Is such a thing even possible?
Category Archives: new york city
Nick Cave Squared
I visited a gallery in Chelsea two years ago and saw a collection of costumes designed by Nick Cave. 
I had no idea that Nick Cave was such a Renaissance Man until that moment. I only knew that he was a singer, something I initially learned from his performance in the 1987 film, Wings of Desire. 
I listened sporadically to his music over the years after that and saw him on Thursday night at the Beacon Theater where he was most animated, cavorting across the stage, and yelling out the words. 
I was also impressed at his humility. Not once did he mention his other show, Heard, a new art installation on display at Grand Central Station throughout the week. 
I attended the event the next day and delighted – yes, delighted – as the performers paraded and danced to the drum and harp. (Click the video to see.)
It really was amazing how different this work was from his music on stage. And then I did a little research and found out that there are in fact two Nick Caves. 
I then recalled the saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Indeed what if I had mixed up Nick Cave with Nick Drake or Nick Cage? 
What kinds of assumptions would have I made then?
Biba Blog Ebb
I’m a bit down today. I dreamt of dying dogs – although not Biba – and keep expecting her to come around the corner…and remember her lying on the brown blanket at the veterinarian’s, her body relaxing after the needle, her mouth sagging and tongue lolling out. I’m stuck on that at the moment. 
I should have made her stop smoking as a puppy.
Subway Redux: Crystal on the “4”
Crystal reflects on the New York subways (Click on the images below for the video experience): You know when you’re on the subway, and there’s another one there, another train in the tunnel right beside you, another one full of people, the light of the car and all the people and the pillars in between, everyone watching. 
You know, at 33rd on the 4 or 5, and the 6 right there, everyone in that bright car, everyone going with you, going the same way, standing there in the light just like you are for them. Someone looks back. 
And you look the same way to her, and it’s like it will stay forever, those pillars, just standing there, staring back. That’s what New York can be. That’s what it’s supposed to be. (Excerpted from my bad side.)
Fulton Street Fires & NCAA Basketball Picks
The New York City Fire Department came to put out a fire on Fulton Street just behind us on Sunday, March 17, a four-alarm fire…and then they were back less than 24 hours later to put out another. 
“It’s doubtful that there was a hotspot from yesterday,” said FDNY Chief John Esposito. “The fire was in a different area and we had people on the scene last night until six o’clock.”
We watched as firefighters hosed it down the second time for hours and then threw bits of concrete on the smoldering mess (click on the image for your viewing pleasure) while we made our NCAA basketball picks. 
I’ve got New Mexico all the way.
Buzz at Grand Central Station, New York
I’ve made it. The doors open wide, begging, clean against the wall, red coat, and just like that, everything done, everything as it should, turning and my hand cool. 
She knows me. And that’s it, why for her, she forever, our silent descent, breathing, the glass reflecting us together, backward as forward, not words, but what they might, meaning nothing, tucked into our heads upside down, she out the hall, mine, everything mine, not that, but in me, here, me young, friendly, not wanting to stop, never. My eyes are inside my head. I’m going as I should, thinking as I do anything, on this sidewalk, fading, a door closing, in a room, music, and out.* (Click on the photo and links for video clips.) *Excerpt from Buzz (1999)
The Dog Who Ate Cancer
Biba was diagnosed with cancer a few months ago, right after Hurricane Sandy. It was grossly evident by the tumor on her right hind leg and was confirmed by the veterinarian shortly after that; her nodes were infected throughout her body. 
Her energy level declined rapidly; she could barely stand for more than a minute. She ate little – this the dog who ate eyeglasses, ant poison and an entire blueberry pie in her youth – vomited frequently and spent most of her time in bed. She hated her walks; she just wanted to be left alone. I bandaged the tumor regularly, necessary because the tumor was massive and bleeding, and she ate it raw; she tore and ate at the bandages too. That was all she was eating at that point. It was a most unpleasant affair. I wanted it to end. So did she. 
I upgraded her food to moist and organic to get her to eat a little. And she did, but too quickly, and vomited again and again. But at least she was enjoying the food. That was something. And then, after a most monstrous and vile up-spew of bile, beef chunks and old bandages, she seemed a bit cheerier. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but she was willing to walk more than a block. And then more than two. 
She was still slumping in her back legs, still sleeping a lot, but she wasn’t bone thin and always tired. She looked alive again. And miraculously, the tumor started to heal. It didn’t seem possible, but the bleeding sore was getting sealed by skin. And she’d stopped chewing on it. Suddenly she was ready for her walks and wanting to play. I looked into her cloudy eyes and she looked back. “That’s right. I ate my cancer.” 
And she wanted a treat for doing that.
All In: Writing about 9/11
My last novel, All In (2005), centers on a character killed at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The book is told from three different voices (his brother, niece and wife) months and years after the events. The most powerful voice is, of course, that of his wife, Cheryl. 
We argued. That’s how I left him. I walked away because I wasn’t listening. It was ridiculous. It wasn’t even an argument. And then I was on the elevator. There was a stout woman across from me; she had folds in her arms, bulging layers at her elbows and shoulders. It was ridiculous how I never said what I wanted. I was angry at him, and I didn’t know why. It was all so ridiculous. I waited in the sky lobby. There was an attendant there from the restaurant; the express wasn’t working. Her fingernails were red. I wasn’t going to call him. He would call me. And then I heard it; it was a vibration and then much louder than that. I stopped and was going to turn to see what it was. I knew it was somewhere else, this sound coming in. I held myself there, twisted against the ground. I couldn’t move. There was only the light on the floor and my hand out in front of me. 
I was on my side. I couldn’t hear anything and then it was sharp and bright, knocking me flat again so that I was holding against myself, thinking of what I must have broken and where my purse had gone. I was looking across, how the light was orange and grey, and there was the woman, the attendant with red nails, hunched and then standing. I wasn’t going to move. And then I was sitting and trying to think. I smelt gas. It was something they would have to fix. I could see out the window, and there was smoke or fog, something that made it so I couldn’t look out without my hand on my eyes. I couldn’t understand why no one was here. And then my phone was ringing. “Hello?”
New York’s Miss Subways (and Oscar predictions)
We visited the Transit Museum in Brooklyn today which included a series from an antiquated pageant, Miss Subway (1941-76)….
As well as advertisements with dated pitches… 
Does that come with a paper bag and straw?
Oscar Predictions
Will Win Should Win
Picture Argo Amour
Director Steven Spielberg Michael Haneke
Actor Daniel Day Lewis Joaquin Phoenix
Actress Jessica Chastain Emmanuelle Riva
S. Actor Tommy Lee Jones Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Sup. Actress Sally Field None of those nominated
Cinema Claudio Miranda (Pi) Mihai Mailimari (Master)
Script Django Unchained Moonrise Kingdom
Most ridiculous nomination: Argo for editing. This film had no less than six cliff-hangers at the end, all of which were blundering and predictable. For this film to be nominated in this category, the final 20 minutes would have to be removed.
Retribution Ragnar Kaufman ask: Who Are We?
Is thinking a specifically singular activity? Is existence utterly isolated? Is “to think and be” a thing to do alone? Is it at all possible that there be a “we” in this thinking, we as a collective of “I”s? Can we think of ourselves as a “we”, truly together, or do we just go along, watching the stupidity of each other and try to get away with what we can? Can we think – and be – together?
We certainly have a notion of a “we” in cities, laws, families and music. 
It is in the interplay between right and wrong, sense and chaos, lyrics and rhythm. Retribution Gospel Choir – on stage this week with Wilco’s Nels Cline at Brooklyn’s Knitting Factory – offered a number of connecting moments, long and straining, the guitars back and forth, Alan Sparhawk singing: Nobody put up a fight. Everyone out on the ice. You and I don’t lie. 
It is moments like these that there seems to be some sense to “we”, the intertwining sounds, like we’re going somewhere, wonder and excitement at every turn. Ragnar Kjartansson’s work The Visitors – at Luhring Augustine until March – develops this feeling of joy and unity as well. 
The communication between musicians, each alone in his/her own space, joined only by headphones, the music, flowing through crescendos and silence, until coming together, exiting the house into the wide misty expanse of what might come next. Hope looms. The same cannot be said of Andy Kaufman.
Kaufman’s work – celebrated this week at the Maccorone Gallery in Greenwich – centered on the characterization of idiosyncratic individuals who didn’t fit in with the everyone else. Wide-eyed, smiling, Kaufman looked back like he wanted to be understood, waffling between child-like wonder and childish behavior, pushing us to reject him, which we inevitably did. “You could never like me. I always knew that.” That’s how he wanted it; if you weren’t in on the gag, so what?
As much of a cornerstone as the “I” might be in the work of Kjartansson and Retribution Gospel Choir, there is the invitation, a query as to what might be thought of next – not just the those on view – but the “we” in all of us “I”s too.