Shows and Prose

The last few weeks have pushed me to the edge of what I want from this city.  Too full of shows, readings, and spontaneous NYC excitement like running into friends you want to see just when you’re exhausted, I entered a new mayhem of general overdosage.  I never thought I could get sick of Gotham.  Near a decade living here, with a 3-year break in Buenos Aires, I’ve worshiped this concrete and steel ode to fast and furious living.  Last month I hit a wall.  There is such a thing as too much, especially when it’s crammed into work and play and no minutes to decompress.  Everyone who lives here feels it at some point.  Living at the center of today is grand but the gravity pummels you at times and leaves you spent on a subway platform, wishing for the train downtown to straight under your covers where you destroy all alarm clocks and calendar reminders and text alerts and turn the city off for once.  That’s what vacations are for, you say?  It is.  But drowning in an unfinished thesis paper I realize I need to head for a sleepy spot to (w)hole up and write stuff.  Meanwhile, I’ll take in some more of what this past month brought.  Highlights:

Daniel Horowitz’s exhibit at Invisible Dog was the perfect backdrop to readings from Teju Cole and Jennifer Egan at the Pen Int’l Literature Festival.  Angela Koh made me want to go to another reading with her hip hop inspired poetry and prose at Unsolicited in the rare books room of the Strand.

For Metro I wrote about Har Mar Superstar, Nneka, and Santigold.  I found new images to love at galleries in Chelsea like Jonathan Levine Gallery and Vicky David’s Arne Quinze exhibit and all over Fountain Art Fair where Fab Five Freddy DJed.

Music, cultural offerings, Brooklyn, how can there be too much, you ask?  There’s just a lot to be had, yo.  And when there’s too much you realize there aren’t any brakes.

Theoretically sure, you can just go home and stay there.  But who gives up concert tickets or amazing meals with old friends or sunny day low rider bike cruises after a grueling work week?  Willingly?  If you don’t partake, what’s the sense in enduring the grind?  To stay home in a closet with mold on the bathroom wall, nah, I didn’t think so. 

Actually my apartment is a good little closet but since the apartment next door burst into big orange flames I’ve been reticent to embrace it in all its Boerum glory.  I’ve been feeling awful California lately.  Just saying.

About these ads