a turn for the crazy

an update:
Thanksgiving - different, relaxing, quiet, yummy...in so many ways.

Black Friday - wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole...you couldn't pay me enough to shop that day.

Now - it begins - the next 3 weeks will be filled with rehearsal after rehearsal after rehearsal. Rehearsals at least 3 times a week, probably more. My life will not belong to me until December 27th.

See you in a few weeks.

I guess change doesn't have to be bad...just different.

11 june 1996

this is madness
no, if anything, this is serenity

(oh, the delicious things that come back, from nowhere)

separated by two times,
by day, by night
and the manipulation of naivete

last night i felt the approach of nothing.
not too close but on its way, like a wingbeat,
like the cooling of the wind, the slight initial tug of an undertow*

appearances are deceiving

why is the measure of love loss?**

when change abounds

this hole in my heart is the shape of you and no one else can fill it**

do not let me fool you into complacency

the strain of being born over and over has torn your smile into pieces***




*Atwood, Cat's Eye
**Winterson, Written on the Body
***Rich, Leaflets

maybe i overreact.

perhaps she was right...everything really isn't all the same. i thought i was the only thing different, or at least that's how it feels to me. or, maybe empathy is too much to ask.

get used to it.

will i ever find...

"...peace in that house where memories materialized through the strength of implacable evocation and walked like human beings through the cloistered rooms." -Marquez, 100 Years

in the flesh

When I still lived in Cleveland, I religiously watched Fox 8 News every evening.

A couple of years or so ago (maybe longer - my memory is a little foggy), CBS 19 News switched formats. When this happened, I thought, "eh, I'll give them a try. Maybe it'll be good." Well, the new 19 Action News format was certainly, um, different. And by different I mean scandalously and unprofessionally different. So much so that I occasionally tuned in for the mere entertainment value of the reporting itself, not the stories.

We're talking botched stories, one after the other (Julia and Matt can attest to this - they've watched it while visiting). While an anchor was reporting on one story, news footage from something completely unrelated would be rolling in the foreground. Sometimes it was dead air with news footage, sometimes reporter commentary with a black screen. And this happened daily, more often than not.

Usually, the reporting focused the most heavily on the more nefarious things happening around town...anything involving crime, sex, drugs, violence, etc., but mostly sex. It's like Cleveland's local version of Access Hollywood. Sort of. So, when Spencer Tunick came to town, 19 Action News jumped all over the story.

Spencer Tunick has gained international notoriety for photographing masses of nude people in various urban locales...including in front of the UN General Assembly in New York City:



Now, I first heard about Spencer Tunick on NPR (I also listen to NPR religiously) on This American Life with Ira Glass. (Incidentally, this is the program which probably catapulted David Sedaris, another of my favorites, to fame.) Anyway, given the nature of NPR programming, one can imagine that any potentially 'shocking' story was broadcast with grace and aplomb.

Not so in Cleveland, which begs the question, "Is it art or is it something else?"

Over the summer, more than 2,700 people braved temperatures in the 50s and a 4 a.m. start time to take part in a nude photo shoot Saturday at a park behind the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum along Lake Erie. This story is innocent enough. However, Julia directed my attention to this story. It seems the station's own Sharon Reed not only reported on the story, but also participated in the photograph, while the station's cameras filmed the entire installation process. Consequently, the streaming video feed on the 19 Action News website provides readers with a teaser of the experience.

Imagine a lascivious-sounding female voice:
"If you were asked by a world-famous artist to pose nude, COMPLETELY naked, would you?"

Personally, I love contemporary art in all forms and facets, including nude photography. Give me Robert Mapplethorpe any day. I think Spencer Tunick, while not terribly original, is indeed an artist, and that his photographs are extremely artistic. To me, these photographs represent raw human vulnerability and really, the connection we all have to one another as people.

19 Action News managed to turn art into defamation when it portrayed Tunick's record-breaking* photograph as soft-core porn.

Feel free to comment.

*previously the greatest collection of nude people for one of his photos - 2500 - was in Montreal

a chili morning

Julia, eat your heart out. I wish you were here to share in the feasting! (See, the corn is for YOU! But there's no venison.)

My sentiments exactly.

A few years ago, a close friend turned me on to this comic strip, Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis, and now I have it e-mailed to me daily. When I read today's, I nearly fell off my chair. (Click to enlarge.)

Ok, so I lied.

Mmmm...reality.

Ohio, you disappoint me.

I had such high hopes for my former home.

GO VOTE!

born of frustration - james

Finale - grr.