Brilliance Plus Brilliance

A breath of fresh air in the land of existential angst, courtesy of the wry and pint-loving Dan Walsh in Dublin.



The site came to my attention whilst reading a recent Rolling Stone article about the new, "naturalist" face of humor: "The new deadpan style has reached its purest expression in Dan Walsh's Garfield Minus Garfield. Last February, Walsh started posting Jim Davis' Garfield comic strip online, with one significant change: he deleted Garfield. In cutting the cat, Walsh put the strip's straight-man protagonist, Jon Arbuckle, in a Beckett-like world of semicomic despair. Davis, embracing the zeitgeist, gave the remix his blessing."



Says Walsh of his own (re)creation, "[It's] a comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life...a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and methamphetamine addiction in a quiet American suburb."

Aloft Around the Block

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns." George Eliot

The (Car-Free) Wild Side

The poor guy who was hit by a car on Kent Avenue last month spoke at the NAG town hall meeting last week. Hopefully, like the Bible gang, preservation begets preservation, and salvaged/created bike lanes will in turn generate more green spaces and (is it too much to hope?) preserved factories.

From Christian Fleming:


Experiments like Summer Streets and Williamsburg Walks are steps in the right direction.

Fancying This Life...and Tuning In

A couple of weeks ago, I realized, for the first time since seven years ago, when I lived in Marble Hill (dear little bit of the Bronx that, despite the Harlem River, sometimes fancies itself Manhattan), that I could, when the satellites are properly aligned, or the can held to the fence just so (as described in an April New Yorker article about field recording in Appalachia (which sometimes fancies itself Ireland)), tap, here in North Brooklyn, WFUV, the station that fell into my poor bright apartment on Adrian Avenue (from the fire escape of which the George Washington Bridge was strung like a necklace over the Hudson at night), and listen to things like Ceol na nGael while canning plums and daydreaming about the mountains along I-81.

Between Roanoake and Bristol, pointed toward Montgomery:


And there's something very hopeful about radio. M. Ward, who channels things like chandeliers and graves and ranch hands and tides (and perhaps fancies himself from southeastern Virginia, though he calls Oregon home) devotes an album, Transistor Radio, to lost voices in perpetual broadcast.

"One Life Away":


From WBQE...safe driving and good night.

Poem Interlude: Draft

Under the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway

"Just once I knew what life was for.
In Boston, quite suddenly, I understood..." Anne Sexton

The BQE is really a dragon.
It's a place under which
sounds grow like mouths
into more important selves.
It's aloneness swallowing
itself. The BQE is the horn
of a ram and its perpetual
bellow. It's where rain
doesn't fall. The BQE is
brainchild of a mad planner,
and a travesty. It's the only
kind of tragedy, a long siren
from Queens to Brooklyn.
And sometimes it just wants
to be a number, and sometimes
the sum of green signs. The BQE
is a-hum. It laughs at your
impatience the way a mountain
laughs without laughing,
just a rumble somewhere
far inside and long ago. "Just
once I knew what life was for,"
she says. But it was not in Boston,
it was beneath this concrete spine.

Poem Interlude

Laying Over

Ports of air – transient ports
of despair, and, worse, minor
and constant annoyance – also
house infinite hope, the possibility
of anywhere, or nearly. I will never
have the smooth tan back
of the woman in the mustard
halter, kneeling on a chair like
an airport pet. Let her stand
in for everyone and everything
I will never be. Everyone in a hurry,
everyone waiting. The hustled
kids, perfect jet-setters,
roller bags, beeping carts,
silvery pilots, pills, souvenirs,
loungewear and desert fatigues,
comfortable heels and
sunburns, coffee, candy,
denial beers, crosswords, and
watches. Let it all take off
into a bruise-colored Atlanta sky,
leaving behind this monument
to elsewhere. Stripped of breathing
and rush, the destinations would
disappear, and the arriving.

Withers Street is Main Street, Too!

I could excerpt dozens of passages from last night's debate (now in 10 easy minutes), but let's get to some of the energy/environment talk that must, in my mind, underpin absoluteley every other decision we're making as individuals and as a country.

Ifill: "Let's talk about climate change. What is true and what is false about what we have heard, read, discussed, debated about the causes of climate change?"

Palin: "Well, as the nation's only Arctic state and being the governor of that state, Alaska feels and sees impacts of climate change more so than any other state. And we know that it's real. I'm not one to attribute every man - activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man's activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet. But there are real changes going on in our climate. And I don't want to argue about the causes. What I want to argue about is, how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts? We have got to clean up this planet. We have got to encourage other nations also to come along with us with the impacts of climate change..."

[RB: or howsabout going along with other nations on this one and signing Kyoto. For crying out loud.]

Biden: "Well, I think it is manmade. I think it's clearly manmade. And, look, this probably explains the biggest fundamental difference between John McCain and Barack Obama and Sarah Palin and Joe Biden - Governor Palin and Joe Biden. If you don't understand what the cause is, it's virtually impossible to come up with a solution. We know what the cause is. The cause is manmade. That's the cause. That's why the polar icecap is melting. Now, let's look at the facts. We have three percent of the world's oil reserves. We consume 25 percent of the oil in the world. John McCain has voted 20 times in the last decade-and-a-half against funding alternative energy sources, clean energy sources, wind, solar, biofuels. The way in which we can stop the greenhouse gases from emitting. We believe - Barack Obama believes by investing in clean coal and safe nuclear, we can not only create jobs in wind and solar here in the United States, we can export it."

Okay. So Sarah Palin, in the words of my grandfather, is "not too bright." But I hate to say it: clean coal is also not too bright...or, more accurately, it doesn't frigging exist. But everyone has to play the game, and Biden is just doing his part. The test is going to be what happens when all the rhetoric falls away.

Earlier this week, I heard Colin Beavan, aka No Impact Man speak at the North Brooklyn Compost Party. He has his critics, too, and he doesn't to my mind address one of the core problems, which is how to make local, sustainable foods and products available to lower-income people, but at least he is walking the walk...often literally...with trustee mason jar coffee mug. He said something cool, too, at Urban Rustic. He said, when asked what other people can do to make a difference, that the best thing anyone can do is to hold onto that question all the time.



Okay, so how can I make a difference? Two choices I made this past week hopefully acted out a positive response to that question (and perhaps cancelled out my paper coffee cups and new winter coat (!))...



First, I switched to ConEdison Solutions electricity, so that all of my electric needs are now supplied by wind power. Says ConEd: "Wind power is now the fastest-growing renewable energy source in the world and is 100 percent pollution-free. The wind power used is supplied [by] Community Energy, Inc., and comes from modern wind turbines mounted on tall towers on farmland in upstate New York and Pennsylvania."

And second, I went to the Neighbors Allied for Good Growth town hall meeting last night (before the debate), where, in a break-out session, I shared my three main concerns with a small group of other Williamsburg and Greenpoint residents; these include a) promoting dialogue between long-time residents and newcomers and preserving old buildings, 2) reducing litter, and 3) preserving and creating new open/green spaces throughout the neighborhood (guerrila gardening anyone?). All told there were 100+ people at the meeting, probably 70 percent over 35, 90 percent white, and 75 percent residents of the neighborhood for more than 10 years (I was part of a 3-4 percent minority who had been here for under two years). It was as cool and empowering as, later, taking a drink every time a candidate said "folks" or Biden chuckled at the nonsense uttered by his opponent.

So, in conclusion, Withers Street is Main Street, too! And I think, given good information, even Joe Six-Pack might be counted on to make some good political and lifestyle choices. And, certainly, to eat at Bamonte's.

If Nobody Likes You and Everybody Hates You...

Come celebrate turning food to earth and back to food at a compost party, tonight, at Urban Rustic, from 6:30 until whenever. A $10 entry buys good company, local snacks and drink, and a chance to voice ideas about how to improve North Brooklyn composting. A much better option than eating worms.

Quick, Republicans: Listen to Matt!

(*)





(*I actually do like Matt Damon; I've heard from reputable folk that he's a decent guy...but I also like making myself crack up on Monday nights, while watching, say, a silly romantic comedy (in which it is snowing!), eating a CSA salad, and feeling happy...as the economy goes down like a ship.)

Poem Interlude

Physics for a Sunday Morning in Brooklyn in September

If there’s no theory
linking a lepton
to the speed
of light, how can we
hope to link
the Klenosky Paint sign
to the falling acorns
to the drunk king
feeling bad and the sun
hitting his face just so.

Epitaph and Crabapples

“We are such spendthrifts with our lives. The trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out.” Paul Newman

Williamsburg and the Holy Ghost

A heads-up to all the locals: there will be a Happy Hour, which is to say, Town Hall Meeting, at the Holy Ghost Hall, on North 5th between Bedford and Driggs, on Thursday, October 2nd, at 7 p.m. It's sponsored by Neighbors Allied for Good Growth, and wouldn't it be great to go?

"And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance."

And, lo, they figured out how to make the L train less crowded, and how to rally for more affordable housing, and how to pick up trash and call for more trash cans, and how to advocate for more green spaces. And in their communion Williamsburg/Greenpoint remained a paradise unto itself, west of the ocean and east of the river, and even the bricks were glad.

Scrapping Uncoolness

Bronze plaques are disappearing all over Williamsburg/Greenpoint, some say for scrap. Included in the lost is the memorial I once passed several times each day, just Under the BQE, dedicated to Father Giorgio in 1951. For all plaque thiefs checking this blog: not cool.

Father Giorgio, incidentally, taught children in Williamsburg, was drafted as a chaplain into the Army during WWII, and, 36-years-old, died of blood poisoning related to his newly amuptated leg, upon returning to Brooklyn.

Among other things (closeness, renewed longing for the road, tired feet), Calexico tonight offered up a song which I'll post as aural plaque to Father Giorgio, defying the hoodlums again.

"Four in the morning the sidewalk's asleep
Dogs on the porch
Spiders on the leaf
Shipwrecked by night sailing through days
Nobody noticed the slipping away..."

"The News About William"

Turf War

Mystery solved: the new outdoor, impromptu café between Green Dome and the dog run is operated by Urban Rustic (making Whole Foods look like Key Food since 2007). The free-trade coffee is pretty good. And the weekend cook is not into Jo Micek's turf. Just this morning, the home composting advocate proffered a strip of rolled-up grass, as an of-the-moment mat, and was brusquely dismissed by the cook who, to be fair, was perhaps just trying to put the "urban" back in urban rustic.

Ad Space, Peace Space

Perhaps the unrecognized Dalai Lama of fashion, Marc Jacobs on Marc Jacobs: "I started to develop a sense of, I don't know, a sense of confidence. All of a sudden, before I knew it, I started to think, Gee, I'm really happy with the work we've been doing. I'm really happy with the house I live in. I'm really happy with the way I look... I like taking a shower. I like shampooing my hair. I like putting on moisturizer. I like wearing jewelry. All of these things, I used to think, That's not for me. I'm on the floor picking up pins or I'm sketching all day, what does it matter what I look like? And then I discovered, you know what? It does matter. It makes me feel good. I get it!... I have a choice. We all have a choice in how to look at things. This idea that everything happens for a reason and is perfect and you will benefit from it even if you can't see the benefit - it's a nice ideal to subscribe to."



I like watching fashion shows. There's something about the rhythms and the living art of a lot of pieces, which trickles down in the most basic way to our own clothes, that's full of a strange kind of perpetual hope. (Seriously!)

This also seemed like a relevant post given that the latest Time Out provides us with at least a couple of ways to "shop" in Williamsburg, whether on the street with Tiffany or in the slew of other little spots that clinched the title of "Best Shopping" for the hood. I personally would have had a category for "Best Grittiness," or "Best Views of the Rising Harvest Moon" (which, risen, is a great accompaniment to pears and wine and laughter at little autumn bistros like Le Barricou).

Poem Interlude

"Does it break my heart, of course, every moment of every day, into more pieces than my heart was made of. I never thought of myself as quiet, much less silent, I never thought about things at all, everything changed, the distance that wedged itself between me and my happiness wasn't the world, it wasn't the bombs and burning buildings, it was me, my thinking, the cancer of never letting go, is ignorance bliss, I don't know, but it's so painful to think, and tell me, what did thinking ever do for me, to what great place did thinking ever bring me? I think and think and think, I've thought myself out of happiness one million times but never once into it." Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

"And yet and still, while she lived, she was often such a wonder to me! All these things I knew: that she had painted the nose cones of bombs during the second World War; that she smoked cigarettes and bowled and had a Canadian lover before she met my father; that she gave birth to three children in three different cities in the span of six years; that she traveled across America with my father, seated on the back of a Harley-Davidson motorycle!; that she was once so angry at my father (in Jackson, Michigan, on Walker Street) that she threw her wedding band into the flames of the coal furnace that she stoked on winter mornings; that she loved books and songs by Chet Atkins and the Sons of the Pioneers; that she adored the New York Yankees when they were golden in the 1950s; that she walked through woods near three Great Lakes; that she outlived two sons and a husband - all these things I knew. I never knew her, though." my mom, a letter

They've torn down the south wall on the exterior of the Pool, and all the south-facing trees have little scaffolds around them. I wish I had taken some photographs of the wall beforehand, because it seemed enchanted, with the green all climbing up the brick and stray cats taking advantage of the shadows. Now you can see the condos on the other side.

I think too much, like my mom. I run obstinately and love garlic and try to keep things simple, like her mom. Every thought and love I have has its own genealogy, and it can be exhausting.

Where I've Gone

I am not
clicking down the street
toward a girl running toward
me, clothes the color
of planetree leaves
still cleaving
to branch. I am not
shouldering a rake and grinning
at a girl whose ears are filled
with song, I am not tipping
the hat of my smile
to her day. You think I am,
but I am not the girl. I am
also not a flock of doves
scared up from the ball field
near the garden
where Hasidim and Dominicans
don caps and forget everything
but well packed earth
and the clarion
of wood to hide.

Jamming

In Woody Allen's latest, one of the characters is defined as one who goes through life knowing not what she wants but what she does not want. Increasingly, I know what I want - and it is what I have: the BQE, cats (feline and human), kind company for things like Woody Allen films and rain, local food, poetry, and, generally, this great, brief quest.

And what better way to quest on a surprisingly hot Sunday than to talk to my grandfather for an hour (more kind company), then go into a predictably steaming kitchen and stain and cut the fingers on plums, for the sake of winter jam?



Today's Plum Jam

Ingredients
4 lbs. Red Jacket Orchard empress plums
1/2 c. water
1/2 c. lemon juice
2 c. sugar
1 package Pomona's Universal Pectin (citrus pectin activated by calcium instead of sugar, meaning jams can be made more naturally - Pomona's is available at The Brooklyn Kitchen.)
8 tsp. calcium water (requisite powder included with the pectin)

Directions
1. Heat but do not boil 9 1/2-pint Ball mason canning jars, their lids, and rims (jars also available at The Brooklyn Kitchen, other local kitchen shops, or online); turn down heat and let jars, lids, and rims stand in hot water.
2. Prepare calcium water according to package instructions.
3. Prepare plums: wash and dry; cut in half and remove pits; and cut each half into six pieces. Leave the skins on the plums - they break down nicely and add good color to the jam.
4. Put chopped plums into large pot with the water. Put lid on pot and bring to contents to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer gently for ~10 minutes, until liquid has formed and plums are breaking down.
4. Meanwhile, put sugar into a bowl and add pectin powder. Combine well.
5. Add lemon juice to simmering plums, then stir in sugar/pectin mixture, combining well and bringing to a boil for 1-2 minutes.
6. Remote pot from heat, fill jars, wipe rims, seal, and process in hot water bath for five minutes. Remove jars and let cool. Jars are properly sealed if center of lids indent during cooling (popping sounds are music to the canner's ears!).



I've scoured a bunch of sites for canning information; Fresh Preserving (a site run by Jarden/Ball that belies the typical assumption that corporate sites are misleading) is really comprehensive, with a range of recipes for preserving (including non-canning methods like freezing and dehydrating), a thorough how-to section, and FAQs.

One of the best parts of all of this? It's earth to earth. The empress plums I used were grown just 300 miles away, in Geneva, New York (not too far from the Owego farmland of my forebears); I used the whole plums, minus pits, for jam that will last long beyond this summer; and the pits will go to compost, becoming soil for next year's gardens.



As this year's grows from everything that came before.

Who Thought This Was a Good Idea: Part 3

This one is actually pretty great, Double Indemnity meets Gran Turismo:



I think I've loved the BQE from the beginning because it's the underdog of expressways, as a couple of quotes illustrate:

"I-278 (specifically, the Brooklyn-Queens and Gowanus Expressways) has to be the worst excuse for an interstate highway in the whole country. It is a series of different roads thrown together. Many entrance ramps have no acceleration lane at all and have STOP signs where they join the expressway. On the Grand Central Parkway, which is part of I-278 at the parkway's extreme western end, there is a sign saying 'EXIT 4 (I-278 / Brooklyn-Queens Expressway).' To continue on I-278, one has to exit onto a single lane ramp. All this when I-278 should be the mainline and the Grand Central Parkway should be an exit of I-278... The frequency of these problems collectively put I-278 in the hall of shame." Ty Rogers, on Kurumi's Humble House of Roadsdom

"The worst limited-access highway I've ever seen was the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Upon entering it from the Bronx, I sneered at the posted 45 MPH speed limit. I soon found out why it was posted." Steve Riner, web author of Minnestota Highways, a visit to which set me craving the piney Highway 61 drive from Duluth to Grand Marais.

Maybe in the unrhymed re-release, revised lyrics can have the killin' done out on Interstate 278...

A Forest Grows

Serendipitously - is there any other way? yes, gods, I'm asking you... - I ran tonight by what looked like a shop but is really a gallery...but is also a shop, on Leonard and Withers: the Victor Osborne Showroom. Osborne is a milliner, in a long tradition of Williamsburg milliners, which began around 1819, when Williamsburg was still a relatively young village within Bushwick, then Boswick, or "Place of the Deep Woods." (Bushwick was purchased from Native Amerians on August 1, 1638 - Happy 370th Birthday, Colonialism! - for "eight fathoms of duffels, eight fathoms of wampum, 12 kettles, eight axes, some knives, beads, and awl blades.)

But I'm getting caught up in the trees... In 1819, Noah Waterbury opened a distillery on South 2nd Street, which began Williamsburg's transformation into a hub complete with "docks, warehouses, factories where rope was spun by hand, shipyards...iron foundries, hat factories, and the largest glue factory in the country" (much to the chagrin of local equines).

So today: we have the Victor Osborne Showroom, a shop and a gallery (Eye Level Exhibition Space), the latter currently housing Jessica Grindstaff's solo show, "Forest for the Trees." Grindstaff makes shadow boxes, music boxes, and strange and lovely things out of taxidermy.

Williamsburg then, Williamsburg now...are things the same or ever-changing? And what about serendipity? The title of Grindstaff's show makes me think of a Francis Ponge poem I was reading over the weekend, "Le cycle des saisons," or "The Cycle of Seasons:"

"There's no such thing as random foliation. [The trees] unleash, or at least they think they do, all manner of verbiage, plus twigs to hang it on... They think they can say everything, cover the entire world with assorted verbiage: they only say 'trees.' They can't even hold onto birds, which leave them just as they were rejoicing in their ability to produce such unusual flowers. Always the same leaf, always the same way of unfolding, the same limit, always symmetrical leaves, symmetrically suspended! Try another leaf! - Same thing! And another! Same again! In fact, nothing can stop them except, suddenly, this comment: 'You can't see the forest for the trees.' Another lassitude, another mood-change. 'Let it all wither and drop. Now the taciturn phase, the stripping, AUTUMN.'"

But a rose is not a rose is not a rose, in my opinion, and thinking about shadow boxes makes me think of Joseph Cornell," who, incidentally, is featured in a poem by Malena Morling, "For Joseph Cornell:"

"This is for the Soap Bubble Sets and the Sun Boxes
and for the time that moves like a silent film
through a projector
and for the eyelids of the blind
and for those who are gradually becoming blind
because they don't know what they can't see."

As I was reading about Williamsburg tonight (called merely "Bushwick Shore" or "The Strand" by the Dutch, and not dubbed Williamsburgh until around 1792, when Benjamin Franklin's grand-nephew, Jonathan Williams surveyed the land for Richard Woodhull, a Manhattan merchant who thought that he could transform The Strand into "a comfortable residential suburb" ("Try another leaf! Same thing!"), I learned that in 1819, when the distillery was built, 759 people lived in Williamsburg, growing to 11,000 just 24 years later. As the people came, the trees left, including the ailanthus tree, "imported from China, [flourishing] in the swampy, low-lying areas of Williamsburg, popular because of its supposed powers to dispel diseases arising from swamp vapors. and [the inspiration for] Betty Smith's novel about Williamsburg, A Tree Grows In Brooklyn."

About that ailanthus...these vapors...the alive and dead birds...art...the hats and ships and ships under hats...

Morling loves the ailanthus, so let's end with her:

"In the shape of a human body
I am visiting the earth;
the trees visit
in the shapes of trees.
Standing between the onions
and the dandelions
near the ailanthus and the bus stop,
I don’t live more thoroughly
inside the mucilage of my own skull
than outside of it
and not more behind my eyes
than in what I can see with them.

Meditation in 11 Parts

"Whether Armilla is like this because it is unfinished or because it has been demolished, whether the cause is some enchantment or only a whim, I do not know. The fact remains that it has no walls, no ceilings, no floors: it has nothing that makes it seem a city..." Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

Explaining the Jaccuzi

Ravens & Chimes will be playing at East River Bar (S. 6th Steet between Berry and Bedford) tomorrow, Sunday 9/7, sometime after 3 p.m., as part of a brunch sponsored by East Village Radio and Block Magazine. The latter, really well written magazine bears further mention because, unlike many new shops and publications that target the hipster youth of Williamsburg, Block actually aims to serve all Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and Bushwick communities, with columns like "Ask a Chasid," articles about racial profiling on the Southside,* and features on local artists, cocktails, and shops. Block is the most "fair and balanced" publication I've come across. (*Troubling excerpt: "The Southside’s longtime Latino residents are less worried about a shadowy slasher or gang violence than they are about losing their homes to gentrification. Many believe that the developers of the new condos popping up throughout the area are asking the NYPD to 'clean up' the neighborhood. Debbie Medina, the organizer of the community groups Los Sures and Save Our Southside, stated that two plainclothes officers stopped her husband Eugenio Torres as he was entering his apartment, and they frisked him against the wall of the building. The fact that Torres worked as the superintendant for 12 separate buildings in the area did nothing to prevent the incident. Rosa Nieves, who sits on the Board of Directors for Los Sures and the 90th Precinct Community Council, had two grandchildren who were stop-and-frisked.") The Williamsburg Courier also serves a range of interests, but is much less well writen, and sometimes sensational. Take, for instance, a sampling of recent Police Blotter headlines: "Slashed and robbed," "Mr. Sandman steals," Headlock hooligans," and "Machete mania." Anyway, I like seeing the full community spectrum, whether it be the diverse folks living here now or the history surrounding us. Which brings me back to the brunch show tomorrow and the East River Bar: "During Williamsburg’s industrial era the building was a paint factory through the 1920s. Paint Point Products abandoned the building in 1955 when it went through changes and identities. Most people remember the building as being the site for an old biker’s club in the 80s. After the bikers took off in the 90s the building was known as a speakeasy club and after-hours party spot. When we finally got to it there were remnants of a 13-piece Cuban Big Band and a jacuzzi tucked away in the corner. The old-timers who come in to see the changes all have a sly smile on their face when we ask them to recount the good old days and explain the jacuzzi."

Poem Interlude

(Written awhile ago, I was reminded of this poem (published in Blood Lotus in December 2007) by a recent message incorporating Wittgenstein and Depeche Mode in the same breath.)

Denotation

They told me,
"Not one word
over what is,"
and all song
ceased. I could not
write my name.

They told me
it was simpler
and proffered unity
and promised relief.

I saw a boat.
I wrote boat.
I did not think
coat, stoat, smote,
sail, ocean, salt air,
lost.

I saw a boat.
I could not write
swan. But I dreamed of you
in ink, your skin's incongruous
benediction of skin and thing
at once:

sun, leaf, anchor,
rabbit, circle, knife.

I begged you to cut
away my eyes,
but it was forbidden
as dreams would be.

Every body was body. "The rain
is someone crying," someone said,
and they killed him.

In my last dream
you held your palms to the glass
and gave me two closed eyes,
then closed your fingers
over the last possible thing.

Spotlight on Williamsburgers

Two local cats will be making headlines in the coming weeks, and I'm proud to count them as friends:
1) Janos Marton is a finalist in The Moth's 2008 StorySlam contest, having beaten out lesser bards...and he'll be telling it with the other champs on September 10th (7:30 p.m. at Comix, on 14th and 9th).
2) Tiffany Threadgould, soon to be third-floor resident at #37 (!), will appear in Time Out on September 18th. I accompanied her dumpster-diving last night, to scope out items that she could turn into useful design.

Existence Before Essence...After Satire

I started to write a post about George Patton, existentialism, and neighborhood identity...but changed my mind. Today was a low kind of day (premonitions of Hanna? Apprehensions of Palin? Peanut butter withdrawal?), but the ever quickening dusk is snapping me out of it (sorry, summer lovers...but not really). So allow me to skip Sartre and poke a little fun at myself and this essential little corner of the world:

Labor Day Catchall

According to Wikipedia, "Today, Labor Day is often regarded as a day of rest and parades." I for one am thanking heaven that I had the opportunity to wear white for two days straight. Now that the city is full of people again, here are some hard numbers from the recent weekend to greet the work week, school year, and general dog-eat-dog world of black clothes and no beaches:

*8 kinds of vegetables equaled around 10 pounds of produce at the Saturday CSA pick-up.
*14 Red Jacket Orchards peaches equaled 1 quart of spiced peaches in brandy.
*2 pounds of Hearty Roots tomatoes, plus basil and garlic from the same farm, equaled 1 pint of tomato sauce, after Marcella Hazan.
*1 pound of organic strawberries (I cheated; they're from California) equaled 1 pint of frozen strawberries.
*1 new (nameless?) "restaurant" equals 10 umbrellas and tables between the McCarren Dog Run and the Green Dome Garden. A portable grill (and griller) turns out breakfast and lunch sandwiches and other picnic-happy fare. A cup of organic free-trade coffee equals 150 pennies.
*2 friends equaled one introduction to a Williamsburg gay bar, Metropolitan Bar, on Lorimer just south of, yes, Metropolitan. Said friends also equaled much merriment over butter and its harbingers.
*3 performers in I Eat Pandas (cheating again: they perform in Manhattan, at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, on 26th and 8th) equaled many laughs.
*1 gaffe in the Williamsburg Courier (which deserves a post of its own) also equaled many laughs (in a funny/not funny way):


For those interested in putting the labor back in Labor Day, consider coming out to hear Rinku Sen and Fekkak Mamdouh speak this week. Sen is the author of Stir It Up: Lessons on Community Organizing. Mamdouh is co-founder of the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, the first national restaurant worker organization in the U.S.

Under the BQE: Literally

En route to Red Shed, to compost fruit and vegetable scraps (incidentally, the McCarren Park Compost Project is now do-it-yourself (as is Red Shed), but only from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturdays, whereas Red Shed is open all weekend), I snapped some photos from Under the BQE. Before the photos, though, I wanted to share this bit of good green news, from Green Brooklyn:

"On June 24th, Assembly Bill 11226 was passed allowing building owners in New York City who install green roofs on at least 50 percent of available rooftop space to get tax credit for it. Property owners will be able to apply for a one-year property tax credit of $100,000. The credit is equal to $4.50 per square-foot area that is planted vegetation. This is essentially 25 percent of the typical cost associated with materials, labor, design, and maintenance. The Storm Water Infrastructure Matters (S.W.I.M.) spear-headed the initiative with the help of Assembly Member Ruben Diaz. The law goes into effect on January 1st 2009 and will expire in 2013."

I hope Williamsburg/Brooklyn developers take heed (although many of their properties have green "floor space" right now, since development seems to be severely and blessedly stalled).

And now the photos:


(A square of trees in the Badame Sessa Triangle, at the intersection of Meeker, Withers, and Leonard.)


(1907 office of the Brooklyn Fireproof Sash and Door Co., near Manhattan and Meeker.)


(Closed Islamic poulterer at Meeker and Manhattan.)

Waking Up America in Under Six Minutes

Dennis Kucinich was to 2008 what Barack Obama was to 2004 (unpronounceable name and all), in my opinion if not the country's. Then again, note during his speech how fired up the Convention hall becomes (three, count 'em, three ovations), and note the tambourine that joins in around minute four:



Incredulity runs across people's faces, perhaps as it always does when someone is just flinging himself out there, mad gestures, enthusiasm, and all (earnestness tends to make people nervous). Kucinich, perhaps best known as a vegan, UFO-spotter, and husband to a lovely woman 31-years his junior, has long supported sensible policies that, in our backward (political) world, further contribute to his craziness. But in the words of Chess:

Molokov: The man is utterly mad...a lunatic.
The Russian: That's the problem. He's a brilliant lunatic and you can't tell which way he'll jump - like his game he's impossible to analyse...you can't dissect him, predict him. Which of course means he's not a lunatic at all.

The cadences of Kucinich's speech made me think of another lunatic. In 1982, Kucinich reported $38 on his tax returns. "America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956." Kucinich advocates creating a Cabinet-level Department of Peace. "America when will we end the human war?" Kucinich calls on the U.S. to lead global nuclear disarmament. "Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb." Kucinich sees UFOs. "I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations." Kucinich would withdraw the U.S. from the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Agreement, largely to protect American jobs. "Everybody was angelic and sentimental about the workers it was all so sincere." Kucinich is a Roman Catholic (though he became publicly pro-choice in 2003). "My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic." Kucinich believes that "all life on our Earth {is} sacred." "Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch." Kucinich is true to what he believes in, popularity be damned. "I refuse to give up my obsession."

"It occurs to me that I am America. I am talking to myself again."

Change We Can Believe In (or, Earnest Interlude)

My grandpa and I swapped stories about our recent travels tonight, me to India and him to California, taking a trip that he never would have agreed to a year or two ago. As I watch Barack Obama accept his historic nomination as the Democratic candidate for the presidency, I'm thinking about "change we can believe in" and the stories we keep hearing about the heartland, the people who work hard and practice self-reliance and self-deprivation in order to make life better for their children and grandchildren. When I think of the heartland, it's not an abstraction, and it's not all roses...it's struggling and human and sometimes boring and sometimes ugly, full of empty sky and big-box stores, and people who look at strangers to say hello, though they mistrust fancy foods and large vocabularies - and I believe everyone on the coasts should travel there before going abroad because how can we know ourselves without looking inward, and how can we convey the U.S. to others without knowing the U.S? I am so proud to be a New Yorker, but my love for this city stems from my journey to get here. I think of my own family, my mom who cleaned rich people's homes to pay the bills, my dad who worked all shifts as dispatcher at a trucking company, uncomplainingly. My grandma, a nurse. My grandpa, a tool & dye man at John Deere, who served in the Pacific Theater for three years, a kid heading to war straight from an Illinois farm, with a Bible given him by his mom, a keen eye for detail, and a soon-to-be developed habit of trading ration cigarettes for others' chocolate. That's my grandpa - and it is thanks to him and my grandma that I'm here in Brooklyn tonight. Ottumwa, Iowa; Oklahoma City; Brainard, Minnesota; Gettysburg: they took me with them in their motor home across the U.S. And it's with them, when I was 11-years-old, that I first set foot on Manhattan. So here I am, and there Barack Obama is, radiating hope. My grandpa called earlier to tell me that he was going to be watching Obama's speech. A lifelong Republican, from when being Republican meant other, better things, my grandpa is tonight the change I can believe in, whole-heartedly Democrat in his 87th year, himself radiating hope and love to New York City from the heartland - and receiving my heart, in these thoughts.

(W.C. Williams once commented, "What a fool ever to be tricked into seriousness," and so my next post will contain some kind of absurdity, I promise. And I will now go to sleep with a smile. )

Poem Interlude

Cherries

"But how late to be regretting all this, even
Bearing in mind that regrets are always late, too late!" John Ashbery

January is warm as Mays
that brought blossoms,
though plump cherries
here, $3.99 a pint,
may not even grow on trees.

I think they shook them
from jars, wiped them clean,
attached fresh stems, and dyed
the flesh a holier red
for market. Cheery whores.

It's a question of remove
as my teeth hit a pit
and my memory gropes
for the sweetness that once
accompanied the pain.

In the Middle of the Pool, I Call Your Name...

Tonight was the last Pool film of the summer, part of The L Magazine's SummerScreen series. The Open Space Alliance and others have made the Pool available to North Brooklyn denizens since 2004. Beginning next year, the Pool will become a pool again, as Mayor Bloomberg has allotted $50 million for a project to restore the space by 2011 (let's practice holding our breaths now). Here's a taste of what might be, courtesy Brownstoner and an unsung photographer from 1937:



And in closer detail, here's tonight, courtesy me:











The final film was Rushmore, part of the Wes Anderson canon that is considered by some to embody the "hipster ethos." But I don't agree, because all of his movies, to this eye, contain a poignant earnestness just under the snazzy surface. The dialogue, the silences, and the great song choices all highlight the bind we're in...of caring but trying to look like we don't. Uber-earnest songs like "Oh Yoko!," complete with exclamation point, are a reminder of what it is to feel and not be afraid to say so.


And the whole thing, in every sense:

Folking Out

Fall and folk music are going to go together like peanut butter and jelly (one of the things I missed most the last two weeks). On Thursday this week, check out Matt Jones at Sidewalk Cafe (Avenue A and 6th Street). Jo Williamson will be playing there on Sunday the 31st. And take note: Jezebel's Songfair will only be at Sound Fix for two more Mondays. On September 8th, they move to Public Assembly (between Wythe and Kent). "Taking place in the back room...Songfair will be NYC’s only open stage for both bands and solo artists. Performances run from 7 p.m.-11 p.m: solo performers play two songs each (=10 minutes), 7 p.m.-9 p.m; bands play three songs each (=15 minutes), 9pm-11pm."

Wouldn't the world be a better place if we were all learning how to play harmonicas?

Triptych, Including Indian BQE

I am happy to be home, revived by culture shock and reverse culture shock, and more appreciative than ever of being able to shower and drink from the tap. Here's an early-morning (circadian evening) preview to the photograhps I took while in India, with the first being a distant homage to here.

Poem Interlude

Balarama

"[The elder twin of the divine being, Krishna,] Lord Balarama's transcendental form eclipses many millions of glistening moons."

India must be as strange
for him as for me, the little boy
whose blue twin dashes across
the room as he never will. Clasped
on laps or slouched on the floor,
the boy on the snake is not the one
people see first - and
his eyes know this as they know
how to light up when something
magical seems to be dancing
in the ordinary air all around.

Songs and Sickness

First I had fever in Brooklyn, and now I have fever in Bangalore - which has proven an opportunity to test my last post's theory of hands being there to catch me in this more community-oriented place. Being sick is also a cleansing...and perhaps it should be a part of any complete vacation!

Needless to say, I've been acquainted with bed for the past two days, mostly sleeping, but also reading and listening to music, as well as to the sounds of kids drifting up - and horns blasting up - from the street below. Mark Knopfler is good sick music. Rolling Stone recently did a feature on his continuing evolution, which is inspiration to someone who would like to be creating new things her whole little life.

Knopfler formed Dire Straits in 1977; though still very successful, they disbanded in 1995, when Knopfler felt they had become too big. I admire artists who know to move on when the art isn't feeling right, or before the wind goes out of the sails; it takes courage.

Reading the lyrics of some of his songs now, I'm set to wondering about the components of a song. Like a recipe, so much must come together (as this short post articulates) for the listener to be moved. I've always felt that songs have advantages over poetry, because they have the hook of melody, which can captivate more quickly than words. I'm always interested in knowing what people listen to first: melody/harmony/rhythm or lyrics. My dad is a melody person, and my mom is a lyrics person. I'm both, which explains why, to my mom's chagrin, I got hooked on certain unmentionable pop songs of the early '90s.

A good song, though, blends music and poem and is a romance and a story and something that grows with you over time.

Here are some lyrics from "In the Sky," one of the songs on Knopfler's latest album, Kill to Get Crimson.

"Are you home from the sea, my soul balladeer
You’ve been away roaming far away from here
weathered a storm, your heart unafraid
crossed every ocean in the boat that you made...

And the hard-bitten stranger as deaf as a post
who stands at the fire where a poet’s dreams roast
He can’t know the story, he can’t feel the pain
and all of the glory falls around him like rain...

You’re a light in the dark, a beacon of hope
and strong as a sea boat, strong as a rope
And the vagabond wind, whispers over the bay
and the songs and the laughter, are carried away."

You can put it together with the melody here.

In the home I'm staying at, Gowri's Aunt Kruppa blows a conch shell every couple of days to rid the air of bad energies and contaminants. She's a really wise person, and I'm honored to be staying under her roof. A shell produces a primordial kind of song, stirs the blood the way a good modern song ought.

On Individuality and Community (and a Top 10 List)

This blog is a manifestation of my having finally found a community that feels like home. New York City felt so, long before I moved here, but Williamsburg/Greenpoint is teaching me the sanctity of place in the local sense. The Manhattan skyline still has the power to stop the breath and quicken the heart, but Lorimer Street, the McCarren Track, the factories...my breathing is mine here.

If I began to find community in March 2007 (and perhaps the sense was launched during the two previous Januaries, when I watched cats in the apartment that is now my own), and found enough solidity in my feeling to embark on expressing it in February 2008, then it is fitting to find myself in India today, surrounded by the kind of community I knew once, in Ecuador, but which is all the more powerful now for the interceding years. Community and spirit, almost without me realizing it, like drops of color added slowly to a beaker of water, suffuse here. There's a sense that, if I fall, there are hands to catch me, which, especially for a self-reliant introvert, is a revelation (and at times, admittedly, a nuisance). This sense in no way means that everything is love and peace and bliss here - far, far from it (and my personal goal would be yoking the individual to the communal, in my own life) - but there's something tethering people, even in the Bangalore metropolis, that is largely absent in our modern lives, and that I guess I had been craving - and so have been finding - Under the BQE.

But enough meditative essaying! Here are some concrete differences between Brooklyn and Bangalore:
1. One does not take off one's shoes at every home in Brooklyn. Brooklyn feet are likely less fit to be seen (and apartment floors less fit to be stepped on!).
2. When leaving a host's home in Brooklyn, one does not receive a coconut, some jasmine blossoms, a piece or two of fruit, and a kum kum (dot on the forehead). At best one comes away with some leftovers.
3. From Williamsburg to Rockaway, and Willets Point to Coney Island, one will not find cows on the streets of Brooklyn. The sacred cow in Brooklyn is likely to be a Kobe fillet.
4. Brooklynites shower, they do not bathe from buckets. In Bangalore, even very nice homes lack the plumbing required for the average Brooklynite's copious water waste.
5. One finds paper products in Brooklyn bathrooms. My traveling companion, Gowri, and I now declare "five star" bathrooms in India to offer such luxury. People use a water hose in Bangalore, and wash their hands before and after every meal (dining rooms are equipped with sinks).
6. Such consistently delicious food is not consumed in Brooklyn, but there is also not such a conspicuous absence in Brooklyn of leafy salads.
7. In Brooklyn, one eats with silverware. In Bangalore, one eats with the right hand - and I mean everything: roasted cauliflower, thin bean stews, pickles, rice, yogurt, chutneys, bread, sweet porridges called paysa, a broth called rassam, fried bits called vada...everything.
8. If one is lucky, cooks, drivers, and housecleaners in Brooklyn are one's roommates, friends, or neighbors. In Bangalore, many families employ these serving staff, who are part of the family but, to a visitor, ghost-like presences to be gotten used to. I hate to say it three days after Indian Independence, but there's something persistently British about this habit (ditto with afternoon tea and cucumber sandwiches, though they be served with chutney).
9. Brooklynites do not so unanimously light their homes with fluorescent bars, to my delight (pun intended).
10. Brooklynites are not so unanimously tapped into spiritual energies, and the Brooklyn air is pervaded far more by a spirit of individualism than one of common cause (which brings us neatly to where we began...and my heading off to a wedding in petticoat, sari, bangles, bindi, and gold sandals).

Tigers and Custard Apples and Shoes, Oh My

My lungs are greying themselves here more than Under the BQE, that's certain. And if I don't get to run tomorrow, I'm going to scream. But before sleep, everything is peaceful, life full, and a day's worth of crowded thoughts given way to pre-night dreams of these and these and these and...did I mention these?

I looked out over all of Bangalore tonight (from the 13th Floor of the Ivory Tower), and I was here, but maybe a little piece of me was also missing there and that place at the north of Franklin where you can look across the river into Manhattan. Incidentally, you cross India Street to get there.

From Park to Air

Yesterday was an exploration, and lovely. Today is another. One requires distance, the other the inwardness that leads to fear, which is hope, which is inevitably vulnerable and precious. Anyway. I'm leaving the BQE for a little while but will carry the noise in my ears (and hope that others can pick up some trash while I'm gone).

Yesterday, I was reminded of how much I like certain lines of Wallace Stevens, and, today, these must suffice for everything I've run out of time to say (precisely why I'm always late...):

"After the final no there comes a yes
And on that yes the future world depends.
No was the night. Yes is this present sun.
If the rejected things, the things denied,
Slid over the western cataract, yet one,
One only, one thing that was firm, even
No greater than a cricket's horn, no more
Than a thought to be rehearsed all day, a speech
Of the self that must sustain itself on speech,
One thing remaining, infallible, would be
Enough. Ah! Sweet countrside of that thing..."

Folk Folk

A quick huzzah, in the midst of packing for a trip far from the BQE (and one that undermines all efforts to limit my carbon footprint, read: to INDIA), to the singer-songwriters of the 8/6 Jezebel evening at Pianos.

Jo Williamson's voice did amazing things, like pulling itself hand-over-hand skyward, then melting low before turning into a whistle.

Flanagan Smith was playful and poignant and utterly himself.

And Lionel Neykov, more pop crooner than folk musician (in my opinion), performed heartfelt and lovely songs nonetheless, to especially good effect when the piano was woven in.

A couple of serendipitous things happened while, first with Arina then just with myself, I took in the room. It's exciting to have stumbled upon the kind of community I've been seeking for just about ever. Later, I was chatting with my old friend Noah about how things really do happen when you quit trying so hard and just let go.

Letting go makes me think of the peace I felt on a different trip, a year ago, back to Dublin. I went running past this Rathmines tree almost every day, part of a different community. (And I suppose there was also a different kind of stumbling there, later in the days, brought on by poetry and the cursed stout!).



Finally, last night, Jo Williamson sang The Parting Glass, which ties up this post and takes us back to the beginning. Huzzah.

Who Thought This Was a Good Idea: Part 2

At first feigning a hipster stance of bemused detachment, I became, in the course of a mere 4:23, weirdly lulled by this video and its evocation of particular place and any place, its tribute to the dull and sublime. Watch: the steady rhythm of the road, the grey of the sky, the monotony of Queens' Soviet-style apartment blocks - all would be almost meditative were it not for the background keening of Celine "the world is a better place because of you" Dion on Fresh 102.7. My transfixedness transformed into a frightening flashback to playing on my boombox (that's right) tapes I made of the Quad Cities' own Power 98.9 (which apparently (proving that things can get worse) is now a Christian rock station) when I was a teenager. Anyway...let's go for a drive:



And speaking of Celine Dion and Weird, let's raise our...hairdryers?...to Futurism and another modern homage to the "autonomous, unreal, and alogical."

Weird Al interviews Celine Dion | Funny Jokes at JibJab

Under the BQE: Literally

I've begun a new photo project - "the answer is as plain as the nose on your face" photo project - comprised of pictures taken while I'm Under the BQE. Here's the beginning, close to home:


(An old painted ad for the Greenpoint Floral Company.)


(The Strocchia Iron Works, on the corner of Leonard and Withers, has been in operation in Williamsburg since 1922.)


(Meeker and Leonard.)

First They Take Manhattan

Once upon a time, there was a Phoenecian queen of Israel named Jezebel, "who, in defiance of the customs and traditions of her day, did one thing while everyone else did another" (and was leveraged by Christians to further castigate pagan traditions...). So says Jezebel, a Williamsburg-based "online music publication for the new music fan. [Its] mission is to share intelligently written views of records, songs, standout artists, the music industry, online music culture, trends, and emerging technology."

Last week I went to the Jezebel singer-songwriter series, now called Resonance, which every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., at Pianos (Ludlow between Stanton and Rivington), features four brave souls with their acoustic guitars and perhaps a band member or two, baring their lyrics and melodies to the room (I wish Jezebel had been there to kill the omnipresent talkers). The low-key vibe and small crowd recalled for me descriptions of John Prine being discovered by Kris Kristofferson in a little Chicago club in 1971, at the end of the night, while chairs were being put up on tables and floors swept.

Anyway, I heard Matt Jones, Drew and the Medicinal Pen (and, before I realized who he was, Drew borrowed my pen), and Jarred Farrell. The three performers had really different sounds, with Jones ("things get stranger, I get simpler") seeming to these ears more "classic" blues/folk with woody acoustic melodies and a many-layered voice, Drew ("the sky will still be there when the sun goes down") evoking more modern indy/folk with a big playful guitar, and Farrell (accompanied by a wooden box) melting into a kind of spoken word/beat cadence from time to to time, jazzy and sweet (I don't think the songs featured on his page sound the way he did on Wednesday, which I preferred).

From the ground floor of Pianos, where the main acts play, raucus and meaningless noise rose throughout the sessions, but rather than distracting from the quieter music above, it distilled the loveliness and served as a kind of defining backdrop for the battle of the simple and earnest against everything else.

Tequila, Totes, and Totally Great Neighborhood Connections

A heartening exchange at Sunac just now, where, at midnight, and true to the spirit of earnestness, I was buying cat litter (but not for want of hanging out or fun, in the form of my dear friend Daniel and potent margaritas). A guy and his girl (both in what seemed to be hand-sewn garments) were buying strawberries, and she went to grab some bottled water. He told me to go ahead in line, since I just had a couple of bananas. I said, well, I in fact also have this cat litter and lettuce (yes, a fascinating night here down Under). And he said that he was really letting me cut not because of the bananas but because I had brought my own grocery tote, a thing he was trying hard to do more often (to which I say hurrah, as four to five TRILLION plastic bags are manufactured each year, and of our share, Americans recycle only .6% of the 100 billion we use - so carry a tote bag, for crying out loud).

This exchange reminded me of a request I had earlier today, from Neighbors Allied for Good Growth, a "volunteer-based community planning and environmental justice organization that has been performing grassroots organizing, advocacy, and outreach/education to the North Brooklyn waterfront community of Williamsburg/Greenpoint since 1994." Among their many projects, NAG (an unfortunately acronym?) is ensuring that North Brooklyn zoning rules are abided by, that neighborhood artisan and manufacturing jobs are preserved where possible, that a new location is identified at which to host large-scale music events in 2009 (this is the last year of Pool Parties, as the Pool is going to once more become...a pool!), and that the North Brooklyn waterfront is protected for community use. The organization recently began a blog, Neighborhood Watch, largely authored by a board member...which reminds me: in case there are big Brooklyn donors out there reading this blog, here's what I would like to do: collect enough money to buy the defunct gas station on the corner of Withers and Meeker, and turn it into a garden Under the BQE. Donations welcome.