just a few days ago i lived in new york…but, not anymore….an early morning phone call woke me up here in Rajasthan and i found out that i now have no place to live…not exactly what i wanted to hear even before i had my first cup of coffee….not exactly what i wanted to learn, period…disconcerting, disturbing, disorienting….
my whole building has been evacuated….indefinitely……a fire threat in the basement caused the new york city fire department to close down my building for fire code reasons….all tenants had two days to remove their belongings…..imagine….i am in India and suddenly my precious original negatives, slides, hard drives, and books are being boxed and hauled out the door to various "safe" locations….to the homes of friends, to Magnum and who knows where else….no time to really remove the furniture, clothing etc., but i cannot even think about those things…i do not care about those things……..i only care about my "originals"…….thankfully, i am blessed with good friends who have come to rescue my negatives, hard drives etc and are carrying out the evacuation process while i am sitting under a full moon by a campfire with my eight students on the other side of the world…very strange….
this represents a "change in plans" to be sure….i cannot imagine now all that this really means…yet, i can only feel fortunate….everyone in the building is safe…..my negatives etc. are fine…no damage…..i do not even want to think what i would be thinking now if there had actually been a catastrophic fire….and i love my friends now more than ever and cannot imagine how i will repay them for what they are doing for me right now….
my workshop here in India ends in five days…..my original schedule had me flying straight back home this coming monday….now i have no home…no place to go .. i quite literally have no plan…this is just a bit more serendipity than i really like …..does anyone out there have an extra sofa for me to sleep???
WROBERT
Did you say you from Glasgow? Amazing also… Your architecture…
To be specific , i was quite amazed when i found out how you guys
“renew” your buildings from the “inside” without messing too much with the exterior of the building… so people when you visit this city,
kinda like Edinburgh has an amazing “aura”… You think that you live in a beautiful black and white dream… the sun sets at 10:30 pm at september.. I love it… I was working in a greek “rock’n'roll” magazine back in the time, circa 1993-4-5-6… So for 4 summers in a row i was the photographer to cove the famous “READING FESTIVAL”… about an hour north of London, with the train….(Nirvana,Beck…..Neil Young…blah)…thousands of huge artists… Anyways
…once, i took the train all the way to Inverness… i went to little town. by the sea :Hellensburg …. oh , i remember a deer crossing the train rails…
Green, green, clouds, castles….like a dream…
…”The royal mile”… god damn.. now that i’m thinking about it…
enough greece or sunny, convertible , cali…
… Scotland….!!! i should go there more often…
o.k., back in the desert…
HERVE
excellent job listing countries and s**t, but i just called my mom & dad..( i cant believe he’s still alive!)…
lets add an extra room…..
this time comes from ARTA, GREECE, west side , across the adriatic see, in other words across ITALY, 360 km from athens,
12km from the sea…. 60km from my granmas house up in the mountains… always snow there…
something like a L.A… from Big-Bears snow.. to venice beach…
My hometown… Arta…
To give you an idea, and connect my speech with the previous posts, the center of the city is surrounded by a medieval CASTLE…
my elementary school, by the way, was located at the X- Prisons…(what a coincidence)… prisons of the castle…
o.k ,enough
Panos
Helensburgh, god damn…I havent heard that place by name since I was a kid, I think we used to have some familly freinds there or something, its pretty foggy, those times.
also Inverness, I have great memories from that area, used to go hiking and camping around there, Glen Urquhart Castle, really beautiful up around loch Ness, plus you might have a chance for a natter with the monster.
… “Nessie”…I bought a little keychain…. I had it attached to my home keys… since then……
1995… i lost the keys about a year ago…. believe it or not…
I cried… not for the keys though… ah f**k it !
I was thinking that’s it’s good to be young….
when you are older you feel, remember small meaningless parts of time… called memories.. and sigh !… how sad and so common…
If my memory serves me well, somewhere by the end of the “royal mile” in Edinburgh… is “WHISKEY MUSEUM OR SOME SHIT LIKE THAT”… that you can purchase a $100 “shot” of rare… really really rare expensive… family holy whiskey..
anyways, I’m going to my fix one for me now… see ya’ll soon
peace
a wee dram on a night like this, ( its pissing and cold ), well that sounds just about perfect..cheers Panos.
Its nice to see Scotland is as evocative as ever! I can’t claim to be a Scotsman (never mind a Weegie, Hi Robert!) but its a sweet wee country. Trainspotting was bizarrely filmed in Edinburgh and Glasgow interchangably like they were one big city. Apparently the original US version was redubbed for the first 20 mins due to accents. I met a photog who compared the US/Scot language barrier to that of going to Italy.
The Edinburgh festival is worth seeing at least once, bring a sense of adventure or a big wallet. I brought the both and came out with a girlfriend, an empty wallet and a first “good” camera. Anything can happen (and usually does)!
Chimping? I think its to do with the position at which you check your cameras LCD to see if you got the shot, or the ooo oooo oooh noise you make when you get it. Someday I wanna ride a fixie just to see what the fuss is about, my friends singlespeed conversion keeps breaking and he had to run 4/5 laps at a race this weekend so I’m not anxious to make one yet.
In London I order a zywiec beer with the correct pronounciation and they look at me strange, in Inverness they know thanks to the thousands of Poles living up there now. The world quickly changes in unusual ways!
Hehehe…the tourist trap of charge more for the whiskey and they’ll think its exclusive or better! I hope you tried one of the ones from Islay, they know what they’re doing out there. For heavens sake though.. no koolaid chaser!
There will be drams tonight (it is friday), perhaps one for the homeless photographer and his blogmates: Slainte!
Oh and its BURNS night tonight, get yer Haggis, Neeps & Tatties on!
Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the pudding-race!
Aboon them a’ yet tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o’a grace
As lang’s my arm.
Ye Pow’rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o’ fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu’ prayer
Gie her a haggis!
Extracted from Address to a Haggis by Rabbie Burns (not to be confused with Rabbi Burns)
Mark: that’s very nice to know. I can see you have a second country. Drop me a mail next time you come to Santiago. I know a bunch of photographers here to hang up with. One of them also owns a small photo gallery where you could show yor pescadores work (now that would be really nice!). It´s a very cool place actually.
Here is my mail: jprat@achs.cl
regards
Jorge
Hi David,
Why don’t to come to visit Bermuda Bermuda for few weeks and stay at our place. Plane ticket is cheap and you will have your bedroom and bathroom. We will be delighted to have you with us….and you have never been to Bermuda: it may be time to change that.
Please let me know if I can help in any way.
Arie
HERVE :-)
sicily: catania and acicastello actually
cristina
@ Jorge
Thanks. I’ll send you an email next time I’m in town.
Lisa Hogben
From a previous post of yours I somehow got the unpardonable impression that you might be a Pom, but now I see how wrong I was! I have actually been thru Jindabyne, back in the mid 90′s, and remember it. Wonderful part of Oz you live in, and one that would confound the image most outsiders hold of Australia. I hope David takes up your offer!
I’ve been on four extended visits to Eastern Oz, all back in the 90s. The areas I know best are ‘Rainbow Country’ and around Brisbane, ‘New England’ and the northern NSW Coast, and Tazzy. Almost decided to settle in Rainbow Country (Murwillimbah-Nimbin area) but life took a different turn… Anyway, many fond memories of NSW, a place I never got enough of. Enjoy your life there, as my surrogate!
Regards,
Sidney
ALL/ANYONE – for a total (temporary) change of topic, if anyone is good at FLASH/Java/etc. I need to make some changes to my site. I want to make the little slideshow on the homepage continue where it leaves off or at least be random instead of sequential.
Sorry for the less-than-high-minded topic, but I figured there might be at least one or two experts out there.
If any such person reads this, you can email me at
michael@photonphotos.com
Sidney My God you know my country?
Hey very appropriate timing- today is Australia Day- or Survival Day if you happen to be one of the Aboriginal people of this land!
No, lovely, I am absolutely an Aussie chick! Couldn’t be a Pom if I tried! But you know Jindy?
Its cold and mystic and I don’t know-important somehow in the greater scheme of things and when it has a building complete on the land (which I hope after 12 years will be in the next 6 months!) EVERYONE across the world has squatting rights- thats what it has ALWAYS been about, land houses never belong to anyone, we are just custodians.
Kinda like what we are meant to be about when we take photos to tell someone’s story- We are just the mouthpieces for those people whose story we tell- it is a great responsibility to tell the thing accurately and a humbling experience to actually understand and express it with love.
Sidney, Thankyou for acknowledging my country, my special place on earth, I may not always dwell there and really I will never own it, but it is so surely beautiful, so remote, pristine, so free of vices that anyone that needs a cure for the terrible things of life are welcomed to spend time looking at a long view to quiet their soul!
My place is your place, just give me a ring first to make sure the roof is on!
Love youse all!
i hope everything is well there david…
Just received this:
Hello Creative New York!
THIS –> http://gothamist.com/2008/01/21/kent.php sucks.
3rd Ward is here to help.
We are opening our doors to all tenants forced to vacate their building at 475 Kent Street.
Lost your studio space?
You are welcome to come use ours. We have a media lab, wood shop, metal shop & photo studio available free of charge, just contact us & let us know your situation.
Feeling homeless?
We don’t have luxury accommodations, but we do have space. You’re welcome to stake out a prime piece of East Williamsburg floor space in our gallery. First, contact us by phone or email. Then, grab a sleeping bag & come on down.
We’re open from 8 am to midnight M – F and 9 am to Midnight on weekends. Give us a call at 718.715.4961 or shoot us an email to afenton@3rdward.com.
Now is the time to pull together as a community. Let’s make sure no one’s left out in the cold!
Please pass this on.
Love,
3rd Ward
http://gothamist.com/2008/01/21/kent.php
Feeling homeless?
Posted by: erica mcdonald | January 25, 2008 at 09:15 PM
Damn… now i feel depressed… my friday night is all messed up now
…We don’t have luxury accommodations, but we do have space. You’re welcome to stake out a prime piece of East Williamsburg floor space in our gallery. First, contact us by phone or email. Then, grab a sleeping bag & come on down.
We’re open from 8 am to midnight M – F and 9 am to Midnight on weekends. Give us a call at 718.715.4961 or shoot us an email to afenton@3rdward.com.
Now is the time to pull together as a community. Let’s make sure no one’s left out in the cold!
Please pass this on.
Love,
3rd Ward…
panos says: …” Te hell widat ?”….
..what, “left out”?…. what…” out in the cold” , mean?
by the way… i read that the rent was around 2K?
Is that for real… is was it , double?
But , i hear YOU:..”WHO CARES?..”
the facts remain the SAME…
Still David is homeless… or should i say …” temporarily without a home”… which is just a “misdemeanor”.. not a ” felony”…
Let me know…?
p.s.: In the meantime.. “HE”, is having fun somewhere in holy ” INDIA”, and WE are still here , running our miserable , ordinary lives…
I love you Harvey…
Hi David, I am sorry to hear about the news.. but it’s great to hear that no one’s actually injured, even your negative films! You are always free to stay at my house in Seoul.. and hope to see you in New York very soon.
nasha
DAVID:
last night i had a dream about u: i dreamed you will let back into the Kibbutz, that there were changes but all was well and that you were no longer homeless…that we chatted on the phone and all..when i woke up i thought it was real so i checked my email to see if u’d written…
i hope the dream is prescient ;))…
running
b
I love you Harvey…
…..
Gee. Thanks, Panos. I dunno what to say, except…just a detail… it’s: Herve, not Harvey.
Thanks for the cozy, fuzzy, warmy feelings, from the bottom of my heart.
Homeless! Yikes, what a pain in the bahakas. Well, it would be nice to have you as an actual guest in my guest room, as opposed to my brother, who is really a temporary guest in my house, even though he thinks otherwise. Unfortunately, Mr Harvey, I can’t offer you the guest room until he moves out, and equally unfortunately, he shows no signs of doing that in the immediate future. My apologies on being the one sour note in this otherwise magnificent symphony of fraternal benevolence and good feeling.
I was reading about the recent discovery of Robert Capa’s negatives of his formative work as a war photographer and it reminded me of this posting…how delicate a life’s work can be. I’m glad that all the important things still have a home for you, David.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/arts/design/27kenn.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin
wow… So sorry to know about this, David…. I’m late with the news as I’ve been having such a slow and bad conection to internet in Senegal, but, even without reading all the above comments, I’m sure by now you have place to stay all over the world. But you always had them. The same with my own. My house is your house. Always.
Hope you resolve the situation soon. Big hugs!
Ana
No, I dont have anything to add to the conversation here; it’s just that this thread has been stuck at 169 for I dont know how long and I’m getting tired of waiting for 170 to show up. So, like the young man who tires of waiting for his inheritance to occur naturally, I’m giving this aged thread a little push.
Damn David…I should read your blogs. I’m so sorry. Hope to hear from you soon…how’s India?
I hope everything works out for you ! GOD BLESS YOU