Joe Howansky will mail you a Polaroid of anything in New York City. You can pay for things like "rich person walking a very small dog" or "view from the Empire State Building" or "your family name on the wall on Ellis Island." He is also interested in trades---because one of the things he'd like photographed (the trade is explained here) is you, so this is what I sent him.

By request, a v.v. last minute wish list:

* help re-wiring/hanging a light fixture in my apartment

* a subscription to the Economist (yes, really)

* any of the photo books (et al) on my Amazon wish list

* [high end Fuji 120 & Polaroid, Spectra & 620/670/600] film, lots of it

* membership and/or a gift certificate to Housing Works Used Bookstore Cafe

* a Crunch gym buddy (ie: we bug each other if we do not show up at the scheduled time, not, like, you have to spot me on a chest press)

* a mani-pedi buddy on Wednesday [ETA: during the day, I will be working that night, my actual birthday day] at Rescue Beauty

Look down. Watch where you are walking.

Both Holga prints

all Holga prints

Last night I saw Eartha Kitt sing (and mock the audience in several languages--and shimmy), she was lovely and amazing. It, like seeing Kanye West last month, might have been more enjoyable had I not been working at the time. Like the weekend might have been better had I not had something rather bad happen at work Friday, cried in front of management, and then gotten lost, and cried again, in Crown Heights that night. Like today I went into work for a shift I wasn't scheduled for; the schedule was changed the day I worked elsewhere, yesterday --and turned around and came home--I'll have to leave again and go back in a couple hours. Likewise I'm not sure I want to celebrate my birthday this year--I honestly don't feel like celebrating much of anything and haven't planned a thing. Maybe I'll postpone and have an unbirthday party in the summer.

Spring, and moreover summer, is worth celebrating.

A very, very vocal member of the crowd. I liked this guy. And he got the crowd chanting with him in two languages.



Two generations of a family that took turns holding the sign that said "Stop Dividing Families."



I never saw anyone claim this or hold it high but thought it was interesting that it was brought to the International Workers Day event.

Also, I wondered if the event was going to be bigger than expected when one of the larger Union Square subway enterances was closed, it wasn't, they just chose today to repaint.

One of the reasons I'd like to stay in my strange, strange Brooklyn neighborhood is the incredibly easy commute to the job I still, okay 80% of the time, optimistically, like. The easy commute takes me two trains and through another borrough en route to Manhattan but it is only four stops total. And I get to walk under this beautiful atrium and daydream in the morning sun for a minute in between trains. Another view, a happy [blown out] accident:

People here might have their hearts in full view..



but they build strange fences...





and keep others away, at every turn.

On a small platform, off the many labyrinthine corridors two flights below what the public sees, up a set of stairs to a door that no longer opens, between lunch and dinner service, every day one busboy spreads a soiled tablecloth and prays. He found a quiet that people can't when they eat alone upstairs or pretend they have when they stare at the obelisk in the sculpture garden.

It feels invasive every time I glance over on my way to fresh air and though my camera is always there, in my bag, as I flee work, the scene will play out over and over again, unphotographed.

spring came to McCarren Park...



and to my Greenpoint backyard (one of the small tragedies of living here is only being able to enjoy the backyard from the window, even though there are only two apartments--and a total of three people--living in the building).



A moment above my head, dusk amongst the budding trees of Fort Greene.

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(Polaroid 600)

Do you remember that scene where Angela Chase wakes up one morning and was just over Jordan Catalano and was really into something as simple and lovely as eating pancakes with maple syrup?

I'm waiting for that morning.

blue Brooklyn



an increasingly rare self-portrait (at least of one piece)

After the jump, the irony that that exact portion is what got wrecked by a new piece of furniture I bought yesterday. (Two of the legs on the four-drawer narrow-leg dresser in espresso gave out when I was moving with a less than superstrong man with a van and it fell into me, specifically the corner went into my eye. It is a beautiful dresser, though.)
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Music Hall of Williamsburg (fka Northsix), April 11, 2008

Liz Phair is writing a novel. Also, she reviewed Dean Wareham's (Galaxie 500, Luna) memoir in the Book Review on Sunday.

I can get free Mets tickets through my workplace. I am not a Mets fan but would be willing to pass these along.

I might actually be letting my natural haircolor grow in. This is both frightening and fascinating. Though maybe not to, you know, people other than me.

Remember the cafe/record store in my hood that had that awesome wine glass chandelier? Like this?





Well, they changed it out. To a collander chandelier.



The parts holding the colanders together? Coat hooks. I love these people.

Holga print & immediate nostlagia for the beach, winter or not

Despite my huge reservations about going last night (mostly stupidly sentimental about not even wanting to go to the subway stop I equate with other places than the Musuem these days), what I wrote when I was invited to go to see it during tommorrow's free First Saturday.

I got to see the exhibit during the Brooklyn Ball event
last night (Thursday)/the wee hours of this morning. The exhibit is
really well done and enjoyable even if you aren't crazy about the work
(I'm not, particularly) and, oh, Kanye West performed. (The artist did work on his video "Good Morning" that they loop in a side room.) That was
pretty great. Even if it one of the people he was performing for was
guest of honor, Bruce Ratner.

My friend Youngna wrote about being inspired by another friend to try new foods or ingredients. I'm inspired to remember the new stuff, too.

In 2008 already I've tried;

crosnes (through work but another chef's interesting recipe here)
freshly smoked mozzarella
quail
blue cheese flan
venisen
Artic Char
sunchokes
poussin
cockles (through work, in a loup de mer dish)
watermelon radishes
salsify
parmesean FLAN
bottarga
conch
zahatar


Also, Youngna is looking for reccomendations in Nicaragua--if you've got 'em, leave a comment on her site.