Well, that was disgusting. I was just up on Sohn Avenue trying to find some cantaloupe that didn't completely look like it had been kicked here from California, and as I was coming out I got a glimpse of some really stark black-on-white graffiti framed against the grocery store's roof. There's a two- or maybe three-story building next door (it's hard to tell from the ground), like an Italian cafe thing below a head shop and maybe some apartments, and someone had obviously gone out on the fire escape and tagged the shit out of the Guadalupana, probably with a Bela Fleck banjo line still tick-strumming in their mind's ear. Graffiti shots have really kind of been done to death, for the most part, but I thought I saw something interesting there. From the right angle, you know, with pedestrians down in the lower left frame, hats and haircuts trafficking past, and maybe a measure of sky in the top right for symmetry. Anyway, I can't know until I get up there. I went around to the back of the cafe to check out the accessibility situation; it was not what you'd call enviable. I guess that's where they dump all the grease, because there was this unpleasant patch of Crisco-looking shine about the size of a parking space radiating outward from the back door. Scraping that shit off the shoe was not fun. It was all over my knuckles, too; I kept having to stop on the way home and wipe my hands on people's lawns. Gloves next time, and I'll probably bring the board as well. I guess I could just ring the bell on the head shop and ask to use their fire escape -- I have no doubt that they'd let me -- but I feel like I should pick up some skills in terms of infiltration and quick getaway. I can't be going to war zones and asking the murahaleen for permission to get a couple quick rolls of broken children corpses.
Speaking of photography (and when am I ever not), holy good God, there are some beautiful girls in my Italian class. Some people are just good-looking past the point where they'd ever need an education. Like, you can get any job you want. You look like Anne Hathaway, or that girl from the Weezer video. What are you doing here? You will never get fired from anything ever. I'm guessing the ridiculously beautiful girls must perceive the world very differently from everyone else -- I'm thinking their major idioms of social interaction are aggressive friendliness and hostile resentment, with some bitter competition thrown in for variety. Actually, I probably wouldn't want to be transcendently good-looking and female. I'm glad they exist, though, because wow is the camera friendly to them. Often it feels like kind of a crutch, you know, like it doesn't matter what else is in the frame as long as I capture Kyra von Heijne in midstride, with her hair in any condition at all. Automatically people are going to call that a good picture, and really all I have to do there is hold down a finger. Plus it seems faintly icky to just take pictures of hot girls and be like "no, it's cool, this is my major," and then have all these contact sheets of goddesses saved in plastic sheeting with the rest of my negs. I kind of feel like I should be modding a They Might Be Giants wiki and memorizing a Playboy Advisor about chiantis when I do that. But damn, man. Okay, I'm imposing a limit: For every picture I take of a beautiful girl (or a beautiful guy -- I'm not going to pretend like I don't know what constitutes a good-looking man), I will take four pictures of landscapes, or trash, or fat children, and make them just as pleasing to the eye. Yes. I will do this. Shortcuts are no way to get better at anything.
Speaking of shortcuts (I like the segues tonight! I will try to do more of this in the future), my friend Harry Stroud picked up something called the Elizabeth Rathbone Miracle Ball. Have you seen this? It's like a soft plastic-ish sphere, about the size of a grapefruit, that you can use for apparently a thousand and one limited-space exercises, on a plane, at your desk, wherever. Harry hasn't put this thing down for three days. She's got it between her shoulderblades, under her neck, she's bowling it lightly down the street and running circles around it as we walk. There's an aperture to poke a straw through and do breathing exercises. Nothing Harry has actually done with the ball has required any greather physical exertion than the contraction of an elbow, but she's convinced that she's on the fast track to the Iditarod. Should I say something? She is kind of entertaining with the ball. It's like having a cat. I'll let her flex those thumb muscles a little while longer. Everyone should be able to play with a ball now and then.
