Long Saturday Night

Woke up.

Filled my coffee cup.

Walked down Ferry and picked up Saturday morning rain and custard-filled pastries.


Bought 32 hangers for 33 dresses and a $1 string of faux pearls.


Took the PATH to Brooklyn. Hipsters surrounded me. Met an old face from Toulouse and his new city friends.


The mass exodus out of Penn Station Newark got trapped at 3am. Locked into the station because the city likes to keep the homeless locked out. Jumped the gates. We survived.

Back down Ferry up to Union.


Sleep.

Ironbound Thursday

It's 7:30 at night and I woke up from a late afternoon nap and wanted to explore. I hesitate to take to the streets in an unfamiliar place at sunset, but the spaces always seem to be lit up so much better at that time.

Walking out of my apartment I've chosen the river as my goal. I had heard that there were some projects going on at a riverfront park, so I figured this would but an interesting space to investigate. Turning the corner down Ferry Street, I passed by a little boy and girl chasing each other around in circles. Actually, it was the little girl chasing the boy. Both were latino, I assume Brazilian, and seemingly having a good time. The girl put the boy in a choke-hold at one point. The boy then got away; she then screamed, "get back here nigger" which I found slightly of-putting and quite bizare since neither of them were obviously Black. The girl kept going after the boy and he continued to escape. She kept yelling the same, condeming phrase at him over and over (I cannot remember it now) with a playful yet clearly viscious tone. Keeping things lighter, however, the boy wasn't phased by her threats of violence. He giggled, and kept her chasing him.

When wandering foreign streets at twilight you tend to be chosen by fewer boulevards that you would have during daylight. I say that streets "choose" because, while there is always an element of agency, I cannot say with confidence that it is always my choice to walk down a certain street. Light, for example, pulls me towards certain streets and away from others. Architecture also has this effect. Commercial storefronts, bricked-over warehouses, and front steps all carry varying levels of power to move my feet forwards, backwards, left and right, at respective times.

Walking down "the neck" I verred off Ferry towards the river. Cut-off by a freeway-like overpass over the river, I changed from walking west to walking back north again. I passed several cafes opaque to the outside world that I imagined to have patrons dining on copious amounts of hearty bread and red wine on the inside. I couldn't tell, however, from my brief encounter whether or not what I imagined was true. My musings were not strong enough to pull me in.

Further on down a fairly dark and empty street I kept my eye out for the basement trap doors that these old houses tend to have. They lead into the basements of the two and three-flats in the neighborhood and often have people jumping in and out of them. I then came up to a park that was lit up with bright soccer field lights and people everywhere. Kids and coaches were on the field with plenty of onlookers standing on the sidelines. I heard a woman's voice blaring from a loudspeaker. As I walked towards her I realized I had fallen upon an event.

There was a stage and a bandstand set up with audience chairs and some booths. A was truck parked on the grass that I saw a little boy running away from with a sample tub of ice cream in his hand. I thought I'd take my chances. Childlike, guiltily following a child, I walked up to the van. After completing a handout in Spanish with the little boy, the ice-cream woman did not regard me with the slightest disdain or curiosity, but pleasantly asked me which free sample I wanted. I don't know why hearing her speak to the boy in another language and give him the ice cream intimidated me. I guess I felt that I was infringing upon a privilege that I had no right to, but I knew she couldn't refuse me. She, however, saw no difference in me or the boy. So I got some "Valencia Blood Orange" sorbet.

After a few minutes an almost ten-piece band of white, Black, and Latino men came to the stage. They announced that they were from the Bronx and asked if people wanted to hear some salsa. The began to play and the crowd immediately began tapping and moving to the rhythm. One dark Black man stood up with his baby daughter in his arms and started to salsa. The little girl kicked her legs up and down from high in the air. The Black trumpet player sizzled the salsa lines. More people stood up and started dancing. Then the played a merengue. The white guy took liberty with his slide trombone. Everyone was having a good time. I took some pictures.

On the way back up to Ferry I passed a line of older men and women sitting out on the sidewalk in lawnchairs. The were relaxing and talking--speaking in Portuguses. They were all wearing white and had white hair. I wanted to photograph them talking and watching the street, but I couldn't.

I ended up at Penn Station where I could not figure out what train to take to New York nor whether or not I had enough money. I saw on one fare machine that a one-way to New York Penn Station was four dollars. I also needed a ticket back and only had five dollars. So I left the station.

I came back and read an article by Andreas Huyssen call "Modernist Miniatures: Literary Snapshots of Urban Spaces" and was thoroughly intrigued by the idea of people being affected by space, not space affected by people:

'Nicht gesucht hat den Platz, wen er findet' (trans) 'He whom the place finds did not seek it.' The uncanny reversal of human subject and urban space in the German sentence immediately disorients the reader. the human subject becomes grammatical object; the empirical object becomes grammatical subject.

Fascinating day.

Behold The Powers Of Mapping!

Marriage Ban Donors Feel Exposed by List

By Jesse McKinley

SAN FRANCISCO — In many ways it is a typical map, showing states, highways, cities and streets.

But also dotting the online display are thousands of red arrows, marking spots from Bryn Mawr, Pa., to Jamacha, Calif., identifying the addresses of donors who supported Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex marriage in California.

It is exactly those arrows that concern supporters of the measure, who say they have been regularly harassed since the election — with threatening e-mail messages and sometimes boycotts of their businesses.

“Some gay activists have organized Web sites to actively encourage people to go after supporters of Proposition 8,” said Frank Schubert, the campaign manager for Protect Marriage, the leading group behind the proposition. “And giving these people a map to your home or office leaves supporters of Proposition 8 feeling especially vulnerable. Really, it is chilling.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/us/19prop8.html

Sounds Of Typing

I have to admit that I miss the sounds of my keyboard when I walk away from it for too long. I neglect the keys too often, reassuring myself that I will remember this or that passing thought, come back, and write it down. Today I woke up to bright sunlight shinning through the oblong-shaped angle between my floor and room door. Almost white, blinding me from across the room. I took the light as a sign that I had finally woken-up before 4pm; finally I caught a day. Gradually rising from my red couch I walked over to my French windows, turned the silver-knob, pulled the glass inwards, then leaned out to push the shudders open. The warm cool air hit me and lifted me like a strong glass of fresh mint tea. I breathed in deep and, for the first time in a while, smiled at the view from my window. Good day to take my bike out.

After some coffee and breakfast—1 tablespoon of instant powder coffee mixed with a 1/3 teaspoon sugar along with a petit pain au lait—I sat down to finish reading a book by an author who is “the Einstein of memory.” Throughout the past week I have followed this German man on his journey through Italy, southern Germany, his memories, and the memories of others. At times his words bore me to death, but there are moments when he captivates my imagination. The way he renders place and experience, especially the unknown dark corners of memory, is remarkable. He tells less a story of what is remember than what is not remember, or what is never completely known. I would say he narrates the shadows that followed him throughout his life; only through telling the story does he begin to dissolve les ombres. His writing made me think about how memory functions when we do an about face and chase down the shadows. By nature these semi-opaque entities seem tangible enough if not completely at our mercy to be sculpted as we please. But on the great craftswomen knows well how to manipulate vellum-like figures. The rest of us, try as we may, only run out of time and misshape them. We try though, and that is what I found so fascinating about Seabald’s work. He danced with the shadows--getting close, but never too close as to chase them away. Conjuring them towards him, he wove them into new memories that were a hybrid of old imaginings and new experiences, crafting an entirely innovating kind of memory.

Behind 48

Typolution

Round-Abouts: Berlin

Words From The Wiser

Almost every breath contains some fragments of an escaping melody. If I shape my lips so as to whistle, my breath will take on a musical shape like sonic vapor. Words are much trickier. I would forgo words altogether if I didn’t love singing them so much. My choice of words and my voice betray so much and that’s what’s so terrifying and attractive about it [...]Words get under my skin the same way melodies do. Something catches my attention and I file it subconsciously. It often begins with an archaic or obscure word I have not defined. I just like the sound of it and its elusive meaning gives it a mysterious shine. On the menu of a local cafe is an item called “salsify.” Before I reach for the dictionary I let my imagination run wild and decide that salsify is a burrowing bronchial root like a rickety old mine that burrows deep into something. It turns out that’s mostly correct which encourages me further. All I know is “salsify mains” sounds good to me.

-Andrew Bird, from "Words Will Tell." NyTimes, March 2008