Bowie

Today, I think a story.

The 2 train at Franklin avenue is just a couple stops away from the end of the line, so when headed in the opposite direction (towards Manhattan), one can almost always get a seat.  I normally use this time to read a magazine or space out while looking at one of those disgusting ads for surgeons specializing in curing hammertoe...an affliction I didn't know existed until I first descended into the depths of the New York subway system.  But this time I didn't have a magazine, and the ads were towards the end of their stay, so I had seen them all.  I was forced into my secret third option, one I avoid because I'm not good at doing it without seeming rude.  People-watching on the subway is an art, and I stink at it.

Today I was thrown a lifeline.  A man in ragged clothes and an old-fashioned cane came ambling into the car at the next stop and sat down straight across from me.  He had all the makings of your run-of-the-mill subway nut, especially when he got out a scrap of paper and started rolling it very tightly...as though he were rolling an empty cigarette.  This wouldn't have seemed strange, except that he had a focus and an economy of movement that suggested something else.  I tried my best to mask my rapt attention, but then he met my eyes with an upward glance, gave me a little nod of acknowledgement, and smiled at me.  I took this to mean that he knew I was watching him, and that was just fine, so I stopped masking it; instead, I leaned forward and unashamedly watched.

He finished rolling the fake cigarette, then pulled out a sheet of mailing labels, took one off and used it like a piece of tape to keep the roll from coming undone.  Then he looked at me, smiled, shrugged, and in a cadence usually reserved for old jazz musicians in underground clubs said, "sometimes you got to improvise."  I was hooked.  I wasn't watching him, now I was staring at him outright.  I felt like I was a part of whatever the hell he was up to...like he did this all the time and counted on someone like me being nosy.

His bag then produced a pad of plain white paper, and then a box of pencils.  He patiently found a charcoal stick, put his weird little cigarette-thing nearby, got into a comfortable sitting position, and then looked right at me and nodded.  He then started drawing me.  I couldn't see it, but he would draw a couple lines, then look right at me.  In my discomfort I tried looking away, as if to be casual about the fact that I was officially a model, but after he drew a couple lines, he would look at me, and he wouldn't draw any more until I made eye contact.  I was in the spotlight, and there was no use in pretending otherwise.  He would look at me, draw some lines, look at me, then take his wierd little cigarette and use it to rub the charcoal for shading.  

By the time we got to the Wall Street stop, the people sitting on either side of us had forsaken their reading to watch what was going on.  Now normally Wall Street is when this particular train fills up and those standing are packed in like sardines, but the attention of the six of us (this guy, myself, and our four collective neighbors) somehow kept a space running across the car that no one would enter, no matter how cramped it was on the other side. 

By Fulton Street, he was finishing up, I saw him sign the bottom.  Then he looked at me, but this time it had a different quality.  He raised his eyebrows and, as he nodded, he twisted his head ever so slightly so as to offer the drawing to me.  I eagerly nodded like a little kid, and he went back to work, tearing the sheet off his pad, rolling it up, taking another mailing label and sealing the roll shut.  He handed it to me and said in his late-night-jazz-musician cadence, "you just give me whatever you can man."

I handed him some money and asked his name, "Bowie.  Like David Bowie."  I told him mine, "Boris?"  I corrected him.  "Oh Forrest.  Alright then."  Then he went to work on another drawing for the girl who was sitting next to me, and clearly very eager to be his next subject.

I practically skipped to work after that, and when I got to the locker room to change, I opened up the picture that I still had yet to see, but was absolutely certain would be a thing of great beauty.  I mean how could it not be?  Here's what I saw:

 

Awful?  No.  But let's be real, my jawline ought to have some say in the matter.

All the same, next time I run into Bowie, I'll probably stare at him again.

Cat-sitting!

A friend of mine had to leave town this weekend, so I'm going to post a picture of a whole new cat!  Don't tell Snooky and Jwoww Vladimir and Estragon:

His name is Siggy (I think it's short for either Sigmund or Sigfried...as I do with every other cat, I just call him "kitty").  When I arrived, Siggy was so happy to see me again that he peed in my suitcase when I opened it.  That's love.

Also, I went to Prospect Park last night and saw a screening of "Metropolis."  I am happy to report that I finally get it!  I never knew before, but now it's abundantly clear to me where the makers of Sonic The Hedgehog 2 drew their inspiration for the highly difficult "Metropolis" level.  Yet another reminder of the importance of exposure to classical art.

notes from an insomniac at 4 am

Some recent highlights:

-Beach day!-I recently discovered that I've forgotten two things since moving to New York City.  1, I LOVE going to the beach, and 2, New York is RIGHT next to the beach.  It's amazing, you get on the subway for 40 minutes and you're there.  Also, in these two discoveries lies a 3rd secret discovery.  This is something I never thought I would ever say, but Bud Light tastes incredible when you're sitting in the sun.  Oh the things I've been missing out on...mostly due to:

-Overtime!-I think there have been 3 weeks since starting my new job where I have worked less than 40 hours, and most weeks I work considerably more than that.  At first I didn't mind because I needed the money, then I didn't mind because I needed work people to like me enough to keep me around, but now neither of those are as much of a problem.  Now the problem is that the little time I do have off is spent recovering from work.  And as a side problem, the low-cost lifestyle I could maintain before has become a thing of the past.  Food that delivers to my door is highly convenient, and there are like 12 restaurants between my job and the subway where I can stuff my face late at night; whereas grocery shopping and cooking at home take time and energy that I don't have in the excess I'm used to.  I suppose there are worse problems to have, and perhaps I should just shut my big over-privileged face and tell you about...

Game night!-An insanely fun and frighteningly addicting game has re-entered my life, and shockingly enough for those that know me, I'm not talking about Big Buck Hunter.  I am speaking, of course, of Bridge, the sport of kings.  There is a club of sorts, it consists of four of us who meet about once a week to play Bridge, discuss the Stayman convention, and make resolutions officially designating all "what are you, an 80-year-old widow?" jokes about our bridge playing as patently stupid and unoriginal.

Opera!-A favorite theatrical theorist of mine, Peter Brook, had a production of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" playing at the Lincoln Center.  It was a slightly ironic setting in which to see his work (for reasons that only huge dorks like me will understand), but nonetheless, I wanted to see one of his shows while I still could (not to be indelicate, but the guy's like a thousand years old).  It featured, in the place of an orchestra, one very good piano player, and in the place of all the minor characters and stage effects, he had two dudes doing it all with the help of bamboo-like sticks fastened to a base to stand them up on end.  I was completely in awe of the respect the performers gave to the material (maybe I haven't seen a lot of opera, but hearing these voices live was a spiritual experience in and of itself) while not always staying completely true to it.  They still had fun and threw in ad-libs here and there or cut large parts of the text and music (it was about 90 minutes long in all).  It celebrated the content without being religious about the form, and as a result it was entertaining and engaging to everyone, not opera lovers or people who knew the opera already, but truly everybody who would give them the time of day.  I'm still in awe.  The day after I saw it I started working on my next theater project.  More on that later.

Keep it real kids, I'm gonna try to go back to sleep.

I was working last night as usual, only this time it seemed the management had added some tables so as to increase revenue.  So there I was, I was working the "dank basement" section, complete with dripping concrete walls and that ever-so-faint smell of mildew, when something strange happened.  A friend appeared, a guy I haven't talked to in a long time and haven't seen for many years, but a good friend nonetheless.  He said, "Hey Forrest, you wanna quit here and go open a store with me?"  "Yes." I said confidently, not thinking to ask him what we were to be selling or where we would be doing this or where the money was coming from or, for that matter, where he came from.  I just walked myself on out of that basement and into the street, where I started searching for my car. 
I told him to go ahead of me, and I would meet him at Penn Station when I found my car and we would get to work straight away on this "store" idea.  So he drove off and I walked around, not remembering where my car was or even what it looked like.  I suppose eventually I realized I didn't have a car, didn't have my friend's phone number, wasn't going to walk to Penn Station for some reason, and had just quit my job.  I was very concerned about hanging around for very long, as my quitting just consisted of very unobtrusively leaving without telling anyone, and I didn't want to go back in and say "By the way I just quit, you may not have noticed, but can I come back?"  It was around then that my cat started meowing in my face to wake me up as it was about 11:30 in the morning, and I had not yet fed her.  This is what happens after a 50 hour work week.  I feel like the time I spend dreaming about being at work should be billable in some way, don't you?

In other news I have become a Mad Men follower.  Let's face it, it was bound to happen sometime.  Also, why is it that flashbacks in movies and TV shows are always awesome?  Like the most recent Star Trek movie.  It was pretty much just one big long flashback (actually it was sort of a super meta-flashback wasn't it?).  I didn't even watch the original show, but that movie was fantastic!  Anyway I suppose the point is that Mad Men is pretty great.  And before you all talk to me about the most recent developments, let me just say that I'm only at the end of season 1 right now, so don't ruin everything.

Oddly enough that's what I have for now, stay tuned for more exciting updates about fun news that may or may not have actually happened!

Catching up

Alright kids, I'm back.  I've just spent a couple weeks hanging out with my brother, so I thought I would take to the blog-waves and share some of the highlights.

New Jersey--As I was finishing up my last shift at work before having a bunch of days off, I said to a friend of mine as we were clocking out, "I'm exhausted."  He replied, "Me too.  I'm gonna go to a spa tomorrow, get a massage."  Ever the participant in a game of one-up-man-ship, I replied, "Screw that, I'm going to New Jersey."  And go to New Jersey we did, and here's the kicker, it was actually very relaxing.  We went to see our friend Catkin and her family for a night, had some good food, played with her super-fun kids, and made it back to the city in time to get shouted at by a mime.  What a time it was.

Book of Mormon--An elusive beast if there ever was one.  We tried three different times, and it seems that no matter when we showed up for the standing-room-only line, we always ended up in exactly the same place, which was just on the west side of the stage door.  We were always about three people behind the last ticket sold.  However, Joe and I did meet some new friends in line.

House of Blue Leaves--Not a bad consolation prize for not getting into Book of Mormon.  Featuring Ben Stiller, Edie Falco, and Jennifer Jason Leigh.  It was written by John Guare, who is also known for his award-winning play and movie "Six Degrees of Separation," which, ironically, did not involve Kevin Bacon in any way.

David Grisman--Speaking of things we did in lieu of seeing Book of Mormon, it turns out there was a live David Grisman concert in SoHo that we were able to catch.  He was playing with some famous guitar player whose name I keep forgetting, but it was a terrific show.  The last time I saw him play in Portland, he was with John Sebastian (of "The Lovin Spoonful"), and the encore was an acoustic version of "Summer in the City."  So that's hard to beat, but it was still a pretty amazing show.
Coney Island--Where else can you fight your way through crowds of old people sprawled out on a broken-glass-with-a-hint-of-sand beach to get to the famous hot dog stand where, after a good 20 minute wait, you can get a classic Nathan's hot dog (assuming they don't forget your order)?  Nowhere.  Seriously though, it's a fantastic escape from the city, and I can't believe it took me a year and a half to make it.  I also have to say I'm glad I was there for the Mermaid Parade.  There is no better example of the patently bizarre underside of New York City than the Mermaid Parade...well...okay, maybe there is.

The Double-Windsor--A new favorite spot of mine.  They have good beer, absolutely stellar mac and cheese, and a world-class waitstaff, one of whom is our new friend Mindy Sue.  If you ever go there, tell her you know Joe and me.  It won't get you anything special, but she just might high-five you.

Weak 2's--Who knew that the right thing to do with low points and a long hand in any suit but clubs is to open with 2 of that suit?  I know, right?  Seems crazy, but it turns out the infographic does not in any way fuck around.

Brooklyn Botanical Gardens--I did it!  I finally went to the iconic Brooklyn destination that's like 4 blocks from my apartment!  It was lovely, and another of those things I can't believe took me that long.  I liked it so much, I might even go back a second time.

Metropolitan Museum of Art--We did it Mom, we went to a museum.

Banjo Music--Those that know Joe will know that he's not someone who dabbles when it comes to music.  When he takes to a new instrument, you will never see him but he is carrying that instrument around, no matter how cumbersome.  His current musical squeeze is the banjo, which, for all the flack the banjo gets, I find delightful, as I have never once heard live banjo music in Brooklyn.  So as we waited in line for Book of Mormon, he played, and on the subway back home, he played, and in the patio seating at my local bar, he played, always to a pretty positive response.  Then today, not 24 hours after he left town, I was at the farmers market to appease my craving for fresh bread and what did I see?  A banjo player busking.  I was going to listen, but I opted instead to turn up my nose and say "Hmph.  Joe did it first."

All in all, a pretty exciting two weeks.  So exciting, in fact, that I need to fall asleep for a few days to recover, so I'll see you on the other side.

My oh my...

Well my last few months have been too full to even write on a blog, but I will attempt a quick recap.

-American Mime Theater!  Responding to a job listing in Backstage Magazine advertising a search for a male actor or dancer to join the American Mime Theater, I sent in a headshot and resume almost on a whim.  Mime sounded like something cool to get in to, and I fit the description of being an actor or a dancer, so why not?  I got a call to come audit a class and see what I thought, and so I did.  Now...the man that runs the company is the same guy who created this medium he calls American Mime, and he did it 59 years ago after stints as an actor, a dancer, and a soldier (presumably at different times).  So this form is a sort of melding of influences from those three worlds, but the way he runs his classes seems to draw much more influence from the military than from any artform. 

Mimes show up and get dressed, and when they are out on the stage for the class, they are performing the entire time.  The teacher sits at the front of the classroom and barks words and phrases at the mimes, which they understand because he's barked them before.  Through these short orders, he guides them all through a number of exercises that, if you don't know what they're doing, seem as strange as the minor transgressions that make the teacher shout at them (and if you've never seen an elderly mime fly into a rage because someone scratched their nose, you, sir, have not truly lived).

Anyway, after an hour and a half of this, I pretty much decided that joining this company was going to be the next step for me.  So I did, and the next week I showed up and was on the floor, among the castigated.  It's only been a couple of months now, but I've found the teacher (whose name is Paul Curtis) to actually be an incredibly sweet man who, because of his philosophy on teaching and his extensive experience performing, refuses to allow his students off the hook and expects greatness from them.  His health is somewhat dwindling, but every last bit of energy goes into shaping this mime company to his vision, and there's a way to look at that that seems nothing short of heroic.  So when he shouts at me to pull my diaphragm in, it's a good kind of deathly fear.

Anyway, all that is to say it's been a good couple of months for me at the American Mime Theater, but lately I've been a little distracted from that work because of...

-New job!  Yes, my time at the restaurant in the east village is winding down, and I just finished training at a whole new restaurant!  So you know, I'm movin on up.  The new place is in the meat packing district, which is very exciting...let me tell you why.  People who I no doubt hold in high esteem will remember the episode of Seinfeld where George gets invited to a party that you can only get to if you know it's there (and Jerry says "I thought this was a meatpacking plant").  Then he is cast out from the elite group, he goes back to where the party was, only to find a bunch of meat hooks.  That party was in the neighborhood I work in now.  As I leave at night, there are long lines and velvet ropes protecting what I thought was a security entrance or a small jewelry shop or a bakery.  Apparently at night they transform and people who are way cooler than me get the message on their special beautiful people antennae.  Then they all get dressed up in clothes that cost more than my--well, I don't really have anything of value to make the analogy, but they're really nice clothes--and they hobble down the street in their 9 inch heels so they can take drugs and stand in lines.  I try to high-five them as I walk by, but then they look at me and I run away.

There's another group of people around that neighborhood, one of whom I had a brief encounter with on the way home.  He was smoking a cigar and strutting up the street in a nice looking suit and a tilted hat with a brim...not quite a fedora, but you get the picture.  As I walked by, my eyes probably bloodshot from a lack of sleep, my clothes ruffled from being stuffed in my bag while I worked, and my general demeanor pretty haggard, he says in a low voice "Coke? Coke? Coke?"  Now I thought he was saying "Coat coat coat!" As though I had dropped a coat I was carrying over my arm or something.  I did a double take and looked back for the coat, not realizing that I was, in fact, wearing my coat.  He saw me turn around and gave me a look like "yeah? Coat?"  I quickly realized what was going on and froze.  Not being the type to spend a lot of time in the meat packing district, I don't even know how to say "yes" to a drug dealer, much less say "No, I was mistaken, I thought you were helpfully pointing out a dropped garment" in a way that doesn't get me pistol-whipped.  I just kind of went "oh, I, uh, nah" and shook my head, lowered my bloodshot eyes and darted around the corner.  I can't remember a single time in my life when I have looked more like a junky.

Okay, so that's two things that have happened in the last few months.  I now have to go get a haircut, taste some wine, and begin the last week of the previous part of my life.  Keep it fresh kids.

Merry Christmas part 1!

So my Christmas present to my mother this year was that I would spend two days going to art shows, museums, and galleries and write about it on my blog (aren't I adorable?).  Yesterday was Day 1, and what a day it was.  Here's how it went:

First Stop: Brooklyn Museum.  It turns out the Brooklyn Museum is closed on Tuesdays.  So my streak of having lived in this neighborhood for a year and a half without going to the museum that's a 5 minute walk away remains intact.  Booya!

Second Stop: Chelsea.  I didn't want to just do the major museums, I wanted to see what artists are up to today, so I went to Chelsea, where it turns out the old industrial buildings are ALL art galleries now.  I spent several hours here going to many different shows, and the details of each show would reveal very little about my experience and probably be a terrific bore for both reader and writer.  But here are some thoughts and reactions from my time there.

-Modern art doesn't have to be horrible any more than experimental theater has to be masturbatory.  It's just that it usually is.  But there were shows that, despite (and maybe even because of) my lack of education or training in the art form, I enjoyed very much.  It occurred to me that their aim in creating these installations is very similar to my own aim in the theater I'm involved with, which is to create a context for a visceral experience, rather than to challenge the mind to figure out meaning.  Now many of the shows I saw were unsuccessful to that end (like the one showing a video tour of concentration camps in a dark, enormous warehouse-type space), but a few actually did hit me.  I hesitate to try and say what the experience was or what the piece was about, because to try and put words to it is to miss the point entirely.

There was one show that by its very nature seemed to lend itself to writing.  It was one of the bigger galleries I went to, and it was full of books open to specific pages, and very simply but deliberately set up, each as its own sort of sculpture.  The books were, for the most part, art textbooks from the 70's that contained instructions on how to create a piece of art.  Some of them would instruct you to look at objects in a certain way and then draw from that inspiration, and some were more along the lines of "Drink coffee.  Now undrink the coffee while keeping it in your stomach.  Good job."  So just to recap, these were sculptures of books of instructions for art, set up as art themselves.  Intellectually challenging maybe, but all in all pretty strange.

-I am nowhere near cool enough to spend a lot of time in Chelsea.  Aside from the "what-art-class-that-you're-only-taking-for-a-distribution-requirement-in-order-to-get-your-business-degree-from-NYU-sent-you-to-me-the-unluckiest-of-gallery-receptionists" looks that I got in most places I went, there were other little hints that I didn't belong.  Like the big, strange door that, when I went in to see what was on the other side, was met by a perky greeter (a walmart for trendy people if you will) who, sensing immediately who I was, said, "clothing store" with the smile reserved for fun misunderstandings with out-of-towners. 

-Photography, like modern art, doesn't have to be a vapid art form, but when the photographs are just pictures of pretty scenes, or photos taken from a different angle than you normally see them, put it in a photo album, not an art gallery.  If I want to see pretty scenes, I won't go to the meatpacking district.




Third stop, Museum of Natural History--After a few hours of art galleries, I needed a change of pace, so I trekked up to the upper west side for a look at some dinosaur bones.  And, you know, other stuff too I guess.  Highlights from that excursion include ceremonial masks from Amazonian tribes, a life-size replica of a Blue Whale (there are simply no words to describe how absurdly large this creature is), and a very brief history of the movement of early man across the land bridge in the Bering Strait and into what is now Alaska, and then south into the rest of North America...an important discovery in the history of man, which, if I remember my elementary school history right, happened in the year 1492.

By the time I was done there, places were shutting down for the day, so I headed home to watch the state of the union at a local bar.  I was hit with a cruel reminder that I'm no longer in Portland when I was unable to find a single bar that would even put it on their television on silent.  So I went home to find a kitten adorably trying to assure that I would never go on another trip without her.