is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Me and NYC. Plus: The City Will Speak if you listen.
Me and NYC. Plus: The City Will Speak if you listen.
Today I took the Chinatown bus to New York. Usually I take the more expensive SEPTA to NJTransit train route, or the also more expensive Peter Pan bus. But everyone kept telling me I needed to try the Chinatown bus, because it�s only $20 roundtrip, whereas the other options tend toward $40 (and Amtrak is $108!). So I did. It was fine. A bit more smelly, and the bus a bit more squeaky loud, but fine. So I�m in NYC.
Tonight I went to a fundraising party for a documentary being done on urban art (street art and graffiti, etc.) in Brazil. I met a number of well known street artists (if you pay attention to such things) including Akim & Zast, Sonik, Cekis, and Daze (who is legendary at this point; he was a painter in the 70s in NYC when it all began), a really talented girl street-artist named Swoon, and an artist named Darius Jones who appropriates things like lamp-posts that have been knocked over and repositions them in different settings. We watched a 12-minute trailer and looked at slides of everyone�s work and then there was a roundtable discussion about street art, etc. The film looks like it will be really great. I think it�s just going to be called �Urban Art,� but hopefully a better title will be generated along the way.
Anyway, I was glad to be at the event, and impressed by a lot of the work I saw, and I appreciated being made to think, again, about how the city has ways of speaking that are utterly separate from questions of political representation and commercial/monetary interests. It is a good thing. Plus, some of the art that gets put up on walls and other public spaces is really beautiful.
Also: cute boys. Always cute boys at an event about street art, mind you. And free beer. What's not to like?
Wendy was the moderator at the event. She did a fine job. She also made sure that I met everyone there, because she is GOOD that way. Everytime Wendy introduces me to someone she says, "This is Jill. She is a professor." It makes me smirk and/or laugh. I mean, I think she does it because she is proud of all the work I've done. But it always strikes me as a funny and odd because that's far from the first thing I ever say about myself to someone.
On the way home from the event I called my friend Will to ascertain that neither of us was going to be willing to jump on a subway to get from Manhattan to Brooklyn or vice versa to see each other tonight. I thought that would take two minutes but we ended up talking all the way from 15th and 6th to roughly 20th and 3rd, which is quite a while, in fact he basically walked me home, because he is someone with whom I never seem to arrive at a shortage of things to say. I appreciate that about him. And I also appreciate that I am not in Brooklyn right now, because I am tired.
I have very many things planned between now and Sunday! I will see Vanderslice play twice, go to an air guitar party, see three movies, visit some art galleries, have a meal cooked for me, and eat some meals at restaurants, and see Will, Yoktan, Catherine, Wendy, Linda, Paul, Ramsay and Julia. Perhaps others too. I have had very little time to think about how to organize it all. Thankfully I don�t have to go shopping for a dress for the wedding because I ALREADY FOUND ONE. It�s beautiful, too. I�ll describe it later because I�m an idiot who lugged her computer with her to New York but forgot to bring the charger for it, and thus I�m running out of typing time.
12:23 a.m. - April 27, 2006
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