the chommo chronicles

.new york silhouettes.

I don't think it's paranoia: people really do look at me weird when I walk down these mean NYC streets. But listen - they've got cause. If I happen to have my iPod on, then I am singing along with a lot of force but with zero sound. Like, I'm really feeling the music, it's touching my soul, I'm rocking out with my non-existent cock out, and I am singing along, but I'm actually mute, so all I can do it mouth the words with a lot of feeling. If my hair has chosen to misbehave that day, well then, it's time to get disapproving looks from my lovely Latin ladies. Also, I have extraordinarily sweaty eyelids, which means that unless I've applied an industrial grade mix of powder and eyeshadow that day, chances are pretty high that my eyeliner will have smeared all over the place, leaving me looking like a junkie straight off a three day bender of the good isht.

These days, though, I think the weird looks are directed less at me and more at my new-ish toy, the Fuji Instax camera Kim Jong-Illmatic gave me to cure my analog photography blues. It looks like a Polaroid camera (kinda), it sounds like a Polaroid camera, and it produces instantaneous photos with a technology you'd think people have never seen before.

It doesn't help with the people-staring-at-me-all-weird business when I abruptly stop at street corners to capture random scenes. My current obsession are late summer/early autumn  celestial-architectural silhouettes, both because they're pretty (I think) and because they're pretty hard to mess up, but mostly because I tend to take them between 4pm and 6pm, that magical hour where the skies above New York City are straight out of a fantastical painting.

.friday fotos.

What? Is that you I hear muttering that it's actually Monday and not Friday, so why I am deliberately misleading you with the post's title? Well, I'm sorry. I had a busy, busy, busy end of week/weekend, what with the recuperating from a brutal session with the nice-on-the-outside, evil-eevil taskmaster-on-the-inside personal trainer, the planning for a business trip to Madrid, the nerves at having my hair cut by a non-Dominican for only the second time in my life, the getting ready for my niece's Sweet Sixteen and the subsequent dancing all night long in 4-inch heels even though I swore we were through, the running of eight horrendous, horrendous miles as part of my half-marathon training schedule, and the eventual collapse before the Emmy Awards telecast. [Don't worry, you'll be hearing more about all these things in the future.]

So, only a few days late, I present to you this week's (last week's?) installment of Friday Fotos. This time around, nothing fancy - shots captured with my Blackberry Curve, modifed with the lovely Picasa. Do forgive my tardy(ness) to the party(ness).

.bye bye summer.

Summer doesn’t formally end for another five days, but there are signs aplenty that autumn is already upon us – stuffed backpacks on crowded subways, daily countdowns to the MLB playoffs, a sleepy sun that wakes up a little later each day, sartorially dissonant ladies with jackets and scarves on top and pedicured, be-thonged toes on the bottom. Pretty soon the leaves will start to change color, the jackets will get heavier, and the interminable wait for spring training will begin anew. I can’t say that I mind much – an astrological Libra through and through, I live for the briskly temperamental in-between seasons of autumn and spring. Summer makes me sweat and expose more of my raw chicken-colored skin* to the world than I care to and winter gifts me with perpetual hat hair and ashy, dry skin. 

Still, summer in NYC does bring with it some magical moments: street fairs, zeppoles, outdoor concerts, piraguas and Italian icies, Macy's 4th of July fireworks, the orgasmic moment of getting on a chilly subway car after idling for 30 minutes on the 34th street station platform.

But nothing in the New York summertime is quite as magical  – baroque - fascinating – as the Coney Island boardwalk.

.friday fotos.

Surely there exist 10 million cliché photos of the same thing, but the Brooklyn Bridge never fails to amaze and enthrall this born-and-bred NYC girl with its urban grace and beauty.

(this shot taken with my trusty Blackberry Curve as we were speeding up the FDR in our weekend getaway car)

EDITED: YES, I KNOW REALIZE THAT THIS IS THE MANHATTAN BRIDGE . THANKS, BABY BRO (EL PAPO) FOR POINTING THIS OUT (I HAD REALIZED THIS EARLIER IN THE DAY). I PLACE THE BLAME SQUARELY ON ALL THE SUDAFED I'VE BEEN TAKING THIS WEEK. THAT, AND MY PROPENSITY TO WRITE/POST BLOGS THE MINUTE I WAKE UP. PLEASE DON'T REVOKE MY NY CARD. YOU KNOW THIS IS THE NICEST PICTURE OF THE MANHATTAN BRIDGE YOU'VE EVER SEEN ANYWAYZE.

And because today we awoke to gloomy and broody half-summer/half-autumn skies, and because I love you, here's a shot of equally broody and gloomy skies above Woodstock, NY.

(this shot taken my new favorite toy, the Fuji Instax 200 camera)

Happy Friday, peoples!

© Chommo, 2009.

.friday fotos.

So, clearly I’m no good with analog photography. And my piggy bank and I are still working hard for that money that’s going to allow us to finally – finally – buy a high quality SLR camera. I do have a trusty three-year old Canon PowerShot, but half the time I leave it at home and the other half I’ve left the memory card in my computer. But I love to take photos – I’m one of those crazy people you see who takes photos of dewy flowers, artisanal cupcakes, copper doorknobs, abandoned shoes in the rain, and male hipsters in ill-advised skinny jeans.    

What’s a girl to do? Luckily for me, last year Kim Jong-Illmatic bought me a sweeeeet camera-equipped Blackberry Curve. And although I've yet to use that camera to catch perverts engaging in acts of self-love on the subway (but oh man am I waiting for that day), I've managed to capture some pretty awesome photos.

Don’t you think?

.through the eyes of a dictator.