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returning to boston 21 years after my first visit not only is a statment that makes me sound ancient, but an experience that was clearly long overdue. sometimes the nearly 8 million people housed on the most self involved island on the planet, the island of manhattan, forget that their are other places, other cultures, and restaurants that actually serve a sandwich for less than nine dollars in existence. first having visited boston, mass when i was 8 with my mother, all i remembered were the brick walls of harvard university. this visit not only did i make note of the beautiful red brick architecture, but i also kept an eye out for the next mark zuckerberg, ready to get on the cougar gravy train early on in the process of permeating the planet with new technology and boat loads of money.
i took the bolt bus early friday morning 4 hours north to b-town for a shoot that, due to either miscommunication or general flakiness did not happen, but alas, i was able to accompany my dear friend meghan to visit her sister, briana. the visit was long overdue and i was happy to act as the chaperone to a gerard family reunion. also, just as everything in my life, it gave me an opportunity to shoot someplace new and, as i am wont to do, meet a new friend.
this friend was in the form of a native californian, living in arizona, and traveling the globe for some sort of green company about which i cannot recall the details. meeting new and strange friends, as i did in atlantic city with megs last week as well, really, coupled with visually documenting my adventures, is what makes my life worth living.
as soon as this young man was seated next to me at the sushi bar, a place meant to constitiute a hip downtown eatery, my meal quickly became about chatting with jordan and not the the 2 ladies with whom i actually entered the establishment. i think the alone time was welcomed by them and the meal was certainly the highlight of my 24 hour voyage, not because i experienced my first spicy tuna roll and, at the behest of my new bestie, a shitaki mushroom, but because green tea and good coversation equals good times had by all.
a couple near misses with old friends, an incredibly un-pc tank purchased, one historical site under my belt, and i was ready to head back down to new york, where spandex is welcomed in all venues (at least in my head) and exhorbitant prices are readily available. who would ever want to leave this mecca of consumerism when there are historically rich and beautiful locales just a few hours away...
september 2010
with this week being mexican week in new york, i have never felt closer to my pretend heritage on the east coast. luckily, the empire state building honored my people by flying their own flag, in the form of lighting the landmark in traditional mexican (or italian) colors.
while walking from work to work tonight, i couldnt help but stop and take a shot.
and, as always, i miss my mexicans. you know who you are!
september 2010
september 2010
september 2010
september 2010
september 2010
if you know me at all, you are aware of my penchant for old men. not in a creepy, geriatric fetishistic way, but an affinity for old men that is most likely based on my amazing grandpa benevento. that being said, i love me some religious imagery. not sure where this came from. i suppose whether or not your parents indoctrinate you with the word of his holiness, if you have irish and italian blood pumping through your veins, you're bound to love some gilded frames and a little madonna and child is necessary to home furnishings. for me its a little more like guadalupe, but we won't get into my ethnic confusion today.
this shot was taken a couple of weeks back on 182nd between audubon and st. nick at a street fair. this means, not only does this image have an old man with pants just slightly too high and cinched to his aging waistline, rep'ing jesus cristo, but its also my hood, and as with any street fair, an excellent opportunity to acquire cheap doorknockers bound to turn your ears green and get caught up and in the way with every east coast cheek kiss throughout the day.
in other words, heaven...
august 2010
many of you have heard about my 82 year old boyfriend, charlie. for those of you who have not, he and i were set up last winter, and have been seeing one another regularly ever since. i know what you're thinking...how did briana get so lucky, and where do i find my very own may-december dating website? well, no need to be jealous. charlie is a friend that i met through a program called friendly visting that my friend laura hahn turned me on to. i am telling you, as an aging 29 year old woman, i am never more beautiful or interesting than through the eyes of an octogenarian. its fantastic. anyway, this week charlie and i had our date at the local starbucks, where i have picked up a man or two in my time and, despite the fact that we were asked not to take photos on private property, i felt our love had to be documented in the only way that matters to me. a photograph. luckily, charlie is a rebel too...
august 2010
for anyone lucky enough to receive a package, or a letter of such import that the standard mail just wont cut it, you know well the beauty of services such as ups and fed-ex. the real beauty of these services is that if you are not home during THEIR hours of operations, which tend to be the hours of everyone else's operation as well, you are told that your precious belongings will be held securely for you for 36 hours or so, at their headquarters. interestingly enough, their headquarters tend to be in industrial areas where used condoms, rabid dogs, and spare syringes are abundant.
i was blessed with the gift of visiting said establishment located in the exotic location of the south bronx just this week. now, finding my proverbial pot of gold, or pay check as the case may be, was worth the journey. but that is what this was, a journey, taking me nearly 2 hours to get an 8 by 11 envelope.
in the spirit of keeping my "travel log" i documented my sojourn to no man's land as a single, solitary white girl traversing the world, one ghetto as a time.
um, did i mention i also ran into a dude i used to date before boarding the 6 train toward manhattan? seriously, in a city of 8 million people, how is this not at all rare, but a fairly standard occurrence for me?
anyway, here was my trip:
august 2010
