/ today, secret mission

today i met an old polish man who said he would teach me how to say curse words in polish. i agreed, he then proceeded to tell me how to say "can i kiss you?" in polish. i thought he was a decent man. i told him i was from rochester and he lit up like a light, loves the place i guess - quite unheard of for me. spoke to my gallerist in germany, show in munich confirmed to open june 22. walked around town, had a dosa, walked on the beach, found a nautilus shell, photographed, sat in the sun, talked to a good friend, wore a green straw hat, thought a whole lot about many many things and had a piece of cake.

'The same energy which inspired the rooks, the ploughmen, the horses, and even, it seemed, the lean bare-backed downs, sent the moth fluttering from side to side of his square of the windowpane. One could not help watching him. One, was, indeed, conscious of a queer feeling of pity for him. The possibilities of pleasure seemed that morning so enormous and so various that to have only a moth’s part in life, and a day moth’s at that, appeared a hard fate, and his zest in enjoying his meager opportunities to the full, pathetic. He flew vigorously to one corner of his compartment, and, after waiting there a second, flew across to the other. What remained for him but to fly to a third corner and then to a fourth? That was all he could do, in spite of the size of the downs, the width of the sky, the far-off smoke of houses, and the romantic voice, now and then, of a steamer out at sea. What he could do he did. Watching him, it seemed as if a fiber, very thin but pure, of the enormous energy of the world had been thrust into his frail and diminutive body. As often as he crossed the pane, I could fancy that a thread of vital light became visible. He was little or nothing but life. '

/ wandered around various parts of long island today, saw the water, kids playing, went to a bakery. met an 85-year old harvard professor who was speaking about virginia woolf's 'the death of the moth' essay, the last essay she wrote before her death. thought it was ironic/not so ironic that he brought that up as i've been obsessed with virginia woolf lately and am usually, consequently, thinking about that impending death headed for us all. the quote above is from that essay by virginia woolf, 1942 (note, she died in 1941, a year before this essay was published).

/ the path to truth, abandoned rock quarry syracuse ny 2008

when you are old and grey and full of sleep,

and nodding by the fire, take down this book,

and slowly read, and dream of the soft look

your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

how many loved your moments of glad grace,

and loved your beauty with love false or true,

but one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

and loved the sorrows of your changing face;

and bending down beside the glowing bars,

murmur, a little sadly, how love fled

and paced upon the mountains overhead

and hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

/ 'when you are old' by william butler yeats

i'm helping my boss print a limited edition book on yeats at the moment which includes passages of yeats' poetry as well as photographs my boss took in ireland in 1965-1966. this poem seems relevant to me in some way right now

/ 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