The preacher and the nurse are here. At the moment, the nurse is on the side of my bed next to the wall, and the preacher is sleeping on the floor (at his insistence), on top of layers of foam, sleeping bag, and blankets. My educated guess is that he is already asleep, and that she is still lightly awake.
They arrived on Friday afternoon, slamming into the heat as they emerged from the 1, 9 subway and rolled their suitcases to my office for temporary storage. Since then, we have burrowed through a good percentage of the city's network of underground trains, popping up through the concrete street-level holes to visit the roller skaters (and the rest of) Central Park, a Broadway musical, the post-Gay Pride Parade street fair, the carless artery that divides the Brooklyn Bridge in half, and a handful of restaurants and neighborhoods. We have cooked and talked and watched movies, and, probably more than anything, we have walked. My legs feel strong and wobbly at the same time, both pissed off and grateful. I've been going to bed remarkably early due to sheer exhaustion, and due in part to the schedules of the preacher and the nurse, who long ago embraced society's (and the sun's) suggested waking hours.
The preacher is eager to take in as much as possible; he and their daughter often walk too fast for the nurse, who is eager to take in everything she can from a comfortable spot on a bench. The nurse has congenially given in.
They are easy to be around, which is a lucky thing.
I walked into the film premiere after it had started; I could only see a sea of half-lit faces as I felt around for a seat. It wasn't until after it was over that I noticed I was under-dressed, that there had been a uniform of thin black cloth that ended at the knee. Shiny, trimmed nails, careful make-up, matching handbags. They were full of small talk and smiles; I forced some conversation and declined the invitation for drinks afterward, figuring I'd be quiet and self-conscious and have nothing to say.
I walked around the corner alone, through a pack of punks, and I noticed I was overdressed, that there was a uniform of black that was ripped and studded and full of holes. Spikes, heads shaved on the sides, thick, dark make-up. They were leaning against walls and cupping their hands to light cigarettes. I looked down as I passed them, hoping not to be seen.
Nondescript people walking down Houston, Indie-rock kids on Ludlow. Hassidic Jews on the JMZ train, in their gaberdine suits and top hats, sprinkled among the working class poor who wear different shades of skin, who sit on the gray benches with their eyes closed, who look worn and dingy. Hipsters in Williamsburg, in their flat caps and Converse and dangling earrings, in their small, feather-weight bodies. G'd out Hispanic boys on the corner; young girls wearing tight bleached jeans and halter tops, hurrying down the sidewalk.
A short walk and one subway stop away from the premiere, I'm finally home.
Dear R.,
I'm exhausted of you, of your bad timing, your arrogance and persistence. You've ruined several of my weekends the past two months, turning otherwise promising events into exercises in trying to avoid you: the Field Day Music Festival; The Mermaid Parade; the Williamsburg Bridge 100th Birthday Celebration.
Of course I realize you don't have the capacity to care. Without guilt, you sink into my clothing, into the strands of my hair, into my shoes and socks, soaking into me and making me cold and miserable. You bead up on my camera and cell phone and work your way into the grooves of their mysterious elements, where you fester and will eventually turn to rust. You're expensive.
I blame you for the constant 60 degree temperature that should've died with April. I blame you for making people stay at home, making people go home early, making people hide under imposing umbrellas that take up valuable sidewalk space.
Please consider leaving me alone, at least for the month of July.
Lisa
An acquaintance of mine suggested that music festivals are like all-you-can-eat buffets—they seem like a good idea at first, before you realize: the dishes being offered are pretty low quality; the place is chaotic; the amount being served is overwhelming; you feel compelled to consume more than you want in order to make the price seem reasonable.
Underworld was the first band that I saw, mainly because they played in the arena where I could watch them from beneath a ceiling. By the time the first song ended, the band had coaxed a few hundred people out from their dry caves to dance in the rain, driving them (the moths) into the field and toward the railings (the light). I stayed underneath my shelter, watching a rainbow of ponchos bounce up and down like an EKG measuring the band's pulse. Some people carelessly absorbed the water, poncho-free. Such as the guy who smiled and pumped his fist when he danced and got lost in himself. Or the girl on the field who couldn't stand still, who thrust her hips in zig-zags and threw both arms up simultaneously, as if she were hailing two taxis.
Bright Eyes and Elliott Smith were on the second stage, the stage hidden in the parking lot underneath the clouds. I'd seen Bright Eyes a couple times before, but because on this particular day it was roughly a side helping of, say, jello salad, and I only took a few bites before abandoning it, since I could hear Blur cueing up on the main stage. Elliott Smith was pretty much the same story; he was good, and he said some funny things while I was standing there, but he lost in a competition to the Beastie Boys.
Blur and the Beastie Boys, yes, yes. (Mashed potatoes?) But I was removed, and, except for the level of sound, I could've been watching it on TV. In fact, I was watching it on TV, on the screens to either side of the stage. It was difficult not to rely on the screens, because, otherwise, the person onstage was about an inch tall and had no face.
Beck canceled last-minute; the rumor around the venue was that he'd slipped backstage and had been taken to the hospital.
The break between the Beastie Boys and Radiohead was long. The cameras panned the crowd on the field so that it could amuse itself with itself, so that it could smile and wave and make obscene gestures and hold up strange objects and get a reaction from everyone watching the screens. They were creative, funny, boring, immodest, shy, and obnoxious. They made me wonder what I would do if the camera came to me. I would probably do nothing, and then come up with something to do an hour after the opportunity had passed, something I probably never would've done anyway.
By the time Radiohead played, it was dark and it had stopped raining.
Radiohead was not a well combed-over dish on the buffet table. They were not cold and gross; they did not have a dead fly hiding in them; they were not unidentifiable. In fact, for the two hours (?) that they played, I didn't feel a million miles away from the stage. I didn't silently wish that they'd hurry up or that they'd play different songs. I didn't silently wish that I were somewhere else. I didn't regret coming.
During the middle of the set, the three of us moved a few rows closer, which put us underneath the dark, sealed sky, where we were able to see the filled seats all around us, people watching the stage and holding out their cell phones.
Shortly before I left North Carolina last night, I went for a walk through the soggy woods, where I was surrounded by busy living creatures—not unlike New York, but completely unlike New York. The frogs were the noisiest, producing a surging buzz and the sound of guitar strings being plucked; the ones on the path that I saw were the size of a fingernail. I tried to take the noises apart; I think I heard an owl, the hollow knock of woodpeckers, definitely some noisy singing birds, and the sound of twigs snapping underneath weight. Thick, green leaves (like I imagine Vietnam to have), lightning bugs, black armored beetles underneath heavy logs, and invisible, sticky spider webs on my skin that made me paranoid.
...
Wilmington, Delaware looks something like a wasteland from the tracks. Lots of shot-out windows and caving-in buildings—buildings without four walls, even—and industrial plains of ripped-up earth, plains which are peopled by smoky metal monsters that loom over the dusty gravel, large and leggy. In the distance, you can see tall, mirrored buildings that point to the areas of prosperity, the areas of disparity; on nice days, the sun shines on them and makes them glow like the promised land.
The old buildings are always more intriguing to me, no matter how ignored and poorly cared for; undoubtedly, it's the lack of attention that attracts me, the detail and colors and girth, and the forces that wore away the bricks and wood, ate away at the paint. It's overcast today; there aren't any people in the streets of Wilmington, and there are no glowing buildings, at least not from my perspective on the train.
Lemonade; the smell of fresh-cut grass; cookouts; driving on empty roads with the windows down; waving strangers; shopping for old records; afternoon thunderstorms; sweet tea and biscuits; old friends; riding bikes through neighborhoods of old houses and big lawns; mashed potatoes; dense forests; thrift stores full of bizarre and amusing kitsch; driving past fields full of tobacco, cows; local bands; beer and spiders on the porch; hot attics full of the past;
watching super 8 videos. Not only videos that I helped make, but surprise videos from the flea market, videos of other people and animals and places from long ago. We guessed the decade by the clothing: the hair, the eyeglasses, the polyester. They were films of families on Christmas morning, on vacation in Mexico, at birthday parties. Someone liked shooting film of sea lions, dogs and squirrels. There was one spooky video of a grave plot interspersed with footage of an old house in different seasons. Footage of Cape Canaveral in the 50s. Of a family building a dog house.
The projector noisily blows air and clicks by as it produces a jumpy, silent picture, one that seems more consistent with the silence of memories than modern video technology does. We play music as we watch, choosing impossibly recent soundtracks to match the surreal images onscreen. I'm addicted. I want to document everything this way.
I don't miss North Carolina often, but I love visiting, and I easily sink back in life here as if I never left, as if I'm on the other side of a barely perceptible skip in a record. It's hot and humid, just like it was last summer, and the summer before that.
It wasn't drizzling; it was raining. My hat soaked through and then my hair filled up with water, beads dripping off the ends of my ponytails. At the sink in the bathroom I pressed brown paper towels to my head to absorb some of the sky, but the paper only dampened and got limp, leaving my hair exactly the same. Meanwhile, Veritee and I fantasized about warm air-blowing hand dryers the way people talk about winning the lottery.
My pants were too long; they kept getting caught underneath my heels with my leg warmers, collecting small bits of the puddles I walked through. The lines were also too long; it was somewhat of a surprise if the item you'd been waiting for was still behind the counter once you got there. Throughout the venue, there was a sense that everyone had accepted the situation and had moved beyond it; I didn't hear many complaints, and the other patrons I encountered were very friendly, as well as shiny and brightly colored, and they all had cone-shaped heads. It was easy to tell the prepared from the unprepared, because the prepared were colorful and the unprepared were clear. My hooded trash bag cost $5, exactly $1 more than a cookie or a bag of peanuts and exactly the same price as an individual pizza from the local pizza monopoly.
I don't have a credit card; I severed the magic plastic with a pair of scissors the moment I paid it off, spreading the shards like seeds into different trash cans. At the time, I wasn't aware that I'd be missing that card almost two years later—not to pay bills or buy something extravagant—but to simply rent a car so that I could drive to a concert in New Jersey. But more than that, I was annoyed that it was required, annoyed that I was being punished for not operating in the world of credit. And frustrated that all three of us were handicapped by some small requirement: me, for not having a credit card; Veritee, for not being 25; and Scott, for not having a driver's license.
We stood on a wet sidewalk punching numbers into cell phones, wishing we could morph into one person, into one car-renting superhero. There was no train we could take to Giants stadium, we were carrying items that would be confiscated at the gate (such as my umbrella), and we had missed the last bus.
We ended up taking a taxi, after dropping off our "illicit" items at the hotel bar where Scott works. Our cab driver wore a pinstriped suit and a round Charlie Chaplin hat, and he liberally passed out paper towels while we ate sandwiches, perhaps to be friendly or to protect the interior of his car. He honked and complained about the traffic and the bad drivers. He jokingly tried to sell me his hat when I told him I liked it. He let us out into the middle of the parking lot, spilling us out into the steady rain.
On the way to the first gate, probably at the end of Liz Phair's set, we passed three people sitting in cloth chairs that had umbrellas duct taped to their backs. Two guys and a girl. They were stationed there like sirens, singing songs of shelter, fruit, beer, and cupcakes. We accepted, and missed a little more of the concert.
The people at the gate weren't as friendly. Apparently there were lots of items considered illicit, such as black plastic bags and non-disposable cameras, and, if you're male, you aren't allowed to carry a bag in at all. Incidentally, I had lined my cloth bag with plastic bags (which happened to be black) to keep my things from getting wet, but I was made to give them up. Scott had to give up his cloth bag entirely, although, oddly, he was allowed to keep everything else he'd brought (minus his digital camera); apparently his belongings were okay as long as they weren't stored in either a cloth bag carried by a male or a black plastic bag carried by anyone.
Veritee and I then split Scott's things between our bags, upon which I was told I'd better "watch it, because [my] bag was turning into a 'bag' instead of a 'purse,'" as it began to fatten and get heavy. One merciful woman (at the third gate we tried to penetrate) let me hang onto my camera. She whispered in a low, deep voice, "Look, I'm not trying to bust your balls. You can keep it, but don't take it out of your bag, or they'll confiscate it." I nodded and guzzled my soda, which I wasn't allowed to bring in.
Listen up. Just because you don't have "plans" that involve another person, that doesn't mean you don't have plans. What I mean is, it's okay for you to occasionally decline an appealing offer to hang out with interesting people and instead stay home, because it isn't fun to be exhausted, overwhelmed, and unhealthy. It also would be nice if you would start chipping away at Stale Email Mountain, maybe sit down and read a book, go to bed early, or even do one thing in a single given moment, rather than constantly multi-tasking. It's not surprising that you fed some strange envelope to the ATM and can't remember doing it, because, of course, you were distracted by the phone that was delicately balanced between your left shoulder and ear. It's sad that sometimes you choose not to wear a scarf because you can't simultaneously wear a scarf and perform this phone trick, because somehow it seems essential to have the use of both hands while talking on the phone.
I recently made a website for my friend and coworker David, for a project that encourages communication between Iraqi and American kids. It's called Project Voice; the post-war videoconference is this coming Thursday. (You may recognize the girl on the right side of the logo from my A Day in the Life: Brooklyn photos.)
I'm pretty sure the first time I visited New York City was the summer of 1984, the summer I was nine, the summer my family had a green and wood-paneled van, the kind with the extended ceiling where you could almost stand up straight. I liked the van. Of course that was before I knew or cared about fuel efficiency, or the damage we could do to the smaller cars on the road if we ran into them, or the grace and maneuverability of a smaller vehicle.
A van meant I could change seats, hopping between the swiveling mid-row chairs and the back soft bench that could turn itself into a bed; it meant that a road trip from North Carolina to New Jersey and New York and Niagara Falls and I'm not sure where else could be made in leisure, meaning that my brother and I would only argue out of boredom rather than due to claustrophobia. I could stretch my small arms and legs or lie down on the carpeted floor if I wanted, helping drain me of restlessness. I could watch the strangers in the passing cars from a giant rectangular window, most of whom were below me, unaware that they were being observed. I could easily be seen by truckers, which I considered a good thing, because they could witness my request that they blow their horns, a gesture which involved me balling up my fist, holding my arm—L-shaped—in the air, and yanking down.
Every year, almost, my family would take an out-of-state trip somewhere, often to see relatives in West Virginia or New Jersey. Sometimes we'd go elsewhere—to see places rather than people—almost always a destination along the East Coast. Some elements of every trip were the same:
We took turns with the tape deck. (My brother would almost always play Rush, Police, or Yes; my mother liked the Carpenters and Christopher Cross; my dad would sometimes opt for silence during his turn; I generally chose bands like Duran Duran and Michael Jackson.) We played a trivia game we'd ordered from the back of a Chex cereal box in which we'd collect cards for each answer we got correct. (There was a point—though I think it took years—when we'd memorized many of the answers.) My mom brought sandwiches and snacks to save money, and she'd unwrap them for us while we sped down the highway. My dad drank coffee, a smell I hated at the time and associated solely with road trips; if I was sleeping, the smell would wake me up. My brother read the World Almanac, citing (out loud) whichever statistics impressed him. He and I pointed out and memorized the appearance and slogans of out-of-state license plates. My dad would get distracted by scenic views and would accidentally drift into the breakdown lane. My mom got nervous when he sped on the West Virginia mountain roads, although he assured her he knew the territory like the back of his hand, an assurance that came with a mischievous grin.
I loved watching the earth change, starting out flat and ballooning into a bumpy, erratic figure. I loved seeing the fields in the middle of nowhere, and wondering how there could be a nowhere. I remember once asking my brother what town we were in, and being confused by his answer: "We're not in a town, Lisa. We're nowhere. We're between towns." I loved seeing the truck escapes, the steep hills and beds of sand where an out-of-control 18-wheeler could sink. Even more eerie to me, perhaps, were the out-of-use mountain tunnels, the broken bridges, and the dilapidated mining towns.
From New York in 1984, I can only recall incomplete snapshots. I remember Times Square when it was still seedy—not so much what it looked like, but the rush I felt from a lack of safety. I remember walking up the stairs at McDonald's there, as well as standing underneath a flashing Minolta ad, which I'd noticed because I knew my dad carried around a Minolta camera. I remember that he was nervous about giving up the car and keys to a "garage," which was nothing more than a parking lot stuffed with vehicles in neat, soldier-like rows. I remember seeing a man pissing in a corner. Breakdancers with a portable stereo and a crowd gathered around them. The packed subway on the way to the Bronx—to the Yankees game—in which the lights flickered and died and my mom lost sight of me. I remember standing behind the railing on a ferry, and seeing the Statue of Liberty poking out from behind scaffolding. I remember the feeling of being overwhelmed, happily overwhelmed.
