postcards (adios, for now)

last summer, on the occasion of my birthday, my sister, my friend z, and i took a train north for my first ever visit to dia: beacon.
it was a drizzly, green day.



there are wonderful works on view there--my favorites, by fred sandback, robert smithson, richard serra, and michael heizer are part of the "long-term" collection.

there was also an installation by zoe leonard, "you see i am here after all," a collection of some four thousand vintage postcards of niagara falls that essentially chronicles "our" sense of that natural wonder over the course of the last hundred or so years. the postcards are "evidence" but also a vehicle for perpetuating its iconic, mythic, cliched status. you can read more here, if you'd like...

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the most charming part of the exhibit (for me) were the actual messages on the cards:

hello! i wonder what you are doing tonight.
lovingly, nellie

i come on the afternoon train.
anna

please let me know if you have any turkey eggs for me and how many.
truly, jennie hammer

will return wednesday evening, will look like a boiled lobster.
sincerely,
elizabeth

annie skillens and i are together. a very enjoyable journey. no accidents.
l. pearl

great. but everybody are robbers. they would steal the pennies, etc.
"dutch"

i saved more messages (but alas, they are long gone, with my old phone).

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the postcard has always been one of my favorite collectibles--whether i'm traveling, or visiting a museum, or just browsing at shop here in the city. i buy multiples of cards i like-- one clean card for me to keep, other clean cards to share with my sister or my cousin jojo, and still others to send...

sometimes my best intentions to write and send them, especially when i'm traveling, go unrealized. time and days get away from me. maybe i spend too much time trying to craft a thoughtful and "perfectly" worded message. and, sometimes if i actually write them, i'll forget the stamp or better yet, not be able to find a mailbox! so the cards come home with me. there have been a few times, feeling totally inept and defeated, i have just kept them or tossed them away...

but i'm resolving with this trip to buenos aires, to write and send, write and send, because postcards can really be perfect expressions of sentiment--brief, heartfelt, unexpected--and i would argue just as nice to write as to receive. with so many opportunities (facebook, twitter, IM) to say what's on the mind, always something so clever and funny and smart, it seems the most novel thing to say would be an honest i'm thinking of you. i miss you. i wish you were here. or something like that.

we'll see how i do...

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as always, thanks for visiting the blog. i'll be back in a week or so, with new tango shoes and hopefully a few good photos to share.
in the meantime, check out the work of the people i adore, permalinked on the sidebar, but especially:
sheena925...see her latest, lovely creation
jojo aguilar...finally--new drawings up this month
film snobs...shutter island review!
jess hullett (she's got something yummy for you for st. patrick's day. check it out on phoebetv--new episode on monday. maybe tuesday... haa)
and
my maximum favorite writer, steve tignor, blogging brilliantly from the bnp paribas open in indian wells. the tournament actually became one of my favorites because of the way he's written about it--always so keen, so fun. i was almost sorry that i planned this trip during such an amazing tennis week (i might try to catch a little of it while i'm away) but the blog will make it seem like i'm not missing a beat (or ball). i have come to rely on his eyes and ears and mind and heart (yes, i said heart. you can't be a great writer without that) to enlighten me and enliven the world around the sport i love, other things too. and i've never been let down.

be well, and enjoy the week.

see a fine picture: lovely and guapo

two of my favorite people: lovely t and rafa in barcelona ....

my friends, they are so thoughtful.

lovely teresa and husband rich (aka film snobs) took a jaunt over to barcelona.

they took this for me.

LOVE!

(and thanks!)

best pictures...

"i think you should date miss yum yum"

before meeting with the oscar party club yesterday for brunch at the smith, i sat on the no. 6 train and quickly filled out my "official" oscar ballot. i would have done just as well to tack the thing to my wall and toss darts (and i am pretty terrible dart player). i'd only seen three of the nominated films (slumdog, benji button, and the changeling), and my favorite film from last year, gran torino, was shut out by the academy entirely. i had a little word-of-mouth to go on, but it wasn't going to serve me well enough. the other oscar party members had seen nearly everything, and whatever they hadn't seen (maybe only the animated shorts?) they did their homework on.

i couldn't bring much to the brunch conversation, except a few shrugs, some laughs. during one discussion of glaring academy omissions and snubs (benicio del toro for che--part 1, was a big one) teresa said, "and, bruce springsteen for the wrestler..." and i said, "WHAT?! bruce springsteen was in the wrestler?!!" HA! i thought maybe bruce was going the way of tom waits? wrong, wrong, wrong. i am surprised they didn't boot my ass from the table. (ah, that's what i love about the oscar party members--they are very keen on and about film, but they don't close off the circle if you haven't quite kept up. i always leave their company wanting to know and see more...)

i had actually thought about skipping yesterday's oscar telecast since i hadn't felt invested in any of the outcomes. but after our brunch together, i had all of this intel--stories about danny boyle, sean penn, mickey rourke, and melissa leo. all of a sudden, i cared.

(wasn't it entertaining, as award shows go? i loved high jackman's opening bit, especially when he'd laugh during the songs. i despise lip-syncing in part because that it ruins any hope for a great honest moment--i love when performers allow themselves to have fun. i mean, what would águas de março be without elis regina's laugh? [here, at around 2:40]. anyway, sure, parts of jackman's performance were totally cheese. but who can't use a little of that on a sunday night in february? he and anne hathaway had me giggling out loud. and i'm a little in love with james franco. his laugh just might get me through this interminable winter. i hope someone throws that short film bit on youtube soon. )

after the long good night, the oscar party club results were tallied, i fared the worst of our group (congrats, anthony!). oh, i knew i was saying goodbye to that $10 dollars the minute i handed it over with my ballot, but i feel fine about the loss. between their company, and all the films they've inspired me to see, i still feel like i came out ahead.

*****
i used to spend a fair amount of time watching movies. i still watch a lot of films on tcm, but i'm not as avid a DVD watcher as i was back in the days before netflix. call it a phase...

there was a time, if you lived in the far west village, before rents went high as the sky, you had at least three pretty great options for movie rentals, rko video (which became good restaurant), mrs. hudson's video library (which survived a flood, only to close about a year later) and kim's video (whose entire archive now lives in sicily!). my lone, loud lament about the neighborhood was that by the time i left, i couldn't rent a damn video anywhere, but i could take my dog (if i had one) to any one of three doggie hotels and spas that had opened.
it was a west village evolution that did not suit me.

netflix is a nice convenience, but it sucks the romance out of the whole affair for me. half the fun is going to the store with something in mind that you're dying to see that night--and a lot of great discoveries result when what you want isn't available. you're forced to pace around, poke around, and negotiate your plan b with your friend/friends.

i miss that.

but if i'm going to fall back in love with the movies (and make progress on this "film addicts" list, passed along from the oscar club members), i guess i'll just have kiss my romantic notions (of the dvd storefront, at least) good-bye.

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if you want fun, reliable recommendations, visit (OC club founders) teresa and richard's blog, film snobs.

AND: look for richard--a very fine stage and screen actor--in this summer's blockbuster, public enemies. depp, bale, marion cotillard and richard short--remember his name. big things are on the horizon.

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one final note about gran torino. when teresa came to work raving about it last fall, i thought she was referring to some throwback eastwood film from the early 70s! i knew nothing of it. without her ardour for it (and clint), i might have waited until its dvd release, or possibly skipped it altogether.

while the acting wasn't top-notch, and i hope to never hear those slurs outside of the theater (which didn't prevent me from laughing out loud at the ridiculousness, the audacity, and out and out "wrongness" of them), i left the theater knowing that gran torino would be my "best picture" for 2008.

yes--slumdog was a fantastic tale of love. i liked what it had to say about how people acquire knowledge and wisdom, and how morality and character develop. and it certainly was energetic and uplifting. but i don't know that there's been a film that has presented more fully the complexities of the asian immigrant and asian-american experience--or for that matter, even tried--until gran torino. it is so much more than a film about racism, revenge and gang-violence-- it broaches issues that i could only begin to meaningfully consider through academic study... and there was so much sad truth in how intolerance and racist attitudes are formed...how the road to true understanding can be, at times, treacherous, brutal.

but gran torino is also, at its core, optimistic--it bears the hope that we can each encounter a soul who can see past our fear and withstand our craziness, whose openness allows us see and understand things in a way we hadn't before. that's what "sue" was to that old walt kowalski. seems to me that makes it, in its own way, a story about love.