Flaming Pablum

Vanishing Downtown - Pt. 2

Attempting to stave off a herculian hangover this morning, (don't ask), I thought it might be a fine idea to keep my headache at bay via some fresh air and a spirited stroll around Soho. Generally speaking, Soho is usually a must-to-avoid on weekends, as the streets become clogged with the precise variety of whistleheaded tourist that makes me foam at the mouth with abject loathing. Still, it's a lovely day so who cares?

Turning west on Prince Street, I encountered a gent selling photographs at a little table. Now, it's not at all uncommon to encounter people selling photographs of New York iconogaphy around the city, but those pics are usually crappy, mass-produced shots of the usual yawnsome landmarks and the sellers rarely know anything about the background or circumstances of the image, much less who took them. These photographs, on the other hand, stopped me dead in my tracks. Here I am moaning on and on about "my vanishing downtown" of the early 80's, and this gentleman -- one Ned Otter -- was selling beautifullly presented, black & white photographs of a downtown NYC that is long gone.

A genuine labor of love project, Ned has compiled the work of his father Robert, a giftted photographer who passed away in 1986. Spanning 1962 through 1972, Otter's photographs capture moments from a Greenwich Village of the 60's that seem both inexplicably foreign and timelessly familiar. I was completely captivated. I'd only intended to peruse for a moment, but ended up chatting with Ned for a long while and couldn't leave without buying a print (a brilliant shot of a mailbox on the south-west corner of 14th Street & University Place). In a just world, these photographs would be bound in handsome coffee table book. If you harbor even the slightest affinity for archival photography and/or have a similiar fascination with vintage New York City, please check out their website by simply clicking here. Actually, the image I purchased serves as the opening shot on their splash page.

And click here are more NYC shots I took this morning.

See Sean Read. Read, Sean, Read!

Yep, time for yet another plug. My dear friend Sean Wilsey is currently promoting his best-selling memoir, "Oh the Glory of It All", and will be doing a few more readings in the New York area. If you're free for the dates below , do go check him out. The book is hugely engaging and Sean himself is incomparably funny.

Wednesday, August 3
New York, NY
with Jeanette Walls, author of "The Glass Castle"
Liberal Arts for Air America Radio
Housing Works Used Book Café
126 Crosby St.
(212) 334-3324
8:00 p.m.

Thursday, August 4
Brooklyn, NY
with Curtis Sittenfeld, author of "Prep"
BookCourt
163 Court St.
(718) 875-3677
8:00 p.m.

Friday, August 12
East Hampton, NY
with A.M. Homes
Book Hampton
20 Main St.
8:00 p.m.

Wednesday, August 24
New York, NY
with Todd Pruzan and John Hodgman
McNally Robinson Booksellers
50 Prince St.
(212) 274-1160
7:00 p.m.

And from the man himself:

Also: I'm going to be on the Joey Reynolds show on WOR 710 AM Tuesday night--Joey, they say over at WOR, is the original "shock jock." I'll be fending for myself from 11:00 PM.
Oh, this just in from Myra Chanin, the producer over there at WOR:  
"I don't know if you are familiar with Joey's show, but we're the #1 overnight show in the US with huge ratings in NY and we're heard in 6 time zones by 9 million smart listeners who not only read books, but buy them.
"This is not an interview show, it's a chat show, and you'll be on with Joey for about 40 minutes.  He lived in LA for quite a while when he was creative director of 20th Century Fox, so he is familiar with the milieu you write about.
"If there is anything that you particularly want him to know about you, please e-mail the info to me."
If anybody has any thoughts there....
Furthermore: Read Sean's book tour tales on the McSweeneys site

"Perpetual Transmogrification,...."

".....like some sordid act of creation or dismemberment captured accidentally in a flashbulb's glare."

This tasty turn of phrase is the handiwork of my friend Tod [A], erstwhile sneery rock thug-turned-world traveller (you can read my rapturous review of his band's music here) who is currently exploring the wilds of India and Thailand and teaching enough English to sustain his tenuous grasp on sanity via beer and cigarettes. After months of logging his wry and richly cinematic musings in e-mail form, Tod's finally hijacked a rickshaw onto the information superhighway and launched his own proper weblog-as-travelogue (or travelblog, if you will). It's hugely funny and informative, so be sure to check it out by clicking on this here link!

My Vanishing Downtown - Pt. 1

Since the Sun has evidently given the Earth a reprieve today, deciding not to subsume the planet in a fiery cataclysm (well, that's kinda how it felt earlier in the week), I dug my bike out of its dust-caked hibernation for the purposes of a spin around my vanishing metropolis.

Motivated by a larger-but-as-yet-clearly-defined idea about Downtown NYC in Flux, I brought my camera with me in the hopes of documenting signs of what I've taken to somewhat presumptuously calling "My Vanishing Downtown". Fueled by three cups of coffee and a banana, I hopped on my bike and came back with the following entry (pics included....click on them to enlarge).

I should point out from the get-go that I did not grow up Downtown. But I did grow up in Manhattan (which makes me somewhat of a rarity in many circles, it seems). While I was born and raised on the rather staid and stuffy Upper East Side, in many respects Downtown NYC did have a profound effect on my development. By the time I was in 8th Grade (circa 1980/81), my imagination had become completely captured by the allure of Greenwich Village, Soho, the East Village and the surrounding areas (the demarkations of which were completely foreign to me at the time...it all blurred into one seething mass of arcane cool and gritty mystery). Having discovered Canal Street with my friend Danny (himself fond of buying Japanese throwing stars from a dubious establishment off West Broadway dubbed "The Trader"..... don't look for it, it's long gone..... and the various record stores that dotted West 8th Street with my friend Rob -- don't look for those either, they're all gone too), I thought I'd gotten a handle on the area, but this was so not the case. In very short order, virtually all my free time was spent exploring the seemingly undiscovered backwater tributaries of Downtown NYC. Even when I wasn't shopping for elusive imported vinyl 7"s with Rob or contraband weaponry with Danny, I'd often go downtown just to wander the streets, soaking up what I considered an aura of inexplicable cool and rich, historic character.

The irony here is that years later, I'd move Downtown, get married, have a child and be, for all intents and purposes, forced to walk around the streets, pushing a stroller around like a dazed Sisyphus. The sad thing here is that seemingly nine-tenths of that same aura of gritty bohemian cool has largely dissipated. The walls of Soho aren't pock-marked with dizzyingly spontaneous bursts of art. Galleries have been replaced by J.Crew Outlets. Mom'n'Pop record shops where I used to prize rare albums by esoteric punk bands have been squeezed out and replaced by wine bars. Storied live music venues, cool bars and cutting-edge clubs have been evicted and replaced by antiseptic furniture stores or soulless cocktail lounges. In many respects, the Downtown NYC that used to so fire my imagination simply no longer exists.

It would be incredibly naive of me to have imagined that Downtown was going to remain untouched and intact like a mosquito preserved in amber, given the apparent inevitability of gentrification. Change is, after all, the only constant in the urban environment. But that process seems to have significantly accelerated in the last few years. Huge, glass tube-like structures have seemingly appeared overnight all over downtown, as if some vast giant is placing towering bottles of blue shampoo around like chess pieces. Maybe its due to the fevered rush to rebuild Lower Manhattan following the fateful events of 2001, but the landscape is changing drastically. The little pocket of streets just north of the western end of Canal Street -- home to the landmark Ear Inn and the location for many of the scenes in Martin Scorcese's Kafka-esque black comedy, "After Hours" (a film I'm admittedly obsessed with) -- has become a hotbed of luxury high rises and newly designed office space. Where once those quiet streets were the very quintessence of seductively atmospheric urban desolation, they're now canyons of shimmering glass and palpable affluence. Tiny structures like the afore-mentioned Ear Inn and the rock club, Don Hill's now cower meekly and uncomfortably under looming concrete titans and crater-like holes where similarly diminutive neighbors used to reside. I fear it shan't be long before both of those estimable establishments are plucked out like unsightly gray hairs, to be invariably replaced by new condos or yet another Starbuck's.

One of the more celebrated venues currently on the chopping block is, of course, CBGB's, the veritable spiritual epicenter of Punk Rock. Its plight has been documented in more periodicals than you shake a beat-up guitar at, but for a complete summary of the club's current dilemma, why not simply click here, which will also save me the time and space of having to accurately encapsulate it . Now, to be perfectly honest, I really cannot remember the last show I attended at this storied hole in the wall -- it may have been either a reunion show by NYC hardcore legends, Kraut or possibly one of the final performances by Cop Shoot Cop. Regardless, it seems that over the past ten years, the club's booking policy and roster of bands has become a bit lackluster. Moreover, all that you've heard about the place is more or less true -- it's a squalid, filthy, fire-trap of a dive. That said, I still think its a major organ of Downtown Manhattan, and its removal will be a crippling blow. I mean, Carnegie Hall is also probably a shadow of its former self -- shall we tear that down too?

If it does indeed go, however, CBGB's won't be the first of Manhattan's seminal clubs to get the keys to the street. In the last couple of years, we've lost The Bottom Line, Wetlands Preserve, Tramp's, Coney Island High and the Cooler (among others).

This is going to probably be an ongoing feature on this weblog. In the interim, however, if you're curious, please click here to avail yourself to the pictures and anecdotal information of Manhattan I documented today .

Klosterman's Theory: Did Radiohead's Kid A Predict 9/11?

The passage below is the perfect example of what sleep deprivation does to the mind. This actually dates back to a couple of months ago, but the topic came up recently when I was having dinner with some friends of mine, so I thought I'd dust it off and put it up here (for people to scoff at).

So, I know it has only just hit bookstore shelves (I found a review copy of it at work --- on the discard pile -- and read it), but in Chuck Klosterman's new book, "Killing Yourself to Live", he goes into great detail about how he feels that the sequence of Radiohead's Kid A (originally released on October 3, 2000) is eerily prescient with regards to the events of September 11, 2001. He's not suggesting that Thom Yorke is some sort've Nostrodamus, but this seemingly crackpot theory definetely made me want to listen to the album again.

From Chuck's text....any spelling mistakes are my own.....

The first song on Kid A paints the Manhattan skyline at 8:00 A.M. on Tuesday morning; the song is titled "Everything in Its Right Place." People woke up that day "sucking on a lemon," because that's what life normally feels like on the Manhattan subway; the city is a beautiful, sour, sarcastic place. We soon move onto song two, which is the title track. It is the sound of woozy, ephemeral normalcy. It is the sound of Jonny Greenwood playing an Ondes Martenot, an instrument best remembered for its use in the Star Trek theme song. You can imagine humans walking to work, riding elevators, getting off the C train and the 3 train, and thinking about a future that will be a lot like the present, only better. The term KID A is Yorke's moniker for the first cloned human, which he (only half jokingly) suspects may already exist. The consciously misguided message is this: Science is the answer. Technology solves everything, because technology is invulnerable. And this is what almost everyone in America thought around 8:30 A.M. But something happens three and a half minutes into "Kid A". It suddenly doesn't feel right, and you don't exactly know why. This is followed by track three, "The National Anthem"

This is when the first plane slams into the north tower at 470 mph.

"The National Anthem" sounds a bit like a Morphine song. It's a completley different direction from the first two songs on KID A, and it's confusing; it's chaotic. "What's going on?," the lyrics ask. "What's going on?" It gets crazier and crazier, until the second plane hits the second tower (at 9:03 A.M. in reality and at 3:42 in the song). For a moment, things are somber. But then it gets more anarchic. (Reader's Note: You might want to consider playing KID A right about now, since I'm not always so good at explaining shit like this). Which leads into track four, "How to Disappear Completely." This is the point where it feels like the world is possibly ending. People try to convince themselves that they are not there. People keep repeating: "This isn't happening". People are "floating" (read: falling) to the earth. We are told of strobe lights and blown speakers; there are fireworks and hurricanes. This is a song about being burned alive and jumping out of windows, and this is a song about having to watch those things happen. And it's followed by an instrumental piece without melody ("Treefingers"), because what can you say when skyscrapers collapse? All you can do is stare at them with your hand over your mouth.

Time passes. It's afternoon. KID A's side two, if you have it on vinyl. Action is replaced by thought. The song is "Optimistic, " a word that becomes more meaningful in its absence. It has lyrics about Ground Zero ("vultures circle the dead"), and it offers a glimpse into how Al Qaeda members think Americans perceive international diplomacy ("the big fish eat the little ones, the big fish eat the little ones/Not my problem, give me some"). Track seven, "In Limbo" is about how the United States has been shaken out of its fantasy, with "nowhere to hide," finding only "trap doors that open, I spiral down"......

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He goes on, but you get the general idea. You should really check it out yourselves if you're curious, but I thought I'd share some of it here.

Also, I have to say, I wasn't really all that hot about Kid A upon its release. I was freelancing at the time for an ill-fated "teen-oriented" website (`cos, y'know, who better to write for teens than me, eh?) called I-Stash (don't look for it, it's long gone), and I reviewed this album. I wish I could find what I wrote, but in a nutshell, I was basically pretty lazy in my description (which may have had more to do with spacial limitation than any disdain I may have harbored for the album at the time). I listened to it dutifully for reviewing purposes, and then filed it away until --- well, until last week, I suppose, when Chuck's suggestions prompted a new listening. I have to say, it's much better than I initially remembered.

Alright, bear with me on this one....this is where it gets a bit strange.

So, there I am: overnight shift. I finally get a chance to spin Kid A in its entirety, as synched up with Klosterman's admittedly half-assed outline of it mimicing the events of September 11. For some reason, during my overnight shifts in the dead of night and in the first light of the early morning, I so often think back to the events of that day, going so far as to trawl the `Net for conspiracy-theory sites or footage etc. It's like picking at a scar, I can't explain it. Like many New Yorkers, I suspect, I am still drawn to recapture the disquieting state of alarm that those events conjured.

In any case, there I am, tracking Kid A and attempting to match up in my mind the course of that fateful day as Chuck depicts it. In doing so, I'm flipping through the exhaustively complicated booklet that comes with Kid A (I'm not talking about the "hidden" booklet under the disc tray either, but rather the booklet that comes sheethed within the translucent front of the jewelbox. This website featuring the album artwork might help you follow along with this next part.

Open the booklet. The front is the front cover (featuring the crudely drawn mountains and the album title). The second two paged feature: on the left: another mountainous scene, dwarfed by an indefinable white figure that towers over little red cubes and menacing figures with big teeth and Mickey Mouse ears. On the opposite side, what looks like a drab landscape. No hugely defining characteristics to describe. Turn this page.

On the second two page, there is a flap on the left hand side that, if opened, depicts a nother mountainous landscape. Don't bother with that. On the right side, is an ambiguous design on translucent grey paper. Turn the page.

On this pairing, on the left hand side (on the translucent grey paper) is what looks like a hallway framed with stalagmites. On the right hand side is some geometric design over a crude landscape. The colors are black, grey and light brown. Turn the page.

On the right hand side of this paring, we see a group of figures (their backs to us) looking at what looks like a giant iceberg or possibly a wave. On the opposite side is just more of that same ice/wave imaery
(with a splotch of red in the lower left hand corner).

Stay with me, there's a point to all of this.

Turn the page again.

On the left hand side of the booklet, ther is an ambiguous picture of what looks like a landscape from a birds eye perspective with lots of grey and black geometric shapes. On the other side is another indefineable illustration on that same grey, translucent paper. Turn the page.

On the next pairing, on the left you have the other side of the grey, translucent page....on the RIGHT side there is a flap that opens. OPEN THAT FLAP .

Open the flap to its fullest extent. Over four colored panels, there is depicted what looks like a distressed landscape, followed by a black panel featuring liner notes

ON THE COLORED PANAL IMMEDIATELY TO THE LEFT ON THE LINER NOTES PANEL
there is a vague but discernible image of two oblong, rectangular blocks. One sports an antenae like spire from its top, while the other seemingly is hemorrhaging a swathe of fiery oranges and reds, as if it either ablaze or bleeding. To my mind, this image looks eerily similar to the Twin Towers.

Basically, I'm talking about the image to the far right here.

It's a bit small, but you should get the idea. Anyway, yes, it was late. Yes, the power of suggestion is a potent one, but indulge me and take a look at this design and tell me what you see.

UPDATE FROM 2010
UPDATE FROM 2016
UPDATE FROM 2020
ANOTHER UPDATE FROM 2020

In Praise of...Get Off the Cross, We Need the Wood for the Fire by Firewater

Once again, appropos of nothing, here's another one of these. This doesn't come from ILM either, but rather it's a review I wrote for something that now eludes me. I later posted it on Julian Cope's excellent site ,Head Heritage , which is an amazing resource for criminally arcane music. I love this band, and this record, dearly....and the review is a little overwritten as a result (hey, at least I'm acknowledging it this time, eh?), so please excuse the hyperbole. Firewater are on a bit of hiatus at the moment, as their fearless leader, Tod [A] is abroad teaching English as a second language to the Siamese. Anyway, run out to yer local music merchant and buy this disc.

FIREWATER
Get Off the Cross, We Need the Wood for the Fire
(JetSet) 1996

Having spent a goodly portion of the early `90's irresponsibly ravaging my ears via the serrated audio squal of Brooklyn's mighty Cop Shoot Cop (the initial sonic outpourings of whom meshed with the workings of the inner ear as does the rusty screwdriver to spinning bicycle spokes), I found myself virtually weeping bitter, caustic tears upon hearing of said "urban guerilla industropigfuck noise squad"'s inevitable, acrimonious and messy implosion in `95. Cop mainman Tod [A] (nee Tod Ashley) had jumped ship, having become bored by C$C's rigid adherence to monochromatic malice. In my mouring, I halfheartedly consoled myself with the anaemic drivel of lesser bands whose pathetic attempts to match the scowling black-hearted sturm und drang of the Cop fell like used, runny, shredded condoms in the shadow of the definite article. I badgered former band members, insiders, drinking buddies, roadies and associates as to when (or even if) another chapter would be written, and who would be in the cast of characters. Rumors came and went like johns through a brothel. Having sucked up to the industry like the dutiful corporate cog I would later (d)evolve into, I managed to sweet-talk my way into the good, gullible graces of a pouty publicity gal who dangled promises of "Tod [A]shley's new post-C$C project" before me like a can of frosty grape soda infront of a parched diabetic. Just when I was beginning to give up hope and entertain thoughts of re-enlisting in the Kiss army, a package from hitherto obscure indie label JetSet arrived at my door.

Hungrily shredding open the plain brown wrapper, I was confronted with an image of our supposedly would-be saviour, smokin' a butt and grasping one of the peoples' beers. So far so good. Racing to my Mickey Mouse Close-&-Play, slappin' on the disc, ready to kick out the jams like an undead Rob Tyner, I readied myself and started pouring over the liner notes to discover....what's this?? ....bazouki?......djembe?........ACCORDION????!??? Before I could realign my narrow musical prejudices, "Some Strange Reaction" broke through my long-suffering woofers & tweeters and vanquished my momentary doubts. Wading deeper into the album, however, it was clear that this was no workaday Cop Shoot Cop soundalike. There would be no vitriolic call for urban upheval here. The guns had been holstered, the soapbox replaced with a bar stool and the brass-knuckles had been hocked for beer money, but somehow it still kicked the snots out of everything. This was an album that marched the perma-frownin' 'No Wave'ers out of the East Village scenester bars and down to the dance halls of Lower East Side's ethnic ghost town, where mohawks and black leather get swapped for Hasidic finery. How fitting that it came in a triagular sleeve, as it would not slip meekly and comfortably in with the rest of my cd collection. Get Off the Cross, We Need The Wood for the Fire is a phoenix of an album that flattens the competion.

Release the Bats and Damn the Deodorant

Riddle me this, Batman: How does one maintain one's sartorial integrity as a Goth in 97° heat (which, with the humidity, really feels more 120°)? I just walked by a gaggle of aspiring Gothic teens, clad from head to toe in baggy black clothes. Now don't get me wrong. I like Skinny Puppy and Bauhaus as much as the next guy, and I boast an inordinate amount of black in my wardrobe too, but c'mon people! It's like the surface of the goddamn sun out there. Here's a helpful newsflash: Wearing lightweight, light-colored clothing reflects away the sun's rays more than dark colors, which absorb the sun's rays. Put on a white tank-top, fer cryin' out loud. Don't worry, Andrew Eldritch would do the same. Sheesh!

"Hot Town, Summer in the City..."

Back of my neck indeed getting dirty and gritty. And yes, I've been down and it is indeed a pity that there doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city. All around, people are looking half dead, walking on the sidewalk which is aptly hotter than a proverbial match head. Those Lovin' Spoonful guys had it right.

It's another sweltering one today. I'd turn on the air conditioner, but it tends to blow a fuse everytime we try it, so I'm making do with two "elite wind towers" (fans that look disarmingly like the bounty hunter droids in The Empire Strikes Back). Just to quickly stave off any sports fans who are waiting with baited breath after my last missive, the TIME Softball team (for whom I pitch) was sadly beaten by Random House last night in a heated -- literally and figuratively -- match with a mood-dampening final score of 8 to 2. While that's bad news, I'm happy to report that not only did I hit a double, but I actually scored a run, so yay for me. Otherwise, the game was flecked with moments of sweaty acrimony when Random's shortstop saw fit to emphatically quibble with vein-popping intensity about a call or two (despite the fact that his team were already up by five points at the time anyway). It all came out in the wash, though, and no one went home with a black eye or anything. This time.

Beyond that, it's too hot to use my brain properly. I have the day off. The wife and child left yesterday to visit some family out of state, so I'm holding the fort on my own, currently playing Concrete by unjustly maligned British Punk b-listers, 999 at neighbor-worrying volume (I don't get to do this that often anymore). Beyond having just had much of my hair cut off by a giggling barber with not much of a handle on the English language, I have precious little else to report (not that that's ever stopped me from posting before, though).

Before I sign off, though, I'd like to take a moment to highlight my friend Dusty's newish podcast site, Culture Catch, which, in his own words, provides quality content for "pop culture savvy junkies" and "scene stealers". Do give it a look when you have a chance.

Stay cool. Watch this space

"INCOMING!!"

So, it's a pavement-wilting 91 degrees outside right now, but with the humidity, it's supposed to feel like a whopping 105 degrees by this afternoon....which is, of course, the ideal weather for chafing, dehydration and heat stroke! So, what better thing to do than....GO PLAY SOFTBALL!!!

As incongruous as it may seem (especially for those readers who know me), I pitch for my office's softball team. Yeah, go ahead.....laugh it up, but chew on this: we're the league champions. I'd love to say that we've won the championship two years in row because of my deftly speedy fastball (which, actually, is a bit of a liability, given that it's slow-pitch softball), but that would simply be a Fuji Blimp-sized fib. I share pitching duties with my estimable colleague John (pictured to my left in the green hat, and webmaster of his own implausibly silly weblog ). I've managed to hone my pitches into arcing projectiles that usually manage to make it to the plate with some degree of dignity, but suffice to say, there's still a lot of room for improvement. My fielding skills off the mound are dubious at best (given my natural instinct to assume the "duck & cover" position when a fist-sized spheroid comes screaming my way), and let's not even talk about my deplorable lack of direction when it comes to batting.

Anyway, we go up against Random House this evening. Expect a full report unless, of course, I get beaned in the solarplexus by a line drive or am immolated like an ant beneath a magnifying glass by the unreleneting sun.

Noo Yawker in The New Yorker - August 1, `05 issue

Yep! Time for more shameless self-promotion. If you get your hands on this week's New Yorker, in the Night Life section of "Goings on About Town," I'm responsible for the blurbs regarding Whitesnake, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Static X, Duran Duran and endearingly silly heavy metal person, Thor.