With the arrival of 2009, the concept of time passing has been on my mind. I’ve come to realize that the concept of time is nothing but a means of structure and keeping in contact with one other. I mean, you can’t tell someone to meet you at 6 miles — you have to tell them 6pm (thank you, Woody Allen - in Anything Else - for that fabulous comparison).
Not two hours before I watched that film last night (sidebar - I totally rocked out this New Year’s Eve with NY pizza and a trio of Woody Allen films) I was joking with my friend, Stephanie, on our trip to get vodka essentials for the evening that I was going to stop using the conventional measurements of time and see what happened.
I have all these clocks that I never bother to read because they are not, in fact, digital. But in my opinion, clocks are too precise anyway. I, for one, do not want to know the time down to the second. It makes me neurotic and OCD; trying to fit 30 hours into a 24 hour day. Trying to beat the clock. But you can’t beat time. It’s fluid and transient.
Regardless, clocks are still beautiful which may be why I have a growing collection. They divide the rotations of the earth in its movement around the sun. They mathematize nature which reveals that everything is connected. It’s all formulated and exactly as it should be. It’s beauty and perfection at its simplest.
(*note: I also have a sweet ass tire clock in my kitchen that is not pictured. It has a wrench and a screwdriver as the hands. Just thought you should know.)
Yesterday morning my cousin, Kelley, and I did a shoot out in the snow with her guitar. She’s one of the hosts for a radio show at her school and needed some photos to submit for the next semester. It was a quick and easy shoot since the girl is gorgeous and, once she started strumming, was totally at ease in front of the camera.
Obviously a couple of these need to head directly into the pages of the book I’m working on. As per usual, I want your opinion. Which one do you like best, internet?
I have this absurd notion that when I head home tomorrow (aka: the Arctic), that I will find some boy that is going to want to whisk me away on a ski trip for New Year’s. I’m not quite sure where this idea came from, but as I was packing I found myself grabbing for far more clothing that I knew was necessary, including a bikini. There is no reason that I would need a bikini in the Arctic. I need a snowsuit and a pint of whiskey.
But now if I were to find some handsome gentleman that was heading to the mountains for a few days, then I would need a bikini because there are always hot tubs at those mountain lodges. Even the cheap, dorm-ish ones have them because the people that run them understand how sore your muscles are after trying to prove what a phenomenal skier you are by hitting double black diamonds while telling yourself that there is no way you should have been invited on these trails.
I believe this all to be my wishful thinking to prove that I am not willingly going somewhere colder than it currently is in this city without some kind of reward. This holiday season has possibly been the best and most fun one I have ever had, yet at the same time the most stressful and, in all ways, exhausting. I always tend to work hard and play hard(er?), but the last month and a half has revealed a whole new plane. Pounds worth of cookies, gallons of wine (and other booze), and hundreds of little hors d’oeuvre platters mixed with little sleep and long work days have made my body feel like it’s on Holiday Cheer Overdrive. And it’s not even over yet. There’s still another two weeks to go.
As I scanned through all of the tech toys that I want for Christmas and am not going to be receiving (save for the iPhone that I bought for myself after leaving my Razr in a cab), I realized I had no idea what I could ask for realistically. At least in the material world.
Then the other night at Shecky’s Holiday Night Out I was at a stand that sold jade bracelets balancing a chambord margarita in one hand and my coat and 2 bags in the other (no coat check!). My friend said that the beads all mean something different. We both decided I needed focus and I must have barely been able to focus on the bracelets because the guy working the stand gave me some advice. He told me that before he met his wife, when he needed to focus, he would read books. Since I read quite a bit I asked him what his favorite book was which led to a discussion on Italian Renaissance Art. It was weird, but it got to me and I realized that I couldn’t focus on the book I was reading, so I switched to another. And I can totally focus on it.
It’s all too clear now what I want for Christmas. I want to focus and quiet down the scatterbrain. I want to slow down and relax, not just pretend to. I want to not talk about the new job I’m starting in January. Yes, I’m very excited about it (and I’ll write about it at some point), but I’m always thinking about work and talking about work and I just need a break. So give me one, please. And I think to do this I need quiet.
(This is where the guy comes in.) I have to see family and friends all this week. It’s going to be more of the same. If I happen to meet someone along the way that is just so taken with me that he insists I join him in a cabin in the woods, then I’ll have quiet, but I won’t be bored. I can come back right after New Year’s and still have a couple of days in the city to be refreshed and relaxed before that new job starts.
It could happen. I could definitely get that for Christmas.
I have been absolutely terrible at posting lately. Chalk it up to a lot of late nights in the office followed by a whirlwind of a holiday season. In fact, I’ve been meaning to post these photos for a couple of weeks — since I got back from my virgin trip to D.C. — and finally found a few minutes before heading out to yet another holiday party.
So. I went to visit the girls that I lived with when I studied abroad in Italia a couple of years ago. We always have a blast together, but only get to see each other a couple of times a year due to all of that responsible nonsense that comes along with growing up. Highlights from our touristy walk included everything that you’d normally do and see, with an unexpected twist of holiday cheer.
A few weeks ago I happened to be upstate in the place where I was born and raised - Watertown, NY. Chances are you’ve never heard of this place. Don’t feel bad. I certainly spent a couple of years trying to forget it. However, if you know of this remote locale, I guarantee your first thought is, “They get a lot of snow.” Or maybe, “Isn’t it really cold up there?” The simple answer to that question is UH HUH.
So it’s the beginning of November and in the city we’re just pulling out our ‘between season’ clothing. The air is getting a bit brisker and the bare wood floors are chilly under our feet. Now, since I grew up in a place that is no less than 30 degrees below zero for the majority of the year, I figured I’d have thick skin and be fine in whatever clothing I happened to bring home. Which, in turn, happened to be all of my dirty clothing. Which were from October. And did not include a snow suit. I was clearly unprepared for this:
1. Life-Size Snow Globe
And this:
2. Crystal Clear Ice Water
And this:
3. Last Little Leaves
When I woke up to that snowstorm, I knew I was fucked. I didn’t have time to run to the mall and buy anything heavier to wear, so I toughed it out the best I could with what I had. My outfits may have looked cute, but I’m sure the purple fingers and constant shivering were the real turn on. Fortunately, I was with family who have to love you no matter what. Even if you bitch for 3 days straight about how you just CAN’T BELIEVE HOW FUCKING COLD IT IS.
Brooklyn seemed to have an especially pretty fall this year. The colors were more vivid than I remember in years past and the light that filtered through the buildings was sharp and clear. These photos were all taken of the tree outside of my bedroom window and about two days later, the winds picked up to speeds that were not conducive to perfectly styled hair. The tree is bare now. And I’m going into hibernation for the next 4 months.
My roommate, Vince, and I shared my old school film camera for a few weeks in a bout of photo geekery. After carrying around a couple of rolls of film for over a month - and bringing them through airport x-rays to potentially ruin the negatives - I finally got them developed. I’m ashamed to say that I prefer most of his shots over my own. But alas, as this is my photoblog, the following shots were taken by me with the exception of the last.
1. Amy's Bread - Chelsea Market
2. Chelsea Market - NYC
3. The J Train - Brooklyn
4. Yours Truly
5. Statue of Liberty at Sunset (photo credit: Vince)
It’s interesting how the color film seems to be affected by the x-rays significantly more than the black and white roll. However, thanks to my former photography professor extraordinaire, Cosimo, and a thing I have for imperfection, I’ve come to have a great appreciation for grain.
I love using film and tend to forget how much more I appreciate photography as an art when I use it. Shooting with film is a more patient process and as I lack that word in my vocabulary, it’s a good exercise in slowing down and doing things more methodolically. If only I could get my hands on one of these bad boys, I’d probably use film a whole lot more.
First, the good news: ALL of the photos I submitted were accepted into the show! Everyone who commented before the submission deadline will get prints. Thank you, again, for helping me out. My scatterbrain needed it.
However, there is also some unfortunate news. It seems the art program is full of disorganized artists (shocking!) and kept sending me information and notices about the show to an old email address that I rarely check. It wasn’t until I was walking out of my apartment this morning that I received a phone call asking if I’d be dropping off my work today. Because today is the deadline. Ouch.
I’m quite disappointed since this would have been my first time to show work since graduating. And I’ve been working pretty fucking hard. Sometimes it feels like the univerise is conspiring against me becoming a professional photographer. But that’s when I tell the universe to suck it.
This weekend one of my least favorite things of the year occurred. The clocks turned back an hour. The extra hour of comatose goodness was welcome and necessary, especially since a) it was a holiday weekend which meant at least one long night and b) there was a house full of boys that needed to be dealt with. However, that annoyingly inconvenient act of resetting all of your clocks means that for the next 8 months it’s going to be dark, dreary, and cold. These are the months where you can find me in hibernation ordering delivery and staying in all night - or - in a dark bar huddled over a pint of beer trying to remember what it’s like to not have to pile on 57 sweaters to prevent immediate frostbite only to descend into an overheated, overcrowded subway car.
Winter. It is not my time of year.
But before I get ahead of myself and mother nature, maybe I should give a recap of a beautiful autumn weekend spent with an unlikely group of friends. My friend, Arvid, whom I met back in the spring on my escape to Amsterdam was in the country traveling for a few weeks and I invited him to stay for a few days. Meanwhile, I had forgotten that my crazy Irish neighbor was moving in for a month because his lease was up. I also had a bad cold that was made worse the previous weekend because I was in Vegas. And it was Halloween.
I guess I needn’t have worried though. The Irishman brought his own bed, so everyone had a place to crash. I decided to suck it up and go out on Halloween, which was totally worth it. Arvid and Vince got along well so when I ditched them to get into a warehouse party, they had their own welcome home party for me later on that night. I guess living with boys isn’t so bad. Now if only I could say that about dating them. Sigh.
At any rate, here’s a photo recap. One or two of these will be going in my book (another post *still* to come on that), but I kind of already have which ones picked out in my head. So maybe you could just guess which one this time?? That’s kinda lame. Just enjoy.
