ave., south of Metropolitan Ave.
2 blocks from the Montrose Stop (shuttle busses replace the L).
View the map at: http://www.wildwildbrooklyn.com
From the Lower East Side it is $12 cab ride. But, we will
make up the travel cost with the discounts below...
How much?
*Free* if you work at it.
$10 otherwise.
To get in for cheap:
Get $5 off by coming in costume or
Get $7 off by coming in a costume that lights up
and/or get $3 off by coming on bike (free indoor bike parking!)
Arrive on bike with a costume that lights up and the party
is free, anything less and you pay something. Just subtract
your discount from the $10 base price, for example a
non-lighted costume gets in for $5. Just want to drink and
dance? Then the cover is $10.
And by costumes, we mean *effort*. Think wild wild,
feathers and feathers, Max and the Wolf Suit, the Fastest
Draw in Brooklyn, Oscar Wilde, Calamity Jane, The Warriors,
Tennessee 1873, Brazil Carnival, the lion tamers, the wicked
you dream of and the wild you realize.
...this is just the beginning.
http://www.complacentnation.org
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| Thursday, February 23rd, 2006
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10:53 pm - Dance Party at Times Up Friday, Tomorrow!
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Hey Kids,
There will be a victory dance party at Times Up (49 E Houston) after Critical Mass (like 8:30) tomorrow, friday. Times Up won another court battle against the pigs, offering yet another favorable ruling for bikers. The last time this won a ruling back on October, the victory party was great fun. Disco in the bike repair shop! More info here.
come dance with me.
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| Sunday, November 27th, 2005
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9:48 am
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this short break has me really thrown off. I am having the worst time getting back into study mode. I am also getting distracted with trying to put together a web page. It is making me want to bang my head against a wall. I do get sucked into computer work much more easily than into reading or writing. I have the draft of a 10 page paper on 19th century french pornography due on wednesday. I have a hard time elaborating my ideas and pack everything into almost no space at all. I just got an email from someone at the TransFair organization about the event that they are having soon. This is the thing that Susan hooked me up with. It is a private event in someone's apartment. Ek! I have to get caught up on the organization in the next week.
At least it's warm out today.
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| Tuesday, November 15th, 2005
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8:26 pm - Susan Meiselas, Paul Fusco, and Anthony Aziz
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I talked to Susan Meiselas last night about my pictures and about my trip to Guatemala. She had basically the same conclusion about my photos as I did, they just don't do it for portraying the community. "They are photos that they would be glad to have." She also said that I want to go as a gift giver, which is very accurate. I just hadn't named it that way. It is useful to expand my roll to gift giver because then it doesn't matter if I do good photos or not. It leave the door open to all the other good stuff I might do there. Of my project on Kaitlyn, she said that I am not yet bringing us into her life with the images I have. She also said that I need text. Again, I knew that and other have been saying that. It is good to hear it again because I might do something about it. She showed me some work from photographers who she led a workshop with about making stories with text and audio. She was really showing me the images for their photographic quality, which was impressive. "Photographer can be lazy," she said. The people in the workshop didn't do as much hard journalism work as she hoped. Photogs want to give their work to an editor and let them make the story out of it. I need to make the story, including the idea, the angle, the images, the text, the audio, and put it all together well. Duanting, but exciting. She did email someone from a group called TransFair that does buying and marketing of fair trade producs of collectives in Latin America. They responded with interest, in connecting with Santa Anita and in photographs. Susan passed the along to with with enthusiasm. I feel encouraged by my meeting with her because even though there were some serious criticisms, I feel like she sees that I am working on good stuff and sees the potential. She said that I can contact her when I am at the next stage in my projects to show her.
I also showed my work to Paul Fusco on the fly today. I stopped by Magnum and he was there, cheerful as usual. I told him that my last day was Friday and he asked what was up next. I talked about school and Guatemala. He asked who I talked to about Guatemala. He ment editors. I said no one. He was very concerned about this so I said maybe I should talk to Mother Jones. I pulled out my portfolio of pictures and he looked through them with interest and animation. He gave me the name of the art director at Mother Jones, insisting that I get in touch with her. He also had some criticisms of my work, but ended saying that I have a good eye. He pointed out the pictures that he liked of Guatemala, talked a little about why. It's all about the emotion. Can you get the emotion of what you were feeling there in the picture? That's the big question. He took the one black and white shot in the cemetary and said "what's the most important thing in this shot?" I said the little girl in front looking at the cofin, new generation seeing what happened to the old. He then covered up the figure with the white shirt in the forground. "Now what do you feel?" then the barret of the taller girl, "And now?" He is a good teacher, not always linear in what he says, but I have a clear picture of him movinng his hands around the picture, covering things up and talking about feelings. That sticks. He also said that I could contact him latter to show him my progress.
My photo teacher, Anthony Aziz, had the class come over his studio to show us his work today. He has essentially sold out. He was making political work at the beginning of his carreer and now makes decorative stuff. He said that he wanted to make things that were plesant to look at. This makes sense. I feel like as a person, I can understand why this individual would make that move. It's hard to see though. I feel scared of it. I think that the best thing is to do my best to stay true, even if that means making corpraite stuff in order to fund other projects. I just need to keep them carefully seperate, maybe. I'm not sure. He also made terrible dystopic images. I am trying to make tough but inspiring stuff. People doing things for themselves despite tough odds. Being creative and active. That leave one with a different feeling than irksome images of biotic computers and such, poiniant as those images are.
Point is, I am doing fine. I have good ideas and a lot of will. I will make these stories work both as stories and in the world as tools of change. Aziz says that art can't make change the way activists can. Okay, then I choose to be a media activist, not an artist, if that's how it works. Not sure about that either though. Pictures can't do anything on their own. People believe what they want. It can hept with things though, like self awareness and humanization. It's all about being volunerable. That's a loaded gun I need to weald very carefully. With Guatemala, I have an idea of why and where it can go and do. With the project of Kaitlyn, things are fuzzy. There is the imense value of giving lady pictures. There is also the learning experience of photographing someone who is insistant and willful. I am heald accountable and this is helpign me think abotu how to be accountable to people who are not as loud about this as she is. I have some dream of the images helping to raise money for puberty, but that seems to impossible. Pictures don't make money, not documentary ones anyway. I don't know. How can I be a gift giver in a healthy way? Maybe that's the question.
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| Wednesday, October 26th, 2005
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11:17 pm - Woring on Photo Projects
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I am working on two photo projects. I am really emotionally invested in both of them. I have deadlines of sorts looming with each. I am getting really stressed out about it.
Katie looks out her squat at the police car sitting outside.
The first on is documenting Katie and all the complexities of her life. These complexities are pretty complex and I want to make her life as legible as possible. For this, I have an end of the term book due for my photo class. This gives me time, but I still feel overwhelmed with editing what I have and writing succinct captions. The end of the semester won't mark the end of the project, but this is a major step to getting my shit together with this.
All night vigil in the school house for those killed 20 years ago during the war who will finally receive a proper burial the following day. Santa Anita, Guatemala.
The second is Santa Anita, the community I spent time in in Guatemala. I have decided to go back in January for a few weeks. I want to bring back the images that I have and also take better ones to do them more justice. I emailed one of my favorite photogs about advice on giving back photos to communities. She said that she wants to meet up and see what I have in order to help me plan the project. That means I have two weeks to make a damn good set of prints of images that I don't feel too great about. Stress.
And even after that, what will I do when I come back with more pictures? How will I get them out? This is a concern for the images of Kaite too. How do I show them so that people can see and maybe care or get an idea of what it is like?
This is all really scary because I want so badly to do these things right.
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| Tuesday, October 11th, 2005
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4:40 pm
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i just wrote a long entry and then felt really dirty about it, even though it was about good stuff. i don't think i like lj any more.
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| Saturday, October 8th, 2005
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8:59 pm
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It is nice that we are finally getting a good rain but it is getting me down. Maybe it's the indy rock music. I have been sitting in Lotus cafe for some seven hours now. I manage to get overwhelmed by school work during the week and think that I need to keep my schedule open to get work done over the weekend. Then I end up sitting around somewhere lonely and not getting all that much work done. Today I did actually have a bunch of plans, but they got rained out. And I have gotten a good amount of stuff done. *shrug*
School is going well. I enjoy it, but I haven't made any friend really. I have someone who is high on the list of -to make friends with- after I talked with her Friday. Sara was fumbling with a camera onthe sidewalk so I stopped to see what she was up to. She is working on a project photographing a trans women. who would have figured. I looked at her pictures from Argentina. there were some really good ones.
Yea, I really have nothing interesting to report. Just cluncking along with the usual which is all still pretty new. I need to learn how to balance going to school and having a social life. It will work. I am keeping up with everything so far.
I am working on a preport on Cindy Sheehan. If anyone is intersted, here is my draft thus far (and no i didn't proofread it):
In early August, after the movement againt the war in Iraq had been religated to consistant marginalization, a mother of a solder killed in Iraq brings the emotional content and inherint contraditions of the war to headlines for weeks on end. Cindy Sheehan was just the cultural icon that the anti-war movement was hoping for. From Argentina to Palestine to Northern Irland, maternal activism has been a vehicle for personalizing and confronting the contradictions of state policy that deny the emotional impact of the conflict on society. Burchianti comments of Las madres del Plazo de Mayo in Argnetina, "[Mothers] are able to tap into culturally salient and powerful meanings and representations attached to maternal suffering." (Burchianti 14)
While the anti-war movement had used many plausable historical and intellectual counter-arguments to point out the inconsistancies of the state's narrative, Sheehan created a space for oposition that justified the personal, unspoken experience of individuals effected by the war. Dramatized by camping out at Bush's summer get away, the flood gate opened for an opposition that stands up firmly against intellectual rationalizations. The moral authority of mothers buttressed by the feminization of testimony based on emotional and personal experiences creates a credible account of the real impact of war. Sheehan's anti-war cry based on her maternal suffering fills in the gap between the state's narative and individual memory. In Argentina, a group of twelve mothers came together outside of the national government building to do just the same thing that Sheehan has done over the summer; call the state to be acountable for the impact of their policies. "The Mother's testimonies, which bear witness to individual acts of disappearance, work to contest the state's historical narrative by bridging any rift that might remain between individual and collective memory." (Burchianti 139)
Initially reports of Sheehan's complaints from outside of Bush's summer get-away suggest that Bush blundered his initial met with her soon after her son died. During this meeting, Bush refered to Sheehan as "Mom," suggesting that he did not know her son's name. (NYT, Aug 8) Summerfield suggests that victims of violent conflict need to be acknolaged by being named. "It helps those left behind generate a meaning for the events and a social context for their mourning." (Summerfield, Britich Medical Journal, 1995). The government has failed to do this durring the current conflict by outlawing media coverage of dead bodies returing home and keeping the meetings of the president with families of the deciesed totally private. There is no opertunity to make sense of the discrepancy between the returning dead and the official line that the war is over. In Palestine, mothers of myrters are quickly raised to a state of political glorification. This rapid movement to public icon combined with the the need for a quick burrial to comply with curfuew and avoid conflict, leaves the mothers with almost no opertunity to come to terms with their personal lose. (Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 397) By leaving no space to consider the realitiy of lose without the burden of policicizing the event, the state effectively creates this same conflict on a national level.
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| Wednesday, October 5th, 2005
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8:27 am - Flickr
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| Saturday, September 24th, 2005
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8:40 pm
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I hit my head the other day. My ear looked a lot worse. I wish i took a picture earlier.
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| Monday, September 5th, 2005
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11:14 am - Kartina Satellite
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| Friday, September 2nd, 2005
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3:57 pm - random publication
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| Tuesday, August 30th, 2005
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9:57 pm - Observation: Bronx bound D train, lower Manhattan, 5:10pm.
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Two tall, thin African American men get on the train and sit across from me. Their skin is nearly pitch black and they share quiet, occasional conversation. The younger one, maybe early thirties, has a black T-shirt on with a black and white photo covering the front. It shows a young kid in an overgrown lot, brick apartment buildings rising behind. The kid is probably about 10, ratty hair, sleeveless white t-shit. He stairs right out at you. Around the picture in small letters, it reads "Born to Survive. South Bronx August 3, 1973." The man moves black and silver prayer beads through his fingers. The other man, a little older, has on a white T-shirt and a black do rag. Around his neck is a black wallet on a black cord. In the wallet is a black and white photo of an Imam wrapped in a white cloth half covering his face. He also stairs out at you, engaging. As I got off the train, I leaned to the first, "I like your T-shirt." He nods. They were beautiful.
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| Wednesday, August 24th, 2005
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8:06 am - Meeting Bruce Davidson
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I had to drop some stuff off at Bruce Davidson's house yesterday. Bruce is one of my photographic idols. I learned from tripping all over myself when I met Susan Meiselas at the Magnum office, and handled this encounter pretty well.
I brought a big bag of stuff from the office to his palatial apartment on west 86th st. The bald, short man in an empty tan photographer's vest greeted me warmly at the door. He asked what my name was and immediately asked if it was my real name. I admitted it to be a pen name. After a brief exchange about pen names and going by only one name professionally as opposed to two, he invited me to sit down while he got some stuff together for me to take back. I looked around from my seat and found the place to be a poorly coordinated mix between flashy European antiques and things from his world travels, like giant clay pots and autographed boxing gloves. His kind but somewhat awkward wife got me some juice to drink. Bruce brought a small bag of things out, took the bag I had brought, and disappeared into the back again. His assistant came in and asked where he went, if he was getting anything. I said I didn't know. When he did come back, he had a poster that he was signing for me and sent his assistant to get an index card. "Can I call you if we need some help on a weekend or something?" Of course I said yes. I took the opportunity to offer that I had some work I would like him to look at. He stumbled over the correct word s to refer to trans people and there was no mention of actually looking at the work. His assistant was standing near by looking somewhat irritated at me for the chit chat. I put down my name, phone number and email address on the card, and was shown to the door. "Just simple things like carrying stuff. Don't worry. I won't exploit you." We said good buy and I was headed back down the elevator. I assumed that this is how he always treats the interns that come by from Magnum. I told one other intern, but she was very surprised, said all she got when she went over there was a tour. Who knows. He has probably misplaced the card with my number already. He should remember my name though.
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| Monday, July 25th, 2005
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6:15 am - Taking better pictures
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The past three weekends I have been the teacher's assistant for two different courses at the International Center of Photography. They were both classes about going out and shooting the city, so there wasn't much for the assistant to do. I was aloud to shoot along with the class. I was really surprised by how poorly I photographed. I had some okay shots, but not all that much. I realized after the first weekend that I really need to slow down. I need to take pictures of what I like rather than what is a "good images." This was the first time I was thrown in with people who really take pictures much better than I do. My stuff is very documentary, and the teacher of the second class, Harvey Stein, said that I should take pictures of things closer to me. I guess that I am not coming through in my images.
I am glad that I am going to school because it will force me to slow down. I think that I need to look at more photos and shoot more film. I want to go back through my work and re-edit. This is just such a different feeling from other times that I show my work and people love it. I usually am showing my work to non-photographers or documentary photographers, so maybe that's why. These classes were definitely more 'art' oriented, whatever that means.
In adition, Kaitlyn keeps calling me rapatious with the camera. I think of how Alix guilt triped me out of bringing more film on my trip to Mexico and Guatemala. Where is the balance? School is going to be tough, but maybe not as bad as this.
Part of me is discouraged, thinking that I have been doing it wrong all this time. Part of me just feels frustrated and ready to switch modes a little. I feel like I have lost sight of whatever it was I might have been doing right.
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| Friday, July 15th, 2005
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8:03 am - looking for a room
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Hello friends,
I'm looking for a place to live starting August 1st. Anyone know someone looking for a house mate in dear ol' nyc?
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| Saturday, July 2nd, 2005
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9:45 am - Fuck
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| Monday, June 20th, 2005
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12:37 pm - Recovery
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I had a rough week last week. I guess some people's standard's of rough are different. But I felt like I got knocked down and then again before I could get up and then again before I could even think about getting up. I am so glad I escaped. I feel like that was the healthiest thing I could do and perhaps the first time I did something so healthy. I feel rejuvenated. Last week is still ringing in my ears when I stop to listen, but it is a dull ring that fades when I want to settle into something else.
I went to Ohio for the Allied Media Conference. It was really great. The conference is a get together of all sorts of indy media makers. There were lots of Indymedia people, Clamor magazine, Bitch magazine, Radical Reference, public and pirate radio people, zinesters, street artists, etc. I ran into more old friends than I anticipated. I got to know some new ones. I feel like it was mostly a networking event for me. I have a photo project to work on. I feel motivated to do street art and break out of my box a little. And there was bowling. About 300 punky, geeky people crammed into the blowing alley and had a fucking good time. I apparently have great form, but I couldn't do better than a 78.
I quit my job last week. They still want me around. I will give it two weeks and see what my schedule is doing. I want to be productive with my free time, but that is only a hope. I need to get a fucking web page together. And I need to get the name thing straightened out. Publishing under one name and going by another is probably not going to work.
I love conferences. I love community. I love feeling like I can do something well.
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| Wednesday, June 8th, 2005
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12:46 pm
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life is good right now. thing are difficult, but manageable and worth it. i feel like i have shifted a lot over the past six months. i feel like my approach is totally different. i don't know if this shows on the outside. i do something and remember how three or six months ago, i would have done it differently, or at least thought and felt differently through the experience. This is satisfying. I feel the progress. there is plenty more to go, but i'm going.
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| Friday, May 27th, 2005
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4:38 pm
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in the past 24 hours we have gotten three very nice pieces of furnature and the place feels liveable again. And the plants are growing. And i am actually able to say how i feel and what i need on something of a regular basis.
even better, i feel like i deserve some of the things that i can give myself.
progress!
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| Tuesday, May 24th, 2005
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9:03 am - Belated Post: 5/15 Warm Party
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Party announced via text mob the day of for the first warm summer's night. Roving from Manhattan to Brooklyn and all over Red Hook.
( More Pics )
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