March 31, 2004

"liberationists and assimilationsts"

On page 3 of today's Washington Post the paper's New York Bureau Chief, Michael Powell, does a great job covering those within the lesbian and gay community who are sceptical of or even seriously opposed to the campaign for same-sex...

March 28, 2004

Wangechi Mutu

Wangechi Mutu (view of a work in progress) I should have known better. The Studio Museum in Harlem opened the studios of its current artists in residence this afternoon, and there I was initially so dazzled by the work...

study in pink and blue

untitled (Edsel Ranger on 8th Avenue)...

March 27, 2004

Björk with friends

just hanging out with friends Two nights ago Bloggy seemed to be suggesting that "a certain Icelandic singer" would show up at the Jack the Pelican Presents opening tonight, and sure enough, the fans were not disappointed. A certain...

March 24, 2004

still not married

In a column which appears in the print edition of The Nation this week and also on his own website Alexander Coburn tries to introduce nuance into the discussion of same-sex marriage. Like me, he's against it.I'm for anything...

March 22, 2004

contrasts

untitled (subway zebra)...

tin can phones here and a tin security everywhere

Ray Sanchez has found New York City transit's Achilles heel, or at least the one vulnerability which is most likely to endanger the lives of the millions of people who use the system every day - a vulnerability which...

maybe we need a serious mutiny

at the New York Vietnam War Veterans Memorial, the night of its opening to the public "Vietnam," author Myra McPherson has written," was a war that asked everything of a few and nothing of most in America." [from the...

March 21, 2004

a boy and his bird

George Blackall Simonds The Falconer (1875) It was a dark and stormy night. No, actually it was this afternoon, it was only 2 o'clock, and it was perfectly clear. I have no recollection of darkness. It was Central Park,...

John Lennon

Strawberry Fields, Central Park, today Apparently yesterday's antiwar demonstration didn't begin and end in Madison Square yesterday. [Footnote: Michael Torke and A.R. Gurney collaborated on a short opera, "Strawberry Fields," inspired by the site and the memorial. Gurney tells...

March 20, 2004

100,000 missing in Manhattan streets

in Madison Avenue this afternoon What if they threw a demonstration and everbody came, except the media? Would you be able to get people into the streets next time? Think about it, while you search for coverage of the...

March 18, 2004

Giuliani, creator and guardian of his own godhead

I think this was supposed to be a positive image No reason for putting this up this at this particular moment. I just neglected to post this wonderful rant I found in Newsday when it first appeared, over ten...

MTA disaster planning - they still have no clue

throngs escaping underground New York, February 29, 2004 It's worse than we could have imagined. Ray Sanchez wrote another excellent column in Newsday on Monday, about disaster preparedness in the New York transit system. A second piece appears today....

March 17, 2004

MARCH 20: our streets, the "other superpower"

On Saturday Barry and I will be in the streets again, along with nobody knows how many others, on the anniversary of Bush's war on the world, sometimes known as "the war on Iraq," or even "the war against terror."...

March 16, 2004

now we can say it?

Giuliani's Emergency Operations Center on the 23rd floor of 7 WTC Regular readers know why I have such a keen interest in the former 7 World Trade Center [friends who fled the building on September 11, a years-long office...

March 14, 2004

Spain gets good news

Socialist Party supporters celebrate their party's win today in Madrid Yeeaa for Spain! We all grieve for you still, but now we're all encouraged by your good sense and courage in throwing the current government into the streets where...

March 13, 2004

"UTOPIA"

Thomas Hirschhorn, details of two panels from the series, UTOPIA UTOPIA = ONE WORLD ONE WAR ONE ARMY ONE DRESS (2003) paper, prints, plastic foil, adhesive tape, marker, ballpoint pen [each of the eight panels, 50cm x 60cm] We're at...

March 11, 2004

not married

but a party is a different thing altogether I hope I have to say it only one more time. I have no interest in getting married. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of official marriage of any kind. A letter...

exquisite, no corpse

image of Tracey Baran image The image was irresistible, and it remains irresistible even through these layers. A self-portrait, it's one of the photographs included in Tracey Baran's current show at Leslie Tonkonow. -- Updated: typo fixes....

discomforting beauty

Brian Alfred, still from video, Artflick.001:painter_BrianAlfred After checking out the Ester Partegas show at Foxy Production and talking to Tracey Baran at the opening of her amazing show at Leslie Tonkonow last Saturday we thought we only had energy...

queen honors faggot socialist republican

Peter Maxwell Davies The great British composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies has been appointed Master of the Queen's Music. The Guardian site begins its report thus:Buckingham Palace yesterday admitted that the Queen has chosen Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, a...

March 10, 2004

little yellow harbingers

in the Mahatma's garden, Union Square Park this afternoon [spring crocus (family Iridaceae)]...

March 9, 2004

overexposed

I like Newsday, and I guess they like me. Last week pictures of me or my signs at a same-sex marriage rights demonstration appeared in their pages twice in one day. Yesterday Barry and I were the subject of a...

March 8, 2004

the next Chinatown

Maybe Chinatown isn't going to be the next Soho, Chelsea, or Williamsburg, but it is going to be the next Chinatown. Maybe it can be sui generis. It sure would be nice to see the big guys stay elsewhere. There's...

fun and, yeah, very very foxy

detail view of one wall in Sterling Ruby's exhibition Michael Gillespie and John Thomson run one of the smartest galleries around, Foxy Production, and these two guys are also just about the nicest people around, in or outside of...

Newsday looks at subway failures

Today's Newsday includes a page 2 column by Ray Sanchez devoted to our experience with the subway system the Sunday before last. We've both had a history of dealing with the press, and I've found that most of the time...

March 4, 2004

Moises Salman

goldfish on sale at an outdoor bazaar in the center of Baghdad This is just about the only one of the 49 extraordinary Moises Salman photographs currently on the "more photos" link of the Newsday site which did not...

March 3, 2004

subway incident blacked out

I'm getting some feedback, from both friends and strangers, on my account of our experience with the subway thing on Sunday, but I still haven't seen anything else in the media. The NYTimes never did include news about it in...

'till there ain't so much real shooting'

E train, soutbound, this morning I had to get up and touch the paper before I was convinced everything you see on this ad was original (not grafitti). I suspect that the owners of Manhattan Mini Storage are not...

Bloomberg challenged to come out (of hiding)

Phil Reed, Chris Quinn, their colleagues and all kinds of friends, in front of microphones and cameras this morning at City Hall A number of New York City Council Members today called on Mayor Bloomberg to state his position...

March 2, 2004

Alex Lee

Alex Lee Barbera Face 2 (2004) Dreamland Blue Series, acrylic paint and magazine page in 11"x14" frame Alex Lee Ferragamo Face (2003) Dreamland Blue Series, acrylic paint and magazine page in 11"x14" frame d Alex Lee Jacobs Face (2004)...

have they killed Kucinich yet?

Dennis J. Kucinich Just got back from our polling station across the street. Somehow I had absolutely no trouble finding Kucinich's name, even though the NYTimes and so many others seem to have lost it. [the name happened to...

Jay Blotcher

The media is keeping Jay Blotcher very busy these days. He calls the New Palz area his home, and he married his boyfriend in the Village last week. That same week saw the braking of the story of his being...

acting like a democrat

The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg must be feeling very guilty, because before condemning Ralph Nader to perdition [almost] this week he runs through an elaborate paean to the great man's undoubted, generous, world-altering accomplishments. [The list* is magnificent by the...

March 1, 2004

red bags at sunset

untitled (East Broadway, 5:19-5:23 pm, February 29) Musing, as we waited on the platform just before boarding the fire and brimstone train....

but I don't even want to be married!

[we've only been together for 12 or 13 years] But definitely not a requirement. Marriage. Not for every couple, but it must be their choice only. The two quickly-improvised signs pictured above were those we held while we were standing...