In a recent post I mentioned Spalding Gray. He's somewhat of a hero to me, which makes a couple of the people who care about me a little nervous. I was recently re-re-re-re listening to a monologue of his on NPR and there was a link to a bio PBS did on him.
I have a love/hate relationship with New York. I know that I really love it though because everything I love I have a love/hate relationship with. In a moment of doubt I just happen to come upon this link to a few words by Spalding (or "Spuddy') on New York.
On What Drew Him To New York:
"I knew I couldn't live in America and I wasn't ready to move to Europe so I moved to an island off the coast of America -- New York City . . . It was tolerant. It was a place that tolerated differences and could incorporate them and embrace them, which was what America was supposed to be about and wasn't. So it was the melting pot that was a puree rather than individual vegetables. I think of New York as a puree and the rest of the United States as vegetable soup".
On New York's Character:
"It's an insane angel; New York defies observation. It is completely, hugely in your face and what it is for me still is a human miracle, because if you go out in it, as I do, the fact that existence is -- is the miracle. The fact that New York continues in the face of all of the chaos, of the crime, of the madness, you just think that it would just pop and vanish, just explode".
On Living In New York:
"What's so fascinating about New Yorkers is that each person has a whole lexicon of personal logic in the way that they decipher and do what has to be done to enjoy, stay alive, take pleasure in this place. It's one of the few living cities where people are living in the city that they work in. You know, that's amazing in itself".
Now I feel good. What I feel even better about is that tonight is the season premier of my favorite and only television show that I watch: LOST. I get to enjoy hamburgers made by Lucky, share the company of one of my best friends Matt and completely loose myself for exactly 2 hours of glowing light.
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hey,i may have mentioned this before, but did you know that spaulding gray was in an incest-themed porno called "farmer's daughter" where he's the farmer. no joke. if you're ever in la. they have a copy of it at the independent video store, cinefile. it's an employee favorite there. apparently as creepy as you would imagine, though unfortunately (?) i haven't sseen it.
I do now. I wikipedia-ed it. As far a porn goes, it actually sounds quite suspenseful. I guess that a was a step on the ladder to performance art, then acting and monologues. Similar to the way my current jobs are just steps to becoming a professional jail mime.
Aaron, I can relate to people being "concerned about you" if you like Spalding. I was at the memorial service, and met quite a few serious fans, celebrityfans, and just normal people. But my rather large obsession with Spalding has never gone away. Right after the suicide, before they found him, I (like some other people) hoped he had gone "away" somewhere, do to research, live a different life, anything, anything, but what really did happen. I still wonder what did happen that freezing January night on the ice-covered deck of the ferry. Questions that will never be answered I guess, because not enough people are asking them.
b. - yeah, the people who know about Spalding post-accident in Ireland, get concerned in kind of a parental way. Others just don't like me when fall under the spell (which I do often) of what I like to think of as a mild state of self-analytic-neurotic-neurosis... also the title of my fantasy punk bands first album.
As a side note, I'm pretty sure that he turned up about 2 blocks from where I was living at the time. Weird.
i am in new york b.c i don't really know where else to go. i love it. i hate it. i am not ready to leave it. i thought i saw spalding gray when he was missing. i wasn't sure it was him, or if i was in a daze from reading too much paul auster. i have always felt bad for not stopping the man or image and trying to help.
i love lost. i a, so excited about it being back on air.
Hell yeah S!
Oh so many theories. Glad to see Charlie (if even as a ghost).
"The Oceanic 6"!!!
...that was not "lisa". That was me, aaron using "lisa's"
computer. Although she is fond of Charlie too.
Little late on this Aaron, internet around my hood has been down for the upgrabs.
It's interesting what he says about New York and the melting pot/puree. Being from a country that is actually mixed ethnically and not only cultural, I'm always skeptical of people speaking of anything American being defined as truly mixed. Although it is understandable that New York would be seen this way because it IS in a sense very mixed (puree) in light of the rest of the country (vegetable soup), it is however very separate for being part of a country that has so many ethinicities present and who has always held the emblem of the melting pot. America is mostly "culturally" mixed but not necessarily "ethnically" so, y'know. In Brazil people have been ethnically mixed for centuries and continually so, but America while being emblemized as this melting pot still remains pretty segregated as ethnicities being mixed go in the context of the emblem, y'know what I'm saying?!!
On LOST news, while Lynne and I were sick at home she got me hooked on the show. We rented all of the episodes and watched all of the seasons in a few days, till 4 in the morning sometimes. Tonights episode was way better than last week's return I thought. Elated.
How's the work my brother?! Eager to see some new pics. What up with the London show? Any Phila comings?
Hey R-
The "mixed" term is always a vague notion in most countries. The 2 year long election process here has reminded me that the northeastern, western(southwest) and a few pockets in the this country are very, very different from the rest of the country - or even world. These pockets are both ethnically and racially mixed.
But not necessarily class or educationally mixed. Sure you can have good folks of different races living next to each other, sharing subway stops, starbucks, food coop's, postoffices... but except for a small number of neighborhoods in this country there is a great divide in terms of $$$ and schools.
In other words, you can mix as much stuff together as you want to make a stew but it doesn't mean the ingredients are going to "melt" together and taste pleasant.
Ditmas park in Brooklyn is quietly
the utopia that New York has always had in mind.
LOST: you guys must have truely been bed ridden
to get through all those episodes. Totally worth it!
If you're checking the fan conspiracy theory boards at 4am though... you may have a problem.
ART: London in 3 weeks. One more piece to finish.
I'll post all the pics on the blog and Flickr when I'm back. I don't even have pics of most of the work in the show yet.
Word.
Brooklyn is country in and of itself.
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