rainy, thinky

The last week of this program rolled through all tornado-like. Now it's pouring rain outside as if an attempt to wash the past 6 weeks away. It's coming down in sheets and all i can think of is how much energy it takes to pump all the storm water out of the subway lines so it doesn't become completely immersed. Even though...maybe it would give it all a good cleaning?

Days like today, where it rains from sun up to sun down and through the night, make me want to sit in bed with a cup of coffee and think and think and think. I am already accused of thinking too much most of the time so it's no wonder i had to leave PA, where days like this happen on a weekly basis, for Arizona which can withhold a thought for a good 3 months sometimes.

In the last few weeks of the program, i switched into working mode and compiled a series of videos resulting from...let's call them "urban gestures" and a few erased drawings. If you're about to ask me if i'm aware of Rauschenberg and the erased De Kooning, i'll have to remind you that it's not the only time someone has ever erased anything (for example...here or here). I decided i need to start doing some shorter, simpler actions and projects that i could execute within a day or 2 (although the compilation of the documentation or results might take longer).

This is part of an effort to not get too bogged down in some gigantic project that takes over my life and gives me high anxiety. Anxiety and neuroticism is my long-time friend and i need to channel it into a faster start and finish before my head pops off by the age of 40. Maybe it's a result of picking up this Anxiety and Depression book by Scott King at the New Museum (the best book store), but i have become far too aware of my own neurotic behavior.

Friday, the chair of the department took us all on a 2-hour sailboat ride around NY harbour. I like boats. I want a boat. I was giddy with happiness. Then, the day rolled into our final potluck blowout party including David Ross playing Dylan songs on guitar, karaoke, European dance moments, lots of wine, videos, photos, balloon hats and getting kicked out of the building to continue the love at a local bar. A lot of drinking was had and...2 separate, unrelated sing alongs to "Country Roads"

It was literally one of the best days of my life. Everyone in this program is pretty amazing...loving, warm, smart, creative and fun people. I'm feeling pretty fucking lucky.

just going the way...

i'm just going the way the man tells me to go...

today i did a small project/action/walk. i started walking north for a half hour and only went the way the green lights told me to go. with this kind of structure to my navigation, i ended up redundantly crossing streets (i imagine some wind-up toy stuck walking between 2 points over and over again) but also taking routes i might not otherwise take while normally choosing the most direct path. i saw parts of the city i normally wouldn't see...a way to break up the routine with the structure of city-designed direction. where do the green lights WANT me to go?

here's just a few of the photos i took at intersections

the baby train

People here, in Park Slope, seem to aggressively have babies. I mean, they are everywhere, in single, double and even triple form. Today, i saw some woman pushing an unwieldy stroller carting 3 small people around. A man tried to hold the door open for her while she, exhausted and sweaty, attempted to squeeze the device through the narrow doorway.

I like babies. I smile at them. They give me something to look at on the subway that isn't a Budweiser advertisement or warning about bedbugs. HOWEVER, i find myself getting a little tired of the sheer number of babies that are being transported around Brooklyn.

On my first day here, i saw a young, fashionable guy who i immediately assumed was not the father, pushing 2 of them. I commented that he couldn't be the dad and must have been pushing prop babies around. Somehow, babies had become the new ornament, like a small dog or clever hat. Maybe babies could be rented by the hour or day. Instead of paying someone to babysit, you could make a fair dollar by renting yours out. Think of how well they'd begin to socialize! (children are like dogs, right? The more you expose them to people, the calmer they become around them?).

At first, it was a little bit of a curiosity, then an oddity and now an uncanny, bizarre reality which i live in. On my run to Prospect Park, i have to bob and weave around at least 500 large-tired, fully-equipped, bulky, annoying strollers.

An announcement to all...stop having so many fucking children.

sidetracked

i love 30th St Station in philadelphia. i've been to a lot of different train stations but every time i come back to this one, i always feel a little bit of awe. it just doesn't seem to get the appreciation it deserves.

today was a great day of reconnecting with all of my family down in philadelphia after not having seen them for 7 years or more. for my aunt's 70th birthday, over 50 people traversed from new york, new jersey and various places in eastern PA. burgers, red beet eggs, german potato salad, birch beer, ring bologna, Yuengling, sun, heat, hugs, yelling, noise, music, kids, a pool, coconut cake, pizzelles and chaos. i loved every minute of it and loved my aunt and uncle for bringing me out of new york to be there. ursos may be the best family ever.

now it's thundering and lightning here in brooklyn and i'm getting my head back into video editing and how to explain survival skills as a sensitive human being in a country not made for one...i'm sure it will all become clearer later on.

stuck stuckity stuck stuck

stuck. paralyzed...momentarily. first, the ideas are there and everything makes sense and then you find yourself eating Table Water Crackers and wondering why. they look so much like i imagine communion wafers looking like.

like trying to remember the pieces of a dream, putting together a cohesive idea keeps slipping away from me. maybe it's the lack of sleep, lack of time, too much personal pressure or too many Milano cookies.

these are the images of stuckness

no, i did not

i did not art this past weekend.

instead, i wandered onto a beach in a ukrainian populated part of brooklyn where people wearing headlamps caught crab in the dark. i stepped on dead fish, nearly walked into a giant spider and coated my feet in sticky sand. it was all part of a scheme to attend a clandestine art party re-enacted after a 5-year hiatus. the directions, received by phone after arriving in a remote parking lot, were too complex for me to remember and after walking a half mile without a sign of the next turn and walking into dark plants, my roommate and i decided to abort the mission. the aerial view of this stretch of beach put the supposed location of this party (i like to convince myself there were only maybe 5 people there, including the one guy i heard shouting "WOOO" in the background while i received directions) out on some remote arm by some remote lagoon under some random bridge. still...i went because i was looking for an adventure of sorts. it just turns out i wasn't as up for it as i thought i might have been.

i still somehow stayed up til sunrise and leaked into my sunday with a yankees game, a long, stuffy subway ride home and me, crawling into bed early.

non-art weekend succeeded.

here's your poetry, cracker

here's your poetry cracker