(I will actually write about New York rather than my apartment eventually!)
So if John, or Jaarn as he pronounces it (which curiously is the Nordic sound of the same name I guess), was to come and see my pad, his reaction would probably be: "but it looks the same as mine before I put anything in it!"
And my reaction would be "yes - that is what I loved about the place when I first saw it, the shellness of it, the empty space."
So my whole endeavor has been to make it livable, which means adding objects, without spoiling it!
There is a shop next to work called 'The Container Store'. Maybe they have them in London, probably do, or similar. But it is hard not to get enamored with the sets of boxes, racks, hooks, velcro wonders, hangers, frames, buckets, and shelves. One can make a whole hobby out of containing things.
So here is my handy list of discoveries from trying, stroking my chin and looking and also listening to New Yorkers:
Bed - just have a mattress on the floor.
It saves space - vertically, which may seem irrelevant but the body/eyes feel the difference when that unused space is empty, its more relaxing. But also horizontally, the frame does take up space.
And extra fabulously, if you make your apartment a no shoes zone, then this kind of bed dramatically expands the walkable area of your apartment. I walk across my bed to get to my shelving upon which are sets of nice looking bamboo boxes full of all manner of necessary things.
Fridge - use it to store anything.
So I like the huge fridge as it makes me feel I'm abroad. But I can't fill it. It's a waste really. Although I've taken to putting all kinds of things in it:
Cereal, oils, condiments, flour and grains -> in the fridge.
Rolling pin, empty plastic containers and cheese grater -> in the freezer compartment.
Table - choose the right one.
Get one with a central pedastal rather than legs, then you have more space at your disposal. At dinner parties more can fit comfortably around it and there is less framing of space going on - restrictions - it feels more spacey.
I managed to get a nice old oak one with central support secondhand.
Its the same with chair-side drink table.
Teeny shower room (ie sink, shower and w.c in unfeasible space)
The main thing I found is to keep clutter out the way. Put unused things out of sight or throw them out. Buy a transparent shower curtain to keep the space open.
And to cheer up what can otherwise be quite a grim dark room, put up a shelf at shoulder height above the w.c and put a pophos or peace lily (shade tolerant) on the shelf to cheer the room up a bit.
Hang towel on shower curtain rail of course.
Walk-in Closet - maximize use
From my realty broker - put up 2 clothing rails: one at normal shoulder height and another up above.
Kitchen area - optimize!
I have a dish drainer attached to the wall above the sink/surface now. It acts as drainer and storage. And as there is only 2 foot square kitchen surface (imagine it!) and NO draining board, this is vital. And it frees up kitchen cupboards for ingredients (that are not in the fridge!)
Plants - hang from ceiling
Shelving - vital
I have a low shelf next to my bed(mattress) for bedtime things. And under it are 2 metal gauze containers (from The Container Store of course) with smalls in.
And extra gloriously: what the heck to do with the enormous costly suitcase that is ugly and won't be used til I move on? And what to do with shoes?
London buddy Suse P had an inspiring shoe solution with a tall thin vertical hubby-hole unit, custom made for shoes. It takes up little space and looks attractive.
Then Toronto Helen suggested having a wide shelf with a curtain hanging from it in the kitchenish room. So behind the drape goes the cheap and less attractive shoe rack (the only sawdust and glue thing I have put in the place I am proud to say) and the suitcase.
And happily on that shelf goes the toaster. A place for everything. I even managed to get some really cool fabric for the drape.
And most of all - space is inviting if clutter is kept out - vigilance!
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Space 1
Went for a health screening at work last week. Flying colours! Low cholesterol, correct blood sugar levels, fat, weight, low blood pressure - she told me to get out of bed slowly and its true I do stumble a bit in the mornings,
Not too long before that I had an ayurvedic checkup in a welcome random ayurveda center on the upper west side. I attempted not to fall in love with the young Indian ayurvedic doctor, who was reading her bhagavad gita when I went in, as she gently but tightly closed her exotic eyelids so that she concentrate on feeling my pulse with her right hand.
Result? I have an exhausted nervous system due to overstimulation, I am impatient and likely to get skin problems and my digestion is sluggish. I smiled at the report as I have heard it all before from folk in UK, my Dad being one of them. Plus I more or less knew these things from just being me.
Amongst many remedial measures, she told me to eat for lunch a soup of rice and lentils and zucchini which I could cook in a crock, a slow-cooker in the morning.
So this weekend I went on to craigslist.com to hunt for a crock. And whaddyaknow, there is a guy called John on the upper east side (ie same side as me) selling his black oval crock for $15.
I mailed asking to come and buy it. He replied asking what sort of time. I replied stating my addressish and when I would leave. He replied with his full address. And whaddayknow again, it is the John who lives in the apartment next to me. We sleep feet away from each other. He watches tv while I watch my laptop.
So the deal was done. But the cool thing is that I got to see another treatment of exactly the same shaped apartment; somebody else's take on the space. So interesting!
I recoiled!
So John has lots of big dominating bulky, cloggy or at least light cutting objects in his place:
Big floppy curtains
Normal double bed with lots of duvets, pillows etc.
Big wardrobe
Big sofa
Rug
Huge black plasma tv oppoite sofa
Weight training machine thingummy
Other cabinety things
And generally very little walkable area from which he produced his crock.
And no space for a table.
This is the exact opposite to my philosophy, as you can probably tell, when trying to make the most of small space anyway. I could dig watching a movie on his tv though.
Not too long before that I had an ayurvedic checkup in a welcome random ayurveda center on the upper west side. I attempted not to fall in love with the young Indian ayurvedic doctor, who was reading her bhagavad gita when I went in, as she gently but tightly closed her exotic eyelids so that she concentrate on feeling my pulse with her right hand.
Result? I have an exhausted nervous system due to overstimulation, I am impatient and likely to get skin problems and my digestion is sluggish. I smiled at the report as I have heard it all before from folk in UK, my Dad being one of them. Plus I more or less knew these things from just being me.
Amongst many remedial measures, she told me to eat for lunch a soup of rice and lentils and zucchini which I could cook in a crock, a slow-cooker in the morning.
So this weekend I went on to craigslist.com to hunt for a crock. And whaddyaknow, there is a guy called John on the upper east side (ie same side as me) selling his black oval crock for $15.
I mailed asking to come and buy it. He replied asking what sort of time. I replied stating my addressish and when I would leave. He replied with his full address. And whaddayknow again, it is the John who lives in the apartment next to me. We sleep feet away from each other. He watches tv while I watch my laptop.
So the deal was done. But the cool thing is that I got to see another treatment of exactly the same shaped apartment; somebody else's take on the space. So interesting!
I recoiled!
So John has lots of big dominating bulky, cloggy or at least light cutting objects in his place:
Big floppy curtains
Normal double bed with lots of duvets, pillows etc.
Big wardrobe
Big sofa
Rug
Huge black plasma tv oppoite sofa
Weight training machine thingummy
Other cabinety things
And generally very little walkable area from which he produced his crock.
And no space for a table.
This is the exact opposite to my philosophy, as you can probably tell, when trying to make the most of small space anyway. I could dig watching a movie on his tv though.
Friday, June 22, 2012
In which smell-shiners are accepted
It's been super hot and muggy the last couple of days in the city. There was even an announcement from the electricity company (ConEd) in shops for people to turn off unused lights and computers as the cooling equipment used in this kind of 'event' uses bezerk amounts of electricity.
I still haven't gotten around to buying a cooling/airing device though I continue to gaze at them - both up in the rises, and on street level where they buzz away like a sort of insect doing a soft mating call and yet serving humans at the same time.
I am lucky, apparently, to have 2 sets of windows in my place. There are 2 big windows that look out to the street and other apartments across a tree. And there is a back window which opens out into a light/air-shaft that comes down in the middle of the block. It is a long narrow shaft meaning neighbours in the same block have facing windows only about 8 foot away. They remind me of staying in unluxurious city hotels and my sister's room in the nurses accommodation she had in Paddington when I was 14.
It's a peculiar thing the shaft. It is a totally inaccessible space and therefore is unloved and dirty. It allows light and air from quite far above, rendering the room depending on it, still pretty dingy. Air quality isn't great anywhere and this shaft is worse because people have their aircon machines perched on the sills shining out their living smells and air into the shaft - and at me! who hasn't got one to shine it right back!
One night when I had a bad headache I got quite down about it. The light coming from windows when I needed dark, and the musty smell from the shaft. It smelt sawdusty and furry - not awful but just not fresh. And I began to smell things into the sawdusty smell, like pet's piss - only very slight. This was worsened on my first night sleeping in the backroom (which is the kitchen) by the large US fridge coming on abruptly through the night: Ber-kw-ARP! a-dum-whirrrurrrurrurrurrurrurrurr.
Headacheless and rested though it's fine. It's not that bad at all. And now I'm 4 weeks in this place I don't notice any smell. In fact it got better in a jump last week when I realised that the sawdust part of it was coming from my homemade shelves near my bed! Which I am pleased with. I was breathing the wood. Funny how once you know the source of the smell, it becomes ok - mind stops running riot.
Then the shaft reminds me of the ugly naked guy in Friends which makes me laugh. For I am naked in the apartment often, or atleast underwear only and cannot be bothered to worry about the fact that neighbors can/could/do see. I notice that they keep curtains and net curtains and other things which gather dust, restrict light even more and just look depressing to me.
The fridge cure came from my mother's practical influence as a child. I remember her explaining that an ice-pack made a cavy type space cool, and that a sealed metal container heated, is an oven. Wonderful to find that you can bake scones in a pan therefore. And you can turn a box into a fridge.
What am I getting at? Simple: keep a large bag of ice in the ample freezer box in the day. And transfer it to the fridge in the night; and turn the fridge OFF! Victory.
The shaft also reminds me of a large seemingly bottomless black round hole in the ground in Malawi called Chingwee's hole which terrified me as a child. It reminds me because I can't lean out far enough to see the shaft's bottom. I've been having wild dreams in NYC too and a dear friend fell down the shaft on a visit in one of my dreams last week. They were ok though...
So I do plan to buy an aircon machine - but I shall shine it out of the windows in the gorgeously light end of the apartment. There is lots of good influence in the room to balance out its crude technological insectness. I guess when its wafting back its cool air, I shall come to love it as a friend. The good influence is the rich brown oak table, large wooden-framed mirror, mahogany guitar and comfy black beautiful leather Danish futon. Massive bunch of daisies in a wine decanter on the table aswell.
I've gotten used to the fridge now too at night. And why sleep in the kitchen or rather, have the kitchen in my bedroom? I want the light and beautiful room, with its 'view', to be a place to sit uncompromised by a bed - albeit by an aircon machine eventually.
But the main thing is I sleep well and can achieve a level of comfort where I feel rested and good walking out into dreamy Manhattan. I'm sure that those of you who visit, or use it as a vacation pad will really enjoy it too.
It's been super hot and muggy the last couple of days in the city. There was even an announcement from the electricity company (ConEd) in shops for people to turn off unused lights and computers as the cooling equipment used in this kind of 'event' uses bezerk amounts of electricity.
I still haven't gotten around to buying a cooling/airing device though I continue to gaze at them - both up in the rises, and on street level where they buzz away like a sort of insect doing a soft mating call and yet serving humans at the same time.
I am lucky, apparently, to have 2 sets of windows in my place. There are 2 big windows that look out to the street and other apartments across a tree. And there is a back window which opens out into a light/air-shaft that comes down in the middle of the block. It is a long narrow shaft meaning neighbours in the same block have facing windows only about 8 foot away. They remind me of staying in unluxurious city hotels and my sister's room in the nurses accommodation she had in Paddington when I was 14.
It's a peculiar thing the shaft. It is a totally inaccessible space and therefore is unloved and dirty. It allows light and air from quite far above, rendering the room depending on it, still pretty dingy. Air quality isn't great anywhere and this shaft is worse because people have their aircon machines perched on the sills shining out their living smells and air into the shaft - and at me! who hasn't got one to shine it right back!
One night when I had a bad headache I got quite down about it. The light coming from windows when I needed dark, and the musty smell from the shaft. It smelt sawdusty and furry - not awful but just not fresh. And I began to smell things into the sawdusty smell, like pet's piss - only very slight. This was worsened on my first night sleeping in the backroom (which is the kitchen) by the large US fridge coming on abruptly through the night: Ber-kw-ARP! a-dum-whirrrurrrurrurrurrurrurrurr.
Headacheless and rested though it's fine. It's not that bad at all. And now I'm 4 weeks in this place I don't notice any smell. In fact it got better in a jump last week when I realised that the sawdust part of it was coming from my homemade shelves near my bed! Which I am pleased with. I was breathing the wood. Funny how once you know the source of the smell, it becomes ok - mind stops running riot.
Then the shaft reminds me of the ugly naked guy in Friends which makes me laugh. For I am naked in the apartment often, or atleast underwear only and cannot be bothered to worry about the fact that neighbors can/could/do see. I notice that they keep curtains and net curtains and other things which gather dust, restrict light even more and just look depressing to me.
The fridge cure came from my mother's practical influence as a child. I remember her explaining that an ice-pack made a cavy type space cool, and that a sealed metal container heated, is an oven. Wonderful to find that you can bake scones in a pan therefore. And you can turn a box into a fridge.
What am I getting at? Simple: keep a large bag of ice in the ample freezer box in the day. And transfer it to the fridge in the night; and turn the fridge OFF! Victory.
The shaft also reminds me of a large seemingly bottomless black round hole in the ground in Malawi called Chingwee's hole which terrified me as a child. It reminds me because I can't lean out far enough to see the shaft's bottom. I've been having wild dreams in NYC too and a dear friend fell down the shaft on a visit in one of my dreams last week. They were ok though...
So I do plan to buy an aircon machine - but I shall shine it out of the windows in the gorgeously light end of the apartment. There is lots of good influence in the room to balance out its crude technological insectness. I guess when its wafting back its cool air, I shall come to love it as a friend. The good influence is the rich brown oak table, large wooden-framed mirror, mahogany guitar and comfy black beautiful leather Danish futon. Massive bunch of daisies in a wine decanter on the table aswell.
I've gotten used to the fridge now too at night. And why sleep in the kitchen or rather, have the kitchen in my bedroom? I want the light and beautiful room, with its 'view', to be a place to sit uncompromised by a bed - albeit by an aircon machine eventually.
But the main thing is I sleep well and can achieve a level of comfort where I feel rested and good walking out into dreamy Manhattan. I'm sure that those of you who visit, or use it as a vacation pad will really enjoy it too.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Monday, June 11, 2012
Day out with first guest
Be warned!
My apartment is lovely for one. But it is small.
I had my first guest this long weekend. Helen, from Toronto. She was so very tolerant of me in the space - I find cramped spaces pretty tricky. I am going to get better. So the gates are open! If only a little...
Anyway it was lovely with Helen. Hot in the city so we took ourselves on the 25 minute river bus ride to cool and no high-rises Williamsburg of Brooklyn, where everyone thinks they are a rockstar. We looked back at the high-rises and breathed in the sensational clear sprayed air. There was excellent coffee and organic homemade raspberry popsicles, with seeds in of course, once there. There was the flea market! Over-priced but lots of lovely stuff and you can haggle.
It was fun getting the 5 foot square mirror that I bought home on the boat together. Involved lots of photos and a nice ice-breaker with other folks who looked in it, asked how much it was - one lady bit her finger and said I'd been had. But it looks grand in my 'lounge'. I'm thinking of getting a hanging plant and soon there will be a double bass. Just like in London!
The mover guy who moved my second-hand oak table said I'd been done. The old Bronx guy who sold it me was such a character - giving directions LOUDLY and s...l....o....w...l....y. And he told me I was a nice person. Which might be code for 'you have been shafted.'
Online dating is proving interesting. Far more lively - far more folks say hello. And I've got interest - textually anyway - from black ladies in Brooklyn. One lady is a little bit Alicia Keys and the other lady reminds me more of Floella Benjamin. Very curious by the black folk in NYC. Sorry to keep mentioning it but I am.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Of smelling,tasting and shelving
NYC is noisy and smelly. Mostly it's the sooty traffic smell you get coming through, big blasts of it sometimes on the streets, and other times just a feeling of lack of fresh air generally. Certainly on the bike, my glands swell up with the fumes and I feel the membranes in my nose sooting up - they speak to me: "Bruuuce - what are you doing?" It's a tricky one.
And the avenues, as in '5th' and 'Lexington' (still love the names), which go in long straight lines all the way from up to downtown, are sometimes 6 lanes and usually one way. This means you get a free for all river of vehicles teaming down, including beefy great trucks with horrendously loud engines. No surprise at the volume and smells.
So far I am mostly on my own! This is good because I hate shouting above traffic.
And then every now and then, I don't know if it's the heat, but unlike London also, you get a sudden waft of something organic and unpleasant, not exactly sewagey, but reminds me of some of the wafts I remember in Malawi as a child. Stinky!
There is no equivalent of Yeovalley plain yoghurt here.
Its hard to find bread as tasty as in London. Even the 'artisan' loaves in Wholefoods chain and in markets are just not as tasty and satisfying as loaves easy to find in London.
Coffee - also rare to find a delicious cup.
I had a tomaydoe/tomarto moment in beloved Wholefoods. I wanted 'butter'. The guy said 'pasta?'. 'No...butter'. 'Hmmm. I don't think we have thayat.' 'Oh I'm certain you do....butter!'
Rather than adopting a US accent I find myself pushed further into English, even though it makes me feel isolated and prim. This was after a lady said she was disappointed at the weakness of my accent! And also after one alpha guy called Ken spoke of his respect for grammar and clarity in the English.
Anyway to get butter, I did an inner shrug, captured the 'r' with lips opening out, softened the 'tt' do 'dd' and was shown where the budderr was.
Manhattan, mid-town atleast - where I am living/working, there is NOwhere to sit and eat a homemade sandwich. I stand on the corner feeling trapped in a desert of road-grid and office blocks! In London you don't have to go far to find a backstreet doorstep or an alley or pedestrianized bit to sit and have a quick lunch. But here there is often absolutely nowhere to perch. What a strange discovery.
Work lunch choices are humungus. There are so many places to go. So much choice. There's quite a few in London but it's not the same. There certainly aren't the hot/cold buffets which are very common in Manhattan. You can buy by weight: a fragment of baked salmon, some roasted vegetables, a chicken wing and some bacon beans with a teaspoon of melon salad if you want. And they are tasty and decent.
I seem to be fussy however and after most bought lunches, feel a bit lacklustre in the afternoon, in a way which I never do if I bring food from home. And so I'm forming a list of so far 3 places which make me feel energetic afterwards. Which is the same total as in London. One of them is a great Mexican chain called Chipotle - really fresh, really well designed - a good quick, full veggy meal for about £5. Pizza slice is another really good option. They do it so very well.
Had a funny 'have a nice day' moment yesterday. Store staff are good at varying it. Sometimes it's "enjoy your day/afternoon", or "have a good one", or "you take care now".
I was coming out of Home Depot - essentially a really good B&Q - which is round the corner from my office - an underground warehouse of DIY goodies. Sometimes a sweet old lady asks what you are after when you come in and then remembers what it was as you go past on the way out: "did you faand your shelves?" Which I had. I bought wood opting to make my own so that my apartment isn't too instant/consumery.
I've been to Home Depot many times in the past week and each time I get asked at least twice if I need help by a wondering employee. This is excellent as I nearly always do as it is so huge and my knowledge a bit limited. Bravo Home Depot.
Anyway on the visit in question I got to the exit about 0.5 seconds behind someone else. An assistant said "have a nice day" to them, not noticing me at first. And then the sincerity of it got somehow tested as I detected he didn't want to say it to me quite that quickly afterwards upon noticing me (you have to envisage it); the mechanicalness of it would have become too glaring. He could have said "and you too sir" but having not noticed me he was momentarily thrown. I grinned. I still had a nice day.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
B-boys in the subway
I love it when bits of your childhood re-emerge revealing more about themselves than you realised at the time. Of course this is bound to happen as a Briton in USA as so much of the culture - TV, movies and music primarily - is imported from the states, and very much taken for granted.
I remember as a 12 year old, being so excited by the first wave of body-popping and then shortly after breakdancing arriving via Top of the Pops with its snazzy moves. I definitely remember some of the moves names too :lockin', uprock, the donkey, the windmill, turtle, and less creatively the headspin. For months I couldn't walk past a mirror without seeing if my body-wave or arm-wave, or the 2 together, sending a ripple from hand up high to toe down low, was as good as I needed it to be.
And I remember that my family wouldn't buy me a Nike jacket because they were overpriced and because in 6 months time I would probably refuse to wear it as what is so in becomes so out so quickly. See the image above - the guys on the left in blue and red are wearing the holy grail of jackets for some posses in 1983.
It was not discussed then but I remember noting that 'Turbo' and 'Ozone', the heros of the movie 'Breakdance', dancing in the round in the picture, didn't wear them. They were way above such prescriptions it seemed. Ozone is even wearing a classic bandana around his waist - bandanas seem to work in so many fashions, from hells angel/biker, to metal, to rockabilly, to rap, to country. It's a rebel flag I guess.
Their getup reminds me a bit of Madonna's first appearances where lots of bits of different types of cloth seemed to be coming together, but in a way that wasn't completely arbitrary. It's pretty creative, and what makes it cool is a bit mysterious. And noticing the cool people in Manhattan, the nack of this crazy pick'n'mix way of dressing doesn't seem to have disappeared - of course there are many styles around but I notice this one a lot.
So it's Friday and I decide to go and see a film after work. 'The Dictator' has me a bit intrigued and at a push I can make the 7.30pm showing just off Union Sq on 14th Avenue. It's a hot evening and the subway train is cool with aircon. Its busy but there's a positive end of the working week buzz in the air. I head up the stairs checking the time, taking in the general dirtiness of the subway again and how short the steps are compared to the tube in London - shallower. This assists my lateness.
Now Union Square subway station has a big open area cut up by iron girdle pillars and stairways, with hundreds of people, who know where they are going, zig-zagging across the place. I get moments of confidence where I almost feel part of this as I learn bits of the system. But today I notice - hard not to - some driving loud ghetto-blaster music coming from a different section of the subway, I pause, and then speed up again, and then about turn, unable to resist seeing what is going on.
And after 3 weeks in the city, this is the first time I really feel 'Oh Jesus this is why I came here - things can happen here on a different level to other cities'.
Well breakdancing is hardly a breakthrough any more. But it's a question of how something is done isn't it. Let me set the scene. First there is excitement in the air with the general orderly chaos of a big crowd standing around with lots of other travelers passing by, put out by the obstruction but also loving that this is how things are, the sublimeness of the anarchy. Secondly the music is amazing - I wouldn't know what it was or how to find it. It's dance music with a driving beat, much faster than the breakdance music in the 80s, much more unrelenting and a bit more tribal than electronic. There's rap in there but not majorly and lots of sounds. The volume in the subway gives it a panicky edge too which contributes to the atmosphere quite a bit. It's not just a ghetto-blast either, but a couple of big speakers set up there.
I manage to get a window into the action next to a large middle-aged black lady with short hair and dangly earrings, a rough voice, an old push-bike and a sports bag zipped up perched on its handle-bars.
"Hey man mooov over will ya" she shouts to a big guy a few feet in front of her in her punchy Bronx accent. She pulls on his coat successfully which frees up my view too.
OK, this is what we saw. There's 6 of them in a line at the back of the round between the speakers. Black guys of course, and a black woman in there too - very young. They step from side to side in synch, music blaring - not choreographed, just natural. Their whole bodies stepping though, not just feet. The promise of staccato is already in there shoulders and necks. 2 guys wear shades. 1 guy is all in black - black baggy trousers a bit a la MC Hammer but more scary. He also wears a black bandana and his shades are sort of alienish. He's the one that came out dancing smoking a cigarette at one point, making very fast sort of in-out movements with his torso and then the cigarette was turned round hands-free in his mouth and he did this kind of driving a car dance backwards so that the reversed fag in his mouth was the exhaust with him blowing a long stream of smoke out of the filter end. Then he was off and the fag extinguished - responsible breakers!
Other guys are more 'normal' looking - one guy is wearing 3/4 length brushed cotton khaki coloured trousers, red T-shirt. He's the one that did a limbo down to the splits and lots of amazing other moves including somersaults. But mostly just very beautiful, powerful dancing - with the music, whole body involved, it was kind of shocking, visceral. If they were a tribe of warriors, their dance along with the driving music would definitely scare you off. And the red T guy at the end of his splash, stops, lifts up the sunglasses visor on his normal glasses and fains shyness as he walks off, hands in his pockets, looking behind him meekly as he goes, which makes me laugh.
I found the body-bopping probably most grabbing. One guy, a clean dresser, came on and it was a new take on body-popping. He moved his legs all bendy at right-angles but it looked like his torso was being floated on on a cushion of air rather than by his legs as he danced around - a kind of optical illusion, real magic taking place - a high point. I could tell when it was a high point as the crazy lady next to me starting screaming loudly. This would set her little dog off who yapped from inside her sports bag.
She also screamed when the breaker-girl walked on her hands around the floor kicking legs up to the ceiling frantically in alternation - all to the music of course. Another scream for the guy in dirty grey joggers and black shirt who did a very fast run of cart-wheels on the spot - a very muscly, buttocky moment that one.
And she screamed again when the following happened. And this to me is very NYC. And it was very exciting. So the 6 dancers were back stepping in a row with the anticipation of whose next? And it looks like the red T is going to pop. But what's this! Coming in from nowhere is a slender Mexican guy. He makes his way gradually into the middle, putting his briefcase down at the edge, peering intensely ahead, repeatedly locking his body during his sort of slow meander forwards. He has the black pony tail, slacks and a jacket. The shear unexpectedness of it makes the crowd go wild. And we glance at the black guys - what do they make of this? They seem up for it, delighted. After his contribution, there are cool versions of high fives and all.
I then leave on a high point, having donated, and curious at my own fear of the whole thing. I miss the movie but chat to the Occupy people in Union Square after acquiring a fabulous slize of wholemeal pizza (from wood oven) in Wholefoods and a tasty shredded Vietnamese salad. Munch munch!
I love it when bits of your childhood re-emerge revealing more about themselves than you realised at the time. Of course this is bound to happen as a Briton in USA as so much of the culture - TV, movies and music primarily - is imported from the states, and very much taken for granted.
I remember as a 12 year old, being so excited by the first wave of body-popping and then shortly after breakdancing arriving via Top of the Pops with its snazzy moves. I definitely remember some of the moves names too :lockin', uprock, the donkey, the windmill, turtle, and less creatively the headspin. For months I couldn't walk past a mirror without seeing if my body-wave or arm-wave, or the 2 together, sending a ripple from hand up high to toe down low, was as good as I needed it to be.
And I remember that my family wouldn't buy me a Nike jacket because they were overpriced and because in 6 months time I would probably refuse to wear it as what is so in becomes so out so quickly. See the image above - the guys on the left in blue and red are wearing the holy grail of jackets for some posses in 1983.
It was not discussed then but I remember noting that 'Turbo' and 'Ozone', the heros of the movie 'Breakdance', dancing in the round in the picture, didn't wear them. They were way above such prescriptions it seemed. Ozone is even wearing a classic bandana around his waist - bandanas seem to work in so many fashions, from hells angel/biker, to metal, to rockabilly, to rap, to country. It's a rebel flag I guess.
Their getup reminds me a bit of Madonna's first appearances where lots of bits of different types of cloth seemed to be coming together, but in a way that wasn't completely arbitrary. It's pretty creative, and what makes it cool is a bit mysterious. And noticing the cool people in Manhattan, the nack of this crazy pick'n'mix way of dressing doesn't seem to have disappeared - of course there are many styles around but I notice this one a lot.
So it's Friday and I decide to go and see a film after work. 'The Dictator' has me a bit intrigued and at a push I can make the 7.30pm showing just off Union Sq on 14th Avenue. It's a hot evening and the subway train is cool with aircon. Its busy but there's a positive end of the working week buzz in the air. I head up the stairs checking the time, taking in the general dirtiness of the subway again and how short the steps are compared to the tube in London - shallower. This assists my lateness.
Now Union Square subway station has a big open area cut up by iron girdle pillars and stairways, with hundreds of people, who know where they are going, zig-zagging across the place. I get moments of confidence where I almost feel part of this as I learn bits of the system. But today I notice - hard not to - some driving loud ghetto-blaster music coming from a different section of the subway, I pause, and then speed up again, and then about turn, unable to resist seeing what is going on.
And after 3 weeks in the city, this is the first time I really feel 'Oh Jesus this is why I came here - things can happen here on a different level to other cities'.
Well breakdancing is hardly a breakthrough any more. But it's a question of how something is done isn't it. Let me set the scene. First there is excitement in the air with the general orderly chaos of a big crowd standing around with lots of other travelers passing by, put out by the obstruction but also loving that this is how things are, the sublimeness of the anarchy. Secondly the music is amazing - I wouldn't know what it was or how to find it. It's dance music with a driving beat, much faster than the breakdance music in the 80s, much more unrelenting and a bit more tribal than electronic. There's rap in there but not majorly and lots of sounds. The volume in the subway gives it a panicky edge too which contributes to the atmosphere quite a bit. It's not just a ghetto-blast either, but a couple of big speakers set up there.
I manage to get a window into the action next to a large middle-aged black lady with short hair and dangly earrings, a rough voice, an old push-bike and a sports bag zipped up perched on its handle-bars.
"Hey man mooov over will ya" she shouts to a big guy a few feet in front of her in her punchy Bronx accent. She pulls on his coat successfully which frees up my view too.
OK, this is what we saw. There's 6 of them in a line at the back of the round between the speakers. Black guys of course, and a black woman in there too - very young. They step from side to side in synch, music blaring - not choreographed, just natural. Their whole bodies stepping though, not just feet. The promise of staccato is already in there shoulders and necks. 2 guys wear shades. 1 guy is all in black - black baggy trousers a bit a la MC Hammer but more scary. He also wears a black bandana and his shades are sort of alienish. He's the one that came out dancing smoking a cigarette at one point, making very fast sort of in-out movements with his torso and then the cigarette was turned round hands-free in his mouth and he did this kind of driving a car dance backwards so that the reversed fag in his mouth was the exhaust with him blowing a long stream of smoke out of the filter end. Then he was off and the fag extinguished - responsible breakers!
Other guys are more 'normal' looking - one guy is wearing 3/4 length brushed cotton khaki coloured trousers, red T-shirt. He's the one that did a limbo down to the splits and lots of amazing other moves including somersaults. But mostly just very beautiful, powerful dancing - with the music, whole body involved, it was kind of shocking, visceral. If they were a tribe of warriors, their dance along with the driving music would definitely scare you off. And the red T guy at the end of his splash, stops, lifts up the sunglasses visor on his normal glasses and fains shyness as he walks off, hands in his pockets, looking behind him meekly as he goes, which makes me laugh.
I found the body-bopping probably most grabbing. One guy, a clean dresser, came on and it was a new take on body-popping. He moved his legs all bendy at right-angles but it looked like his torso was being floated on on a cushion of air rather than by his legs as he danced around - a kind of optical illusion, real magic taking place - a high point. I could tell when it was a high point as the crazy lady next to me starting screaming loudly. This would set her little dog off who yapped from inside her sports bag.
She also screamed when the breaker-girl walked on her hands around the floor kicking legs up to the ceiling frantically in alternation - all to the music of course. Another scream for the guy in dirty grey joggers and black shirt who did a very fast run of cart-wheels on the spot - a very muscly, buttocky moment that one.
And she screamed again when the following happened. And this to me is very NYC. And it was very exciting. So the 6 dancers were back stepping in a row with the anticipation of whose next? And it looks like the red T is going to pop. But what's this! Coming in from nowhere is a slender Mexican guy. He makes his way gradually into the middle, putting his briefcase down at the edge, peering intensely ahead, repeatedly locking his body during his sort of slow meander forwards. He has the black pony tail, slacks and a jacket. The shear unexpectedness of it makes the crowd go wild. And we glance at the black guys - what do they make of this? They seem up for it, delighted. After his contribution, there are cool versions of high fives and all.
I then leave on a high point, having donated, and curious at my own fear of the whole thing. I miss the movie but chat to the Occupy people in Union Square after acquiring a fabulous slize of wholemeal pizza (from wood oven) in Wholefoods and a tasty shredded Vietnamese salad. Munch munch!
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