This has something to do with the fight. The other fighters have complained of the same thing. I feel slow and heavy-footed when I spar and keep getting hurt. I also keep breaking down. Too emotional. This has got to stop. My head is still in the wrong place. Up my ass. Which might explain why my neck injury keeps on coming back to haunt me.
I was feeling so good, ready to fight and now I can't turn my head again.
I really need to get this injury OUT of me. I've been getting weekly massages, but apparently that wasn't enough. My chiro is on permanent vacation so it's back to accupuncture until I can find a back cracker I can trust.
Sigh.
Tonight is Bikram class, I'm hoping that'll fix me up until I can make it to the needle lady. I haven't done hot yoga in ages. Should be good.
Yes, I think it's apparent -I'm sleepy-brain-dead.
No, the title has nothing to do with the Hilton girl; I couldn’t care less about her antics.
It’s a classic quotable from the model in these pics. She’s one of the most powerful moving models we’ve ever worked with. She had to move back to Paris for visa reasons. She called us when she was there, and we said, “Cool, you’re in Paris, that’s great”. To which she responded in a heavy lisp-y wispy French accent, “No, eet’s not great, eet’s tewible, I het Pawis”.
I think we’re going to have to make T-shirts with that on it.
Anyway, she’s coming back to the US, which makes us happy.
Saw Jaslene at the Union Square station this morning, she looked yucky skinny and greasy, what’s up with that, she’s America’s Next Top Model?
I’m tired; I have to get up at 5:30 to go to the Cooper Hewitt. I should probably go to bed right about now.
I remember at somewhere around age 11 going to the Saatchi Gallery for the first time. I waddled around the gargantuan cement space, not that interested, but also quite aware that I had never seen anything like it before.
Even then I was a bit of a speedy gallery go-er, not one to sit and ponder a work for too long.
But when I saw the Cindy Sherman piece –untitled #122, I was dumbstruck, awestruck. I had never seen a photo that big, or at those proportions, and the woman mystified me. Or was it a man, something about her seemed muscular, and the anger, was it feminine?
The wig, the clenched fists, the red, watery eye, the Tippi Hedren-esque suit, all fascinated me. I was quite disturbed but utterly engaged, it stood out, it stared out.
I loved it because I didn’t understand it, why was he/she so angry, why was he/she in a wig, why was the picture so grainy. Colour photography as art was new to me, photography like this was like nothing I'd ever before seen.
That Christmas I asked for a camera, I didn’t know how to use it, so I barely did.
So I finally took a photo class, did really shit in it, the quote on my report card was that my work was, “Random and irregular.” I was 12 for cripe’s sake.
It wasn’t until college that I saw Sherman’s work again -The Film stills. I became infatuated with them, as so many have.
I didn’t realize until later that she had also been responsible for Untitled #122. Funny too that it was for her Fashion series.
That's Milla and my beautiful wife Lisa (for those of you who don't know) Aren't they lovely? Both of them. Lovely in every way. We often have family dinner on Friday nights. After our cookout last week Milla and Lisa jumped around. Back and forth. Up and down. They like jumping and I like to watch.
My armpits are crying. The space between my tits is crying. Funny little girl filled too full with liquid. Like a balloon stuck all over with pin pricks. Bouncy bouncy, colourful and fun, but secretly, or not so secretly, leaking.
It’s high noon in Union Square and there’s no shade where I sit. The heat is blazing. I can hear birds cawing –cawing cawing cawing. I can’t see a single bird except for the greasy little pigeon that’s being snuggled and overpowered by the homeless woman with the huge pendulous tits.
She holds the pigeon to her chest, her grey sweat stained tank sticking to her skin, and where the boobs should be, or where the boobs usually are, it’s flat and where her belly is, is where her tits lay.
She squeezes the pigeon to her, scoops up water from the fountain into her cupped hand and puts the pigeon's head in it. Then she goes back to the shady park bench and snuggles the bird tightly to her chest again.
Contact. The need for it.
It’s like Petra von Kant. Or Elmyra Duff, unwittingly killing her cat as she says, "I'm gonna hug ya and kiss ya and love ya and squeeze ya forever and ever."
I watched The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant recently. I liked the two headed monster imagery. And, of course, the histrionics. Oh, and the wigs.
Breathing plays a large role in our work -for me. I want our models to look like they’ve just exhaled, I love to watch them exhale. A lot of my blog post titles are about breath. We have a Breathless series –Kate and I holding our breath until our forehead or neck veins pop out.
It’s all quite abstract and malformed, but it’s there.
Kate and I were talking about it, and then we realized the funny play on words, to IN SPIRE, to breath in, then to exhale, put it back out there, changed.
I think it’s a common issue with people who run their own business –there’s a degree of isolation. You’re not going by the same clock that most everyone else is. You can leave the office, but it goes home with you, it’s just the nature of doing it yourself.
So Kate and I went out, to breath out, breath in, respire, inspire.
This is what transpired:
We needed a soundtrack, so I brought my new rubberised radio
Is it Noah's new ark? No, just a forlorn funicular.
I am a firm believer that all one needs to be totally free in this life is a bike and a digital camera - preferably a tiny one (bike that is, the camera should be HUGE). Love, Kate
Today Kate and I are 'workin' on our bikes' (said in duder voice).
She bought a cute but pretty junky number that we're going to attempt to fix up a little. Then we're strapping the camera on, and shooting around town.
Kate and I had a special day yesterday. Actually, it's been a special week, and it's only Wednesday!
But yesterday, beautiful Joe came over, bronzed from his 30th birthday party in Tulum, Mexico.
We frolicked, ignited some paper products and made ART.
The video piece we're working on is WEIRD. We all got really spacey and deep in it.
Joe was amazing, totally inhabited the project. It's still in early stages but basically one of us photos him as the other videos him as one of us gives him extreme facial expressions to make.
Example:
"Joe, listen to me, do as I say, open your eyes really wide, wider, raise raise the eyebrows, up up up, hold it, now frown, pull your lips down, sad sad mouth, eyes wider, wider, keep your eyebrows up, now show your teeth, pull your lip up, frown, keep frowning, teeth, eyebrows up up, don't forget, hold it..."
It's like insane face domination.
Oh, speaking of which, my gorgeous, dream friend sent this:
Kate here! I've been away doing some of the less than interesting KateAndCamillaLand tasks.
Isn't he sublime?! Or as Milla and I like to say...Soooobleeem. He is the crux of a very interesting project we are about to embark on. Problem is, we don't quite know how to make it happen yet. So, until then...sun showers on my walk home last night.
I finally registered for Nationals. I was procrastinating.
Training has been up and down. Little injuries make me think it’s better to rest, which actually ends up being the wrong thing for me to do. After a 13-year-old beat me up a few weeks ago, my neck got all messed up. I thought I was fine but then, yet again, last week I wasn’t able to turn my head. I flipped out a little, pulled it together, talked to one of the Krus, and finally got back on track. Saw the chiro, got a massage, booked a massage again for next week. I realize the fight is only a month away, and I’ve got to take very good care of myself.
Lately I see that training is the easy part; the hard part is in my head.
The precise reason I signed up to compete at Muay Thai Amateur Nationals was to pose a challenge to myself, to confront the unknown–the environment, my opponent, my SELF in the face of those two things -this is also the precise part that’s messing with my head.
I imagine the crowds, the ring, seeing her for the first time, the noise, my breathing, my heart rate, what might happen? How will I respond to all of this? Will I piss myself; will I rise to the occasion? Will I win? Can I win? Will I really berate myself if I lose? Ultimately, the question is, what kind of person am I?
I suppose I’m afraid to find out.
But I still want know.
P.S. The above is not me.
On a less thoughtful but EQUALLY important note:
Fight attire…
Hair has proven problematic lately. Do I get cornrows? Shave my head?
I was wondering if I should buy special occasion shorts but due to my awesome, generous, inspirational trainer this point has been taken care of. He gave me the coolest pair I’ve ever seen. Pink with orange flames, gold stitching and an emblem of an angry little skinny black cat looking thing. This is good because I won’t be able to sport my pink gloves since we have to wear association-sanctioned gear and I couldn’t possibly fight without some pink.
Milla da Killa t –shirts are soon to be in production, also, we’re thinking about I’m a fighter Not A lover
This morning, on the train, I watched the woman across from me. She was in her 40’s, Latina, she smelled fresh, her hair was done, her face was made, her clothes were matched and she looked good. She wore gold bracelets and a gold watch, trinkets around her neck. She might have looked like any other woman on her way to work, dozing as she rode the same old train, like any other morning. But as I watched her I saw that smirk, I saw that even though her eyes were shut, they weren’t resting. She was doing that thing we’ve all done. Replaying the previous night. She was fast-forwarding, rewinding, pausing and slow motioning the scenes from what clearly had been a very very pleasing night. A smirk worthy night.
It was sweet.
Nuff said.
We saw Bug, I recommend it, it was weird. I saw Shortbus, I kind of recommend it, it was also weird. I saw Who the #)%*&#)&$% is Jackson Pollock?, I recommend it, it was fantastic. I saw All That Jazz, I don’t recommend it, it was weird. I saw Notes On A Scandal, I highly recommend it, it was flipping high melodrama. What can I say, I’m making use of my T.V.!
Another stellar Uluru shoot, this time incorporating a little plant life.
The Uluru shoot crew has become a well-oiled machine. A well oiled machine that chit chats and dawdles a lot and STILL gets the job done.
None of us would claim to be girlie girls but jiminey crickets stick us in a room together and all we seem to want to talk about is birth and home-making and the like.
I’ll spare you the gory details.
A highlight of the day would be Kate and I truly, fully, with velocity and force, HEAD-BUTTING. Oh me god, it hurt. Was not intentional but was very funny. I think we’re finally trying to enter each other’s brain, or fuse our skulls or merge auras or something.
This is Andrea. She was our model on Friday. That's one of Levi's pieces. Andrea was on America's Next Top Model -If only for the first episode of "cycle" 6 (and you know how much Kate and I love anything ANTM). She said she cried a lot during filming cuz she was homesick. She got a bit weepy at our studio as well. She was there early; it was her VERY first day in NYC, her very first job here too. She was already getting homesick. Poor dear. At least with all that homesickness, she managed to gather herself together and do a really amazing job.
The genuine and talented Amy Lin did hair and make up. She's freaking amazing at what she does, and it's bloody hard to find a MUA who also does hair. She really rocks. I want to work with her all the time.
I'm always surprised at people who are mystified by my collaboration with Kate.
Examples:
We called a printer last week, to get our business cards done, and she said, “ Kate AND Camilla, and they want the SAME card…?” As if it was the weirdest thing she’d ever heard of. Did they say that to Mr. Merrill and Signor Lynch?
When we were applying to grad school, they wanted to know if we expected to have both our names put onto one diploma. Don't you have to study Gilbert and George in fart school?
My father always has a hard time understanding why Kate and I need one another, the best parallel I could come up for him was, “Baba, could Gilbert have written The Mikado without Sullivan? Didn’t Sonny kind of suck without Cher? Can you imagine Starsky without Hutch?” I think that got through to him...
I’m sure I’m forgetting plenty more, and that’s just in contemporary photo.
My point is collaborations are everywhere and collaborations happen to varying degrees. For instance without the above-mentioned model and MUA, the shoot would never have happened.
The question of authorship is an entirely other ball of wax. How many hands painted the Sistine Chapel, or the bitch fest about how many art students it takes to make a Jeff Koons painting. I think I just forgot my point…..
Um...here's what would happen if Starsky left Hutch:
Things rarely seem calm. That’s a good thing and a bad thing. The weekdays have been chock-a-block with all the stuff that make up the hamster-spinner of my life. I’ve been trying to keep the weekends to myself but even that has been difficult. This weekend I said no to it all.
But let me backtrack.
Friday felt like a remarkable day, the shoot was stupendous. Levi was enigmatic and torrential and spectacular. We took fantastic pictures. Of course the stupid video camera had to poop out just at the moment he took off all his clothes and begun dancing with the helium balloons (these have suddenly become our new favourite prop). Having Denise, a real, live, talented, art director on set, pushed us in ways we’d never before experienced and working with our old photo editor from Nerve, Rachel, felt like we were all embarking on a meaningful and familial, new creative path.
I know I'm melodramatic but I get so inspired and moved by those sorts of days. Ideas were bristling back and forth, people were giggling because we’re doing crazy shit, but it’s smooth and tight, and real work is getting done and everyone feels stimulated and satisfied. After the insanity of the studio session we took cars to shoot Levi and the model, Andrea, in the Hasidic section of Williamsburg. Soon after we started shooting we were asked to leave, which seemed to excite Levi, but turned me off. So we hustled a few more shots then called it a day and moseyed over to Diner for dinner.
I felt so giddy, sitting at a table with so many creative people. Caroline and her brother Austin joined us, then Sarah. Listening to Caroline and Levi fantasise about creating an alternative CFDA, or eavesdropping on Denise and Rachel talk about photography, or even just watching Kate and Lisa smooch and be sweet -the entire table, the entire night, felt magical.
I’m a sap.
I woke up on Saturday to church bells chiming, early. I'm sure it’s the first time I’ve ever heard them in my neigbourhood. The urge was to get up and DO something. Clean the house or run in the park or write a story -something. I had to remind myself to just stop. Stop. I’m always going, planning, doing. And as much as I believe action fosters action, and doing inspires making, sometimes I forget the value of idleness.
So I lay on my sofa, reminded myself that I have a home, and I should just LIVE in it -that sometimes, living is Just. Doing. Nothing.
He's very sweet on the phone -we're excited to meet him.
We had to do a superficial clean up of the studio, it's been quite the pig sty in here. Everything's been crammed into the equipment cabinet and covered with a big curtain, if anyone touches it the whole thing is gonna collapse. Ho hum.
Tonight my friend Deb is fighting her second bout at Mayhem on Mulberry, she's going to rock it, I just know it.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
