Shostakovich and Plum Blossoms

Saturday night I had a wonderful evening with D&D, first dinner at Caffe della Stella and then Shostakovich at the symphony. The performance began with a piece for jazz orchestra, written when Shostakovich was very young, a very lively piece of music that segued into a violin concerto and finally the dirge-like 13th Symphony. The piece ended with a cellphone accompaniment from an audience member, extending the music firmly into our post-Cage era.

I've been photographing up a storm. Forget all the bears for a sec, I'm druelling over plum blossoms! In between rain showers, I've been teetering on top of a rickety ladder and shooting some medium format color shots of my Italian prune plum in bloom. They're almost abstact, with wild punchy color and tree-ness that's like in cubist space or something. Unlike anything I've done before. They look photoshoped, but are completely unmanipulated, shot with a very slow film, aperature wide open (as always), and literally from a bird's-eye-view. I've decided to scrap my previous plans for my show at Meridian next month and include a wall of these photos. They'll mirror formally the sound piece on the opposite wall, and play nicely against the exploding testicles grid to the right. You all must come!