/ this girl really needs to update her website.

photo from a story done for vision magazine in hong kong, november 2010

"..it's as if you just looked at yourself in the mirror, and you saw a gorilla. the mirror's there; it's showing you, and what you see looks bad. you try to angle the mirror so you will look a little better, but no matter what you do, you still look like a gorilla. that's being nailed by life, the place where you have no choice except to embrace what's happening or push it away.

most of s do not take these situations as teachings. we automatically hate them. we run like crazy. we use all kinds of ways to escape - all addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can't stand it. we feel we have to soften it, pad it with something, and we become addicted to whatever it is that seems to ease the pain. in fact, the rampant materialism that we see in the world stems from this moment. there are so many ways that have been dreamt up to entertain us away from the moment, soften its hard edge, deaden it so we don't have to feel the full impact of the pain that arises when we cannot change the situation to make us come out looking fine.

meditation is an invitation to notice when we reach our limit and to not get carried away by hope and fear. through meditation, we're able to see clearly what's going on with our thoughts and emotions, and we can also let them go. what's encouraging about meditation is that even if we shut down, we can no longer shut down in ignorance. we see very clearly that we're closing off. that in itself begins to illuminate the darkness of ignorance. we're able to see how we run and hide and keep ourselves busy so that we never have to let our hearts be penetrated. and we're also able to see how we could open and relax."

/ beautiful and relevant excerpt from the chapter "this very moment is the perfect teacher" from the buddhist book 'when things fall apart: heart advice for difficult times' by pema chodron, 1997

/ somewhere, sofia coppola 2010

'as the unity of the modern world becomes increasingly a technological rather than a social affair, the techniques of the arts provide the most valuable means of insight into the real direction of our own collective purposes.'

/ marshall mcluhan, sociologist

/ to forget about the future and just live with the ones you love - i mean really live and really love - that is my wish. to hope for the present, chinatown ny february 2011

body warms

body;

i see my future

spread out

over

the palm

of your dry,

cracking hand.

they say

the hand

mirrors

the soul;

i've always said

just how much

i loved

your hands.

/ to time which was not lost but spent beautifully

//

book deal!

//

comes out in may

//

more details to follow

//

/ from 'the curious case of benjamin button'

"our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss"

watched this film tonight and wept for beauty and time and love and death

"the really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day."

/ david foster wallace, from 'this is water: some thoughts, delivered on a significant occasion, about living a compassionate life' wallace was quite brilliant

/ self-portrait, 26 february 2011 brooklyn ny

/ madonna, one of the fucking best

/ video still from an untitled work in progress, 2011

and when it happened

no one

could have ever imagined

it happening

any other way

then the way

it finally happened

/ at times i feel a lot like dorothy. usually i don't, but sometimes i do

/ lust, chinatown ny 13 march 2011

Dear March -- Come in --
How glad I am --
I hoped for you before --

Put down your Hat --
You must have walked --
How out of Breath you are --
Dear March, how are you, and the Rest --
Did you leave Nature well --
Oh March, Come right up stairs with me --
I have so much to tell --

I got your Letter, and the Birds --
The Maples never knew that you were coming -- till I called
I declare -- how Red their Faces grew --
But March, forgive me -- and
All those Hills you left for me to Hue --
There was no Purple suitable --
You took it all with you --

Who knocks? That April.
Lock the Door --
I will not be pursued --
He stayed away a Year to call
When I am occupied --
But trifles look so trivial
As soon as you have come

That Blame is just as dear as Praise
And Praise as mere as Blame --

/ emily dickinson

/ junya watanabe

working on making some clothes like this, especially far right

beautiful beyond words

"truth and reality in art do not arise until you no longer understand what you are doing and are capable of but nevertheless sense a power that grows in proportion to your resistance. creativity takes courage."

/ henri matisse

/ i will make it through because i am strong.

sneak peek of an ever-evolving body of work, brooklyn ny 2011

/ vesuvius came up in my itunes, music from a friend, caught my attention/ seemed really relevant because i'm reading the volcano lover by susan sontag, which is also really relevant to me right now, and i wonder - hm, are these things coincidences? would i have even noticed this song if i wasn't reading the book? what am i to make of this, what am i to make of this..

'one should really use the camera as though tomorrow you'd be stricken blind'

/ dorothea lange

/ e.m. ciorcan, 1911-1995, from on the heights of despair

/ chinatown, compassion

a couple screenshots from todays journey

/ anish kapoor, past, present, future 2006

this song, this song..

'If I ventured in the slipstream
Between the viaducts of your dream
Where immobile steel rims crack
And the ditch in the back roads stop

Could you find me?
Would you kiss-a my eyes?
To lay me down In silence easy
To be born again, To be born again

From the far side of the ocean
If I put the wheels in motion
And I stand with my arms behind me
And I'm pushin' on the door

Could you find me?
Would you kiss-a my eyes?
To lay me down In silence easy
To be born again, to be born again'

/ van morrison, astral weeks

sent these lyrics by a new friend recently, strikingly relevant to my current situation and also some of my past photography work. thank you to her

/ the camera project

two photographs by karen, age 10, tokyo japan

/ truth love, me+z, january 2011 brooklyn ny

/ my friend tristan smith, writer 20 february 2011 brooklyn ny

"the world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns."

/ george santayana, author of 'the sense of beauty', an intelligent guy

'come away, o human child: to the waters and the wild with a fairy, hand in hand, for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.'

/ william butler yeats, irish poet