Bohemia Calling

I'm sitting in hand-chopped fingerless gloves in my freezing apartment, thinking that there's never enough time for poetry, and when there is, there's never enough good poetry (Wilde said, "All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling," and I can't help but hope sometimes to stop feeling long enough to write some things down).

Are there still bohemians out there? There's a lot of posturing, but I don't think the two options have to be adulthood or fake bohemianism (read: Urban Outfitters). What did the beats, niks, merry pranksters, dandies, goths, hipsters, hippies, indies, punks, diggers, and others have in common? Well...maybe nothing. But I think it has to start with some passion (passion before fashion, yo), a dash of social commitment, and one or two or more people willing to live their slight little lives in a slightly different way.

Actually, as I think about it, it's all relative: to be a Left Bank bohemian in the early 20th century meant working your ass off to live somewhere in the thick of it, making art or songs or dance or plays. Today, one just has to make a little more to do the same thing. The link is the tension...finding time in the midst of insanity to make things.

But snapping out of my reverie, here are some thoughts from the estimable Driggs on the Williamsburg art scene these days:

And here's a way to let your feet do the talking, tomorrow:



Unless you just want to hunker down and channel Warhol, which could also be good: “I had a lot of dates but I decided to stay home and dye my eyebrows.”