(Also, because I want to make some extra bank as one of my courses at SVA was cancelled this semester due to low enrollment. While I wasn’t thrilled, I must say its nice to get a break from lecturing six hours in a row, which has been my Thursdays for a long time now. Not a big deal, but being free at 3PM and in the city is rare for me and I’m enjoying it.)

Something so engaging and real about being on the sidewalk meeting and talking to all kinds of people, eye to eye…SO glad i did it:) And was so happy to have my neighbor-longtime friend hang with me all day, from beginning to end, helping me set up and take down! How fucking sweet is that?! AM SO GRATEFUL. Of course I kept trying to foist stuff on her, lol, in gratitude – and I had great stuff out there, from Gunne Sax to Leslie Fay to Ungaro, with lots of great 1960s-70s stuff, which she loves. But she only took a couple things. I also think she enjoyed it too, the human side of it reminding her of her retail/record store days in San Francisco in the early 1990s.

I was surprised how little people knew about what they were looking at. I thought with all the young blood in Greenpoint and the popularity of all things “vintage” there’d be more cultivated tastes out there. My biggest sale, who also has an Etsy shop, being an exception. Regardless, the fact that people just bought things because they liked them was also cool!

I do though wonder if I’ve just acquired more expertise than I realize (to justify my endless thrifting, no doubt), or if there’s no desire for expertise anymore as “vintage” simply means “second-hand” now. Ie, its just all “old”. I’ve always taken it quite seriously thanks to gay male friends who schooled me back in the day (some cliches are true), but that’s when very few did the vintage thing, and everyone had a niche.

Anyway, I’ll be uploading new stuff on romanlovesgigi (my Etsy shop again soon), and perhaps doing more street sales (next time with biz cards for my shop), so stay tuned!

(Btw, if you didn’t catch my show, From the Ruins…, it got great reviews, meaty thoughtful ones, in the New Yorker, artforum.com, Time Out New York, the Brooklyn Rail, PAPER, and observer.com so Google that shit! Pretty damn grateful for that still too!!! And I’m excited to be working on some other projects! this amazing Fall weather on the east coast, and look out for the giant red moon Sunday nite!!)

some super quick pics from the iphone…(I am laughing that I threw in curlers I never used and nail polish: classy, lol!)

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So $640. later, I leave with faith and antibiotics.  After a week of watching my beloved boy go from his mister happy, rambunctious self  – a cat who used to wolf his food down, and eat nearly anything – now barely manage a lick here and there, I need the hope. The anti-nausea shot and subcutaneous fluids seem to help, he eats a little, and drinks, and gets a little burst of his old energy. Sick with a summer cold, I go to sleep feeling a little less worried and sad only to wake and find all our effort vomited up in small glistening heaps strewn across the floor.  I start to wonder why he’s on antibiotics as the bacteria test supposedly came out clear according to the doctor’s follow-up call. And while I know that supposedly this type of antibiotic can reduce inflammation – the central issue here, as Roman’s general diagnosis is IBD, evidenced by chronic diarrhea – I still wonder if its benefit outweigh the negatives as antibiotics increase nausea and diarrhea. And the outcome of the fancy expensive test I did consent to was, as I went in there expecting, that steroids are the next step, according to that update as well.

I call the vet’s office, and as they did a few weeks back, when my Gigi got poisoned – or so it appeared – by eating some of my geranium plant, they immediately suggest going to an emergency vet. I don’t understand this new protocol, although given how little I use their services, maybe this has been standard practice for a while. But to what end? Avoiding malpractice concerns, or for those visits that will prove less lucrative/worthy of their time.  It set me off to hear it again. No, I declared. I want to talk to my vet who just treated my animal, discuss these questions, and get him in there again for another round of fluids and anti-nauseous shot. And pick up the cortisone/steroids. HE NEEDS TO EAT, and you should be doing the follow-up.  My nerves are frayed. We make an appointment for the next day. I spend another nite entreating him every 15-20 minutes to eat.  Returning to his little bed over and over again with a new, perhaps more enticing option of cat food to no avail.  Following him around when he does move, doing more of the same, creating a veritable buffet of bowls on the kitchen floor.

I take him in the next day, apologize to the receptionist for being a bitch, we have a laugh, and another vet, his wife, co-owner of the practice, skims Roman’s file says, misses a couple of things, calls him a she, and perfunctorily tells me I really ought to do the ultrasound – the insanely expensive test  to rule out the cancer. I say, you think so? Pretending to be sincere, yet also falling prey, as I tend to, to her guilt tactics. She has that “we’re just telling you what’s best for your pet’s health” tone that nearly all vets do, and it too is both false and yet sincere. She called him “bubula”, which was pretty sweet but I also heard her get nasty with an underling. Another $175.

The good news is, at the moment, he’s stabilized, and seeing that grin as he bounced on the bed to greet me, obviously feeling much closer to his old self than he had for a while, was a heart-bursting moment. But its band-aid therapy. And I’l take it, with deep gratitude, as long as he feels well. I will not watch him waste away though, so when this fails, I will have to face the music, and get that vet over to put him down at home.

Dealing with all of this has had me thinking a lot about how we deal with aging and illness in this culture as well as my ongoing distrust for doctors of any kind in the current system.  Also, after my dad suffered a major setback recently, a fall and concussion that involved over a week of Intensive Care, and the further impediment of his mobility. Which for a man of 83 who has had Multiple Sclerosis  for 40 years, is pretty serious. The difference between his living at home, as he’s done, under my mother’s care, or going into a home. These choices, or the lack thereof, just reveals the dysfunction relationship our culture has to life, death, community, and suffering.

As my 50th birthday creeps up on me, I keep thinking I need to think hard about how I’m going to experience being a caregiver, and eventually a patient. Weighing the agency I have in that against the fear of helplessness. I wrote about my vet experience in such tedious detail in part because I simply needed to share it, but also because we tend to avoid the details, not because they’re tedious but because therein lies so much of the isolation and pain.  Several times during the course of writing this post,  I’ve been interrupted by my Roman who is clearly feeling more energetic, and every time, I stop to engage him. My instinct is to do everything I possibly can to minimize his suffering and perk up his spirits. That’s the choice I’ve made for how I’m going to deal with his demise despite what the vets might say. But the doubt, the worry, the guilt and pressure are exhausting.  Shouldn’t “medical care” seek to accommodate and alleviate stress, rather than exacerbate it? All that said, my boy is back to his old self, a little more rickety, and my vet helped make that happen. Maybe compassion attracts compassion?

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Clearly, true capitalists know better than to alienate or judge consumers, and keep morals out of the transaction. Its the ideologues who’ve got an agenda, and usually a righteous mission to justify it, one with an absolutist vision – insert bible thumpers here – that bring morality into the equation – insert corporate right-wingers, religious zealots, and all the other wealthy nutjobs whose strings are being played by a cold-calculating capitalist here. So believe me, I’m very cynical and kind of ick-ed out by how mainstream so many gay and straight folks I know have become, in large part as they chose to participate in that get married, buy a house/apartment, bear offspring, bourgeois nuclear family thing.

BUT there’s a spectrum of POVs, and its always taken those working from within and without the system to change it, I think. Ever heard of the Trojan Horse? Celebrating the supreme court’s ruling – a victory for civil rights!!!! – that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right, and on the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, is a beautiful thing!!! Its one damn weekend, and we can still continue to advocate for #blacklivesmatter, #abortionrights, etc. because in no way should what happened in Charleston, SC, be forgotten, nor should the protests, of which i’ve been part of, stop.

And maybe there’s an unexamined bias in some of these anti-pride critiques that stems from an Amerocentric (not a word, but should be) perspective that forecloses what Pride parades and rainbow flags mean to the rest of the world? Its easy to forget the utter bravery, the warrior-like resolve, required to carry that flag in places where homosexuality is still a crime.  Punishable by death. Places where people boldly and heroically risk their LIVES to be out and proud. As those at Stonewall once did. I was so touched, for example,  to see a friend, a longterm survivor of AIDS march today with veterans of the latter, though it was a pic of a Ugandan man striding down a dirt road, wrapped in a long rainbow cloth tied at his waist, that brought me to tears. Don’t forget Uganda just passed the most draconian anti-gay legislation, and despite the state sanctioned violence this man’s action could provoke, he marched anyway. So its important to remember rainbow flags aren’t just co-opted signs of capitalist-assimilation for everyone on the planet. For some, it represents solidarity with an identity so radical its met with murderous hatred. In Istanbul, parade goers were attacked by police with rubber bullets for fuck’s sake.

None of this is to suggest everyone who is gay, queer-identified, or allied with civil rights, should wave a rainbow flag around, but to say there’s no need to piss all over someone else’s celebration. Pride 2015, especially here in NYC, was momentous, and while I was not able to partake ( I’ve been hosting Turner-Prize nominated artists, Jane and Louise Wilson all weekend, in conjunction with a screening/talk they did for my show, From the Ruins…), I was there in spirit! Luckily, it seems the negative attitude didn’t register out in the streets.  But on Facebook I saw a LOT of it, and just felt the need to comment. As one friend counter-posted to all the ‘tude, and the implication that one can’t be Pro-Pride AND anti-assimilationist, “YES AND NO. We can feel both at once”, with the two following pics attached:

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SO, I decided to watch Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, a film I’ve wanted to watch again.  I love Lynch’s work, and watching, I was reminded how much his aesthetic evokes David Cronenberg. And Viola! I’m not the only one!. Makes me wonder if there’s a female counterpart director – so insanely wrong that women directors are still so goddamn rare these days…But back to the film (for me, that is), which I highly recommend! Here’s a pic of the ever-fab Ann Miller channeling perfect 60s SoCal grooviness as Mrs. Coco Lenoix! I want to recreate that hair look somehow…

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She will go on and on incoherently, and its the same spiel all these years, always peppered by comments about her husband being Jewish and the Catholic Poles all hating her, and stories of being robbed. She never appears to recognize me despite our many interactions, and tonite I told her three times, “yes, I know, I remember you telling me that”. But whenever I try to carry on a conversation by replying, she gets confused, or just uninterested.  Sometimes it makes the desire to walk away stronger, but I never do.

Tonite I made sure she drank a lot of water because it was so dangerously hot, and I got her to eat some rice. I also helped her hide her $, which she keeps separate from her pocketbook, promising I’d look for a pink blouse and a size pair 10 shoes tomorrow at her request (she often doesn’t like the selections I make, though,  having once turned her nose up at a pocketbook I got for her).  When I started to leave, she got very upset when I didn’t give her my number (because I didn’t have a pen), even asking a passer-by if he had one. I felt so bad, but I didn’t want to even try to dig out her pocketbook, find her throwaway phone and type in my digits because I knew she won’t remember to call (I gave it to her once before)…Lots of people walk past, some take pictures…I took a picture of her once, recently actually, but when she told me she didn’t like being photographed,  I deleted it immediately so there’s no pics to lillustrate or dramatize this post.  And I should’ve asked her first. The idea that people on the street don’t have the dignity or the right to consent is just so wrong.

More importantly, this old lady, batty as she is, should have other options than living in the street, or being institutionalized. Tonite she talked about Woodward, a mental hospital, and I couldn’t tell if she was referring to herself having stayed there or her husband. As mentioned, she’s very difficult to follow, though I try. She does know the difference – when I’m really listening and not, and clearly likes that I try to follow. No doubt she’s endured a lot of  patronizing, which upsets me almost as much as the young hipsters – who dominate the hood now – who treat her like the trash she often sits propped up near.

Its easy to convince yourself that because you can’t ultimately change a homeless person’s situation, and they’re everywhere, there’s no point in bothering, you won’t make a difference. Or to console yourself with donations made to orgs that help the homeless, which of course is great to do.  I sometimes am one of these people. But when I do stop and take the time, I’m reminded that you can help alleviate the desolation and isolation so many on the street suffer from – in silence – by acknowledging their humanity, and reaching out. I remain in awe of this woman’s ability to survive, and take solace in knowing there are some who take the time to show her the kindness she deserves.

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I remember getting out of bed really late one night, around the age of 11-12, with a flashlight at the ready, to tune in to a rare radio interview with Neil Young I was supposed to be sleeping through. Pressing my ear against the radio, swooning in some nocturnal communion with this man I’d begun to revere. The influence of an older brother.  My obsession continued through high school, and this is humiliating, so never bring it up in person, haha!, but I used to sign yearbooks with “Neil Young is #1!” LOL. And my nickname with my BFF, Maria, was “Cinneman Girl” (hers was Wild Child, after The Doors). Watching archival footage like this live BBC show from 1971 would’ve made me cream my panties back then; that long hair, willowy silhouette and awkward prettiness was so sexy.  I’m actually crushing all over again watching and listening to him!! And OF COURSE I memorized every word to every song:) so I can sing along. Check it out though as he’s uncharacteristically ebullient in this performance. Its sweet.

Anyway, I began to stray in the 1980s, always appreciating his desire to experiment and fail, the mark of a true artist, IMHO, and I bought Trans, 1982. but my sensibility shifted more post punk   By the early 2000s, I hardly ever played his music, it felt so wedded to that silly high school girl, a nostalgic thing.Then one day at The Carlyle, that famed hotel, after meeting with this tacky Sante Fe collector who wanted to hire me to “curate” something, there in the lobby was NEIL. Maybe 10 feet in front of me, leaving through the side door with his entourage. The obsessive fan possessed me again – fulfill your fantasy to meet him, was pushing myself – but I hesitated too long, too fearful that it would disturb him. Knowing he was such a private, taciturn guy. Eventually I followed them out onto the street where I caught a glimpse of him, sliding in his black suit into a dark sedan. I did ask one of his roadies, “Is that Neil?, what’s he in town for?” And he said, “yeah, its him, he’s here for an CSNY tour”.  A few years later I slept with this beautiful guy, 15 years younger, who I bonded with – much to my surprise! – over a love for Neil (and he had the whole pretty boy, long hair, tall and thin thing going on). I realized then that with the whole 1970s culture revival, which strangely hasn’t abated, a whole new fan base for Neil Young would grow. Now music critics say he took Dylan’s baton in the 1970s, already elevating his significance – revisionist history: I teach it, I live it, it heartens me.

Maybe its the strong political messages, and distrust of fame are finally resonating again with a new generation, instead of being relegated to mom rock (or should that be dad rock), a “genre” I first encountered on artist Juliana Huxtable’s FB post about Sleater Kinney. HILARIOUS. Anyway, a few days ago it was  announced wNeil Young, with a new band and Willie Nelsons sons (!!), was working on an “ANTI-MONSATO” album, and social media’s been abuzz ever since. A NME piece on it leads with a funny, flatfooted quote that’s so Neil: “No auto tune was used and no ears were harmed in the making”, but even Check out his recent album Storytone, which is like a prelude, at least in ts initial song, “Whose Gonna Stand Up” with lyrics like: “damn the dams save the rivers starve the takers feed the givers, stand up to oil, protect the plants,…whose going to stand up and the earth, whose gonna take on the big machine, this all starts with you and me”…there’s a solo version followed by a symphonic version, the latter an earnest plea with a Broadway tone that’s a wee goofy, and each song is given its orchestral version, btw, which is another classic foray of his into territory untread. the songs that follow are reminiscent of a sweeter, grandpa Neil. Its like he’s channeling Pete Seeger.

And FYI, I actually tried to photograph one of my year books, only to realize that my signature “Neil Young is #1!” would be found in someone else’s yearbook. What I did find though were some incredibly intimate and long “entries” by girlfriends (I went to an all girls’ Catholic high school) that were so touching. And serious! Full of darkness.  Rreminded me why particularly in my teens I was so attached to this man and his music. It was a real emotional attachment. I guess that’s what I wanted to convey to him in that split second siting in The Carlyle. It was always the moody and (alternately) rancorous sides of his work I liked best, I guess I instinctively responded to the emotion as well as the songwriting. In some ways, I always thought of him as father grunge.

December 1969, San Diego, California, USA — Neil Young plays his vintage Gretsch White Falcon during a sound check at Balboa Stadium just before a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young concert. — Image by © Henry Diltz/CORBIS

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I’ve always avoided the sadistic pleasure of gang-ups because of natural compassion for anyone under attack, not  to mention the issue of context, which is essential. and easily missed, I might add, esp. on social media.

Lately, virtual bullying seems all the rage as schoolyard trolls go meta.  I’m thinking of the year-old case of Justine Sacco, the gift that keeps on giving. If you recall, she’s  the woman who tweeted “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” to her 120  followers, and in the 11-hour plane trip home during which she had no cell service, received 20,000 tweets shaming her for it. That someone in Cape Town, South Africa, would take up a Twitter challenge by a stranger thousands of miles away to go wait at the airport to meet and tweet Sacco’s shocked reaction when she learned of her infamy shows just how far people are willing to go. Sure, the tweet had become what her BFF called “the No. 1 worldwide trend on Twitter right now”, but still, really?!

If you don’t know what I talking about, I recommend reading  this excellent Times Magazine piece by Jon Ronson, a guy who acknowledges his own impulse to chastize in it. He shares how he began to control said impulse once he saw the wake of trauma it caused, having interviewed several victims of the virtual mob. Many, who like Sacco, were traumatized long after that elusive, all-important context came to light, and in some cases vindicated them. Ironically, one such case was a young woman from Michigan who dressed as a Boston marathon victim for Halloween, which I’ll admit was as tasteless as Sacco’s sick joke.  I’ll also admit that it made laugh out loud. Why I don’t know. Maybe the slapstick ghastliness of the costume seems perfect for Halloween?

I mean, OF COURSE its wroooooong, the idea of family members and loved ones enduring the joke makes it so. But as we all know, social media is all about getting attention, and such displays have become as pedestrian as bad tattoos and duckface selfies. That’s why its no surprise someone tried to up the Ante with a better costume – a kind of FUCK YOU to the morality police, I suppose, as well as  a way to capitalize on the reaction.

 All of this puts me in two minds on the issue. My unwavering commitment to defend free speech (always balanced by the equal conviction that people have a right to protest what they feel they must) undermined by a nagging “what did they expect would happen?” disbelief. The kind I typically reserve for the dangerously naive. Is that an invitation to jump on the Blame & Shame wagon (haters all aboooard, toot toot – I mean, tweet, tweet)? NO.  I’m just acknowledging the growing lack of responsibility/concern for one’s public behavior never mind the consequences of one’s actions when the stakes are so obviously high.

Clearly, social media exploits and encourages these outre outbursts. Twitter, which breeds sensationalism like Facebook on steroids, seems the worst. Another reason – in addition to just not having the time –  that I don’t tweet. The instant sharing of instant thoughts in a forum designed to make us want to be “liked”, “shared”, and “followed” has turned into a kind of virtual Russian roulette. I chose not to play. (And believe me, there’ve been many a social media scandal vis a vis the art world in which  I could’ve assumed a beef, or added my two cents, but abstained. Because I felt sorry for the person being attacked – the stuff of nightmares! – and/or was appalled by the hypocrisy of those joining the fray – their own bases ambitions for doing so being no better than those they sought to virtually lynch.) So where does that leave me? Disturbed.

APRIL 5, 2015/ UPDATE: This Atlanta piece offers a critical view on Jon Ronson’s new book, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, 2015, claiming it “vividly warns about the power of angry mobs online but ultimately misdiagnoses what drives the modern cycles of indignation.” This pretty much gives you the gist, in a way, reflecting my own perspective, which is strangely reassuring: Stone didn’t mean for the image of her disrespecting a national monument to be seen by many people, but is it any great surprise that what’s literally the most anti-patriotic symbolic gesture a person can make might get out onto the wider Internet once it’s on Facebook? Sacco tossed into the world a joke about racism that actually came off, to many, as racist; is the takeaway that people are too sensitive, or that it’s a good idea to carefully consider matters before sending out a joke about AIDS in Africa, of all topics?

We are living in very tricky times when it comes to what is “appropriate” behavior in the public sphere, and to the backlash against all things PC, which intrigues me.

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But back to the point, which is history, and the way its constantly being rewritten (something else I hammer home). Last week’s New York magazine, which I’m reading through now, is devoted to speculation, by 53 historians, on Obama’s legacy. Will history regard him as an FDR or a Kennedy or forget him, or worse, malign him. I think he will be remembered well, and dare I say, as someone who embodies that quality of focus I speak of, which is equally important to achieving goals.

People on the left and right have been so hard on Obama IMHO, and though I understand some of the criticism (Cornell West speaks esp. well to disappointments I also share), I find the expectations baffling and extraordinary. And frankly rather naive. Just what do people think presidents can do given they’re largely figureheads,  and that corporations run the government? I mean, maybe I’ve become biased, as I think I’ve acknowledged before, because I’ve grown to like and admire the man a lot. But anyone smart enough to pick a partner like Michelle, and capable enough to remain calm in the face of an 8 year shit storm, all while still getting things done – Obamacare, immigrant rights advances, that eco-agreement with China, to name a few accomplishments worthy of historical record – is worthy of remembrance.  And while I loathed most the bailout of the banks, had he not done so, they would’ve dragged this country into another Depression (yes, we got close, and the poor were, as usual, most fucked, but what president could’ve avoided that decision – one in which acting swiftly was key).  Maybe I’m naive, but Obama has earned my loyalty. I hope history treats him well. I look forward to hearing him give his State of the Union address tonite.

Regardless, this lost speech by Martin Luther King from 1964, perfectly encapsulates how unreliable history is, and its potential to radically change, when what has been lost or omitted, is redressed or discovered. And as this interesting article  also conveys, by discussing MLK’s more radical socialist leanings, which have been repressed to suit another idea of him, even his legacy is open to change. Yes we can.

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Someone on Facebook recently posted this image of the Hindu goddess Kalaratri, the fiercest version or aspect of Kali-Durga, consort of Shiva, I believe (Hindu mythology makes me dizzy), and I became very intrigued. According to asianart.org, “Durga appeared when the gods were unable to subdue a demon who was threatening the entire world. Individually, the gods were unable to defeat the demon. They summoned Durga and gave her all their weapons. The battle went on and on, prolonged by the fact that Mahisha [demons] continually changed shapes.” And of course, she triumphs. Durga apparently has eight other manifestations as well:

Kalaratri is typically represented by cascades of black hair lit by the stars, dark/blue skin, and four hands: two in the mudras of giving, the others clutching a cleaver and torch, respectively. She’s also usually on a horse. She’s celebrated on the seventh day of the festival Navaratri, as the image above relates, and sometimes bears Kali’s bloody tongue:

For me, she embodies the necessity of a mother-warrior archetype for which there are few western parallels. Some in Greco-Roman and Euro-pagan traditions, but none in the Judeo-Christian. The idea of a fearsome female deity who could be both destroyer and savior, capable of subduing evil while sustaining life, is obviously just too complicated and threatening for patriachs;).  Polytheistic belief systems are always more egalitarian that-a-ways as there’s room for variety and permutation built in.  Anyway, I’ve always found Durga inspiring, and this version of her, Kalaratri, was new for me, so I thought I’d share. BTW, I could find no other representation of her similar to the first one I posted, which a friend suggested may be part of a deck of cards (there is no information online).

For more info on Kalartri, go here. And if you have time, and want to explore more, I highly recommend checking out my friend Liz Insogna’s amazing project, Goddess, Speak; a series of invocations, writing, art and audio interviews.  Through cross-cultural studies of the goddess, she creates vivid and introspective portraits that are truly divine.

Liz Insogna,The Chinnamasta, ink on paper, 2014

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‘These vintage Converse All Star slip ons are in EXCELLENT near mint condition. The painted canvas pattern is called “Stickers” but looks like anime cartoon comic book mash-up, a Pop Art, Andy Warhol style that are so skater kool. Wear them with skirts, dresses, skinny jeans, cut-offs, or even a suit. A one-of-a-kind as most of these are gone from the market. If they weren’t too big I’d be keeping them for myself, trust me, they’re that good.’

Just thought I’d share them along with the painted and sharpie-d ones I found online. I never tire of the DIY spirit of self-customizing, and its so seamless with the Converse brand’s skater-punk vibe. Or am I being nostalgic, and Converse is as evil as Nike? This Converse story suggests otherwise go here). Etsy too comes out of the DIY legacy — lets hope it stays there. ENJOY!!

MY CONVERSE FOR SALE at romanlovesgigi on etsy.com

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