A NY Minute and Other Stories

Two week ago before Karyn left for New Orleans with the Armband we went to Justin's opening in Manhattan - it was actually a good trip to NYC for me, but mostly because I got to walk around by myself for a while and later got to catch up with old friends Dan Hall and Andy in their neighborhood in Brooklyn.

I took this picture while waiting for the art opening to wind down. I was in a Starbucks on Canal in Chinatown, doing what coffee shops were invented for: watching the world go by and thinking.
I was thinking that it was hard existing without a way to record the world around me. The camera and cell phone are great ways to document, and sometimes that's all I want to do: Document. The beauty with constant documentation is that you can later put it in a context that changes perspective. I guess I've always been drawn to archiving in that sense. It also helps me from feeling useless or pointless - capturing and stopping time help create the illusion that there is some kind of meaning to my actions, or at least a greater motive. I spend so much time in silence and escaping people's companionship that my solace (if that word is appropriate) is in capturing and freezing time; even that of other people.

But I'd find more joy in it if I did in fact use it later. This past weekend has taught me an old lesson, that without living, you can't make things. I sat at home, hoping to make, but I haven't been living and with people, so my making was rather limited. I am moving forward and I'm excited, but the expectation that I'd just make some great shit over the weekend because I had some time to myself was misguided.

There is another picture I liked from the trip to NYC. I like the napkin above because if viewed in it's actual size (click on it) you can see the little pores in the paper and you can almost touch and feel the texture of that room. I like what my laptop does to the pictures i take - I often feel the digital images we take with that tank of an HP camera are best viewed on my laptop's screen. They often don't translate to paper pictures that well. But what is there for me to do with these pictures? I am thinking that "Into The Ground" is going to be my first real solo record - even though it's only 3 songs strong right now, but I want to go all out with the packaging and presentation. It's important to me, and I think it's worth doing...