new jersey etc.

Well, here I am in New Jersey...the garden state. no comment. Went to the statue of liberty last week and found out that since 9/11 you can't go up into the actual statue. How fitting that our liberties should be revoked at this poignant symbol of Liberte. Stupid french.
I was staying with my friend, Rene, at his loft in Jersey City and once again I was surprised at how only slightly gentrified it is. It's like, a 10 minute PATH train ride and you're in Manhattan. I guess the stigma of saying you live in "Jersey" keeps it free from new york snobbery. Rene has the whole top floor of his building and his rent is cheap, especially for "New York". Anyway, I stayed there a couple weeks and then they had a new roomate moving in so I hightailed it north to a little town called Leonia near the George Washington Bridge. A friend of mine from college has a big house here and I have installed myself in the basement and have found work with the estate of an artist who died not long ago. He worked in ceramics and did a lot of paintings, actually glaze on flat slabs of clay. So i have been cleaning the artworks and will start photographing, archiving, and then packing them for storage. It's pretty cool work and I can use the $.
I sublet my room in SF for the month of October so I have some time to kill here.
ah yes new york in the fall, chai tea, Jcrew sweaters, an endless river of Lexuses trying to get on the turnpike, It's lovely.

french fried

french fried
Originally uploaded by catherine magma.

Remember when I was living in Boise, Idaho? Umm, that was like a week ago. Well, anyway, back when I was living in Boise, Idaho I had a friend who was getting married in Portland. So a bunch of folks in Boise rented a "mini-van" and drove there for the festivities.
This is a photo of a french fry that looks like a joint. At the post-reception we lit it and as people walked by we would hand it to them and they would attempt to take a hit off it. Hmm sweet deep fat fryer kine bud-o-ricious. They would suck like crazy trying to get a hit and would then hand it back and thank us. We found this amusing. Of course the thing smelled not so good.