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It’s just about what you really need. I know people who can’t go through the day without buying a soda or a juice at the bodega. They can’t go without that. What’s the deal? Don’t you have food at home. Stupid people are really addicted about buying stuff.
Sometimes I just have two dollars in my wallet and I see how long I can go with just two dollars in my wallet. It might be a week or two. I don’t really need cash very much.
It’s just there is certain hours. Between the stores close and the store is collect and you want to be out there and get the useable food before it goes away.
It doesn’t make sense to spend money and get all the new stuff in packaging when somebody is throwing it away next door. Why would you do that?
People like me can always entirely life of the waste, almost entirely, of large chain stores, because resources don’t matter to them.
I just call myself an anticonsumerist activist for justice and animal rights. I could call it living while you are awake.
It’s about doing as much as I can. It’s not about odds. I have rescued two dogs in my life from certain death and I am not gonna say, I didn’t do anything about the 10,000 others I didn’t save. I am gonna say I saved the lives of the two dogs completely. And that’s worth it.
If you are not working to make this world better. Than what are you doing here, there is to much work to be done.

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“What I don’t do? I don’t have a fulltime job, I don’t have a car, I don’t have a husband or children, I don’t have a TV,” said Wendy Scher about herself when I asked her how she is different to others.

The 33-year-old is an anti-consumerist vegan and freegan. She only works a few hours per week, lives from less money and consumes as little as possible. But food waste is also a major problem on the larger scale. According to the UN Environmental Program, 30% of all food in the US is thrown away. Food makes up the largest share of waste going to municipal landfills, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Most things in Scher’s apartment and her kitchen shelves are found. “It’s just about having an observing eye,” she said. The most useful thing she ever found on New York’s streets is her bike. But the list of found items is long: printers, vacuum cleaners, coffee machines, pots, pans, kitchenware and once even twelve flowerpots.

Scher lives from only $750 a month: $530 is the rent for her room in a shared apartment in Bushwick. The rest she spends on bus tickets, metro cards, laundry or toiletries – the only things she can’t find for free. She doesn’t make savings but can make due right now.

She became a vegetarian when she was 12 years old and a vegan by 19. Lately she doesn’t even eat sugar or bread any more. But even such a specific diet isn’t a problem as a freegan. The healthy and organic supermarkets in Williamsburg waste as much as any other supermarket. What has been on the shelf minutes earlier can be found in the trash bags on the street a little later.

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“This is a skilled game, asked Dr. Naismith, this is a skilled game”

“Right hand, left hand, middle, left foot forward, right foot forward

“I came up in Brownsville, which is tough neighborhood, still now today. Ivsaw how many of these kids love basketball, they love the sport of basketball. and If they can utilize some of the bad things the that happen in the hood and put it into a positive and then work on their game and school, i figured out, i said they can make it, the can get out.”

“Theres two things they have do: stay out of trouble, go to school, take care of your academics and work on your game and you’ll go to college for free, it’s so easy.”

“it’s everything, it’s everything. everything. getting a scholarship, and to the families, a lot of families don’t have anything, they don’t have much. they really don’t. They can’t pay for a kid to college. So if you get a scholarships, that means you really worked on both ends. academics and sports.

“How many you got? How many you got?

One more you get water, 15 is water and rest”

“My mother was from South Carolina, the one thing she wanted to do was make sure we had solid discipline to live in the world and to have an education to deal with everybody, not just one group of people. if you don’t have discipline it’s not going to work.

it’s all about how strong you can be as a man. grow up to be a man and be strong. Along the way if you become really strong as a person, you’ll make it and you’ll be able to get your scholarship, because there’s thousands and thousands of kids not working on their game.

“Five more for you, five more for you…. since you can’t feel your arms.”

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I met Mike Senior back in the fall at a senior center in Fort Greene, where he was being honored at a “grandparents breakfast.” He was there to receive an award. I was there to get an interview with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who at the time was a few weeks away from being elected to Congress. I chatted briefly with Senior after the event and made plans to visit one of his practices. It was weeks before I actually visited a practice, but since then I’ve been back more than 10 times, always transfixed by how Senior interacts with his players. In this age of coddling young people, Senior brings a tough love approach from a different era. And it’s amazing to see how the players respond.

Born and raised in Brownsville, Senior has been coaching basketball for more than 50 years. His tough love approach has survived into 2013 as he uses values like hard work and discipline to mold better basketball players and, more importantly, better students. Senior uses basketball to connect with young players, but puts an emphasis on education. He’s sent kids to the NBA, but is prouder of the kids who have used his training sessions to earn college scholarships. To him, basketball is a means to getting a free education. To him, it’s a simple education: a good player with good grades will go to college. And for some of his kids, it might be their only shot at higher education. Senior says it used to make him physically ill to learn that one of his players was selling drugs, or hanging out late and getting into trouble. And over the years, he’s lost plenty of kids to the streets. These days, he’s focused on the players who want to work hard, the kids who can handle his tough approach and understand what he’s trying to accomplish. Senior offers three practices a week during the school year and during the summer runs a program that meets at 6 a.m. in a park in Clinton Hill. His standards are demanding, but that’s just his way of identifying the players who truly want his help.

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We’re there to see all the cherry blossoms and all the flowers blooming because it’s Spring. It’s beautiful out. Why not dress up and enjoy time outside. Be pretty with things that are pretty in the environment.

You start off with like a blouse.
The base of your outfit is basically like a jumper skirt.
What you wear underneath is a petticoat and that’s what gives it the bell shape, the kind of flare.
Either over the knees, or knee-high socks or ankle socks or tights,
and heels that match.
big old bows that you just slap on your head.

The reason why the fashion is called Lolita is because in Japan people tend to take like regular English words and turn it into their own kind of thing. I guess they saw Lolita as a thing, like it’s childlike, like a child, like a younger person.

There’s nothing sexual about this.

Everyone thought I was crazy. Why are you wearing this? I’m like because I can, why aren’t you wearing this? Don’t you want to feel special too? I do.

People just stare…like a train wreck. They just want to take pictures I guess to show everyone else, “look what I found in the city today.”

I do feel empowered while wearing Lolita because it feels like I know more things than you do. My mind has expanded and I can just—I know I can wear what I want and do what I want without any repercussions and having to deal with what you think about it.

I just have a really tough skin now because I don’t care what anyone else thinks.

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The drops are really scary and really fun. So right now I know one drop, which is called the Full Monty, because it can sometimes take your pants off if you’re pants are too loose. It feels so graceful. It’s like you’re flying, sometimes it feels like you’re dancing.

My original goal was to find a way to be healthy in my body. And it’s turned into so much more. I’ve never felt actually as connected to my body as I do now, even before the assault.

I used to see my body, in some ways, almost like a weapon, like I wanted to be a better soccer player than boys. Or faster. That’s not a priority for me anymore. I want to be an artist with my body.

I was sexually assaulted a few years ago. After the incident I felt a very strong disconnection from my body. Almost like I didn’t belong in my body or have a body. So I decided that I really needed to do something that would get me back into my body.

What was difficult for me at the beginning is that you are being controlled by the silks, like, your hands are often wrapped and it feels like someone is grabbing your wrists and that was a really strong connection in my mind. But in some ways it gave me a sense of total control. Because now if someone, if I feel a pressure in my wrist, I think of it as, I’m doing silks, not Ah, this terrifying thing is happening to me.

And that’s been something that has changed since silks. I don’t look at my body as something that can be hurt now.
That’s the most amazing thing. When I’m up in the air, I’m ok with looking sexy and I’m ok with looking beautiful. In fact, that my goal, that’s why I’m doing it. So it’s really fun to get to enjoy that.

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ML’s self image was shattered a few years ago after she was sexually assaulted. She had been a competitive athlete, but after the assault she felt like her body failed her and she had failed her body. Then she discovered silks and everything changed.

DESCRIPTION: One event can dismantle your life, but only if you let it. After ML was raped a few years ago, she felt differently about herself and her body. She didn’t want to feel sexy and draw attention to her body. ML, a high school teacher, had been a competitive athlete, but after the incident she felt disconnected to her body; she wasn’t hungry and she stopped exercising. (She asked that her full name not be used so that her students can’t Google her.) Then, a friend suggested she take a silks, or acrobatic, class with him in Brooklyn.

At first, feeling the silks wrap around her wrists and her ankles brought her back to that night; she had physical flashbacks that shook her. After the third class, she confessed to the instructor, Laura Witwer, what she was going through and was faced with support. After a few classes, she began to feel in control of the silks, freed by them. For ML, silks has given her the opportunity to reconnect with her body. She doesn’t try to be the best and compete, but to instead be artful with her body. Silks is challenging; you need a lot of core strength, but ML is learning. “I get so excited on the train each week heading to class,” she said.

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I am always nervous when I perform. I always have some sense of like ‘man, what am I doing up here.’ I’m going to suck. Ughh… this is going to be awful.

John would not be a DJ. John needs Esquire in order to be a DJ. John would prefer to listen to music on his iPod and be in his own world. Esquire would want to be on the stage.

The Esquire came about in college. I was working at a law firm, And actually, it came to me in a dream one night. I was on stage performing in my dream and I heard the name Esquire chanted in the background and that’s how it stuck.

In the beginning, I was really unsure of what this would become so I didn’t know if this was going to be like just a hobby that John was into before this whole new persona was invented but it’s now become bigger than that.

This competition is the beginning of the 2013 DMC Battleground.

I really wanted to win last year, like that’s all I wanted to do was win this competition and I got second and I was totally disappointed.

I want this really bad. This year, I feel like my attitude is just a little bit shifted. I feel like a little more comfortable about my confidence.

MC: Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention. I have all the results. This was a very close battle between first and second. Now the 2013 Hartford Champion… DJ Esquire from Brooklyn.

If I was doing anything but this I would be very unhappy. I have no regrets about any decision to make this my life.

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John Chavies, 35, likens himself to the nutty professor. One minute he’s a soft-spoken guy who loves Charlie Brown, the next, he’s a fierce competitor who will not be afraid to go to extremes on stage. John – also known as DJ Esquire – is battling to compete in this year’s DMC competition to compete on the world stage. But as much as he loves the limelight and what he does, John also wants to settle down and have a family. He explores the possibility of doing both.

Esquire quit his 9-5 job at HBO a couple years after to college to pursue the 5-9 game. He hasn’t looked back since. He’s been on the world stage before, performing in London, but he wants to compete on it once again. Last year, he missed getting his chance when he landed second place at the Hartford, CT competition. This year, he’s ready to make it.

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[00.03]To understand death, you have to understand where you came from.
[00.08] There is a lot of amazing stuff happening right now in science. And I really want people to know about it. And I think, the only way I know how- is to communicate through my work.
[00.20] I work with natural beast remains. Things left over from animals mostly like bones and shells, and teeth. I usually take those and make molds of them.
[00.33] Every artist work, there is always a personal story that comes behind it.
[00.38] I had adapted a Grey Hound and she died of bone cancer. And I was looking…and during that time, when we were trying to figure out what was wrong with her, I was looking on a lot of X-rays. And that image burned in my mind and that’s when it started showing up in my work.
[01.02] I brewed my first Kombucha. So it is yeast and bacteria together who are super happy and they are producing this thriving culture. Then I layd it over an epoxy plate I have made a skeleton embossing in it. And it picked up all the details. And that’s when I started being like- ok, this could actually be an amazing art material.
[01.28] The idea of the show was to introduce bio-art. People who are very religious or very conservative tend to be fearful of the progression in science. Everyone else seems to be pretty interested in it. Bio-art, you know, is not something to be feared.
[01.50] You are living and then you slowly dying and then you die. But all the cells in your body go into something living.
[01.58] So it is like dealing with my dog’s death.
Sound bite: [02.02] This was my childhood dog, this is Lily. She was a Toxirn, she lived for 18 years.
[02.10] You don’t actually die. You know, you give something else life. And that is also a really amazing thing.

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Nikki Romanello, 27, is a fine artist, who uses science to create an art pieces.
She believes that by using once living materials in her work, she gives them a chance for a second life. The “life after death.”
Romanello grew up in suburbs of Taxes. Being close to nature, she developed a strong passionate interest for the remains of organic life. She started from collecting bones, shells, animal and plant remains and later used that in her work. She graduated from Maryland Institute of College of Art in Baltimore, where she was experimenting with metal sculpture. Later, she continued pursuing her sculpture passion at Pratt Institute in New York.
Now Romanello again works closely with a science aspect of her art. She casts real animal and even human bones in glycerin, creates soap bones and puts together hybrid skeletons.
Romanello’s bones obsession explains by the loss of her dog—Willow. The dig had a bone cancer and Romanello had to deal with a lot of Willos’s X-rays, that forever stuck in her mind and later showed in her works.
She recently started taking an interest in fermentation. She created a “living paper” from brewing a tea-mushroom –Kombucha. Romanello used this leathery substance in her tubeworm sculpture and skeletal imprints created for a Cut/Paste/Grow art-science show at the Brooklyn Observatory.
Romanello takes a great interest in death and all processes accompanying dying. She believes that nothing really ever dies, but just changes forms and continues a life cycle. Through her art, Romanello denies the fear of death and praises life.

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I think the thing that gets people is not just the fact that it’s a bubble, but the size of the bubble. I mean, if you’re walking along, just minding your own business and you see this giant bubble floating past you – what’s the first thing that you’re going to do? You’re going to investigate. Where did that bubble come from? And why is it so big?

Most people in the park, most of the guys who know me, consider me to be the first. I was the first one to bring this to Central Park.

I do have a secret recipe which I’m not at a liberty to divulge.

Before I started with the bubbles, I was at a toy store. Shortly after I finished working at FAO Schwartz, I was looking for a job. At the time I was operating on unemployment, which was kind of tough.

I started just going around the park at random, just making bubbles and entertaining the kids, making people smile, and people responded very well to it. That’s when I realized, “I think I’ve got something here.”

It’s a passion. It’s something that stirs your soul. Something that gets you up in the morning.

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It’s not like Stephen Duncan planned on making a living as a “bubbler.” After all, he is young, college-educated (a few credits shy of a sociology degree at Brooklyn College) and a New York City resident; opportunities abound.
But after losing his job at FAO Schwartz in 2008 and living off of unemployment benefits for awhile, Stephen fell into the art – and job – of creating large soap bubbles for passersby in Central Park, making him the first known bubbler in the area. His interest was initially piqued by a vendor who sold him a small bubble toy for $5. After garnering interest from adults and children alike, he created his own bubble-making contraption that is made of some string and sticks. Simple enough – but the resulting bubbles are stunning both in their size and whimsical beauty.

Although his mother covers the majority of his bills, Stephen can make up to $160 for about four hours of work in the park. And while he is passionate about making bubbles and entertaining people, especially children, Stephen is serious about his chosen career path and views it as a viable business. Generating bubbles of a high quality, according to Stephen, is a science; it involves trial and error before settling on a soapy formula (which is kept under wraps, so don’t ask).

One might think that with all the street performers concentrated in Central Park, there is a lot of competition among the entertainers, and among the bubble artists themselves. But Stephen insists this is not the case. “I’m not out here to compete with anyone. Everyone brings something different, something unique to the park.”

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I started handball back in my teenage years, so basically you can say more than 20 years. And recently I started here in NYC from September, so we’ll see how it’s going to go.

My name is Vladimir Geresimosky, I’m from Macedonia, former Yugoslavia, and currently I live in NYC and I’ve been here like almost 7 years.

Handball is fast-paced sport which involves playing with ball and most times ball end up seeing my face because I cannot get a good grip on the ball.

I can see the ball when it’s right exactly in my face. So you have to have good reflex about that.

My eyes are looking like you’re looking through red flare.

Two and half years ago I was diagnosed with autoimmune disease. Problems are blurred vision during the day and night blindness, basically that’s the diagnosis of this type of disease.

My immediate reaction was basically like everybody, now what I’m gonna do, but it took me couple days and finally I pick up myself and say I’m gonna fight with this disease and I’m gonna make it.

It’s kinda difficult to do normal activities with that kind of vision, but I’m trying to do the best I can.

Moving around the city was really difficult, so I had to learn basically every corner in city, every trashcan, every post, every traffic light, b/c basically when you’re blind you hit everything. And it’s really, really difficult, especially in a city like New York.

If I can walk through NYC streets I can play handball too. Which is also like basically a square.

Nobody mentioned that I shouldn’t play because they know that I’ve managed to get around the city so they know I was going to be able to to this due.

My biggest supporter is my niece, my 2-yr-old niece, she’s my brother’s baby, she’s my biggest support. Every time she’s cheering, she’s saying “yay, bravo.”

I think everybody who has disability should take participation in sports as much as they can.

Keep sport. Keep fighting. Don’t give up.

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During our second interview with him, I was surprised to learn that he still took solo vacations to the Caribbean. His rationale? “You’re not doing anything except relaxing and trying to get some tan,” he said. “And those places that I visit, they’re really nice. I didn’t have to lift a finger.”

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I cannot understand how far things are and how fast things move.

I was born with a genetic condition called ocular albinism. This affected my vision, my perception of the third dimension.

8 7 dash 5 1

I always wanted to draw people but it’s not so easy I am quiet slow when I draw because I have to understand first what it is that I want to draw.

So it was easier to choose still lives or landscapes as a subject.

That’s one of my goals to find interesting faces and be able to draw portraits.

In NYC, you just have to take the subway and go somewhere and you’ll see a great variety of subjects, interesting expressions, interesting faces.

When I want to draw something that I think is interesting, I just spend time looking at the subject until I feel confident that I know everything about the shape and the color and the way it stands in the space.

When you feel strong feelings, then the need for expression is really really big so you have to find a way to express these feelings. That is how you become creative.

The ipad has two things that I find very helpful… I am able to enlarge my painting, I can adjust the brightness of the screen. For someone with low vision, these two characteristics are so so crucial for a confident drawing and a confident expression…

Low vision made me pay attention more to the importance of the moment…

I discovered that time apart from space is also an important element for a painter…

Just like a musician, you have to respect the flow of time…

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As a child in Greece, he could not read letters on a class blackboard. Fotis Flevotomos, 35, was born with ocular albinism, a genetic condition in which the eyes lack melanin pigments causing blurry vision, a difficulty in perceiving depth and sensitivity to bright light.

Despite his condition, Flevotomos grew up to become a piano player and an artist. He made watercolor and ink drawings of still lives and landscapes but not many portraits. Although he was interested in human figures, he found it difficult to draw people. “I am quiet slow when I draw… and then I have to be really close so it’s a relationship that has certain requirements and for me it’s been difficult to find models with whom I feel comfortable,” he said.

Last year, Flevotomos was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to be a visiting artist at the New York Public Library. Since September, he has been engaged in discussions and workshops on the accessibility of art for people with low or no vision. He writes blog posts about the importance of subjective vision in making art and the relationship between music and paintings. Recently, he wrote about the affinities between Monet’s weeping willows series and Mozart’s Requiem.

In New York, Flevotomos started using an iPad application as a drawing tool, which helped him overcome some of his vision problems. Inspired by the diversity of people in the city, he decided to draw his first portrait in many years.