The Great Conch of Civilization

Since I've been so sparse with posts lately, I've decided to condense the more interesting aspects of my time in New York into powerful thematic segments.

This segment shall be entitled: ANDREW'S ARTSY ARTNESS!

Well, shortly after the events recorded in my previous blog entry, Madeline, Trish and I decided to visit the Guggenheim.

Madeline and Trish: "We're going to the Guggenheim!"
Andrew: "Okay!"

We agreed to meet there at 6:00pm. They left early and I took my time getting ready. This included eating, showering, plotting out a subway route to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), dressing, double checking the address of the MOMA, cleaning some dishes, pocketing the MOMA information securely, and heading out. I made all my connections brilliantly and arrived at 11 West 53st, the location of the MOMA, with about 15 minutes to spare! I bought myself the juiciest fallafel I have ever eaten - from a street vendor no less! - and waited outside the entrance for the arrival of Trish and Madeline, delicious fallafel juice dripping slowly down my chin...

And...

Did you know you can cab from the MOMA to the Guggenheim in about 15 minutes! It even cuts through central park! Very scenic and fun!

The Guggenheim, for the uninitiated (though you be few), is a large spirally conch-like building with lots of paintings stored inside it. Outsiders, or Non-Guggenheimers as they are called in technical ARTSY language, are permitted for a nominal fee to stare at these paintings, smell them, and pretend to understand their profound significance.

Once you have crossed the invisible and eldritch threshold of "The Guggenheiming", denoted by the Sacred Doors of Revolving, you become temporarily endowed with magical Guggenheim abilities. These abilities enable you to grow steadily tired and cranky and bored over the span of only two hours, culminating in almost total banality.

Using awesome pneumonic techniques of mental cognition, I created a secret chamber in my mind wherein I stored three of the most exquisite paintings from the Guggenheim collection. These paintings, perfectly preserved in my memory, shall now be projected by the miracle of ARTSY technology onto your computer screen.

Painting, the First:

Two Seated Children (Claude and Paloma)
by
Pablo Picasso



Now, before I begin critiquing this painting, let me just say that if I were to write a manifesto for Art Criticism, it would read something like this:

STOP! The unfertile nebulous meandering commentary of bygone years must now cease, under the spectacular moon of new nightly nocturnality! STOP! Pilgrims of the mind! And sow your seeds in fecund loam! The Tyranny of Grist and Grind here-now ENDS!

Of course, if I were ever to write a manifesto for Art Criticism it would probably never get read. Either that, or people would read it with that look of pained forebearance that I so often get.

So, instead, I'll just state my ARTSY prejudices: Art is fun and loose and bendy and stuff. Art Criticism, since it's about art, should be those things too.

Now to begin: ANDREW'S ARTSY ARTNESS!

So basically this Picasso painting really caught my eye. It was sandwiched between a bunch of other austere Spanish paintings of children, both the seated and non-seated varieties, doing such exciting and insightful things as: 1. Staring Directly Ahead; or, 2. Trying to Look Like Adults. Oh yeah, the painters were like El Greco, that other dude who painted royalty, what was his name... and like Velasquez, and probably someone called Sanchez, and Dali too, but you might want to double check the Sanchez.

But this painting.. oh wait, it kind of scrolled off didn't it? Hold on, let me put it up again...



There we go, perfect. See now, THIS painting was like a cross between Tim Burton and Edward Gorey, though of course Picasso preceded both of them, so it's not an apt comparison at all, really. But I think we can tease out their influences here, a sort of seminal piece for future macabre art - a visual manifesto for depicting pale-skinned children backgrounded by a stark, sombre, and yes - pallid - moon. Pallidity being an essential quality in all things macabre.

And anyway it's ghostly and twisted and imaginative and frankly I didn't get that impression from any of the other paintings, mired as they were in the 16th and 17th centuries, poor things. Of course I guess I could talk about the obvious maternal sublimation in the seated posture of the male child in relation to the domineering female presence of his (presumed) sister, whose two-facedness belies a disunity projected in opposition to the comparitive unity and wholeness of the male. I mean, I COULD do that, but it'd be a bloody lot of wank, wouldn't it?

Painting, The Second:

Dead Birds
by
Pablo Picasso



Yes, this painting was also by Picasso (who, though there were paintings by Goya and Dali and other good artists, was by far the most interesting and innovative and, frankly, modern - Dali, my old love, now strikes me as a bit too transparently egoistic). It was nice, cubist, and.. well, I think it would really look good on my wall next to the giant oriental fan.

Painting, the Third:

The Table (Still Life with Rabbit)
by
Joan Miró



This painting appeared in a section dedicated, amazingly, to food. Apparently, Spanish people eat a lot of dead animals. The reason this painting is included here is because of the tripartite symbolic content of the three animals it figures: the fowl is the father, who observes all of the vast, resplendent -- wait for it -- tableau of creation, with his one watchful, unblinking eye. The fish is the holy spirit, because it points always towards the heavens and suffuses everything with a vague, unidentifiable odour. And, finally, the rabbit is the Son, because he kind of looks angry and I think if Christ were around right now he'd be pretty pissed off too.

And that basically concludes the more or less first installation of ANDREW'S ARTSY ARTNESS! Since I also went to the MOMA, and because this post is getting pretty long, my next post will be about that. Tata for now! (This is the official trendy ARTSY farewell.)

Let there be... BLOOD!

Well, it's been an inexcusably long time since my last post, and for that I apologize. Mostly to myself, really, for sort of falling off the writing wagon, albeit briefly.

I've had a lot on my mind these past few days. Indeed.

Since quite a lot has happened, I think a brief recap is in order, rather than a lengthy and detailed retrospective. A sum, if you will, of the choicest bits.

I think the day after the Gay Philosophy thing I worked up the courage (or rather, whittled down my apathy) and called up this girl Tania, who was supposedly Miles' friend, and who was holding on to his suit for him. Which he had forgotten... at her apartment. And which he was so insistent that I retrieve for him, because that's what friends do for friends... you know, collect their discarded and forgotten clothing from gigantic cities around the world.

Being the kind of silly and wonderfully brilliant people that we are, Madeline and I decided to make the whole thing a PHOTO ADVENTURE. But before you get your knickers in a bunch with excitement, the photos will have to wait to be uploaded, since they're on Madeline's camera and Madeline seems to have some kind of phobia about hooking it up to my laptop. As if my laptop had cooties, or something.

DESTINATION: ASTORIA

From the above title, you should be able to deduce that our destination was Astoria. Astoria, for those who are not intimately familiar with it, is sort of like a suburb of New York. Unlike most suburbs in... say... OTTAWA... Astoria sounds like a cool and distant fantasy land full of dragons. It is in FACT a cool, distant, fantasy land full of marvelous Indian restaurants. It's also in Queens.

Well, to cut a long story short, it was really really far. When we finally got to the place, we were greeted by Rahul. Rahul is Tania's husband, has a fancy British accent, and does post-conflict work. I have no idea what post-conflict work entails, but apparently it is very dangerous and exciting and probably involves digging wells while bullets fly overhead. Rahul was very nice, and to his infinite credit was a food and restaurant connoisseur.

He also had never met Miles. Tania, his wife, arrived shortly after we did, and she too had never met him. And apparently, Tania's sister, who I originally thought was Miles' friend, only knew him peripherally through her friend. This fourth person, whose name I never got, was also apparently only the most fleeting of acquaintances with Miles. What a web of confused relations!

So, the story I pieced together from all this was that Miles, apparently wearing a suit, met some people, drove to New York, crashed at some person's house, forgot his suit, and wandered off into the streets of New York naked, probably with a bottle of Vermouth in a plastic bag.

Anyhow, we got the suit, vowed to wear the oversized thing in various comic poses and photograph ourselves doing it (since Miles is like 6'5", it really is comical), and then wandered back home. We also spotted a disgusting lump of bulbous rooty material that MAY be ginger but is more likely an alien pod waiting to birth little parasitic mind-controlling spores in order to take over and then terraform the world into a scorched carbonaceous wasteland. We have photographic evidence to prove this.

Well, that's pretty much it for that day. A day or two after the Gay Philosophy thing, I met up with Dan for some food at a Korean restaurant that Rahul had recommended. The place was called Cho Ding Sol, or something like that, 55 W 35th St., and wasn't bad but wasn't fantastic.

(For anyone wondering, Dan is not a romantic interest of mine. I met him on an online Go Server, and consider him only a friend.)

After dinner we went down to the East Village, in Manhattan, to check out a gay bar called the Phoenix. I believe I mentioned it in a previous post. No one was there yet, so we wandered around the area, which is really very nice and trendy with many cool cafes and tea houses. We found this one place that was like my quintessential nerd-hippie dream bookstore/cafe type establishment. Only, upon closer inspection, the books were really primarily gay porn, which in retrospect is not altogether a bad modification of my dream.

Dan and I perused, but did not purchase, gay porn. I swear. We bought a drink, chatted, then went back to the Phoenix to grab another drink, shoot some pool (I had originally written "people" by accident! yikes), and then call it a night. Pretty unexciting, really.

Well, a day or two after that, Trish, another friend from the Humanities, came into town on her way to Greece. She is there now, working on an organic farm somewhere. Crazy girl. Lots of fun, though!

The three of us - me, Madeline, and Trish - went out to the local bar in the area called "The Gate", which is Madeline's top pick because of its proximity to the apartment, and more importantly because an attractive sweater-wearing fuzzy British bartender called Noel works there, for whom Madeline has a bit of a crush. I drank with the two of them until about 2:00 AM, got too drunk, and came home. Madeline gave me her building key so I could get in, which naturally meant that I had to stay up and wait for them.

I lay in bed until 6:00 AM, feeling nauseated, thinking they'd been kidnapped or worse, until finally the two wenches staggered in, laughing hysterically, and collapsed into a heap of splayed, writhing, drunken limbs. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but probably not.

Their night was an hysterical, licentious romp of drunken abandon. By the end, they were pouring their own drinks. As an indication... Madeline came home with a spigot from one of the taps! Don't ask me why.

Well, the afternoon rolled around, then dusk, then evening, and still the two ladies were asleep. There was a neat Japanese bookstore I wanted to check out, so by 5:00pm I'd resolved to step out the door. (I was a little bit hung over myself. Just a bit.) Trish woke up and I persuaded her to come see a musical with me.

Trish: "Should we invite Madeline?"
Andrew: "I don't know... is she up?"
Trish: "Why don't you check?"
Andrew: "I would, you know. But... she... scares me when she's hungover."

In the end, just Trish and I went to see:

THE EVIL DEAD MUSICAL!

Oh yeah. We bought the cheapest tickets we could ($29), and when we got into the theatre and found our seats, we noticed there were plastic bags over the first three rows.

"Uhh... this doesn't look good."

Apparently, The Evil Dead Musical features a "Splatter Section", where theatre-goers are inundated with much splurting and gushing blood! Thankfully, they handed out little plastic raincoats during the intermission. Glad I wore mine, because in the big final act I got a huge stream of blood right into my lap!

Funny moments:

Andrew: "So what really IS the difference between a musical and an opera?"
Trish: *looks at Andrew like he must be joking*
Andrew: "No, come on, I mean really. They both have music!"
Trish: *starts laughing hysterically*
Andrew: "What?!"
Trish: *dull, drawling, faux-congratulatory tone* "You got a DEGREEEEEEE!"

Leaving the theatre, after the performance...

Guy in big white hoody, DRENCHED in blood: "I swear, they were AIMING for me!"
Friends: *laughter*
Guy in big white hoody, DRENCHED in blood: "God damnit."

The musical itself was alright. But damn, there was BLOOD!!!

And with that... I bring you all only partially up to date. Madeline and I are heading out now to check out the MOMA. I'll post again later! Cheers.

The Gay Philosophy of... Jesus?

Well, it's been an interesting two days.

Madeline and I tried to leave the apartment early on Saturday, in order to check out Central Park. Not only was I slow to rise, but I also realized there was a Gay Philosophy thing going on at the GLBT Centre in Manhattan at the same time. So, perhaps understandably, Madeline wasn't impressed.

We went to Central Park together, but I got restless so I split. Madeline didn't really object - I think she was pretty content ogling the ducks by herself. I trained down to the Center and dashed into the Philosophy room, breathless, just barely making it.

First words I hear:

"Oh no, darling, don't you get me started. Jesus was no philosopher!"

I'm thinking, "Oh shit. What have I gotten myself into now?"

As it turns out, I got myself into two enthralling hours about how and why Jesus was (not) a philosopher, why the question had no bearing on profound religious emotional experience, a discussion on the Q-source and its deep implications on the Gospels-as-word-of-Xst, and the many reasons why the Unitarians were/were not the brood of Satan.

However, the room WAS full of gay men (and one extremely intelligent and articulate Asian transvestite... also a staunch Unitarian), which did enable the discussion to break down into moments of emotive hysteria and brief, wonderful bits of flamboyant hilarity.

I especially loved it when one of the guys, prompted by the oft-repeated phrase, "Jesus was just a man", began to sing that song by Faith No More:

"A star is out
I reach for one to sparkle in my hand
A star is out
I will not touch you, I am just a man" - whereupon, with "touch you", he began fondling the leg of the man next to him (who really didn't seem to mind!).

Man do I love gay people! Unfortunately, none were under 40! :(

Anyhow, afterwards I got the coordinates of an apparently nice gay bar, not too loud/dancy, but an actual place to sit and have a drink and talk. Called the "Phoenix", down in the East Village. I walked around Manhattan directionless for a while, until I found a comfortable and discreet enough place to take out my gigantic, screaming, fairy-coloured gay "Funmap" of the downtown area, and get myself "oriented".

Eventually I made it to the bar, which had a nice exterior neon sign and some old iron ring like fixtures on the outside brick wall. Kind of weird and cool. I only peeked inside, since by this time it was only 6:30, and there really wasn't anyone there yet. Looked nice, so I definitely WILL come back, hopefully soon.

I got lost on the way home, again, of course. Took the "L" train, the wrong way, and went like a bullet east, straight into the heart of north Brooklyn. Figured no problem, I'd just hop on a connecting train south to where I needed to be. Caught the "G" train, which promptly stopped halfway to the station I needed, emptied itself of all its passengers, and trundled into the enigmatic depths of the NY subway.

Had to catch a shuttle, which wound itself through what seemed to be the streets of all of Brooklyn, before finally letting me catch another train ALL the way back into Manhattan, just to find a connecting train ALL the way back to the bloody Brooklyn stop I wanted in the first place.

Confused? Just take a look at the following map:




If you think that looks like trying to navigate yourself through a mound of multi-coloured spaghetti... you're not far off. Most confusing subway in the world!

Of Ghosts and People

So I wrote my last post on the floor, arched awkwardly over my computer in the one spot in the whole apartment where I could access one of the three unsecure wireless networks that appear and disappear infuriatingly and without any apparent logic or purpose. My post was, as such, a bit awkward and stilted and uncomfortable in its own right. For this I will make no apology, but rather point accusingly at the stupidity of the various multinational corporations involved in the collective production of the "Wireless" God, who for whatever reason could not find a reliable way to beam the entirety of the world's electronic knowledge directly into my laptop.

So! Dan and I met up at 5:00 outside his office and grabbed burritos or fajitas or enchiladas or god knows what they're called - basically imagine a mound of rice, corn, sour cream, beans, guacamole, cheese and salsa poured into an insta-toasted slice of soft tortilla wrap, encased in tin foil, slammed into a plastic bowl and hurled at you on a tray, and you've got New York Mexican Fast Food.

DRAMATIZED DRINK-PURCHASING EXPERIENCE:

"Anything to drink, cabron?"
"Uhh, I'll take an orange juice."
"We've got MANGO orange juice, puta."
"No plain orange juice?"
"MANG-"
"Okay, okay, I'll take one of those."

We ate fast. I'm talking FAST. They're still telling stories there about how fast we were.

"Those two, eh hombre, they were pretty fast, no?"
"Si, si. Muy loco - crazy tontos! Ate like no tomorrow, mang."

*Error: Insensitive ethnic stereotyping detected! Error! Initiating security protocol PC-ENFORCER10001101*

**BZZT**

Ow! Shit. Blogger's got some mean political correctness software installed! I'll have to be more careful.

Anyway, so Dan and I played go, down at the New York Go Center. Same shtick. Same more or less awkward and vaguely annoying people. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love go. I've had great times playing the game in the past. I've met some fantastic people who also happen to play go. Truly marvelous, splendid, generous, and enjoyable folk. It's just... when you get a room full of go players, a strange, eery, disconcerting transformation takes place. They become... infused with the hysterical power of GO KNOWLEDGE, and wield their awesome wisdom with untramelled determination and, well... frequently an un-funny and relentless sarcasm.

Well, here, let me give you some examples. We, Dan and I, are playing a game by ourselves, off to one side of the room. This old guy, maybe in his 50s, looks like Baron von Munchausen without the hat, is giving some kind of teaching game to a freakish 17-something-year-old, couldn't be older, really doubt it, but anyway who somehow WORKS at this Center, and whose duties involve wandering up to you while in mid-game and showering you with questions and unsolicited information about deals and offers and membership fees. Let's call him Scruffy.

Let me try to recall some of the more choice snippets:



Baron: Hahaha, what do you think you're doing?
Scruffy: I just want to live.
Baron: You can't live there! Can't do it! No way!
Scruffy: Why can't you be nicer?
Baron: Teehee, I'm going to squash all your groups.
Scruffy: ...
Baron: Hey what do you think you're doing? How dare you try to invade!
Scruffy: Oh yeah? I can live in the smallest spaces!
Baron: You have no hope! I'm not going to let you off that easily! Hahaha.
Scruffy: Whose move is it?
Baron: Oh oh oh! You're ALL MINE NOW!!!

Which really doesn't capture the very annoying, quite condescending, and at times vaguely creepy tone the Baron possessed, nor Scruffy's general state of confusion and childishness. Nor the fact that both were having a wildly good time despite all of it.

I guess I'm only belaboring all this go stuff because I feel guilty for ragging on them in an earlier post, and that I should somehow be like this Patron Saint of Go since I play it so much, and have attained some kind of Respectable Status or something, at least among go players, and further because they really do often seem to be the sort of people who could use all the help they can get.

But that said, I do really love the game, and find it incredibly beautiful, and I guess in some ways I think it's a shame that in our culture you can't really love something so headsy and abstract without being all funny and detached and incapable of relating to other humans, basically. Which I don't get.

So anyway, we played, and then left when we were both starting to get a bit tired and cranky. We grabbed a couple drinks at a nearby bar and started talking about our lives and our dreams and our pasts. Of course our differences outnumber our similarities, but there is still a lot of common ground between us. I have a hard time articulating my emotions... but I felt sad for him. Not sorry, not sympathetic, or pitying, or anything like that. Just... sad. I can't explain it. Maybe in time I'll understand why. Maybe it has something to do with being dogged by who we were, who we could have been... and who we could still, maybe... one day be.

I had to walk underground to Bleecker St. station on the way home, to make a connecting train. The station was dark, and the platform was long and narrow, like a decrepit collonade with crumbling tiles and mortar. Innumerable lines of tracks, laid side by side, disappeared gradually into the darkness across the way. Then, as if out of the air itself, burst a number 4 train with a green eye-like circle suspended in the dark, and it tore through the open space with a shriek and a rumble, for all the world like a hounded wraith. Then it was gone. That place felt, for a surreal and lonely moment, quite like a catacomb for the dead.

The Inchoate Murmurs of the Meta Blog

So I didn't really get up to much yesterday. Went for a walk with Madeline down past the exciting 7th and thrilling 5th avenues, in Brooklyn, to what we believed would be the proportionally even MORE exciting/thrilling, if the decreasing numbers were supposed to represent some kind of night-life hierarchy, 3rd and 1st avenues. What we found was in fact a decrepit industrial neighborhood with lots of broken glass and corrugated rusty steel doors and concrete walls topped with barbed wire. Fun fun.

Now I am willing to accept that maybe 3rd ave. is an aberration, a bizarre anomalous impoverished backwater separating the glorious 5th avenue from the resplendent land of beauty and free mocha lattes that could, potentially, be 1st avenue. Maybe 3rd ave. is the New York equivalent of a moat or a wall of fire, across and through which only the most brave, courageous, and worthy can pass. I have, in fact, no good empirical evidence to refute this hypothesis.

Nevertheless, being the pathetic, weak, and easily-muggable coward that I am, and considering that I don't even really like mocha lattes, I think I'll just keep my distance and permit 1st avenue to remain the mythological New York Eldorado that it most assuredly is.

In other news, I've changed the blog settings so anyone can post comments without having to become a blogger member. Because I know I wouldn't post any comments for precisely that reason. So I look forward to hearing from y'all!

By the way, I hope you like the title today! I think it's pretty good (in being verbose and pretentious as all hell), and would make for a sufficiently ridiculous bombastic short story - which I may in fact write, one day!

In all truth, though, I have really been thinking a fair bit about what I can do with this blog, and especially since at the moment I don't really have anything exciting/interesting to talk about in the way of wanderings-about, at least for the past couple days. But, in some ways sadly, and other ways not at all, it really is no stretch that this blog is probably one of the more exciting things I have involved myself with in the immediate past.

On the other hand, a kind of self-referential "meta-blog" blog entry does sort of strike me as the intellectual equivalent of a 6th grade English assignment entitled "Why I had Nothing to Write About". But damnit, it's such an interesting topic!

And since that is my espoused topic for today, I hereby announce!... that I'm thinking of creating a couple of parallel blog sites: one for political/theoretical ramblings, and another, probably infinitely more interesting one for stories/fiction and general extemporization on more esoteric albeit artistic subjects (like Dragons!). I think probably all these blogs will be cross-/inter-referenced. Because that's trendy and cool.

In general, however, I'm still learning about this format, and about myself as a writer. I don't really know what "The Blog" is capable of... and forget about any kind of reasonable self-awareness about what I can do, artistically. I really don't have the slightest clue. Really, the entire substance of my plan is just to ramble on and hope it remains interesting and readable.

In any case, for now I'm heading downtown to meet Dan for a game of go. How quaint!

What Cannot Change Dies

Not much happened today. Madeline and I went shopping in Soho, which for the uninitiated is south of Houston St. (pronounced "House-ton", for arcane reasons, under punishment of tarring and funny looks). I was looking for slick duds and preppy styles. I have decided that I am a fan and proponent of the "Mama's boy" look, with the even more extreme sub-culture of "GrandMama's boys", typified by dog-eared hats and knit sweaters with cutesy alternating colour patterns, and if you're daring/awkward/pathetic enough the little helpless mittens with security strings to prevent loss. Okay I lied, I don't actually like the look of security-string mittens, but damn they're useful!

But in all seriousness. My days of embarassing whale-mating T-shirts and undersized alpaca wool sweaters are over. I have discovered the exciting world of dignified attire! There's something really satisfying about having your own style. Something almost emancipatory about it, even though in another inescapable sense it is always bound to the economics of BUYING nice clothes.

And those economics are a bitch! I've never stared so cravenly into the abyssal depths of my wallet as I have here. And in another sense this town, as much as I relish every precious and fortunate minute I spend here, is a constant reminder of how utterly privileged I am in a global sense.

*WARNING: The experienced staff here at Blogspot have detected elements of PHILOSOPHICAL DISCOURSE in the following Blog material. For your protection proceed at your own risk. Any injuries that result are your own god damn fault.*

But another part of me doesn't care. I remember some time ago reading Siddartha, by Herman Hesse, and getting to the point where the protagonist suddenly goes ape-shit, disavows all his priestly ascetic ways, and delves without restraint and only a hint of remorse into the hedonistic and consumptive life. At the time I didn't get it. I believed totally in denying the trappings of this world - the whole modus operandi of getting while the getting's good (that is, INTO the "this-life" of void tree-hugging oblivion - a sort of earthly druidic platonism). I worshipped this.. idyllic return to a freedom devoid of any materialism or mundane attachment. Aghast! After all, what kind of spiritual hero forsakes the golden path for pleasure and abandon?

At this point, of course, I could do the whole internalized Christian shtick and basically identify with Hesse's project, only from the perspective of an enlightened and wise person who has come to understand the necessity of passing THROUGH the period of hedonism into a more enlightened, more righteous and lucent "freedom" from earth.

Fuck that!

I would much rather say, at this point, that I passed THROUGH an idealist period of indulgent and romantic world-renunciation, a dandyism that spurned every fragile, brief, and painfully beautiful bit of human existence along with all the disgusting, vulgar, narcissistic and violent bits too. The latter can't just be discarded! It's all part of the same package. Who wants the vacuity of pure non-attachment? How can we ever be unattached? What the hell does that even mean?

And look, lest I come across here as some kind of bizarre reformed-socialist, pro-capitalist reactionary let me just say that, for the first time in my life I feel GOOD about myself. I feel like the external me that wanders around, crashes into things, commits horrific social blunders, and somehow manages in unexpected ways to endear himself to a select group of beautiful, understanding, and far too charitable people (you know who you are), is becoming consistent with the internal self that broods, questions, doubts, criticizes, agonizes, and craves salad for breakfast.

I've got to totally re-examine what I understood, what I THOUGHT I understood, to be happiness. I never had it, and yet I felt I could speak so authoritatively on the subject, for so many years. What presumptiousness!

I went out shopping today with Madeline, and all I bought was a scarf. But it was a very nice scarf, and it really went well with the new coat my mom got me for Christmas. And damnit it looked GOOD, in the window of that store, with my hands in my coat pockets and that stupid sheepish grin on my face. Seeing myself for the first fucking time, meeting myself for the first fucking time. It felt good. For the first fucking time.

A Comic Lust

One thing that never changes, no matter where I go: waking up is hell! I rolled out of bed at 11:30 AM... or rather "was lowered out" since the inflatable bed I'm sleeping on was in fact half deflated this morning.

Madeline and I went and got some groceries, after (though not because) I discovered that the two books I still had out from the library are in fact going to be overdue on the 12th. Naturally, I said to myself, I'll just EXTEND them. This had been my pseudo-plan from the very beginning! Haha, Andrew out-thinks the system yet again!

"Error: This book could not be renewed."
"FUCK!!!"

So I'm looking for the post-office that Google Maps pointed me to, on 7th Ave. and Garfield street, so I can mail this goddamn book back to Ottawa by express post before I get slammed with another late fine...

Madeline: "Your book is overdue?"
Andrew: "Yeah."
Madeline: "Why not renew it?"
Andrew: "Tried. Won't let me for some reason."
Madeline: "Why didn't you renew it before you left?"
Andrew: "Well, you know, about that, I was going to, and..."
Madeline: "..."
Andrew: "Uhm... yeah, uhh, well... Hey, wait, what the fuck? This 'post office' is just a mail box!"

We ate some lunch and I, determined to find a proper post office - one with stamps and all the other 'CIVILIZED' accountrements of contemporary postal services, for reference you bloody savage Yanks - set out downtown. Actually, we set out to see the Met (shorthand for Metropolitan Museum of Art, which I say not to be pedantic but because I didn't actually know until today, or wasn't sure I knew, and was using 'Met' to be safe, but could easily have been persuaded that the Met was really inside the Statue of Liberty, which was obviously in the heart of Queens, and specialized in miniature postcards - thank god no one tried).

The Met was nice but, well, full of the 'usual' pretty paintings and expensive old things (Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Rubens, Pollock, El Greco, god do I NEED to go on?!?). However, the first room we walked into was the Egyptian exhibit, but seeing as I am currently staying at the temporarily vacated residence of an Egyptologist and his wife, whose apartment is in fact filled to the brim with thousands of bizarre, gaudy, and ocassionally rare and probably expensive pieces of Egyptian memorabilia and miscellany, we felt we'd already had enough.

Amusing exchanges:

How Andrew selects an exhibit!

"Hey Madeline, let's decide on an exhibit!"
"Okay."
"Let's choose European paintings!"

How Andrew comments on Christian sacred art involving Mary and Baby Jesus!

"G'DAMN. Is that a giant tumour sticking out of Baby Jesus' hea.... oh wait, that's Mary's bre... ohhhhhhhh."

So rather than boring you with tedious and most likely wildly and embarassingly ignorant critiques of famous art, I'll just post my favourite painting for this evening:



The artist is Viktor Brauner (1903-1966). The painting is entitled "Prelude to a Civilization" (1954). For legal reasons I am apparently required to say this image comes from http://www.metmuseum.org. For anyone interested, the full link is: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/11/euwco/hob_1999.363.13.htm

Okay, there you go. Pretty painting of some kind of cow. No, wait, horse. Done in a primitive cave painting style. What you can't really get from the web representation is the sheer crisp beauty of his drawings, his sharp and stunning colour contrast, all set against this incredible black scratchy/fuzzy rough texture. It was really gorgeous. If I were a proper art critic I'd probably call this primitivism or something like that, but since I'm not I'll just call it AWESOMISM.

After the Met we got hungry and went down to 14th street to grab dinner and check out this Graphic Novel exhibition/talk/presentation thing at the giant Used/Rare/New bookstore called Strand Books - by this point totally forgetting that I was supposed to find a post office. Oh well.

We went to some Japanese restaurant called "Moshi Moshi Japanese Food" which isn't actually its name but sounds fucking plausible, and maybe one of these days I'll remember what establishments I go to.

INTERMISSION!

Woah I just remembered that while walking around Brooklyn looking for what turned out to be a large metal can with a one-way hinge-slot, we came across this incredible Super Hero Supply Store (I do not kid!), sporting such wonderful slogans as, "Many Items are Splendid!" "If items do not suit you, you are not a Superhero!"

BZZT!

So Madeline ordered the vegetable tempura with edamame and I got the same but with rice and this awesome ice-chilled sake - the smoothest I'd ever had - called "Beautiful Boy", which I did NOT in fact select because of its name, but rather was the affordable option presented enthusiastically by my waiter. Honestly!

After this we went to the Strand for the 7:00PM event. Two graphic novelists from Seattle were presenting their latest works and discussing them. The first was Megan Kelso with "Squirrel Mothers", which involved porches, stoops, and "Important Places" - to her, anyway. Apparently I get twitchy and fidgety when I'm bored, because I was definitely bored for this one.

The second novelist was more interesting. Ellen Forney, novel "I Love Led Zeppelin", gave a multi-media presentation on music, Camille Paglia, almost dating Camille Paglia, and dramatic car-crash deaths.

However the fine nuances of all this were lost on me since the person who introduced and later interviewed them was gorgeous, and had this adorable flappy-wing hat with actual mouse-ear type things sticking out the top. And he was beautiful, almost certainly gay, artsy, and in New York! And he got heckled by some stupid jerk, about his hat.

I got this really crazy idea that maybe I should ask him on a date, offer to buy him a drink, or... SOMETHING... like some wild, insane, romantic thing out of a Richard Linklater or a Godard film, but I chickened out at the last moment, which now in retrospect I kind of regret, even though I probably would've been summarily rejected as some kind of weirdo, because I mean who really does that?

"Hey there. I, uhm, really like your mouse ear hat."
"Thanks."
"Uhm. Want to go get a coffee? You're dreamy."
"Security!"

But damn, what if there had been a chance he'd say yes?

Sorry, it's... Scrabble

Woke up today at 2:00 PM, slightly hung-over. Last night was a riot.

I wasn't even sure I'd do anything today, but I saw a friend of mine online, Dan, who lives here in New York. We agreed to meet up for dinner at this nice vegetarian restaurant called Zen Palate, down near 42nd street.

The vegetable dumplings and miso soup were fantastic, but the weird gaucamole bean wrap with minced spicy carrots and miniature taro spring rolls was a bit unusual. Dan didn't care much for his rose-petal slab of soy bean product with raspberry sauce and a sprinkle of ginger. I couldn't imagine why.

On the way downtown I caught a glimpse of a sign saying "Gay and Lesbian Community Center" at the 14th street station, which I thought was more than a little bizarre, and certainly unexpected. I made a note and after dinner Dan (who is also gay, but no, not an interest in that way) and I set off on a gayscapade to find this mysterious cent(re)(er).

Dan promptly got us lost.

"Is this Chelsea?"
"What?"
"That sign there, it says 'Chelsea'."
"Okay sure, it's Chelsea."
"Really?"
"How the hell should I know?"

And later,

"Where is Hell's Kitchen?"
"I have NO idea."

Now Dan's lived here for at least 2 years, but has a terrible sense of direction. After walking the wrong way, about-facing, continuing in an also-wrong-but-slightly-less-so direction, discovering we were right the first time, and repeating, Dan stops and raises his finger in the air, "Ahha, I've got a brilliant idea!"

So we're inside this magazine shop which has four thousand vacuous seeming fashion magazines if it has one, and Dan keeps muttering something like, "So many magazines, there's GOT to be one for New York!"

We find what we're looking for, not surprisingly, in a little nook at the back in the "Gay and Lesbian" section. I picked up some bed-time reading for myself. You know, gay literature, excellent articles, engaging perspectives. That sort of stuff. Totally intellectual. 100%.

Dan picks up this mag "Metro", which looks promising, has bunches of gay bars and restaurants listed. We head out to a little Parisian styled dessert cafe called "La Cafe Parisienne"... which is not actually its name but that's all I got. Dan gets an awesome crepe with chocolate sauce and bananas, I make a fool of myself speaking French to the waitress, and together we scan the mag.

20 minutes later...

We find the damn thing in a tiny advertisement near the back. 208 Something Or Other Street. Boom! Off we go.

We get about two blocks before getting lost again.

"I thought this city was supposed to be a grid!"
"Yeah, uhh, well..."

So the centre(er) turns out to be this four storey building with a big front desk and tons of conference rooms and shit. I liked the free condom bin, which unfortunately was empty. I mean, I liked it in principle, as an idea. A public service. You know. I didn't ACTUALLY like... LIKE it.

Upstairs we found a whole wall full of pamphlets and newsletters and events listings. They even had rainbow coloured "Fun Maps" for Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, and.. of course.. Manhattan.

Success! *triumphant fanfare with a little prissy trill towards the end*

New York Gay Listings

20Something
Social group for LGBT New Yorkers in and around their 20s (ages 18-33).

Dan, 30, was thrilled about being reinvited into the 20s age group.

VEG-OUT
Vegetarian potluck (no meat/eggs/dairy) for LGBT and queer-friendly vegetarians and wannabees.

Dan: "No way I'm going to that one. I wouldn't eat anything New Yorkers make - there are some crazies in this town."

SCRABBLERS
All levels. Bring boards.

Turns out the scrabble was happening RIGHT THEN. So off we rushed into the bowels of the building. Four floors down, one elevator ride up, two floors down, one windy corridor, two floors down, one creepy pipe-exposed concrete cobwebbed basement, one non-functional fire exit leading to neatly tended veranda with ferns and benches, four flights of stairs up, and a door into a cramped, paint-peeling room later, and we found the scrabblers!

Hooray!!...

I open the door and one of the six people in the room turns to me, his face crestfallen and embarassed, and just says, all meek and apologetic: "Sorry, it's... Scrabble."

Oh New York.

A Stone too Far

So I got up at 6:30 AM yesterday to haul my sorry ass downtown (which is like a misnomer here, since EVERYWHERE is downtown) to play in a Go tournament. For those who don't know, Go is an ancient board game played by people with aspirations of being ancient bores. In my more deluded moments I like to think I'm one of the few Go enthusiasts with social skills and a sense of humour that doesn't involve pointing out people's grammatical errors when they talk.

I won two and lost two games. I learned some things about the game, but I learned a lot more about the kind of PEOPLE who play it. Imagine a room full of overweight disfigured geeks with food-stained clothes and an unhealthy fascination with binary programming - said atmosphere humming with a kind of weird nasal neighing laughter - and you've got a go tournament hall.

Someone a lot weaker than me started huffing and hawing and being a total dick as I tried to explain a concept to another player. Being insecure and awkward is one thing, and lord knows that described me for the vast majority of my own life thus far, but there's something really foul smelling about people who have no sense of humour or charm to compensate for their lack of social graces - and I'm not just talking about body odour!

I went home after the "award" ceremony ("Can I get everyone's attention please? The winner of the tournament is _____!" *insert modest clapping* "Here's your free Go book. Thanks everyone for coming!" *insert weird neighing laughter as crowd mills awkwardly around the exit*). Madeline and I then went out to this nice little bar called Buttermilk. We'd been there before, and a country band had been playing. I don't like country music, but they were tight.

No band this time, but we started drinking and before long we found ourselves talking to this guy "Henry" at the bar. A fourty-year-old dude with great taste in music and a wicked sense of humour. Bought us some drinks and chatted us up for an hour. Fantastically nice guy. Madeline got his e-mail and then lost it.

We also met some other Americans. One was a DJ who doubled as a high school counsellor or something like that. Another one had a duel with me to see who had the stranger name. Knoerschild or something like that. I think he won, but I won the dance off later in the night. I vaguely recall someone describing my moves as "fluid like water", which I felt was pretty flattering.

The last one was a philosophy and political science grad who'd been all over London and Paris and Spain and seemed like a genuinely cool guy. Good looking too!

The rest of the night is shrouded in blackness and drunken staggering, which admittedly had been our plan from the very beginning. I recall observing that New York was like the coolest two blocks of Ottawa stretched out for miles and miles and miles. On the way home we crossed a roundabout that honestly looked like it had been airlifted from Belgium for the express purpose of Europifying Brooklyn. It sent a chill down my spine how similar it looked - even the corrugated metal gates covering store entrances looked the same.

All in all I have to say this town is fucking incredible.

A Special Kind of Fry

Here I am in New York. The town is marvelous; wonderful stores, great atmosphere, and dazzling buildings. I am almost literally blown away by the tallness of things.

I am at a loss for what to do, though. So far I've wandered more or less aimlessly, indulging periodically in bouts of consumerism - mostly involving books!, of which there is no shortage in this town - and ogling not only the striking modern capitalist architecture, but the modern capitalists themselves. God damn but there are some hot guys here!

But beyond this, I feel a little apprehensive. I don't have much time here - returning to Ottawa on February 1st - and I feel almost... compelled to make the most of it. For some reason it has entered into my mind that this will involve sex, but how paltry a goal is that?

I want more. I want New York to somehow change me into that sort of person who can soak up all the potentially inspiring ground that undergirds the island Manhattan. This city, mythologized to no end, represents for me a kind of panacae for world-wandering. A cure-all for the sick and unaccomplished spirit....

Oh, what the fuck am I saying? I just want to get laid.

Tomorrow I wake up at 7:00 AM to reach 53rd St. for a Go tournament. I feel more than a little insane to be doing this - a whole day of slamming little ceramic objects onto a wooden surface in a room full of people who think tireless pedantry is endearing - but there you have it.

Funny Moments:

Okay no one ever told me "steak fries" are in fact "BIG FRIES" and not some bizarre beef-soaked potato product. Hence the following exchange, upon sending back a chicken and celery soup when I ordered a potato and leek one:

"Is there anything else you'd like to order?"
"Do you have fries?"
"We have steak fries."
"No, look, I'm a vegetarian. Do you have normal fries?"
"Uhhmmm..."

Fortunately the person I was with elected to laugh at me AFTER we left the restaurant.

First day in New York

I arrived in New York yesterday, at 7:00 am. The bus ride was overnight and hellish. When we got in at the border an insane patrol officer told us all to shut the fuck up and sit down and if we just did as he said we could all get the hell out of there faster and lady sit the hell down are you deaf? Etc.

This was repeated in a more mild fashion when in the town of Plat-themiddleofnowhere-mouth , a concrete wasteland community, we took on some new passengers and a new border patrol officer. He started grilling the new people. One poor sap didn't have any papers. This led to 30 minutes of the border patrol guy radioing dispatch to have different records and databases scanned for this guy's history, in front of everyone.

"Have you ever been arrested, sir?"
"No."

15 minutes later, after the NCSX2D1R scan is completed by dispatch,

"Hoho, Looks like you've got multiple arrests in Baltimore!"
"But I thought you were asking if I was arrested in Platmouth!"

Eventually we got into Manhattan, cabbed into Brooklyn, slept, then wandered the streets looking for cool bars and stores. Nice neighbourhood Madeline's aunt and uncle live in! Got all these storybook Cosby show stone steps leading up to old two-storey apartment buildings. Very quaint.

Next day saw an interesting crazy guy outside a bookstore. Kept shouting for some, as far as I could tell, fictional black person to step outside. He litterally GROWLED. Never seen any person I could accurately describe as "feral" before!

Funny event:

Met a hardcore Jew in the metr... I mean SUBWAY (gotta stop doing that), of which there are uncountable numbers here. He asked Madeline and me what sounded like, "Are you rich?"

Madeline shook her head and pointed at me. But wait, I'm not rich! What's this guy on about?! goes Andrew's highly intelligent thought process. I say "No!" The Jewish guy walks off, looking sad, whilst I feel more or less proud of myself for narrowly escaping some kind of strange Jewish timeshare scam.

Madeline spent the next five minutes looking at me strangely. Oy Vey!