In case you were curious...

...I was once considered to be a Super Kid.

(donchya love when ya find hidden treasures like this while going thru the bottom drawer of your old desk? this was stuffed in my sticker book from when i was in first grade. it sounds totally cheesy, but i put this on my fridge so that everyday i can remember that i was once scooper dooper!)

Happiness In A Bun

Not terribly long ago I was driving with my cousin, Donna, down Del Ave. I was bitching about whatever pissed me off at work that day when all of a sudden I saw it. Driving just above us on the overpass was the Oscar Meyer hot dog car. I screeched with joy and shouted, "It's the Wieniemobile!!!" It was right there in front of me and I had never seen one in person ever before. It made me completely forget any worries, problems, or issues that were only a moment before such a heavy burden. Donna struggled to get my camera from my bag but I knew I'd never get a decent shot of it, so I just slowed down and relished (pun totally intended) the moment. It made me deliriously happy.

Number 8

I've always admired Jackson Pollock's work, perhaps because so many people I've come across feel that his art is simple and I'm usually on the side of the underdog, the unappreciated. These people have stated that they feel that his artwork lacks creativity, thought, or passion. It is thoughtless and easy to say, "Pollock's stuff looks like my ten year old drew it" because the age of the painter holds little significance. The significance is in the reaction. I personally have always held the belief that art, great art, draws emotion from its viewer and regardless of whether that emotion is love, hate, melancholy, joy, or total despair, the fact that it speaks to the viewer on a purely emotional, visceral level speaks volumes for the piece at hand.

Pollock's Number 8 makes my eyes burn with salty tears, but I've no idea why. I love the movement in this piece, the mixture of colours, and that it seems to me to be cheerful and terribly sad all at the same time. Sixty two years after its creation it can still evoke powerful emotions from a strange and silly female in the middle of nowhere South Jersey. How can you not appreciate a painting that can achieve something so grand as that?

Closed

It's such a total bummer when I drive over to Philly hoping to visit one of my favourite shops - The Antiquarian's Delight - only to find it closed. But I did snap a few pics of the building, which was once a Synagogue making it thee most fabulous building on the entire street. Hopefully next time it will be OPEN!!

anyone know hebrew?? cause i haven't a clue what that says...

Story Time

When I was a kid, few things were as excellent as having someone read me a story. Now that I'm the grownup, I have found that I love reading to the kids in my life just as much. Here's a picture of me and Nancy back in '79 in our old kitchen. Don't we look fabulous?

(photo by Roe)

Larissa's Cartwheel

Back in college I took Art Therapy with my gal pals Rachel & Larissa. On our last day of class we were told to create a picture of our own. Larissa, who is an actual artist, made the piece above. I loved it so much that she let me keep it and it has hung by my bed since May 1996. It is chock full of joy and glee and I can't help but smile every morning when I open my eyes to it.

(also, i'd like to add that larissa is one of four artists responsible for my favourite mural in philadelphia - the flag mural on the warehouse off of delaware ave. it was done just after september 11th and it's spectacular. well done, ms. preston!)

(flag photograph taken 10.26.2014 & retro added on the 27th)

Orson Welles

I've been taken by Orson Welles ever since the 4th grade when we listened to an old recording of The War of the Worlds broadcast. As I grew older, I realised that he was far more than just super cool. He was funny and brilliant and innovative and, if I am correct, is the man responsible for saying one of the most romantic sentences ever uttered in the English language. I was told, or perhaps I read somewhere, that whilst filming, a crew member remarked that Rita Hayworth was sweating. Orson corrected this gentleman, "Horses sweat, people perspire, Miss Hayworth glows." Gotta love that.

Man's Search for Meaning

Reading Viktor Frankl's book today, a specific passage really moved me. He spoke of his time at Dachau and of how in order to cope the men would often turn their thoughts to their beloved wives. While entrenched in darkness and abysmal despair these men were able to escape into their memories and move past the pain of their situation if only for a brief moment.
"A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth-that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of a man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when a man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way-an honorable way-in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment."
I love that.

Kurt Cobain

Okinawa

Here's my Grandad (the dashing one on the left with a cigarette) and one of his mates in Okinawa during World War II.