April 18th, 2018 § permalink
She likes punk, industrial, new wave, goth, the macabre. Long black streams of mesh trail from the ceiling in her Pilsen artists loft. She has a framed photo of designer Alexander McQueen posing with a skull on the desk and a pair of brass knuckles suspended over the kitchenette sink.
She’s done seven clothing lines of entirely black. She works in vinyl and lace, mesh and satin, safety pins and fishnet — all black, down to the thread used on inside stitching. The eighth line branched out from all black all the time. Three of the new pieces are as white as a desert-bleached rib cage.
She smiles and laughs all the time.
“Why do I have to be this angry person covered in skull tattoos to wear black?” she said. » Read the rest of this entry «
April 13th, 2018 § permalink
There still aren’t stars.
I know they exist, that they’re out there burning away in a deep black eternity, the smallest still on a scale grander than I have capacity to comprehend. But on a street corner in Pilsen, they’re drowned out, washed away by overhead lamps, security lights and the glow of a late-night gym full of sweaty people in activewear.
But that’s OK. » Read the rest of this entry «
August 30th, 2017 § permalink
I presume the calligraphed words running down his well-hewn triceps said UNTOUCHABLE and UNSTOPPABLE. » Read the rest of this entry «
July 23rd, 2014 § permalink
The children played in the stream of a cracked-open fire hydrant.
They rushed up to fill plastic bowls and extra-large McDonald’s beverage cups. Sometimes they rushed the water back to an inflatable kiddie pool a few blocks down. Sometimes they took long gulps of crystalline water that may or may not have been treated for disease.
Pilsen was hot. » Read the rest of this entry «
April 14th, 2014 § permalink
She was standing outside a loft in Pilsen, a worried look on her face and a tiger’s head in her hand.
“Hi,” I said. “Here for the film?” » Read the rest of this entry «
