seeing fog erase wtc 1, v.2
only in new york, all the time
for realz I am elated
to have one less day of off-season academia
course it could be worse
one sees all the snails in the weeds
mostly petty set-ups, tiny travesties
mostly lightbulbs burning out overhead, too tired to replace
u mad?
no.
i am curiously
calm
at last grown up (kinda)
trudging through the muck only once a week
instead of always and forever, for once the
oranges in the fridge are
not browned or mealy but ready to be cut and devoured
Fresh Direct showed up at 7:58 a.m. and I couldn’t go back to sleep. Finished reading 50 Shades of Silly. Still not quite sure why it’s so popular. Clearly giving up smut-writing was a mistake.
It’s Mother’s Day! I call my moms at a reasonable 10:00 a.m. She tells me to come pick up my demon seed NOW. We get in the borrowed car and drive around Brooklyn looking for the perfect batch of peonies. The radio is on but rather than scan from station to station, we let it play. It’s mostly classic rock, the usual FM suspects. I thought about writing titles down but I forgot my pen.
Read More
Saturday means I sleep until 8:00. Then after several hours of child-wrangling we made our way into Manhattan via express bus. My son looked out the window and asked me about double decker buses and I read the very funny 50 Shades of Grey, which unfortunately is more than one book. It features a “Hispanic-American” (author’s constant description) man named Jose who says “Ay, Dios Mio!” at the beginning of every sentence. Despite this, I can’t stop reading it, because sometimes “so bad, it’s bad” is instructive in its own hellish way.
There was no music, save for the occasional bachata from a passing car on the road, never lingering long enough to make an impression.
Read More
I didn’t bring my ipod in today ‘cause I just didn’t feel like it. Someone on the F train was rocking out to shitty techno and everyone in the car took turns giving them the stink eye.
Got to work, worked in silence all day long.
Read More
I purposely didn’t bring my iPod because I wanted to read the Ellen Willis book on the train. Instead I wound up hearing snatches of Dylan in my head, specifically In My Time of Dying* which my friend Jared once accidentally filmed himself singing loudly, in full ugly voice as he drove around New Bedford, MA in his now deceased vehicle, Juanita.
I’ve been wanting to see this mini movie forever. I think his mom has it.
Read More
Wednesday or I wish it was Friday because boy, I’m busted. G train to Carroll to drop off the boys then waited for an F. Hit play.
Moon River/Bell
Ah, I hadn’t heard this demo in a while. Olga Bell’s voice is one of my favorites, it is like a wrinkly Eeyore gone slightly optimistic. Her tone is a naturally downcast one, almost in a pouting, childlike way but, like a child, there’s a determined quality to it as well. That voice combined with this song gives the old classic a new sparkle. You forget about the movie, or even other versions. You feel possibility and sweetness for now and the future, not the past.
Read More
Rain, rain, rain. The three of us take the train but J lets me continue on, knowing I’ll never get a seat if I get off now.
What A Waster/Adam Green
Tie My Hands (feat. Robin Thicke)/Lil’ Wayne
Why Go (feat. Estelle)/Faithless
King of Pain/The Police
Back in ‘84, I used to do this elaborate, very literal dance to this song. My mom had the record. She thought Sting was fine, which was a first for me since she never expressed any interest in anyone’s looks unless they were 1950’s movie stars and therefore, probably, dead (at least in my eight-year-old head). I would put it on and work on my choreography. Our living room wasn’t very big but I made do with some basement level Graham shit but no big leaps or anything ‘cause then the record would skip. As I listen to this, my hand moves involuntarily, remembering the little black spot on the sun today.
Read More
I was up late, catching up on the Sunday DVR madness so it was technically Monday. Don Draper put the needle on the record, in the right place I might add, and the tell-tale drums started up. Cue the electro-seagulls and the sound of the future. It will always sound like the future.
Tomorrow Never Knows/The Beatles*
Of course he doesn’t make it all the way through. I’m kind of sad about Don becoming uncool. It has to happen of course. But his image: tall, dark, Brylcreemed daddy who can sell you a bridge, is a potent one and oddly comforting. Well, as long as it remains an image, up there on your TV, being poetically awful week after week. I don’t want to see Don in the 1970s, all giant mutton chops, polyester suits, cocktail rings and bad teeth. How will he survive?
Read More
