Belles Lettres

"The Holy Longing"

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,

because the mass man will mock it right away.

I praise what is truly alive,

what longs to be burned to death.

In the calm water of the love-nights,

where you were begotten, where you have begotten,

a strange feeling comes over you,

when you see the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught in the obsession with darkness,

and a desire for higher love-making sweeps you upward.

Distance does not make you falter.

Now, arriving in magic, flying,

and finally, insane for the light,

you are the butterfly and you are gone.

And so long as you haven't experienced this: to die and so to grow,

you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.

"One day with the top down is better than a lifetime in a box!"

Art Brut

A friend, while passing the time by google image searching "Memphis rap," stumbled upon this moving piece. 

A Song For You

Theater Games

The What

Clifford "Tip" "T.I." Harris is tops for me. I loved him from his first hit single, the sort of wacky (near wack) "Rubberband Man." And I know that we've mentioned our L.O.V.E. for Chris Robinson's film ATL, in which he played right-side-of-the-law dreamboat Rashad in 2006 (directly after viewing in the theater, Pillow and I went on a shopping tear for velour and gold). The single released concurrently, "What You Know," was a great success of a song that presented a sound befitting the kingly Southern rapper, all trumpets and Baroque ease and bouncing Impalas. I recollect a televised performance from that moment; lean, pretty T.I. came on stage in an oversized black hoodie, the back of which was encrusted with crystals that spelled out the phrase "GRAND HUSTLE" (the name of his Atlanta-based record label). I wanted so badly to steal it from him (and have all of the thrills and closeness that the act implies). Admittedly, I ignored whole albums, aware of him only through his own and others' singles and media (there was a particularly serious Federal case to do with arms dealing).

On my recent trip back South, I noted that Pillow was listening to his most recent album, Paper Trail, released this past Fall. I was so impressed with its full measure, finding each track an uplifting standout. I have since bought a copy myself and have only become more rhapsodic in the process. The first single, "No Matter What" (produced by my beloved Danja), and his collaboration with Justin Timberlake, "Dead and Gone," have proven to be favorites (I'm also pretty nuts about his hit with Rihanna, which samples "Dragostea din tei," a warmly remembered Romanian dance hit of 2004), but, as I said, I am enamored of the whole. It sounds so damn good; it's rich and layered and playful. Paper Trail is distinctly Southern, displaying that aforementioned "Baroque ease," generous and wise noise.

Tip's rhymes are almost exclusively about money, about work, making money without shame. One might imagine that, in these economic environs, a record about money-making would be sour-making. But T.I. builds a perfect balance. Half of the tracks address hard work; they are supremely motivational tunes about individuality and faith and discipline. The other half are wry, bubbly club-tableaux, songs of the spoils of work; these serve to transport us, like a Fred and Ginger movie, a lark about International hotel living for dark, down 1933. There is something really transportative, Psychedelic even, about the House-meets-Hip-hop production of recent years. I have gotten into the habit of mistakenly calling this album Paper Trails. The plural visually describes the glittery, blissed out sensation of these sorts of songs, rap music passed through "The Doors of Perception." Evidently, the title refers to (among other things) the process of writing lyrics on paper, a sweet, rootsy habit that T.I. has returned to.

All in all, I've found a swell, addictive album of push and promise and handsome swagger. And if a record is read as a document of the recording of a record, then this one illustrates a group of people having a fabulous time (read: his collaboration with Ludacris, "On Top of the World"). I'm not so interested in crowning one king of Southern Hip-hop (though many seem to be, including him). T.I is nothing like the others; he's slicker than my Memphis locals, crisper than anything out of Houston, calm when Lil' Wayne is manic, sexy when Ludacris is silly. But his product and accent are undeniably of the region and, in his his words, "divine."

Up With People

In a purchasing rut/freeze, I still need to affect change in my apartment. So I will buy a couple of yellow sawhorses and some packs of Rit dye. I am not wildly crafty, not a brilliant builder, but I can certainly prop planks. And, personally, I love the inconsistent, drippy, at-home-disaster look of a dress or curtains given a Rit bath.

Chinese Democracy

"I'm addicted to proms!"

- Taylor Swift in the spring issue of Your Prom magazine

Founding Fathers: Buffy Summers, She Saved the World. A Lot.

There's been a lot of talk of 2005 as of late, and it's got me thinking about how I survived that fever dream of a year. After I meditate on it, my endurance can be chalked up to four factors: Alpha, Able, Lil' Kim, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

As a small-but-scrappy, slightly damaged blonde with violent tendencies who had fancied myself invincible and had it all blow up in my face, I was thrilled at the idea of seeing someone like me (the archetype of the fragile damsel) who was pretty much invincible. Buffy Summers could roam the streets at night alone, crawl through sewers, stop Armageddon, travel to alternate dimensions, drown, get stabbed, and was constantly saving the dudes' asses. But how Buffy really won me over was that she was not, in fact, bulletproof. She was victim to various aches and pains due to an absentee father, lovers who viciously turned on her, the loss of her mother, and her well-meaning but selfish friends who constantly (albeit unconsciously) put their need for her strength and leadership over her own well-being.

I learned a lot of valuable lessons from good ole B, but, in the end, the most important thing she taught me was that sometimes you just need to FUCKING DEAL. You get killed by a thousand year old vampire on prom night? You're boyfriend turns evil? He tries to torture and kill you? You die, finally find a little peace and quiet, and your clueless friends bring you back to life? Wash the blood out of your dress, pick the leaves out of your hair, and claw your way out of your own grave; because the world's sure as hell not going to save itself.

Unfortunately YouTube is awash with fan videos, but no actual clips. So head over to the WB's website to catch a few episodes from the first season.

Look Away Look Away

I was really unreasonable about the Whitney's Eggleston retrospective (ultimately, a fine show). I was critical of each subset of images, felt each gesture on the part of curators signalled a kind of misinformed Dixie Orientalism. The photographs themselves, the artist (if not the man) are so important to me, the subjects are so much of my own home and experience, that I am intolerant of any meddling "outsiders." I call Memphis an Orient all of the live long day, but, for some reason, I get suspicious when non-Memphian others jump on the bandwagon.

Originally, I became prickly when I read the catalogue. The first essay, written by some German or other, refers to Egg's Delta seat of Sumner, Mississippi as a town of "the Bayou." There are bayous in Mississippi, but Sumner is part of what we call the Delta. The Bayou (note the capital letters) describes a region at the base of the river, primarily Louisiana. As I type this, I find that it sounds sort of petty, but it's a blaring mistake, a bit like treating contemporary Austria and Hungary interchangeably. I took it as a sign that the builders of this show knew little of where they spoke. The author, with the simple misuse of a moniker, errantly summons so much foolish Hollywood camp--Spanish moss, swamp things, voodoo, bad accents.

Of course, there are many so-called "outsiders" who have a gift for the Southern in text, in song, in film, in conversation and kindness. And there are "outsiders" who get it wrong, but with only the best intentions and brilliant results. Such a one is Kurt Weill. "The Alabama Song" from Bertold Brecht's 1927 songspiel, Mahagonny, revels in the exoticism of the placename, four syllables of Amercan Indians and jazz and whatever else these Weimar socialists imagined. Enjoy this ode on the great "Asia" of these United States (and Lotte too)--

Folk Art for Thursday

I cannot distill a single image from this gallery. You must view them ALL. And please, anyone more versed in Freudian thought than myself (that's you, PMC) let me know what you think. I'm strapped and baffled.

Timetables

Last night, between 6:20 and 7:00 I needed to kill some time. I was westward ho on 23rd imagining that I would land in Home Depot (Lord knows why) when I came upon the entrance to the NR. Without a thought, I scurried underground and hopped on an Uptown and Queens-bound train. I felt naughty. And how! Riding along with no business or obligation. no destination. the wrong train. the incorrect train. I was a fraud passenger, a secret interloper. I was there simply to observe the sound, the sensation, the faces of the Queens-bound (being so accustomed to the Brooklyn-bound . . . ), and listen to Rosanne Cash.  

In the warm months, when I need to waste an hour or adjust my back or recover from my various complaints, I find a spot of green and sun in a park to recline on. Winter is tough for me. But now I know of something invigorating (if not quite as blissful or physically curative) to do out of time and weather. Imagine that.

A Song For You

Also for this mess of winterishness: a grey, pretty, hibernating tune, a bit of haze and 1973 (a year I've always felt good about).

Overpopulism

Mythology!

Bless my soul! Lil' Wayne may not be a new artist (I'm talking to you crazy National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences), but this past year's Tha Carter III is clearly a benchmark record. This track, besides featuring a verse by Mr. President Jay-Z, presents us with hubris-speech befitting a volume of Edith Hamilton.

The Best Thing Going (For Tuesday)

Woop! There it is.

Cartoons

"Low" Countries

I write this, in part, to put to bed some lingering frustrations over the rapid L.A.-ification of Manhattan. Mostly, I want to talk about the "Low" in "High and Low." It's pretty clear what we mean when we say "High"--museums and poems and operas and such. But the ambiguous "Low" is the real driving force here, the texture and spice, the questing (that's another meaning of "High and Low") humour that completes the collage. It is not simply the mainstream information that we impart, the television and music and celebrity schlock. "Low" is where we come from. "Low" is Memphis. "Low," or rather, "High and Low" used to be Manhattan. Not so long ago, in the early and middle aughts, we inhabited that island of Dutch settlers, strings of perfect summers, delicious messes, such trips, such high-flying meals. We were sometimes in Brooklyn, but most nights were for Manahatta. The Lower East Side still felt (dare I say it) gritty and occasionally glitzy (in the most artful way). I was young and starry and in love with someone who was, in Velvets' parlance, "in love with the scene." I had no idea that we were living in twilight days, that everything would soon change and that my love and his cronies would be partially responsible.

Here's an important story: one night, almost by accident, I ended up at Bungalow 8, the Chelsea club that catered most specifically to Hollywood and P.R. and stuff, a club that had been featured on an episode of Sex and the City (if that gives you some notion of its various expense and uncoolness). I found the whole experience laughable. I felt like some princess emissary of the "Low," dressed carelessly, feeling much further from my friends and lover than I actually was (they were at the Passerby, some ten blocks south). The DJ played a manic mess of radio hits, cutting each one short at the minute mark. There were hideous, greasy financial types (they NEVER came around my haunts) throwing dollar bills at gyrating MILFs and Russians. I picked the money up off of the floor and tucked it into my jeans. On the banquette beside us, a sunny Kirsten Dunst and sour Jake Gyllenhaal (clearly a bad match). I recall feeling terribly sorry for her. She was lovely and (shallow as it sounds) dressed much more like me than like those MILFs and Russians. I thought, "Poor thing, she has no idea where to go. She is so programmed with this silly, cosseted Hollywood nightlife stuff of bottles and doors that she hardly knows of the real fun and freedom of life Downtown. If she wanted to come our way, we wouldn't hassle her or gawk, and she could be, you know, authentic by association . . ." Where I came from, there were no lines, lists, or doormen. The system was democratic--if one knew where to go, one was assured a place at that unmarked table. We didn't need some monitor outdoors to assure us that we were hip. Our table seated rich and poor, young and old, known and unknown, any old stranger. The set-up was positively romantic.

Not long after I left the love and scene and city of the above descriptions (for a respite in Memphis), he and his dear friends opened up the Beatrice Inn, a West Village club with a strict door policy and (to this day) a constant rotation of young starlets present—Kirsten (no longer lost at Bungalow) and Lindsay and Mary-Kate. I have not been. I can't quite stomach it. But in this new, unfamiliar Manahatta, the cruel, moneyed exclusivity of Beatrice is welcome relief from the loads of finance and Eurotrash and Greek Row and television star assholes who frequent the Lower East Side and East Village. Worse-er still, Gavin Brown's Passerby on 15th Street, America's most special hole-in-the-wall discotheque, our clubhouse and social sculpture, our school for scandal, closed last year. And why not? All people of taste realize that Manhattan nightlife is a bad, bad business these days. On that silly night at Bungalow, I never could have guessed that Kirsten Dunst would one day chase me out of my lair. Thankfully, I don't want to live in that lair anymore, old or new. I've ceased to be that scrappy nineteen year old with a scenester boyfriend, a fount of energy and an ugly ego (read: habit for drugs). And Manhattan, up and down, has become a graveyard for cultural authenticity, a blank frontier for dizzy, wealthy transplants, a den of closed doors and limitations and malls, a Los Angeles. This did not happen of a moment; it has long been in the works (since the 80s I suppose, or 1870? . . . who can tell). But now, for the first time, it seems that there is no recourse, no fight to keep the island viable for the "Low." (It is still, however, most most viable for the "High"—the exterior of Lincoln Center alone, never mind the hundreds of brilliant performances within.)

MTV's new "reality" vehicle The City with its thin middle school lies, its pose of Uptown and Downtown as Bloods and Crips is the ultimate jumping of the hep-titude shark. Nowadays, Uptown and Downtown are simply cardinal descriptors. The meaningful divide is the East River; the ends of the spectrum are Brooklyn and Manhattan, and Brooklyn is my home. BK is less capable of the stellar, sewery "Lows" of the Manhattan that was (though Bushwick has put in its bid). Instead, we foster a sweet, romantic, "true to your school" neighborhood ethos with locavore restaurants and beer gardens and bourbon bars and curated junk shops. When combined with real houses and beaches and the actual, longstanding chops of a complex, multi-ethnic working class city-over-the-bridge, the whole picture of Brooklyn becomes a pretty fascinating one. It is the home for artists that Manhattan (for obvious economic reasons) cannot be anymore (though grubtastic, nearly-in-Brooklyn Chinatown has put in its bid). (Oh—and, we may soon be voting Williamsburg off of the non-island despite some stellar residents, restaurants, etc., because Peaches Geldoff lives there in some tacky condo.) In Brooklyn, I am at home because I see the "Low," authentic, real, and unstudied around me all of the time, and the inauthentic, studied gentrified stuff has its heart in the right place. I'm at home in Brooklyn because I'm older and healthier than I was before, and I like "home" more than the endless, rough abroadness of my old Manhattan life. Here it's cozy and a little removed and I don't (outside of this achingly long post) need to worry my little head about who has conquered any sort of scene. I am by no means a historian of all this. Those older than me would give a far wiser account of these shifts. I only know the little that I know, and I have not sought much new information.

Have I made "Low" any clearer? I hope so. Maybe I just ought to have attached some pictures of Brooklyn and Memphis, of the uncommon beauty I find here and there. I was back in Memphis last week. On Friday afternoon, Pillow and I stopped by our favorite bar, The Buccaneer, and slipped into a massive vinyl booth that we like to call our office. The Bucc' has been around since the mid-sixties, a gem of an American dive with an unchanged, demi-nautical interior. It smells rather off, and as we sat sipping our bourbon and something-like-ginger-ales, small flies droned around us. The Ole' Miss game was on a television in the opposite corner, and a group of rough-about-the-edges good ole' boys and girls of a certain generation (original regulars) had gathered to watch it. At one point, I went to the bathroom. I closed and locked the door. I sat on the toilet and read a little bit of familiar graffiti about familiar people. I glanced up at the beams on the ceiling. I began to cry, happily and just a little. Sitting on the toilet at the Buccaneer felt like "Low" and home in the most unimpeachable way. And I would never get "High" without it.

Lastly (I promise), a song that is absolutely "Low" and absolutely smart (in what is, I believe, an unintentionally genius non-video video format):

Folk Art for Monday

This mugshot of Erin Caffey of Alba, Texas, a teenage girl prison-bound for plotting the murders of her mother and young brothers (at the hands of an ubiquitous, sleazy, older boyfriend), is the most incisive portrait I've seen in some time.

Verses

I feel a bit criminal excluding most of the poem; but here are the last four lines, because they are the finest—

excerpt from Song (1951)

Frank O'hara

I suppose I'll walk back West.

But for now I'm gone forever!

the city's hung with flashlights!

the Ferry's unbuttoning its vest!

Never Change

It would really break my heart to see the New Jersey Transit emblem go the way of the Duane Reade emblem of my last post.

For Shame

These new, cheap, hungry Duane Reade graphics are killing me softly. The original logo was perfectly great, bright, direct, like American Sportswear (or our beloved A&P). A plague . . . 

Up with People

On January 16th, I will buy a ticket for to see Notorious. Petrova got wind of the thing ages ago, when she came across the set in New York. She asked a P.A. what scene they were filming; he replied, "the first time they hear 'Juicy' in the club." The phrase, "the first time they hear 'Juicy' in the club" has been a touchstone for me ever since, a call for excellence. I expect it to be some amalgam of Scarface, Showgirls (Oh Kim, I love your nails. . .), Poetic Justice, and Choices II. Even the preview gets me palpitating . . .

Folk Art Movement for Post-Christmas

"What's Wrong with Vogue?"—I'll tell you.

This article from today's Times asks that very question, and, as an answer, mentions staleness and dull socials. The author stands up for Anna Wintour (defending her against silly rumors), which I dig, but no solution is offered to right said "wrongness."

I've read Vogue as long as I can remember. Certain issues from the early and mid-nineties are forever fixed in my brain. It is not so interesting as it was then (though back then, in terms of "interest," we also had Liz Tilberis's superior, cerebral Harper's Bazaar), nor am I as receptive to its particular brand of information. But Vogue still has standards and history on its side. It needs no new editor, no massive redesign. It needs a dose of nonreality. Socials are dull. Actresses are not particularly stylish. Stylists are not particularly smart. Disney teen kulture is the cashiest cash cow on the block, its fictional high school students ruling the rugged wasteland. This real horizon is dim and doomy. I say that Vogue ought to circumvent these ugly truths, and be transportative, unreal, other, theatrical, mysterious. Now, more than ever, we need Vogue to project something sublime, to allow us to travel. Maybe they could weave stories, instead of deifying boring demi-celebrities. Maybe they could publish something a bit more inspiring than a long, expensive, constipated advertisement (peppered with good articles). Maybe they could serialize novels and hire more artists and document travels to places other than spas . . . or maybe fashion magazines are dull by nature, a prissy, limited unrevivable medium. 

Love in this Club

The A&P staff rang in 2009 in the correctest way—with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot Rosé and a round of harmonic sighing. I have never experienced a New Year's Eve in which revellers expressed such aggression against the passing year, as the countdown started there were cries of "Fuck you, 2008!" Maybe this extreme urgency for change (we also witnessed it leading up to the general election) is healthy and maybe it's not. We chose to remain apathetic, and had a pretty grand time. 

I'm OK. You're OK.

"She is literally the Polaroid of perfection!"—perhaps the deepest, most puzzling lyrical description down our way. 

Up with People

I have a confession. In some "foggy London Towne" of early 2008, I told Pillow that I thought it would be "like really fun" to slip into another Great Depression ( . . . or maybe I said "like really sexy"). Oy. Clearly I was mistaken. Newsflash!—poverty is B-L-E-A-K. And Christmas was especially dismal. I tried to lighten up with posts about fictional consumption, fantastic, impossible gifts. 

In 2009, I'm going to document actual consumption, the spoils of the depressed. 

To begin, I will buy some disposable cameras. I love the exchange implied by the object. I love the objecthood of the camera, of the printed pictures one receives in return for it. Also (and this is really naughty), I kind of want to celebrate disposability just to be contrary, just to remark old-fashioned, piggy, 20th century American sloth and waste.

Oh Formats!

I am not a particular fan of the top-ten list. I watch Letterman for the double-breasted suits and passive aggression. I read Artforum for the ads (or not really at all). I simply ignore the Times's end-of-term lists, because they involve extreme predictability and the possible misuse of the words hipster, fedora, and Downtown (found throughout the fluff of the Papier of Record). All the same—my-oh-my—I feel the need, in the gloaming of '08, to make a list of favorite somethings, if only to remind myself that at least ten good things happened this year.

10. The Snuggie—The blanket with sleeves!TM 

9. Spicy Ripped Beef Soup with Glass Noodles at Kunjip Korean BBQ on 32nd Street. 

8./7.5/7.25. In Film: The Duchess (here, a scene from a ghostly, wonderful Korean bootleg). Amanda Foreman's biography of the Duchess of Devonshire is a favorite, and, before viewing it, I was mighty skeptical of the film adaptation, which stars one tremendously overexposed English Rose. It is, in fact, transportative and utterly feeling. Ms. Knightley's performance is magnificent, and I'm afraid I can't complain about her Chanel campaigns and possible eating disorder any longer (which is cool, because bitching about actresses is so very 2008). Reprise, or, more specifically, the beautiful Scandos of Reprise. And Film Forum's October run of Max Ophul's Lola Montez, the best moving photograph in all of the land and a much needed dose of 1848 cum 1955.

7. The James Brown estate viewing and auction at Christie's.

6. Leona Lewis's "Bleeding Love" and Usher's "Love in This Club," two of the best pop singles of the year, one, a pretty ballad with an unexpectedly evocative, difficult chorus, the other, a shallow, smarmy ballad with a sweet, peace and people-loving subtext. 

5. Asa Ames: Occupation Sculpturing, the small, bewitching show of twelve wooden sculptures sat in state in a dimmed, black gallery at The American Folk Art Museum through the summer, a trusty friend that bore much revisiting. 

4. A.M. in New York: Live with Regis and Kelly, The Tyra Banks Show, The View.

3. Ditmas Park

2. Hillary Clinton

1. Barack Obama 

And this didn't even cover it. I could have mentioned The Olympics or The Spitzer Scandale or Memphis Basketball or the Russian and Turkish Baths on E. 10th Street or fresh sage or dried strawberries or Mad Men (good to know).

Come and Get Your Love: Hombres de los 70s

Tanned, chiseled, and a little shaggy—All-American Olympian Bruce Jenner beats Michael "butterface" Phelps any damn day.