TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

  

VIEWING ALL POSTS FOR: SEPTEMBER 2002

Sunday, September 29, 2002

7:19 AM
Posted by jodi rose

Dumbo, Brooklyn (down under manhattan bridge overpass)
Trading garlic for anything you own right here, right now! We have taken half a loaf of bread, some strawberries, a handstand, apples, a screwdriver, a pen, some wheatgrass - it's a new economy folks. trust the system, share and consume!! www.rich-air.com
I was the trading mc yesterday at bryant park, on 40th st near the new york public library. had some interesting interactions, one man who was delivering flowers came back with the rose I asked him for and traded that for garlic. Then we took the big orange truck up to harlem, where ricardo dominguez did his out there spruiking performance art and lots of cool people stopped to check it out.
Looking up at the manhattan and brooklyn bridges, framing manhattan skyline in the sunset glow - absolutely f***cking gorgeous. Going down to Canal St later where there are some projections happening on the holland st tunnel ventilation building, and then a party on franklins st in the lower east side.
***Later that night****
Projections on the Holland Tunnel building were gorgeous, it was a big square concrete block out at the end of a pier, and very sexy 1976 film by richard serra of an old steel bridge in portland - camera by dee dee, which was funny - and 'erection' john and yoko's film of a building being constructed. Adrian and I were a few minutes late, so missed Colleens piece which was first (she is a student of kathy and branda - described in the new york times article as a 'young unknown' it's her first video work, and being screened in this great location with really big artists - cool!) but will try and go back down later this week. Wanderding around the end of canal st was strange, the neighbourhood had a desolate feeling until we walked down and hit Tribeca, for the suprise 50th party of Les, another video artist. His and Danielle's apartment was gorgeous, big and lush with walls of film theory books, a room decorated by hanging pot-plant tendrils draped over the heating pipes, and Bjork downstairs. Only I asked if they'd had a cup of tea with her and sadly learnt that it wasn't the actual 'Bjork', but a woman with that last name, destroying my fantasy of proximity to mad genius. She's in Paris with Mattew Barney anyway, Adrian told me, about to give birth to their child.
At the party we hooked up with some crazy older party kids who invited us to go dancing, at this wild nightclub - lunatarium. It was the entire top floor of a warehouse in dumbo, which in turn took up the whole block - so huge space, views on all sides looking across to manhattan, over a gorgeous power station - ah the industrial landscape at night, fantastic! - and the manhattan and brooklyn bridges, up close from underneath. Reminded me a bit of the alternate parties in sydney, with performance artists doing strange things with paint, and tying themselves into cat's cradels with white string, and very very cool woman dj's, including miss kitten from berlin - awesome, she was so cute and bouncy, bopping around to the beats - "intelligent techno electro" according to the flier - and crooning over the top a la donna regina.

Wednesday, September 25, 2002

9:25 AM
Posted by jodi rose

Montgomery Hollow, NY
Visiting Joe and Lyn for a welcome break in civilzation, drinking campari and relaxing after a hard day harvesting. Looks like this will be the last time, as my farm visit draws to a close, and heading for home.
Had some drama on the way up, when the van broke down so shu lea and I hitched a ride on the pine hills trailways bus into andes and cooked lunch at ken's next door. the other kids caught the next bus, having no luck getting a lift from woodstock - where I didn't go to the film festival, as the place makes me come out in hives just driving through.
Saw a hummingbird yesterday in the cherry tomato field, they are such wacky birds, about an inch long with an upright body and these tiny wings flapping so fast - they look kinda mechanical.
A little burnt out from so much activity, nothing new to report, tried to watch the anna nicole smith show over here on sunday night when lyn came and kidnapped me from tovey's (the thought of spending the evening watching him weld wasn't captivating me that night) but she was cancelled for the post-emmy's interviews. boring. still hope to see the trashiest show on tv, maybe later tonight.
back into nyc tomorrow for the storefront and then garlic distribution on the streets of new york. I may be mc'ing the garlic exhange on friday morning at the stock exchange - just need to find a pin stripe suit!

Saturday, September 21, 2002

2:04 AM
Posted by jodi rose

East Village, NYC
back into morning yoga, which leaves me so chilled out I can barely move, the first few days - have to make time on the farm to keep up the stretches, or I get overworked and overwhelmed and all crunchy. Today is mooching around new york day, doing whatever the hell I feel like - looking at the farm as a rehabilitation program, paying my debt to society and getting ready to rejoin the workforce. The dirt is so engrained in my hands that the skin will have to grow out and fall off before the soil does.
last night was a change of scene, wandering around chelsea art galleries - mostly at 529 west 20th st, which had 4 galleries on different floors. My favourite was Riva's with Wolf Treu, a german artist and lots of vodka, dj's the andrewandrew boys (from last weeks parastic excursion to openings as an art-work) playing trashy 80's music on i-pods through ghetto blasters, lots of arty men in seriously tailored suits and women in classy outfits - but the roof was the highlight (haha). Absolutely incredible view of manhattan, looking straight towards the empire state building, the deco spires of the chrysler building peeking from behind apartment blocks, and an almost full moon rising over the city. stunning. Also nabbed some free art that another parasite artist was leaving in odd places around the galleries, cute b/w pig drawing, going to take it to the farm and use in the second house decoration.
Time to go out for a stroll around this funky neighbourhood, soak in the last few weeks of american life before I return to the far shores of australia. Kind of looking forward to coming home, although I'm going to miss this extraordinary melting pot of people and experiences.

Friday, September 20, 2002

3:05 AM
Posted by jodi rose

Eldridge St, Lower East Side, Manhattan
Marking the end of another action packed farm visit with the weekly trip to the city. Got in 2 hours late, after packing and delivering restaurant orders, and the storefront was chaos with disappointed shoppers waiting patiently for their organic vegetables to arrive. Luckily Peter showed up, so I comandeered him to run it while I bought beer and chilled out on the street chatting with geoff and marcel and shu-lea, who arrived back from london yesterday. The garlic trading project is all going on, with colour glossy brochures listing the locations for making your virtual garlic real, and the truck being painted this weekend - man, I'm living the post-crash garlic economy. who needs cash! Great seeing Shu-lea again, she has so much energy and is constantly travelling the world making these diverse collaborative projects happen - my guru. (other than the farming guru that is!) Talking to margaret at the storefront - she lives down the road and comes by every week, she makes sound for vr environments, and was telling me about this amazing guy who customizes microphones, so I'm going to try him for a good low-end resonant contact mike. Somehow highlighted the link between new media and organic vegetables - what is with that??!! Anyway, taking a few days off from my alternate reality as farm-girl, to go look at some art, listen to music, maybe see a movie - starting to enjoy new york city, now I have a range of people to hang out with and places to stay.
Talking with Nina last night about the anxiety that working with high-end technology produces, she is far more high-tech than I will ever be, doing a project with brain-waves and custom code, but I get the same response even with my very low-fi engagements. Maybe something about this machinery that is built for the military-industrial-entertainment complex, and when you start pushing and twisting it into other forms or use(lessness)'s the extreme rational logical hardware resists or fights back - no, that's not what I'm built for. Ah but we have to make the machines work for us, don't we?!
Possible activities in the next few days include - chelsea art galleries tonight, shu-lea's talk at parsons art school digital salon fri, rpi kids music thing friday night, dee-dee's film on the bread and puppet theatre saturday at woodstock film festival, some cafe hanging, writing letters and postcards, and maybe helping out with the garlic arrangement on the farm, check up on the new wild guinea chicks - incredibly cute and fluffy, started out with 12 and were down to 7 when we left. That's life in the country.

Saturday, September 14, 2002

12:03 AM
Posted by jodi rose

Alphabet City, New York
Finally got to hang out at the Brooklyn Navy Yard - it was fantastic!! Wandered around the old dry dock, huge red crane next to it, along one of the old docks with a fantastic view of the williamsburg bridge, chrysler building in the background and a working ship in front, moving big hunks of metal on cranes. Tovey uses a metalwork studio there, and was finishing a piece for a russian sculptor in nyc. Watched as he, marcel and geoff hammered the tip and ring for a 'cockscrew' about 2 feet of solid steel - very cool. Then went in to Sokov's studio to deliver it, fantastic paintings, more metal sculptures, and a wall of crazy wooden pieces that all moved when the string was pulled - very clever. back up to the country today - some unfinished tasks to do there!

Friday, September 13, 2002

6:29 AM
Posted by jodi rose

Ave B, NYC
I love being in Alphabet City, it's the coolest neighbourhood. Made it through 9/11 - 2 with no signs of the 'high terror alert' manifesting. Started the day on the farm, harvesting at 6.30am, drove into the city, set up the storefront and ran it for a few hours then escaped back to brooklyn for a bath and some quality 9/11 tv programs. The media propaganda is so hard core - listened to howard stern on the radio in the morning, re-playing the broadcast from that morning - very war of the worlds if you didn't know it was a repeat. Lots and lots of stories and memorials and bagpipe bands and hymns and services. Not enough dancing in the streets.
Exhausted today, all the farm labour, get into the city and just need to lie down for a week before I can enjoy it. Met a family from Ryde who run the corner deli, the mum was lovely - I had been enjoying their aussie string barometer: if string is wet - it's raining, if string sways - it's windy etc if string is missing - it's been knocked off!

Tuesday, September 10, 2002

12:38 AM
Posted by jodi rose

Delaware County, USA
It's been a busy week, helped out at the storefront wednesday, drove upstate friday, ran the farmstand at the pakatakan farmers market saturday, drove around the countryside yesterday, from collecting a locust tree in a run-down complex of church buildings in prattsville - where I started my collection of kitsch americana postcards, some great ones from 1907 and the 1940's, one simply says "how are things with you?" on the back of 'the deer are plentiful round here' - to geoff's metalwork shop down past roxbury, then out to fleischmanns for tovey to buy a couple of old-timer stone wheel blade sharpeners.(and more postcards for me) Set one up on the porch this morning, for freddie to work at when he stops by to talk crap and supervise - everyone needs a task! I've had some fun ones lately, from giving pine trees their xmas hair-do with a machete, to collecting old furniture and cool industrial metal letter stamps out of the barn for the other house. Sitting on the back step this morning watching the mist over the hill dissolve in the sunlight, when the turkeys woke up. They jump onto the barn door and land with a thud, then all decided to come and visit me, a posse of turkeys advancing towards you making the chirruping noise (nothing like 'gobble gobble gobble') is quite strange. There's black ones, white with black tips and lovely brown and orange and white, their feet are like prehistoric lizards. Anyway, after hanging out for a while they all trooped up to the lowest point of the fence around the tomato field, where they can jump up and then slide down a sign that's holding it in place, to feast on the tomatoes. I left them to it, as Tovey said yesterday, ahhh let the turkeys have them. There's more tomatoes than he can harvest, even with someone just picking them full-time. At twilight the turkeys all go to this one fence post and fly into the tree, lots of squabbles over who gets which branch. they're very cool birds. the guinea hens are cute too, and the geese with their free-jazz syncopated sonic improvisations. Watching the sky last night, saw 6 shooting stars, two with ong comet tails Awesome!
Back in the city last week, finally ran into someone I know - I had been thinking on the subway that day, it'll probably be a school aquaintance who I don't even like - but no, this was great. Met up with about 20 youngish nyc artists and art school gang, who had arranged this 'performative art work' that involved going to all the gallery openings in Chelsea that night as a group - kind of like art parasites. So the work itself was going to see other people's shows - I liked that, we had a list of about 20 but I only made it to the 3rd one, Andrea Rosen, where in the second room I saw the name Ricky Swallow. Cool, I thought, maybe ricky's here too - and then there in the corner was a flash of bright red hair, and Nadine!!! It was fantastic, spent the evening with a room full of australians, mostly from melbourne, some living in nyc now, others just visiting, went out to some cool chelsea art bar - gavin browns - with coloured disco light squares in the floor, and then to the gallery dinner for the artists. In an old family spanish restaurant, with free-flowing sangria, tapas, paella, it was amazing, ricky is having a great time in LA, said he was glad to get away from having this 'name' and just make work in a slightly more anonymous environment. Maybe going down to visit Nadine in her studio in LA, really want to go hang out at the seedy 30's lounge bar at the Chateau Marmont Hotel.
That's all I have time for now, writing this at connie and franks - 3 deer heads on the wall, looking down with those big eyes and curly antlers, going up to John's place next door to check out the metalwork - he has a huge barn full of metal sculptures, and then harvest tomorrow for the storefront wednesday. It'll be interesting to be in manhattan on sept 11, listening to national public radio this morning, most people have something intelligent to say about todays poll "should america make a pre-emptive strike, and can the US win a war on terrorism." no, and no again.

Wednesday, September 04, 2002

8:30 AM
Posted by jodi rose

Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Back in my original loft digs, visiting the girls. I seem to have picked up an extraordinary range of residences in new york - well, mostly in brooklyn, which is even better as I find manhattan a bit much these days. must be getting older, if not discernably wiser. It rained all labour day weekend, so didn't go to the beach party in the hamptons, but kind of a relief to be in the one place for, oh, almost a week now. lordy it's going to be hard to settle down when I come home. or maybe not, collingwood is calling!
The long weekend felt like three sundays in a row, sleepy, lethargic and grey, so I hardly left the 'hood. Walked around the block a few times for fresh air, watched numerous trashy movies on cable, saw not-so-trashy movies at cobble hill cinema - the good girl, with a depressed jennifer aniston which made me feel that my life was really ok; and possession, (from the a.s byatt book which I never did get around to reading, although her? short stories are amazing - 'elementals' and 'the matisse collection' in particular) with princess bland gwyneth and some forgettable american beefcake having a tedious present day romance, while the fabulous jennifer ehle and jeremey northam, all historic simmering passion and poetic longing.
It's strange watching too much american cultural product while in america, it seems to have produced a kind of displaced alienation from where one actually IS, in the images on screen everyone is having such a great time, fun fun fun. While in reality, if you're not 'making it' with the great american dream, life just struggles on towards nowhere in particular. Starting to understand some of the intense fascination with wealth, power, success and celebrity that is all-pervasive, as the alternatives of a life just getting by looks pretty grim. Being 'alternative' is a basic response to the barinwashing, dogma and hypocrisy of the moral majority.
Making me think, well, why do we give value and worth to certain people and not others? It's something I'm guilty of as much as the next person (new weekly anyone!!??) but having not had the inclination or spare cash to indulge my celebrity fetish while travelling, the allure of reflected gloss (dross) has worn off a bit. So here's a comgas tm excercise, in listening to the stories around you. If you don't already, make eye contact and smile at people walking down the street; say hi to the person next to you in line, start a conversation on the subway/tram/bus - sure someone's going to think you're a lunatic, but it's amazing how much more human the world feels when you interact with people in your orbit. And listen to their stories, everyone is 'someone', not just the people who get validated by having heaps of money and status and success. Turn attention away from those in the spotlight, who already get more than enough airtime for whatever they have to say, and onto the mundane, everyday lives of people you know - which probably aren't that mundane at all, but full of rich detail, ludicrous coincidence, chance, insight, emotion. Be tolerant and open and interested and passionate, and enthusastic, about your own life as well as other peoples, you deserve it! That's my pollyanna rant for the day - crystallised from thinking about how listening to the sound of bridges somehow resonates, for me, with listening to the voices and stories around you that go unheard, it's a way to connect, to share your experience of life for a moment, to hear someone else's unique story.
This is all going in my second book, a cynics self-help guide to living the passionate life you dream of!!!!!