SUBWAY INN, NEW YORK CITY, 2007.

One of the best 'dive' bars in the city!

Lexington and 59th station.

Hurry before the block gets demolished by the real estate boyz!

Cheers!

Passover, the Greek Easter, a bunch of good films and a month without scribbling on this blog!

First of I couldn't hear out of my left ear for over three weeks! A blessing for all who know me!

Second, my left index finger developed a growth of enormous proportions that it became possessed with a Jekyll & Hyde personality disorder!

(Dark Side!) I would be walking in Washington Square Park and the fucker would start giving everyone "the finger!" - women, women with children, the chess players, hippies (not cool!) and even the local clergy (cool)!

(Obi-Wan!) Then without warning it wanted to stroke people's hair - even in 'the village' this can be risque! Then it's walking on the sidewalks at pavement level trying to sniff the bottoms of all the minature designer dogs while telling me to get the telephone numbers of the walkers!

Thankfully the infected fingers day's are nearly over! One more week in the sling and everyone that knows me and everyone that doesn't will be free of the evil digit insult! It'll be nice to get rid of the bell as well!

So the virus that decided to visit me was a real pain in the arse too! No hearing, rapid and vindictive nostril explosions in the most ill-timed situations you could possibly imagine that I'm not even going to bother to divulge into any disgusting detail! I have never seen phelgm like it! Disgusting! So I'm leaving it there! The unwelcome organism finally left and all was well again!

Next came Easter and that was cool!

We were invited to a Greek Orthodox BBQ and I can say with hand on heart it was a blast!

I ate the brains, tongue and the steamed eye balls of a goat that had be 'Q'ued' on a wooden spit in Astoria, Queens since sunrise of that very same day!

Bloody lovely!

Everything was tender, cooked to perfection, accompanied with traditional Greek fare, including a superb collection of fine wines and violent liquers!

I have since pondered how the Greek Civilization ever discovered medicine, philosophy, democracy, engineering, sanitation, central heating, education, homesexuality, wine, while still not forgetting architecture, astrology and some thereom about a triangle that gave the world of mathematics a real hard-on and then manged to write the bloody lotl down and pass it on to us muppets?!

So talking of goats! During this period of my personal plague we did mange to watch a few films including "Killer of Sheep", "The Holy Mountain", "Syndromes and a Century" and last but least, "Private Fears in Public Places."

All showing at the IFC Center in 'the village', the goat related film is definately worth a look, the mountain where the goat nibbled the green, green grass is a MUST SEE, syndromes needs time, patience and a second viewing and lastly the private hang up's of six adults in Paris is an intelligent, subtle and moving piece of filmmaking that delivers a meaningful message to any intelligent audience.

Thats it! Need to eat! Need to find some RAW file for a friend in Canada, find another file to print for a mate in London and then open a bottle of red!


Cheers!

A Mystic Potion, site progress and Ken Loach!

So after suffering from this more than irritating virus for over a month a friend of mine from back home in England suggested I of taking the natural herb "Echinacea"

I have to say that - so far so good!

The alien ailments are begining to leave my body!
And signs from my immune system are giving me a big thumbs up to a full recovery!

Anyway, moving on!

The photo galleries are finally up!

l STILL have to insert the print/matt size and pricing information.
Hoping to start on that later this week!

Talking of photography we are planning a couple of trips this year!

One to Montreal and maybe another to Mexico, so apart from the NYC material that pops up every now & then I'm hoping to add some more photography for the site before the end of 2007.

Finally!

Recently watched "The Wind That Shakes The Barley", directed by Ken Loach and starring Cillian Murphy and set during the Irish struggle of independence against the British in the 1920's that sparked the political formation of the Irish Republician Army.

The picture tells the tale of two brothers who begin the fight together, but find themselves becoming bitter rivals after each falls prey to their own beliefs. After God knows how long the film reaches the real conflict - that of one's belief in political struggle as opposed to the love between the two brothers.

More screen time should have been spent on this final third of the film and not the repetitve scenes of the British brutality of the poor Irish folk, but not surprisingly the later sentiment is lazily tossed aside so as to reach a studio ending produced for tear jerking tissue parade!

Too long for a start. Bit corny. Repetitive.

However historically important.
Strong acting from Cillian Murphy but a lack of soul from the supporting cast.

I thought the cinemaphotography could have been a lot better considering it was all shot in Ireland. Very bland.
Shot selection left a lot to desire and I'm a Loach fan.

In all I felt the whole film kinda' fell flat on it's face with filmmaking flaws that with a production of this size should not be allowed considering the wealth of material and means available to all concerned.

"Killer of Sheep" is next!