Philip-Lorca diCorcia

Suggested photo exhibition:

1,000 Polaroid test photos all in one line. It's amazing to see the focus of his work by viewing these tests.

Batting in Brooklyn

3RD AVENUE SPORTS CENTER

800 3RD AVENUE 
Brooklyn, NY 11232

Need a lift? Try the batting cages.

Robert D'Alessandro - Glory

Suggested photo exhibition:

This week I went to see Glory, a series by Robert D'Alessandro

at the Gitterman Gallery

170 East 75th Street

A really nice series of black and white interpretations of what he saw in the 70s. A time when being patriotic meant different things to different people.

My Times Square

Martinis at the Algonquin and Barbecue at Virgil's.

Drunk on the subway again.

Blackberry picking

Inspired by the work of Emmet Gowin I decided that I would like to explore images from my home in Virginia. I came up with this piece based on a series of photographs I took at my parents' home last summer.

A little house in the big woods. This is my family home in Hartwood Virginia. This is where my parents live and where we spend time on holidays and in the summer.
















Last summer my cousin and her kids came to visit too.
















We took the kids Blackberry picking where there are fields of bushes. Blackberry bushes as far as the eye can see.
















The ones that are easy to find and reach are often half eaten by the birds.
















But the good ones are harder to find and are often hidden under leaves and branches with stickers.
















Someone always gets hurt. But it's always worth it.
















Last year we made blackberry short cakes. Short cake where I grew up is not cake at all but sweet biscuits sliced in half with fruit and cream in between the layers and spread over the top.
This year we used Carl's ice cream, Blackberry compote made from the berries we picked, sweet biscuits and of course whole Blackberries.
















This last photo is by Allen Grimm.

Raul Otis and the Blues Serenaders at the Fabulous Jalopy Theater April 14, 2007

Today Bob Guida passed away. I heard that he died doing what he loved, playing music. The world was a better to place to have had him in it. He was a very generous soul and he will be missed.

I found this photo in my archives and thought it was a fitting tribute to him.

RIP BOB

Al-Maghreb

The Place of Sunsets

Lieh Sugai Photo exhibition opening  March 6th, 2009

at Pratt Manhattan CCPS Gallery

http://prostudies.pratt.edu/gallery_al-maghreb.html

144 14th Street

2nd Floor

Show runs through March 31st.

Damaged Romanticism exhibition at the Grey Gallery

Grey Art Gallery

New York University

100 Washington Square East

There were a couple of interesting photographers in this exhibition. One that caught my eye was Florian Maier-Aichen. One painter that grabbed my attention as well Julia Oschatz.

Snow day

Emmet Gowan Photographs

Suggested photo exhibition:

Emmet Gowan Photographs running February 19-March 21, 2009

www.pacemacgill.com/exhibitions.html

Instead of class Federico and I met at the Pac MacGill gallery. Emmet Gowan's photographs tell the story of life and death in black and white. He also experimented with color and alternative processes.

The Fabulous Jalopy Theater

Tonight I went to the Fabulous Jalopy Theater.

If you have never been it's a lovely place. You can buy strings and things.

They have espresso and a great selection of teas.

Beer and Redhook Beef Jerky

And mandolins, ukes, guitars, banjos, banjars and pretty much any stringed instrument you ever dreamed of.

Or fiddles if that's what you call this.

And of course the musical performances are always delightful.

Tonight was lighting fingers night also known as Gypsy Jazz night.

Denis Chang Gypsy Jazz

And Franglais Gypsy Jazz

King of the kids

I met Charlie O in 1984 my first year of college in Richmond Virginia.

Charlie was the guy in charge of all the punk kids that hung around Shaffer court. He used to call me a hippy and it drove me crazy, still does it, turns out. He was the guy who took care of them and taught them stuff. And they loved him.

He and his friend Cardin were in town this week for the toy fair at the Javits center. They were there seeking distribution and investors for their super cool new puzzle design called Magmerpuz.

www.magmerpuz.com

the back

I waited for them to come out of the subway at West 4th. 

Meeting them in NYC seemed so out of context for how I've known Charlie. I waited under the sign for the Waverly Restaurant. Like a scene from a movie only in a place that I spend so much of my life now that is so much more familiar to me than Richmond.

We walked around Greenwich Village a bit and drank some beers just like the old days. Cardin wore her crazy hat which didn't really phase the natives but we did get some smiles.

Now Tom Bailey, he was a hippy. Charlie is starting to look like one too, BTW.

One of the things Charlie was known for in town was, he was the guy to go to if you wanted to know where the party was or what band was playing that was important to see. So if you walked around town enough eventually you would run into Charlie and he would be able to give you the low down. So when we made plans to hang out on Tuesday he asked me if I knew of anything going on. I said no, of course, because I never know what's going on since Charlie isn't around to tell me.

He said that he had heard that Tom Bailey was playing at Jack's Stirbrew so we headed over there and sure enough Tom was there and sounded fantastic with his trio.

Sadly I had to work in the morning and was feeling quite sick and of course somewhat drunk and had to leave early but I did get a couple of nice shots from the evening's escapades and was able to enjoy a few minutes of Tom's band.