is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Free Art.
Last night Gus and I, and my friend Paul Adams, and his friend Mark, saw Die!Die!Die! and Wire for free at South Street Seaport. Paul thought there would be chairs there, and that it would fill up early, as these events often do, so we met there at 5:45 for a 7pm show. No chairs. And not so crowded. But that meant that we, improbably, got to be in the front row. Which meant I could actually see the show. Until the crazy light show make me have to leave the front row. At one point the Wire bassist grumpily asked the lights guy to "take it down a notch because I'm getting epileptic up here." HA.
I had never been to South Street Seaport before. Man, it�s like a crazy amusement park mall, but without the rides and the good shops. It was weird to think that someone could tourist their way into New York, stay down there, and think New York was like that? Weird. Anyway, the place soon filled up with hipster types. Paul remarked that it wasn�t really the �Wire� generation� though there were some older black-clad types in evidence. I responded that Wire is exactly the kind of band that the youngsters would feel cool �discovering.� Like when Marilyn was working for a high school and she asked a goth-looking girl student what kind of music she liked to listen to, and the student was all, �oh, it�s really obscure, I�m sure you never heard of any of it.� Marilyn was like, try me. So the young girls says: �I really like this band called Siouxsie and the Banshees.� HAHAHAHA. Which is exactly what Marilyn said, followed by, �Oh. Yeah. I saw them play lots of times back in the day.�
Why do the youths love to think they are owners of a secret world to which older types have no access? (Sure, they do, in some measure, inhabit such a world. But the older types really don�t care, is the thing. I love to tell my students how old I am so they can think a bit about how my life has not ENDED despite my advancing age.) Better question: why do the youths (and not only the youths, sometimes!) think that only liking something �obscure� makes them cool? Such a struggle between trying to fit in and longing to show how you can�t be categorized�such is the comedy or the tragedy of youth. (And not only youth, sometimes.)
I did see lots of cute boys in cute outfits at Indie Disney. And some cute girls. Fewer cute girls than boys, however. I think it must have been the bands playing that determined that. Cute boy-outfits and cute boy-haircuts. And so-so girls. I saw one girl wearing impossibly high-waisted shortshorts. I know those are trying to make their way onto the fashion scene. But they just seem so wrong. Can�t we make a compromise between buttcleavage jeans and boobsupporting jeans? Most people look just fine with a waistband that sits an inch or two below the belly button. Period.
Plus she had a really bad shade of orange hair. It wasn�t quite fake enough to work. My friends, if you are going to rock a strange hair color, you have to rock it ALL THE WAY TO THE DESTINATION. None of this half-hearted middling Miss Clairol Mistakenness.
The weather was perfect for an outdoor show.
This morning I made vanilla almond Belgian waffles and some eggs scrambled with provolone and oregano. It was a yummy feast. Later tonight we�re supposed to go check out an outdoor art event in which my friend Steve Dye is participating. It�s thundering and lightninging right now� apparently that won�t stop the Illuminated Corridor, but it may stop me, so I�m hoping the sky clears before tonight.
2:17 p.m. - May 31, 2008
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