Once again, I'm nattering on with nothing really important to say.
Have you noticed that I'm most silent when the most important things in my life are happening? In times of turmoil, or pressure, or thought, or great life change, I tend to take a page from the playbook of a dear friend and just shut my trap. Often to the point that everyone around me wonders if something is wrong. Which, of course, there usually is.
I don't think that's the case right now (unless there's something going on that I so don't want to deal with, I'm keeping even from myself. But there is something that's been happening a lot lately, and that's that I find myself out, wandering the city or interacting with friends, and snapping photos everywhere I go.
Hence, another entry with lotsa recent photos, and precious little in the way of substantive thought.
You'll forgive me, right?
First off: You remember when I told you about my birthday, and how Kenny had supplied a ready-made evil dictator helmet, complete with official symbol? Well, there's the symbol of my terrifying reign, my friends. The Bat is coming to get you. Sure, it's been done before, but not quite with this sense of menace, I think. Back off, naysayers. When I'm King of Everything™, you won't be snickering.
Just needed to get that outta the way.
So: You know how much I love to take what I hope are harmless, voyeuristic photos of complete strangers, right? This is the ultimate caught-in-the-wild shot. I was right over this guy's shoulder as he was in the Philadelphia train station waiting to board the train to New York. This would, I guess, have been taken on June 11, the day I finished The Stinky Cheese Man. He looks like he's even more anxious to get to New York than I was.
You'll also recall that a while back Ken invited me to see Dagmar, an alt-rock opera band the lead vocals of which were sung by an acquaintance, Meghan McGeary. I think they'd done a show together at some point in the past. Anyway, I took a lot of bad, poorly-lit photos that night, but this one is probably my favorite. It's of Meghan having fun in her alt-rock opera character, She. The band really does kinda rock, even though the idea of a group styling itself as an alt-rock opera band seems, well, pretentious. You should check 'em out.
Who's the coolest, hippest, smartest, funniest Bengali homo around? Mohip, that's who! This is a wickedly-close close-up of my friend Mo, of whom I don't get to see enough. We got together the week before last to see X-Men: The Last Stand [Capsule review: Feh]. While we were killing time before our matinee of the movie, we wandered the Village, and I forced him to let me take photographs in Washington Square. Mo's every bit as critical of himself as I am of myself, so, needless to say, he hates this picture. I don't care, I think he's adorable.
I definitely don't think that the new Hearst Building is adorable. They've gutted the base of the former Hearst Building and now a glass tower rises out of the old base, and the juxtaposition of old and new is kinda lost on me. I like both elements seperately, but not so much together. I'm definitely out of step with most people who see the building. It's been called the best thing to hit New York's skyline in twenty years. Just goes to show you: I don't have much taste.
Or maybe I do and no one else does. Hmmm. I think "That way madness lies."
Before the rains came again, I was spending a lot of time wandering the city after work; taking walks, checking out people on the subways, that kinda thing. Very often I'll just continue to shoot stuff that looks interesting to me without ever really reviewing what I've got until I sit down to download the collected photos to my computer. Thus, I discovered only at the end of about a week's worth of shooting that, somewhere along the way, I'd set the camera to black and white, and got the series of images below:
The image of those pylons sticking up out of the water — something I've photographed before — suddenly took on a whole new meaning for me. I didn't know that those pylons marked the site of the original Chelsea Piers, which were famous in the 1970s as a place of gays to hang out, sunbathe and, more specifically, cruise for sex. I recently saw the documentary Gay Sex in the 70s, and it detailed — with a lot of photos and interviews — exactly what the piers, which were decaying and falling into the Hudson River even then, were like. It was a pretty seedy atmosphere, but a joyously seedy one, I think. I wonder what it would have been like to live as a gay man then, before the cloud of the pandemic hovered over your every decision. It's interesting to think about, and also a little sad; to think of all the people we've lost because of HIV and AIDS. And it's enough to make you wanna shake your fist at the kids today who think they're indestructible again. But that's another entry.
Have you noticed that I'm most silent when the most important things in my life are happening? In times of turmoil, or pressure, or thought, or great life change, I tend to take a page from the playbook of a dear friend and just shut my trap. Often to the point that everyone around me wonders if something is wrong. Which, of course, there usually is.
I don't think that's the case right now (unless there's something going on that I so don't want to deal with, I'm keeping even from myself. But there is something that's been happening a lot lately, and that's that I find myself out, wandering the city or interacting with friends, and snapping photos everywhere I go.
Hence, another entry with lotsa recent photos, and precious little in the way of substantive thought.
You'll forgive me, right?
First off: You remember when I told you about my birthday, and how Kenny had supplied a ready-made evil dictator helmet, complete with official symbol? Well, there's the symbol of my terrifying reign, my friends. The Bat is coming to get you. Sure, it's been done before, but not quite with this sense of menace, I think. Back off, naysayers. When I'm King of Everything™, you won't be snickering.Just needed to get that outta the way.
So: You know how much I love to take what I hope are harmless, voyeuristic photos of complete strangers, right? This is the ultimate caught-in-the-wild shot. I was right over this guy's shoulder as he was in the Philadelphia train station waiting to board the train to New York. This would, I guess, have been taken on June 11, the day I finished The Stinky Cheese Man. He looks like he's even more anxious to get to New York than I was.You'll also recall that a while back Ken invited me to see Dagmar, an alt-rock opera band the lead vocals of which were sung by an acquaintance, Meghan McGeary. I think they'd done a show together at some point in the past. Anyway, I took a lot of bad, poorly-lit photos that night, but this one is probably my favorite. It's of Meghan having fun in her alt-rock opera character, She. The band really does kinda rock, even though the idea of a group styling itself as an alt-rock opera band seems, well, pretentious. You should check 'em out.Who's the coolest, hippest, smartest, funniest Bengali homo around? Mohip, that's who! This is a wickedly-close close-up of my friend Mo, of whom I don't get to see enough. We got together the week before last to see X-Men: The Last Stand [Capsule review: Feh]. While we were killing time before our matinee of the movie, we wandered the Village, and I forced him to let me take photographs in Washington Square. Mo's every bit as critical of himself as I am of myself, so, needless to say, he hates this picture. I don't care, I think he's adorable.I definitely don't think that the new Hearst Building is adorable. They've gutted the base of the former Hearst Building and now a glass tower rises out of the old base, and the juxtaposition of old and new is kinda lost on me. I like both elements seperately, but not so much together. I'm definitely out of step with most people who see the building. It's been called the best thing to hit New York's skyline in twenty years. Just goes to show you: I don't have much taste.Or maybe I do and no one else does. Hmmm. I think "That way madness lies."
Before the rains came again, I was spending a lot of time wandering the city after work; taking walks, checking out people on the subways, that kinda thing. Very often I'll just continue to shoot stuff that looks interesting to me without ever really reviewing what I've got until I sit down to download the collected photos to my computer. Thus, I discovered only at the end of about a week's worth of shooting that, somewhere along the way, I'd set the camera to black and white, and got the series of images below:
The image of those pylons sticking up out of the water — something I've photographed before — suddenly took on a whole new meaning for me. I didn't know that those pylons marked the site of the original Chelsea Piers, which were famous in the 1970s as a place of gays to hang out, sunbathe and, more specifically, cruise for sex. I recently saw the documentary Gay Sex in the 70s, and it detailed — with a lot of photos and interviews — exactly what the piers, which were decaying and falling into the Hudson River even then, were like. It was a pretty seedy atmosphere, but a joyously seedy one, I think. I wonder what it would have been like to live as a gay man then, before the cloud of the pandemic hovered over your every decision. It's interesting to think about, and also a little sad; to think of all the people we've lost because of HIV and AIDS. And it's enough to make you wanna shake your fist at the kids today who think they're indestructible again. But that's another entry.
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