John's Dunne Blazer

Dr Dillon would be proud -- If he remembered me. That's okay. I'll never forget him or the Norton Anthology of English Lit. I bought mine used and sold it the next semester. And like Dillon promised 28 years ago -- I've lived to regret it. Without Dillon's notes, I never could make sense of John Donne.

The shoulders of this bespoke Morty Sills blazer are roped. The lapel, sans button hole. Double vented with the back slightly longer than the front and a slight flare that jets out below the waist. It doesn't fit that well. Tight in the shoulders and arms but roomy in the waist. Sometimes "fit" is not the point.

The original owner had a fascinating life. Maybe a little will rub off. Maybe bad spirits. You never know. But for a quarter of what a China made blazer at Brooks Brothers will set me back, I have something with a story. The key is to never let anyone know. I know I just did, but ignore me for just this one post.

Kodachrome & Not Knowing

Ellis Island, 1985, Canon F-1 and Kodachrome 64 (photo by B. Feeney)

When the Park Service closed the Statue of Liberty for repairs in 1984, I was lucky enough to be given a few weeks to wander Ellis Island and photograph whatever I wanted. It was one of the best times of my life. I recently purchased Tri -X, Ilford and Fujichrome, in the hope that I might be able to relive some of those Kodachrome days.

Don't get me wrong. I love digital. The idea of firing off five shots in one second with minimal grain and no worries about focusing, shutter speeds and f/stops...that's a beautiful thing. But I miss film and contact sheets and I think, most importantly, not knowing until the film comes back from lab. I even found a lab in NYC that still does Cibachrome, but the owner tells me not for long.

That's all I needed to hear.

A Blind Step Away...

Richard Thompson, City Winery, NYC, 2/15/2012

A Blind Step Away (1987)

They bind his eyes with a silken scarf
And in his ear a friend explains
The one you catch is the one you kiss
How we all love party games

All the years that she has watched him
Is this the day, oh is this the day?
How she shakes as he approaches
A blind step away

He never knew how much she loved him
Standing there a step away
His eyes tied--blind man's bluff--
A blind step away

He was always reaching, reaching
Never knew where comfort lay
He never knew how much she loved him
A blind step away

Around he spins and around he spins
Darkness is his whole domain
Truth, dare, kiss, promise
Aren't you tired of party games?

He never knew how much she loved him
Standing there a step away
His eyes tied--blind man's bluff--
A blind step away

Come Away...

Stolen Child by William Butler Yeats (1889)

WHERE dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

Gant by Michael Bastian - Fall /Winter 2012

NYC, 2/15/2012

Moving

Somewhere in Pennsylvania


Somewhere in Maryland


Somewhere in New Jersey

Twelve moves over 18 years. It never bothered me then and the flashbacks don't bother me today. A sudden remembrance of anonymous highways, gas stations and motels from over 40 years ago. Indexed as: Bliss to Sill. Sill to Bragg. Monroe to Carson...

Ft Monroe to Ft Carson:
A diner waitress in New Mexico. Her simple beauty known only to me. She smiled a special smile at me. I was sure. In her butterscotch uniform and white apron. I was 15.

Ft Bliss to Ft Sill: Small homes on a flat red dusk with their dark insides lit only by blue television light. At seven, I wondered who the people were that watched TV together in the dark.

Ft Carson to Florida retirement: Only two months of high school before I graduate. I thought the Panhandle was America's stretch of ass compared to the West. I kept count of dead armadillos on the highway and wondered what the people thought of us as we drove by their orange stands, body shops and car dealers.

I still do. A 6AM train from NYC to DC. I wonder what it's like to be someplace I'm passing through. The back of scrap yards, body shops and car dealers. Back to NYC on a 7PM train, and night shows me inside TV lit apartments with snipped pictures of bookshelves, green ferns and posters belonging to Philadelphia, Trenton and Newark.

Not much has changed.

Grace...

TERRY
So I was in Boston. I just ended up there. Seemed far enough away. They come to me then, it just happened, you know how that is, things happen and other things happen and its your life.

They were looking to get somebody to go undercover here, they wanted to get somebody who knew the kitchen, who was known. I could'a said no but I thought I could do it. It was like this opportunity in which I could look the entire thing in the eye. You'd be gone, or married, forgotten about me I thought. And Jack, I would leave him out of it.

But it was only an idea. Nothing to do with the truth. It was just a fuckin' idea like... You believe in the angels or the saints or there's such a thing as a state of grace. And you believe it, but it's got nothing to do with reality. It just an idea.

I mean you got your ideas and you got reality, and they're all... they're all fucked up.

Kings of Midnight

Wallace Stroby on the uptown 1 train

Man in black, Wallace Stroby has a new one coming out in April. "Kings of Midnight" sees a return of Crissa Stone looking to make, "one last big score" while a former mobster may have a line on long missing cash from the 1978 Lufthansa heist. Crime noir and crime history collide in Stroby's sparse and well researched writing. A great writer. A lousy roommate.

"Bringing War Home"

"Red Stripe Kitchen," from "Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful," by Martha Rosler, The New Yorker, August 7, 2000

This collage, done as part of a series during the Vietnam War, always defined my conflict with being a soldier. I understood that as an infantryman I had a job to do. I also understood I would have no say in wars fought, countries invaded or operations to stabilize. Regardless of my opinion.

Americans ask a lot of their military when it comes to sacrifice. In return, the military is quick to demand sacrifice from their families. Pride and honor swirl around phrases like"Suck it Up," and crying ain't allowed. There's gonna be a lot of people telling us we have to "Drive On." I'm not one of them. But that's my opinion.

OP Model

FIT Campus, NYC, 3-7-2012

A Haircut & Change 1980-1984

Can you see change when there is change? I think I've changed recently but I doubt it can be seen. My college IDs record a 22 year old freshman who weeks earlier was a sergeant in the Army. By senior year my plans to return to the Army were permanently put aside... I had changed and I could see it. I also needed a haircut.

'Oh god this reminds me of how my girlfriend would blast this song in her Fiarro while driving on california highways at night, and I was high as hell. Jesus someone make a time machine already. IndicaEuphora

Out On A Limb

Greenville, DE, 3-3-2012


When I lived in Chicago, a friend told me that if life were like a tree, most Midwesterners prefer to stay within the heavily populated trunk. Only a few venture alone to the end of the branches. He added that being alone and unique at the end of a branch -- even in good weather -- was not the place to be. Community of the trunk stood you a healthy life with support close to the ground.


That's not to say you can't go out on a limb once a year...


Bonobos St Patrick's Day Trousers - Limited run available here

My Reality

Fratelli Alti

Antonio and Adam Ciongoli at Gant by Michael Bastian

I've had many friends of Italian descent over the years. I suspect it's because I like their humor and love of life. If I were really being honest with myself -- I'd add that they're rarely taller than I am.

Living in what Paul Williams called, "a world of belt buckles and boobs," it's hard hanging out with tall guys without suffering from a re-occurrence of a cervical sprain-strain from my motorcycle accident in '84.

Antonio and Adam Ciongoli are the tallest damned Italians I've ever met. I needed a foot stool to get a decent picture and was only successful by raising my camera over my head like paparazzi shooting over a crowd.

Antonio is a designer working for Michael Bastian and according to an insightful Q&A on his blog, big brother Adam is a problem fixer. Adam's take on music and clothes follows a tradition of, La Famiglia...if I used that right and seriously doubt I did.

Check it out at Antonio's blog, 13th & Wolf. They're unique questions I look forward to stealing.

By FMT

Goddess of the Western World 1975



Three Wise Men 1973


Back to Camp 1972


Number One Figure(s) 1976


Cutty Sark Label 1973


Fire Crackers 1968


Still Life 1970


The Recline 1969


Bust 1970


Blue Square 1973


The DMZ 1970


The Throw 1974


The Relaxed Man 1968

He started with Relaxed Man -- Painted after returning home from Vietnam. He told me last year it had been the first time he felt relaxed since coming home, which is why I refuse to put a bow tie on him.

He created the fire cracker series by squeezing tubes of acrylic paint on strings of fire crackers. That got messy and loud so he filled old light bulbs with paint and dropped them while standing on a stool.

There was the ink block of the 'Three Wise Men' he cut for a Christmas card. But he forgot to reverse his initials. Corrected initials were added later. Three of his paintings are at the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, NC. Several more were purchased for corporate collections.

We never knew what the Hell he was gonna do next. I get the impression he didn't either. I guessed the date by associating the piece with his assignment. Advisor to the Charlotte National Guard, Information Officer at NORAD, General Staff at Ft Monroe.

It wasn't easy having nude paintings on your living room wall in Huntersville, NC in 1969. He didn't give a shit but I did. Many friends thought I was going straight to H-E- Double toothpicks back then but times have changed and you can see the influence of the late '60s and early '70s in his work. He gave it all up. Don't ask me why.

Most of these paintings are gone and these color slides are the only proof they ever existed. That's the way he would've wanted it.

Family Slides

St Augustine, FL 1976


Ft Carson, CO 1973


Hampton, VA 1972


Montreal, Canada 1970 - All photos by FM Tinseth