Historical Novel - AMONG THE WONDERFUL

Among the Wonderful, by Stacy Carlson

If you're still looking for a historical novel let me recommend Stacy Carlson's Among the Wonderful. It's brand new.



Also, if you'd like, I could give one of you the manuscript of a novel I wrote in my early 20s about four kids in the Lower East Side. The Triangle fire features prominently.

Meditations in an Emergency

This post is going to be about the poetry. I promise.

But first I have to tell you all that I got arrested with the rest of these nice people in Citibank on Saturday. We were held for 26 hours before we were able to see a judge and finally go home. And so this post is also going to be about dark humor and how wonderful it is.

I think Frank O'Hara is a master of dark humor:

there in the hall, flat on a sheet of blood that
ran down the stairs. I did appreciate it. There are few
hosts who so thoroughly prepare to greet a guest
only casually invited, and that several months ago.

In my view, dark humor doesn't always have to be about death. I think the line, "I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love," oozes with loneliness and self-pity (very dark stuff indeed), but O'Hara also has the courage to laugh at himself. The great thing about this line, though, is that even though my first thought is, "Right, only boundless love, that's all," my next one is, "Well, why not? Why shouldn't someone, why shouldn't we all, expect that?" Laughing in times of despair can be a way to self-medicate, but it is not necessarily a denial of reality. In fact, jokes can make the most poignant statements. I think Jon Stewart's career is a testament to that. Laughing at frustrating or stressful situations can help you work through it without losing your mind.

So back to the arrest. The room (the "pen" they called it) where we were placed to spend the night was unpleasant to say the least. It had hard benches, most of which were placed directly against the wall for maximum discomfort, linoleum floors, concrete walls and no clock (though the meal times were posted). There were three mats on the ground, which we were told for pregnant women, though the guards were "nice enough" to leave them for anyone to use. Of course, when we got there the mats were already taken. We were told there were no more of them and that no blankets would be provided to us. This is around 2 in the morning (no clock...), after being photographed, finger printed, frisked, held in a cell for several hours and then led through hallways and up and down stairs, left in waiting areas and positioned up against walls for questions, while being handcuffed to one another by a "daisy chain."  We had been told several contradictory stories about when we would be released and had our personal belongings vouched before we were informed that the place where we pick our things up would not be open on Sunday, which is when we were to be released. Many of the women I was with would not be able to access their money, car keys, apartment keys, medication or other necessary items when they were let out. Etc, etc. This is all to say that there were some very cranky people trying to sleep on benches early in the morning when one of the women lying on a mat decided to entertain us by singing loudly and talking, mostly to herself. Quite a few of us found her amusing, particularly her method of asking for more toilet paper ("Hey, po po, we need some more tissue paper in here!") But after a while people just wanted to rest. One of the older women I was arrested with entreated her, "Please! Be quiet! Some of us are trying to sleep." The singing woman, who clearly had some mental health problems and/or was extremely high, bluntly said, "No! You're in jail! You're not supposed to enjoy yourself! This way you never come back." Honestly, this was the only reasonable thing anyone had said since we had been arrested. From the cops not letting us leave the bank because it was "too late" to my fellow arrestees thinking they could appeal to this cracked-out woman's sense of reason by explaining that people were trying to sleep, the entire experience had been a hellscape of incompetence and utter nonsense. This nuttly lady had succinctly pointed out what we with our detailed criticisms of "systems," "hierarchies" and "internalized beliefs" had been bitching about all day: jail was designed to torture you so you never want to return. She was my favorite person in jail.

So when after a few moments of silence in which it seemed possible that people would be able to calmly drift to sleep, she started singing, "Five, five, five-dollar foot long," I lost it. I was laughing uncontrollably for several minutes. The only other person with her eyes open asked me what was so funny, but the only thing I managed to sputter out was, "She's singing about a sandwich."

I am the least difficult of women. All I want is to smile while in jail.

Poetry

I love the beginning of Meditations in an Emergency! The way he expresses the sentiment of how New York City can make him feel lonely and unappreciated but at the same time he can't imagine being anywhere else is perfect. I can totally relate to that! New York city is a place of constant heartbreak. It is a place where you walk down the street and see several beautiful people you don't have a chance of ever meeting. It is a place where you go out to a club and several people might be mingling with the person your interested in. It is a place where you have one fun night and then the next night you won't have anyone to hang out with and you'll walk down 3rd avenue and see thousands of people out having fun and it will make you just feel alone and pathetic. However, the thought of not being in the city and taking that risk of getting crushed is worse than suffering through the loneliness at its worst. When I go to Washington Square Park and sit under the trees it is my escape. But, it is only so because I know after spending a morning recovering from the woes of New York City I am only a minutes walk from Bagel Bobs or my favorite jazz club.

The Right Moves

Here's my piece, "The Right Moves," in this Sunday's Times Magazine.

Holly Wales for The New York Times

Jacob Riis

My second paper is going to be about Jacob Riis. This was inspired by the reference to him in New York for Sale. I can't say much about it right now because I want to read How the Other Half Live and look at some of his other work before I narrow down what I specifically want to talk about. But, what I think I want to do right now is talk about his life and his work and then try to analyze his motivations for his work and see whether his intentions were as honorable as his reputation makes it appear. Also, I want to see which reforms specifically were in direct response to his work. And, if I can find it I want to see how he was perceived in the newspapers of his time.

Thoughts for my second paper and reactions to poems

Since I began to really read poetry for myself, and not because of school or any other pressure, Ginsberg and O'Hara have been two of my favorite poets. Ginsberg because...well, for so many reasons, but largely because of the sincerity of his words, the beauty of his language, and that he was incredibly prolific (and for so many reasons beyond that; I have always felt in some way akin to Ginsberg more than any other poet). O'Hara, on the other hand, had Ginsberg's base sentiment--that is, O'Hara, unlike most of the New York School, appears nearly Confessional. O'Hara and Ginsberg, of course, have many of the same influences. O'Hara, however, though extraordinarily prolific, was not comparable to Ginsberg, perhaps solely because he died young, in a tragic accident. I think about that a lot, actually, whenever I read him. What would O'Hara's later poems been like?

Anyway, "Mayakovsky" has always had a special place in my heart. I think, at this point, I could recite most of the poem by memory because I have read it so many times. I do remember, reading it young and then, sometime later, hearing the poem recited on 'Mad Men' and realizing, only then, what a marvel it was. To me, it always seemed like a fight to find oneself. It was not until college that anyone suggested (perhaps correctly) that it was O'Hara struggling through a break-up.

O'Hara, like Ginsberg, has this great ability to articulate feelings that I've largely considered ineffable.

Mother, mother / who am I?

There is a beautiful moment in Barth's novel Lost in the Funhouse (within the short story 'Menelaid') where Menelaus asks the same question and he is met by complete silence (the typography, by the way, is beautiful, seven quotation marks embracing nothing). When I read O'Hara, I think largely of that. Who am I? he asks, and the only answer (a poet) is hidden under his despair for his lover who left him. (If he will just come back once..., What does he think of that? I mean what do I?... everything is secondary to his lover.)

O'Hara has a tendency to do this. He had a series of intense, but often disappointing relationships. Even his friendships were extremely passionate. Who was he? His poetry suggests that he himself only existed as it related to others.

How common a feeling.


--

I'd like to do my second paper on the New York School (of poets, not artists or musicians). However, I can't quite decide what my thesis would be. The New York School is fascinating because, as it suggests, all the poets really did the best of their work in New York City. One or two became ex-pats, but most remained within the area. It was the 60's, approximately. I maybe would like to look at either how it began to develop, or compare the New York School to the Beats, who were of the same approximate era, had many stylistic similarities, had nearly the exact same literary influences, and, of course, lived in the same area.

I'm unsure though. I need to look into this more.

The beginnings of my second paper

For my second paper I've decided to write about street art, specifically the graffiti movement in NYC in the 60s–80s. I'm interested in examining the concept of "public space." Today we see quite a bit of officially sanctioned art that repurposes public space, so I want to look at how the illegality of "bombing"/"tagging" was important to the art form, but also how the concept has been reclaimed in more mainstream or at least more tacitly accepted movements, such as yarn bombing.

#OccupyWallStreet with Nathan Schneider

Take a few minutes and listen to my friend Nathan Schneider, editor of Waging Nonviolence and Killing the Buddha, on today's Brian Lehrer show.

Changing it up

First of all, I appreciate that both Caitlin and Sophia mentioned me in their posts!!!! Now, when we decided to start blogging we agreed that the blog would be used to talk about field trips, class readings, class discussions, class assignments, and other interesting occurrences happening in the city. It seems like we have done a great job of covering all of those bases so good job everyone! I just wanted to remind you again of the open nature of this blog. That being said, I am going to discuss a New York City experience that I had this weekend. Since our syllabus is overloaded with more than enough work, I don't think we can add it but I suggest that we head there one weekend just for a fun time!!!!

On Saturday night, after visiting the Chelsea Galleries, I went to Buschwick to visit Mimo. Previously, I had been to what I believe was the very southern end of it nead Bed Sty and had a pretty bad experience in that it was terrifying to be there at that time of night. However, my experience with this area which is near the L train stop at Dekalb was anything but a bad experience. The streets seemed to be bustling with people till well into the night. Everyone seemed to be smiling and social and having a good time and I would have felt perfectly safe going up to any of them and asking for directions. That night we went to a restaurant to eat tacos and a burger king and I was shocked at how many families and young couples I saw. In Burger King I even talked to one of the families. The little girl kept asking her mother where Burger King french fries came from which is a topic and the mom kept saying she didn't know. Then out loud the mom asked if anyone did know to which I responded that "Hungry Jack's which is a chain in Australia owned by Burger King gets thier fries from Lamb Weston Canada but McDonald's gets thiers from Idaho. Since Burger king and McDonalds use the same processing plant for thier fries they could get thier fries from either of those two locations but since they don't make it public where exactly their fries come from its impossible to know for sure." I knew this information thanks to my intense love of French Fries and my desire to find out how to make french fries that taste just as good as Burger Kings myself. This dream was of course terminated when I almost burned down Third North and decided I wouldn't ever try to make French Fries again. But, none of this is relevant to the post.

There were deli's everywhere! I counted three on one block on one side of the street. But, they were all different which shows how diverse this area is. There was an Italian deli and pastry shop, one thats name was written in spanish so I am assuming it had traditional food from a South American country, and one that was simpled named American-style deli. Also, the general layout of this area seemed very strange and another good word for it would be extreme. One block would be packed while one or two blocks away it would be empty warehouse covered in graffitti and would look like an absolutely terrifying place to be. Then a block away from that it would be a block of super nice apartment buildings followed by a block of run down looking apartments. But, if you went inside of these apartments they would be furnished with the nicest furniture and kitchen appliances. Even on the crowded blocks there would be abandoned buildings and empty lots with barbed wire around them next to very elegant stores and run down little restaurants.

The word I used earlier, diverse, is probably the best way to describe this area because amidst the large amount of multicultured families there were also many different kinds of people present. I saw kids who clearly looked like they were in gangs, 50 year old poets, college students, and an old man filling his coffee mug with vodka before getting in his car to drive somewhere.

Basically, this is absolutely a place to visit. If anything it is worth it just to get out of Manhattan. The air felt fresh in a way it never feels in Manhattan and the lower buildings and quiet streets were most definitely a nice change for a peaceful Friday night.

Also, as a sidenote to Sophia's post, the name of the second gallery we went to was the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery and the artist was Haim Steinbach and it was AMAZING!!!!! SCOTT YOU MUST GO SEE THIS GALLERY!!!!!!!!! I will absolutely be going there again!!!

Bright Eyes, Big City

In preparation for our second assignment, to write about an artist/artistic movement from NYC, I've been thinking about songs that attempt to capture the city. Though they don't have the same cultish following as some of their contemporaries, leading some to wonder if they will be remembered, I'm a pretty big fan of Simon and Garfunkel. Quite a few of their songs claim New York as a backdrop and contain snippets of the city.

Jim Fusilli argues that when Paul Simon "writes at street level, there can be a sense that he's revealing research rather than experience." Though his words may sound carefully crafted and hyper-literary, I find that the elements of "street" life in his songs are so basic as to not possibly require any research.  Take, for example, this verse from "Bleecker Street":

I heard a church bell softly chime
In a melody sustainin'
It's a long road to Caanan
On Bleecker Street
Bleecker Street

Ok, sure, most of us don't think about Caanan while traversing Bleecker Street, but I consider church bells to be a standard part of my life in New York (this was particularly true when I lived across from Grace Church last year.)

When I find myself having to pack sweaters, umbrellas and shorts when leaving my dorm, I find myself thinking about this line from "The Only Living Boy in New York": " I can gather all the news I need on the weather report."

"The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)" could have been dedicated to Anthony, and all the other New Yorkers who are in a hurry to go relax:

Slow down, you move too fast.
You got to make the morning last.
Just kicking down the cobble stones.
Looking for fun and feelin' groovy.  

A nervous newcomer to the Northeast, this is my winter mantra:

Then I'm laying out my winter clothes
And wishing I was gone
Going home
Where the New York City winters aren't bleeding me
Bleeding me, going home                    ("The Boxer")

But of course I know "April Come She Will."

Galleries and whatnot

The galleries we went to today were beautiful. By far, the most incredible, for me at least, was the first we attended for the artist Anthony Goicolea, called Pathetic Fallacy. Pathetic fallacy, we discovered, is the act of treating inanimate objects as if they had human feelings. Or, I suppose, simple anthropomorphism. Goicolea—an extraordinarily talented Cuban-American artist who graduated from the University of Georgia—however deconstructs and representatives this topic beautiful. There was one image that was particularly arresting. Unlike the others, which were all generally wall-bound, this one was lying in a case. It was a beautiful sketch of a tree that partially opened to reveal a spine, and it was simply breathtaking. Goicolea doesn’t use color often (he relies mostly on a black and white, sometimes red—which produces a startling effect—or dull blue, green, and golds), but despite this—that is to say, despite the obviously non-realistic interpretation of his subject—there is something startling life-like about it. Not human, not even with the spine. Simply something alive. A good reminder of the life around you.


There was another gallery—this one I sadly can’t remember the name of—and, though I think Anthony loved the bottom floor more than I loved anything we saw, the top floor was, like Goicolea’s work, arresting. Hidden behind slanted walls, there was a small room. On one wall there was horrible kitschy wallpaper, and on the other there was a large black box that in bold questioned You don’t see it, do you? I stared at it for a very long time. There were no colors, only black and white, and the words, which were in a bold white and very even and proud, were oddly challenging. I don’t think I saw it.

***

So I don’t know if this is relevant, but I’ve been working on a paper (fictionalized, or really semi-fictionalized) for another class in the style of W.G. Sebald’s Rings of Saturn. As the entire idea is to talk around your city and write your thoughts I thought I would share it:



This is not my city. I must be like Baudelaire, dragging myself along streets that are no longer mine. Today, and only for a few hours, I went into my office to read, and pass the time by not reading and talking to friends. By the time I left the scaffolding that had been there for months previously—perhaps even years—had been taken down completely. I could see the blue sky. It had been raining earlier that day, a sort of torrential disaster that you feel even in windowless lower-levels. After which, the blue sky seemed absurd.


Paris changes but nothing in my sadness has moved! In the streets the rainwater had already begun to evaporate and my grief felt precise, but rather stagnant.


Right before six my co-workers and I stand below the boarding dock and smoke. We are just below Canal Street, on a corner where you can see the Hudson, and the wind, even on otherwise still days, rustles the trash on the sidewalk and our hair. At certain moments, when the sun is at its apex or just beginning to set, there are two buildings across the water that become literally gold, that shudder faintly against the skyline. The river does the same, if one gets close enough. The water—at moments, gold, at others, iridescent, like oil—can make me homesick. Or rather, it can make me feel far away from home.


My grandfather had a boat and when I was a kid he would take my cousins and I fishing. He could spend hours this way; we could not. We would get loud and fight; we would cry. My grandfather was, for no better words, at peace on the water. Until one day when, after securing and closing the boat, we continued to fish on the dock. At which point my grandfather, partially blind from cataracts that surgery could not reverse, slipped off the dock into the water, where all our fishing lines were tangled.


I was convinced at that age—five, perhaps six—that the world, right then, had fallen off its axis. It was like seeing a giant stumble. I was scared that he would get punctured by a hook; I screamed. His hair was silver then, though it is white now. It looked like a fish’s scales, and when it hit that water, and when he came up for breath and met the sun, it appeared dully metallic. I leaned against the dock, and reached, still crying. He had overcome his panic and was moving toward the ladder. My hand caught on the barnacles on the side; his did as well. There was blood on both our hands.


The moment before he fell, in which I saw the reality of his fall without comprehending it, he was encased by the late afternoon light and looked like one of the saints whose icons are hung upon his walls.


Above Canal, going east on Spring, the Hudson becomes a memory. For awhile the sidewalks are empty and, if you stay on Spring, you see very little of interest—office buildings, apartments, a restaurant here, or a café. To the west, there is a bar that I have gone to once, though the memory feels, somehow, typological and infinite. I remember saying nothing at first then everything at once and letting everyone order for me, and pay. It was hot for June. We were close enough to smell the Hudson.


Approaching Houston, on the west side, it is hard to pass fewer than two subway stops. I never see anyone exiting or entering, except, sometimes if I happen to pass the ACE on West 4th. Though even then, it must be a certain hour and I must remember to have my head pointed somewhere other than the ground.


G­– kissed me on the A going to Brooklyn and before that as we were waiting on the platform in West 4th (and, of course, before that as well, a handful of times I care not to enumerate). G­– kissed me and we said nothing and we were, perhaps, better for it. I felt, in some sad, ego-fueled way, that we were the epicenter of the train’s collective stares and spent the entirety of the trip wanting to leave.


There was a summer when I wanted everyone to look at me no matter where I went. I was haunted by the feeling that I wasn’t real, or that I didn’t exist. I felt like Kierkegaard’s Johannes, holding onto me must have been like embracing a cloud.


G­– clung to me as though as he didn’t see me as an actual body or, perhaps more precisely, as though he didn’t regard any individual body part to amount to anything of value. On the A he fit his fingers very closely against my spine. I hung onto him as I might a pole. And he kissed me, as I have said, mostly to fill the silent. The subway was consumed by a weary weekend silence that makes everything feel deadened and inert, the air even feels lifeless, and people appear, in some ineffable way, subhuman until they depart. And we kissed.


We were not beautiful.


It is not simply that the city comes to life in certain areas; it explodes. And it not only sheer numbers, but the feeling of exuberance and life, which moves like electricity in these populated areas. I see this walking down Houston, and up towards the Lower East Side. I see this in Soho, and Noho, and the West Village as well. All of these hubs of activities, and energy, a strong, consistent current that seems to penetrate the sidewalk and the air. During the day people walk, crowd the sidewalk—I do not know where they go—and at night, they are loud masses in black, huddled in front of restaurants and bars.


Dusk, though, can become quiet for a small amount of time, and sometimes I think it is the only time of day when I am happy here, when the city is something truly recognizable.

The Lower East Side, for no discernable reason, always reminds me of greater poets and so, when at dusk I wander through quieter streets, their words beat through me as though it were my pulse. I think of O’Hara sometimes. R­­– told me once that O’Hara had a way of invading your sleep. I mostly think of Ginsberg.


Strange now not to think about him, and almost impossible, for I’m under the impression that every street that I walk down, he must have walked down once, and loved. Much in the same way I am convinced that he read—as I read now—Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal and was convinced that the beauty of every metropolis was indebted to that man.


For every street—from crowded Houston, to filthy Broadway, and vibrant Bleecker—reminds me of a poem, or a song. They are constantly the words of others. The absences and ecstasies of the city are not mine, perhaps will never be mine, perhaps can never be. They belong to greater men, though their verses are within me.


Ginsberg speaks of his greater loves of the Lower East Side. He speaks of his greater loves of Lower East Side and often, when I am walking home from work, or during class, or in the middle of a kiss, I feel those words rise up. His greater loves—


I have never been in love, not in any way that has mattered. I often wonder about the men Ginsberg had loved (an innumerable list, perhaps, as O’Hara would say) and I think that I too would love them.


Though, perhaps, this signifies nothing.


My room isn’t near the water. At night, when I go out to walk or smoke, I loop around a few blocks that don’t take me anywhere and I wish I were somewhere other than this. I feel ghostly, often, and non-existent. Like a foreigner, I feel that I’m speaking in a strange tongue.

#OccupyWallStreet

I really have nothing insightful to say right now, but maybe we can start discussing this?

R.E.M.

Please forgive me for taking a few days to get to your posts this week. I had the opportunity to write a little something about the breakup of R.E.M.

R.E.M. - Madison Square Garden, June 19, 2008

For your consideration:
"Leaving New York."