Never let it be said that I only post flattering pictures of myself.

I've been coming home late recently — having forgotten that my computer is not only where I check e-mail but also my TV, DVD player, connection to most of the world, etc., I should have realized that I might need to use it after work hours. Now, I've lived in poorer neighborhoods before, but they've always been fairly lively — if someone wanted to attack you on E. 187th St., they'd have to deal with hordes of people betting on the outcome. Now, I live on one of the few Manhattan avenues you can feel safe about crossing without looking both ways at any time of day. The streets are nearly empty at night, and that makes me wary. I look in car windows, judge the threat potential of everyone I see, and track the footsteps of an old man walking a block behind me. As I walk, I plant each foot in the right way that I can launch a backward thrust kick. I am not going to be easily surprised.

Last night I didn't do any of that.


I don't know if it was because it was earlier than normal (about 11 p.m.) or because I was coming from 125th St., which is busy, because I had actually thought to myself that muggers wouldn't want to stand around out in the rain, or just because I was deeply lost in thought, but other than idly looking down the street ahead of me, I didn't do anything to prepare myself. In fact, a made a fatal error — the twin white trails of iPod headphones dangled from my ears. Not only did this make me a valuable target, it made me totally oblivious to the five black kids, about 16 or 17, running up behind me.

*BAM*! White flashed as the lead kid jumped and punched me on the side of the head. I turned around, saw a kid yelling "C'mon! You want a piece of me?" and my first thought was that they were joking. In the adrenaline of the moment, it didn't feel like they had hit me that hard. *BAM!* another kid hit me in the mouth from the side.

Now I had my bearings. I circled around the lead kid — who was wearing a black sweatshirt, jeans, and a three-quarter-inch thick gold chain, and considered my options. Now that I was alert, I could see that these kids couldn't fight worth a damn. A heavyset kid kicked at my groin and I blocked it without thinking; another kid punched me in the arm and I barely felt it. They were already getting jumpy — they'd clearly thought that their punches would have knocked me down or at least put me off-balance, and instead I had barely moved. The leader was standing near the curb now, and calculations flashed through my mind. Given how he was standing, a front thrust kick would have knocked him about eight feet back on his ass (just last week I knocked a karate partner about 10 feet back into a wall with a side thrust, and he'd had heavy padding). A couple of kids were heavyset, but I had about 25 pounds of muscle on any of them. If none of them kids had weapons, I could probably take them — but that was a big if. Ok, what do I have on me? Just my iPod. No computer, no camera. Screw it, it's not worth it.

All that went through my head in less than two seconds as I tensed -- and then relaxed -- my front leg.

So I didn't fight, but I'd say martial arts still helped a great deal, since the idea of having people who were trying to hurt me wasn't alien. I stayed perfectly calm and made no threatening motions. I backed out into the road so they weren't flanking me and hoped for a car to come by. Even when they continued to attack me, I deflected their awkward punches and more awkward kicks just by twisting my body, not lashing out.

"OK, fine, it's ok. You want the iPod, fine, let me take it out." The cord was tangled on my backpack.

At this time, a woman called out from the window. "Hey you kids! I'm calling the cops!"

Between her yelling and the fact that their attemped beat-down wasn't even affecting my demeanor anymore, they got nervous. "You're stalling, man, you're stalling!" The leader reached under his sweatshirt and into his pants. "I'm gonna shoot you, man! You want me to shoot you!"


I figured he probably didn't have a gun, but that was the last thing I wanted to risk. They didn't have me someplace where they could have their way with me, so as long as none of them pulled out any weapons, I knew I'd leave in about the same shape I already was. And if you were headed out for a night on the town with an option to mug, wouldn't you bring at least a knife? I decided the speech I gave the redneck who pulled a knife on me a few years ago — "Is this really worth going to prison over?" — would likely just infuriate these kids, so I tried to keep them calm.

"Look, man, I'm not stalling. The wires are tangled. Get it yourself." He grabbed into my pocket. Once again I wished it were just him or with one other guy, since the idiot had just left himself defenseless. But he grabbed it and they started running.

I gave sort of a resigned sigh and went to grab the umbrella Christina had lent me — a big square one with Shakespeare's face on it.

A heavyset kid in a puffy olive coat — the one who'd tried to kick me in the crotch and failed spectacularly — yelled out, "Leave the umbrella!"

I was trying to stay calm. I was trying to keep my personality safely out of the way. I failed. "That's a Shakespeare umbreallla, man. Do you really want that?"

"Just leave it!" He grabbed it and ran away. Obviously he was trying to celebrate the Bard's birthday, which it was.

The cops arrived only four or five minutes later and we sweeped the neighborhood, but we couldn't find them anywhere. That first punch had hit me in the eye and cut me a bit with his bling, and eye cuts bleed profusely, so they were skeptical of the guy with blood rushing down his face saying he didn't need to go to the hospital. Fine. They transferred me to an abulance and I chatted with two cool EMTs on the way to St. Luke's.

I was admitted pretty quickly. My doctor was young and attractive — maybe 29 — so I flirted with her a bit. She asked what I was reading. "Master and Margarita — I guess they weren't too interested in 1930s Russian fiction." She gave me a wry smile, "I don't think many people are." I decided I was going to ask her out, a) because it would be a fitting end to the night and b) because how many times do you get to use the line "I'm not usually this bloody"?

That was before they kept me sitting on the hospital bed for four hours, waiting for five minutes of work to be done on me. Try reading a book right after you've been assaulted. It just don't work. I had been pissed at the muggers before, but after the mind-numbing boredom they subjected me to, I was murderously angry. So when she came back I … well, fine, I flirted a bit more, but she wasn't getting coffee out of me!

Along the way I left messages for a number of people telling them I'd been mugged. Thanks to my cheap phone and fat lip, Missy called me back this morning: "Dude, did you call and tell me you have mumps?"

Tags:   2005 april finepixs2pro fuji harlem me noflash nyc portrait selfportrait ofme mirror mugged crime mug injury wound fight bathroom top-v333 top-c50 Sigma28-300mmf/3.5-6.3DL carpe icthus flickr:user=carpeicthus phlow:status=away

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Updating the "Photography" icon for my LiveJournal to show my 50 mm love, among other purposes.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I have huge friggin' hands.

50 mm f/1.8

Tags:   2005 fuji finepixs2pro noflash june me ofme selfportrait portrait camera mirror equipment LiveJournal huge friggin' hands 50mmf/1.8D carpe icthus flickr:user=carpeicthus

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Welcome to my thought process:

"I want to take a picture."

"But I don't want to set up outside" (my love affair with my neighborhood has continued its non-existence).

"What do I have here?"

"My camera, my computer, a tripod, and me … and that's about it."

"Hmmmm…"

For DPguru:
Camera: Fuji FinePix S2Pro
Lens: 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX Zoom Nikkor
Focal Length: 18mm (27mm equiv.)
f/stop: f/6.7
Shutter Speed: 3 seconds
Shooting Mode: manual
ISO: 100
Flash: no
Image Quality: RAW
Raw Converter: Adobe CS2
Cropped? Slightly from right.

Post Processing Notes from the Photographer:

Most work done in RAW converter with curves. No dodging or burning. To even the glow I duplicated the background as a layer, desaturated, blurred by 12 pixels and set mode to overlay. I set the opacity of this layer to about 20 percent and masked around the face.

Tags:   finepixs2pro fuji noflash macintosh powerbook posed geek glasses portrait smile my apartment manhattan newyorkcity nyc me ofme selfportrait 2005 june 18-70mmf3.5-4.5G carpe icthus flickr:user=carpeicthus phlow:status=back

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Continuing my obsessive documentation of my injuries, here's my new shiner. I am not too proud to say that I got this from a black belt who could only use one hand due to an injury. Of course, those who know about practice sparring know that somehow beleaguered opponents are the most dangerous since while you'll be pulling your punches, it's not high on their list of priorities

Tags:   nikon d70s noflash 50mm f/1.8 D july 2005 injury karate black eye shiner selfportrait ofme me mirror bathroom my apartment nyc newyorkcity manhattan carpe icthus flickr:user=carpeicthus

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98 and humid in the city, every bit of concrete radiating, turning the place into a giant slow-cook oven. How hot is it? So hot that I didn't even feel like taking pictures."

But this cannot stand. What do I feel like? I asked myself. Laying in bed, eating ice cream and keeping the fan trained on me from six inches away.

So here I am. Hairy leg and all.

Tags:   d70s noflash nikon Sigma 30mm f/1.4 DC blue bed ben & jerry's fan ice cream 2005 august hairy fun posed leg man me ofme selfportrait my apartment manhattan harlem New York newyorkcity nyc Sigma30mmf14EXDCHSM carpe icthus flickr:user=carpeicthus

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