TMi

I was doing some paper collaging recently and in the moment wondered why it felt so appropriate to have a workspace strewn with paper cuttings. Then I remembered my mom would have a pile of papers at the table. She went through them, carefully select something that was meaningful, and tear or cut it out and place it in another pile of papers to be later traded in for discounts on goods or services. As many others in the US, my mom clipped coupons out of newspapers, flyers, magazines, wherever. This was another activity that became added to the list of things that one did as a good house wife on a tight budget. My mom did this exercise. As if it could save the family… Something. If one put in the time to hunt through advertising for the right scrap of paper and turned it in at the right store, within the right time frame, one could exchange a coupon for something of much greater value. Like magic. Apart from coupon clipping, my mom also made these reinforced, cut out paper dolls for me....

artist: Peter Halley At the top of this month I went to Art Basel Miami. Not the whole Miami art week extra satellite show whateverness, but the Art Basel Miami fair itself. There were over 280 booths full of eye candy to match that vase you have or that vice you have. Oh, OK, it wasn't all vacuous. I remember seeing a large circular wall hanging that caught my attention because it was made out of hammered bullet casings arranged to look like scales on a shield– the offensive killing thing made into a beautiful defensive thing. I liked that. I needed to carry that beautiful defense with me to block out the dog and donkey shows in the “new media” section though. I am sure you can guess the dog reference. It was all over the new outlets stealing undeserved attention. Unfortunately, there was another exhibit that was even more... 'adding to the problem.'  Just imagine being too poor to live in your own country, and this artless cryptobrosephus billionaire is standing next to...

Spending a couple of weeks in historic Lexington VA was supposed to be like an art residency. I went with the idea that   I would help paint a mural in a university gallery, and perhaps focus on making some art of my own. None of this happened.   In a tiny town where there is nothing much to do, my person chose to prioritize healing. My body had been quietly collapsing into itself the whole during my sickness so while I had this time, I wrestled with my joints and bones; fought the muscles, tendons, and that blasted thing called fascia. My back hurt often, but I know I am even stronger for the effort. I do stand up straighter. (My kyphosis laughs as I type that.) I could not focus enough to really create anything. My mind was also busy doing its own messy, inexplicable healing just for being in the rural east again- almost like being home. Some crying happened.   I saw a lot of deer and met some lovely human people. I reunited with my brother Mike....

Battery Park I walked around Manhattan during September. It's true. It happened. I was there. Never made above midtown. I did go the the Hudson Yards a lot though.  Because the Armory Show was being held there.  Armory Show booth installation That's an immigrant coal miner's name on the wall It also happened to be NY Fashion Week. That meant I all at once found myself as close as 50 feet away from Very Famous People (trade mark) I chuckled at the palpable glow of their fame and wealth. I barked a laugh as I could actually recognize one of them glittering blondely in the light rain. The distance between me there unkempt and outfitted in clothing bought at the US | Mexico border and these million dollar Very Famous People (trade mark) was purely comical. What else could I do but laugh? I am a witness to ridiculous times.  Proenza Schouler fashion show rehearsal on Little Island No context shot from Proenza Schouler fashion show rehearsal on Little Island Walking the st...

Happy Halloween, biz-nich-izzles! Photo by  Karolina Grabowska  from  Pexels It's May. It's spring!  It's time to celebrate Lemuralia! Wut?  Is that a kind of lemur party? Well, no, not quite.  Before the Catholic Christians messed around with the dates- as they always seemed to do- the month of May was the time when some ancient Europeans would turn their thoughts to lemures  or the dead- the scary, unhappy dead. And how to make sure they weren't a bother to the living.  Romans, in particular, held observance for lemures on May 9th, 11th, and 13th.  May 11th just happens to be my birthday and it's an "unlucky" day according to the Romans. Which would explain so much about me? They warn against people getting married in May, but what of those born in the month? Are we screwed? For me, yes. I've been sufficiently, quietly screwed right over in so many ways through the years. Given the list of things that are wrong with my existence, I'...

Monday we had The Rocco put to sleep. By Tuesday his grave was dug and his body interred between two bougainvillea bushes. Not far from La Cookie [ 1 ] [ 2 ].     When Rocco came to the house, he had a big bark and a mean bite. He was an unruly  street rescue. And was by no means a tea cup poodle.  I had to keep my distance from him for the longest time.   Rocco’s main purpose was to be the household guard and alarm system.  He looked the part. He sounded the part. He did his job well- most of the time.  He liked to think he was a expert by the way he would trot back inside all self-satisfied after a good barking. During the middle of the day. After he was told to stop it already and come back inside. Because the startled women with their baby strollers weren't a threat. It took him a while, but when he figured out who his pack was, he turned out to be a big softy under all that woof power. He would escape...

τὸν τεθνηκóτα μὴ κακολογεῖν What? It's a new year? Twice over now? No. You can't fool me with that talk. There's nothing new about this year. It is decidedly a continuation of the last one- which was, in fact, a new year; though I won't trouble you with an explanation of how time does not move the way you think it does. And this post here, well, I guess it should finally go out. Ready or not. It's been sitting in edit mode, being edited sporadically for many, many months.  Last summer it was strange to be a tourist in Boston as I had never been in my younger days; when I lived closer to the city and it would have made more sense. I learned about the Bunker Hill misnomer mixup (go look it up) and walked the Freedom Trail. I felt the contentment of the dead in the much visited cemeteries. I saw at least two anorexic women in a posh neighborhood. But hey- why begin an actual written post after all these months of silence by jumping into random commen...

I now present photographic evidence of the incredible forces needed to render my neighborhood without electricity. cock-up A doomed team of men came around to change the advertising tarpaulin in the lot next door. In the old days it would have been mildly talented sign painters. This lot was not very talented and off to a bad start; there was quite a bit of arguing. Hotter heads prevailed and one of them was fired/quit on the spot.  When they tried to continue on (repacking at this point, I suppose) a piece of the tattered old sign fell onto the power lines. Because it's a bright morning, the first thing I noticed was that the internet was down. Then I noted the lights not working. Then I went out to see... The group of men claimed they had called the fire department, but did they? They took off quickly so we were in suspense until a truck arrived; followed soon after by folks who could actually fix the problem. The whole situation did not last...

While I am in the middle of decompressing from my Spain trip, I get a nice welcome back to baja from the from the workers two lots over. We suppose the property has been bought out because all the businesses are gone and the locales have been gutted. (So long neighbors with the great tamales.) The guys were over there again; this time doing some controlled rubbish burning and I thought nothing of it. Even when I heard the sirens, I thought nothing... I only noted that the lame excuse for a dog Rocco didn't howl with the sirens as he usually does... even when I looked out the side door to see that the emergency vehicles had stopped in where the men were working I was only a bit puzzled... what I had to do was turn my daffy head to look further at back of the lot and see a huge plume of dark smoke! Oh! Yes. So there is a situation! The matter was dealt with quickly and no harm was done, but in this dry climate I was expecting anything to happen when I saw the fire... ...

moon, palms, cement wall : Mexico

After breakfast, I spent the whole morning cleaning up mouse droppings and eradicating a whole mess of ant scouts making a move into the house - and  into my clothes! The mouse has been taken care of already, but I didn't realized it had been exploring the whole house! There was shit everywhere! So that all had to be cleaned up.. Then I sprayed some toxic floral smelling crap around to take care of the ants and we have been bug free all afternoon. More or less. I was so pissed off about the mouse shit, the ants, and that I was left to do the whole job by myself that I got the whole job done all by myself. What a way to use one's moody nature to accomplish things! Go Dark Side!

La Kookie - House Admiral We held a burial for La Kookita today.  She was an old dog. I never knew her in her prime. What I know of her is not flattering enough to relate. Old age didn't come to her kindly. She had lost most of her senses and suffered arthritis.  So give her some dignity befitting her age and the swaggering walk she developed, I gave her the title of Admiral. Like some salty bugger who's captained ships all her life.   As she was taken off to the vet to be put to sleep, Hugo played the role of sexton and dug her little grave near to a newly planted bugambilia bush. El Rocco- the other loud mouthed dog of the house- seemed confused.   It is hard to tell if he understands the situation. But it is definitely a sad day in the house for the humans.

I just barely recovered from the miseries of a sleep deprived weekend when the roofers showed up at 7:00am this morning to throw material and tools and themselves on the thin barrier between me and daylight. I am not offering them coffee, I was going to, but by the sound of the rooster crowing up there I don't think they need it. Even with all the caffeine for myself, I am, once more, a cantankerous curmudgeon that no amount of coffee can recondition. I thought I left that version of myself rotting in the sun on the beach with what's left of the Sunday afternoon tourists. I tried to take a nap in the lull of elephantine stomps and crashes only to find they set up a ladder right outside of my bedroom window. Who can sleep with the glass rattling? I can't help but feel that one of them may fall through the ceiling at some point. And the phone keeps ringing! Who is calling! - TODAY?! The Human bounded out of his bed like nothing was at all wrong in the...

A pedestrian unfriendly walk up the road from where I lived in Webster MA, is this place with a fantastical name-  Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg. The Lake.  These are some pics from last summer that I found in a hard drive. There is magic in Webster, but there is also great, overpowering darkness (ignorance) so those brief moments of glamour are all the more astonishing.

Something has come to Baja California. Something they call...  La Mala Gringa

Art, prayers and even flowering plants are just about the same. They are beautiful, simple things that can happen anywhere. A hard rain in the desert can cause disastrous flooding, but will spur a bloom to form in the middle of a freeway. A disciplined voice can be heard in the middle of braying-drunk villagers. So this voice is heard from out of a razed place, a Webster place; praying to get out of the ruins. Do the gods listen to tongues that have earned their silver? 

This is the first week I have been in Rosarito wherein I am not wearing 5 layers of clothing to keep warm while sitting at the computer. Have any of you in the depths of winter in the north been dealing with such things? Probably not. You all have hissing, pinging, clanging, wonderful radiators in every room with a magic thermostat that gives you the power to make your home the Sahara desert at your command, if it suited you. Since the space heater fried a couple weeks back, I haven't even have that for relief. So it has been quite difficult to sit still and think about/deal with 1st world problems. I have already done my share of shivering when I lived in a 1953 bread truck in Brooklyn through all the seasons (ALL of them), but it was dead easy to find a warm (hot even) spot somewhere to sit for a while.  I learned that, for delicate, bloodless me, mid to low forties was bearable, but just barely. I knew I wouldn't die in that sort of weather, but it was not very comfortab...