Flaming Pablum

Summer 2020

Where We Are

Courtesy of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy. Click on to enlarge. 

 

"Through The Night"

Brooklyn at night during the peak of New York City's coronavirus outbreak, captured on bike rides throughout the borough. Set to Pat Irwin's haunting recording of the U.S. national anthem performed at the Never Records installation at The Rudin Family Gallery at BAM Strong on January 23, 2020.

Companion photo book Keep This Far Apart: Nighttime in Brooklyn, Spring 2020 available for purchase, with all proceeds going to Brooklyn Rescue Mission: https://sampolcer.com/store/keep-this...

Filmmaker statement: "On April 6th, New York City reached what turned out to be its highest number of daily COVID-19 hospitalizations (1,719) and cases (6,376), and third-highest number of daily deaths (565); the city had firmly established itself as the world’s coronavirus epicenter, gripped by fear, uncertainty and loneliness. That night, I began going on bike rides throughout the borough after dark for exercise and a taste of freedom sorely lacking in locked-down isolation. Out on the streets, I was struck by an overwhelming quiet overlaid with the constant wail of distant ambulance sirens, and decided immediately to document what I saw, from shuttered theaters and garbage-strewn sidewalks to the occasional cyclist or couple out for an evening stroll. For seven weeks, when the city that never sleeps tucked itself in, I’d embark from my home in the Kensington neighborhood with camera and tripod in tow. I felt compelled to document this moment, and to capture the feeling of isolation experienced by millions in close proximity to each other.

Over Memorial Day weekend, the city reclaimed some of its vitality, with more New Yorkers leaving their homes to socialize, and I stopped shooting. The next day, George Floyd was murdered by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin—a second bookend to the project as horrifying as the first.

When it came time to assemble the footage, I remembered a somber rendition of the national anthem performed by the composer and musician Pat Irwin in January as a part of Never Records, a recording studio/record store art installation that took place at the new Rudin Gallery at BAM Strong. (I'm a content strategist at BAM.) I just had this sense that the country was about as low as it could go, spiritually, and in nearly all other ways—thousands of people were dying, and our leaders were asleep at the wheel—and Irwin’s deeply affecting ‘Anthem’ resonated with that sentiment. It's probably the somberest, least patriotic version of the tune you've ever heard. And as an instrumental that leaves out the lyrics, it's appropriate considering current conversations around racial inequality: the song's lyricist, Francis Scott Key, was a slaveowner.

As NYC reopens and much of the country grapples with virus surges, the film is a meditative portrait of the city at its most locked-down. Is this what it means to be patriotic during a pandemic?"

Bios: Sam Polcer is a writer and photographer whose work has appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time Out New York, Hemispheres, Brooklyn Magazine, Spin.com, Esquire.com, Travel+Leisure.com, and many other websites and publications, as well as at the Museum of the City of New York. He is also a content strategist at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music). His first book, New York Bike Style, was published by Prestel in 2014. Previously, he was the communications director at Bike New York and an editor (of both text and photography) at Hemispheres. https://www.sampolcer.com

Patrick Irwin is a composer and musician who was a founding member of two bands that grew out of New York City's No Wave scene in the late 1970s, the Raybeats and 8-Eyed Spy. He joined The B-52s from 1989 through 2008. He has composed scores for numerous independent films including My New Gun, But I'm A Cheerleader, and Bam Bam and Celeste as well as hundreds of cartoons including Rocko's Modern Life, Pepper Ann, A Little Curious, and Class of 3000. He composed the scores for HBO's Bored to Death and Showtime's Nurse Jackie and most recently for the Netflix show, The Good Cop. https://www.patirwinmusic.com

The Chocolate of Convenience

My excellent friend and former colleague Jonathan wrote this, and I thought it was pretty insightful, so I'm sharing it here.

How is COVID-19 like a chocolate bar? Well I'm glad you asked, dear friend.

Anyone who has visited the US from overseas (remember when that was a thing?) will tell you that American chocolate tastes terrible. Personally I don't think so and always assumed it was European elitism around the production methods and percent of cacao and so on.

But no.

It turns out that American chocolate doesn't exactly use real milk, in order to make the product shelf stable. So I can grab a Snickers bar out of a desk drawer that's been there for years and have basically no fear that it's gone bad. Melted, maybe. But never rancid or dangerous. That shelf stable milk is the funny taste non-Americans can't get past.

We have grown up eating the chocolate of convenience. Because we are an impatient lot and though we might say, think or feel differently, we value ease over quality.

This year we have been asked to be inconvenienced and patient. We gave it a go, more or less, but quietly decided it wasn't for us. We needed our hair done, or our vices fed. Sure, some people might get sick or even die but that only happens to "other people" like shark attacks or lightning strikes. So the salons and the bars and the restaurants opened back up while exhausted health care workers begged and pleaded with us not to, because our vanity and our self interest proved stronger than our literal instinct to survive.

America, we could have licked this in a few weeks. We could have stayed home and worn masks on our minimal, essential outside activities. But you needed a lobsterita. We could have been eating really good chocolate, outdoors, together, without masks. It just required patience. Now we'll probably be stuck at home eating that old, melty Snickers bar FOREVER while the rest of the world watches.

At this point I only wonder if they laugh or cry.

Today is the Midpoint of 2020

....and hasn't it just been an absolute gas so far?