Saturday Night's All Right for Fighting

The delay on my camera phone made me miss the best shots.

 It was actually late afternoon.  I was at a free punk rock show in Tompkins Square Park (to commemorate the '80s era TSP riots) and some of the street kids turned the ersatz (so much of my life needs this word) "mosh pit" into a boxing/wrestling ring.  Some blood was shed.  Some guy had a seizure, although I don't know if it was related to what happened in front of the stage.  Police finally showed, but long after the fighting was over.  Still, the emotional fall-out from it could be felt no matter what bench you occupied.

Does photographing this so impassively mean I'm old and jaded?

The band played fun, melodic punk rock with nary a negative vibe detected.  So the fighting was completely incongruous.  And really, isn't fighting always incongruous?  Something must have been brewing all day.  Or two many . . . er, brews had been consumed.  It's summer, right?  Still, while things felt like they might get really out of hand for a minute or two, I had a lot of fun photographing the melee.  I like catching odd configurations of bodies.  And I always regret I owned no camera when I was attending all those Utah hardcore shows in the '80s.  

Damn Kids, who seemed a tad shocked they unwittingly stirred things up to such a degree.

So, I guess the point of all of this, is that I'm feeling pretty creative lately.  And I don't know if it's due to the Artist's Way, and/or the fact I just turned another year older (and feel like I'm running out of time).

I still experience jealousy over the successes of others, especially people who are doing the same damn thing I am.  But I'm trying to get over it.  

Two of the people assembled here are members of my immediate family, but when it comes right down to it, don't I love everyone in Tompkins Square Park?

Punx Win!

I have no idea where I'm going with this post tonight except that I do love the photo that opens it.  I spotted the graffiti in my neighborhood last Sunday afternoon, and had to take it home with me.  The phrase makes me happy on many levels.  It's fun to say--with your fist raised over your head, especially--and it has a solid, yet exhilarating retro feel.  It plays rights into my Gen X sensibilities.  After all, punx should win, and always do in my imagination.

After work, I met, for lunch, an old friend who works at Random House, where I love going, not only for my friend, but for the lobby.   I've posted a photo of their auspicious lobby below.  There is a matching bookcase on the other side of the lobby, and the books on the shelves are all RH books (BOOKS, you punx!) arranged chronologically by date of publication.  I did snap a first edition of Invisible Man before I left for the day.  Those books (plus the lighting) make the lobby seem like a temple.  The downside is is that the books are for display only:  museum pieces behind glass.  But still.  Punx win!

Didn't you find Lara's post so inspiring today?  After reading, I put lit candles on my dinner table, turned up the music.  Didn't you?  And while I wore no tights of note, I've been wanting to transcribe a beautiful tights' passage from Dana Spiotta's first novel, Lightning Field (Scribner 2001), which I read this past fall:  

"Mina bought cashmere tights, guaranteed to let you wear skirts through the most frigid days of winter. They were the most expensive hose in the store .  .  .  .  She had to admit the Viennese 70 denier strumpfhose in Pearled Cracked Cement, part of the Urban Disaster collection, tempted her, as well as the Semi-Sheer Velvet Finish Tights in Bruise and Blood Ultra Ultra Red . . . . But these couldn't match the feel--the promise, really--of the Cashmere Pure-Luxury, woven with the tiniest bit of nylon and Lycra (to make the cashmere cling and not bunch, barely detectable, a soft breath, a whisper on the skin).  When she spotted the last pair in medium, in the sort of oatmeal cream that would make her feel October and Ivy League, coed an coquettish, or at least like a sort of wrapped Xmas treat, all warm and inviting to the touch, she said, yes, knowing, in a sinking way, it was obscene" (78).  

Now do you see why tights are just as important as books.  The Punx in the audience will understand.