The hackers, they can neither bring me down nor bust my vacation groove.
I only hope they enjoyed themselves and are now curiously aroused by the megs and megs of hot gay porn they found stashed on my server.
Okay, we’re on our way to the Cape.
Hmm. That sounds really pretentious and clenchjaw and all. Let me try again.
Okay, we’re on our way to Provincetown.
Much better.
Don’t know how much web access we’ll have out there. The site may be quiet for a few days. (Oh, how my mom and dad used to wish I’d be quiet for days, but alas, I have ze big mouth.)In the meantime, why don’t you pay a visit to the costume exhibition currently showing at the Met. It’s very fagulous.
Having a great time. Wish you were here. Etc.
So. I’m leaving. On the proverbial jet plane.
Of course, now, at the 11th hour, I’m having second thoughts.
Have I stashed away enough ducats for the trip? Have I packed? Have I finished all the projects I needed to finish? Have I gone food shopping for the house/dog/cat sitters? Have I tidied up so that I return to a clean house and not the dorm-like milieu I normally inhabit? Have I gotten my shots, my vaccinations? Have I left adequate stickynotes, explaining the various quirks of sinks, refrigerators, microwaves, and, most importantly, how to use the three remotes in tandem to activate the DVD player? Have I shaved and showered? Have I left a will? Have I, have I, have I?
I hope you’re not waiting for answers.
So, speaking of death, Henri Cartier–Bresson has passed on to that great darkroom in the sky.
Frankly, I was never a big fan of his work. His technique is beautiful, to be sure, but it always feels calculated, like he’s telling the viewer what to think. I mean, there’s not much room for interpretation in a photo like Rue Mouffetard, Paris, 1954. Then again, he considered himself a photojournalist in many ways, and I suppose that’s what photojournalists do–they tell stories. Still, it’s not my cup of cafe au lait.
That said, it was with a bit of trepidation that I attended a showing of his work here in New Orleans a couple of years ago. On the walls were the usual suspects: starkly beautiful landscapes; people in pain; people in love. But there was something else, too: a piece entitled Naples, 1963. In the photo, a man in a suit sits on another man’s lap. He looks away from his friend, toward a nearby newsstand–one that the friend presumably owns. The friend holds the man’s tie in his hands, caressing it, pulling the man closer to him. It is decidedly, tantalizingly ambiguous.
I was stunned. Art doesn’t have that effect on me too often. It happened at a Bill Viola show once. And the first time I saw John Currin‘s work. And a few other times. But not often.
What’s going on there, I wondered. The mood of the piece is hardly romantic–if anything, there’s an undercurrent of tension. The man in the suit looks embarrassed The newsstand owner looks desperate. And to complicate the image even further, it’s taking place on a city sidewalk in 1963.
I began to fantasize that the man in the suit had once been a hustler, working the streets to pay his way through school, and the newsstand owner was one of his regular clients. Eventually, the boy earned enough to finish his degree and moved on to a good job in a different part of town. Every day, the newsstand owner, secretly, passionately in love with the hustler, looked up and down the streets for his paramour–nearly jumped every time he saw someone from a distance who could, might be him. But nothing. Then one day, the boy-turned-man, forgetting where he was and the life he left behind, strolled casually through his old neighborhood. The newsstand owner spotted him right away and was beside himself with joy, begged the man to come and sit on his lap. But the boy he’d once known was recognizably different: he worked in an office now, had a wife and kids. He couldn’t be the person he’d been. And the moment captured on film is the awkward one–the one where both realize that things cannot, should not be what they once were.
But you make up your own story.
Anyway, I know it’s hokey to say that something–a song, a movie, a cheeseburger–“haunted” you, but in this case, it’s kinda true. I couldn’t stop thinking about the photograph. Neither could Jonno. So, a few months ago, we took a big breath, tightened our belts, and bought it. Well, began buying it. It was sort of an installment plan. And I’m glad we did–we could never afford it now that the artist is deceased. But ultimately, I don’t care about it’s monetary value. I’m just glad I get to look at it every day.
Maybe it’s bourgeois, or snobbish, or naive to say this, but everyone should have something on their walls or on their bookshelves or on their stereo that affects them like that.
I think about my funeral all the time. I kinda always have. Not that I’m a gothgirl gloombetty or anything, I just wanna have things cleared up. I don’t want anyone else to have to worry or wonder after I’m gone; I want to leave behind a straightforward, point-by-point schedule of how things should go, who to call. Sort of like the list your parents leave you when they go on vacation, with the hotel phone, the cell phone, the insurance company, the doctor–but instead, the relatives, the cemetary, and so on. A nice, bulleted list. I can be such a Virgo.
Only problem is, I don’t know what I want. As poetic as it may be, I’m not really into the whole cremation thing. On the other hand, neither do I relish the thought of being sealed in a pseudo-wood vault and dumped in the ground, quietly rotting away until archaeologists of the 31st century dig me up as an example of a 21st century homosexual. And most importantly, unlike Juanita Moore’s fabulously martyrific character in Imitation of Life, I hate the idea of anything involving horse-drawn hearses, assloads of lillies, and Mahalia Jackson. If my loved ones want to do something extravagant, I’d rather they spend money on themselves, not my fat, decomposing ass.
So, what else is there?
Apparently, quite a bit. Last night, as I sat in my living room answering emails and finishing off the aforementioned design projects, I had the TV on and muted, set to PBS. (Although we got full-on cable a few months ago–the first time I’ve had it since, like, 1986–I still tend to watch broadcast channels.) On comes POV, aka Point of View, a show that features documentaries and such from indie filmmakers, usually those of the way-left-leaning variety. Lots of stuff about poverty on the subcontinent, race relations in former imperial capitals, and lesbian horse trainers. You know what I mean.
This one was different. Called A Family Undertaking, it centered around folks who prefer to care for their deceased relatives rather than hand off the bodies to strangers for preparation and burial. Of course, as an indie documentary, there was an implicit bias against the corporate approach to death, made obvious in footage shot at the International Cemetary and Funeral Association convention–essentially a trade show for undertakers, morticians, and others in the business of death. But beyond that agenda, there was something genuinely touching and, well, “right” about the whole home burial thing. Maybe that was the result of well-edited footage and some articulate hippies, but whatever–it’s what I saw.
Being that I live in Louisiana–the only state in the union that still operates under civil law, as opposed to the common law system of the other 49 states–home burial isn’t as easy as it is in many other places. (Oddly, New York–where the boyfriend is from–has the same set of rules.) But it seems like there are probably ways to make it work. My only question is, should I saddle Jonno, who has an admitted aversion to the messier details of life, with preparing my body for burial and placing me in the ground?
Questions I Am Asking Myself Today
1. When did I stop believing that true theatre consisted of three-hour-long discussions about gender theory or the rainforest or conscientious objections to paying taxes?
2. How glad am I about #1 above?
3. How happy am I that I’m going on my first vacation (New York and Provincetown, for anyone in the area) in five years later this week?
4. How did I end up with four design projects (three graphic, one web) in my lap–all of which have to be completed before I leave?
5. Who was kind enough to send me the cutest t-shirt/comic book combo from jList but forgot to include his/her name and address so I can thank him/her in my own special way?
Why, oh, why is it mere child’s play to find complete files of the short-lived series Miss Muffy and the Muff Mob yet impossible to find anything–anything!–about long-running NYC cable access phenom The Mrs. Mouth Show?
Not that they have anything to do with one another, you know, except, well, they’re both freaking funny. And you’d think anything funny would be online, right?
I don’t know where I’m going with this, so I’ll stop now.
Thoughts for the Day
“She was everything I’ve always wanted in a woman.”
–David Gest
“Reality is something you rise above.”
–Liza Minnelli
“I love dressing up like some kind of monster or something and knocking on doors. Nobody knows it’s me, and I get candy.”
–Michael Jackson
“The problem with people who have no vices is that you can be pretty sure they’re going to have some annoying virtues.”
–Elizabeth Taylor
It’s News to Me
May Ganesh bless the Times of India, ’cause Vishnu only knows when the Times of New York would have gotten around to mentioning these little tidbits:
Various and Sundry
sturtle [dot] com 