I want to call her Ling-Ling. You'll be seeing a lot of her here, I think. She has a severe look. At least with me. In her other pictures, she looks like a school kid. But this is what I do. Everyone looks ten years older than they are in my photos. Funny that given my proclivities. Ling-Ling was a quiet girl and did not talk much. We listened to trance music while we shot. She dates an Italian/Filipino rapper. She is Korean/French. Quite the combo. I don't mind trance. I drank. She didn't. I must always drink when I shoot for I am nervous. A mess, really. I sweat through my clothes. "Why are you nervous," they ask? "Because you are beautiful and wonderful, so if the pictures are bad, it can only be my fault." It is mostly true. I always want to be their favorite photographer. It is a flaw, I think, just as are most of my impulses. I fall in love with each of them and want them to fall in love back. "Love," though, is a metaphorical term. I do not wish to be their lovers. There are very few people I love in that way. I didn't love in that way for a long time. Things change.
I love jazz. Jazz makes me love. Not all of it, of course, but the slow, bluesy club jazz of Miles Davis on "Kind of Blue" and Bill Evans, too. I am not a fan of those who play too many notes, who run scales like madmen or women. Coleman Hawkins has become a favorite. And of course Stan Getz in his Bossa Nova period. Some Coltrane. It is love like beautiful New York City and the Met and MoMA and the Gug and the Neu. Even the Frick. It is love like Central Park and the Upper East Side. It is love like a Saturday afternoon in SoHo used to be. It is love like the girls who live in NYC who no longer speak to me. It is love like anyone who wants to go there with me now.
It is not love like California, though. It is not love like the West. That is something different entirely. That is an album by Josh Rouse or Jack Johnson or that wonderful college station out of Santa Cruz.
Those are my two great loves and what I want to show. Music and art and food and drink and beautiful interiors and unspoiled nature.
Ling-Ling would not understand that, I think. But I'll try to make her images fit. It is also what I (try to) do.
ReplyDeleteBit of a poem here:
I love jazz. Jazz makes me love.
Not all of it, of course, but the slow, bluesy club jazz of Miles Davis
on "Kind of Blue" and Bill Evans, too. I am not a fan of those who play too many notes, who run scales like madmen or women.
Coleman Hawkins has become a favorite. And of course
Stan Getz in his Bossa Nova period. Some Coltrane.
It is love like beautiful New York City and the Met and MoMA
and the Gug and the Neu. Even the Frick. It is love like Central Park and the Upper East Side. It is love like a Saturday afternoon in SoHo used to be. It is love like the girls who live in NYC
who no longer speak to me. It is love like anyone
who wants to go there with me now.
(this might or might not be part of the poem)
It is not love like California, though.
It is not love like the West. That is something different entirely.
That is an album by Josh Rouse or Jack Johnson or that wonderful college station out of Santa Cruz.
(need to work on a bit more of a close perhaps but you're close). Frank O'Hara-ish.
It is dangerous to spend too much time pondering your ponderings - one has been told never to take it all too seriously - it is only a persona, not truth, etc.
The Poet and I were going to discuss your latest Girl/Love posts last night after a nice bowl but winter hampered our togetherness. And then of course there is the threat that I'll tell you what we've talked about and you'll say "Oh don't take any of it for truth.."
But I'm pretty okay looking like an ass here, so if we come up with anything I think you should know I'll share. :P
Even half or quarter-truths sound the distant gong of Truth to me.
And all the "making" poems, pictures, art, music -- its an almost always failed (but worthwhile and sometimes beautiful) attempt to order the chaos, I think.
But in the words of someone much more brilliant friend "What the Fuck do I know." :)
Recipe For Happiness Khaborovsk Or Anyplace
Mr. Ferlinghetti
One grand boulevard with trees
with one grand cafe in sun
with strong black coffee in very small cups.
One not necessarily very beautiful
man or woman who loves you.
One fine day.
ReplyDeleteHe's down the rabbit hole of religion with the Bible, the Jehova's, ISIS, Mr. Bloom and a whole buncha stuff.
So we didn't get to Girls/Love -instead I read aloud from his very well marked up Bible -- John's Book of Revelations --which of course is always good to do every now and then and see how we're doing in the world.
So, I got nothin for ya. ;)