WRESTLER

February 27, 2010. What poetry this is. I have been on a bit of a wrestler binge, and sharing it with a friend. Today, I spent hours cleaning out old papers, trying to determine why I had kept them, and then here was this picture in a paper from 2008. What a lucky shot this photographer captured. I am mesmerized by the continuous sweep of power up the leg, through the torso and then out the arm - expelled through the fingertips. In the midst of this youthful struggle, such symmetry and tension exists between the positions of the two wrestlers. The moment was fleeting, but is eternal. I don't know who the photographer is, but it accompanied an article in the local paper about two teams near where I grew up.

SNOW AT NIGHT

February 25, 2010. This is my snow picture. The snow started on Thursday and has continued through the remainder of the week. At the end of my training class, I managed to get out of the building, across a soggy, slushy bridge and into the subway at the foot of the island – without falling over. This panel of torn away poster, overlaid with graffiti and exposed background glue, looks more like the snow in the night to me. The graffiti is the outline of the buildings of the city. The snow continued to swirl in bands, radiating in waves of snow and clear. I could watch the entire pattern unfold from my warm office window.

COCK OF THE WALK

February 21, 2010. A rooster. Big as all outdoors. I was walking with my friend Chris to the river when we came upon this beauty. What mind first thought to breed this bird, adding a snowy field on the back of these jet black feathers? The swirls of black, bracketing the head were a stroke of genius – forcing that red face to look forward, out over an avalanche of white plume. When I think of a flock of these, strutting down garden path, I almost shudder, the beauty must have been excruciating.

130 FACES

February 14, 2010. It’s St. Valentine’s Day, and what better way to celebrate than with friends seeing art? I had brunch with friends, Philip & Parker, at the Salmagundi Club, looked at what art we could, and then headed off to the LGBT Center to see a show called “Comfort of Men” by Branden Wallace. As we left The Center and turned north on 7th, we came across this art, which my friend Keith had been telling me about. Felix Morelo has been creating these ephemeral exhibitions around the neighborhood, and what a wonderful sight. All of these faces, so many of them, each individual and still familiar, stretching ahead of you, beckoning you on, speaking to you as you walk along, keeping you company. They might be leading you somewhere, but maybe not. Maybe they are just being there, counting off, and announcing their existence.

THE SECRET DOOR

February 13, 2010. The subway ride north from 72nd to 96th is a most interesting trip. Looking west out the window into the downtown tunnel, the entire trip to 79th street is ablaze with racks of lights, like a country fair or a circus sideshow. The train speeds by and the lights flash by, and go on and on. I wonder if the doors at 72nd Street hide a secret home of the people who populate this subterranean light circus. They are so ornate, so out of place in the grime of the tracks, that they stand in stark contrast. Something wonderful must be behind them, I think. Further north, we pass an abandoned stop, its vaulted walls and ceilings covered in graffiti. How I would like to go spelunking in these caverns and explore the markings and drawings I spied as we sped by. There are always wonders that abound in New York in the most peculiar places.

EXCAVATION

February 12, 2010. There are no words. This vision of a baby face peering from behind foliage of green, and maybe autumn leaves, shrouded and floating in a chalky white cloud of mist, leaves me wondering and marveling at what might be the totally random creation of someone trying to make ready for the next poster. That poster will cover and obscure this layered work that surely sprung up spontaneously. What effort produced this? It is very different than the Dykman Street poster stripping - softer, more obscure, gentler in its treatment of the chalk and green.

COLLECTIONS

February 10, 2010. What is it? The jumble of so many, the feeling of plenty, the illusion of sufficiency? So much is tied up in our idea of what we have in comparison to what others do or don’t have. Where is all your stuff, someone once asked a friend? I don’t know, what stuff, why do you think I have it, do I need it, what will it do for me? In the end, I just like this jumble of MetroCards at 23rd & 8th. I wonder who decided to put them all in there, or was it a steady accumulation?

MERCEDES

February 7, 2010. How cruel the fates are. This car is always parking itself in my neighborhood. I never see its driver. It is the second beautiful thing I’ve seen this weekend. The lines are classic, sleek and elegant. It’s in great shape, lived in and comfortable looking. Hunter green color is a nice color for it, mature and confident. It’s been one of my favorite car designs.

I LOVE MONSTERS

February 6, 2010. Christopher Street subway station. After venturing to Queens to see a collage, montage, assemblage show, in which Philip had 3 pieces, we traveled to the trusty Riviera for burgers (or something) and beer (or something). This sign was there as we left to go underground. Of course we love monsters. What are they anyway? Isn’t it often something that we don’t understand, that is other than us? So then in those cases it might just be a lack of perspective or empathy that causes us to see the ‘other’ as a monster. I say we should pray for the monster and embrace them when we can.