I am back and working on the new Las Vegas photos... ok, I wasn't working on them during the 20 hours I slept on Thursday, post-redeye flight home...BUT how is it possible to not comment on Larry Craig and his "wide stance when going to the bathroom."? That statement alone beats Mark Foley by a mile!




Family Friendly Image!

Back from Vegas

I was only pulled over once, but it involved a full search of my person and my rental car and included the question, "What's with all the loose cash?" after my pockets had been gone through.

Just a few days left

An upswing in local news: "That's What I Think of TV News."

I have written before about the demise of local television news broadcasts... but it looks like we're getting back on track, folks! Here's a hard hitting investigation getting to the bottom of why Larry Richette attacked his mother, Judge Lisa Richette. Albeit not articulated verbally, Larry's answer is obvious; "Because I am out of my fucking mind and should be committed." I think his response to the reporter's question would have been completely hysterical had he not actually attacked his mother and injured her to the point of needing stitches.

And I must agree with Larry's assessment of TV news; how could one better describe the lack of real news on our local stations other than just looking at a nude Larry Richette? It describes it perfectly.





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August 22, 2007
Philadelphia,
A man was charged with assaulting his mother - a 79 YO Philadelphia Common Pleas judge, and when a female reporter went to his home for comment, he flashed her.

Police said Judge Lisa Richette was assaulted Tuesday by her son, 48-year-old Lawrence Richette, in a domestic dispute at the judge's home.

The judge received treatment of a cut above her eye at Jefferson Hospital. It required four stitches.

When a reporter went to Lawrence Richette's home Wednesday afternoon, he opened the door in a robe, asked if the cameras were rolling and flashed the female reporter and a photojournalist for a few seconds. He closed his robe and said, "That's what I think of TV news."

An Amazing Letter

I have been very, very busy working on a huge project, soon to be announced, as well as a bunch of shows coming up, but I've meant to write something about the large number of direct connections to my past that have cropped up in the last few months. I'm just going to acknowledge it now and save my long essay about personal history, formation of self and magical thinking for later.
So, first Sarah Trembath and Rich Garella show up at my house...and Rich moving around the corner! I went to Nicaragua with them almost 20 years ago. I love you both and I sure as hell wish you would move up here Ms. Tremblah. And then John Geary and Denise coming to the closing party at Silverstein...I lived with John Geary on Rodman St., also about 20 years ago, and I haven't seen him for about 18 years...I love you both, too. Then an email out of the blue from my friend Alkim Tuna, we were best friends in grade school...no one of quality doesn't love Alkim. She's awesome and I'm proud to have known that from the get go in Fran Danish's class. These are just a few of the people that have reappeared in my life since this May, and there've been several incidents in the same vein.

I received this letter and photocopied image 2 days ago...








I immediately looked up Harriett using the return address on the envelope and left a message telling her how grateful I was for her letter and that it was me in the photo.

It's pretty unbelievable that she recognized me from the photo in the Exponent, pictured below. After all it is a 26 year time difference and I was only 11 in the photo above.




Here's to Harriett! With much love and solidarity! Thanks.
And to Sarah and Rich, ¡No Pasarán!
And to John and Denise and Alkim. My love to you all!
You're goddammed right I live a charmed life. More later.

Carla Williams Blog

Just a heads up that Carla Williams has a number of posts up of great interest to me... with the latest post on Priceless #1 by Hank Willis Thomas. I'm a fan of Hank Willis Thomas, click on his name and check out his stuff.

Recommended: “Nina Berman: Purple Hearts”

“Nina Berman: Purple Hearts”

Through Aug. 30

Jen Bekman Gallery

6 Spring Street, between the Bowery and Elizabeth Street
New York, NY
(212) 219-0166


Check out this article in the NY Times about the show “Nina Berman: Purple Hearts”

When I swung by the stadium to check out Mattress Flip, I did a quick run through of the field level and made some more images of "the how do I look" mirrors... as I go through the photos I'm finding that this is a difficult image for me. I'm not 100% about these photos and I'm going back and forth about the placement of the paint line of the opposite wall in the reflection. There's a lot of choices with these and one's not jumping out at me.

Mattress Flip at the Linc

The printing is great on this... good job, Color Reflections, good job. My info will be up by the first game.
GO BIRDS!

High School Reunion Update

I am fully aware that no one cares about this post at all. Not that it matters to me whatsoever, but it will only stay up for a few days at the most, so enjoy these photos now.

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When I meet someone from Philadelphia and I ask them what school they went to, I mean which high school...not which college. And sometimes I mean grade school. When someone answers with which college they went to, I most often want to punch them in the face. Amazingly, this is not a reflection of how much I enjoyed school...I never liked school at any age and I especially hated high school. Right, I know that's insane.

The thing that's the most nuts is that I want to know the school regardless of a person's age or the section of city they're from.



In celebration of Philadelphia public schools here's how "education" on my resume should really be read.

K- Grade 1. Albert Einstein Hebrew Day School- Las Vegas, NV

Grade 1: Solomon Schechter Day School- Philadelphia
Grades 2-3: Mayfair Elementary- Philadelphia
Grade 4: McCall Elementary- Philadelphia
Grades 5-8: Greenfield Elementary- Philadelphia
Grades 9-12: Philadelphia High School for Girls- Philadelphia


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Class of 87- Philadelphia High School for Girls


Here's me and the great Elle Cohen enjoying our 7E 5year reunion.
Update: Elle called me out of the blue AS I WAS POSTING THIS PHOTO.

Class of 83- Greenfield Elementary


Rest in Piece, Sam Ryan.

August 19, 1839

On August 19, 1839 Jacque Daguerre's photographic process (the daguerreotype) was presented to the French Academy of Sciences.

I have got to get a job, STAT. My immediate plan for money, winning the powerball, has failed once again. Fuck! Sadly, I'm not really kidding about powerball being my only plans for an immediate post Pew job. I'm going to be teaching a class at SVA up in NY next semester, Spring 2008, so I'm going to be bringing in some cash then but I've got to get cooking on the right now.

This one's for sure

This Ernst Haas photo is in my top ten favorite photos of all time.

Ernst Haas, Route 66, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1969, 20 x 30 inch Dye transfer print, Edition 28/50

São Paulo: Clean City

Photo by Tony de Marco. Please visit "São Paulo No Logo" to see Tony de Marco's set of images recording the removal of all outdoor advertising.



It's like a beautiful dream. São Paulo has always been on my list of places to visit but now it's moved into my top 20.

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"In September 2006, São Paulo's mayor, Gilberto Kassab, passed the so-called Clean City laws. Fed up with the "visual pollution" caused by the city's 8,000 billboard sites, many of them erected illegally, Kassab proposed a law banning all outdoor advertising. The skyscraper-sized hoardings that lined the city's streets would be wiped away at a stroke. And it was not just billboards that attracted his wrath: all forms of outdoor advertising were to be prohibited, including ads on taxis, on buses—even shopfronts were to be restricted, their signs limited to 1.5 metres for every 10 metres of frontage. "It is hard in a city of 11 million people to find enough equipment and personnel to determine what is and isn't legal," reasoned Kassab, "so we have decided to go all the way."

The law was hailed by writer Roberto Pompeu de Toledo as 'a rare victory of the public interest over private, of order over disorder, aesthetics over ugliness, of cleanliness over trash...' "

From Business Week. Click to read the whole article.

Breaking News!

We DID NOT win powerball, much to my surprise. I'm not kidding, I was already making plans on how to spend the money. FUCK!

Report from the West Coast

Click above to take a look at some amazing photos of my #1 west coast dagger claiming Poseidon's throne. Her friend Rob Fatal made the photos.



A Dagger Masters the Sea
photo by Rob Fatal

I think of Ray's death every day, several times a day, but it's not an uncontrolled checklist of the day's events any longer. Lately I just have a wave of dread accompanied by seeing his face or getting the call but I'm able to move right back into the moment without an inventory of the day of his death.

The dread is something new and it comes on with no warning; I get an intense feeling of fear that I didn't have before. One thing's for sure...there is no way to ever articulate grief and no metaphor that could ever prepare you for it.

Brigantine, NJ











I'm printing these at 8"x12" and fairly dark...I never have any idea how these look on someone else's computer screen, but they are at the perfect brightness on my screen. I'll take a look at them, but I think they'll never be able translate to color copies.


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The Lakes, South Philadelphia






I don't know if I'm printing these. Below is the color of the algee in the main lake using the fill flash and the 2 above are made with no flash and the overwhelming orange of sodium vapor lighting.

2 James Baldwin quotes

"American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it."

"People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them."

Night Time at the Jersey Shore
Brigantine, NJ




Day Time at the Jersey Shore
Atlantic City, NJ

An Exhibit I Can't Wait to See; Eileen Neff: Between Us at The Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA)

This is show is going to be off the hook. I am huge fan of Eileen Neff; her work is transcendent. I'm genuinely so excited to see this exhibit that I'm getting the hell over the minute it opens and you know I'm going to try to bust in even before it opens.

Eileen Neff: Between Us
September 7 - December 16, 2007



Eileen Neff, Anecdote of the Tree, 1999-2000, C-print mounted on aluminum, 44 x 64 inches, edition of 5


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In the spirit of full disclosure I must mention that Ms. Neff's brother, Dr. Louis Prusack, DDS, was my pediatric dentist in 1976 and 1977. This is just a bizarre coincidence and unrelated to my love of her work, especially considering that I met Eileen Neff more than 20 years after my last appointment with Dr. Prusack. That family has high quality stock!

2 cameras

Dr. Harold Edgerton
Atomic Test
1952

"Developed by Dr. Harold Edgerton in the 1940s, the Rapatronic photographic technique allowed very early times in a nuclear explosion's fireball growth to be recorded on film. The exposures were often as short as 10 nanoseconds, and each Rapatronic camera would take exactly one photograph.

Edgerton built a special lens 10 feet long for this camera which was set up in a bunker 7 miles from the source of the blast which was triggered- the bomb placed atop a steel gantry anchored to the desert floor by guide wires. The exposures are at 1/100,000,000ths of a second....In another millionth of a second, a planet of fire exists,
silhouetting and dwarfing the Joshua Trees."






Sally Mann
Untitled
(Deep South #31) 1998


"Outfitting her large-format 8 x 10 camera with undersized and often damaged lenses, Sally Mann’s contemporary landscape photographs admit the light leaks and imperfections of the photographic process. Occasionally, a distortion becomes the central element in a work."

Jersey Shore Update

I am home from a one week vacation at the Jersey Shore. Here's some highlights from Mother/Daughter/Sister day at the beach.


Savannah Roberts, Sister


Zoe Strauss, Sister


Some Lady on a Postcard