Inner City Pressure

Inner city life.
Inner city pressure.
The concrete world is starting to get ya.
The city is alive, the city is expanding.
Living in the city can be demanding.
You pawned everything, everything you owned.
Your tooth brush jar and a camera phone.
You don't know where you're going.
You cross the street, you don't know why you did.
You walk back across the street.

You don't measure up to the expectation.
When you're unemployed, there's no vacation.
No one cares, no one sympathizes.
You just stay home and play synthesizers.

Flight of the Conchords, "Inner City Pressure"



Well, almost two weeks in now. There's been a lot going on. Dave is here (hooray!) and Meaghan decided to move out in July, which means that the mid-to-long term apartment search now begins in earnest. I'm settling in at McKibbin too, though, and if things don't work out otherwise I would be quite happy to stay there through July. Still no luck on the job front, but I've got a job application in as a sign designer at Whole Foods that I feel good about. I need to find something soon, though. Sending out so many applications with no response amplifies my own tendency to self-criticize. This is by and large a good thing; it drives and motivates me. All the same, it can be draining as well, and it would really help my state of mind to get some good news soon.

I took the weekend off in Connecticut with Susanna. I enjoyed being cooked for again and a temporary escape from the urban claustrophobia that can set in here. I love the stimulation of the constant visual assault of Manhattan and the chaos of McKibbin and Bushwick, but it was nice to see a lot of trees together in one place again. Susanna's mother is a wonderful person as well, and it was good to remember what family is like after total immersion in separation thereof.

It was a stressful weekend in some ways too, though; being a guest demands a certain amount of performance. One of the better feelings I've felt in New York so far was coming back to McKibbin and feeling a sense of relief at being home. Eric did a nice job cleaning the place up and reorganizing while I was gone and I was glad to return, especially since I came back to a nicer place than the one I left.

One of the things I like about myself is how instantly I adapt to new environments. This has only been my life for twelve days, which feels impossible. It was strange to have Dave, Meaghan, and Carolyn here for the weekend because it reminded me that this is still all brand new.

Pilgrimages

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages),
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages.

-Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

A few thoughts on pilgrimages, in the wake of a holy journey to IKEA by train and tram.

I need sheets for the air mattress and a pillow; sleeping in a sleeping bag with my head on a pile of clothes has lost its charm. My grasp of Brooklyn geography is limited at best (though steadily expanding). The only vendor I know of of such things is the Manhattan K-Mart in the Astor Place Subway where I bought the tent and air mattress in the first place.

But lo! After finding common ground with new friend and fashion designer Ashley over Dieter Rams and the Bauhaus, Ashley mentions that she needs to run out to IKEA.

Sweet Jesus.

Sorry, K-Mart. You're no competitor for the high cathedral of affordable modern design. Even if it is just bedsheets.

I meet up with Ashley in Brooklyn Heights the following day after running the gauntlet of subway closures (2,3 and C not running, A only running in one direction and not making all stops, G spotty). We take a walk down to Borough Hall to catch the free shuttle that IKEA runs and stand in line dutifully with our fellow pilgrims. The Brooklyn IKEA, guarding the water's edge, also runs a water taxi to Manhattan. Aesthetes city-wide flock to its cavernous warehouse bearing little more than their hopes, dreams, and credit cards and leave with the finest in Swedish-engineered modular furniture to bring the cult of beauty into the slouching world one primary-colored end table at a time.

There is a mechanical bustle of pure efficiency. People circle through the cafeteria lines with clockwork hum. Ideal homes are presented every 20 feet. Every product on the showroom floor has a number corresponding to a berth in the neat aisles a floor below. Everything is consistently designed, from directional signs to lampshades to throw rugs to bookshelves to batteries to stuffed animals to even, yes, bedsheets. IKEA is what a universe brought about by Intelligent Design might actually look like.

Which, I think, it why it takes on the element of religion for me. IKEA creates a universe within its walls that is idealized and sells that ideal to everyone who walks through its doors. It's not about trendy furniture or paper globe lights, really. It's about stepping into a store for an hour and imagining a more beautiful world of peace and harmony.

One may not live in this IKEAn world of beauty forever, though. (Seriously. They'll kick you out by 8:45, the beckoning bedroom displays notwithstanding.) Now we must take what we have seen and felt and known and make the world a better place.

This is the value of a pilgrimage in general, whether to IKEA or Brooklyn or Canterbury. There's always value in exploring the aesthetic possibilities of a more beautiful world.

Greetings from the Moon

There's probably a struggle in the soul of every person my age between adventure and safety, danger and comfort, the unknown and the comfortable, abroad and at home. Exactly how you think about the poles of the dichotomy really depends on the names you give to them.



To all the places and people I love: I miss you. Even as I make a new place to come home to here, I haven't forgotten where I came from.

Rooftop

Last night, Susanna came over to McKibbin to practice music, and when things got too loud in the common area, we scaled the grimy stairwell to the roof. The roof is one of the best parts of McKibbin. You push the door out, feel the rush of warm summer air into the dark stairwell, and there you stand—six stories up, surrounded by the lights of Brooklyn and Manhattan pulsing through the heat. The Empire State building, the skyscrapers of the financial district, and the warm glow of downtown New York are background to the tower apartments and cascading sprawl of Brooklyn. Sounds of tires, horns, and distant sirens rise and fall in slow, even breaths. The city is massive, and it teems from every pore, every nook and cranny.

There a sharp hiss and upward arc of magnesium spark as someone on the roof next door lights a firework. It bursts overhead with a hollow thud and casts a red glow with its branching arms. For the first time since Greece, I am once more wrapped in the bosom of a poetic universe. It's intimidating, unmanageably large, indifferent to me even as it revolves slowly around me. I am both lost and found, dissolving and absorbing.

You stand on stage and sing out into the city, to an audience of none.

Typical Craigslist Job Posting

DESIGN INTERN NEEDED!!!

Date: 2010-06-03, 1:14PM EDT
Reply to: deaftothemuse@craigslist.org

We are looking for a young, OUTSIDE THE BOX designer with FRESH DESIGNS. NO LESS THAN FIVE YEARS WORK EXPERIENCE. Experience in film production, fashion industry, viral marketing, and social media a huge plus. Chinese and English bilingual preferred.

The ideal candidate will be proficient in: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Quark Xpress, Flash, Dreamweaver, Final Cut Pro, AfterEffects, Fireworks, Solidworks, HTML/CSS, pHp, SQL, and Java. Experience in print media, brochure design, web media, ad banners, e-mail promotions, and video post-production a must.

This internship is 9am-7pm Monday-Friday. It is an unpaid internship but you will get valuable portfolio pieces!!!!

Submit resume, cover letter, and samples of your work.

Good Times

I have a bit of an obsession with numbers and number patterns. Every gas total I've pumped in the last three years has been a palindrome, for example. I used to try to hit whole numbers, but when I started paying with a card, a new universe of opportunities unfolded. $25.54, $5.55, $10.01—they always seemed more stable than say, $15.72, or even $20.00, which just has all these zeros hanging off the end of it.

Now I take the subway, though, and I'm not pumping gas. Fortunately, I'm also a compulsive time checker, which is lo and behold a highly compatible neuroticism. Here follows a list of times of note:

Obviously, palindromes:
1:01, 1:11, 1:21, 1:31, 1:41, 1:51
2:02, 2:12, 2:22, 2:32, 2:42, 2:52
3:03, etc.

etc. down though 9:59.

Things get more complicated in the double digits, because there's one more number to palindromize(?). 10:01, 11:11(!), and 12:21 are pretty much your only options. UNLESS you resort to military time, in which case you pick up 20:02, 21:12, 22:22(!), and 23:32. This even opens three new possibilities (13:31, 14:41, 15:51) that transform two previously average-seeming times (2:41 PM, 3:51 PM) into something quite special indeed. BUT even more amazing, one time (1:31 PM/ 13:31) is a palindrome in BOTH military time and regular time. Amazing.

Also, sequences are great: 1:23, 2:34, 3:45, 4:56, and of course the one that even normal people probably take note of, 12:34. 12:48 is a geometric sequence, as are 1:24, 2:48, and 1:39. Some have reverses as well: 3:21, 4:32, 5:43, 6:54, 4:21, 8:42, and 9:31.

22:44 also seems worth pointing out, as do 11:22 and 22:11. 11:23 represents the first 4 numbers of the Fibonacci Sequence, and 16:18 is the golden mean, though the decimal place is off. 3:14 is Pi. There are quite a few numbers that are primes, of course, but that never really seemed special enough to me. Doubles are nice too: 10:10, 11:11 (already noted), and 12:12.

Many of these also happen twice a day (AM/PM), which makes 2:22 seem extra special.

Accounting for the times that occur twice, there are 2(54+24)+10 times I like every day, which comes out to 166. There are 1440 minutes in a day. This means on average there's a time with some kind of mathematic pattern once every 9 minutes or so.

This is definitely not important, and I can't and won't try to convince you that it is. I guess all I'm saying is that there are always things to notice. Which, it seems, may be why I'm always so distracted.

Arrival

SIng, O Muse, of a man and a bag. A bag with a broken wheel, no less, which you can be damn sure made navigating the subway system a nightmare of high-friction surfaces. After two days on the road w/ Adam (study abroad roommate and friend) from Chicago to Philadelphia, followed by a two-hour jog on the Bolt Bus to Penn Station, I'm literally dragging my life down escalators—and my life, apparently, is in no mood to move. About 60% percent of my luggage is musical equipment, and right now it feels like 80% of net weight. The existential crisis presented by do-I-bring-acoustic-or-electric-guitar was resolved by: both. The truth, as usual, lies not in either extreme but somewhere in the middle.

Regret sets in, though, mid-turnstile. Logistic challenges present themselves left and right. The triumphant step and confident stride of the anticipated cinematic montage of my arrival has been replaced with a somewhat less-heroic reality of trudging backward down Brooklyn streets dragging my suitcase, trying to balance my perilously-duct-taped bookbag on top as the sidewalk grinds through my luggage.

Elisia mercifully rang up one of the future loftmates to lend me a hand once I got out to Bushwick and things started going more smoothly. Before long, we reached the McKibbin loft, my residence for the next month. Outside the front door, a mountain of discarded furniture and books is being picked over by young-artist looking types sizing up the relative merits of different particle board shelving units. I.e. This one has a weird stain, but the shelves are all intact, whereas that one may have actually been thrown out the window. Besides the shelving, there's an a array of beat up but actually quite well-selected literature, frisbees, t-shirts, and pregnant black garbage bags that do not invite further inquiry. The few clothes hangers lying about are being scooped up with the casual deliberation of choosing apples at the supermarket. The mood is festive.

The neighborhood is what I'll elect to call "industrial-chic". McKibbin itself, in terms of aesthetic and aroma, is something like an unfinished basement, though not unpleasantly so. I'm not sure how many people live in the building, but it's a lot. The same goes for our loft. There's a christmas-tree-light-lit practice space in the basement with a drum kit, amps, guitars, a PA, and a neatly swept pile of cigarette butts and dirt from the last show they threw in the space. The view from the roof (6-ish floors?) is fantastic. Manhattan beckons.

I answer the call later, making a trip down to the Kmart south of Union Square to pick up a couple things. It's 10 PMish but the subway bustles. A bleach-blond girl in ray bans covers "Fake Plastic Trees." At Kmart I pick up a cheap tent and air mattress and head back to Mckibbin to set up camp. Elisia and I set up the tent and I hang my clothes up on a stepladder.

At around midnight I hit up a local bar for a couple drinks with two of my new loftmates and unwind. The bartender pours our drinks strong, which I appreciate.

Around 1:30 (in memoriam, everyone) I head back to the loft. As I settle into the sleeping bag, I gaze upward through my tent's advertised "Night Sky Viewing Mesh!" Never has the night sky seemed more beautiful.