Run For Congo Women - accomplished!

What a wonderful way to start a Saturday morning! Even though the F train wasn't running uptown from Delancey and I had to cab it in the end (no thanks to the MTA for NOT updating their website), I still made it in loads of time and was super happy to see my old colleagues Andrea, Lily, Jay, Matt and Marisa, who had signed up to join my team a while back. Matt runs marathons, so even though I tried to keep up with him, I ended up telling him to leave me behind, because I have a medium pace, but not as fast as his! I ended up doing 3.7 miles (which I think is more than a 5K) in just under 40 minutes, so not bad really!
We raised nearly $500 which is great too!

This was my first charity run, and I'm so happy to have raised money for a charity that means a lot to me. Please check out the link below and sponsor a woman in one of the war torn countries listed if you can.

Now to find the next run!

Women for Women
Run For Congo Women

Me and Joy Division

And why it hurts me every time I listen to them.

I used to listen to Joy Division. I sometimes listen to Joy Division now. I usually find it hard to get through one song before I have to switch to something else. I love Joy Division, they will always be up there in my top 10 bands. Always.

Reverse back a few years, I wasn't in a very good place and would listen to Warsaw and Unknown Pleasures over and over again. I would dance drunk to "She's Lost Control" thinking how perfect the song was for me, that it was probably written for me and people like me. Just read the lyrics, you will understand.

Reverse back a lot longer, Ian Curtis killed himself. He was depressed, he couldn't deal with life, fine - terribly sad, but I was too young to actually have any real feelings about this. But Joy Division was one of my father's favourite bands, he adored them. I suppose they were perfect for him as they were for him, based on whatever he was going through at the time, just in the same way that I adored them a few years ago.

Move forward a few years to another death, mimicking Ian Curtis'. Someone who had adored him. And this wasn't just terribly sad, it was devastating, and it's only now, 23 years later, that I actually feel I can accept it, and maybe move past it.

That's why I choke up when I watch Joy Division footage, why I have trouble listening to them sober (and as I don't drink anymore that means at any given time), and that's why I can't revere Ian Curtis like so many people do. He was so talented, but in such a dark spot. In a way it just makes me feel so proud that I got away from that same dark place. I just wish that the other person had too.

I watched Control once and left the screening a wreck. I will never be able to watch it again. It's amazing how one band can be so devastatingly good, but leave such a trail of devastation in their wake.

More Bushwick street art!

I have not really had a moment to myself these past three weeks, and I keep seeing places that I want to photograph, and immediately forgetting them again (then again these places happen to be pieces of art along the railway tracks somewhere between Philadelphia and Penn Station, or Penn Station and Boston, so I really don't know how I would remember...).

In any case, I was in a car going home on Wednesday when I noticed some more great street art in Brooklyn, and this time remembered to put the cross streets down in my phone. I got up early yesterday morning, took a few cameras with me (I never know which one I am going to use until I actually decide I want to take a picture). I found the location I had gone past on Wednesday and started from there... Walking randomly for 90 minutes or so, I came across more and more great graffitti art... All portrayed HERE on my Flickr. A Bushwick street art stroll past Bogart & Boerum, Harrison & Morgan, Morgan & Grattan, Knickerbocker & Thames, Jefferson & Knickerbocker. I ended up just using the Canon Rebel Ti1 for all shots, just because there was so much to shoot and I didn't have enough colour film on me.

I've been reading up on the different crews and their history - it's really interesting.
Here is a great blog on NYC graffiti: Fresh Paint NYC
If there are any writings you want to know more about let me know - I tried to grab the signatures on all of them, so I could find out more about them.

East New York next week. Probably not the best idea in the world, but I'm sure I'll find some really cool spots.

This one is my new favourite, above one of the L train Morgan stop entrances: