Back to the pleasant, shady house in Brooklyn

The white linnen pants and white shoes seems truly apart from interior of the Long Island Rail Road on the way home.

Having perfected the spy-camera method, I take a snapshot of this airport advisory. It seems like a veiled threat of a body cavity search. On the other hand, you have rights...just like in McDonalds, you can ask to see a manager if you don't like the se

I feel quite proud of myself for sneaking this picture: US customs upon entering the US at JFK, New York. You can go to Guantanamo for this kind of thing, but it has to be done by someone (me). Being a US citizen you can breeze right through, while the

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Entering the mother ship.

We see others entering through the glass tube. Someday air travel of this type is going to appear unthinkably literal, mark my works.

Spanish undulations in the ceiling.

The Super Tourist!

Here you see one of the great wonders of Madrid: the vertical gardens of Caixam the bank. This is actually a cultural institution/museum set up by the bank- an "obra social" The other big bank in Madrid, La Caja de Mardid also does obra social,

This type of grand early 20th century architecture is a strong part of the appearance of Madrid.

Me and Leyre, my friend and host in Madrid. She is a social worker who was living before in Brooklyn (went to school with Dagan) for years and has come back to live in the city of her birth. Es realmente muy Guapa! And even prettier without the red eyes

the complete film shoot...

The old bannister of Leyre's apartment in the center of the city looking down to the bottom where they were doing some plumbing work. Down there was in fact a hole unimaginably deep.

The rain in Spain...gushed up from beneath a man-hole cover.

Springs!!!

This sign is so Euro somehow...for it's careful geometry. Nothing American about it.

Chair-things at the Reina Sofia museum where I saw Guernica.

View of other elevator and modern expansion of the already huge Reina Sofia.

on view was Olafu Eliasson. I have come to a conclusion about that artist: overrated. What he does it pretty easy and many others have done it with more feeling.

Eduardo Chillida looked good in the museum. I saw big dove tail joints in steel.

My favorite was this Robert Smithson piece called Hotel Palenque. It's a 45 minute slide show and lecture (with Smithson's recorded voice set to slides) about a hotel in Mexico of the same name. It's a creative landscape of words, layers of time, creati

I saw this big sculpture out in the city, near the Puerta Toledo. There was a clunky greatness to it that could only get better with grafitti. Somehow it longs to become a ruin, like the hotel Palenque.

Some local artists make their statement of grasping toward their most famous cultural institution. Not sure exactly what the statement is about though.

right in front of the Prado: free excercise class!!! Seems like there was a lot of spirit in Madrid. And best of all, it seemed that this statue was giving quiet instructions to the instructor, who shouted them out to the eager public.

Fervent dream on canvas: A monk receives a stream of milk in his mouth from the delicate breast of a saint.

This painting at the Prado is called "The Bufon Francisco Bazan" by Juan Carreno. But you have to admit it looks a lot like another Bufon: George W. Look closely.

This curious picture caught me by surprise. It's called "Woman with a beard." Indeed there was something feminine in the eyes, perhaps.

Here we zoom out to the whole painting and we see the wife's long suffering husband. The painting is by Jose Ribera in 1631.

You see, you can get into the Prado for free if you are unemployed (and a member of the EU). Hey, if you are unemployed and a European, what else to do besides look at Goya?

Dark windy streets of Madrid at night- get into your dreams. Kind of like Rome.

a stack of things in the center of Madrid

This is Gran via. It, like the city itself, is undeniably big and filled with movie theaters and young people goin' out.

Saw a lot of window theft attempts, so cracked glass. These are not easy to photograph! Here, someone cut a nearly perfect circle, apparently better to reach in and grab the goods. Probably this is because Madrid sent their one police officer to New Yor

A human statue at the Plaza Mayor serves as a grave reminder of the inhuman things that happened there...if I understand it right.

Subways in Madrid: bright, yellows, sometimes TV screens, not overcrowded. No rats as far as I could see.

The trains came all the time- about every 2-3 minutes, but it did seem like the overall system could be more efficient as you needed to switch a lot.

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The Plaza Mayor in Madrid. Spanish Plazas are more uniform than I had seen in most of Europe, and full of metal balconies. But it seems that these balconies were used, in days past, to watch the gruesome spectacles that went on in the plaza. Like Bullf

That is Leyre Ramos, a Madrileña and good friend of Dagan and now me who I stayed with. She showed me around the city- where to find the good food and the spirit of the city. Here we were with Vettka on a street filled with little restaurants and bars.

Peppers and Octopus!

El Brillante: a typical Spanish diner right below Leyre's house.

End of the festival we saw a big techno-pop group set up in the Plaza Mayor. I have to admit there is something about the commanding position of these big stage DJs that makes me uncomfortable. Kind of like audio-fascism. Actually very much so. But if

An expensive pretense of communicating with outer space...

Bini in her glory

Niki, Sascha, and Vettka

The whole group (except Serjoscha who was off pedaling his passport for a bit of Spanish ham or something like that.

I was walking through Salamanca on my way to see a New York theater/dance company called Young Jean Lee when I saw the posh director of the festival going there too. So I endeavered to follow him.

His white hair made him easy to follow

Plus the fact that he was dressed all in black made it feel like an early 60's euro film- like Blow Up or something- very fun to follow him.

Plus of course I was thinking of Vito Acconci's following piece...a real piece of NY art history.

Here are Alex, Niki, and Sascha with a DJ who was also in the festival. I forgot his name. He is from Detroit but lives in LA and travels internationally to festivals earning Euros, and other currencies and exporting the Detroit style. He travels from LA

da girlz

Often overlooked parking lot scene in Salamanca, Espana.

This was after our performance, at the festival center in the Renaissance era House of Shells. Inside, the aforementioned DJ was spinning, quite a hopping night life in Salamanca, but somehow better to be an observer.

So we are going backwards of course...Here Lucas is taking down the set. By now it's gotten really fast.

Sascha after the show. Look at that face...it's the face of a true artist, a true clown.

Alex leaves.

This is the poster of the festival. There we are along with Rufus Wainwright and Gilberto Gil!

The great old sweeping lines of the balcony, seen from the stage. Also from this shot, you get a sense of what it feels like to be on stage- a good feeling, I assure you. During this show while I was performing I looked at at these balconies (in which wa

Serjoscha the wide eyed professor.

At my station....

The stage is set, as they say, the balls are hung and lit. All apt metaphors, somehow.

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We could not bring ourselves to indulge..in Pork fat. Raciones are plates of (often) meat that you get at Spanish restaurants. The waiter proudly brought us such a plate at an old restaurant in the center of Salamanca...

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Together again around the table.

Vettka: the red flame.

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Setting up the stage-this time we performers had less to do.

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Niki and Alex- the super theater couple!

View of our stage set inside this rather formal theater. Actually, I think it looked the best here- like the proletcult squatting in some Czar's palace.

This was a playgound in Salamanca. Then they wondered why all the kids grew up to work for Michelin.

Another spare playground. These kids need some toys!

My nose almost seems to be touching a Franco-era lamp post on a bridge.

It's a horse...a white horse...a Spanish White horse.

Felt a little wrong taking this photo...

I did it my way!

Grande Plaza at night. (The center at least) is a clean Renaissance city that feels warm but conservative on first impression. Magical, yes definitely magical. A lot of Spanish women like this one walking and talking determinedly .

There is apparently a lucky frog of Salamanca that if you find it will bring you good luck all of your life. Tomorrow I'm going to go look for it- the real thing.

This spare look and reddish color of rock is what the center of the city is made of.

Trying to get my Spanish on, Goya style.

"La Casa de las Conchas" House of Shells- a unique and beautiful building that reminds me of how good my paella at the airport was.

If you were wondering what is true north on the Punk's moral compass...

The macabre literalism of Spanish Catholicism.

The soaring architecture of the Cathedral Vieja of Salamanca. The bunched columns develop into patters on the ceiling as if they are massive sinews. HR Gigeresque I think this is common to Spanish church architecture as I also saw it down in Sevilla ye

eye candy

eye candy with historical accuracy: a brown Jesus nestled in the middle.

Young Europeans practicing utopian Orientalism or Orientalist Utopianism. I have to give it to these guys- they did not stop playing their riffs for 5 or 6 hours even though most were ignoring them.

When I got to the airport, the driver kept me waiting for a few hours since he was tied up in traffic caused by these guys. Truckers all across Spain were striking by driving slowly around city highway rings- "snail protests" They are protestin

I have a wing seat.

On the airplane monitors, they show live footage from a camera apparently mounted on top of the tail wing. The image got warped and interesting when the rain started- like Tom McGrath's older paintings. Hey, why not put camera on all the winds so you can

This airplane seemed to have a bitless space for my knees than normal

The storm came 5 minutes before liftoff and kept us stranded for hours. But the water drops were spectacular.