la vérité

options

i cant help but know and realize there is an easy way out.

i shouldn't torture myself by looking online and seeing

the thousands of jobs that are available back in new york,

that i could easily get with no worries about

legal papers and legit documentation

of who i am and where i belong.

i like my life here and i want to keep it that way

but 'shouldn't you be a little more realistic?' says my mother.

its just the december blues.

the end of a year and the start of a new one.

fire in your hand

you lie there on your stomach asleep

in the golden morning sun.

your hand is awkwardly extended

from underneath you, like a twisted

branch from a desert tree.

a large fly, black like tar,

circles your open hand in contemplation.

it is as big as a coin and the insect and I examine each other

like we had met in a previous life.

the fly twists its legs back and forth

as if he were making fire in your hand or praying.

but why would a fly pray and to whom would it pray?

if i were that fly, I would dance

in the soft cushion of your palm.

finally, you feel the sensation of him

parading in your hand like a proud king,

and you close your fingers to a tight fist and turn.

july 31, 2009

this is my jam

my morning jam with toast and a cafe con leche and maybe a cigarette

after if i'm feeling audacious

not so trivial

two months of this madness has left a permanent mark on my sanity and on my ability to remember the specific details of things that happened more than two days ago. it feels incredibly good, really. my veins feel like they are pumping fast with fresh blood and oxygen. i am experiencing an overwhelming sense of freedom and happiness throughout all aspects of my life. at times, i feel like my cigarettes accompany me through the night as if they were my only true friend but i know, that they are not. the music is loud and my heart vibrates with the beat like a revving engine. nights are dark and never long enough but full of infinite opportunities and impulsive reactions. and when the world stops spinning, you sit with your friends on dirty yellow cushions from lost couches on the cold tile floor, and the night sky starts to trade its deep blue for the ombre affect of the rising sun. the next choice must be made quickly: to lie your head softly against your waiting pillow or to go dance and embrace the new day coming?

if you could repeat one day from the last year, do you know which one it would be?

i do.

i lived for my first two months here in a small room without a view without a window but with very good company in a broken bed with a what i would call a strong 'gravitational pull' towards the middle. not much natural light or fresh air but plenty of good nights and even better mornings. its december and the sun is still shining and a coat is optional and i'm still waiting on the first winter rains that i experienced so frequently in paris, but i'll survive if i don't see them.

now, i have moved and am living in a very big apartment with low ceilings and a few friends that might be cockroaches but i have a closet big enough to hide in for the first time in maybe three years. it is cozy and there is fresh air and light from my balcony with antique wooden doors and i am not alone in my bed and there are pictures of all of you stuck to my wall in the most disorderly fashion.

the reason why!

pretty much sums up the reason why i packed my bags in paris

and set up shop in bartthhelona

shirtless and frolicky

recreating this moment is on my list of things to do.

i guess i have to wait until the summer?

either way. we all need to be naked more often.

seriously though, what's more exhilarating than

being wild and free and totally in the buff?

if you havent already you oughta do your research

on photographer ryan mcginley.

a certain somebody has promised to take me camping

and i am still still waiting waiting and

its already getting too cold outside...

i remember when i was a child,

my brothers and i set up a tent in the backyard

of my house and we all slept out there

and listened as the howling coyotes sang us to sleep,

and in the morning my mom unzipped the tent

holding three mugs of hot chocolate and a plate

full of peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

ahhhh thoseeeeeee were the days...

the middle part

we have lost the way

charlie chaplin in the great dictator (1940)

foolproof lover

lovely... from lungful.com

barcelona fall

the rain followed me from paris to barcelona but i am so happy i almost didn't notice the torrential downpour until my precious rainbow umbrella blew inside out by the strong gusts of the barcelona wind!! all my shoes have holes in them and all my socks are wet but i am wearing a big smile on my face so you'd never even know it! the bronzed golden tone that had occupied everyone's skin like a blanket this summer has faded and it is now clearly visible that the barcelona summer is really over. which is interesting to me, because my love affair with barcelona started at the high-point of summer at the end of june. so many things happened to me that first time in barcelona, and i was so sad to think after my tan from that week faded away, that the friendships, feelings, and memories i experienced would fade away with it. yet, i guess i took matters into my own hands and didn't let that happen, i came back a month later, before my tan had time to escape. i let the sun camp out on my body in my white bikini and stayed for three weeks, sleeping under the sun, next to the sea, on rooftops and in yellow rooms and it was those three weeks that made me realize i needed to pack up my paris life and bring it here. and i did. so the fact that summer is over and i actually made it here is exciting; and to see what the next seasons can offer to me here as i start my new life in spain is even more exhilarating. so i am watching the leaves dance and play from the balcony and they are turning orange like a burning flame and when the golden sun shines through them i fear they might combust like a distant star.

room 3, alicante, spain

the taste of salt

against the walls

against your rules

against your skin

all things are delicately interconnected

curry for dinner on a high-turbulence flight on september 23rd with airindia.

twenty, boulevard de menilmontant, paris france 75020.

paris fashion week; cashmere in my eyelashes and a new best friend.

sushi and splifs chez laetitia.

fancy nights at mama shelter with gabriel.

high kicks, djallebas, mushroom tea and unusual costumes on halloween.

new friends: tim lauren zela liisi andrew ryan emily

dizzy cab rides to an experimental cocktail club.

the election party for barack obama, the smiles, the tears.

being chased in montmartre with emily by the homeless helicopter man.

'put yo dick away'

crawling under paris in the catacombs to dance and sing with water up to our knees.

a snowy brunch with bloody marys and darker hair.

pornagraphic lighters and beer at stollys.

sixteen rue de reuilly, paris france 75012.

no heat, wooden bed, and a crazy landlord.

sunday smiles on rue charlot.

a christmas tree and two goldfish named maki and miso.

jekyll and hyde dresses and top hats.

the near death experience in the stairwell.

almost convinced, the difficult choice... but the right one.

thirty hour christmas lock-in:

homemade fireplace, the blue blue bathroom, vegetarian stuffing.

plastic instrument band on christmas eve in the metro.

peanut butter, foggy windows, hot coffee, hair cuts, arts and crafts.

the stolen robot.

the dance party to welcome 2009.

last minute decision: merrekech, morroco.

cheap leather, endless fresh mint sweet tea, a used packet of rolling papers.

road trip to essaouira, morocco.

a freezing night in a hotel next to the sea.

grilled goat head, amazing fried fish, missed flights.

late to french class, many attempts at the prefecture for the carte de sejour.

infinite bottles of red wine... in apartments, in parks, in metros, in streets.

mistakes at the chacha club.

roadtrip to amsterdam, cole and janet.

the impossible hunt for a halfway decent hotel room.

giving up and getting lost, finding ourselves at a coffee shop.

staying at the coffee shop.

a very paranoid drive home.

football: france vs lithuania, psg games, stands on fire.

mushroom omelette with andrew, the holy mountain by alejandro jodorowsky.

the first spring day, the first bottle of rose.

french classes over, david in paris.

best show ever, dan deacon at la villette sonique.

krinking everything everywhere.

berlin, germany with andrew and david in a big white apartment

high kicks with german boots and german roots

dancing with an indian man at fete de la musique

barcelona with camilla

plastico//apollo//ronda sant pau 1

magic green sungless

magic toothpicks

magic magic magic

an orange boat in cadaques, innocent conversations.

falling in love with barcelona.

all the received postcards and all the sent.

mischa and camilla in paris.

one hundred and two rue saint-maur, paris france 75011.

sophie's wedding, the blue dress and endless champagne.

finally animal collective live at la cigale with zela.

lonely and broke in paris.

back to barcelona.

rooftops, cheap beers, smiles, beaches, lighter hair and darker skin.

three weeks later: back to paris.

new york: lake george wedding, brooklyn, a skinned knee, five am dinner with anna

los angeles: los feliz, west hollywood, venice, the alcove, a big fire and a bucket of tears

tucson: surprises, la famille, kyle craft and rhonda el murib, laughing with abby, bloody sunsets

a long flight back to paris

twenty third birthday, back to barcelona with zela and erin

thirty bars in three days, a pirate, a room without a view, the flood, a decision.

one way ticket to barcelona october fifteenth....

there is so so so much more.

the tent

someone please tell me where i can buy this exact tent. NEED IT.

i especially love the plastic windows on the side. essential.

wicked beautiful

LOOOOOVE IT.

photographer tim walker for harpers bazaar

dance with me

this video is perfection!

so, won't you

dance with me

while im in barcelona

this weekend

celebrating

the 23rd year

of this beautiful life...!?

ashes to ashes

ok ok, i knowww i am planning to move to barcelona (for those of you who dont know yet..... well, i am planning on moving to barcelona) and i know that i am already a little nervous for how my big city new yorker slash parisian wardrobe will work over there (however, i think ill be fine.... ill find myself some hipsters) and for how the hell i will pack up my life again, but this time into just two suitcases (and even that is too much).. Am i allowed one last last last parisian splurge for these hot hot boots by ASH so i can run around in style during fashion week and my last days in paris?? aye caramba i don't a word of speak spanish but yo queiro estos zapatos.

gee, i sure use a lot of parentheses and run on sentences

le film - j'ai tué ma mère

"J'ai Tué Ma Mère" (I've Killed My Mother) is one of the most amazing and beautiful films i have seen in a very long time. It's a french-canadian film from Quebec about an gay teenage boy and his relationship with his mother. The acting by seventeen year old Xavier Dolan is seriously seriously impeccable, and what is even more astounding is the fact that he wrote the autobiographical story when he was sixteen years old, drafted a rough version of the script in three days at seventeen, directed and filmed the movie without a storyboard at eighteen, and was at the Cannes film festival receiving an eight minute standing ovation at nineteen. Everything was just so exact, the freaking perfect music, the costumes, the dialogue, there are too many specific scenes that i just can't get out of my head... and after seeing the movie I stayed up until 4am watching interviews with Xavier Dolan wanting to get inside this (gorgeous) twenty year old's head. He asked all his friends and family to invest and donate money for the film and started with 25,000, then a production house finally saw the potential and invested in the movie, and the whole thing was made for around 350,000 canadian dollars. As i am about to turn 23 it makes me feel like i really better start doing something amazing with my life asap...!

Here is the trailer for the film (which i have seriously watched 15 times) and it's in french, so if you don't speak french it will be hard to understand anything, but watch it anyway because you can still suck all the beauty and emotion out of just the trailer and hopefully soon they will translate it and release it in the United States so everyone witness the splendor of this film!!!

pick two

maybe i should work on being more loveable and/or interesting?

decide like a warrior

just when you think you are ready to leave a place, a state of mind, a town, a country, a friend, a lover, that thing that you were going to leave changes, right before your eyes, and it reminds of you all its beauty and all its simplicity and all its ridiculous reasons that made it into the thing you loved and then you still have to decide! it happens on purpose, to make you absolutely sure. am i sure??

on another note, not quite so different, my hair has decided, on its own, completely independent of myself (its owner?) and without asking questions or permissions to anyone (yes, hair can ask its questions)... to turn inself into something else than what i was planning for it to be. and i start to feel guilty that for so long i was deciding for it, what color it should be and how long it should grow, without wondering how it wanted to be, when left alone to fend for itself, (yes, my hair, kind of like an abandoned tiger cub) and i finally found out! the dark ink-stained ends of my hair were like the old roots of a tree and it was time for them to be freed of their weight and freed of their aging souls! i shall give them what they want, i will let the sun bleach them if thats the destiny the sun sees in their future! and i will cut them all off to give them the fresh start they've been beggin' for! (and if it's not, then they will grow back wild and free, like me!)

well its just that sometimes i think that i am bigger than the sound

i might need to invest in a pair of vampire teeth.

i almost forgot

i consider barcelona to be a liberating force.

johnny&melinda

this short film produced by Yves Saint Laurent directed

by Samuel Benchetrit, starring his 11 year-old son Jules

is so damn beautiful and brilliant, watch it.

ooohhhhlala, gosh i want that hat and that hair.

july has been a really tough month here...

i am ready for the next to weeks to lift my spirits a bit

and hopfully to laugh hard and laugh often!

reminding myself

in my mind

photos by neil krug

skin and bones

let us disappear and speak wild songs

The Junkman's Obbligato by Lawrence Frelinghetti:
Let’s go
Come on
Let’s go
Empty our pockets
And disappear.
Missing all our appointments
And turning up unshaven
Years later
Old cigarette papers
stuck to our pants
leaves in our hair.
Let us not
worry about the payments
anymore.
Let them come
and take it away
whatever it was
we were paying for.
And us with it.
Let us arise and go now
to where dogs do it
Over the Hill
where they keep the earthquakes
behind the city dumps
lost among gasmains and garbage.
Let us see the City Dumps
for what they are.
My country tears of thee.
Let us disappear
in automobile graveyards
and reappear years later
picking rags and newspapers
drying our drawers
on garbage fires
patches on our ass.
Do not bother
to say goodbye
to anyone.
Your missus will not miss us.
Let’s go
smelling of sterno
where the benches are filled
with discarded Bowling Green statues
in the interior dark night
of the flower bowery
our eyes watery
with the contemplation
of empty bottles of muscatel.
Let us recite from broken bibles
on streetcorners
Follow dogs on docks
Speak wild songs
Throw stones
Say anything
Blink at the sun and scratch
and stumble into silence
Diddle in doorways
Know whores thirdhand
after everyone else is finished
Stagger befuddled into East River sunsets
Sleep in phone booths
Puke in pawnshops
wailing for a winter overcoat.
Let us arise and go now
under the city
where ashcans roll
and reappear in putrid clothes
as the uncrowned underground kings
of subway men’s rooms.
Let us feed the pigeons
at the City Hall
urging them to do their duty
in the Mayor’s office.
Hurry up please it’s time.
The end is coming.
Flash floods
Disasters in the sun
Dogs unleashed
Sister in the street
her brassiere backwards.
Let us arise and go now
into the interior dark night
of the soul’s still bowery
and find ourselves anew
where subways stall and wait
under the River.
Cross over
into full puzzlement.
South Ferry will not run forever.
They are cutting out the Bay ferries
but it is still not too late
to get lost in Oakland.
Washington has not yet toppled
from his horse.
There is still time to goose him
and go
leaving our income tax form behind
and our waterproof wristwatch with it
staggering blind after alleycats
under Brooklyn’s Bridge
blown statues in baggy pants
our tincan cries and garbage voices
trailing.
Junk for sale!
Let’s cut it out let’s go
into the real interior of the country
where hockshops reign
mere unblind anarchy upon us.
The end is here
but golf goes on at Burning Tree.
It’s raining it’s pouring
The Ole Man is snoring.
Another flood is coming
though not the kind you think.
There is still time to sink
and think.
I wish to descend in society.
I wish to make like free.
Swing low sweet chariot.
Let us not wait for the cadillacs
to carry us triumphant
into the interior
waving at the natives
like roman senators in the provinces
wearing poet’s laurels
on lighted brows.
Let us not wait for the write-up
on page one
of the New York Times Book review
images of insane success
smiling from the photo.
By the time they print your picture
in Life Magazine
you will have become a negative anyway
a print with a glossy finish.
They will have come and gotten you
to be famous
and you still will not be free.
Goodbye I’m going.
I’m selling everything
and giving away the rest
to the Good Will Industries.
It will be dark out there
with the Salvation Army Band.
And the mind its own illumination.
Goodbye I’m walking out on the whole scene.
Close down the joint.
The system is all loused up.
Rome was never like this.
I’m tired of waiting for Godot.
I am going where turtles win
I am going
where conmen puke and die
Down the sad esplanades
of the official world.
Junk for sale!
My country tears of thee.
Let us go then you and I
leaving our neckties behind on lampposts
Take up the full beard
of walking anarchy
looking like Walt Whitman
a homemade bomb in the pocket.
I wish to descend in the social scale.
High society is low society.
I am a social climber
climbing downward
And the descent is difficult.
The Upper Middle Class Ideal
is for the birds
but the birds have no use for it
having their own kind of pecking order
based upon birdsong.
Pigeons on the grass alas.
Let us arise and go now
to the Isle of Manisfree.
Let loose the hogs of peace.
Hurry up please it’s time.
Let us arise and go now
into the interior
of Foster’s Cafeteria.
So long Emily Post.
So long
Lowell Thomas.
Goodbye Broadway.
Goodbye Herald Square.
Turn it off.
Confound the system.
Cancel our leases.
Lose the War
without killing anybody.
Let horses scream
and ladies run
to flushless powderrooms.
The end has just begun.
I want to announce it.
Run don’t walk
to the nearest exit.
The real earthquake is coming.
I can feel the building shake.
I am the refined type.
I cannot stand it.
I am going
where asses lie down
with customs collectors who call themselves
literary critics.
My tool is dusty.
My body is hung up too long
in strange suspenders.
Get me a bright bandana
for a jockstrap.
Turn loose and we’ll be off
where sports cars collapse
and the world begins again.
Hurry up please it’s time.
It’s time and a half
and there’s the rub.
The thinkpad makes homeboys of us all.
Let us cut out
into stray eternity.
Somewhere the fields are full of larks.
Somewhere the land is swinging.
My country ‘tis of thee
I’m singing.
Let us arise and go now
to the Isle of Manisfree
and live the true blue simple life
of wisdom and wonderment
where all things grow
straight up
aslant and singing
in the yellow sun
poppies out of cowpods
thinking angels out of turds.
I must arise and go now
to the Isle of Manisfree
way up behind the broken words
and woods of Arcady.