I’m heading to New York (by way of Florida) tomorrow to search for an apartment. The thought of it fills me with fear, verging on terror. The vacancy rate is less that 1%, and competition is fierce. Finding the right housing with right mix of variables is pretty perplexing. There’s cost, of course, and then there’s proximity to work and amenities, safety, space, and character of the area. Throw in brokers, scams, slums, and sublets and you’ve got a real mess. Let’s hope my experience is a little better than Henry Miller’s.

I’ve thought long and hard about apartments. Given a certain price ceiling, the most important thing about a place to live, for me, is people. Just a little more horrible, and then some real adventure.

UPDATE: found one!

This month is insanely busy. I’m juggling my regular work, preparations for the move to New York, and production for three shows for this summer and early fall. All this work, and I haven’t been producing many solid physical things that you can actually hold in your hands. The work has all been capacity building, preparation, investment and delayed gratification. I’m really looking forward to Thursday. All that hard work is starting to pay off.

Here’s the press release about printing at DAÏMÕN:

Jackson Couse — Relocation

In production from June 9th until June 11th 2010.

Jackson Couse uses documentary photography as a mythmaking and storytelling medium. During is production residency at DAÏMÕN, he will work on six photographs for the upcoming exhibition Relocation at DAÏMÕN’ STUDIÕ  (opening September 22nd, 2010, during the Festival X).  In Relocation, Couse provides an intimate investigation of emptiness, both literal and imagined. Relocation uses human geography to construct a visual remembering of forgotten places.

Jackson Couse is a visual artist from Ottawa (Ontario) and he is currently enrolled at The International Center of Photography in the Documentary Photography and Photojournalism certificate program (Class of 2011) in New York City.

In 2008, Couse’s photographs of objects and artefacts were included in the book The World From My Front Porch by Magnum photographer Larry Towell. In July 2010, a selection of works from Couse’s series Playing House will be included in the international exhibition Bodies in Trouble at Galerie SAW Gallery in Ottawa. A limited-edition book, also titled Playing House, will be published by the artist to accompany the exhibition.

The exhibition Relocation at DAÏMÕN in September 2010 is Couse’s first solo exhibition, the first to include video, and will include the release of a limited edition artist’s book.

I’m still not clear what a daïmõn is though. I understand that it is a spelling of daemon, and that Yeats was big on the idea. As far as I can muster, a daïmõn is a sort of guiding spirit. I can’t tell, however, whether they are on the side of good or evil, whatever those may be. I’ll have to ask on Thursday.

Growing Up in Chinatown is an intimate tour through a unique urban environment that holds lessons for living in an increasingly multicultural Canada. I’m really excited to give this walk as part of the 3rd annual Jane’s Walk festival.

Jane’s Walk is a weekend festival of free neighbourhood walking tours given by locals who care passionately about where they live, work and play. Jane’s Walk is a pedestrian-focused event that improves urban literacy by offering insights into local history, planning, design, and civic engagement through the simple act of walking and observing.

http://www.janeswalkottawa.ca/

Yesterday, Monday April 12th, was my birthday. It was also the day I quit my job, and the day the International Centre of Photography accepted my application for the 2010 school year.

I delivered my two weeks notice at 8:45 am on Monday. I had given it a lot of consideration. The office politics are growing ever more painful and cut-throat as the conference we’re organizing approaches. As uncomfortable as that was (and still is), it was manageable. It was making me sick, but I would have stuck it out. I can survive much worse abuse.

What really made me decide to leave was the opportunity I have been given to take part in two exhibitions this summer and fall. As the first two real showings of my photography, they need my attention. With deadlines coming soon, I felt that I just couldn’t get everything done in time. Now I can. I was struggling to finish my artist statement, a document that I have been writing for eight years, more or less. Now I can. It’s a big step, but sometimes you just have to walk the tightrope.

They held a birthday party for me at work in the afternoon. My supervisor didn’t come. My boss was unusually silent. I’m not sure if they knew I was leaving or not, but the conversation among my co-workers was unusually sedate. We talked about squirrels for some time, and I didn’t mind. There were eight timbits left over.

I applied to the International Centre of Photography in January. I received the confirmation email yesterday at 5 pm.  The ICP is a small school in New York City. I am enrolled in the Documentary Photography and Photojournalism One-Year Certificate Program. My class of 40 or so students comes from approximately 18 different countries.  The professors and facilities are top notch. It is a real opportunity.

It hasn’t sunk in yet that I am moving to New York. I can do this, I have been building toward it for a long time. Now I can do it. I am ready to go and the real work of actually getting there begins. Phew! Overwhelming.

I spent the evening with my family and the people I love. We barbequed, ate 1–2-3–4 cake, talked politics, and listened to pop music. It was a perfect Ottawa night, lounging on the back patio. I need more of these.

Finally, as a birthday treat, please indulge me a tune with some very funky “happy birthday” singing:

Janelle Monáe, “Tightrope”

I love the contrasts in this video. The stark black and white tuxedos against the muted institutional colours, the high Pompadour and short pants, the incongruous mirror-faced ghosts, everything is just the right amount of off beat.

And everything is perfectly, beautifully crafted. The lighting is supple, the colours luscious (I think the RED camera, a super high-definition digital video camera, was used) and crisp. I particularly like the beginning, where the two male dancers are sitting on a bench. The large, soft and direct light coming from the camera position is so smooth on the lacquered tiles. The next scene, where Monáe dances down the light-filled hall, is a perfect visual counterpoint.

This song is part of a series of songs about freedom and slavery (and robots). The liberation of dancing is potent material for a music video. Thanks Janelle, for making ambitious pop music. I will walk your tightrope:

Pecha Kucha Night, the 20 slides/20 seconds ideas extravaganza takes place at 8 pm tonight at the Arts Court theatre in Ottawa.

The first Pecha Kucha Ottawa was a big success.  The audience was sitting in the aisles, and a whole row of chairs was pulled onto the stage. Presenters at the first Night covered everything from performance art to biomimicry. The second edition promises more of the same enthusiasm and diverse entertainment.

What is Pecha Kucha Night?  What’s with the weird name?

PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. It has turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in hundreds of cities around the world, inspiring creatives worldwide.

Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of “chit chat”, it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It’s a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace.

Isn’t that just like a TED talk? Yes, it is, but shorter and you have to make the snazzy little video yourself.

Tonight I will present “Living City,” a 6:40 slideshow about my work with Jane’s Walk Ottawa. My presentation draws from my ongoing “Influx” photo project  about immigration, oversucces, and childhood in Chinatown. Come to Pecha Kucha tonight and you’ll get a (very) condensed history of the urban thinker Jane Jacobs, an introduction to Jane’s Walk Ottawa, and an idea of what I am working on.

Event Details:

March 31st (today) 8:00 pm to 11:39 pm

FREE!

Arts Court Theatre and Studio

Lady Gaga walks a fine line. Her performance is extreme, but not so extreme as to mock herself. She is no imitator, an atypical pop star.  Lady Gaga pushes the boundaries, and gets away with it. Telephone alone features gratuitous nudity, gratuitous product placements, hair-phones, murder fantasies, and lesbian soft core. Awesome.

Gaga gets away with it all because everything about her performance and persona is bigger than life. Nudity, the screwed up prison system, overconsumption, big trucks, big fashion, Cola, home-style cooking, even the hermaphrodite rumour; it all adds up to a pretty current (if wacky) lens on the mood and psychological state of being in the cultural life of the United States. When everything is crashing to the ground economically, it is no surprise that people turn to an exciting, over-the-top performer like Lady Gaga for distraction. The genius of Lady Gaga is that she understands the need for an American Daydream, and can put it to a dance beat. All you have to do is leave your heart and your head on the dance floor:

bad choice

Why would anyone in their right mind choose a picture of tobogganing for the cover of a speech about economic recovery?  By choosing a photograph of a sport where people willingly throw themselves down a hill at high-speed, sometimes with bumps along the way, the designers of this cover inextricably linked the report with the idea of decline.

There are countless other images that could have worked. Winter is almost over, they could have used a springtime image. Spring is all about rebirth and renewal. A budding plant is a great visual metaphor. Someone tending a garden or planting a field would have worked just fine.

Even a cover without a photograph would probably have been better.

Let America be America Again by Langston Hughes.

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed–
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(an excerpt)

Go read the rest, it is a great poem.

I always was a dreamer, I just never though I’d be day dreaming in shades of grey. I feel lost in the great grey middle nothingness of America. Why is so much of my city built of nothingness?

It took me a long time to learn how to read. By the start of grade two I still couldn’t really make heads or tails of words. Lucky me, my poor reading was noticed. I was doubly lucky to go to a school where a specialist was available. I took remedial reading throughout grade two and grade three.

It wasn’t until grade three, Ms. Cromwell’s class, that reading took flight for me. Ms. Cromwell was a young black woman from Nova Scotia. She was, is, a fantastic teacher. With her I learned to love reading. She made reading, and Black History Month, a really big deal. The two were so intricately related, and so exciting, that you couldn’t help but become engrossed in learning. She spared no stops in preparing for February. There was a talent show, special guests, films, and food. Something new happened every day, and a lot of those activities required books. Emancipation from slavery and emancipation from illiteracy are fundamentally intertwined ideas. Ms. Cromwell had a remarkable way of explaining both to 8 year olds. I owe a large debt to her talented and caring teaching.

I went to a very heterogeneous school. Everyone was from everywhere. I was one of only 4 kids in my class who were Canadian-born and white. It was a challenging place to hang on to your identity and connection to history. In Ms. Cromwell’s class, multiculturalism meant more than maintaining disparate and distinct social enclaves. Multiculturalism meant interweaving stories. To Ms. Cromwell, and the rest of my class, living together meant a rich and shared history. Thanks to her, Black History is my history. Ms. Cromwell’s Black History Month said so strongly “there is room for you, your story is important too.” You didn’t have to be black to share in the benefits of Black History Month. Sharing black history was a powerfully binding experience.

So, in honour of Ms. Cromwell, I’ll be celebrating Black History Month this month.  And for your edutainment, a song. This performance by Nina Simone gives me the shivers. Enjoy: