![]() Heading to an event at Nature Morte in the East Village, the lights changed at Delancey Street. They were perfect for standing around looking fabulous in, not so great for walking on broken glass. I wanted to take off the red suede Santini e Domenici high heeled shoes I was wearing. The word Phil/a/delph/ia sounded like an object. “You are so goddamned white, lady! You are the Philadelphia Cream Cheese of whiteness”. Joseph Beuys Dialogue with an Audience, 1981 still by Gianfranco Mantegna. By morning, only some of it would be gone. Every night a galaxy of awareness landed in our heads. Atmospheres, ambitions, attitudes and artistic shifts were a shared beat felt intensely among us. Nights of getting high on histories of our own making began with the physicality of the sound track. Writing about the surging tide of Hip Hop culture in our downtown lives meant writing my body into the heartbeat of the street. We were incapable of being blasé in our efforts to become cool at being ourselves. Chimeras eeked out of the most pitiful strangeness. ![]() Or being drawn into David Hammons’ Bliz’aard Ball Sale at St Mark’s sidewalk market.Įverything mattered under the cover of darkness. Pausing to chat with Taiwan born artist Tehching Hsieh tied to performance artist Linda Montano. Filtering in and out of nights of drinking, dancing and prowling. The Knitting Factory for Sonic Youth and Eric Bogosian’s physical poetry. To The Kitchen on Wooster Street, hearing Glenn Branca’s deafeningly exhilarating 100 Guitar symphonies, Laurie Anderson’s symphonic subversions and sets of Arto Lindsay’s Ambitious Lovers. I’ve had to retrace my steps to relocate it on Avenue A, in 1982 or was it the spring of 1983? Sitting smoking and drinking beer on a ledge outside, watching vivid downtown night lifers passing by, wondering if I was seeing things differently because I was there. The Red Bar is imprinted onto my essential NY time line, though not the details. ![]() ![]() Some nights, every song was a signal, outfitting emotions with canonical beats and intimate prose phrased as anthems. From hard to soft, bass turned way up high, the street’s beat was a constant secret audio stream entering my system like the warmth of a high. Music was a shared pulse overlaying the streets, outpacing physical distance. Shards of brass rising, drum and bass beats booming out of passing cars hitting my skin like solid soda water. Sounds of single words said out loud in sharp claps like gun shots ricocheting through beams of sudden light. Day and night, from intimate vistas scrawled with customized tributes and bold declarations, the streets reverberated with acoustic fragments of rhythm captured and instantly rephrased into synchronistic jump cuts. Of the aural quintessence that entered my veins and switched on a new layer of beats in my head. I’m trying to retrieve a sound picture of my early 1980s years in New York City. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |