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.
