The Billiken's Bluff

With a camera, looking forward and back.



Trying to create something. A record for posterity.

Guileless, hopefully.



and completely forthcoming (for the most part)



or sad



or sadder



menacing, piercing, Clint Eastwood stone cold-stare, eyes marbled with cataracts, without tumbleweed on a washed-out street in central Mumbai, which is all just to say - unforgiven



or a redundant

duck



duck



duck



goose



window into a world



various hats



or something perfect you want to dry



or something good for a little chuckle,



or juxtaposed, disparate, too good to be believed combined in a single frame and you won't believe this



or this



but enough about the past onward, upward.

Greater_than_Great!

through a jacket sleeve (mine or yours) trying to stealthy capture some sorry looking man with a humorous hat on the E train.



Fat dog with his own little piece of area rug, parked at a street meter. happy as a clam, content as a fat cat or a mule with his 40 acres.





in a fish tank, real art on display. Bubble-eyed fish



missing one, cyclopes.



Inbred is the artists explanation (calling to mind multi-national firms dumping caustic chemicals into the Hudson, killing cod fish, 3-eyed fish spawned),



I question this artist (who is there for questioning at this New Yorker Passport to the Art Galleries of Chelsea - Tour for the benefit of the Hi-Line Restoration) it seems there might be a bit of artifice, creating artful mutations (with a Swiss army) rather than seeking them out and documenting them in the democratic way.

it ain't no fun (if my homies can't have none) that way.



is it in an umbrella?



opened in doors bad luck, is it art, is it raining outside, at what point can't you separate the two, the three?



is it stylistic? ignoring capitalization and strunk and white as a stand against something establishment corporate conglomerate publishing houses art galleries that sell out rap music that sells out?





no page #'s or table of contents in this collection of poetry - the result of which was - I read two pages of table of contents before realizing that the collection of titles (not capitalized or denoted) was not, in fact, the first poem in the collection (I promised a review, and delivered). this speaks volumes to my reading comprehension skills of late and a well-executed slight of hand, for sure, although I'm unclear where it gets US.







turning the camera back at me





weird or eclectic, obscure or just made up? does the random lyric I insert as title to a post mean anything at all "The Sound of God is the Screech of Tires ?" or does it become blurred beyond recognition?



the ol' blank canvas on the wall trick. pause, observe, obscure, pretend you are considering it, hand on chin deep in thought



if you and I are ever in an art gallery and we fail to exchange knowing glances and smirk and laugh and make fun of this blank canvas posing as art, then I don't believe you and I will be fast friends





because when I see this type of art I want to immediately drop my gallery brochure and do the Irish jig or jump up and down screaming and pointing like a chimpanzee throwing banana peels at the walls or passers-by, or bring a polar bear into the exhibit and seat him in front of the blank canvas and watch as he lays down on the floor and rolling over due to his complete inability to stay awake while viewing plain white canvas on a white wall, which reminds this polar bear of planes of white snow, repetition, home, sleep, non-distinction and millions of snow flakes each so nearly identical so as to not warrant occupying exhibit space



wake the artist and all those concentrating on decoding and interpreting out of their monochrome/monotone stupors.



I feel like I'm showing my hand a bit too much, right? This type of rant is too easy but I'm having fun.




Come on, smile like you mean it!



Is that an ascot, neck brace, and popped-collar? That is just straight snidely. Well played.

Where were we - pictures, art, smiles.

on construction site fencing



Or playing instruments more suited for an orchestra pit at Carnegie Hall than in front of a barbed wire fence in Brooklyn



Traffic cones misplaced, anachronistically on a Doric column on Houston St. contributing to my aesthetic.





Art again life-sized viewed upright viewing you and your friends. Right back at ya, kiddo, art that you can conversate with cheese, crackers and merlot, art that looks festive in a Eyes Wide Shut Venice Mardi Gras Mask Saw II life-sized puppets horror movie maybe



way





Yes a bunch of pictures from an art gallery tour I went on and the streets of New York, coming and going - but what I really want to know is are these pictures and words only yours (Whose world is this? The world is yours, the world is yours It's mine, it's mine, it's mine) if you create something truly original. Draw, paint, sculpt, write a poem in a black hole vacuum with nothing coming in or going out. No references or influences. Pre-Post-Modern. Or is it more along the lines of name it and claim it.



Found art, funny pictures photographed or google imaged and paired with music lyrics or news references light in gravity (heavy in levity), high and low, or even stealing from yourself



borrowing old short stories, pictures, the same songs since I was thirteen. All recycled, reshuffled, and removed from context, gloriously



I really just want a vehicle to house e pictures I take. Ha



So if there is interest, discuss these attempts at art - mine and others - otherwise shower me with rose petals for a job cleverly done.