"I have such mental landscapes too."

"One thing I wanted to tell you is that I often think of him." Tamaru said. "Not that I want to see him again or anything. I really don't. We wouldn't have anything to talk about, for one thing. It's just that I still have this vivid image of him 'pulling rats out' of blocks of wood with total concentration, and that has remained an important mental landscape for me, a reference point. It teaches me something-or tries to. People need things like that to go on living-mental landscapes that have meaning for them, even if they can't explain them in words. Part of why we go on living is to come up with explanations for these things."
-1Q84

The Brushed Suri

The Brushed Suri
Originally uploaded by Zanalee
Took a little trip to a place called "The Yarn Company" after work today. It's a place I've seen a bunch of times but have never gone in. It's one of those shops that is just above a street level store so you have to buzz in before you go up. I was just desperate for more yarn and looking for a store that was not too far from midtown.

The store has a really nice layout, a veritable fine yarn haven, mercifully quiet and relatively spacious. The women there were super helpful and nice. I took a long look around, taking photos and touching several things before I settled on two skeins of brushed suri so unbelievably soft, it's just crazy and two skeins of worsted wool to make something for my dad.

I thought it would be harder to work with the suri but it's really not that bad. I was very careful with unraveling it though. These kind of skeins always worry me. I would never take it out of the apartment to work on which makes me a little sad because I love working on these at "work."

A Heart's World

1Q84 The World of Two Moons

"There is nothing in this world that never takes a step outside a person's heart."
-H. Murakami
1Q84

I will try not to give too much of the context of this quote away for anyone who may be reading 1Q84 right now, but it arrives at the absolute apex of the story in a certain chapter of the second book and it's left me kind of...shaken.

There are many things we keep inside, which we never talk about, write about, or even speak of, not even to our own selves. For this reason we believe they are hidden things, things which no one could ever know maybe never even care to, things which we keep hidden for specific reasons; we keep them locked away tightly and in this way believe that no one can ever perceive them. We all know what this entails. We all do it.

So what could it mean to say that there is nothing in this world that never takes a step outside the human heart? The statement is a total reversal of what we are conditioned to believe is true in our world about well kept secrets. It reminds me of a quote by Oscar Wilde that Christian Bale dropped in an interview I read with him a while back. The quote is in opposition to the statement in Murakami's book but it sets up an interesting debate. The quote was something like, "The artist reveals nothing of himself in his work." Bale was using this quote to support his view of acting as something which in fact does not reveal anything about the actor and therefore does not rely as method acting would disprove on the need to dig into deep emotional wells in oneself to produce the most genuine depiction of reality. In essence, I guess he was saying that acting os merely pretend work or at least that he approaches it that way and not as internally as some would believe. It was not a very good argument but an interesting one. The only real impression I came away with from the interview ultimately was that he afraid of being exposed, as most of us are. So we need explanations, excuses, diversions to keep people from noticing what we are hiding about ourselves, what we are in sense, ashamed of or what we don't "love" about ourselves.

There is a film by David Mamet  I really like, called "House of Cards" wherein the male lead, a seductive con man played by Joe Matengna says to the female lead who has been drawn into his shadowy world something like "Everybody has a tell." You can say or not say what you feel but you can't not feel it. All that is required by whoever is having an exchange with you is a degree of sensitivity to perceive these feelings. But this rarely happens. People are just not that sensitive, not that disciplined. I think religion to some degree creates buy in on a monopoly of these hidden feelings by instilling fear of retribution on those who may not have the "right" kinds of feelings or thoughts about life. God, as the "Thought Police."  Religion as a con game.

It is often said that only God knows what is in our hearts.To some, depending on their particular  understanding about the nature of who God is, this can be a source of great comfort or a source of deep contention and despair. But what if there is another world where nothing felt in our hearts stays hidden, another something that witnesses the deep, conflicted and constant traffic of our hearts? I have always felt that books are one of those places, one of those alternate worlds, where every once in a while you come face to face with the things you think no one will ever know about you or the  things you think no one else ever thinks or feels. That in itself can be comforting, can be jarring, can be disturbing, can be enlightening. But it can never be expected.

born to be a photographer?

born to be a photographer?
Originally uploaded by 魏三米ya

I just thought this was the sweetest photo!
EEEP!! What a cutie!

1Q84 Afternoon

1Q84 Afternoon
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

It's getting to that part where anything can happen. I have to make conscious decisions about whether I should eat my lunch while reading certain chapters or not. I never know what form of horror Murkuami's fiction will take but I know that it's never what you expect.

Sometimes it's just the threat of something foreboding that can be as fearful if not more than something clearly defined and literal. In any case I have to vacillate between reading Book 2 and doing something very superficial or pure mechanical to avoid getting too absorbed just so I can remember, it's just a book.

Knit Purl and Crotchet Madness

I finished this cowl neck scarf (to the right) just before Thanksgiving last week. It was a huge triumph for me because I completed it on circular needles vs double point needles which are both methods of knitting that produce seamless garments and pieces of garments "in the round." Whenever I have seen knitters working with double pointed needles it has intimidated the hell out of me. It's always so weird when you see someone knitting with all these crazy points sticking out all over the place. It looks a bit like a torture device but it turns out that the finishes pieced will be socks, gloves, a sleeve or something perfectly functional and harmless. LOL!!

Double pointed needles

Anyway, I ended up picking up knitting in the round on dps (double points) right away for some reason but it was circular needles that boggled me. I don't know why. I just didn't get it. I attribute this to the fact that I was trying to knit pieces with too small a circumference. So I tried a larger basic project, a cowl neck scarf and it worked out perfect. I've already started another one for my dad for Christmas which will be narrower but wider height wise so that when it's finished it will hopefully collapse into a vertical column of elegant folds around the neck. That's what I'm hoping. When I learn any new knitting method for the first time I do tend to go a little crazy with it. I have two projects on circular needles at the moment but they're only hold because I'm also learning to crotchet. HA!

Crotchet drives me crazy but I just love the way crotchet pieces look so I have to try to learn! If you don't know anything about crotchet and knitting, this will all just sound like mish mosh to you. You're like, I just wanna by a hat, scarf and some gloves, maybe a shawl. I don't care how they make it! LOL! But if you do know anything about making yarn fabric, you know that crotchet is one of the most improvisational ways to make fabric patterns and textiles. In my opinion, it's what makes it wonderful as well as infuriating. Knitting for me is way more structured. Two types of stitches, knit purl, that's it. I don't pretend to know who to read really complex knitting patterns. I don't yet, but I can do quite a few straight knit stitch patterns with no problem. Crotchet...well I finally understand the single crotchet stitch which is the first basic stitch, but let's just say, I'm starting slowly. I'm doing this because I have to. I would rather learn it fast. I want to go from beginner to intermediate in a day because there are so many pretty things I wanna make! But I can't yet. Poo! I will try to be patient with myself. What I really need to do it take a class.But it's so hard to do with all these youtube tutorials around. That will be the next step for me though: taking a class or finding a certain someone to sit with me and walk me through basic stitches.

Single Crotchet Stitch

It makes me feel really amazing when I can complete a garment and I'm addicted to that feeling. You're making something that you can use, that is purposeful, functional, attractive, that you can give as a gift to make someone else happy and that is also one of a kind and unable to be reproduced in the exact same way by anyone else. In fact, it's the flaws that make it most unique. It's something you spend time with and get to know and then it's over, and you either use it or give it away for someone else to use.

The Music or the Misery

"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"
-High Fidelity

I had a shitty day at work yesterday. Not the first and not the last, I'm sure. It was on a par with the kind of day that makes you feel really lost and angry and violent and hopeless all at once and nothing helped really to distract me for more than a few moments or hours, not yoga, not food. So when I got home I did what I did when I was a teenager, what I've done all my life. I holed up in my room and put on some music. In this case, my Pearl Jam Radio Station on Pandora. It turns out that all that dark, emo, Seattle based white boy rock was just what I needed. One song in particular by Soundgarden: "Black Days," really caught my attention the way it has hundreds of times before when I used to listen to the album as a younger person. But this time I was acutely aware of the fact that I not only felt exactly what Chris Cornell was saying but I finally knew why he was saying it. That's a difference in age. Age. I'm starting to feel my age more lately than I ever have. I'm 36, but just recently, I'm finally starting to feel like 30. Chris Cornell knew what the fuck was up when I was a teenager. And he knows what the fuck is up now. That's a very reassuring thing. Makes you feel like you have a friend who understands you, not matter how much you change.

It also got me thinking though about the effects of music on our developmental young minds, and the about how the music of our particular generations and our parents' generations shape us. I don't care for the movie "High Fidelity" based on the book by Nick Hornby but the quote I posted above was the only thing in that story that hit the mark for me. How different would my relationship to music have been had I been born in the hey day of bee bop, listening to Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holiday or Glen Miller. What's it like now for those youth coming of age listening to Nicki Minaj, Lady Gaga, or Justin Beiber? How will what is expressed there shape their own emotional lives when juxtaposed with their own daily realities given their race, class, sexual preference and economic status? How much does music do to spur on pre-existing feelings of joy, anger, depression, desire, elation, violence or and how much of it actually brings those feelings to the surface for the first time long before we really understand what they even mean?

Personally, by the time I'd listened to any piece of music that carried my imagination to a foreign but familiar emotional space for the first time I can remember, I was so wrapped up in owning that space or rather being able to identify with a new and interesting part of myself, I was so excited to see what came next that I never gave a thought to whether I would have ever felt that feeling without exposure to this medium.

I was raised with music, all kinds of music playing in my house all the time. If the "Beach Boys" asked me to go surfing, it was my understanding that this song expressed all the best things about what surfing was like. And if Michael Jackson said "You wanna be starting something, got to be starting something." I knew that "something" was a narrative involving a physical altercation that would end up making me want to dance. When Barbra Streisand sang that love was soft as an easy chair, I saw that easy chair and sank as deeply into it as her voice sank into my mind. I was a sponge. And yet I had never been surfing, never started anything with anyone and certainly had not ever been in love yet, not really. Did I think I had been in love because my feeling matched the description of falling in love that music had described for me? Or did I just want to fall in love because of music?

1Q84 Update

"I don't care what the for reason is for these drills of yours, it's less than dignified to have a gang of nubile women kicking a doll in the crotch and screeching their heads off."
-"1Q84" Pg 130

This is my first and last 1Q84 update. I swear. I certainly don't plan on writing an entry when ever I read something in the book I like. I just thought this was kind of important because as much as I love Murakami, I feel often that he doesn't write as well for female characters as he does for men. My favorite and for me the most memorable of all his female characters is Yuki in "Dance Dance Dance." She's a fragile, cynical, sarcastic adolescent who happens to be involuntarily psychic and likes to go for long aimless drives with the main character, an adult man rather than hang out with her peers because they think her intuition is strange. But most of Murakami's adult female characters, and perhaps some of this is owed to his various English translators are not as memorable to me. They are a bit like emotional shadows or enhancements. Very well written, essential shadows but still not terribly memorable. Very few male authors can write female characters well and Murakami is by no means terrible at it but after awhile his adult female characters from one novel to the next, do tend to wash together a bit. But in 1Q84's Aomame is a total break from his usual female characterization pretty much from the start.

To be be honest, I wasn't too crazy about her at first. I kept plowing through her chapters (the book alternates between the male character's narrative and hers) just to get to Tengo's, the male character story line which is, for me, immediately engaging. I was so used to his damned beautiful, sensual, depressed and quirky shadow women that I was thrown off by Aomame's dark, physical, violent, hilariously up front approach. Good job patriarchy! But this latest chapter on Aomame had me laughing out loud in the bookstore cafe at lunch. And it's not so much that I now find her approachable because of the fact that it made me laugh. It's the fact that I now feel more tuned in to what is driving her and I care. The thing about Murakami's writing is that even though you may be laughing at a situational scene in one respect, the narrative need not ever appear to be evoking laughter as a matter of fact. I'm familiar enough with Murakami's writing style to know that this character's motivation stems from revenge for something very dark and fucked up that happened to her that has yet to be revealed and is probably quite different in nature than one might expect. It's the way she handles it though,how it links to what she does for a living that has finally begun to make sense to me. And Thank God for that because this book is huge! I don't have time for characters I don't like. LOL!

Add Some Bratwurst: Murakami Madness

I really enjoyed the mini marathon reading of Murukami shorts at Symphony Space last night. It reminded me that I haven't been to any kind of reading, poetry or otherwise in ages, much less one that featured celebrity readers reading the work of one of my favorite authors.

I was particularly looking forward to Campbell Scott's reading of "The Mirror" but it was Parker Posey's reading of "Airplane" that I loved the most. Each reader naturally brought their own special brand of performance to each piece and it was really interesting to hear pieces I had read before illuminated in different ways through the intonations of others through spoken word. There was humor in stories that I had always characterized as chilling and morbid, adventure in placed that were as banal and standard as the rooms we sit in everyday to work or eat or stand in crowded commuter silence. I believe this is conveyed most successfully because of the care with which Murakami takes in describing many of the small things in our lives, our daily routines, the things which all have in common and linking them enigmatically to our emotional and often tumultuous inner lives.

When I'm in the mood, every so often, when I'm alone, I will pull out a book of poetry and read it out loud to myself. The rooms of a narrative take on different shapes when read out loud and of course depending on the reader, certain elements of that narrative can emerge you never noticed or considered before. To me it's like a meditation. Anything that reveals something new the more and more you take it in is a rare gift. And Murakami is one of those gifted writers who has the ability to create stories which continue to unravel something deeper and more informative over the course of several readings.

During his remarks on his first meeting with Murakami,John Wray, an author and Murakami fan, talked last night about winning over Murukami and his famously wooden reception of people by presenting him with a near mint red vinyl album of Miles Davis' "Kinda Blue." A consummate collector and lover of jazz, Wray described Murakami as being completely transformed in manner after receiving this special gift. It was the beginning of a friendship between them that continues to this day. When Wray told Murakami that own writing wasn't going so well, Murakami said that he should then try putting the things he wanted and liked into his work. They had this conversation over a meal of curried bratwurst. When Wray asked Murakami exactly what he meant by this, Murakmami asked if he liked the bratwurst. Wray answered yes. Murukami said he should put the bratwurst in his writing.

Hey everyone, meet my little sister: Valentina

Hey everyone, meet my little sister: Valentina
Originally uploaded by Suedehead
I am such a huge fan of Suedehead's Custom AA Blybe Pepita that i totally flip whenever she posts pics of her which is not that often so whenever she does, it's extra special. You can't imagine my joy over seeing this photo of her and a mini Pepita just a minute ago!! Her name is Valentina!

I LOOOOOVE HER!!! I'm like alive right now!! I need to get my ish together and make one. Pepita is the only AA Blybe I know that has short closely cropped flocked hair. She keeps it simple and you don't see that very often at all in Black female dolls. I just adore her!! And now tiny petite version! I'm soooo digging it!

Prepare to Just Let Go

Prepare to just let go. Someone should have told me this when I first started loc'ing my hair. They call it a journey for a reason. As much as you may try to manipulate your baby locs, they are going to do whatever they want to do. They are going to be fuzzy and all over the place. The beginning months may frustrate you to no end and the best way to rid yourself of that frustration? Leave them alone.
-Curly Nikki 
"Things to think about before you loc"

Did I Mention I'm Starting My Locks Again?
Now you wanna see photos right? Well no photos. Maybe one day.

This is my third time starting my locks and let me tell you. It is so different from the last time I started them as a skinny, proud, eclectic, footloose and fancy free teenager in high school. The things I associated with locks in those days seem to be long gone along with my skinniness, delusions, and not to mention thick healthy hair which I took for granted I would always have. This is a whole different journey. I am juggling so many other things at the same time I'm doing this and many of those things are insecurities and doubts that often get so big, they're ridiculous. What do locks mean to me now. Is it just about a style? Has this just become another way to be like, I want that status? I want my locks to look just like that, no, like those! What happened to me?

So that's why I'm trying real hard not to be hard on myself. I'm trying real hard not to twist the heck out of my newborn locks and let them become what they're going to become and not judge my locks so harshly the way I never did as a teenager. I mean as a woman of color, I have always had hair issues. I even wrote an article about it in New Youth Connections while I was in High School. But my locks were totally liberating for me and I was completely satisfied with how they turned out, never thought they were ugly or wondered if other people thought they were ugly. Now I have a whole other set of insecurities that I deal with that to a large degree are about other people's perceptions which I know I shouldn't even give a shit about. Which is why I really love going to events populated dominantly with people of color every once in a while which is another thing I did more often when I was younger.  I was raised attending cultural functions on a regular basis. There was no question.

Black people are so beautiful, so creative, so resourceful, so funky, so amazing, if we could just get it together and love ourselves and each other more, there is nothing we couldn't do. Of course then we'd have a war on our hands because this is exactly what white people don't want but it would be totally worth it.

As for me, I am going to take Curly Nikki's advice and leave it alone. The journey is actually really interesting when I'm not fussing and obsessing. My hair looks different every morning and changes throughout the day. Isn't that what every woman wants? Well, that's what this woman wants anyway.

Your moment of Zen

Your moment of Zen
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

This morning the clouds rolled back revealing a new day taking away with it all the madness of yesterday. A marvel of nature.

Monarch Stalker

Monarch stalker
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

My fave photo of the day, that I took of course. I used to see Monarch Butterflies all over the place when I was a girl in Brooklyn. They were pretty common. But they have come to have a different meaning for me lately that they have had in the past. They really are beautiful creatures, butterflies. Imagine looking that good every day while doing what you were meant to do!

R.I.P. Steve Jobs

Apple Macintosh (serial # 1) computer, from 1985
Originally uploaded by national museum of american history
Once upon a time I used these Mac computers in high school. I used square floppy disks and everyone was required to purchase a disk holder from the library. I had all my papers and poetry and stories on my disks. I love those things. I took a lot of pride in labeling them and personalizing them by color.

I never dreamed there would ever come a day when a smaller, sleeker, sexier, space saving version would come along but it did and from the unique muliti-colored iMacs (I had the elusive green one. It's still in my closet) to the toggling flat screen desk tops to Macbook to Airbook, Apple, my favorite computer in the world has come a long long way.

Sure I started out on a PC when I was too young to know better. LOL!! DOS commands and Commodore 64 were all that were around for awhile. But when Macs came along, I got on and never looked back . I remember many an hour sitting in my High School library drawing dirty pictures on MacPaint. Ahhh Macpaint. It was all so fascinating to me, the things you could do even back then.

We had both PCs and Macs at my high school but when it came time to get them out for study periods, I made sure to be among those who walked over to the computer storage room myself to roll the computers out and into my classroom. All I wanted was a Mac.

Hardcore Luxuriating

Not an exaggeration

It made me forget the internet. It made me forget about my iphone. It even made me forget about photography which if you know me is quite an accomplishment. Although the human eye and heart are still the best records of history ever. And I have a lot stored away in my head and heart from my first experience at Spa Castle yesterday. And I do mean all day!
My great friend, S. and I were there for 12 hours! She's been there several times previously which was great because around 10:00am or so she was giving me a walking tour of all the lovely levels that make up Spa Castle.

I have known about Spa Castle for years. The first person who told me about it was a friend and ex-co-worker who used to live in Brooklyn. I hesitated greatly to believe that something like this really existed but I filed it away in my mind peripherally until a month or so ago.S. told me about the full body scrub in great exhilarating detail. I was finally sold enough that I had to get my money together so that we could both go and I could see whether this place was all it was cracked up to be. I had been in the middle of doing the 31 Day Reset with S. and a couple of her friends and listed a Spa day in one of the 31 Day exercises as something I really wanted to do. I love exfoliating! LOOOOOOVE IT. And as you know I also  LOOOOOOVE WATER. So basically, yesterday morning, afternoon and evening were like heaven for me. HEAVEN!!

First off there are like four levels and a mezzanine and each level offers something different. I almost don't want to give it all away. To say what is on each level would not convey my own particular experience as accurately as I would like. I don't want this entry to be about me giving you another tour so I'll just tell you what we did.

I knew beforehand exactly what I wanted done. I knew I wanted and needed some type of massage like nobody's business and a body scrub would be nice as well. Fortunately a body scrub and massage were offered together. We made our afternoon appointments for that and I made an appointment for a pedicure for later in the afternoon. At Spa Castle you pretty much carry nothing around with you. They give this wrist band that looks like a watch with an assigned number on it. It's the number on your shoe locker and clothes locker and it is used to open and close both. Wherever you go to make appointments and order food or whatever, you just scan that bracelet at the designated station and everything gets totaled up on a bill that you pay before you leave. Genius, except my own watch feels exactly like that bracelet and I wore it on the same arm I usually where my watch on. I must of looked at that bracelet every time I wanted to check the time until I realized I would just have to check the wall clocks on each floor. LOL!!

So! Let's talk about getting naked. I had been told about the lower level bathing pools at various temperatures where you are not allowed to go in with any clothes on. I'm generally comfortable naked. Seeing other people naked depends on the context. If the person I'm with is comfy naked, I'm cool. S. was totally comfortable and that took care of that. As for seeing other people naked, Spa castle is divided by binary gender so "people" was only women. And that was fine too, in fact it was pretty liberating and really cool. I'm really glad I went with S. because she just enjoyed it so much, as much as I did and it was great to have a female friend to share the experience with who wasn't silly or petty about body image, and able to see past the physical nakedness to the actual benefits of Spa treatment and pampering. Naked is the only way to be in this regard. And oh God, it feels so good to be naked in the water! There were hot pools and warm pools. pools with jets and without, cool pools and a chilled pool which we proudly got into and out if twice before we left! Apparently going into really cold water after coming out of realy hot water sends a rush of blood through the body creating a tremendous surge of energy. It also closes your pores up after they are opened in heat.We were really hesitant at first but S. was very brave and daring and we conquered it and it actually felt really great!

On that level there are also a row of showers which you are absolutely required to take before you can get into any of the pools or wet and dry saunas. The dry sauna was my favorite but there are other saunas on the second level where you can only go clothed in your uniforms which I loved as well. There was a really hot dry sauna that felt wonderful until it didn't. LOL!! And then the really cold one with ice in it where you can go to cool off. There was a color therapy sauna where you sit in narrow booths illuminated with various choice of colors at the touch of a button, each one with a description of it's particular affect on your well being.  There was even a relaxation room on the mezzanine  where you can go to watch TV, listen to music on headphones are just go to sleep. Yes, just sleep. No talking allowed.We napped there for a bit in the morning while we waited for the food to be brought out on the second floor food court. There's a heated stone floor on the second floor for sleeping as well. I just love the idea any space that is designated for the best quality of sleep and rest. I cannot tell you.

S's male friend was there as well on the dude's side and he met up with us on the second floor where the food court was. The lower level is the only part where you have to be naked. The rest of the floor you must be clothed in the uniform they give you. On the top floor there are pools outside on the patio where you are required to wear a bathing suit to swim. Yeah. There's a lot going on. Anyway meeting up with S's friend was great. We ate, drank tea, talked and laughed, sat in the massage chairs, watched a little television in the main area and then went to take another nap on the heated stone floor. Me and S. woke up before he did and sauna hopped on the clothed level before going into the lower level bathing pools again.

So the body scrub and massage.That was 90 minutes of something I think everyone should experience. I love exfoliating so I was really looking forward to it. And yes you are naked while you're being worked on. This all happens on the naked level. The first scrub gloves my attendant used were a bit rough so I let her know and she changed to a milder pair and those were wonderful. Back, front, side, everywhere like twice before they douse you with warm water washing away all the dead cells and making you feel like a lounging seal. Then there is a mini facial with some kind of facial lotion, hot towel and cucumbers! My first ever! I didn't even know it was going to happen! Loved it! Then we had to shower real quick, get in the sauna for a few minutes and come back for the massage with hot baby oil. This starts out really nice and then gets a little painful but I always attribute massage pain in my back area to the fact that my back is a mess. And like many chiropractors have told me, I carry a lot of tension in my shoulders. Boy, do I! I had to let some sounds out at that point. There was no other way to deal. My attendant was digging her elbows into various parts of my back under the application of hot towels. At one point near the end I swear she got on top of me. It was all good. Now at least I know what to expect when I return which I most definitely shall.

Like I said, we ended by returning to the lower level bathing pools and oh, that was one of my favorite parts of the day! Each time we got in the pools it felt better than the last! After a while any body of water that I soak or wade in for relaxation purposes lulls me into some deep meditative place where even the accumulated increase of noise (in the evening the place was hopping with people, children, teens and adult females alike) arranges itself into a collective sort of chant and falls into the background. I feel very close to something I can't really describe, like peace I guess. The fact that such a large percent of our own bodies are made up of water and that we all spend about 9 months in the womb surrounded by water has to have something to do with the healing power of water on humans. It certainly does for me. I find it sensual, relaxing, hypnotizing, powerful and inspiring. It was kind of sad to leave but we're already making a date for our next visit. I could do this at least once year if not more. It's just that good!

Round 1

I have a really fierce determination when it comes to learning new knitting styles. I don't consider this trait to be very characteristic of my attitude about other things in my life and I'm not sure why that is exactly. It may be that creating things is so important to me that I feel like a total loser if I can't learn how to make something new at least once a year. Learning to knit was very intimidating for me and the challenge of learning it made me really angry but it wasn't the knitting itself that pissed me off. It was me. It was my own inner blockages that angered me, my own impatience with myself. Because I knew I would get it. In fact for me, I just knew I had to.

In learning to knit in the round last night I faced the same old challenges. Every once in a while I get it in my head to do some sort of craft that I see incredibly talented people (mostly my flickr contacts) churning out on a daily basis. I get this bug! I can do that! And it becomes like a madness. I have to do it or I will become very depressed and disappointed with myself. I know that's not cool but it's how I approach it. But lately I have tried a slightly new approach so as not to be so hard on myself if things don't turn out "perfect." I tell myself that even if it's not perfect on the first try (I like to learn really quickly. It's crazy)I'm still making progress as long as I don't give up. There are steps to everything and you have to appreciate the steps as well a the outcome, because the outcome is only as good as the care you take with each step towards the progress you make. Yeah, I am now philosophizing about knitting.

So I started out with a circular knitting because I thought, "Oh knitting in a circle will make a seamless cirle! Easy!" I was wrong. But I also bought a set of five double pointed needles because I know that this is also another method I've seen used to knit in the round and I didn't want to take any chances in case I couldn't pick up the circular right away. I was right.

I found a really good youtube tutorial right away but in my lack of patience I still kept searching for others that would break this method down step by every little step. What that did was drive me nuts because there must be at least five different ways that people have to start knitting in the round. Finally I came back to this one. I knew that if I could just understand that magic moment when the two ends of yarn get joined in the circle, the rest would be relatively easy, just a repetition of the stitch round and round. This took a lot of pausing of the video and guess work based on my part using my own accumulated knowledge about the knitting in general. I had to go someplace quiet with the tutorial, in my bedroom and away from the television to focus. When I finally got it I laughed out loud or rather laughter tumbled out from inside me. The projected possibilities are what bring me so much joy.

Roundness! Sleeves! Socks! Hats! Ahhhhhh!!!! Well my first project is going to be a soft slouchy cowl scarf. I can remember looking at one a few years ago on a mannequin at Knitty City and never having imagined I could ever make one but loving the look of it so much. God! I might even take a try my hand at making a poncho one day! I LOOOVE PONCHOS! Okay, let's not get ahead of ourselves! LOL! I need to learn patterns if I'm going to get into all of that that and I am not a fan of patterns. But hey, maybe I'll surprise myself again! We'll see!

The Black Power Mixtapes

My bigot supervisor who fancies herself an ally of equality, feminism and civil rights shared this documentary with me this morning. She saw it this weekend and said she just loved it. *Sigh*

I doubt that anything in this documentary made nary a dent in that brain of hers but I am black, female, wearing my hair natural and starting my locks which always signals revolution to white people so I'm guessing her morning share was somehow related. Who am I kidding? It was directly related! But I have to say thank you to her after all! It looks great!

Now I'd like to share it with you! Happy Monday!!

1Q84

I'm just going to say right now that I know this novel is not going to be all it's being hyped to be but as a faithful, and literature thirsty Murukami fan I'm going to read it anyway. I'd never known they could make a trailer for a book before but I guess anything can be made into a trailer right? We've got the format embedded in our DNA by now. I like how they used they strange ominous music from his website. Clever choice. I feel a film may be coming on. I just hope he doesn't sell out too hard.



"Murakami is like a magician who explains what he's doing as he performs the trick and still makes you believe he has supernatural powers . . . But while anyone can tell a story that resembles a dream, it's the rare artist, like this one, who can make us feel that we are dreaming it ourselves."
—The New York Times Book Review

Murakami's Coming!

"Everybody, including me, has the terribly personal sense that Murakami is burrowing into their minds and writing just for them."
-Jay Rubin
"New Yorker" Interview

With Murakami's newest novel not due out here in the US until October, I've had to tide myself over reading some of his older novels which I have read several times before. I just finished "Sputnik Sweetheart" this weekend. It is translated by Phillip Gabriel, who is not my favorite of his English translators but there is a lot good stuff in this story. It just always feels very stitched together to me.  I remember parts of it like the story of the woman who gets stuck in Ferris wheel with a bird's eye of her apartment where she watched helplessly as her doppelganger gets willingly defiled by a man whose clear intent she's been trying to avoid. But I can  never remember how the story gets here or recall all the other narratives and stories in this novel as having any relation to each other, as a whole. It feels like a bunch of short stories thrown together.

In "Sputnik Sweetheart" as in most all his other novel, Murukami writes incredibly well about lonliness, isolation, dreams, death, music, sex and food. He writes fearlessly and irreverently but with great care. It's clear what is important. And his voice is unmistakably anti-authoritarian and yet also mistrusting of joining any group that would have him as a member Yes, it can be stifling. But he is unapologetic. And it is often this lack of a desire to apologize at least not to any external voice of judgment in his writing that I admire the most. It is often this voice both external and otherwise that blocks a steady flow of honest and/or brutal honesty for any writer.

Of course after listening to Jay Rubin's interview in the New Yorker on the challenges of translating Murakami and the fact that a translation means you're primarily reading the translators interpretation which is vastly different from the language being translated, has begun to make me wonder what is being lost! Is it even better straight from the Japanese? Well that's a pretty broad assumption but I'm sure there are many nuances that never make it through translation, which might add something to the work which we're never even aware of. Lord knows I think about that whenever I see a foreign movie with English subtitles. I can always tell when the subtitles are over simplifying dialogue which seems to have a lot more going than we can understand through this particular choice of English subtitling. This is why I admire the bilingual.

Well in the meantime I have also found the release of a short story titled, "Town of Cats" by Murakami in the New Yorker, which I believe is an excerpt from his new Orwell inspired novel, 19Q4. So I'll be reading that this week, trying to pick up some clues on what's to come.

How to make an overpriced Urban Outffitters necklace

How to make an overpriced Urban Outffitters necklace
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

Get a chain, any chain, that chain with the retro pendant you got from Forever 21 that everyone and their mom wore last summer. Find and chunky clip on earring from a thrift store or in your own home. Hang that earring on the chain.

There! That will be 30 dollars please!

Instagram: Share Your World

I hate to sound like a spokesperson for instagram but I guess I am. I mean I think it's a genius app for sharing your world in a creative way. And it's free! But I think at this time it may only be available for iPhones.

My phone is with me all the time so as I go about my day doing whatever, there are many things I see each day that catch my eye, not just as a photographer but also as a curious person. I love to be able to just pull out my iPhone, click away and share what I see in real time. I can post it to Facebook, flickr, twitter and a whole list of other networks or I can just share it with my instagram contacts. Sometimes just picking up my phone to see what other people in my network have shared that day, where they've traveled and what interesting way they've chosen to compose and edit their subject  is enough to cheer me up when I really need it or to inspire me and an make me smile as well. I have people in my instagram network who I know, and some whom I've never met or even seen but seeing what they see is almost like seeing another part of them. The pics I've included here are just some of the pictures I've taken in the past couple of weeks, things that caught my eye, that I think are beautiful, light or color or symmetry and reflection that I liked. They are very different than planned photography where I sit and compose carefully or arrange things to appear the way that I like. They are found captures. All I control is the filter and the frame.

Reflection on the Highline

Neighbors

Curtain

Rushing Home

Post Earthquake

Post Earthquake
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

I walked out of lunch at HB Burger with Fran this afternoon shortly after learning there was an earthquake. I looked up at the sky and took this shot. I didn't feel a thing.

AWKWARD BLACK GIRL (Are you?)

Me and one of my favorite girlfriends have this thing we do. We don't see each other all that often but we try to meet up at least once a month or so at Barnes and Noble. I won't say which one but it's our favorite one. It's in the middle of a lot of great stuff. We meet, stake out a table collect arm-fulls of magazines and books chat and laugh and catch up and discuss for hours while drinking tea or coffee or root beer and sometimes a slice of cheese cake. We're nerds so we like nothing more than to sit in a bookstore and chat about books and magazines while flipping through books and magazines and journals. Let's not forget journals. We have an unhealthy love for journals and paper goods. I am not exaggerating.



As a proud young black woman my friend is very much into finding ways to improve her health and positively evolve and expand her consciousness and after discussing the assault of predominantly white images of "beauty" in the first one hundreds pages of every fashion magazine on the table, she turned me on to some positive media that were geared more towards women who looked like us. One of those things was the Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, a mini webisode on youtube produced, written and directed by a team of black actors. She let me watch a couple of episodes on her iPad and I nearly died laughing!!! I'm not sure how to describe it except to say that the things which the main character, a black woman named J. deals with daily in her workplace, the power dynamics, micro management, dealing with ignorant behavior and just plain absurd work situations were for me just so close to home, it was such a relief for me to watch and not feel like I'm totally fucking crazy. I'm sure this kind of thing takes place in the minds of a lot of working class woman of color.  And White America, this is just the tip of the iceberg. I guess the closest thing I can compare it to is BBC's "The Office" which I am a diehard fan of. Love the American one too but Gervais will always win point with me for not selling out to comfort levels for ratings. His "Office" made me cringe.

 I wish that if they actually got a network spot that this show would stay as it is but I just know they would have to take all the spirit out of it to get it up to some insidiously dishonest code so that it becomes a shell of itself. Maybe something like this could air on HBO but primetime will never want this. Well, it's only seven episodes on youtube and I really resent being left hanging on episode seven so I will do my best to support this project so that it has the chance to carry on and I can see what happens next!  If you like it and you're awkward like J. I hope you will to.

: )

Makes me feel a way

Makes me feel a way
Originally uploaded by TheWanderingEye

Something about this particular combination of color and light in a sunset strike me as so melancholy and beautiful in a sad way that I love. That plus a sweet breeze from the window. It's almost heartbreaking.

Public pool

Public pool
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

I'm still sort of learning how to swim but after an impromptu lesson with one of the parks staff a few weeks ago, I understand the dynamics of treading water better than I ever have and I can actually feel myself moving forward now. I just need to learn how to breath and not panic and keep my form.

I sense that it involves a great deal of rythym, balance, coordination and gettting to a place where you don't have to think about it anymore. You have to let yourself be suspended. I love water but I have problems trusting it completely or maybe myself completely or maybe both.

Facts about me through my favorite questionaires: Vanity Fair Questionaire

This one was a little more difficult than the Pivot Questionaire but here are my answers for the record.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

The signature on the bottom of my outgoing work email is as follows:

"There is only one success--to be able to spend your life in your own way." I don't remember who said that but I truly believe that. Without going into specifics, that is my idea of perfect happiness.

What is your greatest fear?

Not living up to my true potential. I don't think this bothers as many people as perhaps it should but then again maybe it shouldn't. That and pain... and waterbugs. I'm working on getting over the latter.

What historical figure do you most identify with?
I'm not sure I identify with a historical figure yet. I have a picture of Assata Shakur on my fridge. Not that I identify with her but I sort of envy her courage. She's smiling a very wise smile in the photo and it calms me often when I look at it. I hope to be able to have that expression one day.

Which living person do you most admire?

Is there really anyone admirable anymore? I admire my academic Advisor, Dana Ain Davis. She's funny, super fucking smart and she just really seems to enjoy life to the fullest. She also seems to derive something close to the same depth of love for eating and travel as I do.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
My occasional coldness, my deep selfishness and the occasions when I use sarcasm deliberately to hurt. 

What trait do you most deplore in others?

Small mindedness and lack of sense of humor. I can get along and find something to relate to in anyone but people without those two traits.

What is your greatest extravagance?
My collection of Blythe Dolls. Okay, just my collection of dolls in general.

On what occasion do you lie?

When I think it really won't hurt the situation or the person.

What do you most dislike about your appearance?

My gut because it's getting pretty gross.

What is your favorite journey?

Driving to Spring Valley with Francis on the weekends.When I need to disappear I do just that.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Long hair on women.I get it! It's beautiful! But it's just hair. It's not a quality and it is treated like one all the time. Nope, you're not a new person, sorry! You're you with long hair.

Which living person do you most despise?
It's sad and useless to despise people but if I had to choose one person, it would probably be like Donald Trump. He's a fucking idiot who was never cool. I think he's his own biggest fan Yeah I really don't like him at all.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

Really? Dude! Nice! Like, ummm HELLOOO!! What the fuck?

What is your greatest regret?

Probably dropping out of college. But it couldn't be helped it seems; nervous breakdown and all.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?

Francis Daniel my fiancee, partner, best friend, playmate, teacher; more so than I probably even know. Sometimes I have a hard time believing he's really as amazing as he is but he is. And I'm lucky and thankful as heck.

When and where were you happiest?

I had a great childhood so probably when I was a girl. I was right where I wanted to be.

Which talent would you most like to have?

I would love love love to know how to play an instrument, drums, guitar or piano

What is your current state of mind?
The usual state of existential quandary and then lunch.


If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I would be more business savvy and better at saving, so I guess a bit more practical and not so impulsive.

If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?

I would have my parents still be together.

If you could choose what or who to come back as, what would it be?

A cat. I am a cat in spirit.

What do your consider your greatest achievement?
So far, not going completely crazy. That's not a small thing.

What is your most treasured possession?

My ability to laugh at myself and enjoy my own company. If I had to be around people all the time I don't know what I would so. I don't genuinely like very many people. My imagination. That's my most treasured possession.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Probably being broke or out of work for a long time.

What is your most marked characteristic?

That's a tough one. People think I'm well spoken and intelligent on a wide range of subject. I continue to let them think that. I'm a Gemini so maybe my most marked characteristic is versatility. I often wish I could literally split myself up seven ways.

What is the quality you most like in a man?

Genuine kindness, intellect, sensuality and a great sense of humor will go far with me. That and nice eyes.

What is the quality you most admire in a woman?

Sense of humor, intelligence, creativity, confidence.

What do you most value in your friends?
Sense of humor, sensitivity, nurturing and communication. Being up for anything at any moment.

Who are your favourite writers?

James Baldwin, Haruki Murakami, Richard Brautigan I know there are more but those three are definitely at the top. If they wrote telephone books I would read them.

Who is your favourite hero of fiction?

That's hard, and makes me realizes I read a lot of men and books with male protagonists lately.Can't this question be about movies?

Who are your heroes in real life?

My mom, James Baldwin, Assata Shakur, Nikki Giovanni, Michelle Obama. I also think hero worship is overrated but we all do it.

What are your favourite names?
Oh brother. Sci/fi, Wink, Journey and Leumeria. Oh you mean regular names. I'm bored.

What is it that you most dislike?
Feeling trapped in any way or suffocated, unable to leave a situations or the company of a person I desperately want to leave.

How would you like to die?
Painlessly.

What is your motto?

"Everyone has their role in history to play. Mine is clouds."
-R.Brautigan

Photo of the Day

Untitled
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

A very tiny world captured with my camera phone macro lens this weekend in The Central Park Conservancy.

Facts about me through my favorite questionaires

I've always enjoyed the questionnaire by French Journalist Bernard Pivot used by James Lipton on "The Actors Studio" so I will start with that one.

1. What is your favorite word? Create
2. What is your least favorite? Closed
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally? Natural light. In terms of photography, natural light light tells a story that anyone can appreciate. Before electricity was invented, the only source of light was the sun, the moon, candles and fire. Studio light which has it's on unique emotion began as an imitation of natural light. But the fact that light creates and reflects emotions is endlessly fascinating to me.
4. What turns you off creatively, spiritually or emotionally? People who think that what they know about something, their limited expertise which must always be limited because all knowledge is limited, is the same for everyone even people they don't know. It really pisses me off and to me it's something a lot of people do when they are fearful of what they don't know. They pretend they already know so they don't need to learn anymore, just tell everyone else what they think is necessary.
5. What sound or noise do you love? The sound of the ocean or any water falling like the rain
6. What sound or noise do you hate? The sound of a DVD menu playing over and over again.
7. What is your favorite curse word?Fuck
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? I don't currently have a profession but when I do it will be a cross between writer/photographer/designer
9. What profession would you not like to do? Anything having to do with being part of or the head of a corporation.
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? Remember me?

Next Questionnaire: Vanity Fair

Swimmer in training

Marcus Garvey Park Pool ducks
Originally uploaded by Zanalee
Every summer the public park across the street from me has adult lap pol swimming in the evening. I've been going on and off just about every summer for the last two or three years usually at the prompting of good friend of mine who lives a few minutes away as well.

Yesterday, a guy who works there at the park pool, was kind enough to give me my first real swimming lesson ever. He taught me just how my arms and hands should go over my head, a little bit about how to breath and also how to kick my legs. These are things that I've gathered in snatches over the years from several other people, friends and family but never really understood until now.

Until now, I've only done a clever imitation of swimming. But now that I understand the form better, I can feel just how much of a work out it really is. Your entire body has to be in motion and in coordination. There's a lot of balance to it. I really like it. Plus which, I sleep so well after a swim, it's wonderful. It's like an instant sedative. I'm a light sleeper and sometimes it takes me a while to get there but after a swim, I usually hit the pillow and barely move until the morning.

Feed Me Ocean

I don't know how I've gone so long without going to the ocean. As a girl, a vacation meant we were going to the ocean.Coney Island, Florida, Trinidad, Barbados....ocean. Period. I need it. I need to be in water. I need to hear waves. I need to dissolve in ocean water.

This weekend I went to Coney Island after not having visited since I was a little girl. As a Brooklyn native, Coney Island was a ritual we attended every summer. but it got really bad in the 80s, ruined by overcrowding, litter,drug and crime. Plus which, after going to oceans in the Caribbean I was spoiled forever by warm, crystal clear water and couldn't even imagine how any New York Beach could compare. Longbeach is not bad though. A friend took me there a a year our so ago and enjoyed it very much once I got over the shock of having to pay to get in. That took me a minute. Coney Island is still free and it's amazing! I was totally thrilled looking at at the rides you see as soon as you come across the street from Coney Island station. It's just so classic! And on the boardwalk the dancers were out and the music was vibrating under my feet and everyone was just having such a great time! I totally got sucked into watching the dancers for a bit before walking further down and then onto the beach which was not at all crowded. I got there pretty late in the afternoon(after 4:00)on purpose. It's amazing, the moment the pulsing music on the boardwalk fades out and the soft sound of the ocean surf takes over. It's a sound I could listen to just all day, all week.

The water was cold but perfect because it was pretty hot but not humid and with a wonderful breeze and the sound of seagulls. I walked along the beach for bit with my feet in the water watching kids and people bathing and laughing and crying. I always want to walk out on the wooden peg dividers but I didn't because I know it's dangerous. Everything about the ocean draws me in and hypnotizes me into forgetting about safety. I have to be careful of that. That and learn how to swim. LOL!!

Photo of the Day

More real than real
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

This weekend I went to my dad's place for dinner and also so that he could explain how to use his Hassleblad medium format film camera which he has kindly lent me for a bit.

I have to say, i really love listening to my dad talk about photography. I like hearing about how he first caught the bug, when he was serving in Vietnam of all places. But then Vietnam is just as good a place as any to get bit by the photography bug, especially at that time.

He said that at that time cameras were just beginning to be made with built in light meters and this was a huge thing at the time since previous cameras required an external meter to take light readings of any subject. It was a new trend just like anything else. So many of the men in his company were getting them so her got one too. He said that he remembered taking a picture of a helicopter taking off once. When you look at a helicopter the propeller is spinning so fast that all anyone ever sees is a blur, but apparently he had taken the photo with a film speed that captured the blades individually, almost as if it were standing still. It may sound like a simple thing now but it was enough for him. He wanted to know more.

My story is different and I'll save it for another time. Besides, in addition to the incredible wonder of this Hassleblad, I think my photo bug story is still evolving.

Happy 4th Everyone!

Photo of the Day

Headed to the studio
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

The great thing about extended summer hours at CUNY is that I get up early enough to see stuff like this.

Alicia Keys gave a special performance at Times Square this morning. I saw the announcement on GMA this morning so I wasn't surprised to see the horde of people as I emerged from the station on my way to work. I showed up just as she finished playing the piano they had set up for her on a raised platform but I did manage to get a few shot as she came down and headed to the studio.

Photos of The Day

I took these photos at the Central Park Conservatory this weekend. I can't tell you how hard I worked to get these just perfect. I've been shooting in manual mode on my Nikon more often and I love it. Manual is literally just shooting the way you would with a regular film camera if you can remember what that was like. There was no auto focus, no little red light or beeping alert telling you what to do. It gives you control over focus, light metering and depth of field. Fortunately, my Nikon give me the option to go back to a somewhat analog style of shooting. I don't have a macro lens on my camera but I thought I would play around in manual to get this somewhat macro close effect. It came out so much better than I imagined.

Can we talk about how absolutely miraculous the structure of flowers are? I was just in awe looking at these forms of life up close. There is so much going on in the world of plants that we don't know about. As insignificant as it may seem to us, our survival is dependent in many ways upon their ability to function in a balanced eco system. I now begin to understand why Stevie Wonder was moved to make a double album about them for the soundtrack of a small documentary of the same name. There really is a secret life there.

Photo of the Day

Becoming something of a study
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

I know I've missed a few. Believe me, I have more than made up for it today. God, what a beautiful day. The breeze felt great on my skin and the threatening rain clouds remained at bay.

This is yet another picture taken from my apt window with Cameramatic. This vantage point is as the title states, becoming something of study lately. What can I say? The sunset is amazing from here.

It's amazing what goes on between the clouds and the sunlight while we go about the daily routines of our lives. It's another world.

Hassleblad, come to me...

If you're not a camera nerd, you don't want none of this.

Okay, now that we're all on the same page, I was looking through someone's amazing film photos on flickr just now (as usual) and I mean amazing, like things you can't simulate with digital, breathtaking stuff and in the contact's profile she says she uses Rolieflex twin lens cameras as well as digital Nikons. This lead me to an ebay search for the camera my dad owned when I was a child and when I saw it I was knocked out with memories of playing with it when he wasn't around. A Roleiflex at that time was a pretty incredible thing for a child, because technically it was one of the first cameras that had a view finder that looked kind of like a screen. On occasion, when no one was home but my bother and I, I would go into my parents bedroom and pull out the Rolielex from where my dad kept it on the shelf. I would flip up the top and look down into it while moving around the room. It was a bit like watching a movie, that's all. Very simple, but I thought it was so cool! I would click the shutter, sure that there was no film inside, but clicked it anyway just because I loved the satisfyingly deep thunk sound it would make. I would also open it occasionally as if I was going to load film. It had all these fun clasps and latches and I just really liked figuring it out for myself, the way my dad had taught me. I didn't know squat about photography really. Roleis are just beautiful cameras. I always love seeing them.

Hassleblad

So while I looked at a ebay listing of one just now,  it occurred to me that I wasn't sure whether my dad had sold his or not so I called him and it turns out he did. I just wanted to be sure. And then I remembered his Hassleblad. The Swedish made, medium format film camera he bought while I was a teenager. That camera takes some amazing shots and takes the same film (120 format) as a Rolieflex so I took a chance and asked if he would ever let me use it. I felt sure he would back out of it jokingly, but he agreed readily that it would be fine! WHAAAT??

I sure hope he understands that by use, I mean maybe possibly borrow, babysit, kidnap for a bit. LOL!!

Obama, most popular Baby President Ever!

Ok, maybe this is showing my age or something, but now that I think about it even back in my twenties, one of the qualities I found really sexy in a man was his ability to seamlessly connected with children. Yes, I go weak at the knees when men I really love pick up kids and love on them and connect with them on their level in any way. So when I saw this clip this morning on GMA, I swear, my eyes got watery and just melted. And look at Obama's face! He knows he's got this! Oh, I need a moment.

Michelle, it's not too late to have one more! Please! So we can watch this all the time! Work on that! LOL!!!

Photo of the Day

Sunset in Harlem
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

Today's photo of the day is of the sky after the sun setting as seen from my apartment window. I used the camera app, Cameramatic which I found out about after harassing a poor young man in Italy whose acquaintance I made one morning as we were frantically dashing to download new hipstamatic lens on the FB page last year.

We were both posting that we were having problems and ended up trouble shooting together. He's a fantastic photographer, whose photos, for me, have a lot of intensity and weight. We became contacts on flickr and I also follow his work on the Instagram app. Recently he started using this filter and I nearly flipped for every photo I saw that he took using it.

I don't really know how to explain it, but this composition really makes me feel something, something sort of melancholy and nostalgic but not in a manipulated way. The simplicity of the over contrasted silhouette, grainy over processed due tones and film sprockets. It really makes me think of a simpler time i guess. Simple and familiar. I grew op in a house of photography and this is what it felt like.

Photo of the Day

Untitled
Originally uploaded by Zanalee

I've lived in Harlem for 3 years now and only today did I find the shoe repair place just a few blocks away! I am thrilled!

You can't high tech shoe repair! It's old school. It has to be. Cobblers are old school. I'm just so glad that the guy seems nice. I am so excited to go back and take pictures, you don't even know! I like his set up a lot. He's got a poster of MIles Davis to the right of the counter and this great row of shoe shine chairs. And of course that wonderful smell of shoe polish. Mmm! I love that smell.

I took my cowboy boots over there this afternoon. They've been collecting dust for over a year but are in great condition. I'm not about to let another summer so by without them. YAY!

Hard Boiled Review from 2006

I am currently reading "Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words" by Jay Rubin, a  nice dense review of Murakami's books by friend and translator, Jay Rubin which I found in Chelsea his week on a table foe seven bucks. I had exactly seven bucks on me. I had heard about this book in another book on Murakami's literary popularity entitled "A Wild Haruki Chase" compiled and translated by the Japanese Foundation. Since Murakami's latest book which is already released in Japan is not scheduled to be released until October of next year, I've been lusting after anything else I could find by or about him on and off for months. Once I start a book by Murakami, it's pretty much light out on the "real" world until I'm done. No matter what is happening (at least in most cases, I found his last novel surprisingly disappointing l and actually gave it away.) I can open a book of his and be completely submerged.

What Jay Rubin does, albeit not always successfully but as well as can be expected for someone as elusive as Murakami, is take you through his journey as a writer and through his strict disciplinary
process while trying to answer some questions about the strange way he develops characters and where his stories come from inside of him, who his greatest influences are, early and late. It's really revealed a lot more about him for me than I expected and it's thrilling finally to be able to connect some of his strangest plot devices to some logical although at times dream like sensibilities. I continue to be a huge fan.

I was updating this latest read in Goodreads when I  came across a review I wrote 5 years ago of one of his, to understate, most ambitious and eccentric novels.

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Haunting. Made me think of Radiohead's "Where I End and You Begin." Even if you've read three Murakami books by now, you're still not prepared for this! I can't even explain what this book is about. All I can say is that he does for the literary world what Michael Gondry does for movies. Somehow, as crazy as it all seems, it expresses, at least for me, the intricate workings of those who live very deeply within their own minds. Murakami's imagination crosses a traditional boundary into a whole other level of possibilities. He sometimes reminds me of Robert Cormier (The Chocolate War) who I used to love to read when I was younger because his storytelling disturbed me in a deeply provocative way. The theme of something ominous shadowing a deluded sense of safety combined with humor, sensuality, adventure, intelligence and an irreverent hope. Incidentally his characters (mainly male) always cook great food and listen to jazz. I love that.



View all my reviews

Photo Jojo Camera Phone Lenses

Fisheye, Macro, and Wide Angle Camera Phone Lenses at the Photojojo Store!



Fisheye, Macro, and Wide Angle Camera Phone Lenses at the Photojojo Store!

Oh, it's about to go down...