Ode to NYC

I'm back from New York and getting used to the streets of L.A. again, but I'm still in the city in some way, still in the grip of tulip mania, thinking about the colors, variations, multitudes, which are hard to get out of my head. Here's my ode to the city, and my gratitude for being there this spring!


After nine eleven
the ballrooms lay empty,
the streets slick with tears
Sideway glances/suspicious stares



   (street art across from B.A.M.)

But the city, now, this spring, 
this year,
is full of tulips
Tulips, tulips

everywhere!     

A kind of 
Tulip mania (without an effect on prices*) 
Someone— was it Bloomberg?—
planted tulips
from Battery Park to Morningside
from west side
to east side,
     
in rows, in lots, in tiny garden boxes 
And in one bright moment,
they all popped! 
You could hear the sounds of
cameras clicking, tourists gasping, petals dropping



Multitudes of tulips 
(and the High Line)
expunged the past
They, not Liberty Street, beckoned us
(but be forewarned, if you go on the High Line, it's hard to walk!)
Oh, NYC,
this spring, how you celebrate yourself!
     

* Tulip mania, the first recorded speculative bubble, when the market for bulbs went haywire and then collapsed. 

~~~~ 

And a new Rat's Nest Comic, straight off the presses!

 

Tulip City

It's spring in NY and nothing could be finer!

 

Tulip sniffing at Barrow St. Gardens,

at St. Luke's in the Field

(Tulips in this post spotted on the High Line, in Chelsea, West Village and St. Luke's, but they're everywhere!)

••••••

And Readers, please take a look at the new Rat's Nest comic, done a few days ago, before coming to New York: ratsnestcomics.blogspot.com

Faded pictures

I started this blog to somehow cope with my empty nest, but despite my attempts, the facts remain: you raise your kids, they go away, their youth stretches out in direct proportion to you getting older, and just as you find solace with your creative life, you're back to facing the same old demons, whatever they may be. Good thing no one tells you this at the beginning. Maybe that's what my mother was trying to say when she said, so forthrightly (and she wasn't always so forthright), if given a choice she might not have had kids.

I thought about this all weekend, just to match the mood of the cold and rainy, gray and overcast days, and then as i was rummaging through the fridge this morning, I noticed them— faded, partially hidden pictures, pinned on the door by magnets, of past trips, of past happinesses, faded and almost gone. But not gone, like a memory lodged inside the brain. So, not empty either, when you get right down to it.

 Joshua Tree

 Mekko and Ben

In London on Abbey Road with the kids

Along the Arroyo

There's a perfect little spot off Via Marisol in Highland Park, called Hermon Park, not more than ten minutes from my house, with lush lawns, a busy dog park, tennis courts and Art in the Park, home of the Lalo Guerrero School of music, run by the formidable Berta Sosa, a Mt. Washington neighbor. But best of all, and something I just discovered, is a way down into the Arroyo Seco, and onto the bike path. 

(You can't access the bike path at the pedestrian bridge, as Wikipedia claims, but further north, adjacent to the dog park. Watch out, sharp curve here!)

The Arroyo Seco is a stream that starts in the Angeles National Forest, makes its way down the mountain into La Canada Flintridge and Altadena, flowing underneath the Foothill Bridge, under the Colorado Bridge, then into a concrete flood control channel along the Pasadena Freeway, flowing southeast of Mt. Washington, past Hermon, Highland Park, Montecito Heights, Cypress Park, and ending at the LA River, near Elysian Park.

Whew. That's a busy stream, for such a meager trickle once it reaches L.A. But because it runs inside this wide, concrete channel, making the stream seem even more meager, there's plenty of room for biking.

The concrete walls are gray and ugly, but the ride itself is not, as you take the graceful curves and experience another world along the Arroyo. The other day, I rode past Montecito Heights, past my own exit, off the 110 freeway, then turned around and headed north for a mile or so, emerging near the San Pascual Stables in South Pasadena. 

Along the way I kept noticing chipped off indentations in the concrete banks, things that I'd otherwise not notice, save for the fact I'd just read cartoonist Lynda Barry's Picture This, a hard-to-describe illustrated book about the creative mind. She finds images in ink spots and stains on paper (Saul Steinberg found them in fingerprints!), augmenting them just a hair to make a monkey or a buffalo or any kind of  demented animal. And here they were in the Arroyo, chips that were life size, gouges formed by wind or water, or, perhaps, weak construction. 
 
I noticed this one in particular:

What does this look like to you?

A few days later, when it was almost dark, I came back with my partner in crime, Molly. We painted in the indentations:

  

Then I went to work stenciling what I had imagined: 

Africa and the island of Tazarat, Land of the Giant Rat!

(click to make larger)

It got darker and darker and I kept adding more rats, until it became a heavy migration. I'll call this one an experiment, not yet done. Of course there's no Tazarat, except in my mind, and on the digital pages titled "Voyage to Tazarat" in my computer. Now it exists on this wall, as well.

•••

For those of you who follow my other blog, Rat's Nest Comics, here's a new one called "Woman Seeking Treatment." Enjoy.

 

Lily

Lily

They call them exotic pets, but there was nothing exotic about Lily. She was blind, she didn't like to be touched, she'd bite our toes under the blankets, she wouldn't come when we called, spending many a night in the oven, but sometimes, when she was on the verge of sleep, we could pet her and she'd relish in the touch. 

The first time I saw her she was on the shoulder of a teenager who sold her (and Blu) to us. We knew the minute we got home, they'd given us a blind, unfriendly rat, but we didn't care. We still loved her. Tom found her dying in the cage this morning at 4 a.m.; I took her into the vets around 9, to have her put to sleep. Her heart was strong, but she was in pain and Tom insisted I take her in. Perhaps it was the best thing, but I don't know, maybe the business of dying for a rat takes a long time.

Here's to you Lily, for being who you were without apology.

Street Art on the eastside....

I've been roaming around Highland Park and Silverlake today, trying to distract myself, bumping into dancing bums and art everywhere. After today I might even say that northeast LA is the street art capital of the world.

Take this first mural, made by Sand One that I saw on the side of a building on York Ave.

 Sand One

in Highland Park

Sand One is one of the most popular street artists around in this part of town. At first I wasn't so keen on her style, but now that I know what it takes, I'm a fan. See more of her work at: www.sandoner.com.

 My favorite mural in Highland Park, Monte Vista and Ave. 52

 Transmission Shop, York Ave. Highland Park

Wheat Paste on Figueroa near Ave 34,

Cypress Park

 Spray paint by Vixz

Ave. 56 and Fig

Utility box at Tropical Icecream

 Silverlake 

(where AA meets)

Today I started to experiment with a stencil and some cans of paint. It was the only thing, besides driving around and bumping into things, I found I could do.

This last one I call Triple Ratz, or Rat Dance

(Thanks, Melanie!!)

••••

And one last one: original art made in the street, with Louise Steinman, for a performance piece called, Dog's Head Route, performed in Portland, OR, 1980.

This is not a Rat  

Frogtown Rat Rider, Part Two

Dear Readers;

I had to do a little redo on this post. Some viewers were unsure as to what exactly they were looking at, that is, what was the original street mural, and what was my part. So I've added some photos to clarify. Also, my first post on the Rat Rider might help explain as well. 

Here was original Mayan mural found in Frogtown:

(Notice a ladder on the ground, 

perhaps they were trying to do a little touch up?)

And here was my first addition:

Frogtown Rat Rider

(click to make bigger)

And here is where I left off, adding the Mayan warrior boxer (or, at least, half of him):

Warrior Boxer and Frogtown Rat Rider,

Mayan mural on Blake Street

My friend Molly and I put this up last night right before it began to drizzle, then rain, and then pour, and I should have listened to her about the weather forecast, but I had a need to complete this incomplete mural, and so we went: step ladder in hand, two brushes, a bucket full of paste and our cameras that we couldn't use because our hands were too sticky.

Today Molly called after the rain and told me the boxer was still up (we had our doubts) but her mother, who she took along to see it, asked her why I hadn't finished the mural— those people with only one arm and leg, she couldn't understand it. She must've thought me lazy, leaving it so raw.

After we'd done the deed we went back to my house and played with rats, or the one that would play, Blu. Here's Molly and Blu, who couldn't stay away from each other, esp Blu, who had a thing for Molly's fake fur hoody. I had to make sure she didn't "accidentally" take my fat rat home with her.

Just hanging

•••

endnote: Like most natives of Louisville, KY, I'm a big fan of Muhammad Ali, who was born Cassius Clay in Louisville when it was still a fiercely segregated city. The book, Muhammad Ali: in Perspective, by Thomas Hauser (Collins Publishers San Francisco, 1996) was my inspiration for the warrior boxer, with a few tears thrown in for how much I love/loved the great Ali.