a little taste

fictional confessions

Life has been far more complicated than I prefer. The demands of those who do not know what they ask of me have worn thin over the past six months and I am losing interest in honoring commitments that don't seem nearly as important as I once thought they might me.

I am not referring to my marriage or my art... but all the other things that take my mind and imagination away from my current vice and recent closet obsession.... True Blood. Mr dd says he's never seen me like this.

The last time my heart beat so excitely in response to a TV SHOW (eek!) was when, as a small child, The Beverly Hillbillies was broadcast. As soon as the Earl Scruggs intro began my siblings and I were jumping up and down like it was Christmas Eve. Later, as puberty was having its way Dark Shadows lured me away from my homework every weekday afternoon.

Why, I ask myself? What is it? Why can't I get enough of this? I watch it on demand whenever I have mindless tasks to complete, over and over again. When I am away from cable I've been reading the Charlene Harris books Allan Ball based the series on. Better to read them now than after hearing Allan Ball's script... Charlene is a better story teller than writer but who wants to be compared to Allan Ball? He lured me to the table so I'll blame him.

In the meantime this is my worst excuse for neglecting my blog. Life has been erratic, stressful and demanding of late. True Blood gets me though the week. I don't read fiction on a regular basis because if I really love something I can't put it down. It's something I usually save for airports, rail travel, ect. Mr dd isn't accustomed to me having my nose stuck in a book so now the tables are turned! (He's usually the one hiding out with his face either in a book.) Writing or reading, its still tough competition!

If you haven't tried True Blood you' d better not. It might be more than you can say no to.
Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer chomp the small screen...

BAM BAM BAM

Ok. Today I am experiencing

Mittelschmerz

not so good but I'll try to convey the events of the sounds implied in the title of this post.
I heard a noise outside... then a knock at the door. We have a locked gate between our front door and the sidewalk so I assumed it was a knowledgeable neighbor or friend.. someone who knows the secret entrance. I threw on a coat since I was half dresssed and ran downstairs. As I was descending the stairs I heard a BAM BAM BAM using the knocker on the door... and I suspected something was wrong.

I glanced out the curtain of the door and I saw a cleancut young man in a suit and I said "just a minute..." I opened the door and there was a man standing in a defensive posture with a badge in his hand... jutting it into my face. "FEDERAL MARSHALL" he said. There was another young man in a suit standing at the top of the stairs... his back up, I guess.

I thought... "oh shit. Did we not pay a parking ticket? What the fu.....???" And he asked if "Lynn Hen......'" lived at this address. I said "no." "Lynn H.... hasn't lived in this house for more than five years but that occassionaly we'll still receive mail addressed to this person... that one of the reasons we have a locked gate is that the house was a half way house when we purchased it."
"OH, he said..." He hasn't changed that, even." And then he said "Thank you, Mam" and they turned to leave. I asked if I could unlock the gate for them so they wouldn't have to crawl over the fence or climb through the bushes... and they asked if I was sure I didn't want them to stay ... since I need to have a locked gate, etc. (ha, ha)

Its funny. It was this brief interlude in an otherwise ordinary day... still... I walked upstairs and my heart was pounding. I realized they didn't look as much like marshalls as they looked like actors playing federal marshalls... that they must have learned everything they know from watching "Law and Order..." I told Mr. dd the story and he also had a good laugh.

I am amazed. I have a locked gate and I STILL have strange people and things arriving at my door! Karma, I guess.

A Beatnik Wake

a detail of a charcoal drawing at one of the best shows of last season...

A colleague/friend passed through town today enroute to DC. We spent a few hours looking at art, walking the river and drinking coffee and what was once the first integrated restaurant/grill in town. Now it is a very European Bistro and a different place altogether... but there was a time when the long hair, short skirts and left of center lifestyles were radical and this boho hangout contrasted sharply in this sleepy southern town. Now younger parodies of the same ideals are still present... but are countered with high rents, a weak dollar and expensive coffee, wine or microbrew. There is the famous Hemingway quote on the blackboard there:

In Europe we thought of wine as something as healthy and normal as food and also a great giver of happiness and well being and delight. Drinking wine was not a snobbism nor a sign of sophistication nor a cult; it was as natural as eating and to me as necessary."

which is quite sad since a glass is Protocolo (a favorite wine of ours) sells for eight dollars at this chic bistro and a bottle can be purchased at almost any wine retailer for less than seven dollars!

After a lovely afternoon with my friend I collected Mr. dd in order to attend the wake of a well known eccentric, beat poet, art collector, etc. It was facinating ... seeing ancient faces representing well lived and occasionally wasted lives... and wondering if we, Mr dd and I, will still LOOK like who we are when we are in our 70th decade. There were all there... historians with books depicting our departed beatnik in photos with Norman Mailer and James Baldwin... faded beauties who read his beat poems lamenting virgins he couldn't have and the same chain-smoking alcoholics who have talked loudly through every poetry reading they've attended over the past fifty years...

His beverage of choice was some sort of high proof red alcohol that burns all the way down... nothing you'd ever find in the Foam's liquore cabinet... but people were passing the bottle like communion! The two sad things I walked away from this festive wake with are:

a. he loved to collect art, he hoarded it, but didn't like to pay for it. He was pronounced a bonafide thief by many painters of that generation who were present... AND

b. he donated his extensive collection of art to a regional university where I was employed for many years... there wasn't a single representative from this institution... and based on my time there I would have been surprised to see anyone bother to show up. Institutions hire scores of people whose job it is to increase their collections, real estate holdings, etc and I find them to be quite sad... circling the ill on their deathbed. It just gives me the ick... yet I've seen families practically give away artwork from extensive artist collections in estate sales... I don't know which is worse. What do we do with all this stuff? Some artists burn their work at some point in their career. Ya can't take it with you and most cities won't let a family pay a loved ones "death tax" with artwork. Picasso and Paris are the rare exception... but back to the wake....

I knew many these youthful if ragged faces from my many days and nights and that bohemian grill I mentioned earlier in this post. It was the first place I felt comfortable in my own skin after moving here from NOLA and I am grateful for the contributions these boho beatniks made to this city. They've saved historic buildings and cherish many European values that are no longer appreciated in 21st C America...

Someone brought up this division for a minute but then they remembered we were there to celebrate a genuine, if flawed, man who knew Ezra Pound, had a fist fight with Mailer and was once a roomate of Tom Robbins.

Now or Never

I attended a service for a friend whose sister passed away yesterday. This is for her.

DIng Dong the King is Dead

Most of my friends and colleagues have no idea of my personal relationship with Elvis. It is something we don't talk about - like one's personal relationship with God. I was born in 1960 and grew up two hours south of Memphis on hwy 61. Elvis was a presence that could not be denied. Every morning the Memphis DJ Rick Dees would do funny impressions of Elvis giving away Cadillacs to forlorn housewives or forgotten vets... I had a framed picture of Elvis on my bedroom wall. It was torn from the Parade Magazine and featured a cerulean blue background.

During the late 1960's or early 70's the Ellis Theatre would feature a double billing of Elvis movies for the pre-teen matinee crowd. I was there with my girlfriend Meg who was was present every Saturday in order to flirt with the boys. I was there to look at Elvis. Yes, yes, the movies were dumb - but it was the place to be on a Saturday afternoon in Bolivar County.

I just liked the way he looked when we were both SO young. He resembed a Greek God and I didn't even know what those mythic figures looked like in 1972. It is an aesthetic I continue to embrace today though the origins are closer to Rome or Greece, via Paris and NYC; than Memphis.

As time passed poor Elvis became a joke to everyone but the most dedicated fans. When we had 50's day (very big when I was in junior high) the loyal few would come dressed as the young, cool Elvis and his entourage. When I learned of Elvis' death thirty years ago today I was standing on a scaffold which was installed on top of the roof of our high school. I was painting the 1978 class motto on the top of a smoke stack in the hot Mississippi sun. It's amazing what one can take when one is young because I know I didn't drink a lot of water back then. Mostly light beer and diet coke - though not on campus! Drinking age was 18 back in the late 7o's. I remember being amazed when my German cousin told me drinking age was like 14 in her hometown... but, I digress.

I was expecting to be "spelled" by a few of my classmates that afternoon but they failed to show. It seems Ward and Meg had taken off for Memphis to attend Elvis' funeral. They weren't the Graceland types - but they understood Elvis and wanted to show their respect. I remember Ward's interpretation of Elvis - who was blonde - and he died his hair black - and wore levis so tight that they split up the rear when he arrived at school. He had someone paint "I love Elvis" with lipstick on the white underpants showing through the split. He wore a while short sleeved button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He was a big hit. Still, I am surprised he wasn't sent home. Ward was a preacher's son. He was pretty outrageous - even for the 70's - even for the Delta! I think he's a lawyer now. I'd love to see him in action.

As always - I finished the mural, such as it was. I contemplated what Elvis' funeral must have been like as I sat on my front lawn in the late afternoon haze. The cicadas were buzzing and between their cycles one could hear David Bowie's "Spiders from Mars" and Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" blaring from of my bedroom window via eight track tapes.

Elvis' presence and my Delta origins became less prominent as I weathered six years of undergrad and graduate art school. Finally in the late 80's I attended a SECAC conference in Memphis. My incentives? Professional Development... Travel money from my department... AND the final banquet was to held at GRACELAND! I'd never been to Graceland though we'd driven by its gates many, many times during my childhood. Christmas Shopping and most any occassion that took us to Memphis would take us right past those famous musically noted gates...

The banquet wasn't that memorable because there was an open bar and in true Elvis Fashion I indulged in too much vodka. I think. Bloody Marys, maybe? Before my turn on the dance floor with Bloody Mary I was able to tour Graceland with a group of about a dozen art professors. Voila! It was authentically fabulous in every sense of the word. I'll always remember his zebra decor in his lounge... everyone's mouth was hanging open.... I think because it was all so real and so fake and so Elvis. No one knew what to say. Needless to say the next day I woke up in my colleagues room, which we were sharing with art students- with one of the worst hangovers of my life. I have no idea how I made it to the plane or how I kept from spewing all over the people surrounding me on that flight.

I remember seeing a few familiar faces on the plane but I don't think they recognized me because I was literally green. (Still, I didn't drink enough water. I was still young and stupid although, like Elvis, I was old enough to know better.)

Finally, as the years passed I found a mate who finds my Delta origins to be exotic. They charm him when things are right with the world. We were married in 1996 and his wedding present to me was a signed photograph of Elvis french kissing a mystery woman in the Mosque theatre in Richmond, VA. To this day no one knows who the woman is. No, it isn't me!

Mr. dd met the famous Albert Wertheimer while researching this mythic image and asked him to sign the print he purchased for me. Elvis story is one that can be read from so many perspectives. He was mythic, tragic, bigger than life, naive, a force, a waste, mislead, etc. Still, they broke the mold. There is no other. We can enjoy the brilliance he inspires in others with fake Elvis, rockabilly, kitch, etc - as long as we appreciate someone who if nothing else was authentic.

Neither photo is a film still!
Elvis films werevery candy-coated.
These were taken by Albert Wertheimer
who Elvis allowed to shadow him on his first big tour of his
career. No one has ever been able to identify the woman
in the black dress. oooh la la!
Mr. dd purchaced the one on
the top as a wedding tribute to
our bliss.

Breathwork

Nothing heavy today. I've been buried in my studio putting off people who want to schedule meetings with me. These are people I like who I enjoy working with... but it is a huge distraction and not lucrative enough for me to break my stride in order to accommodate their needs. Why do I transport myself and my studio materials to the other side of the state, the nation, the world? To avoid telling people no. To avoid the distraction of telling them no. To avoid the judgement I must make on whether to say yes or no. MOST IMPORTANTLY: to avoid being called upon. Its not personal. Its business.

Of course I am distracting myself now as I wait for paint to dry and think about what to make Mr dd for dinner. We are celebrating the fact that he found his glasses. He's been miserable since Friday morning, supplementing his stigmatism with various reading glasses I leave around the house. Unfortunately they do him more harm than good since he spends all day writing at a computer and he needs his prescribed lenses. Voila! I found them this afternoon.

We were girding up to purchase a second pair which would have set him back a small fortune so it really was a blessing to be counted.

telling time

As I've matured (cough, cough) to the point where I may believe that I am as much genX as boomer (I actually seem to fall somewhere between the two... like the rat I am)... the art I make, my political point of view... all seem to be falling between the cracks... yet I've learned over the years that regardless of age some things transcend the test of time and have a longer shelf life than I would've imagined. A number of years ago I remember seeing RHPS for the first time since the late 80's. I feared I wouldn't love it... that it would reflect a tacky time in my life that I didn't want to remember. I was right and wrong. It's just as tacky as it ever was and I loved it more than ever!!!!

The B-52's are touring this summer and I've learned that I love them now just as much as I ever did. I am praying for good weather and a cool summer breeze so we can dance this mess around that we've come to know as adulthood.

premonition of another time

Mr. dd and I attended The Devolution of Chuck Statler, Part 2 on Sat night. Chuck is known as the Godfather of music video and he was the keynote speaker at the local film festival.

He grew up with the Devo guys and produced their initial moving promos in super 8 and eventually went on to produce videos for Madness, Elvis Costello, Tiny Tim and others. I enjoyed seeing these blasts from the past but also wondered if it was the best use of my time. I'd rather be looking forward than back these days and this part of history doesn't even really seem like history yet. Hell, we're gonna see Elvis Costello in a few weeks at a music festival we attend each year. I'll be curious to see if he really fixed the gap in his teeth. I don't remember him having one and he certainly did when he first started out. (Again, is this the best expense of my time? Elvis would certainly prefer that I bop along to his catchy pop tunes but this is the stuff that occupies one's mind when they aren't really present.)

There seem to be a lot of former rock and rollers surfacing these days. The former roadie for the Beatles just resigned as the CEO of Apple (the Beatle's Apple), there was a story in esquire on catching product plagiarists and one the investigator was a former attorney for a number of R&R acts. There is certainly a place for R&R in my heart but I think I had rather listen to it and dance to it than look back at the good ole days when sex, drugs and rock-n-roll were a lot more fun and the risks of having too much fun seemed as foreign as the film "Go Ask Alice."

Spring cleaning

Things come and go. Our downstairs fridge exhaled its last breath and I've decided to replace it with a compact. Our alley clean up is next month so it is a good time to drag the old one behind the house and wait for it to disappear.

Once the old one is gone, well, then there is the task of cleaning behind it... and situating the new one in its place. This is the time to raise the curains, enjoy the view of the garden and drag out the old and replace it with something recycled, if possible. It was tough, deciding whether to buy a new smaller fridge or a second hand larger fridge. In the end, the possibility of a lower electrical bill won out - plus we are trying to buy less and buy fresh...more european and less processed. I've planted lettuce and spinach this year for the first time! I love picking the leaves from the pot and putting them directly on the plate. Yum.

We aren't very domestic, mr dd and I. We'd like to be. Better yet, we'd love to hire a wife or a husband to help us with these tasks. When Mr. dd asked me to marry him I said "Darling, I'll marry you and spend the rest of my life with you but I cannot commit to being anyone's 'wife..." He got it. He married me anyway. We manage. We manage best when we have the time and money to hire a house keeper.

oh, Mr. Green Jeans Where art thou?

Gee, I never thought I'd be tagged by am 18 month old. He must be a prodigy - either that or he confused me with is Aunt!

AND SO IT IS, to the tune of Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, a few of my favorite things:


Favorite Book: this is a tough one. Most recent fav: The Time Traveler's Wife

Favorite Number: Seven

Favorite Foods: a really great sheep cheese

Favorite PBS Show: Art 21

Favorite Playtime: mornings in the garden

Favorite Hugger: Mr. DD

Favorite Toy: new video to digital converter so we can transfer our old videos to DVD format

Favorite Partner in Crime: my mermaid friend

Favorite Winter Activity: time in the studio or kitchen

Favorite Color: payne's gray

Favorite Room to run around in: oh, the bedroom!

Favorite Beverage: a good pinot noir

Favorite Animal: it would be choice between my two feline friends

Favorite N0-No: shoe shopping

Favorite Monster: my appetite for travel

Cheers! May your friends dance by your side and your enemies limp so you can see them coming...

Or as the Greeks say "salut and death to your enemies!" The global round of cheers came last night while a fellow pisces celebrated her birthday at one of the "hipper" eating establishments in the hood. She invited an interesting collection of women to come and toast her 49th year. My pork loin was excellent and everything looked and smelled perfect. She received some thoughtful gifts and gave out amazing party favors. It was a very civilized and pleasant evening and in some ways very sobering!

Mr. Beloved was down the street with a bartender buddy pow wowing about something of great portent. He arrived home shortly after I but in a very wobbly state indeed! Oh, he was oblivious to it but he was wearing an Andy Capp with minimal grace. Andy may have slept on the couch but at least he could hold his liquore. Mr. Beloved was puking over the sounds of Keith Olberman's Countdown. Too bad. I was hoping he'd notice that the cats and I were waiting for him to come to bed. sigh.

More years than I want to remember I was celebrating a birthday or maybe it was a holiday with a group of friends who were all a little older than me but who share my sense of adventure. We took off one night after work (I was a night cashier in a large union grocery chain.) Everyone was in a celebratory mood. I was 16 or 17 going on 26. We began the evening at the Mattress (not ON it!); a former Mattress Factory, the Mat was a white boys version of a juke joint on the outskirts of town. We sauntered into the dark and heard an early version of this amazing band.
Most of all we were surprised to hear Charlie J. (the blonde in the aviator shades) playing his harmonica in front since Charlie wasn't much older than I was and he was already notorious for his eccentric habits. I don't remember much about that smoke filled shack except that I hated leaving. It was always amuseing to read the graffiti written in the dust-covered Buicks and Fords in the parking lot... "Les, will you SKK my dKK, and Jamie, U can come too!" etc, etc. Dust Graffiti... is so ZEN! Another delta resident remembers the same night and tells the story on this link.



Afterwards the boys in our group weren't ready to go home but it was too late to buy more beer. They knew of an afterhours place they'd take us to. What's an afterhours place I wondered?

We wound up at this place in the pitch black of night. It was the first time I was one of the few white faces in a crowd although it was so dark inside it probably didn't matter to anyone but me. It felt like I was being stared at - either because I was white or under age or a combo of both. One thing I now know - it was the same juke joint described in the article linked above and I'm so happy to know it is still entertaining the locals near Merigold.

We left with beer in tow and whoever was driving managed to drive us into a ditch beside one of the dirt roads one still takes to find the place. It was very dark, very early in the am and raining! We laughed but it was very dismal. Eventually a hero approached us from the horizon. I can't count the number of times farmers have saved me... moew times than I can keep track of. We all piled into the back of a generous farmer's truck. I arrived at my friend's around dawn to find out that the emergency brake on my Dodge Dart had slipped and it had rolled into the street. I can't remember if it was towed or ticketed or both. It was one of those epic evenings where I was pretty sober but overwhelmed by the vastness of possibilities... even in our little part of the world. If you look at the map of Mississippi included in the NYC article I grew up on hwy 61 between Clarksdale and Merigold.

I miss the friends I had then... especially Kellie M. I wasn't hanging out with her that night but she would have had something to say about it. She grew up in Merigold and I think by the time she was 16 she had just seen it all. She was always an old soul with a heart of gold. She would be a great teacher if she were alive today.

Most of my highschool friends live elsewhere now. California, Memphis, Atlanta, Virginia, New York. There is one thing about the south that I'll always love. If you avoid the box stores (the Walmarts, etc) you'll find that it's not as homogenized as the rest of the US. I'm always ISO of authenticity wherever I go.

Anyone interested in the history of "jook" should check out Birney Ime's great "Juke Joints". Of course the House of Blues used this book as the design source for their interiors (true story)... but what they hey. At least they got close to the source.

Mood Music

I found an art blog more eclectic than mine with the file above embedded. Someone commented on his blog asking if this clip was posted in honor of President's Day...

purge/submerge

No, this is not a photograph of an installation at the National Holocost Museum, though it still says a 1000 words.

Are you ready? But who cares....have fun anyway

the beginning of the end of innocence

There is a point in time where we all change. We learn the world isn't what we thought it was... that people lie, talk the talk, deceive, use, manipulate, that life isn't fair. My friend's, mr and mrs. boss (they called each other boss) told me when I reached the age of 30 they would tell me the big secret of life. Never mind the fact that P. was just a few years older than me... but that Mr. Boss was 15 years older than her... so maybe there was something he knew that I didn't know yet. I really thought I was an adult in my 20's - after all my mother had three babies by the time she was 25.

When I hit 30 they told me: "There is no difference between right and wrong in this world."
Of course I knew this... really....after all I was a child during the watergate years!
This truth is really something people learn early in life... its survival after all. One fall several years ago I asked a number of artist friends to write or tell their stories about this truth... to tell me when their world changed, when it was different than it was the day before. Some told stories of the realization of racism, sex, justice and hipocracy. Some learned they were adopted. Others learned that friends of their parents thought of them as sexual objects - whatever.

The apples above represent these stories... all fruit from the tree of knowledge. Please tell us your story, the time you lost your innocence... for art, for truth, for redemption. You can post it anonymously if you want. Truth is truth, regardless of the writer.

I was never good at playing games....especially tag

• chore I hate: taxes • dogs/cats: two cats

• essential electronics: apple laptop

• favorite perfume: my garden

• gold/silver: anything vintage or original (one of a kind)

• hometown: the film BABYDOLL with Carol Baker and Karl Malden
was filmed very close to my hometown

• insomnia: before and during my journeys away from home

• job title: Grand Louvre

• kids: no • living arrangements: married ten years this month

• most admired trait: I listen and ask questions.

• number of sexual partners: I am a serial monogamist
who finally fell in love with a like soul twelve years ago.

• overnight hospital stays: I was in traction
for six weeks twelve years ago

• phobia: liars. I once feared I was paranoid but considering the state
of the world I think my phobia is probably justifiable.

• quote: "It coulda been worse..." • religion: refer to phobia above

• siblings: 1 brother & 1 sister • time I usually wake up:
as soon as it is light outside

• unusual talent: writing and backwards and forwards at the
same time with both hands

• vegetable I refuse to eat: anything from a salad bar
though if its homegrown I'll eat anything

• worst habit: procrastination • exotic x-rays: reconstructed hip

• yummy foods I make: mont blanc • zodiac sign: pisces

Around the World and Back Again

I've been inspired to write a great deal over the past two and half months... but time was of the essence and there were few moments to sit and write much more than short emails in response to the people in my life. My photographic record and correspondence of my time away from home and blog exists so I hope to post a record of this time away during the next few weeks while the memory is still accessible... before the cloud of business and committments overwhelmes me.

It was hard, very hard coming home... even though I missed Mr. DD and my cats, family, friends, etc. Kathryn came to visit in March and told another friend here at home that I was so different in Paris... so relaxed. My monkeys were on hanging on my back there just as they are here - but for some reason they aren't the same burden there that they seem to be here. I felt more comfortable in my own skin... perhaps because what artists do is of significant value there and here, well, art's importance is rather dubious in our culture at large.

Still, it is good to be home. It was a productive, beautiful time which I'll be recording over the next few weeks so please scroll back and respond to anything that seems relevant. I am going to try and set up a blog roll so if you see that link and sign up for it then any updates would be emailed to you. I don't mind working backwards. Its my nature. I am very dyslexic and ambidextrous and can write as well backwards as forwards with either or both hands. Working backwards and parallel parking are just my nature. Its too bad these skills aren't something one can pad their resume with.

The day after I returned Mr. DD and I left for an annual reunion with friends and family at a bluegrass festival in NC. We drove south from there to visit with my grandmother and wound up in New Orleans in time for the last weekend of the Jazz Fest. It was my first time visiting friends and family since Katrina. The spirit of the people and their hope for recovery was very inspiring. The artists I know are working harder than they've ever worked and making progress - and others, friends and neighbors of my friends are losing all hope and committing suicide. They say there is a lot of post traumatic stress evident. Erratic driving, horrible traffic with tragic accidents, couples shooting each other and themselves. It takes a strong soul with a long term vision to see past the mess down there. People can still count their blessings... which confounds me... and inspires me.

Before leaving Paris I was worried that I had bitten off more than I could chew with the southern excursion tacked onto my return home. After four months away could it be the best thing to do? It was! Mr. DD and I had many wonderful hours talking in the car and we were both so happy to reconnect with our friends who have endured so much since Aug 31, 2005.

I've posted some images of our road trip... since I think these images communicate more than I possibly could.

Counting the hours

Soon, soon, I'll be back in the womb of my studio and home with cat furr and a garden to weed and a million things to take care of. For now, there is April in Paris. I haven't been sleeping much. Waking early, going to Piscine Pointoise at 7am and them walking back to my atelier with wet hair and my digital camera. The light, the gardens, the stillness of the morning have been some of the most exquisite moments ever.