Glorification

If you haven't been thinking about Michael Jackson, you haven't been outside in the last week and a half. Without a television or regular newspaper subscription I've avoided a vast majority of the coverage, or what Jon Stewart calls "obitutainment" - the fine media art of obituaries as entertainment.

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And a large part of me wants to be above caring about the death of a celebrity. I didn't know him personally (though every reporter on CNN seems to), and perhaps more than any other star I'd like to keep Jackson's music separate from what I (think I) know about his personal life. It's disturbing to think that he could use the same voice both to entertain in dazzling ways and manipulate in a purely pernicious manner, and that I carry it around in my purse on my IPod.

There are two things I'm mulling over in my mind.

The mundane: In listening and relistening to his music over the last week I've become enthralled with just how mundane most of his lyrics really are. They aren't particularly poetic, and they seem to dwell on basic male anxieties about love, sexual prowess, violence, power and the intersections amongst them. He talks about the grind of the 9-5, like he ever actually knew what that was. For a very long time he didn't allow his songs to overlap with his celebrity. He was the biggest star in the world and yet he resisted releasing songs like Lindsay Lohan's treasure, Rumors, or Britney Spears's, Lucky. And when he did point out the troubles with the paparazzi it was usually an angry take, not an "oh-feel-sorry-for-me" whine. There was a tenuous fantasy that his talent existed apart from his life, though the latter would never have been possible without the former.

The glorification: In watching his videos on YouTube for the first time in years, I'm also really struck by his ability, as a skinny kid from the Midwest, to glorify gang culture in New York. This isn't a very well thought out thesis, but in at least two videos, Bad and Beat It, he plays to the old Hollywood conceit that New York street gangs were actually just groups of disgruntled yet very lithe Broadway dancers. Maybe he was trying to distance himself from his slightly disco-esque beginnings and make himself seem a little more testosterone producing, but he also tapped into a strong source of fear and made it look really cool. And no one gets shot nine times. There are definitely some ties to race and expectations of what a Black man would be doing with his evenings in the '80s, but he makes it so palpable. And, well, he seems fully aware of the exploitation.

I'm a little confused by the outright worship of MJ, but hope that our culture will eventually learn how to embrace ambiguities and account for flaws in its icons. Mostly though I'm having my first real case of nostalgia, remembering staying up late to see the premiere of Black or White on MTV and trying to do the Moonwalk until at least the fifth grade. And there was that short time ago in 2007 when I tried to learn the entire Thriller dance because it felt like a piece of bonafied American culture in under fifteen minutes. That's what escape is about and that seems to be what he was best at.

Just a Bit

Writing, I've discovered, is a fickle activity. Or perhaps I am a fickle writer. The latter is probably more plausible than the former. Though I have heard writers discuss the need for a twinge of sadness in order to sit down at the computer. I've often used this blog as a sort of dumping ground for any thoughts I needed to get rid of. It's almost like a pensieve, which I believe is a magical made up thing yet a useful analogy nonetheless.

So why haven't I been writing? I've been somewhat happy for the past few months. There are various reasons, which I don't feel like discussing. Sadness for me it seems is a public activity, but I like to keep the good things to myself. This is partly superstition and partly a desire to avoid questions from certain parties. (Conocen quienes son.) Oh, how I dread the questions, because at this point in my life the answers are always changing and even I can't keep up. Why ask other people to?

Also, I should be honest: Readers that I don't know personally freak me out a bit. Don't get me wrong - it's encouraging in a way. But it also feels like a bit of an intrusion. As though there are eavesdroppers on my musings. Why keep a blog then? Well, why have a cellphone conversation on a bus? It's convenient? If I could be so emotionally and mentally consistent, you'd probably be completely bored by me. And, I think, in this era we all have to accept the paradox of the wish for privacy in public forums. Also, as I recently told a dear friend, it's pointless to try to be perfectly consistent if you value the moment you're living in.

I'll try to write more this summer. A lot of things have happened and there are even more things planned. A trip to Boston here, a family visit there; the start of school. Oh, and there's a farm I want to visit. Maybe even a new apartment? For now, enjoy the coming holiday; and know that I'm thinking of you. Also, for everyone's sake let's hope the news is a little less exciting than last week's. Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground) anybody?

xoxo

Two in One!

This is actually quite disturbing, but to someone raised watching My Fair Lady and Funny Girl each Thanksgiving, and Night of the Living Dead and Hellraiser IV every other night, the novel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, really combines my love of camp and old-fashioned love stories. Apparently, it has shot up the Amazon.com bestseller list in recent weeks. Maybe this says something about Amazon shoppers that we just didn't know about before, or maybe as the Op-Ed contributor in the NY Times says, it has something to do with our collective anxiety about the economy. We've moved on from sleek vampires, who can only be sustained by the riches and excesses of a negligent society, to zombies, who are undiscriminating and leave behind just the strongest and least likely group of allies. Vampires are surgical in their tactics; zombies a bit more . . .blunt. Feasting on brains just isn't glamorous work. I'm feeling a bit better this morning, in case you're wondering.

Stay Awake, Please

Like most people I find that the days are too short for all that I'd like to accomplish. There's work, studying, reading for information, reading for pleasure, reading for conversation, visiting with friends, and then there's sleep. That last thing has been on my mind a lot - or maybe I should say on my waking mind. For each of the last four days I've probably slept about 16 to 20 hours. Luckily, I don't have any major deadlines this week, and I'm also pretty damn productive when I'm actually awake. This is what my doctor calls functioning narcolepsy. She doesn't actually know if that's what I have, but I've seen two neurologists who concede that it's a possibility. All I know is that when I'm not on medication, I can't keep my eyes open for more than 8 hours at a time. I compensate by walking around, going to the gym, and abstaining from caffeine and sugar or anything else that could cause a "crash." I do my best not to nap, and really can't indulge the urge to sleep very often because it's just not socially acceptable to sleep at one's desk, or place your head on your fellow subway passenger's shoulder. I don't even like it when people's coat sleeves touch me, so I'm not about to relax enough to get cozy with a stranger. Ick.

On Monday I'll go into a sleep lab where creepy doctors (I'm sure they're actually very nice) will watch me sleep and assess my brain waves. It's a little scary to think that I could be abnormal in such a fundamental way, but it'll be nice to have a name for the persistent urge to sleep. Well, other than outright laziness. That's not really a label I want. I'm on the search for non-pharmaceutical remedies to my problems. I'm starting with vegetables, herbs and multi-vitamins, but will move on to acupuncture in May. I assume that my body is weary from the last decade of moving and general upheavals to which I've subjected it. If I could start all over again, maybe I would have gone to Berkeley. Just to be in the same time zone for an extended period would be a treat, and might even help my circadian rhythms help themselves. And just in case you're wondering, I'm writing this now as part of my promise to myself to stay awake until at least 10 PM tonight. Only 35 minutes to go . . .

For the Love of Blue

I wasn't very excited about moving into this apartment, but it was the most personal space I could find for the least amount of money in the short amount of time I had to find it nearest the two train lines I needed most. To top it all off my room came with a putrid yellow wall. It looked like the tail-end of a really nasty bruise. Everything else was a bright shiny white but this was just gross. Who picked out this color and then actually left it there? Last week, I decided to spruce up the place and painted over that nasty yellow with a beautiful Florence Blue (or so the paint can told me). I also rearranged my entire room, built a dresser that had been lying around in parts since November, unpacked my suitcase from my visit to California in February and hung up my pictures. This is not normal behavior. Clearly, I was trying to distract myself from something.

A few weeks ago I was feeling a bit at an emotional loss, and decided to do a bit of emotional spring-cleaning. This, for me, generally means erasing old emails, ridding my phone of numbers I'm certain I'll never use again, unsubscribing from newsletters, and "de-friending" a few people on Facebook. There's no confrontation involved, as I don't tell anyone I'm cutting them out of my life; I just do it. It may not sound very mature, but it's a way to exert control over situations in which I, in fact, have none. And, besides, it made me feel better.

I like to imagine that were I to see these people again I would be cold and unkind but I'm clearly delusional. Not too long ago I ran into one of them and to my horror I was friendly and somewhat nice. I never ever run into him, which is remarkable since we live, oh, two blocks away from each other. And, if I had thought about it more carefully, I would have known he'd be at that performance, but I was busy distracting myself from something else that evening (writing, work, the eighty-seven new exhibitions I needed to see), and decided to venture off to the village by myself for a glass of wine and a dark room where I wouldn't have to be "on". But nope, there he was, unknowingly ruining my plan, proving that there isn't a shred of control to be had no matter how many times you erase someone's phone number. And, now, of course, I miss him (which is dumb for a lot of reasons) and refuse to actually tell him, or really, even admit it to myself, because he's really made it quite clear that I'm not all that important to him. Not even a little.

So what's the good of all this? What I realized a long time ago is that I'm actually at my best when I'm frustrated. It's a way to till the soil so to speak - to renew commitments to myself and evaluate what I can do to improve my well-being. I certainly can't control how other people behave, but I can direct frustrations toward something productive. A few weeks ago I was frustrated that I didn't have any published writing samples to show my boss, so I emailed a few ideas to the editors of three magazines I've long admired. All three responded favorably; one piece has been published; I was offered a review of a large retrospective opening later this year; and the third is overlooking its policy of working with "established" writers to consider my project further. How nice for me. I may never resolve my feelings about certain people, but at least this time I got a pretty blue wall out of it. And, oh, how I love blue.

Single Payer Government

Let me introduce you to Mouahssine, my gendarme in Morocco. I call him "my gendarme" because whenever I had to go to the gendarmerie I always asked for him, and he was almost always available. Once they woke him up from a nap. That's the epitome of service. Oh, and he was essentially assigned to watch over me. Any time I travelled outside of the Ouarzazate region I had to text him and tell him when I would return.

But I digress. Mouahssine was straight out of central-casting for law-enforcement-officer-in-a-foreign-land-once-occupied-by-the-French. Balding and just shy of pudgy with just past his prime folded skin around his mouth and temples, he had the best blue-green eyes. He smoked at his large paper-strewn desk, while he held meetings, and while he typed on his antiquated IBM computer. The best part: his phone played Tainted Love whenever someone called, endearing him to me all the more.

In order to stay in Morocco for more than twelve weeks I had to apply to be a resident. This meant filling out five copies of a six-page application by hand. At the time, this felt really unnecessary; why couldn't Mouahssine just photocopy my application? With a very sore hand and slightly grumpy demeanor, I listened as he outlined what else I would need to bring him: a letter from the country director stating my purpose in Morocco, my Peace Corps identification, and the entry and identification pages of my passport, all in quintuplicate form, plus a sixty dirham stamp from a local hanut. Being a pretty well-prepared and efficient young woman (and not wanting to make a second two hour fifteen kilometer trip to Ouarzazate that week) I already had all of those things with me and immediately went to my photocopy man up the street, got the copies and returned to Mouahssine's office.

Mouahssine was flabbergasted and elated. How had I gotten the copies so quickly? And then his face fell. I didn't have the proper stamps. I explained how I had gone to five different hanuts and no one had the elusive sixty dirham stamp. He shook his head, "No the government stamps for your photocopies." What? Copies, of any sort, just aren't trusted in Morocco. But clearly you can't have five originals of something, unless you've filled them all out by hand in the presence of a gendarme. . . It was all making sense.

Mouahssine directed me to the royal government offices across the street, where I found the photocopy verification unit. For two dirham a piece a woman looked at the original and then stamped (many, many times) the photocopy, stating that it was indeed accurate and correct. This took an entire afternoon. Only in a culture absolutely suspicious of technology would I be forced to do this. And only in a place where it's every man for himself would the government force such a wasteful tax on the individual. To be fair, I didn't pay taxes in Morocco and the law enforcement resources it devotes to Peace Corps Volunteers is quite remarkable and expensive (though I can't say how effective it is since I very rarely felt safe there). Needless to say Mouahssine was happy that I was able to obtain the official photocopy stamps and he even found the elusive sixty dirham stamp for me.

What all of this reminded me of was the Stamp Tax of 1765 levied by the British in the American Colonies. That caused a major uproar! Really, Americans have just always hated taxes, and this attitude has forced local governments to find a way around it in order to cover the expenses for all those things we take for granted, like roads, clean drinking water and law enforcement. That's why the headline, Cities Turn to Fees to Fill Budget Gaps, was so interesting to me this morning. We expect our taxes to cover everything that could possibly be used by everyone, like law enforcement or natural disaster responses. But what if they didn't? What kind of society would we be? It would be the cruel realization of a nation obsessed with individualism. I don't fish, why should I have to support the infrastructure that allows other people to do so. I don't drive or take taxis, so I only want my taxes to go towards the subway system. Or, worse, I don't live in that unsafe neighborhood, so I won't pay taxes to support extra police officers on the streets over there. Government officials who choose to raise taxes on individual services are just feeding into the mentality that individuals don't benefit from the improvement of the whole system. If a friend gets into an accident she already has to worry about the health insurance bills, now she has to worry about her ability to pay the police, too? That just seems wrong.

What does this have to do with my gendarme, Mouahssine? Not much, really. I was always aware that I was treated differently because of my nationality, receiving more attention and patience than what was accorded to most of my community, most of which was interviewed and lectured to about my safety. Mouahssine admitted to me that he had actually never even been to my poor little dirt road town, even though it was only fifteen kilometers away. It didn't need him, he said, but I did. The latter was definitely true, but I couldn't shake the feeling that if my town had been a little better connected, or not Berber for that matter, it would have warranted a more even distribution of the region's resources. Unfortunately, that's not the kind of society Morocco has, but I certainly hope I've returned to a place that believes in some sort of support for everyone in their hour of need.

BZZZZZZZZZZ

How do artists become known? At what point have they passed through the emerging phase and into the established phase? In the art world we tend to talk about the same artists over and over again (Warhol, Beuys, Rauschenberg, etc.), but occasionally a young artist receives some buzz. This has always seemed to be an unquantifiable phenomenon. Over brunch a few curatorial assistants talk about some street art they saw in Dumbo, then again at the seasonal gallery openings; a gallery owner overhears and asks for more information. Next thing you know that street artist, Swoon in this case, has a solo exhibition at Deitsch Projects. That’s buzz. A kind of hum outside of the mainstream that sometimes, but not always, is harnessed by institutions in order to make claims to the new and hip. More often it’s fleeting, befitting something named after the sound of flying through the air.

My understanding of buzz clearly contradicts that of researchers, as represented by a recent article in the New York Times, “Mapping the Cultural Buzz: How Cool is That?” Using 300,000 commercial photographs from 6,000 events to evaluate what was buzz-worthy, which they seem to define as synonymous with news-worthy and purchase-worthy, they unsurprisingly concluded that the areas surrounding such cultural meccas as Lincoln Center and Times Square were the most concentrated places of buzz. This is oddly circuitous logic to pinpoint something so ephemeral. Of course these places were photographed by commercial news outlets! And of course celebrities attended! But that’s not necessarily buzz! At best, it’s publicity—good publicity, but hardly out of the ordinary. The creative class (who knows how they define that!) shouldn’t be delimited by what paparazzi are willing to cover and where they’re willing to travel. If it’s the creative class they’re concerned with, shouldn’t they be looking at the geographic location of those who not only consume but also create these events? Does anyone even live in Times Square anymore? (I’m actually curious about that.)

It seems to me that a completely different type of data-set is needed to quantify something like buzz. Commercial outlets should definitely be a component, but is the press really the best source these researchers could access? Music seems rife with possibilities in this area. Researchers could gather data on a band’s album sales just before and after a concert in a particular city. Taking into account advertising and news coverage, they could also look at hits on the band’s webpage, Google search statistics and (because I’m sure this is also about revenue-generating possibilities) purchases on ITunes, EMusic and other digital outlets. Almost all of this information is sortable by geographic location through IP addresses and billing zip codes. (Yes, they’re watching you and they know what you like to buy.) They may also want to look at continued sales in a particular area over the next few weeks, since one usually hears of buzz as something that is generated over space and time. If I see a great Bon Iver concert, buy his album and tell ten friends and they tell ten friends, etc., then more and more little dots will appear on a data map until it either stops or reaches such critical mass that Prince anoints him the heir to the singer-songwriter throne. (I believe that’s what Malcolm Gladwell called the tipping point.)

Most problematic is the continued focus on those large institutions as Very Important Places. They aren’t the sole producers of culture, nor should they be. I won’t deny their importance, but I do object to the idea that we should look to them for our (or any) city’s future. Cultivation of the creative class (if that is indeed possible) shouldn’t be formulated through the paradigms of bureaucracies like Lincoln Center or The Met (both of them) but through support of alternative spaces, residencies and those people that make this vibrant, diverse cultural community possible.

Go Read Something Else!

Some of you know that I've often played around with the idea of being a writer. This blog has been an exercise in finding a bit of my own voice and figuring out if I'm comfortable with putting my thoughts in the public realm (even if that realm only consists of Katharine, Karin, Eric, my mom, aunt, and grandma - and oh, yes, occasionally, Matthew [all of them]). You've all been wonderfully supportive, I must say, actually pressuring me to write more, and forcing me to dig up ideas when I didn't think I had any. So thank you for that.

Today marks my foray into the world of web publications not just read by my social circle. My very first contemporary art review was published at ArtCat Zine this afternoon, and I'm pretty proud of the result. I hope you'll check it out:

http://zine.artcat.com/contributor/anjuli_lebowitz/

I also recommend going to see the exhibition itself. It's on the way to Fairway and IKEA, and only ten blocks from me, so you really have no excuse. And the gallery is run by a Williams alumnus to boot!

Gimme Shelter

Last night I learned why Mick Jagger is a sex symbol. Having been introduced to him and the music of the Rolling Stones when he was already pushing 45 (I was 8) I just didn't see the appeal. He just seemed like a skinny old man courting major hip replacement surgery with all of that strutting and gyrating around stage. Clearly, having smoked waaaaaaay too much of something, he had deep crevices at each side of his mouth, and his hair desperately needed a good washing. Yes, I was a judgmental child, but I also knew a dirty old man when I saw one.

Last night, though. Whoa. In Gimme Shelter, which I saw in the basement of the Rubin Museum of Art with an old college friend, LA, Mick is hot. There's no other way to describe him. He still showed off those awkward gyrating pelvic bones, but the shaggy hair and pretty pink lips nearly had me and LA swooning on the floor. (That could also be because of the one (count it!) drink I had just before.)

The true star of the documentary, however, was the drummer, Charlie Watts. Obviously, blow dryers were acceptable appliances for men in the late '60s, because his hair is incredible. Framing his pale, chiseled features, it hung poker straight down to his chin, with a lovely side part. And he's so tense as he plays, curling his lips into his mouth and occasionally giving Mick a side glance as if to say, "Really? That move again with the hands held above the head and the hips? Really?"

What was truly remarkable about him though is that he seems to be the only member of the band who took the events of the film seriously. Gimme Shelter was intended to be about the Rolling Stones's 1969 American tour, and for the most part it consists of footage from various concerts, where Mick sings, girls scream and Keith Richards wears frilly pink shirts through which his nipples show. There's an incredible scene from Tina Turner's performance as an opening act, in which you realize why she was so revolutionary for women musically, socially and sexually.

Unfortunately, not all of the Stones' concerts went so smoothly. At the Altamont Free Speedway Festival in northern California 850 people were injured, 4 were killed and a fifth was stabbed to death right in front of the stage. Much of the blame was placed upon the Hell's Angels who were hired (wages: beer) to keep people off the stage and protect the generators. Obviously, not trained professionals, as intoxicated as the crowd and by definition anti-social, the Angels armed themselves with sharpened cue sticks and viciously attacked anyone out of line, including the lead singer of Jefferson Airplane. If your security doesn't know who is actually allowed on the stage, it's clearly counter-productive to have them. On the other hand, the crowd was unbelievable! I've never seen such unruliness in a public arena - climbing the rafters, milling about on stage, stripping naked and climbing on top of people (ew), and throwing glass bottles into the crowd (a pregnant woman suffered a skull fracture).

As I watched Watts watch the footage of this particular concert, and listen to a Hell's Angel on the radio blame the Stones for the whole fiasco, I could see the incredible pain it caused him. No one spoke of the bad press they would suffer, or the fines, or the generally despicable behavior of the organizers. The Stones watched the footage to see if there was anything that might show who stabbed and killed 18-year-old Meredith Hunter, an African-American man who had purportedly wished to shoot Jagger because his girlfriend mentioned how hot the latter was. Jealousy, it seems, never pays.

I'm still mulling over this film. The contrasts with the orderliness of my own concert-going experiences (even those that are free and outdoors) is startling. It explains the generally terrible reputation of Hell's Angels in California (and really, motorcylists in general) and it has me very curious about something. How many of those naked, unruly, irresponsible, drugged-up young people became my teachers? Also, where can I find the red, ruffled bolero with sparkly flowers Keith Richards wore? His daughters are so lucky.

Wile Your Time Away

Many of you know that I prefer few things to reading. Compulsively consuming everything from newspapers and magazines to treatises on the special relationship between women and birds (parrots, specifically) and artists' manifestoes makes me a better art historian and, more importantly, conversationalist.

The latter is a great point of pride to any New Yorker, but especially a transplant, and especially a transplant to Brooklyn. It’s important to know your way around, but it’s invaluable to know your neighborhood history. That chic salon on the corner of Court and Baltic Streets used to be a plain old coffee shop and before that it was an Italian bakery with the best and cheapest cannoli you could ever ask for. Only a nickel each! Thanks to Jasmine’s mom, who is a bit of a history buff herself, for that bit of neighborhood trivia. And, actually, thank you to the Italian bakers for retiring before I relocated across the street. The tempting smell alone would have thwarted all my (half-hearted) efforts to avoid excess sugar. [Left: The intersection of Dekalb Street and Fulton Street, near my old apartment in Fort Greene.]

So imagine my delight when I found Brooklyn Revealed in the Daily Roundup as I scoured the NY Times online for an article about something other than the economy or grandmothers who will or will not help their daughters with their newborn children. (For the record, my grandmother was heavily involved in my childhood, as were my aunt and uncle, and I turned out smart, funny and, overall, just fantastic. Their words, not mine. And my, also really awesome, mother plans to help me with my children, albeit from an RV parked outside my co-op on the Upper West Side. Long story . . .) Here is a site with interactive maps and photographs so you can learn how streets got their names and the history of the six original townships that composed the County of Kings. It's a little time travel to a time of open spaces, horse carriages, and separate designations of citizenship, as well as a great place to cull a general sense of how far the borough has come.

In my own narcissistic way I looked for pictures of the neighborhoods I've lived in (Fort Greene and Cobble Hill [both in the red Brooklyn section) and places that my mother lived until she was nearly an adolescent (she was born in Fort Greene but hopped from Bedford-Stuyvesant [same red section] to Ocean Avenue [green Flatbush area]). Expect me to gush about the old photographs of the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the farms in East New York. Imagine the CSA’s we could have had! [Right: A view of Fulton Street, which, I think, is where the Fulton Street Mall is now. That’s where my grandmother used to shop for her nurse uniforms and holiday outfits for my mom and her siblings.]

If you find yourself with limited time to visit the borough, this should give you an idea of what Brooklynites mean when they say it's just quieter and slower paced. Despite our complaining about the Manhattanization of our neighborhoods, there really is a wonderful feeling of continuity with the various waves of those before us, who, at first dismayed at being pushed out of the center of it all, discovered a place to call home. Though, really, don't take the photographs too much to heart; there are McDonald's and Tasti-Delights next to beautifully restored brownstones and there aren't nearly as many horse carriages anymore. Rather than smell like Central Park South, we prefer the hot summer stench of the Gowanus Canal.