Chillin'

These little ones have found a way to keep cool when they walked right into my studio.  Fortuitously, the lights and camera were already set up - so all I need to do was click the shutter.

I love NY (the day everything sold for $1)

We were on our way to MOMA one Saturday morning when somehow we stumbled into this street filled with vendors.  Almost everything was being sold for a dollar.  Food, drink, T-shirt… You got to love New York for that.  Things may be expensive all around but once in a while one can get lost (just as we did) and find things that are sold on a cheap.  One Dollah… one dollah. 


A rework of previous post, which I thought was kind of busy.  Busy?  It's New York.  It's supposed to be busy.  At least that's one of the commentators told me.   I wanted to focus on the people and the T-shirt display was drawing some of the attention.  It's where the title of this post came from.
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Why I will no longer post my artwork in Facebook

Why I will no longer post my artwork in Facebook

http://asmp.org/fb-tos#.Uiv3pMakplx

Sometimes dried leaves are just dried leaves (or why a caption is not always beneficial)

Warning:  Reading the following can be a total waste of time.

The sun was already out when I got out of bed this morning.  It was forecasted to be a hot weather today.  I am told that the easiest way to predict a weather with decent accuracy is to assume that it will be the same as the day before.  In which case, one does not need to have a degree in Meteorology to be a weatherperson.  All one need is a pretty face.  Preferably with a curvy body.  Or if one is guy, a strong shoulder and a Burt Reynolds mustache.  I already know that I have no chance of growing thick facial hair.  I blame genetics.  Maybe even blame evolution that went extreme.  My guess is that my Neanderthal uncle had evolved into a hairless human far too quickly compared to his still evolving counterparts.  Yet there are many advantages of being hairless.  Especially in this hot weather.

These are days when I could sense my inside filled with patchwork quilt of loose dried leaves.  One gentle step to it could easily shatter the leaves like  Captain Crunch breakfast flakes inside the mouth of Charlie Sheen with a bad hang-over.  I understand Charlie.  Indeed, at times I tend to sympathize with him. Only today, I really don’t care about him.  Like my apathy with Charlie, I am so far detached with my shattered dried leaves.  Not much to care about.  Just like that Captain Crunch flakes.  I don’t care what happens to them.  As King Solomon once mused, “it’s meaningless.”  These are one of those days.

Lately I don’t want any confrontations.  Which is a good thing because I’m usually contentious.  But there is a difference between being deliberatively non-confrontational and being an escapist.  The former weighs in before committing oneself to an idea.  An escapist is well – an escapist.  I have found refuge in escapism.  Which leads to isolationism.

I have been a closet recluse for some time now. Rose tells me that I need get out of my isolationism.  That I ought to get back to writing again.  It’s difficult when one has not done it in a while.  All these random things kept creeping in every other words I typed.  But one has to start somewhere.  Hopefully, by end of this silly monograph things will get more coherent.  Maybe.

I find that writing tends to flesh out things.  It forces one to question the point of getting a message across.  This is why I have stopped writing for a while.  I have no point to get across.  Or rather I refuse to get a point across.  Because if I did I would have to face things.  Mainly my excess baggage.

I can tell that this monograph is going nowhere.  At least I would hope that the crusty looking dead leaves pictured above would make up for this gibberish.  You have been forewarned.

A Mother Writes to her Daughter

Hi Baboo.

I'm finally sending you two versions of our family portrait.  The idea of having a family picture came about when Mimi turned eight last August 5th.  That made us a household of senior citizens and Dadoo wanted to have a portrait of our aging family, especially with Jerry turning 15 years old (105 cat years) this year.  However, we were not quite sure how best to capture the right image that would be representative of our family?  Well this is what we did.  First, we picked the time and day to do our portrait.  Sunday after church was chosen since everyone is typically relaxed, Dadoo and I are already in our Sunday clothes and our two pets are excited to see us and eager to partake of lunch and yummy treats.  The set up to do portraits was already in place, so Dadoo just needed to make a bit of adjustment and then use the remote control to click the shutter button that was synchronized with the flash.  Since I got Mimi already on my lap, I suggested to do a trial run without Jerry.  Jerry was already watching us from afar, closer to the base of the stairs.  So the three of us (without Jerry) posed in front of the camera but nothing happened.  Ooops, the remote control did not work.  Now, we have to use the camera timer.  Dadoo took Mimi from my lap, asked me to grab Jerry, then set the timer on.  As soon as Jerry heard his name and the quiet tick-tick-tick of the timer, he ran up the stairs as far away from us.  I was closely following him, then I took out a big piece of romaine lettuce leaf in my hand to lure him back.  Jerry stopped to smell the leaf and I grabbed him.  He tried to leap out of my hands but I got him pinned down to my chest while running down the stairs to take my seat before the 10-second camera timer turns off.  I got seated with Jerry held close to me, Dadoo with Mimi in his arms already waiting, and then click -- perfect timing.  We loved the image but Dadoo did not know what was the green thing that I was holding in my hand, so he removed it via photo-shop's content aware.  I still prefer the picture with the green leaf, so we're sending you both so you get to choose which one you like.

Have a blessed day!

Love,

Mamoo

Original shot with Jerry's salad.  Notice how Jerry is ready to claw on Mamoo's chest.