Last night dreams came into the darkness of sleep like a movie falling into a quiet theatre. A father and child were the characters - they were African and they were outside and it was day. Nearby a man stood firm holding a gun diagonally across his chest - he was power. The father and child were caught in his trap, how they fell, I do not know. One thing was clear though, inherently I knew the child was disguised to be a son (for safety). This group, plus other soldiers, were on a pier; the plot shifted and instantly the soldiers detected a scam, a problem, and each soldier lurched toward the daughter to capture her and the father - now powerful and strong - catapaulted he and his daugher into the ocean waters to escape, to perhaps flee into the jungle.
As they leap, the camera of my dream travels with them underwater and for a moment, they were isolated from this aweful world. Boom! boom! the soldiers crash through the surface of the water and the father and daughter have had their world of safety penetrated. The underwater camera sees the father swimming deeper and away as his one and last crucial possesion in life, the bond to another family member, may be taken away. In the meantime, he has only one thing that matters and will do all in his might to protect it.

I wake, and lay in bed and instantly see the plots of Sophie's Choice and Blood Diamond come together.

Art Auctions

Today I helped hang the works for a benefit art auction that will take place tomorrow evening. It was a very satisfying day. The morning started with 150 pieces of art living in bubble wrap in boxes wedged amongst other artwork, and a few hours passed and voila! an exhibition full of inspiration and beauty and creativity and perspectives a large bright room.

I worked with one other person on hanging 27 pieces in an alcove: one piece was a geometrical interpretation of sharks swimming, another was a metal sculpture of a peace sign, another a wodden tray filled with objects, another a red wooden vagina.

When hanging a collection, I wonder if there is one set way those 27 pieces can be displayed. Does the grey photograph always have to be near the dark blue shark painting, and does the pastel tree lined path only fit between two horizontal pieces. I enjoyed viewing something that appeared would jive, would not, and also how suddenly two pieces found success and complemented each other when they appeared foes. Is a group exhibition akin to an algebraic formula, precise and solvable with a unique solution, or is it a pantry, with many meals derived out of the same ingredients? (Imagine an "Iron curator")

Art is funny that way; it is physically true and solid, yet its qualities are mysterious and fleeting. A certain peculiar out-of-character piece can move you massively, and something that should be inspirational is sometimes not. The time of the day or your mood can hamper your attraction to a work. I know I must really like a piece if it see it on a rainy day or if I am hungry. Art I suppose is inanimate yet it has personalities, and those are affected by both placement and by responses.

Last Day of September

It has been an incredible summer that flew by, my summer migrated on to another part of the world and now it is fall in New York and my blog has returned from hibernation, a hiatus, a cessation of sorts.

My life has changed quite in a wonderful way, a new career, a new set of experiences, a lot to learn. My reading self has risen again from a dormant stage that shouldn't have occurred. A trip to Nicaragua allowed my first Margaret Atwood: A Handmaid's Tale, and the phenemonal nonfiction: Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, in the same school as The Spirit Catches you and You Fall Down. On the sidewalk today read a few pages of All The Kings Men. Peggy Guggenheim's memoirs were important addition to my knowledge of the art scene during the war and also how Peggy ended up in Venice. The New Yorker sadly hasn't been touched properly, I have only wrenched it from my miniature mailbox where it is wedged weekly by a probably frustrated postal worked and left it in top of the past issue on my bedside table.

The GRE has entered my life and words words words, of so many concepts and nuances have entered my awareness.

That is the intent of my day - GRE - and the ole blog, a distraction, so adieu.

Two Short Stories

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I heaved the heavy box up and extended my knee so that it would become a table while the tips of my fingers pushed themselves into the gridded slots. I didn't want to lose my hold and I didn't want to look clumsy. I felt her eyes on my back and wondered if they were critical or admiring. What shirt? What belt? Did it even matter? She was of a different caliber. She was beautiful. I opened the window with my left hand, delicately protecting the curtains with my left elbow, and gently released the air conditioner onto the smooth, walnut sill. This apartment was classic - high ceilings, delicate molding, wide hallways - the masonry completed with the care of timelessness before the depression. I can't imagine my buddies having the artistic side or the patience in building apartments. They slap on paint, install cheap fixtures and lightweight doors. Nothing like this place, yet it was stifling, only May and she had called to install the AC. These windows made it like a greenhouse. I nudged the AC to fit into the slot; I noticed she was still in the room, moving her picture frames, adjusting the flowers. Was she surveying me? Was she anxious? I pulled the heavy paned window down to hod the heavy metal box in place. I plugged the thick cord into the adorned socket and tested the machine. Then, I turned into her gaze.

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I woke up slightly earlier than usual for no particular reason. My shift started in one hour so I had plenty of time (too much time). I could shower and shave in 12 mintutes now that I was so practiced and efficient when I woke up late. I didn't even know what to do with those spare minutes in the morning. I recently had tried to remember about enjoying myself before work. This job and this apartment I had known for too many years. This place and this situation are absolutely entwined with each other. Everything is routine and even the unusual events have happened before to make them less unusual. Some nights I go to bed and I think about doing something different like walking the extra block to get egg and cheese on a bagel. But on those mornings when I have had that idea, I normally sleep in. Today, for the first time my attempt of breaking a pattern might happen. I swing my body off the bed and grab my towel from the hook and put my clothes in the dirty laundry after I turned on the shower so that I wouldn't have to wait the extra 30 seconds, I mouthwash while shampooing, shave, dry, jeans, button shirt, socks, boots, wallet, keys, door open, close, lock, outside. I look around. A day, cloudier than yesterday. To the cafe I go. A new waitress, pretty. I am supposed to pull the bus up to the stop in 14 minutes, so 2 minutes to walk there, 12 minutes to eat. relief.
For the rest of the day I was strangely relaxed. I had enjoyed my different morning and life felt like mine again. Because I had the bagel for breakfast I was less hungry at lunch. I stopped to talk to a man and pet a dog outside the deli. By the time the afternoon came, I felt happily in control of my life, people smiled when they got on the bus and I had lots of green lights. The sky was beautiful in the late afternoon - it was the same color as peach yoghurt with streaky clouds. My eyes lingered and I saw the world as beautiful and then my hands on the wheel jumped and I lurched forward, my head twisted around and I saw a body and a flash of blonde hair disappear under the bus.

Rain and Sunshine

Today the sun was out for what seemed like the first time in weeks and the sky was bright blue and it all was a shock. It had been raining so much that my umbrella was always put to use and it would rain all day and all night.

I was riding the subway yesterday and realizing a very simple thing: the subway doesn't allow daydreaming because I can't stare out the window at the passing landscape and see people moving around in their lives and see stores fly by and hills and trees. On the subway the windows express the blackness of the tunnel and I can only observe details of other people, the quality of their shoes or the coordination of their color scheme, their reading material, or overhear a conversation. The subway is very insular and very human while riding in a car is almost wordly. In taxis I focus on the almost hidden driver and occasionaly ask questions about his life or his day. If the weather is nice I put my arm out the window like an Australian. The scooter is the best of all. The world is present and I am there absolutely emerged in the sounds and smells and weather of the road. People roll down their windows and talk to me about the scooter. Sometimes I can travel 60 blocks on a continuation of green lights.

Last night my friend and I went out to a party where a design store flung open their doors and served a lot of wine and deviled quail eggs and the design community of New York relaxed on their leather sofas and laid their purses on the smooth, shaply coffee tables. Paper lamps hung from the ceiling and delicately lit the large room. I relaxed. Later, after delicious conversation, we went to dinner and dipped calamari, and ordered a flight from Spain: a selection of red wines, all served at the same time, and the wines could be easily compared. This one sweet, that one smooth.

In the last two weeks, I have seen two of the most moving films about the hardship of life and the difficulty of being human in certain societies. Both films star Dustin Hoffman; Midnight Cowboy and Papillon. I will write more on this.

Summer

This summer I would like to temporarily find all the things I am looking for. I would like to read in the evenings on a veranda with waves crashing below and my skin salty and my limbs deliciously achy from a bike ride through sunflower fields. This summer I would like to be active enough and make the small change I want in the world; I want to be motivated and spread my cause and have others benefit.
This summer I would like to sail with strong winds and for all my friends to gather on a grassy plain. This summer I would like to plant a seed for later on in my life and this summer I would like to eat watermelon and speak Spanish and dance salsa and skinny dip at night and barbeque and spray down a horse and drive in a convertible and paint and draw and play games and learn and read and be real. This summer I want to be content and not anxious, secure and not fearful, luxurious but not wasteful, delicious but not sinful, and relaxed but not lazy. This summer I want things to happen in a bee buzzing around kind of way.

Florida

It is Saturday morning and my mother and I woke up in out sweet little b&b - Abaco Inn on Julia Street half a block off Duval and Highway One in Key West. Our room is so lovely - baby blue, quiet and tranquil. Windows look out on tropical vegetation rustling on beach breeze and a white clapboard building that looks like it needs a little paint in a good way. Today we are going to sit in the garden and eat mango. Yesterday we had a beautiful day out snorkeling with wind in our hair, we went to different places on Looe Key. I really wanted to see a nurse shark or a sea turtle so I snorkeled along this reef above a small trench peering at the bottom hoping to see a large moving mass of shark knowing that I would be deliciously frightened if I did see a shark so I went shark seeking and saw some blue and green fish and beautiful schools moving uniformly and then I stopped my shark seeking thinking that then one would appear but it did not.
I suppose I wanted to see the powerhouse of this section of the gulf, rather than the citizens. This snorkeling session put me in a wonderful meditative mood. I had clarity because I was an observer through and through. I was almost invisible. The fish did not introduce themselves nor respond to my presence. The only time when I felt real was when my hair floated in front of my mask and into my view. I snorkeled last year on Mozambique and a lot as a child in Mexico and the Carribbean. For some unusual undetermined reason this one hour calmed me in the most satisfied way. Life is easy snorkeling. Life is definitely not easy in New York. The drive down from Miami to Kew West was more amazing than I thought it was going to be. The bridges, the swamps, the odd stores and shacks on either side of the highway. Looking left I can see the coast and looking right I can see the other coast just a few blocks away. Being on road with only two ways to go - north or south - barely a decision to be made.
We had lunch at a great funky little shack with license plates as wallpaper and bent into lampshades. Shrimp over rice.

May 7, 2006
Ellis Island
Yesterday and I suppose last week were quite eventful. Friday evening I went to hear Pablo Heguera open The School of Panamerican Unrest at The Americas Society on Park Ave. This is a public art projet that will travel from Alaska to Argentina stopping thirty times creating a forum for discussions of "Panamerica", public art and other topics. Yesterday I caught the staff ferry with Pablo to the Ellis Island Immigration Museum and helpped set up the opening for the school. At 1pm six musicians played the PanAmerican Anthem followed by a political speech, propaganda documentary films were being projected inside the "Schoolhouse". It was quite exciting; I met a woman writer her disseration on public art, a director of the museum, then the building was actually evacuated by a fire. Before this it was moving to watch musicians play within an old building that at one time was filled with hundreds of thousands immigrants. Music from violins and flutes met the wallks and the old tile floors.
Later I went to John Bisbee's opening at Plane Space on Charles. A show of metal - huge large nails compiled into a huge grid of nails layed out perfectly staggered for perhaps 20 feet by 70 feet. Pristine nails in an amazing format. The space of the gallery near the front entrance of the gallery was this grid of nails on the floor. To enter and see the other pieces in the show you had to walk along a narrow path, basically a blank space along the wall to get to the back of the gallery where there was a perfect circle of these longs nails arranged so that the top was zig zagged. There was also a back wall made of the same nails, huge flat welded nails with iridescent colors. Nails filling space, nails curving and nestling in with each other. Later my friend and I were standing in the gallery and looking around, we both had never been to a West Village gallery opening. There was a loud beautiful noise and someone had tripped and these 10" long nails in the grid had just been scattered and the metal hitting the shiny concrete floor created a bell-like sound. This man look mortified. He has just unwillingly deystroyed art and the artist was standing nearby. What was there to do? Nothing.