Zak Smith, currently my favorite urban artist, is having an exhibition at the Fredericks Freiser Gallery, which you should all go see, in Manhattan, preferably with me, preferably October 22nd.
September, 2005 Monthly archive
My cubicle is filled with papers and laptops and random AV equipment, memory cards for digital cameras, books, pens, handmade mugs, photo albums, blank cds, random half-broken office furniture, and a large cardboard box containing really old files that I’d rather not deal with.
I’m the backup IT person at work, which I find humorous, seeing as I have no IT expertise, just an interest in the field. Today we had a meltdown, initiated by me installing Windows Service Pack 2 into someone’s networked computer, and so I’ve stayed late here to fix the problem. I’m the second to last person here. The sky outside is black now, as if it were February, which is approaching much faster than we think. I’m leaving for DC in 36 hours and I’ve got a tremendous amount of work to get done before that happens. I’d also really like to eat dinner.
Two of my coworkers from my department are pregnant, due two weeks apart from one another. We banter about nausea and homeopathic balony, and I act as if I’m the authority on all things prenatal based on the mere fact that my friend HH lived me with during the course of her pregnancy. “You gotta buy avocado oil in your last trimester,” I told 23-yr-old E., who’s married and two months pregnant. “For what?” she asked. “Massage techniques to prepare for birth!” I said. “There’s a technical word for it, but I forget.” They had no idea what I was talking about, so I tried to elaborate using hand gestures and monosyllabic descriptions, which only succeeded in turning my coworker’s face beet red and sending her into uncontrollable giggles. Whatever, man. It works.
*** [LATER]
Question: Why is it that sometimes when I bike up the hill on Ibbetson Street, I make it up very quickly and with very little sweat and conserved energy, and other times when I bike up the hill on Ibbetson Street, I end up soaked and barely able to breathe by the time I get to my house? Why is that? Where do these reserves of energy — or droughts of it — come from? Is it the heat? Coming up the hill tonight, my energy completely preserved, I reached the top and looked up at the sky. It was a clean, slate grey-blue, empty of everything but stars. Really, you could actually see the stars tonight, even here in the city. The air had that crisp awareness to it that it gets in fall. It made me think of farms and pumpkins and childhood and the future.
Tonight E. did some hippie energy pressure-point type thing on my head. Usually I like big dudes with big muscles to pound out the knots on my neck and shoulders, but instead, this incredibly light pressure and simple touch was crazy effective. The whole time I felt a tingling in the base of my spine, which was probably the root of the problem. The moral of this story is metaphorical, people, and the metaphor is this: you have to be quiet to be able to hear things. Sometimes, what you think is deeply buried is really right there on the surface. You just have to be still to become aware of it.
Thus ends our moment of zen.
I love the beauty of urban gardens. Something about the dichotomy of flowers next to pavement. Maybe I just love the idea of simplicity.
Needless to say, Deb Talan played the best show of my 2005. (Of course, the only musicians I religiously make pilgrimages through snow, sleet and other elements to see are Deb Talan/The Weepies and K’s Choice, and K’s Choice people live in Belgium.) Anyway,
you really should go and download a bunch of Talan’s new songs off archive.org right now, because they’re great great great. Tonight she and Steve Tannen played a bunch of the new ones, and it was so nice to hear them live, instead of on my iPood, I mean iPod.
Funny, too:
I had no one to go to the show with, so I went alone. Stood in the corner watching all the young gay girls with their young gay girl pixie haircuts (not that I don’t sport the pixie haircut every few years, I’m just saying, it brought back some Smith nostalgia — but in an annoying way). So I was leaning against the wall for 3.5 hours in my big boots and directly under the air conditioning vent. And Talan was so cool — she smiles when she sings; big, thoroughly happy smiles that make everyone else smile too. She strikes me as the nicest, most genuine musician ever. Which is what I also love about K’s Choice. Anyway, so she’s singing, and all her songs are so great, and I suddenly got this wave of overwhelming emotion — like air hitting a nerve — I can’t explain whether it was sadness or happiness or rather the appreciation for honest lyrics that explain The Human Condition in all its various forms of glory and decrepitude…but it struck me. Deeply. Which culmindated in the cheesiest lyric-related moment of the night: during the encore, Talan played “Comfort”, in which a line says: “Follow your dreams in through every out door, it seems that’s what we’re here for…” which I always thought was just a cutesy line. Until tonight, when I thought about it. My God, I thought, what if that really is what we’re here for? What if I’m just wasting my time on the internet, at an office job, worrying about dumb things, whatever whatever. Oddly enough, it made me want to make films, not just talk about making films. With my crew, instead of just talking about how great my crew is, how lucky I am to actually have one. So that was my moment of zen. Actually, I had about 50 moments of zen during the show, but that was the last one. It also made me want to make music again — rediscover the piano, the guitar, the harmonica — and to write again, and maybe even do spoken word again. (Ah, the former days of poetic glory.) Most of all, it just made me appreciate other peoples’ art — their music, their words, and what it can do for each of us — and how awesome a gift that is. And how, someday when I’m a wealthy successful multimedia producer philanthropist, I’m going to fund musicians like these, and writers, and artists. Because without their creativity inspiring our own, we’d all shrivel up into nothingness.
It’s true. Think about it.
I dreamed of you in the body of another.
“I’m leaving,” you told me. Somewhere far away. And that was it.
You were restless and I couldn’t keep you standing still. I thought of
Germany, how I might as well go there now, since the only thing between us
was air, and air attaches to nothing, and nothing is always the culmination
of everything folding into itself.
I hate to admit it, but I like getting up early. Not that I ever do it regularly, but when I’m forced to, I don’t mind. It amazes me how many hours are in a day, and how many of those I usually pass through in unconsciousness.
Tonight is exciting. My favorite folkies will be playing at Johnny D’s. I wait all year for them to come to Boston, and tonight is the night. It’s already dark and thundering outside, but I don’t mind. I’ve worn my large boots and I’m ready for anything, particularly good music. It’s autumn now.
Maybe I don’t want to have kids after all. Maybe it’s too hard. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to permanently deal with a sometimes sweet 6-year-old with an inherently volatile temper. Maybe I would crack, like an antique egg, my guts running down the stairway, through splintered wood, out the door. Maybe I’m just not cut out for it.
I played Mom the past 24 hours, slept over the kids’ house while both their parents were away. It was great, except for E.’s attitude. I tried to show them a good time, though: I let them watch The Neverending Story, then took them to Harvard Square when they should have been in bed. We got chocolate ice cream and watched a jazz trio jam in the pit. I’m such a fun babysitter, man. I just can’t stand yelling at children. I don’t enjoy it, but, like anything, if I’m forced to do it, I’ll do it well. I think the moral of the story is: only have one child. Then there will be no rivalry or attention issues. Funny, these weird lessons you learn about life when you’re pushing 30.
I’d also like to learn about the stock market, investments, business things. I’d like to use money to make money, and then buy this house in Vermont, and another flat in Philly, and maybe a place in Belgium, and maybe somewhere in Costa Rica, and, and….
wow, I really do talk about the same things all the time. I wonder why anyone ever reads this.
Thanks to smarty anthrochica and her great book recommendations, I am now the proud owner of:
- “The wind-up bird chronicles” & “Hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world” by Haruki Murakami
- “Cronopios and famas” by Julio Cortazar
- “Shutterbabe” by Deborah Copaken Kogan
Endeavoring to read more…in between endless childcare shifts and the usual 9 to 5. I’d love a private caterer to bring me miso soup and baked alaska right about now, but instead I’ll curse my lack of groceries and sleep off the hunger. Unquestionably irresponsible of me, eh? It’s September already. Can you believe that? I’m moving soon…