One month from today there will be a big election, called a General Election, in the United Kingdom -- where the fourteen-year rule of the Conservative Party is expected to end with the Labour Party replacing it.
Ever since I saw the British show "Yes Minister"/"Yes Prime Minister" as a kid, I've been more than midly obsessed with British politics. Therefore, on the night of July 4th, as most Americans will be celebrating our independence from the UK, I'll be feverishly following the UK election results as they trickle in from across the pond.
Even though New York City has been independent from England's "Green & Pleasant" for over 240 years, the British impact on this city is inescapable. After all, this is New York City, after York, a big city in England. And over the years I've chronicled the deep synergy that exists between this city and Britain -- and you can read it all here.
This city would not, could not, exist the way it does today without it's British lineage and influence. And the UK wouldn't exist today without us -- after all Winston Churchill, Britain's savior of a Prime Minister, had a mother from Brooklyn!
If you want to get a literal taste of Britain in NYC, you can visit the great restaurat Tea and Sympathy downtown. And you want to learn more about British politics, you must listen to the excellent podcast the Rest is Politics that is so smart and informative and looks at policy and politics in the UK and beyond.
History is being made every day, everywhere -- especially in NYC.
In every neighborhood and borough, all throughout the city, history is forged on the streets and behind closed doors, the future being made minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour.
So what makes the new Museum of Broadway fascinating is that, like all museums, it is a repository of history and art but, unlike most museum, it is surrounded by the very institution -- the Broadway theater -- that is a living, breathing entity, making history each day with every performance. This new museum is, in many ways, a living memory bank of this city's greatest cultural export.
At the risk of being gauche, allow me to quote myself: a couple of years ago I described this blog as a "pastiche" or "a collage, a repository for memories, a collection of favorite things, a funhouse of nostalgia, a love letter to the past and future, a work of art, a self-contained world that invites you to visit a while and become absorbed in."
You might also call it a scrapbook.
In its way, Mr NYC is a digital scrapbook, roughly defined as a document of precious memories, a collection of souvenirs and mementos, and an opportunity to channel one's inner artist.
Scrapbooks need not be literal books full of pieces of paper and objects of one's past or journey thru life. They can be, more metaphorically speaking, things like diaries or autobiographies or videos -- or blogs like this one -- anything that captures and makes sense of the past and provides tea leaves for the future.
I recently encountered two examples of metaphorical scrapbooking, both of which fascinate me: a new exhibit about Lou Reed at the NYPL that is a collection of his papers, recordings, and various nickknacks, showing the work and evolution of this great and influential NYC musician; and a new novel by, of all people, the actor David Duchovny that is based on his memories of growing up in NYC.
This exhibit and this novel are, in a way, scrapbooks of these two very different NYC artists -- as is this humble blog.
When Anne Frank wrote her diary hiding out in that apartment in Amsterdam or when Marco Polo dictated his memories of China while literally imprisoned, these two people who would otherwise be lost to history instead were made immortal. They told their stories, they recorded and "scrapbooked" their lives, and in doing so not only made us better understand their times and adventures (told both from the perspective of two people who were literally trapped) but made us understand that the world was a greater place, and the human spirit more indomitable, than we could ever imagine.
If social media/user-generated content has any redeeming qualities, its that it allows people who are full of love for something to create a repository for it. This blog is a perfect example of that aim.
So is a YouTube channel called The Real Staten Island that's full of videos chronicling the so-called "forgotten borough", the loving tribute to a part of NYC that doesn't get much love from the rest of the city. Its creator explores parts of it that most people don't know about the borough, like Port Richmond, the Channel Trailer, New Dorp, Snug Harbor, and other spots. Check it it out.
I've been thinking about the movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood at lot lately. It just keeps invading my thoughts. Directed by Quentin Tarantino, it's my favorite of his movies after Pulp Fiction; and even more than that masterpiece, this one feels personal -- clearly for him, and especially for me.
While largely plotless, at times meandering, this movie stays in your head for a long time after seeing it. It deposits itself in your soul. It makes you think in layers. The point of the movie isn't the story or action but its characters, their relationships with each other, and their place and time i.e. a culturally changing city and movie business in 1969.
This movie is truly a work of art, a self-contained world that invites you to stay awhile and become absorbed in it. Like this blog, it captures "the spirit and psyche", the soul, of a particular time and place.
When I think about Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the word "pastiche" comes to mind. Pastiche is defined as an artistic work consisting of a medley of pieces taken from various sources. This movie feels just like that, a collage, a repository for memories, a collection of favorite things, a funhouse of nostalgia, a love letter to the past and future (again, much like Mr NYC). Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is also Tarantino's tribute to working people, to the grunts, to the almost-was and never-weres, to the people who don't make history but live through it and deal with its consequences (much like Mr NYC). Specifically, this movie is about a has-been C-list cowboy actor named Rick Dalton and his stuntman/gofer/driver/friend Cliff Booth. They are trying to find work in a newly swinging, hippy Hollywood that they don't recognize anymore (sort of like how I don't recognize NYC anymore while trying to keep a middling career going in it). Rick has never been a big star (he lost out to Steve McQueen for The Great Escape) and Cliff's stuntman days are over (many in the business believe he may have killed his wife; we never learn if he did or didn't, leaving a tantalizing mystery for us to ponder). Along the way we also meet Sharon Tate, their beautiful neighbor and an up-and-coming actress, married to the big-time director Roman Polanski. In real life, Sharon and several others were killed by the Manson Family in August 1969, sending shockwaves through Hollywood and the country, a dark moment in the shiny city.
This movie poses a simple question: "What if the Manson murders were thwarted? What if good prevailed instead of evil? What if guys like Rick and Cliff got a second chance? What is there was a real-life Hollywood ending?
Would the future and past have been different? Would our world, our present, be a slightly better place?"
Once Upon a Time ... asks these questions but smartly doesn't answer them -- it leaves it to us, the viewers, to imagine the answers, the possibilities of the roads not taken. The brilliance of this movie is not only that it lovingly recreates the Hollywood of 1969, and tells the real-life and fictional stories of some of its players, but it reminds us of how life is a daily struggle between darkness and light, between hope and fear, between kindness and cruelty, between making this choice and that choice, between our love for the past and our hopes and fears for the future.
As the name connotes, Once Upon a Time ... makes you think that it's a fairy tale, a nostalgia trip, a mere backwards glace, but it's actually a very forward looking "pastiche" -- it makes you wonder about the future as much as gaze on the past. It's not un-coincidental that this movie takes place exactly 50 years (1969) before its release (2019) -- it forces us to confront where we came from, about what happened in those intervening 50 years, and about where we might be going in the next 50 years. That's the neat trick of this story, the many ironies within it -- a hero might actually also be a killer, an actor might actually play his role in real life, imaginary violence inspires real violence and vice versa, the real heroes are behind the scenes and never acknowledged, the heroes we see aren't really heroes at all, and the real villains are nowhere to be seen because they make others do their dirty work. It's about the illusions, the myths, the shadows and lights, that we see in the movies and that hover over American life. It's also about innocence lost, the falling away of real life into vague memories, the past gone forever, the evitable forward grind of the future.
Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? Who will we become? And let's have fun along the way!
That's the movie in nutshell: a series of these unanswered questions, beautifully presented, as well as a celebration of the journey of life.
And that, in many ways, is also what this blog is about for me and NYC -- a pastiche, a collage, a repository for memories, a collection of favorite things, a funhouse of nostalgia, a love letter to the past and future, a work of art, a self-contained world that invites you to visit a while and become absorbed in.
Last week the MTA formally retired the R-42 model subway cars from circulation, the oldest ones remaining in the fleet. They had been shuttling New Yorkers around since 1969, half a century of loyal service. The R-42s were rather dull but very solid cars with unbroken grey seats and wide spaces, acommodating a lot of people.
The subways have evolved a great deal in the last 50 years, going from a literal hell-whole to something out of the space age.
In late 1972, Vivian Gornick wrote a now classic essay about the nightmare that was the then-NYC subway. With great narrative detail, she paints the picture of a system -- and a city -- on the verge of collapse, a repository of societal failure.
Today, obviously, the city and the subway are much improved -- and the R-42s witnessed this change first-hand.
It should probably come as no surprise that I'm a subscriber to The New Yorker magazine and a listener to its radio show/podcast. It is, without a doubt, the best media outlet in America today, a repository of great investigative reporting (it took down Harvey Weinstein!), cultural reviews, personal profiles, fiction, cartoons, and so much more.
Each issue is like a candy box of intellectualism, different and tasty morsels to excite each part of your brain.
Despite its name, The New Yorker is rarely about NYC. Except for "Talk of the Town", most issues are about people and places far away, it's focus international in score. But this week's issue, which you can read here, is "all about the town." It's a collection of articles and essay about life in the city from the past several decades, a love letter to the town.
Normally I read an issue of The New Yorker in a couple of days but, for this issue, I plan to read each article one week at a time -- to extend the joy. This issue will make you remember why you love this city and why it's a place that can't be written about too much.
It's been a while since yours truly hit the road -- working full time
and raising two kids will cramp your wanderlust -- but last month some
friends and I did just that and headed west. We ventured to the capital
of the Rocky Mountain region, the Mile High City, better known as
Denver, Colorado.
Despite traveling a lot in my younger days, including living in the
Midwest for college and going to the West Coast several times in my
teens and twenties, I'd never been to the Central Time Zone region of
these United States. We settled on Denver because most of us had either
never been there or hadn't gone for a long time. Denver reminded me of
two other cities I've blogged about on here: the hipster-ish Portland,
OR and the industrial Kansas City, MO. Like those cities, Denver is a
repository for a certain kind of person, someone with ambition but
someone who also values beauty and fun. People from all over the country
settle in Denver. At one point, someone overhead me speaking and asked
if I was from the East Coast. When I confirmed that I was, he said he
was a transplant from Boston -- so there you go.
On our first night, we went to the Fillmore Auditorium and saw a
great, rocking Irish band called Flogging Molly. This was one of the
most crazy, out of control shows I've ever seen. Just as impressive was
the Fillmore itself. It's a massive concert venue like the Bowery
Ballroom or Irving Plaza but even bigger. The only word to describe it
is cavernous. There are maybe half a dozen bars (or more) inside the
hall and there are big chandeliers that hang from the ceiling. If
you ever get to Denver, I strongly suggest seeing a show there -- it's
quite a scene.
Next day, after beating jet lag, we saw a baseball game at Coors
Field in downtown Denver. There's nothing particularly special or
distinct about this stadium but, when you're used to seeing baseball
games either in the Bronx or Flushing, there's something very cool about
seeing the Rocky Mountains right beyond the bleachers. After the game,
we strolled along the main street (I believe it was called Market) and
went to Union Station. Unlike train stations in other cities (the Union
Station in DC comes to mind) this one is very small. However, if you
sneak upstairs, there's an almost secret bar area where you can
get some amazingly good cocktails. If you're ever in Denver, and want to
find a nice quiet spot to hang, this one is perfect. More strolling
followed, where went walked around Confluence Park. It's a not a
particularly beautiful park but there are two small rivers that merge
here -- hence the "confluence." This area is where, if the signs are to be believed, the city of Denver was founded.
The next day consisted mostly of strolling. Denver is the capital of
the state of Colorado so we walked around the impressive capitol
building. The seat of Colorado government borders the main downtown area
and another neighborhood that can only be called "funky" -- lots of
bars, restaurants, bookstores, and people walking around with long hair,
ripped jeans, and tattoos. The capitol is right across the street from
city hall, the two buildings almost in a face off, as these two photos
taken from each vantage point will attest. Nearby are some contemporary
art museums and the massive public library. On the streets are some
quite interesting public art displays.
A few blocks away is the American Museum of Western Art. From the
outside, it looks quite small, basically a converted townhouse. But
inside it's a multiple story museum with an incredible array of
paintings by Western artists both past and present. Western art is true
genre unto itself and, not surprisingly, it's highly influenced by the
Renaissance and Hudson River styles. There are paintings of cowboys,
Native Americans, settlers, land wars, even people making movies in the
desert. Again, this is a place I highly recommend if you ever get to
Denver.
We spent most of our final full day out of town in Rocky Mountain
National Park. I'm not much of an outdoors/hiking/nature type but, I must
say, venturing around this gorgeous preserve was a religious experience
pour moi. The mountains and valleys, the glaciers, the lakes and
forests combine to create an milieu and experience where you see and
feel the true beauty of this world, God's handiwork (if you believe in
God), the veil between heaven and earth worn thin. I've never felt more
at peace, more mellow, than seeing this place. I hope these photos due
it some justice. One day I hope to go back.
Finally, on our way to the airport, we checked out the Molly Brown
Museum. If you ever saw Titanic or The Unsinkable Molly Brown, you know
the story of this woman who married money and made something of it.
Unlike the vulgarian in the aforementioned movie or the singing/dancing lady in the latter, Molly Brown was a woman ahead of her time: a
feminist, a humanitarian, a passionate believer in education and civil
rights; she was a pioneer woman with a pioneer spirit. Her house,
located in a residential downtown neighborhood, is a tasteful and
elegantly preserved home. It was one of the first historic houses that
I've seen that had "modern" features i.e. a telephone, electricity,
refrigeration. Like its namesake, the Molly Brown house is a link from
the past that stretches into our present and future.
One more thing about Denver that some of you might be curious about: I
can confirm that, as one of our cab drivers said, people in this town
"Love dat weed!" Colorado is one of a small handful of states in the
union where recreational marijuana is legal and, as you might imagine,
it's quite popular. There are dispensaries all over and the smell of
"dat weed" is all over the city. Go to Denver and, if you wish, go get
yourself some legal pot -- and realize why it's so dumb that it's still
illegal in most of the rest of the country, including here in NY.
I enjoyed Denver and hope to return one day. We ate in lots of great
restaurants and did lots of walking. If you're a New Yorker, that makes
it an especially great town to visit.
