#vintage israeli art

[koenji]

Vintage stamps by the Israeli Society for the Protection of Nature depicting the Sinai rosefinch (Carpodacus synoicus) and the Ornate mastigure (Uromastyx ornata) a spiny-tailed lizard, both of which are endemic to Egypt and parts of the southern Levant as well as South West asia.

Organisms exist independently from states and borders, which are man made constructs. Still humans have always had complex relationships with nature around them and species can have deep, ancient and diverse cultural meaning for many different peoples at once.

[drsonnet]

Art is the way I feel free’: the artists working under siege in #Gaza

[valenciamidknight]

“Benevolence” (July 2024) alongside the original photograph (est. mid 1930s, location unknown)

I was initially inspired by the self-aggrandizing nature of ‘voluntourism’ and philanthropy, but have since realized that this piece also serves as a depiction of Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid.

[aas-eg]

Animals have a heart and compassion for humans more than the zionists.

Cat Hugs a little Palestinian child killed by the Israeli air strike. This is the cruelty Israel and the countries who support do. For everything they do, there will be a day when they will stare in horror with their eyes wide open and God will never forgive them. #freepalestine🇵🇸❤️ #catsoftiktok #emotional #beautifulless #israel gaza #funny #cat cats #catwalk #cats#cat#kitten#kittygirl #vintage #ancient# تمبلريات#تمبلر بالعربي#art#اقتباس#شعر#lovely#gaza news#free #kitten #kitty # catty #animal #kids #gaza#gazaunderattack#save palestine#palestine#gazania#meow

[justforbooks]

One of the most subversive and original figures in 1980s popular culture was a whey-faced, cherry-lipped, matchstick-thin child-man who wore a red bow tie, white tasselled loafers and a shrunken grey suit, and lived in a giant playhouse with sentient furniture and a floating head. This was Pee-wee Herman, created and played by the actor Paul Reubens, who has died aged 70 of cancer.

The character appeared on stage in The Pee-wee Herman Show during the early 1980s but did not become known internationally until the release of the film Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985), which marked the doolally debut of the director Tim Burton. US cinema in the Reagan era drew heavily on the iconography of the 50s and early 60s, whether for purposes sweet (Back to the Future, Peggy Sue Got Married) or unsavoury (Blue Velvet, Parents); this big-screen outing for Pee-wee, who was already suffused with the spirit of bygone children’s shows such as Howdy Doody and Captain Kangaroo, fell somewhere in between. As with the stage and TV incarnations, the film’s undercurrent of kinkiness and innuendo never contaminated its air of gleeful innocence.

In a story modelled on the Italian neo-realist classic Bicycle Thieves, Pee-wee travels across the US in search of his beloved stolen bike. Along the way, he meets the undead truck driver Large Marge, poses as the wife of a convict, charms a gang of snarling bikers by dancing on the bar in platform heels, rescues the occupants of a burning pet shop (saving the snakes for last because he’s scared of them) and ends up at the premiere of a Hollywood movie about himself.

Pee-wee’s nasal voice and honking laugh seemed cultivated to irritate every bit as much as his playground rejoinders (such as “I know you are, but what am I?” repeated ad infinitum). But Reubens’s single-minded focus on playing him utterly straight – if that’s not the wrong word for a character steeped in camp – was vital to his success, which ballooned with the children’s TV show Pee-wee’s Playhouse (1986-90).

“We never tried to do ‘a-kids’-show-but-weird,’” he said in 2014. “I feel like my commitment to Pee-wee, the concentration required to stay in that character, makes it real to me.

“It’s a throwback and has lots of homage elements to it, but I always considered it a full-on real kids’ show even though it had all this adult humour in it. I took a lot of pride in being able to figure out ways to do stuff that could be seen by kids and grownups.”

Pee-wee’s Playhouse pushed the surrealism of the film even further. In one episode, Pee-wee marries a bowl of fruit salad, which is wearing a wedding veil. Years later, the scene was held up as an example of the character’s progressiveness, though in truth it would be a challenge to find a moment from Pee-wee’s oeuvre that did not serve that function.

Whether filling his 1988 Christmas special with LGBT+ performers and allies such as Grace Jones, kd lang, Cher and Little Richard, or hiring strapping, shirtless construction workers to build an extension made of fruitcake on the side of his playhouse, Pee-wee personified queerness without frightening the horses. One of the show’s messages, said Reubens, was that “nonconformity isn’t bad”.

Bumps in the road arrived in the form of a lacklustre film sequel, Big Top Pee-wee (1988), and two scandals: the first in 1991 when Reubens was arrested and fined for masturbating in an adult cinema, and then in 2002 when a police search of his collection of vintage erotica resulted in a misdemeanour charge for possession of child pornography, later reduced to probation for possession of obscene material.

He was born in Peekskill, New York, to Judy (nee Rosen), a teacher, and Milton Rubenfeld, a former founding pilot of the Israeli air force, who went on to sell cars and to own a lamp store. When Reubens was nine, the family moved to Sarasota, Florida. He was educated at Sarasota high school and Boston University, and studied acting at the California Institute of the Arts, where his classmates included David Hasselhoff.

He became a regular fixture on the comedy club circuit, and appeared 14 times on The Gong Show, the competitive TV variety series. “You could go on more than once if you were in disguise,” Reubens explained; he acquired membership of the Screen Actors Guild after winning the contest.

It was as part of the Los Angeles improvisational comedy group the Groundlings that he first developed Pee-wee Herman. He also went on The Dating Game (known to UK audiences as Blind Date) as Pee-wee, having filled out the application form and auditioned entirely in character.

After failing an audition for the 1980-81 season of Saturday Night Live, Reubens borrowed $5,000 from his parents to produce The Pee-wee Herman Show. It ran for five months in Los Angeles, later touring the US, and led to a one-off HBO special as well as absurdist turns on Late Night with David Letterman, during which Reubens never broke character.

“I always felt it was conceptual art, but no one knew that except me,” he said. “I went out of my way to make people feel Pee-wee was a real person. It worked way better if people were going: ‘Who the hell is that?’”

His non-Pee-wee appearances were largely restricted to the years after Pee-wee’s Playhouse ended in 1990. Burton gave him a cameo as the Penguin’s father in Batman Returns, and he played a vampire in the original film version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (both 1992).

He starred in the family comedies Dunston Checks In and Matilda (both 1996) and played a flatulent superhero in the comedy Mystery Men (1999) as well as a pot-dealing hairdresser in the crime drama Blow (2001). Most of his subsequent roles took the form of animation voice-work or eccentric guest spots on sitcoms, such as 30 Rock (2007) and What We Do in the Shadows (2019).

Pee-wee’s periodic returns were always greeted with affection. A new version of The Pee-wee Herman Show, which reached the stage in 2010, and the delightful, Judd Apatow-produced Netflix film Pee-wee’s Big Holiday (2016), gave Reubens a chance to repair definitively any lingering damage done by his arrests.

“I wrecked it to some degree, you know?” he told the New York Times. “It got made into something different. The shine got taken off it. At a certain point, I just wanted to have a better end to my career.”

He is survived by his sister, Abby, and brother, Luke.

🔔 Paul Reubens (Paul Rubenfeld), actor and writer, born 27 August 1952; died 30 July 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[rich4you]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Vintage By A. Kedem Moses With 10 Commandments Israel Sterling Silver 925.

[alexlevin2024]

Explore Unique and Modern Israeli Art on Vintage Newspapers

Do you like the history of Erez Israel? Find here the unique and modern Israeli art and painting on vintage Israeli newspaper by Israeli artist Alex Levin.

[nityarawal]

10/24/23

What You Seek

Is Seeking You

Afternoon Songs

What You Seek

Is Seeking You

Did Marilyn

Monroe 

Know This

Is That What

Gave Her Confidence

Against The Odds

What You Seek

Is Seeking You

Too

That's The Joy

Of Love And Life

Guessing Einstein

Knew

What You Seek Is

Seeking You

Too

Rumi Always Said

The Great Persian

Mystic

Poets

What You Seek

Is Seeking 

You Too

Go Within

Wrap In

Blankets

Of Dreams

Transcend

And Find The Joy

Of It

A Union Appears

An Understanding

A Bird Call

Heard

Never Know Where

Just An Inclination

Did Marilyn

Walk Here

In The Fields

Walking Her Dogs

Near My Gardens

Did Marilyn

Walk Here

Was This Her

Vintage

Dressing Trailer

Should've Bought

A Cloth Bag

For All My New

Clothes

Maybe More

Will Come Back

Italian Leather

Coats

Muubaa

Soft Leather

Isabella Fiore

Woven Stitched Bags

Johnny Was

Israeli Designers

All My Things 

Around Town

Cowboy Boots

Florentino Baker

Old Gringos

Golden Goose

Still Walkin'

Around

Dancin'

Swedish Clogboots

Cloggin'

A Rosebud Mirror

In Jen's Garden

Vintage Tin Rosebuds

Sent All The Way

From San Miguel 

De Allende

With Love

Mexico Treasure

Hunting

For Maestro

Chile Gonzalez

Mirror

Found In Encinitas

Finally 

Thrifting After

Years Of 

Ebay Hunting

Real Estate

Bargains

Celebratin' Beach Home

Closes

Just A Tin Junk

Art Fan

For Your Garden

A Loan

A Memory

Of Nitya

Slumlordings

And Alibis

To Come

Oceana Said She Has

My Persian Carpets

Collected From Grandparents

One Made Especially

For Kings Taster

With Sill Fuschia Rose Buds 

On Silk

White Wool

Just A Vintage

Dressing Room

For A Movie Star

Covering Old Wallpaper

In White

Might Make It

An Art Box

With Peacock Wash 

Motif

Om Symbols

Ganesh

My Kids Names

In Sanskrit

Just A Walk

On An Old Dirt Road

In The Sunflowers

Alone At Last

Like Marilyn

Know How She 

Feels

In The Sage

And Red Shenk

Old Trails

Peace

At Last

Peace,

Nitya Nella Azam Davigo Moezzi Huntley Rawal 

[artlevin]

Unveiling the Beautiful Modern Israeli Masterpieces Online

Modern Israeli art encompasses a wide range of artistic practices, reflecting the creativity and diversity of the Israeli cultural landscape. Artists explore personal and collective narratives, drawing inspiration from their heritage, social and political contexts, and global influences. Their art reflects the dynamism and innovation that characterize contemporary Israeli society.

[i-am-aprl]

Designed by : Jamal Bakeer

[ein-bleistift-und-radiergummi]

David Schneuer ‘Boulevard St.Michel’ 1920s.

(via heidelbergfineart)

[browsethestacks]

Vintage Comic - Spider-Man (Israeli)

[drsonnet]

Kegham Djeghalian :

“So, 2021 was that first encounter with the three boxes. I did not have any time to digest all of that, and it was a very literal and sincere confrontation. I called it a naive work in progress. This time I took out naïve because we should look at these images of Gaza with an alternative historiography," he told Ahram Online (AO), highlighting the fact that being amid genocide with active cleansing makes it an essential urgent need to reconnect with such old photo documentation and build on it.

Girls are seen in class at a home economics school, #Gaza Strip, around 1947. - Kegham Djeghalian

Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/04/studio-photo-kegham-disrupted-archive-gaza

Studio Photo Kegham: disrupted archive of Gaza - Al-Monitor: Independent, trusted coverage of the Middle East

New documentary explores Gaza in photos of Armenian photographer Kegham Djeghalian (DW): New documentary explores Gaza in photos of Armenian photographer Kegham Djeghalian – Public Radio of Armenia (armradio.am)

New documentary: Gaza in black-and-white photos – DW – 08/13/2020

Endless history of ongoing genocide: Marwan Tarazi and his wife Nahed were killed by Israeli bombing on 19 October 2023.

Preserving #Gaza's photographic history | @DW #Documentary (August 2020) Kegham Djeghalian

[k00244461]

Photography Elective: Artists Research

Thomas Friedrich Schaefer

Born 1983, He was raised in Sao Paulo, and Mainz. After finishing high school, he attended university. Initially studying architecture, he changed focus and ultimately completed his Bachelor in Fine Arts in 2014 at the Berliner Technische Kunsthochschule and has since participated in several international shows. 

 Since moving back to Germany, he has tried to assess his memories and his past within his images. He recently finished a long-term photographic project creating and documenting elaborately staged environments that play on the essence of fragmented childhood memories. The project required him to construct staged rooms using technical skills which he obtained early in his studies while studying architecture and engineering.

I really liked his work and how he captures his childhood memories in his photographs. I want to use his work as inspiration for my photography as I am looking into my journey from childhood to present. These photographs are from a collection titled ‘Experiential Spaces’.

Petra Collins

Photographer, filmmaker, artist, model, and curator Collins influences teenage girl culture as much as she documents it. Since her early contributions to the feminist pop-culture Rookie Mag, Collins has gone on to shoot campaigns for Gucci, release two photo books with her girls-only art collective, and direct music videos. All the while she’s stirred controversy with her Instagram of her unwaxed bikini line and a provocative American Apparel t-shirt collaboration. Collins’s work is both confrontational and empowering. Her un-retouched photos dispel the vintage beauty standard by creating a new one—one that spotlights girls of all sizes and ethnicities, and embraces their vulnerabilities. Collins attended Ontario College of Art and Design for two years to study artistic criticism and curatorial practice.

I really love Collins’ work as i find it very aesthetically pleasing, and i love how she captures and portrays teenage life. I love her use of coloured lighting in her photographs, and how the girls in them look both calm and strong.

Mayan Toledano

The Israeli-born, New York-based artist, designer, and photographer Toledano has crafted an impressive portfolio that depicts the dreamy, glitter-filled, safe space of girlhood. Mayan's work encompasses themes like gender identity, gay culture, the female body, intimacy and relationships and characterised by senses of humanity and empathy. Mayan worked with clients like Kenzo, Nike, Chanel, Gucci, Coach, Pat McGrath, MadeMe and American Eagle. “When I create things I want to make sure when people see it they feel better about themselves," she says. She's always thinking about how to tell stories and connect with the world, whether she's creating sets for her own photographs or for music videos.

Toledano says; “I always feel like I keep going back to the aesthetic of teenage bedrooms and bedrooms in general. The bed is a big place for me. That's where I am creative. Your bedroom is the first place that is your own and private, and it's your first place to be creative. So you put posters on the wall and a photo of your muse or someone you admire or stickers or whatever you're into. And my bedroom was always like that. It inspires me and I feel like there's something really vulnerable about it and really personal.” 

I love her portrayal of teen girls and their bedrooms and how beautiful the photographs are. I want to capture my bedroom as part of my project as i spent a lot of my childhood there, and I will be looking to her photography for inspiration.

17/01/2021

[mmagazinemoment]

Why my past loves make me want to look into nihilism as a lifestyle.

Good morning, midday, afternoon, or evening to you my fellow queers and allies and plain and simply gorgeous humans. You see I have already written another version of this edition but instead I have a pure heroine filled piece instead, and you may not be ready for it because it covers a few serious points but it’s also the (fuck your ex) vibe, not literally…unlesssssss * insert meme*. Thanks for joining me again my loves

 Why my past loves make me want to look into nihilism as a lifestyle

You ever just meet someone and fall completely into their arms and become almost a complete and utter 3rd leg of the other? What I mean in all seriousness is, don’t you ever feel like the love game grows on you like a drug addiction and I know some of you will see this and be thinking? What do you mean “the love game” I know it’s not a game, a figure of speech as such. Basically, what I’m trying to say is have you ever loved someone so much that you didn’t see the signs of detrimental dysfunction.

Wow that all sounds so serious, let me dial it down a little, I’m just trying this new thing called being uncensored and not caring about preconceived notions of myself from external eyes. Months ago, I was shattered into a million pieces and I won’t blame just him because it was my fault for thinking every relationship or whatever it was, was going to end up like a tv romance, no that’s a lie. I over invested and blamed him for hurting my own self, sure he had something to do with it, but he wasn’t just to blame. Can’t tell me I don’t know how to take accountability (wow I’m funny).

For instance, in a movie you meet and lock eyes with someone and the breeze grasps your hair, when I met said person, I was like ‘omg he’s tall, I’m going to fall in love with a giraffe’ and then I tried to build a home in him, without the investment and time taken to be careful with my time and words of affirmation in efforts to receive reciprocation I never got unless it was backhanded or what I wanted to hear. So how did you perceive your first love? Did he/she/they look pleasing? Or was it the scent of their perfume or cologne? Did they dress in a floral vintage outfit or was it a suit and tie? Ballet flats or sneakers? Tell me? I want to know all of the juicy details!

I know some of you probably didn’t ask or ever want to know but my first love happened in a series of me closing doors journeying through my uneasy sexuality labelling and let’s be real, fuck labels am I right? (unless you find comfortability and closure under a label and with that you’re perfectly valid), Love to me was like heroine and in some senses it still is. When I first learnt of love, it didn’t feel like love, it felt like obligation, perhaps a trend. Love felt like learning all he moves to a Tik Tok dance as fast as possible before the hype disappeared, and it became irrelevant again, questionable reference point but blame social media not me. I was never satisfied.

Keep in mind this was 15-year-old me, trying to gain some sense of validation to seem a little less repressed and not confused because before 15 year old me realised that 12 year old me wasn’t as weird as I thought.  I was under this veil of non-transparency and speaking on the subject of transparency I must tell you 12 was the year of age I realised that I wasn’t like the other boys at school, just swooning for girls and getting scared of cooties, I was just begging to be seen by whoever had eyes to care. Sounds dramatic I know.

Nobody was ever there to tell me at such a young age that there were others like me, “different”, the type of boy who watched rebel without a cause and felt weird when James Dean was looking so gorgeous and composed in that leather jacket or admiring Tim Curry when he dressed like no man I’d ever seen on a movie screen in or even real life in the Rocky Horror Show, something sparked in… me. I started on the smallest step I knew, acknowledgement, I knew I could find a home in the fact that there were more people like me, and wow I was right. I was finding comfort in what I knew, I found a few gorgeous women and obviously because of my age we thought that holding hands and a peck on the cheek was all we needed in life from the label of ‘relationship’, but it was only ever a weekly process. Anytime I found ‘love’ I wouldn’t know what to do with it without the chase, like a dog chasing a bone. Even to this day I have never had a successfully long relationship but at least these days it’s not because of my toxic traits, I like to think I’ve grown a considerate amount since I was 15. Don’t get me wrong, neither of those experiences were love? How could they be?

Ironically love happened even ‘after’ I was in a relationship. I had another relationship when I was 17, it lasted a little longer than the prior, it went for a month and a half, I was convinced I loved her, so sappy but you wanted transparency right? I have a lot of it. After that, my ex brought to attention after she cheated on me that I was using her as a sort of beard to cover up the truth about myself, I never knew how to perceive myself until then and that was only the second step, there was so much more to cover.

Skip forward past a few experiences leading up the near current, I met someone, a sort of fleeting romance, now (forewarning, this gets sappy) we talked for a few weeks if my memory isn’t hazy, and we quickly developed something no short of a connection. FaceTime after FaceTime I’d gather more and more pictures of his goofy face and at one stage, I thought I was going to be happy for the foreseeable future, then came reality. You can’t be loved by someone who doesn’t want to face themselves and you can’t help them anymore than what you’re capable of giving out. I didn’t listen to that, naturally things just got worse, and I hated everything…

He would apologise, I would validate his actions to friends who were concerned and realising that I was getting too soon attached and it wasn’t going to end well and I copped the consequences, I still have only recently not found regret in messing up this badly because if I didn’t make that mistake then I would’ve just witnessed those mistakes I made in the lap of somebody else and this is where the saying goes, better the devil you known then the devil you don’t. let me tell you it did more than a number on my mental health before I added up the reasons as tallies against us and internalised what I should’ve subtracted (hehe see what I did there). In all seriousness I wanted the thrill, I sure as hell got one.

Your mental health is amplified by your lifestyle choices and the people you choose to keep in your circle, friendship, or relationships regardless, the whole thing was out of whack and a tornado was nothing less than the accurate definition of where I was at, and it hurt a lot but sometimes it’s best to leave that situation if that person who you thought was going to be there for a while and a necessity to your life ends up being the detriment. (as Ashley Frangipane said) “its crazy when the thing you love the most is the detriment, let that sink in”.  

 If there is one piece of advice that I want whoever sees this to take with them it’s this, Keep your space sacred baby, you only have one life, but also please do not criticize yourself for getting caught in the motion sickness, sometimes you just can’t avoid it and that’s ok. Life is not a movie, life is more like the behind the scenes extra that puts everything into perspective, it’s rational and shows the hard work put in place to make the art and you should remind yourself as such. Remember also that if you cannot cope with all of the stress that presents itself in your life, that there are people that are equipped to help you hold some of the baggage for you until you are ready to take it back and analyse it. Whatever your grief is, I assure you, you’re not alone.

As always, stay healthy and strut your shit and I cannot stress this enough but keep raging against the machine and the super straights xoxo without the gossip girl, farewell until the next piece of The Mantra Magazine. *keep this in mind* next issue will be a little forward, it will include themes of segregation and war regarding the families of the Palestinians and Israeli conflicts happening right now. So, bring some tissues and an open mind. Farewell.

[youngbradford]

Xmas Message For 2019

And here we go, my 19th annual year-end love letter online …Georgi Balinov and I rang in the new year at a giant party in Bangkok, halfway around the world. That foreign location, its beauty and tastes, set the tone for my 2019, a year of seeing the world, while stabilizing my life. Though often in flux or movement, 2019 was a year many things normalized over the year.

In January, almost immediately after arriving stateside, I crossed the pond and saw Michelle Visage perform in the West End with Peter Wish. Afterward, I played with her wigs backstage and walked her towards the queer kids lining up for selfies and autographs. I am very lucky to have Peter and Michelle in my life, kindred spirits both. One reminding me that fame, fortune, ebb, and flow, but that being real is what matters most. The other, a reminder to stay forever young. I visited Berlin yet again and did the usual, working, and playing, hard.

February appeared and I traveled to Philadelphia with Sandra Hansel, Georgi, George Sapio, and Anthony DeFilippis. We toured Lisa Roberts’ house, saw a Dieter Rams exhibit, dined with George Alley. In Lambertville, that Sunday, I bought vinyl and vintage hats. Later that month, I got a swallow tattooed on my hand, a symbol of flight and travel, and Warhol’s knives, blackened into my shin. An Eames exhibit in Oakland was a sweet way to end the month.

In March with my crew, Georgi, Khadyon Reid, Luis Urribarri, Anthony, and George, descended upon Salvador for Carnival. It was insane! I watched Anitta live, and danced in a sea of pushing, fighting, kissing Brazilians for days upon days. I felt unsafe and alive, threatened and excited. It was intense. Back home I got my other hand tattooed, again honoring my love of seeing the world. I traveled to Portland, came back to NYC at the end of the month, finally moving into our apartment, the one we bought 1.5 years before, that I designed, and had renovated head to toe. Finally, we had our dream home. The weekend we moved in, the place was still not ready, but we were sick of living without our things and in other people’s beds. Peg Kendall and Georgi’s mom came, and we worked our asses off unpacking and starting to make the 2800 square foot loft on west 13th street a home. We’d lived in Airbnbs and friends’ places for 19 months and it was tiring not having a home, not having most of our things. My art! My toys! My shoes!. Those months taught me how important a home, a safe place, and the oasis of my collections is to my mental health. From March on I felt more on solid ground and dedicated more energy to my career and friendships as a result.

In April we went to Coachella, seeing Ian and Jose Seronni, JJ and Andrey Lunin, and dancing in the desert of California. Multiple trips to San Francisco, catching glimpse of old friends, scaling my team at work, as I took on more and more responsibility.

In May, George Sapio and I celebrated (me a little early) a shared, fun birthday weekend at Soho Farmhouse. Joined by Matthew Kelleher, Mark Silver, Jaime Tanner, Matt Lynch, and others, we went shooting and feasted on pheasant in the English countryside.June was really busy, insanely so. 

For my 43rd in early June, I had a 30-person dinner party in our new place! We ended up at Club Cumming after, but before friends, new, and old, showered me with a vinyl record, the admission fee I’d set for my party. Lauren Foster, who has shared her home with us, was, appropriately, our first overnight guest. London, again, Berlin, too. Then home for Pride. Willam Ralphie hosted Bingo at eBay, Zach Augustine, David Mason Chlopecki, other loves attended. That weekend danced to both Madonna and Grace Jones on the pier and danced with 15K others at Javitz, where my favorite singer, Cyndi Lauper, belted “I Drove All Night,” her best song, at midnight. I stayed until the sun came up. NYC was electric that weekend. Parties, icons, friends from the world over … the city has an energy you could literally see and taste. I caught a few moments of the parade, overtaking lower Manhattan, and I smiled really big. God, it can feel good being gay! God, the world has improved for gay people (and yes, I know, we still have ways to go, especially for more marginalized LGBTQ groups). But I still took a moment to acknowledge the things that are better, that I have seen in my very gay lifetime. NYC that weekend was the ultimate place to reflect.

July 4th I went to Hamptons, with Ricardo, Brian, Felipe L. Mollica, others, guests of Anthony. Hosted Fab.com reunion, walked the Brooklyn Bridge, and took my team to Korea (where I shared a traditional Korean meal with Jae Hah), China (where I ate bird’s nests, jellyfish, sea snails, saw a Yves Klein show with Adnan Abbasi, and danced to 90s pop in a packed gay club), and Moscow (where I was amazed at how clean the city was and where I went to a traditional sauna and was whipped, naked, with tree leaves in front of dozens of Russian dudes in the nude). While in Russia a protest erupted, literally below the rooftop bar I dined in. Russia seemed freer than I’d expected, way more Western, up until this moment. I ended the weekend at a club at 3 AM, Russian women in high, high heels, dancing on the bar, vodka flowing like water. 2020 saw me traveling to places I romanticized as a child. Russia, one such place. I thoroughly enjoyed the friendships formed in Moscow, the food, and history. I want to return.

August, I was back in San Jose and Portland for work, then off again to Europe for vacation. We started our trip in Croatia, where Georgi and I kayaked around Dbruvnik’s harbor. Croatia’s cliffs and turquoise water did not disappoint, as we boated to islands and swam in caves. Driving south into Montenegro, the architecture reminded me more of Polish, Bulgarian trips, the water, greener. At the Amman we laid out next to The Beckhams, watching David kick a soccer ball with workers of the hotel, and watching Victoria read a book. Georgi and I then ventured to Mykonos, sunning til sunset and dancing til sunrise. A weekend trip upstate with our besties (including a guest appearance by Eric Lee, riding rides at the Colombia County fair, cooking pies, and grilling meats, ended our summer.

In September I went to Berlin and did Folsom and a speaking gig in front of 1K eBay sellers. I went again to Tel Aviv, meeting gay Israeli technology workers and a bevy fo Israeli start-ups. In Jerusalem, I returned to the wonderful Machneyuda with Gilad Ayalon, where they remembered me from my birthday the year before.

October saw us hosting my mother and my niece for a visit. We fell in love with Company XVI, a dance/burlesque/performance art troupe in Brooklyn. I took my mother to see Madonna, a night I will cherish forever. And we saw Dear Evan Hanson. A weekend in Miami with Lauren Foster and K was needed warmth. I took Georgi to see both acts of The Inheritance (so good!).  Then off to Berlin, again, and Paris, where I looked at art and went shopping for fall clothes. Halloween, in NYC, was brilliant and over the top; I went as white Pierrot clown. In Brooklyn, to Honey Dijon, we danced all night. Ralph Rucci, the American couturier reposted our photo on Instagram, calling it high-fashion, however, it was Georgi who won the night as Spock.

November I was in NYC early on, shopping with Thomas Cawson (who hooked me up with pink denim Helmut Lang), eating Christmas cookies, and being interviewed by Buzzfeed, a segment on 90s toys. I imitated a Furby. Then a week in Portland (I glow-in-the-dark-miniature-golfed), and off to Helsinki, catching up with former friends from Fab, One Nordic, Hem. Then to Lapland, with Georgi, George, and Anthony, lapping up wine, winter wonderlands, and dining on reindeer and elk. Dog sledding, snowmobiling, Northen lights! Another childhood desire checked from the list. Dinner with Michelle Case in London closed the month.

In December I went back to Berlin (my second home) and hosted a fundraiser for Single Step in our home. In one night Georgi and I helped raise $50K to help build Bulgaria’s first LGBTI center. It was also an impromptu holiday party: so many old friends together again in one room. And now Georgi and I sit in an airport lounge, awaiting our flight to Baltra, in the Galapagos. Once we land, we’ll board a 7-day cruise on a mega-yacht/small cruise ship. This, I feel, I have been waiting my entire life for.

I often write about how I was lonely as a kid. I was gay, I had a drug-addicted father, I grew up very poor. I oftentimes say music saved my life. But, I don’t write enough about the joy animals gave me too. I had so many pets: newts, turtles, tortoises, tree frogs, geckos, crabs, salamanders, etc. Caring for them, feeding them, gave me peace and allowed me to love. One turtle I had had a cracked shell. He lived in my room for many, many years. I always preferred him, with his defects, to the others. I think I feel the same about people.

As a child, I became obsessed with the Galapagos Islands, and mostly the tortoises. I would read about them in encyclopedias and race to see them at zoos. I always felt connected to turtles. They were my spirit animal. Later in life, I’d bloom, my feathers growing, my pride, alive. I’d no longer consider myself a turtle, my spirit animal changed. I told this story to my colleague Eben Sermon, who runs eBay’s German business: I always wanted to be a turtle. But I ended up a cockatoo. Eben brought this up last week in Berlin and it made me think a bit more about affinities for animals and how I have not had that connection as often as I probably should.

So this week, before we ring in New Years in Rio, I will honor the old me, the kid, the quieter Bradford, the sadder Bradford, by visiting those turtles, finally.

And I’ll marvel at the wonder of nature and evolution, both the evolution of animals and this world, and also the very real and dramatic evolution of my spirit and happiness.

Happy Holidays, Peace & Big Love