dead ends and weekends

Some pics to keep things going. I'm in the middle of a six day work week after a one day weekend and have decided I'm at a dead end in so many places. I'll reflect on such cheerful topics until my next weekend, when I have many wonderful posts planned.


pics via Tara

Managing Mischief

One of my favorite quotes is from Einstein: "Always remember that in addition to 8 hours for work, there are also 8 hours for mischief."

Einstein of course developed his famous relativity theories while clocking hours at a low-level job in a patent office. The idea that you can work a sensible, stable job while concocting revolution in odd hours on scrap paper has always appealed to me.

Lately, though, my mischief hours have been disappointing. No startling space and time bending insights. No lyrical verse. Spotty record on the blogging front.

So I made a list of things I can do to revamp my mischief hours:

--buy a new poetry book
--study math on the subways
--date a cute guy
--start a new scribbling notebook

Let me know if you have any other ideas. I already know one thing: the new notebook is going to be pink. :)

On the bright side...

Images via Tara

Why can't there be two bright sides? You know, like the sun? Not every astronomical object has to be a moon.

To Die in a Beautiful Dress

Working as a sales girl in Special Occasion Dresses is a wonderful way to listen to the drama of life. The other day, I had an elderly lady break down and tell me she wanted to be buried in the dress she was buying. I patted her on the shoulder and told her "Aww don't cry it's a beautiful dress." In retrospect this may not have been the most sensitive thing to say. But hopefully she understood what I was trying to get at. At any rate, she bought the dress. :)

Tough Girls, NY

Image via Tara

Don't tell me you can't be cute and tough at the same time. :)

Keira Knightley Berlin!

The new September Vogue has Keira Knightley on the cover. And, she's in Berlin. In the Berlin art scene no less. I am thrilled. I have always been in love with Die Brücke. And apparently east/west tensions continue to fuel Berlin out the the merely picturesque affair the rest of western Europe sometimes seems.

Images via berlin.unlike and Vogue

Skimming the web for pictures to post, I notice a recurring theme. Her hair. What hair? The blogs are bitching about Keira's hair. I flip to the cover. Ah, her hair. Yay, her hair looks like my hair when I get out of bed in the morning. Being that one of my many doomed aspirations in life is to look like Keira Knightley, I am even more thrilled. Seriously people, what do you expect from an artist in Berlin. Or any city, for that matter. :)

Images via Vogue and Tara

Would you notice if a bridge led nowhere?

Images via Tara

This is me, recently enlightened by a passerby that the structure behind me is a bridge to nowhere. I had been leaning over the railing taking pictures and thinking about technology vs. nature and the spirit of 19th century capitalism. I completely failed to consider the structures purpose, or lack thereof. Tell me, would you notice if a bridge led nowhere?

Portrait

Image via Tara

I decided to try my hand at portrait photography. Or rather, I got up the spunk to walk up to someone and ask to take their photograph. Actually, I just couldn't get over this elderly gentleman's combination of white shirt, zany hat, sketchbook, chess table, and coffee mug. I wish I'd figured out a way to work the light better (it started raining shortly after I took the shot). But he gave me his views on art: "You're not an artist unless you promote your work" and on writing: "You're not a writer unless you write." Which I guess is not bad for a rainy day's insight. :)

I got a poem for my birthday!

I had best birthday ever! I've been busy and apt. searching, so didn't really plan anything. Thus nearly everything I got came as a surprise. Not only that, but my sisters copied out a poem for me! Thus giving me a legitimate reason to blog about my birthday. Here it is. I think 26 is going to be a great year.

The Music Makers, by Arthur O'Shaughnessy

We are the music makers
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lonely sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
Word losers and world forsakers
On whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory;
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And these with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.

We in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing
And Babel itself with our mirth,
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth:
For each age is a dream that is dying
Or one that is coming to birth.

I especially like the line "Babel...with our mirth." I will have to research Arthur O'Shaughnessy. I would include pictures of the cards I got, just in case anyone here tires of "deathless ditties." Especially as one of the cards had a picture of a little pink shoe! But my camera won't take close-ups.

A huge thank you to everyone for a great birthday! Also, thanks so much to everyone who has taken the time to comment on this blog. It's been really encouraging.

shop art

Images via Tara

I have become addicted to shop window photography. To justify this addiction, I need to start gathering material for a long, academic, dreadfully boring article on how the art of museums is dead and the real art is being produced in commercially driven store front windows. Or, I could just go out and take more pictures.

Wild Fashion

Images via Tara

Stalking fall fashion at Lord and Taylor.