Why don't we do it in the road?
Although my last post alluded to it, I never fully explained how I came to be sitting on the floor of the top balcolny of the Beacon Theater for three hours, sobbing helplessly in front of Crosby, Stills and Nash. Because my cousin was coming from Wisconsin the next night, my parents planned ahead and bought monday night tickets for the show, so that we could pick her up from the airport on tuesday. We all came in late after a huge argument and my dad beligerently informed the guy that he and his girlfriend were in our seats. He pulled all four of us into the two vacant seats left and obnoxiously pulled out a blue LED light that the whole audience could see and brandished our tickets. "Dude," the guy snorted, "those tickets are for tomorrow night." Nice planning, dad. I didn't hear any of this, though, because I was terrified of the height, and once the next song started I forgot even the height and closed my eyes to listen.
Soon my parents left, huffily nursing their wounded prides. Renata and I, after some pleading, were allowed to stay, but we were afraid to go to another balcolny, and there were no more empty seats, so we sat on the floor. The show was amazing. We subwayed home happily and went to sleep with music in our ears.
The next day DaSilva came over and called up minutes before Domino's did. "Hang on a minute, let me put some pants on and buzz you in," I said. I went to the lobby to pick him up in my tapioca-stained men's pants and tank top, greasy hair and all. "Barefooted hippie," he grinned, and we shared a lovely day on St. Mark's and everywhere else and finally bussed home when the heat became overbearing. I finished off a roll of film and put a dent in my next one, and my picture-taking escapades ranged from lying on the sidewalk to take a picture of a mosaic-covered lamp post to making Alex sit on a vacant motorcycle to add a "human element." Once I lay on my back on the hood of a car to photograph a store front from the right distance and then realized that someone was in the car, glaring at me. I laughed.
Harry and I had a lovely dinner after Alex left, and when I got home Alecia (the aforementioned cousin) was already there. Although my parents had been able to get new and usable tickets for the same show that night, I'd decided that it couldn't possibly measure up to the previous night's experience, and that I wanted to see Harry anyway, so my dad and Renata went and sold the extra tickets for cover price while my mom picked Alicia up from the airport.
Alecia is lovely and just like my sister, except six months younger, Wisconsinese, and a little less intellectual. They've been great friends since they were babies and they never stop laughing when they're together. We've shown her a significant portion of the city of the last few days, the Village included, and they've deprived me of a significant amount of sleep, which frankly pisses me off, because I get tired and I don't like having dad's blue LED light flashed in and out of my eyes for an hour when I should be sleeping.
I can't get over William Goyen. I read two more of his stories and I can't stop thinking about them. Goyen's words echo in my head. When I read him I realize why I never felt like I belonged anywhere: I belong to stories like these. Certain songs, certain novels, certain stories understand me the way no human ever could, even when they treat topics so alien to my life that I have to google them to understand what he's talking about. So many things move me--how could I ever be bored? There's so much voice, so much emotion and power in his stories. I'll never tire of them.
And when my dad won't read more than two pages of Uncle Wiggly in Conneticut and my mom has decided that she "doesn't like Salinger," I want to cry.
Instead, I take my sister and my cousin to a French bakery and have my watches fixed and buy a pair of plaid converse for $15 only to discover that they're not Cons at all and play Beatles songs (hence the title) and look up their origins in A Hard Day's Write: Paul was in India and saw two monkeys copulating shamelessly in the middle of the road.
And he knew and I know that there's something beautiful about that.
Soon my parents left, huffily nursing their wounded prides. Renata and I, after some pleading, were allowed to stay, but we were afraid to go to another balcolny, and there were no more empty seats, so we sat on the floor. The show was amazing. We subwayed home happily and went to sleep with music in our ears.
The next day DaSilva came over and called up minutes before Domino's did. "Hang on a minute, let me put some pants on and buzz you in," I said. I went to the lobby to pick him up in my tapioca-stained men's pants and tank top, greasy hair and all. "Barefooted hippie," he grinned, and we shared a lovely day on St. Mark's and everywhere else and finally bussed home when the heat became overbearing. I finished off a roll of film and put a dent in my next one, and my picture-taking escapades ranged from lying on the sidewalk to take a picture of a mosaic-covered lamp post to making Alex sit on a vacant motorcycle to add a "human element." Once I lay on my back on the hood of a car to photograph a store front from the right distance and then realized that someone was in the car, glaring at me. I laughed.
Harry and I had a lovely dinner after Alex left, and when I got home Alecia (the aforementioned cousin) was already there. Although my parents had been able to get new and usable tickets for the same show that night, I'd decided that it couldn't possibly measure up to the previous night's experience, and that I wanted to see Harry anyway, so my dad and Renata went and sold the extra tickets for cover price while my mom picked Alicia up from the airport.
Alecia is lovely and just like my sister, except six months younger, Wisconsinese, and a little less intellectual. They've been great friends since they were babies and they never stop laughing when they're together. We've shown her a significant portion of the city of the last few days, the Village included, and they've deprived me of a significant amount of sleep, which frankly pisses me off, because I get tired and I don't like having dad's blue LED light flashed in and out of my eyes for an hour when I should be sleeping.
I can't get over William Goyen. I read two more of his stories and I can't stop thinking about them. Goyen's words echo in my head. When I read him I realize why I never felt like I belonged anywhere: I belong to stories like these. Certain songs, certain novels, certain stories understand me the way no human ever could, even when they treat topics so alien to my life that I have to google them to understand what he's talking about. So many things move me--how could I ever be bored? There's so much voice, so much emotion and power in his stories. I'll never tire of them.
And when my dad won't read more than two pages of Uncle Wiggly in Conneticut and my mom has decided that she "doesn't like Salinger," I want to cry.
Instead, I take my sister and my cousin to a French bakery and have my watches fixed and buy a pair of plaid converse for $15 only to discover that they're not Cons at all and play Beatles songs (hence the title) and look up their origins in A Hard Day's Write: Paul was in India and saw two monkeys copulating shamelessly in the middle of the road.
And he knew and I know that there's something beautiful about that.
posted by VVM at 9:09 AM
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