A Short Glide, A Zero Gravity Moment

In Orderly fashion, in pairs or alone, skaters take to the languid glide in clockwise rhyme, and heaven shine down does it ever seem like the greatest stunt we've managed. A slow-going circle of bundled sticks, gleefully entranced by every allusive push towards freedom from the doldrums of friction. Skating on ice! Knives on boots, tied to feet, attached to thin legs thinly clad, attached to bodies layered like puffy onions, attached to smiles wide and warm; so many smiles, so warm it's a wonder the ice remains firm. Some of these revelers traverse the plain with ease, on a single blade - what strong, thick ankles they have. Others shake and stammer, stuttering forward awkwardly, crippled by their tools and well aware of the distance from head to toe - but oh how they manage to keep at it. I pray those cripples persevere and enroll the pleasure of effortless gliding before they give up. All this for a spectator to consider, plus the serene backdrop of Central Park's model nature and a Manhattan skyline hit smack in the nose by the sun's rays. And a warm coffee. And friends come from afar, and a camera to keep my words from the burden of painting their own picture. I'd call this a weightless moment, and I'd advise you to agree.

*sponsored by TRUMP

Boston, an Old American

I consider the viewing of Super Bowl a necessary part of the American diet, and as I am a considerably healthy half-American, I took the necessary steps to ensure that my Super Bowl XLII experience would include certain degrees of comfort; a friendly couch, some minor wagering, kitschy snack dishes in abundance enough to ensure leftovers, and an ample viewing platform (meaning a good sized television that would do justice to recent developments in high definition broadcasting technologies). As New England was the heavy favorite over New York for this title bout, and as my old friend Jana has been living in Cambridge and studying at Harvard since the Fall semester began in September, I felt this Super Weekend, wherein Boston's favorite sons of the gridiron were to culminate their unbroken string of victories in a out and out thrashing of The Giants, would be capital time to take tour of the walking city and oblige Jana's offer to visit. Traveling by subway on Saturday morning across the Manhattan bridge to reach the Lucky Star bus, which parks on a Chinatown sidestreet next to the PACE University game field (occupied on this Saturday morning by masses practicing Tai Chi), I noticed that the Lower Manhattan skyline looked, well, normal - not the overwhelming mass of big sticks with sheer sides and generally conventional permanent haircuts that has awed me in the past (I would re-visit this image upon my return from Boston and it did once again command a presence of awe). There are certain yardsticks upon which I calculate my assumptions concerning life in New York, and when the skyline ceases to awe, I feel my laurels sagging under granted weight.
It costs $15 round trip to Boston and back on the Chinatown bus, and there is no better way to travel this distance. The seats have cushions that are plush, the toilet is clean, the buses run more frequently than late night A trains, and there's a stop at a Roy Rogers or a Burger King at the halfway point so that we might all have a stretch or a bit of greasy snack-in-a-box. It's not the jet set, but the Chinatown bus receives top marks for value.
This story would run far too long for its own good, so please allow these following bullets along with the photographs below to illustrate my favorite notions of Boston:
- The city is remarkably American, the model of US urbana: Despite its age, it is convenient in layout, thanks in good part to a no-nonsense transit system with a catchy name; it's sidewalks and boulevards are wide and clean, and its main park, Boston Commons, is a manageable inspiration; it is populated by a homely, friendly and educated lot, who are dreadfully proud of their franchises (baseball caps are no doubt held in perfect per capita ratio) ; Its history is evident and charmingly ostentatious; race is a non-issue, though the city remains segregated; the business district is empty as a banker's rhetoric of life on the weekend; Its municipal planners stick to their guns, as evidenced by the completion of the Big Dig; and a river runs through it.
- John Harvard's bronzed blood still runs blue as he stares, soft features and pursed lips, in nonchalance at his knee, slouching in his book-laden seat atop a square pedestal at the head of Harvard yard; the smartest kids in the world don't look any different from any other student body; The Fogg Art museum has a surprisingly strong collection of contemporary artwork, and magnificent examples of every important art genre, and receives my stamp of highest approval.
- I will return to Boston. I will never live in Boston.
Unfortunately Tom Brady couldn't keep the Giant's defensive line from gnawing at his chiseled chin, and New England lost its perfect record to the duck-and-scramble half-retarded brother of last year's Super Bowl champ and his marauding meadowlands go-getters. Nonetheless, the trip was a success, and New York feels like it should to me again.

Sublime Depths

You might not know what this is a picture of, but rest assured it is a picture of something. It's not a composite; it was taken from above the water tank I had created for the large sculpture I made for my open studio - A suitcase was lined in black material and attached to a 30 gallon aquarium, inside which was suspended a National Geographic magazine (attached with invisible wire to the Bottom of the suitcase), and that magazine was opened to the spread in the photo above, of an Arctic Canadian Park. When the piece was completed, inside the circular hole you see before you sat a weighted pickle jar full of rusty and clean nails, onto which was attached a 1/5th scale black corpse cast of polyurethane, so this particular view was never on public display. But I think it was a view worth noting. Someday hopefully someone will set it as their wallpaper; that is my dream.

The Gaze

Here it is, captured in greys! I know who these people are, but you don't, until you read the next post down and sleuth it out. The fact that you don't know makes it an interesting photo, and the fact that you will find out (which will ruin the distance required to look at the photo successfully, making it less interesting), means that this is a special moment for you. Enjoy the ephemera.

Paranoia Poster

This is a strange one, and you will see it in the Graves zine section of our Fighting website, which will be updated shortly. I think it's supposed to feel old, and a little unnerving, although the rhetorical tongue-in-cheek quality of the text gives the photograph more of a modern, college poster fair sort of flair (if you can call that sort of thing 'flair'). And I guess that's what satisfied me about this piece - that it could act very well as a large glossy poster in a dorm room next to a che poster, a vintage beer add and some other freshman wallpaper that completes the stereotype. This is an altered image, by the way - the shadow man was digitally added to the very dim shot of the hallway in my old apartment. I felt a presence, though, while looking at this photograph of my hall after I'd taken it, if that's any consolation.