29 November 2005
    

Two guys heave old shingles off Blessed Heart of Christians church in the East Village.
Rives is the mockingbird poet
Longtime shopliftwindchimes.com readers may recall a photo (reprinted below) with the caption “Oscar and Roberto heave a load of old shingles off El Sermon Del Monte church in Santa Monica” from the February 9 entry for this blog.
poet Rives has the mockingbird poem
Am I now the country’s leading, bi-coastal chronicler of workmen heaving old shingles off the roofs of churches? Well, if I am, it would be the realization of a childhood dream.



23 November 2005
    

The Macy’s Parade Balloon Blow-Up


Featuring: Charlie Brown, SpongeBob SquarePants, Frosty the Snowman, Big Bird, Chicken Little, Pikachu, Scooby Doo, Garfield, and Barney.



15 November 2005
     A few readers (and power-Googlers, I suspect) have written in for more information about The Eyes of Don Bachardy, currently being shown at the AFI Festival in Los Angeles. The film is a short documentary featuring (intense) artist Don Bachardy painting a portrait of…me.

I always liked sitting for Bachardy because he wouldn’t say a word to me for six hours or seven hours while he was working, but afterwards he warmly showed me old portraits of Allen Ginsberg or James Merrill or Marianne Moore even. And—Christopher Isherwood, whom Bachardy painted on his deathbed. While Isherwood was dead.

Bachardy also has a private art collection made up of knickknacks he’s traded with other artists, which is why the bitchin little painting over the sink, if you ask, turns out to be by David Hockney maybe, and the bitchin little sculpture on the coffee table, if you ask, turns out to be by Frank Stella maybe, and I could never manage to pretend that I didn’t find his vivid, name-dropping rooms just thoroughly fucking cool.

Of all the times I sat for him, I think he liked the session that ended up in “The Eyes of Don Bachardy” least. He felt he had to paint “big” for the camera, and the camera itself seemed to throw off his absurdly stop-action gaze. Me, I didn’t like the session too much either because my eyes kept watering. It’s hard to stay unmoving and focused for 100-plus minutes while the setting sun sends strong glints off the Pacific Ocean and off its dolphins, directly into your documented face.



14 November 2005
    
AND LOLA?
WHAT ABOUT LOLA?

It'd been years since I'd seen her, and even longer since she picked me out of the crowd at the cabaret.

What did Lola have to do with all this mess? And did she expect me to get her out of it?




Model and photo by Natalie Park


07 November 2005
    
GUY ON THE CORNER?
RUNS THE NEWSSTAND?

He ain’t talking.


03 November 2005
    
THE VICTIM’S MOTHER:

“He was all I had.”


02 November 2005
    
SURVEILLANCE CAMERA:

We figure this is the guy
who did it to him.


01 November 2005
    
- - Word of the Week - -

staphyline

Pronounced: “STA fih line”

Resembling the shape of a bunch of grapes