The Very First Ok Oh Danny Bloomberg Mid Morning Coffee Interview, 11:25ish EST

(cafe sounds, light indie rock in background)
Ok Oh: So you really believe there is no, um, no, ah causality in the world?
Danny: Yeah, I'm fighting against my inclination towards causality, I think that's more the way I'd put it.
Ok Oh: Really?
Danny: Yeah, because I think it's false.
Ok Oh: You don't think if you go out into the sunshine and you're fair skinned, you're going to get a sunburn?
Danny: I don't think it's that simple. It's not because you're in the sunshine that you're getting a sunburn.
Ok Oh: But it's uh, it's um
(Robinson exclaims, "Obama!" and the microphone switches off.)
(Unrecorded wrestling with Robinson over phone supremacy.)
(Microphone switches back on, more exclamations of "Obama!" which turns to "Oba-Danny!")
Ok Oh: So you, so let me get this straight, like, it's not that simple but there are are many, you think there are just random occurrences that happen on all these different levels that that. . .
Danny: No, to recap our discussion Todd, for the sake of this recording. . .
Ok Oh: No, I'm asking for a new discussion, this is a new discussion
Danny: Well we're talking about the same thing, I mean if you are going to talk about causality then you are going to have to talk about every single event that precursed this event.
Ok Oh: So why is that not cause?
Danny: Well, ok, I'll have to review my reasoning on why that's not cause but um. . .
(laughter) Beacause it's like, if you, if something that (ahem) if you have, um, zero, right, then there is no 1, right? But if you have, um, because if there is no, or if you have 1, there's no 2, right? because 1 is everything right, and you can't distinguish even a 1 if you only have 1. If there's only 1 there's not even 1, you know what I'm saying? If there's only one thing in the world, that thing is not even a thing, because there is no. . .
Ok Oh: There's no fractions?
Danny: No! Not if there is only one. You can only. . . like the Taoist say "from one comes the two and from two comes the ten thousand" things right?
Ok Oh: Right.
Danny: From two comes the ten thousand things, not from one, from one comes two, right? Ok. that's like a huge. . .
Ok Oh: That's a massive jump.
Danny: That's a huge metaphysical jump right there.
Ok Oh: Yeah! I buy that.
Danny: Ok, well I'm not ready for that I guess right now. (laughter) I'm talking about one, because I think that's the only way I can conceive of this, I guess basically.
Ok Oh: But why is it only it only one? What is the one?
Danny: The one is everything that came before the act.
Ok Oh: Why is that just one thing?
Danny: Because it's everything, everything is one.
Ok Oh: Well, everything exists in one. . .
Danny: No, everything is one.
Ok Oh: Ouuoghh. . .
Danny: The only thing everything is not, is zero, nothing. . .
Ok Oh: Right well that's for sure. That's not even a, that's a, that's a nonstarter.
Danny: Yeah, nothing, we can't even talk about.
Ok Oh: yeah, because zero is a totally ridiculous idea.
Danny: Yeah.
Ok Oh: But, why why is it that, the one does not, one contains everything, why is, why is everything not a fraction?
Danny: Everything is one, I'm not saying that one contains everything, you're saying that.
Ok Oh: Oh.
Danny: Everything is one.
Ok Oh: Right.
(Robinson, "Ooh, ooh awooah, aaaagh)
Danny: Yeah.
Ok Oh: So that, that, you know, is the same difference.
Danny: Well I mean you can talk about fractions, fractions are sunlight, yeah.
(Robinson, "boobowaaaagh")
Ok Oh: Right, any number of fractions together. . .
Danny: That's not the cause of the suntan.
Ok Oh: No but. . .
Danny: Everything is the cause of the suntan, so that's why we are talking about everything, one.
Ok Oh: That's right, yeah.
Danny: Yeah. (Robinson, "Papa!") I mean, we can talk about the, we can try to speculate percentage of what one, that sunshine had on your sunburn, uh, I don't thing we'd succeed in that speculation with any kind of accuracy. . .
Ok Oh: Right. Yeah.
Danny: So there is no point in really talking about it.
Ok Oh: But that doesn't mean that there is no reason.
Danny: I mean, there are lots of reasons, there's infinite reasons.
Ok Oh: Yeah. But you don't thing there's causality.
Danny: Well I think hen you're talking about the everything you can't specify it as a thing!
Ok Oh: But you can't. . .
Danny: Because if there is only one, then there's. . .
Ok Oh: But then why are you making the leap. . .
Danny: . . .there's nothing. . .
Ok Oh: . . .why are you making the leap to um, irretrievable, inexistence of causality? Where is that leap coming from? It's like the leap from one to two.
Danny: No it's the leap from. . . it's the staying at one, rather than going to two. It's not the leap from one to two. (laughing)
Ok Oh: But you're saying that, but you just said that within the one. . .
Danny: Yeah. . .
Ok Oh: . . .there's all these things happening.
Danny: Sure, ok, yeah. Well, even then we've already broken two into ten thousand thing though already, in our heads. We're already there. so you don't want to start talking about that. . .
Ok Oh: So you don't want to say that. . .?
Danny: No, I'm hesitant. . .
Ok Oh: You just said that there is just the one.
Danny: . . .now I don't understand that.
Ok Oh: Right, okay, so you're just saying you don't understand causality.
Danny: I mean, I understand the inclination towards causality, but yeah it doesn't make any sense, no.
Ok Oh: Huh.
Danny: I mean, if you think about things happening, just happening, and not happening because. . .it's sort of liberating, but it's also terrifying, you know? That means, that means the world is like totally without meaning, this is like what Lacan. . .
Ok Oh: But thats, you're bringing in meaning again, you there you go with your meaning.
Danny: Yeah well its on. . .
Ok Oh: You bring that in. . .
Danny: . . a separate separate topic, ok, separate topic.
Ok Oh: Yeah, ok, I just, I just wanted to point out that you're bringing in meaning.
Danny: Yeah ok, but I think that's an interesting facet of this whole thing, is the, that's what interests me about it, you know this is like from all the Lacan and Zizek shit that I read a long time ago. . .
Ok Oh: Yeah, yeah yeah. . .
Danny: It's all like about this concept of the "real" being the lack of symbolization. . .
Ok Oh: But I don't see that, the the the necessary. . . well I mean, the, thats, this is where I come back to my point that like you make a decision to decide that the one entails no cause. Whereas you could just as easily make the decision to decide that the one entails, everything is the cause.
Danny: Oh I see. . .
Ok Oh: And so . . .
Danny: . . sort of like a "free love". . .
Ok Oh: yeah, well, you make a decision. . .
Danny: a "love" philosophy. . . where mine is a nihilistic philosophy.
Ok Oh: Yeah, or it's just . . .
Danny: That's basically just the difference.
Ok Oh: . . .it's just one philosophy versus another philosophy. . .
Danny: Right, but I'll call it. . .
Ok Oh: You can call it whatever you want.
Danny: Yeah, I call it "love."
Ok Oh: It's simply one or the other. (laughter) You, you're making a decision to go one route, whereas you could easily make, just as easily make the logical decision to go the other route, there's no necessary.
Danny: I guess I just don't have it in me to make that other decision that's not my. . .I mean maybe it's a fundamental, psychological. . .
Ok Oh: But it doesn't matter either.
Danny: . . .thing, because . . .
Ok Oh: Well, you know, for you it's liberating, and really scary, on the other side, it's liberating and scary as well.
(Robinson, "woah, whooo")
Danny: I don't think it's scary on the other side. . .
Ok Oh: Well there you go. . . I think you're, I think you're into that scariness. . .
Danny: Well yeah I am. . .
Ok Oh: For me it's scary to think that everything is cause.
Danny: Really?
Ok Oh: Sure. Why not? But that's our emotion. And I wanna know why that is, what's the reason for that, my emotional reaction is different from yours.
Danny: Yeah, I donno. . .yeah, it's weird.
Ok Oh: So there has got to be some sort of reason for that.
Danny: Do you like rollercoasters?
Ok Oh: No. I hate them.
Danny: God, I looove rollercoasters. . .
Ok Oh: Oh ok I can't stand them. . .
(laughter)
Danny: Did you ever when you were a kid, did you ever spin circles until you were so dizzy you fell over?
Ok Oh: Yeah, didn't like that either.
Danny: Oh loved that.
Ok Oh: No.
Danny: I broke my nose that way.
Ok Oh: Oh you did (laugher)
Danny: Or close to it.
Ok Oh: Robinson likes that.
Danny: See, when he gets old enough to discuss this we'll have to review it. . .
Ok Oh: Right.
Danny:. . .And kind of see, maybe that's the point of . . .
Ok Oh: He is going to be a, be a proselyte of. . .
Danny: I find it very exciting the concept that nothing has a cause.
Ok Oh: Um, well I think that's an emotional response.
Danny: Oh yeah, but I find it so exciting and so risky and dangerous. sort of counter intuitive.
Ok Oh: It entices you.
Danny: It goes against everything I think we have learned in our lives like we were taught you know.
Ok Oh: (Aside, "oh no Robinson, keep that one on.") Um, well that's interesting.
Danny: That's one of the things I find interesting about it.
Ok Oh: I think you basic, I think your basic thing is, uh, your basic hangup is meaning. You're worried about meaning.
Danny: Am I worried about it? Meaning?
Ok Oh: Yeah, you seem to be worried about meaning. Like what is the meaning?
Danny: I see what you're saying, yeah. . .
Ok Oh: Yeah.
Danny: Sure.
Ok Oh: A major worry for you.
Danny: Oh yeah? (laughter) I mean, is it not for you? I guess it is. . I would think it is for everyone.
Ok Oh: Yeah I guess so but I. . .
Danny: I have kind of given up meaning, for a long time now.
Ok Oh: Yeah, me too!
Danny: Yeah, ok, so I'm not worried about it, actually.
Ok Oh: For me it's very, everything is kind of biological. . .
Danny: Yeah.
Ok Oh:. . .and insofar as it's biological the meaning resides in the biology.
Danny: Well I see that there is no meaning, see I guess that's
Ok Oh: Yeah, well. . . see there you go!
(laughter)
Danny: You think the meaning is there in something you can't explain or understand, I just say there's no meaning.
Ok Oh: Well either way the meaning is there in something you can't explain or understand.
Danny: But this. . .
Ok Oh: Either way. .
Danny: Yeah but this kind of the crux of my original argument which is about reason for things. . .
Ok Oh: Right.
Danny: . . .and how people love to feel like there's reasons even though they don't know what those reasons are they want to know, (Robinson, "eeeyoop, eeeyooop") they want to believe something somewhere away from their (Robinson, "eeeyoop, eeeyooop") consciousness there exists a reason.
Ok Oh: Foundationalism.
Danny: Is that Foundationalism?
Ok Oh: Yeah.
Danny: Ok.
Ok Oh: And I'm saying that reason is enough in the coherent set.
Danny: What do you mean the "coherent set"?
Ok Oh: The coherent set is the like every, everything is, is a little ball of, of reason and meaning, all, every, all of existence. Its a little ball. And it works within itself completely. There is no. . .
Danny: Outside of what, I mean, what is. . .
Ok Oh: I don't know outside. . .
Danny: Another set of meaning?
Ok Oh: Sure.
Danny: But isn't everything contained in the same, isn't, aren't you, your set of meaning the same as every other set of meaning?
Ok Oh: Sure. Who's to say?
Danny: So it's all one set of meaning.
Ok Oh: Who's to say? yeah.
Danny: So, I mean that's what, the same thing as . . . the one, everything.
Ok Oh: But the fact that the coherent set exists itself lends itself, for me, the fact that I have a biological existence, um and like you know, I, I don't know what I'm seeing and hearing and smelling and eating. Like I don't know until I decide what it is. Right?
Danny: Right. . .
Ok Oh: And so kind of like, oh that's what I do that's. . .
Danny: Oh I see, that's the meaning you are making. . .
Ok Oh:. . .I'm propelled. . .
Danny: . . in your brain.
Ok Oh:. . .um yeah, I'm propelled in a certain direction and that propulsion is the meaning. I simply have the propulsion.
Danny: Right ok, so that's the same thing I'm saying, except you're calling it "meaning." I don't know why you're calling it meaning.
Ok Oh: But I, but I can can call it meaning and you can call it non-meaning, and there's like, but that's just a decision we make, to either accept it as meaning or to not accept it as meaning.
(long pause, cafe sounds, Robinson is silent)
Danny: Well I guess I thought meaning was supposed to mean something else. (laugher) I never thought of it that way. . . Like, I mean, what is meaning mean, I guess. . . that's the question.
Ok Oh: Right. Well does it, well is meaning just a personal decision to be ok with things. . .
Danny: An arbitrary association. . .
Ok Oh: It's basically a personal, yeah, an arbitrary, well, it's a personal arbitrary decision to be ok with things. That's meaning.
Danny: Does it mean there's meaning to symbols. . . um. . . that we share that the meaning of right, and so the lexicon, language . . .
Ok Oh: You would hope.
Danny: Yeah more or less.
Ok Oh: Yeah.
Danny: More or less. . .that's meaning.
Ok Oh: That's one kind of meaning. . .
Danny: But people say like. . .
Ok Oh: . . .but that's meaning within a, that's meaning within the greater set of meaning, is it not? And the greater set of meaning for me, is we have all these symbols and these things that we share. . .
Danny: Hmmm.
Ok Oh:. . .because we are.
Danny: Because we are. So this, so that's your personal feeling, that's your personal identification of meaning.
Ok Oh: But that's the ground level, base level, like, kind of nexus of life. Meaning is.
(Robinson grabs microphone, "oh, mah my papa!")
Danny: What is?
Ok Oh: That idea of what is meaning. (aside to Robinson, "you want this?" Robinson, "Mine!") Alright, final thoughts.
Danny: I don't know what the fuck you're talking about right there you (Robinson, "Mine!") I wish, I would like to continue this discussion further to understand what you're trying to mean by that (Robinson, "Mine!") cause you lost me, (Robinson, "Mine!") like your lexicon escaped me. (laughter, Robinson, "Miiiine!") so I have to, so I can only summarize that there actually is no meaning because our meaning are not at an intersector.
Ok Oh: Ok.
(Robinson whimpering, "Mmmmiiine.")
Ok Oh: (close to the microphone) Danny is smarter than me.
Danny: (closer to the microphone) Toddy's a, Toddy's an asshole!
(laughter)
(microphone turns off)

The initial spark for this interchange can be found here.
Lacan & Zizek

This interview is actually the first of two parts. It as only after transcribing the first half of this interview that I realized it really is the second half that has the magic. Unfortunately I only have this one bad drawing of Danny. A second bad drawing will be produced this weekend, and the second half of the interview will then be posted. Thanks for your patience.

Many thanks, once again to Marlow & Sons Cafe/Grocery/Oyster-Shack for providing the ample needed space for the interview.

Danny's Color, Williamsburg

Danny and I walked. We walked and talked and did the things one does when one is walking and talking with Danny. Basically some walking and lots of good talking. Danny is one of my favorite conversationalists. He can pretty much carry on in any number of idioms in a range of subjects. We stopped and Danny waited for me to talk to some people. Stopped and Danny waited for me to take some photographs. He careened off at the end there, needed to buy some seeds to plant before his trip to see family in London and Paris. He promised to buy me some seeds for greens. Some kale. Maybe some parsley. When I first saw Danny today, when I walked into the garden of the cafe, he was on the phone with Big Dan, talking soccer. I thought to myself whoah, this can't get any better.

It is that time of year where I take a photo of Danny for this blog.  "That time of year?" you say.  "What, there are more?" you say.  Yes. Apparently Danny has become something of a muse here.  I say apparently as I am startled, when I type in "Danny" to the blog-o-search machine at the top left corner there, to discover Danny has indeed reached the pre-set muse-qualification quotas.  Nice job Danny. You too can type in "Danny" into the blog-o-search machine at the top left corner there, or just click this and enjoy a morning of Dannydom.

After Dark : The Qi Gong Ok Oh Review

Danny's father slipped on some dry leaves and fractured his scapula on a rock not too long ago.  A longer time ago I slipped on some dry leaves and fell thirty feet between some rocks then slid another twenty through some snow to within three of the bank of an icy river.  Danny detailed the circumstance of his father's recent fall while we circled a rather large pond in Teatown, New York.  I opted not to talk about my own fall.  After all, I didn't break any bones, just some back contusions.  A minor miracle perhaps, but no sense rubbing it in.  I was young, perhaps fifty years younger than Danny's father is now.  All Danny does these days is eat, meditate, read, walk and watch rented movies.  It is doing him very good.  Danny shook his head a little when I mentioned the book I was reading.  He likes Murakami well enough, but finds him boring, to be honest.  After a while everything reads sort of the same, he says.  I guess so, I say, but his writing is so straight forward, like a Japanese Hemingway, I say.  Or maybe a Japanese Raymond Chandler, I could have said.  But I didn't. And now that I've finished the book tonight that I hadn't yet finished earlier today, skipping through whole paragraphs of dry exposition to a relatively unengaging wrap-up, I am starting to side with Danny.  I wonder if I'd feel different were I still on vacation.

Flat Tire Boogie Woogie, Williamsburg

Danny and I went to the Korean spa the other day. Like some sort of Disneybanya, it rises out of the wasteland of Flushing, Queens, a beacon of steamy bath house hope for kim chee-eating soakers everywhere. I enjoy going to steam baths. It is one activity that I know will produce a feeling of accomplishment. An incredibly productive pastime. Danny and I, after our four hour soak and scrub and steam, sat in the cafe and watched the swimmers on the roof below, our bodies feeling a bit like the noodles in our soup. Just behind Danny, the next table over, two Korean women had ordered some little Han Bando pu pus for themselves. In the middle of one of Danny's soaring soliloquies, the lady whose back faced Danny lifted a hard boiled egg high in her left hand and cracked it against her forehead to break the shell.

More on Spa Castle here.

Saturday Night Marlow & Sons, Brooklyn

Waiting for Danny to show, I stood at the bar alone. I crossed my legs and leaned on the marble counter. I looked around and felt a little exposed. Marissa talked to me. Sarah talked to me. I talked to myself. I enjoyed a half pint of beer. I took these photos. I tried to recognize people and did not. When Danny arrived he ordered a Mexican drink. I ordered scotch. His chaser had more tequila and some tobasco and something else in it. My chaser was more beer. Mark showed up. He drank red wine and ate pasta and typed things into his phone. Danny and I talked about unmemorable things. Another round of drinks. Mark left, Everard showed up. I gave Everard a hard time and he left. Danny and I paid the bill and I walked home.

Vlad, Josh, Danny

A devoutly religious man, Vlad doesn't speak much English. The day after Marina's thirtieth birthday he approached me and asked if I were Ukranian. I just blinked and laughed and said no. He motioned up to our apartment and communicated with hand gestures that the jug band we hired for Marina's party the night before sounded just like Ukranian music. One time I watched him greet a Catholic priest at Peter Luger's, kissing both the priest's hands.

I don't know much about Josh. Many years ago we had a great rivalry on the soccer field. Neither of us had any touch really, but we were far more fit than most of the real soccer players. We would knock each other around pretty good. Sometimes I visit Paul down at the student art league painting store on Lafayette. One day I bumped into Josh there. Apparently he has the same ideas about visiting Paul as I do. Josh has a wood shop up in Greenpoint.

Danny's film The Greatest Gift will be playing on a New York rooftop on July 4th. You can find out more about it here. Danny relates funny stories to me on a regular basis. Today we stood talking on the corner of Kenmare and Bowery for a little while talking about things we talk about. Not necessarily a beautiful street corner, that one.

Today, while taking a photo of a third floor curtain waving through an open third floor window, a fellow who recently moved to the neighborhood yelled at me from across the street. Apparently it was his window and his curtain and he didn't like me taking a photo of either of them. I went directly into angry getinafight mode. What a ridiculous mode.

Rob and his Kodak Medalist II

The fact is, it's about hand speed, or just plain speed, really. One could imagine being beaten pretty handily by a guy 40 pounds one's weight junior if that guy had quicker hands with better placement. Sure, a take down would cover it, but that take down better as heck be faster than those hands, or at least just as fast, so as to neutralize them sooner than later. In Rob's case here, there Danny and I were just minding our own business, talking loudly outside a coffee shop on Mott, instructing tourists where to get their coffee, bantering about weirdness, drinking cups of crazy, and here's Rob, sauntering by unsuspecting with his new Kodak Medalist II, the camera of choice for photojournalists during World War II, and he just springs the trap POW! and Danny and I pounce, "Hey! That's a big camera! Whoah! Get a load of that camera!" and he never had a chance. He was a good sport though. Better than that cranky father of those tourists.

Wheeled Machinery

Lately I have been reading many good books. I do not always read many books at once, but sometimes I get on a roll and helping myself isn't an option. My wife bought me a three volume biography on Picasso. Holle gave me a small reader on spontaneous art. I found myself at the Strand the other day with too much time and I purchased a history of Post War Europe and an autobiography of a travel essayist.
There is still the last two chapters of that Culture Code book I have yet to finish to which this photo turned first in my head. Something about the adolescence of America. The obsessive American need to define itself in the face of the "other." That is where I thought I would be when I could finally option this Polaroid.
A funny thing happened between all those books and this post.
Danny called and arranged a lunch which he did not make. Having left my mobile phone on my desk, I missed his apologetic cancellation. I made the girl sit me in front of the window so Danny would see me right off the bat. This didn't make the girl happy as it messed up her seating chart. This was so clear I ordered extra appetizers to make up for my late opposite. Then I ordered a beer, so sheepish I felt. Then I ordered my lunch, thirty minutes late, and another beer. The girl asked if my friend was coming and when I told her the story about the phone the expression on her face turned a shade so sympathetic I felt like I might need to dine and dash.
On the way back to the office I noticed two funny things. I recalled, passing by a building I had passed by before, bumping into the Japanese R&B singer Toshi a few years back. I wore my own ripped blue rain coat and had Magda on the leash. He popped out of that same building and I said something to him about how I liked his music. Blanching, he scurried back through the door from which he had just emerged. I never saw him on that street again. I was just being polite. I don't really like his music.
On Crosby street I passed by a super attractive actress who had been in a commercial I had edited a year or two ago. At the voice-over session she was very impressive in her composure. On the street today she was on her mobile phone gesticulating not wildly, her nose more than red from the cold. As I passed by she spat "Fuck you, this is almost 2008! Not 20 years ago! You can't do that now."

Danny

That first glass of wine, just that one glass of wine. That's all you need. Physical orgasm of sensation. The second glass, and it all goes away. But that first glass, that first glass puts me right where I want to be.
There is nothing like happening on Danny during one of his moods.

Danny is an American

Last week Danny became a citizen of the United States. He squeezed into an auditorium with a low ceiling in a technical college in downtown Brooklyn packed with anxious immigrants. He said his very first truthful Pledge of Allegiance and took an oath to defend the country. After singing the national anthem, as everyone was slowly shuffling out, he heard Neil Diamond's "America" over the loud speaker. Right before reaching the door, as the last few notes of "America" played out, the next song on the rotation kicked in: "Born in the USA."

Danny, Alex, Ramon, The Yom Kippur War

One need not fall far to fail. The undue sense of disappointment will take care of the rest.

Danny, Chris, The Dooch

One falls into friendship like tripping on the curb. All of a sudden it's there, and when you look back, it's been there all along, you just hadn't tripped on it yet. Of course, sometimes there's all that sludge in the gutter. You gotta watch out for that. These three are friends of different degrees. There is this whole relationship circle scheme people try and push every now and then, but diagrams rarely help and damn if that curb just doesn't keep going.

Reconstituted Drunken Debates & an Even More Topical Retort

The Dying Japanese Tree

The Japanese have all these great concepts that I keep hearing about. Danny tells me about the idea of "umami," the indefinable taste of deliciousness. A few years ago I heard about "wabi sabi" from Melissa which is something akin to "jolie laide" but more significant. Kevin says that the whole Eskimo having a billion words for snow thing is a bunch of hooey. He says they have a lot of words for snow, but really we have just as many. My wife has always been a beauty but don't try telling her that. She seems to have it in mind that she has lost a step. She was once a beautiful woman in her twenties, that time being the bulk I have spent with her being beautiful. I knew her only passing when she was a beautiful girl in her teens, which is a different beauty than her subsequent beauty. She knows this. She knows that her beauty now is different than her beauty then and she laments it. Its funny to hear someone lament their beauty.
There is a song out there called "Dignified and Old."

Danny's Pony, Williamsburg

Early Sunday Morning, Old New York

Maybe it's too much to ask for someone to hear our stories about how it used to be one more time. Granted, the whole drama is irreparably played out to the hilt. But there they are, our friends, fresh off the plane from Antwerp, walking around the neighborhood. And it's all I can do to quell the urge from my very toes not to spout off about how this whole street used to have only Polish shops and how these five blocks used to be all Puerto Rican and how "no one" used to live between the train and our apartment. And then that same stinking realization that the "no one" I am referring to is actually a whole population of someones. Ah the shame of it all. But this morning I do pass the one remaining Polish bakery on Bedford. I do pass the Super Fund site that has somehow been miraculously cleaned up overnight and sold to a developer with just enough money. And to my greatest pleasure, I pass the group of kids, up early, jawing and crackling in the Sunday morning sun, warming up their arms for that one sport that is the most New York.

Danny's Take

Ramon

Whereas Danny, the gazelle, Ramon, the bull. Ramon is the great fomentor, the riler, the antagonist, the instigator. He lowers his head, hunches his shoulders and plows in, sometimes forward. Last night I dipped into the Ramon space for a little while. A gallery of odd pictures and tenuous instillations, hung as if by moonlight. It is in my nature to get swallowed up by the moment. As with everything, it is my blessing and my curse. The Ramon Nights are always swollen with seed and are followed by happy headache.

Danny & Eli, Bedford & Metropolitan Brooklyn

Look at these guys. These are two Brooklyn guys walking the street on a Saturday afternoon looking for a fresh squeezed juice. Look at the nonchalance with which their winning attitude is displayed! Respect!

Danny in the Pilates Studio

You gotta learn from your mistakes. They'll all tell you that. Over and over. Ad nauseum learn from your mistakes. Blah blah blah. That's all well and good, yeah. Pretty obvious, thanks. What's a bit harder and takes some real doing, is to learn from your successes. When you're all feeling good and high on your horse. You're sure the decisions you've made turned all the right corners, opened all those doors. Right then, right there, is the moment all is lost. Another mistake instantly made inevitable. But the most likely scenario, the one all those jokers who tell you to learn from your mistakes, and then the jokers who tell you to learn from your successes are failing to mention, is that there is no reason for winning or losing. What you do, in specifics, probably has very little to do with whatever outcome pops up. You can splash about all you like, but the tide is the tide.

Saturday Morning Photo Journal

Yesterday morning I met Danny for a coffee.