palm sunday in florence

they use olive branches rather than palm fronds.

a sexier darkroom than vickychristinabarcelona's.

black & white photography with simone bacci: lessons learned

the only fault of a photo is that you miss the moment you are capturing when the shutter closes.

even though the sound of it is like all things falling through chaos and landing perfectly in order.

photos in florence are interesting because they have to be the thing that changes, since everything else here always stays the same. it assists in the irony of discovering a place you do not know.

i am envious at light for the clarity with which it speaks to paper. i would like to be able to communicate what is there with as much accuracy as the sun can through an image.

taking photos is taking decisions.

film slows you down. its not a bad thing. and it only asks one thing of you, to be exposed to the right amount of light.

it is not something that makes you think, but react. react using other parts of your being without your rational mind. your photos are a way people can know you.

you will discover something that you own but maybe do not know. maybe you are scared of how wide you are. just because you have to find it with a certain frame of mind does not mean its unnatural.

train yourself when you feel, to grasp the feeling. you can't know how to print the image if you don't know how you felt when you captured it. we are more sensitive than the film we expose.

shooting landscape is hard because there is land, a line, then sky. begin with land so you can understand only that. then move on to sky.

looking at a person and asking them for a photo puts a soul into their eyes.

pretend the only way you can talk is through your picture.

"having dark room for me, like having right arm. without it, i die" -simone.

shoot all the time. rolls and rolls.

its like reading poetry over and over until you finally begin to pronounce the words right.

my midterm grade: "make more room for photo shooting. concentrate on finding. practice a lot. be prolific."

each place i go i fall in love with something.

then i get home and fall in love again.

it never takes a break.

i thought loving should have to last forever,

but it doesn't!

it might be best when it exists in the moment it stood for

and nothing else. it might be best if it exists where it lived.

in florence, it's the light.

the most beautiful word in gaelic:

slainte! (cheers!)

ireland's gift to the world is the pub.

where a beer should be like a meal, a pint of guinness should be had in 3 gulps and bulmers enjoyed on ice. we ate roasted chicken and potatoes straight from the county clare farms of shane and mervin, abby's friends from university college corcaigh. we met a college soccer team from letterfrack celebrating their championship win and drank murphy's stout straight out of their trophy cup, singing "whiskey in the jar" and dancing to spoons, fiddles and beer in taffee's pub, galway. (and we decided that falling off the cliffs of moher wouldn't really be all that bad).

good people, good music, and good beer. perfectly simply. especially the people. i am going to name my first child flannery, because it's a beautiful name.

if you play the part of the place you go

eventually it will not be an act anymore.

i found a lambswool tam in galway to wear

and there were kisses on the cheek more times than i can count.

ireland is candidly simplistic, raggedly beautiful

and celebratory of everything.

i crave a heritage like this. how ireland assigns you to find it. i crave a land to pay homage to. i want the ground beneath my feet to speak stronger words than i can speak for myself. i want space only filled with grass and limestone pourous enough to absorb more than my brain can absorb.

the fire that stirs about her, when she stirs. -w.b. yeats (ireland, 1920's)

Florence my life partner, Venice my love affair.

carnevale, an homage to the world. farewell to meat, exploitation and love of life’s luxes. barons and cash money millionaires of 1500’s venice called their city to don masks, that venetians may make love to any person of any class without consequence. equally good, equally bad, equally coveting the same thing. human fun and folly. let the tradition ever continue, cin cin! Auguri! (happy everything).

a celebration of colour, sex, disguise, mischief and dreams. WORLD-ON-ECSTASY celebration. while mozart’s wife, a family of tigers and leonardo davinci are dancing in san marco, countless casanovas wander windy streets silently with their busty louvers on their arms, gliding like ghosts. moderation in moderation. inherent sin and show-off grandeur.

arabian facades and untamed decrepitness refer truthfully to shakespeare and his cohorts that wrote of the trickery in the old stones. venice, designer of the rich and famous- who now lets everyone join. you can ride its universe RIGHT at the moment it moves through your bones. but you may forget everything you know about europe as you see the head of the grand canale welcoming infinity and its clouds into the city.

venetian home doorways open to canal waterways. what if you have no boat? how deep will you fall? i love water because it terrifies me just as well. nowhere to start or finish, getting lost on the island is impossible and inherent. there is no time to be serious when your city is drowning. old-as-time-and-in-costume signores stumble out of morningtime belini bars. ask the polizia for laws on drinking in public, they will kindly show you to the market to buy a vino rosso.

venice is everything at the same time.

senses aligned, so exponentially heightened-

that they have disappeared like people’s faces

filling dreams and nightmares.

like a one-night-love-affair with casanova- his city gives the dazzling attraction of the lump sum over what is more regularly doled out in a lifetime of installments.

under the procuratie nuove in piazza san marco (marble arches, iron and orb lights) you will find the triumph of venice, the Florian Caffe of 1720, where men of letter and of art convene over earl grey and tartuffe. lord byron, and goethe himself as patrons. us proletariats become kings by sitting in the state tea room with menthe linen walls and hand carved darkwood marble tables, and our own silver tray of treats. visit and wear your fanciest velvet and fur. put on your best face-of-a-poetry-ambassador even if wine has made it smile like a clown all day. preserve venezia just as the romantics lived it, and intended for us to as well.

in venice, be a fortune hunter.

cover you eyes if you want to,

because there is everything else to do but see.

and there is everything to see.

casanova, king of italy.

cultivating whatever gave pleasure to my senses was always the chief business of my life, i never found any occupation more important. feeling that i was born for the opposite sex of mine, i have always loved it and done all i could to make myself loved by it. giacomo casanova, venice 1780

pencil drawings of marble sculptures: unidentified woman; Slaves by Michaelangelo; Galleria Dell'Accademia, Firenze (because the accademia is my next-door neighbor)

the antique gold elephant

is the best piece of gold i found ponte vecchio window shopping.

waffle, nutella, and panna alltogetherlikebutta in hand.

new red lipstick!

and a whiter shade of pale.

love letters-

words of love implied, not boldly proclaimed.

samples of the perfumery's musk scents for my bedside table.

vino rosso for breakfast, photos of louvers for lunch.

drawing David's ass.

(the best valentines day there was)

happy valentine's day.

what feels good, is good.

tell me what makes you drunk right now.

Il faut être toujours ivre, tout est là ; c'est l'unique question. Pour ne pas sentir l'horrible fardeau du temps qui brise vos épaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans trêve.

Mais de quoi? De vin, de poésie, ou de vertu à votre guise, mais enivrez-vous!

Et si quelquefois, sur les marches d'un palais, sur l'herbe verte d'un fossé, vous vous réveillez, l'ivresse déjà diminuée ou disparue, demandez au vent, à la vague, à l'étoile, à l'oiseau, à l'horloge; à tout ce qui fuit, à tout ce qui gémit, à tout ce qui roule, à tout ce qui chante, à tout ce qui parle, demandez quelle heure il est. Et le vent, la vague, l'étoile, l'oiseau, l'horloge, vous répondront, il est l'heure de s'enivrer ; pour ne pas être les esclaves martyrisés du temps, enivrez-vous, enivrez-vous sans cesse de vin, de poésie, de vertu, à votre guise.

"You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."

Charles Baudelaire

i do not speak or pronounce a lick of french. nor do i like french fries. (though french kissing is perfect). but these french words make me drunk right now.