[seen the other, far side of the tracks last night]
Category: Happy
bearded Valentines
(I couldn’t find any bearded [German] Iris)
This is a funny Valentine, but perhaps funny is as good an approach as any to a holiday whose simplicity has been as compromised by commercialism as much as this one has – and we know it can get still worse.
It’s also an ode to men, even if it might interest all the many kinds of people who love them.
With the significant exception of the affection shown between couples or groups which do not include a man*, Een kus zonder baard is een ei zonder zout [A kiss without a beard is like an egg without salt], according to a Dutch proverb I stumbled across for the first time today while reading Joshua Foer’s OP-ED piece in the NYTimes.
In any event, you don’t have to be handy in the kitchen to enjoy this treat, and absolutely no preparation is necessary. One or more affectionate warm bodies and nine or ten hours of total neglect following the morning shave should be enough.
My experience of its pleasures began while I was still a child, since I can recall the frisson of nuzzling the very serious moustaches of both my Grandfathers Gustav and Joh[an]n, and even the beautiful stiff black stubble my own normally clean-shaven Father [Clarence] had acquired by the time we all kissed him in the evening.
I’ll admit here and now that I was more than a little terrified of all of them, but when I became a man I took up the things of a man, so to speak, and I think nothing except cruelty has frightened me since.
While the beard I’ve [barely] cultivated for decades was initially, and so it has remained, mostly my response to the discomfort and tedium of the shaving routine and not an advertisement of my preferences in partners I consider myself very lucky to have always been able to find men who seem to appreciate salt.
I can’t imagine where I’d be today if Barry had not been in their number.
Only the best to all lovers everywhere, today and always, no matter how hairy-cheeky.
*
I’m pretty certain that in a darker age, when the men were putting together these proverbs we dig up occasionally even today, most of them couldn’t even imagine women could share a serious affection for each other, which just goes to show that, like all proverbs, this one has very serious limitations.
still sticking with snow
These two storm details were captured during a walk across West 22nd Street late yesterday afternoon.
The first image reminds me that snow isn’t so fussy about spreading its largess; even man’s stuff get’s the full treatment.
The second picture makes me think of spring at the same time it describes this classic winter scene.
Oh yes, you can believe me: These are not really black and white photos. The available light was very grey.
there’s nothing like a good cloud, or two
Welcome competition for the skyscrapers.
The picture? Yeah, I know this is pretty dull stuff, even if you think a beautiful sky, or at least it’s appreciation, is an exceptional thing in Manhattan. So let’s just say this post is an interlude.
needing a thumbs up
Sticker-decorated but otherwise empty Gay City News box seen on 6th Avenue this afternoon.
Anybody out there know anything about the image?
art in paraphilia
a boy and his fancy dog
Ever so often something reminds us that we really don’t know much about fetishes.
I found this fascinating but uncredited image on a site I was directed to by an email from Slava Mogutin (alright, I’ll admit it, I’m actually not totally unacquainted with the wonderful world of Le fĂ©tichisme dans lÂ’amour).
Agh, kids!
*
who may be the artist here, but go to his own site to see his credited stuff, including direction to his published writings
[image from fritzhaeg/sundown salon]
Jesus, just visiting
the eyes have it
As I write this it’s already the early hours of January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany and traditionally the absolute finish to the long holiday which celebrates the birth of the founder of the Christian religion.
But of course there’s another story behind the seasonal image I’ve uploaded above.
I don’t have a religious bone left in my body, but I can’t ignore a pretty face. A number of years ago Barry and I were in New Mexico where we stopped at one of the more important Mexican colonial country churches. Attached to the beautiful ancient adobe stucture and just beside the sacristy was a fairly serious gift shop. We were alone in its two short aisles for a few moments, so we were able to discuss between ourselves (but still carefully sotto voce) the purchase of this delicate ceramic figure of a baby Jesus sporting some pretty amazing eye make-up.
We were both very much afraid that the middle-aged Franciscan who managed the shop might realize that our interest in the object was not wholly devotional, but the weight of experience assembled during my extended Roman Catholic childhood and our two very straight faces managed to carry the day.
Every year since that day we’ve placed the pretty little tyke in a thin bed of straw on a prized side table in the parlor every year around the period of the ancient pagan feasts of Yule and Saturnalia. Oh yeah, we give him a small pair of wooden dreidels to play with while he’s there.
We figure Jesus needs a vacation from all the Christmas fuss. And besides, we really like kids.
grace under light
[pink-eyed Cyclamen]
I found my clunky old tripod today and I immediately teamed it up with my old Macro lens and brought the fancy new camera and a flowering plant to a south window just before the sun disappeared.
If you get close enough absolutely anything can look great – or, well, at least interestingly abstract.
The three images below were done without benefit of tripod, which should be more than obvious, although I think its absence was no real liability in the case of the smudgy detail of the Spence. And oh yes, that subject had in fact started out pretty much as an abstraction already.
[small pressed tumbler]
[Andy Spence painting detail]
[see-thru pillowcase layers]
scene on New Year’s Day
from tops
to bottoms
[the elegant vintage ceiling fixture is attributed to Norman Bel Geddes, and the wonderful “Loveseat” is by Cliff Baldwin, created as a gift to Bill Bartman for Art Resources Transfer]
Miami Beach night life
for your every convenience
Whew! Really glad [the holiday] is over. Maybe now we can all go back to genuinely enjoying things more or less spontaneously.
I’ve been saving up this picture taken in Miami Beach earlier this month for I don’t know what special occasion, but I’m going to use it now as a transition between the Christ birthday thing and a return dip into the Miami art fairs (to follow soon).
I also promised Barry weeks ago that I would upload this image as a present for Ed and Josh and a tiny tribute to Christopher Johnson.