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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.

Email: icasocot(at)gmail.com

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Monday, December 08, 2025

entry arrow9:30 AM | Seeing Richard Brody Typing on an External Keyboard



I’m watching Marshall Curry’s documentary, The New Yorker at 100, and I see film critic Richard Brody working on an external keyboard because his MacAir keyboard has stopped working. I felt this, hahaha.

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[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich



Friday, April 21, 2023

entry arrow1:40 AM | Girls in the Windows, on a Whim



“Girls in the Windows,” photographed by Ormond Gigli in the summer of 1960 in New York. Made on a whim, made without a commission. Gigli looked out the windows of his studio one morning, and saw the brownstone right outside being readied for demolition. He thought he could use this condemned building for a photo, with girls in bright dresses in every gaping, empty window. He had someone ask the foreman of the demolition crew if he could use the building for an hour, and was told he could do it the next day, during the crew’s lunch time [and to use the foreman’s wife as one of the models]. Gigli made the calls to a modeling agency asking for volunteers, and he arranged the permits as soon as he could. The next day, on the appointed time, he had second thoughts — but the girls were already arriving. He went ahead anyway, directing the photo shoot with a bullhorn. He took 15-18 shots with a 4×5 Speed Graphic. The very next day, the building was demolished. And the photo went on to become an icon.

I love creative things made on a whim.

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[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich



Sunday, April 05, 2015

entry arrow2:31 PM | An Introduction to Hiphop Art



What took me so long to watch this? Tony Silver's Style Wars (1983), the iconic documentary on the early days of hiphop as seen through graffiti, rap music, and breakdancing in early 1980s New York, is a perfect complement to Jennie Livingston's Paris is Burning (1990). Between these two films, they've captured a seething and decadent decade, which was also vibrant because of the subculture it was spawning: art and expression from the margins meant to subvert and flip the mainstream. (Sadly, the mainstream always works to consume even the marginal. And will always win.)

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[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich



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