It's Raining in New York

On occasion I ingest extreme amounts of caffeine, typically when under duress or financial strain--i.e., more and more often these days. Since I'm always writing, I amuse myself in reading what I've written in this machine-monster-mode. I imagine it like this, of course:

We have been up all night, my friends and I, beneath mosque lamps whose brass cupolas are bright as our souls, because like them they were illuminated by the internal glow of electric hearts. And trampling underfoot our native sloth on opulent Persian carpets, we have been discussing right up to the limits of logic and scrawling the paper with demented writing.

Our hearts were filled with an immense pride at feeling ourselves standing quite alone, like lighthouses or like the sentinels in an outpost, facing the army of enemy stars encamped in their celestial bivouacs. Alone with the engineers in the infernal stokeholes of great ships, alone with the black spirits which rage in the belly of rogue locomotives, alone with the drunkards beating their wings against the walls. 

Marinetti, 1909 (of course)

Rather than a rage in the belly of rogue locomotives (what an image), I produce a quiet fury of carefully constrained text devoid of much inspiration. It is the absolute inverse of my experience of writing after having had a few drinks (self-aggrandizing, sentimental, offensively saccharine, incoherent), but lacks the inchoate, free beauty I've been struggling to achieve. 

For months, I've been at a loss, when it comes to what I'm writing. A week ago an older friend handed me a copy of Patrick Modiano (in translation). I continue to believe (and have believed for some time) that the greatest insights regarding one's chosen medium are to be had in other mediums (or modes) of art. If you write, consider music, painting, and especially sculpture, dance, and photography. Photography explains art: photographers are a conduit for image, and show us a particular perspective, a particular way of looking at something, of seeing someone or some place. This is what medium is to art: a space in which to fix a particular way of seeing.

Modiano, in afterimage (Chien de printemps in French, Bitch of a Spring/Goddamned Spring, which I prefer), takes us on an iconic walk through Paris: we visit Place de la Concorde, we walk into the gardens of the Champs-Elysées, we stroll down the main boulevards, and in the company of a photographer (Jansen) and a teenager (unnamed). The photographer, in his youth adopted by Robert Capa (of all people), has now adopted our teenage narrator. I'll quote the passage:

A breeze was ruffling the leaves on the trees, and their shade felt cool as Jansen and I walked along the main boulevards. We had come to Place de la Concorde. We went into the gardens of the Champs-Elysées. Jansen took pictures with his Rolleiflex, but I scarcely noticed. He cast a furtive eye on the viewfinder, level with his waist. And yet I knew that each of his photos was perfectly framed. One day, when I expressed surprise at that feigned carelessness, he'd told me you had to "approach things gently and quietly or they pull away."

This passage has been of incredible use, as I attempt to render the nearly indescribably beauty of a ride across the Manhattan Bridge, on the Q, hundreds of feet above the East River, the setting sun illuminating the harbor, the sky, the skyscrapers, and flickering lightly off cars crossing the Brooklyn Bridge: approach things gently and quietly or they pull away. Thank you, obscure relation! Thank you for providing me with the exact chisel I required to cut the nose, the eyes, the face, but might never have found on my own. Modiano's writing reminds me of the films of Michelangelo Antonioni, especially L'Eclisse, The Passenger, and my favorite, L'Avventura. They're slow in pace--dull, almost--sumptuous, textured, layered, and highlight the glory and potential of the image. In L'Aventura, Monica Vitti beauty devastates. While we're on the subject, I want to quickly note a Godard that never fails to elate or animate (the trailer, that is, not the film): Vivre sa vie.

Of course, the other half of lovely writing is clever word-smithing, or sheer delight in the amusement and color and texture of language--as a writer one must exult in language. Take Miss Clack, for example, from Wilkie Collins' Moonstone, which, as you know, I finished just the other day:

I describe this aimless flitting about from one place of residence to another--this insatiate restlessness of body and appalling stagnation of soul--merely with the view to arriving at results. 

Miss Clack will be important to this journal as I will use her name for the name of a troublesome aunt, sister of my mother, who had twins at fifty-two via artificial insemination. We're estranged. She is an utter pill, and accused my mother--her older sister, and remember, this Clack had twins at fifty-two--of attempting to breastfeed the children. This Clack is a doctor. Can you imagine? I talked to a producer recently and mentioned I'm accustomed to managing "big" personalities--"diplomatic, Marcel, unlike you," he said--ah, but it begins at home! Yes, one musn't neglect the important skills one has picked up at home.

When one can appropriately position "insatiate" in a sentence, can help the word to expose itself as it must--one has succeeded as a writer. This emerald of a sentence, tucked into the first third of the Moonstone, is the other half of "approach things gently and quietly or they pull away," when it comes to writing. The inability of most--if not all--contemporary writers to do this characterizes the deplorable state of modern fiction. In English, contemporary writers seem to have lost the ability to do either, and are equally incapable of exulting and softly approaching shade, place, or person. An embarrassing and ignominious predicament!

It's raining in New York. I haven't yet found a ticket to the Mariinsky at BAM--howl, howl, howl, howl! O I'll crack heaven wide open with my laments!

I wish it might snow rather than this endless grey rain.




   

    

Look Homeward, Angel

I've been listening to the new d'angelo album Black Messiah, on youtube (I know, basic as fuck), and in between songs I keep having to endure these anti-smoking ads.

I don't smoke. Alright, I might have a smoke or two when I'm drinking. But I can count the number of times I've bought a pack on one hand. Three fingers. I am d.o.n.e. with muhfuckin' anti-smoking ad campaigns.

People smoke, people get sick; some of this is smoking-related, some of this is not. The amount of money, effort, and energy wasted on anti-smoking campaigns, hard-earned money stupidly spent, and the effort/energy that might be expended on causes which truly merit our resources, this irritates my sense of decency, my common sense and common reason. I am entirely in agreement with David Hockney, one of the great artists of our time to boot. If I ever amass a vast quantity of wealth, I'm putting some of it into a pro-legalization-of-cocaine advocacy group, because I believe this would vastly disrupt the cartels (power and influence of, violence and atrocities committed by) who are breaking my heart in Mexico, and make more life in the drug-consuming zones (Europe, the US) more entertaining.   

But back to d'angelo: the new album is dope as fuck. I haven't said that in a few years. This album is like voodoo: it's ethereal, funky (Sly, where you at?), soulful, cosmic, complex, symphonic. And d'spite the heroin, d's voice sounds as if it hasn't aged a day in fifteen years. With all the horror and pain and suffering and tragedy in this country and the world, we need d'angelo. We need him bad. And maybe we also need heroin?

I saw the new Chris Rock film, Top Five, with Brooklyn and Loisa in DC Sunday. The same day we went to an incredible Ethiopian place Loisa had meant to visit for some time, went down to Anacostia, and ultimately ended up at the MLK Jr. Memorial. Coincidence? I asked Louisa if there was a theme to the day and she laughed, "I know exactly how you'll tell this story, M, 'Loisa insisted on a tour of black DC.'" Speaking of, Rest in Peace to the Mayor for Life. It's hard to believe he's gone, really, but as the demographics continue to shift in the District, well, in a way it makes sense. The twentieth century is over. Some things have improved, some things have worsened. I hope, like Chris Rock said a few weeks ago, white people have become a little less crazy. DC remains, like most of Amerikkka, a hard place to be black.

Some have remarked this is Chris Rock's Annie Hall, and I'm not sure about that (it isn't because Top Five disappoints). No, I simply find the movies very different, though they do both illuminate different social worlds of New York. The best and most important scene in Top Five is the Top Five scene with Tracy Morgan, set in what I believe is a Harlem NYCHA apartment; Cedric the Entertainer delivers a best supporting actor worthy performance (though he'll never be nominated) as the quintessential Houston con-artist, Jerry Seinfeld and DMX have amusing appearances each, and Rosario Dawson gives us a brilliant, calculating, vulnerable, and journalistic representative of the paper of record, the NYT. I find it interesting that Jay and Kanye co-produced this film, especially in light of Kanye's recent marriage to Kim K.

Loisa is an amusing character. She's adopted academic utilitarianism to a problematic degree; she makes serious decisions based on the philosophy. I think it's crazy, but Loisa is a great person, who has dedicated herself to a cause through and through (she works for a major humane organization), and I consider her to be one of the kindest and most genuine people I've ever met.

There are slips, though.

Once, Loisa and Grace drank to excess, several years ago in $Skid Row$. Unexpected from Grace this was not; just a day before a few of us had brought take-out margaritas to McCarren Park, and, after the margarita was for the most part consumed, Grace in her shriek-cackle recounted her recent amorous adventures. "I don't know what it is, it must be my pheromones! Sven--do you remember the Swede? Sven texted me the other day, 'Grace, when can I come over and fuck you again?'" Grace relished the fuck. There were families and elderly folks nearby reading their newspapers, I was mortified, though the elderly men seemed entertained.

On the night Grace and Loisa drank to excess, Loisa I had never seen so intoxicated. She remained very much in control of herself, which is why this story shocked me so. Loisa is proper, Loisa is moral. Loisa, muttering about something or other, I interrupted--dental dams had come up earlier in the night, and I asked her, "Besides people with HIV and other serious STDs, who else uses dental dams?" Loisa: "People with Aspergers." Shocked. I turned, with wide-eyes, to look at Loisa, who upon catching my eyes burst out with a Grace-like demonic cackle.

Years prior, during a frightening prank, Loisa violently grabbed her "best friend" (who is a story unto herself), shook her, and yelled into her face, "Do you know what's going on?" As the "best friend" shook her head, she inadvertently let out a slight giggle, as she was in on the prank. Loisa noticed this, whilst continuing to shake the best friend: "Are you lying to me?" And then Loisa slapped her best friend, hard, across the face.

Loisa is capable of delightful surprises. To be fair, she denies both these stories.

Brooklyn and I had a long conversation about our hometown, our friends, and how we've not met anyone who had an adolescent experience at all similar to ours (sex, drugs, booze, euphoria, tragedy). The people we knew really were (and in most cases still are) unstable, were once beautiful and full of potential, and seized life with the kind of reckless abandon I've seen only in the movies.

I'm now back in our hometown. It's bizarre. I'm still processing how I feel here. The plan was to drive immediately to see relatives in another state, but this has been abandoned, so I've picked up a few radio shows and plan to see some friends I haven't caught up with in years. One of them, a former roommate who now has a fiancée and infant, has invited me to come over for drinks and dinner tomorrow, and I am concerned he's up to something, like he plans to drug me, with perverse intent. I also feel uncomfortable around babies, but how do you get around that with new parents? Sorry, I don't want to hold your child--it just makes me feel uncomfortable, I can't drop it like I can a cat.

I come from one of the flyover states; a few years ago I thought this was unusual and exotic, and I would admit this at nightclubs, parties, galas, whatever. I soon learned it was something to be embarrassed about, which was funny. "Are you kidding me?" I thought. But that's how it is in New York. Now, for the first time, on the ride home from the airport I saw with altered eyes the countryside, the sprawl, the people: empty, hideous, provincial. Today I had lunch with a Boricua friend at a local café that serves marginal New Orleans-inspired cuisine, which also happens to be a restaurant where many of my friends are employed, and we talked about these strange feelings I'm having. She wasn't surprised.      

I'll be here for two weeks, until just before New Years. I feel a bit like Quentin at the end of Absalom: "I don't hate it I don't hate it I don't hate it." And I don't! I'm not a pretentious asshole. But life and time and people are a curious and confounding mess which through we must muddle. Like Betteredge, I have my Robinson Crusoes, one of these being The Moonstone, which I read on the flight from DC to my state whilst eavesdropping on a wonderful couple bickering in small words full of years of disappointment and indignation.      

I can't wait to see the Pynchon adaptation, and have begun a foray into the films of Douglas Sirk, the Rossellini/Bergman triplets, a few Antonioni films I haven't yet had the chance to view, and favorite roles of Bacall, whom I miss dearly. I intend to attend the Mariinsky at BAM in January of 2015, and today bought an LP of the 1966 Bayreuth Karl Bohm-Birgit Nilsson Tristan and Isolde for exactly twenty-seven cents. Music that encapsulates the homelessness of the human condition, the isolation and bitterness and beauty of life.

Kafka

I mentioned the Brooklyn Heights girls--the two I almost lived with? Well, one of them told me all about her intense curiosity in Kafka's letters, diaries, journals, etc., of course it goes without saying he was a fascinating, unusual, a neurotic. Según Freud, the illness of the neurotic is the illness of modern civilization.

Last night I went to flight attendant friend's holiday party in deep Queens. Deepest Queens, an area the look and feel of which makes it feel like it could be anywhere or anything. It's so abstract. Flight attendant friend and I met a few years ago on a flight from New York to my state of birth; I had a little shoulder-bag with me that I had stowed in one of the overhead bins. During those quiet moments before take-off, the flight attendants closing and inspecting the aforementioned bins, passengers settling in with a book, their anxieties, thoughts of wherever it is they have left and wherever it is they are to go, and the head flight attendant pulls out my shoulder-bag, a Colombian mochila, and, in a tone audible to the nearby fifteen or twenty passengers, says, with my bag held up, "Whose purse is this?" For once, my seatmate is a very attractive woman. What humiliation. Immediately with some awkwardness I stood up and claimed my bag, and told the flight attendant that "it's a shoulder-bag not a purse." Chuckling from the surrounding rows. "Looks like a purse to me!" she responded. Carly, my seatmate, doubled over in laughter. We struck up a conversation and discovered we were on our way to the same town, so I gave her a ride home from the airport. We've been friends ever since. She's a flight attendant with a major carrier, and the more of her friends I meet, the more I respect the carrier. The flight attendants are well-treated, a diverse and intelligent mix, multilingual, fun, and best of all, genuine. Be kind to your flight attendants, readers!

So last night I went to the fur-themed holiday party Carly threw at her apartment in Queens. Immense apartment, the only abode I've been that can hold a candle to Brooklyn's place in DC, so far, full of women and gay men dressed in fake fur of all kinds. Eventually I met a charming redhead who reminded me of another friend, also a redhead, a dancer, with similar facial features and a matching attitude. Incredible as it is, I was to discover the similarities between these two women run deeper: the two share the same first name. But the redhead of Carly's party came with a highly unusual maiden name: Kafka. It's a family legend Franz is a cousin once-or-twice-removed. Kafka comes from Phoenix, though she married a Brit, has a lovely baby daughter, and had been living in London until city life became too complicated. Before she married, first and last names were alliterative Ks. She shouldn't have ever changed it, I told her.

Kafka has appeared twice in my life in the last few weeks: what could it possibly mean?

I've been listening to Fela as I write, which reminds me: I finished Chimamanda Adichie's Americanah a few days ago. Ultimately I found the novel disappointing--thematically there are three distinct experiences Adichie explores, and the first and second are far and away the most interesting. As Adichie's protagonist reaches maturity, she loses depth--she becomes dull. The quality of the writing remains high, but the agony of it, the effort that went into it, all this changes--the texture, once beautifully and carefully sculpted, becomes smooth and indistinct. It seems as if Adichie ran out of steam at a certain point, and simply needed to finish the book, to put it behind her--this is understandable. I look forward to reading her next book, as I believe as a writer she does have the capacity to produce a masterpiece.

I've begun Wilkie Collins' Moonstone, which is a wonderful book and wonderful winter reading in particular, and has reminded me of the out-of-the-past idea of the "morally fallen," the disgraced woman (and occasionally man) of epochs long past. I was discussing Red Hook with my cousin, and I mentioned that I always think of Red Hook as the place where one should move after a disgraceful affair, a place to hide, to be alone, to reflect on the foreclosed life that might have been. She agreed, and knew someone who had done just so, only to become involved in another lurid affair, can you imagine?  The Moonstone proves to be delightful, as I knew it would. The edition I have is cumbersome and unwieldy, and this summer I found a pint-sized copy of Conrad's Lord Jim, so I may carry that around in my coat pocket when I'm unable to lug around a large tome.

My friend Grace is in Los Angeles this week photographing and drawing bulbous nudes with tattoos, her favorite subject. Grace is a favorite, and may be the reason I obtain the position with Sony Pictures. She shrieks, she screams, she exposes as much tattooed flesh as possible whenever possible. I can't wait for her to move back to New York. I don't understand why anyone moves to Los Angeles--sure the weather's great, but it can be cold, you have to drive everywhere which really means sitting in traffic for hours and hours and hours, and the air is awful.

Tonight I'll see The Daptone Soul Review (Sharon Jones and Charles Bradley) at the Apollo, and Philip Glass Saturday at BAM. I'm extremely excited: Sharon Jones is the Queen.

I hope to participate briefly in the Eric Garner protests outside City Hall later on today. It's been suggested police wear cameras, to prevent incidents like the death of Michael Brown, or at least provide irrefutable video evidence--well, with Eric Garner there was video evidence. If, as is the case with Eric Garner, a video can't convince a grand jury there is probable cause to charge a police officer, what's the point of cameras? I've said it before: a racist, trigger happy country produces a racist, trigger-happy police force. It doesn't matter if the officer in question has apologized, claims he never meant to harm Eric Garner, says he's sorry and prays for Eric and his family. Eric Garner was a father of six. Six children will grow up without a father, will have this injustice hanging over their heads the rest of their lives. What a shame.

We can talk about racism, but what we really need to do is talk about racists, because they're out there, and they're the reason we don't see indictments when it comes to the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. It's a tragedy and a disgrace. I hope this is a watershed moment, when the sensible people step away from those with the words of inequity on their lips, the racists with hate seeping out of their pores.

RIP Eric Garner. I, like the court jester of our time, am lost for words.