What It Is

I remember the guy who gave me my first Birthday Party tape in 1988, a guy who liked me and hung around the disreputable biker bar where I worked, hoping I would sleep with him, which I didn’t. He made a bunch of great tapes that were later stolen from me; the Birthday Party tapes were among them. I remember his face, his taste in music (Violent Femmes, Soft Boys, Stooges) and his curly hair. I don’t remember his name. He wasn’t quite grandiose or dangerous enough for me at the time.

My loved one & I went to see Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds a couple of weekends ago, because we love his new direction in both the Bad Seeds and Grinderman. I think his collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis is genius. While it was great to see them do classics like Mercy Seat, Red Right Hand and Stagger Lee, I really like the new sh*t even better. Nick Cave, to my taste, is triumphing in his 50s, just like Lucinda Williams and Alejandro Escovedo, making hardcore literate rock music that’s perfect for my sensibility. Dig Lazarus Dig is an album that makes my stomach ache with joy.

That said, I was massively disappointed by the crappiness of the Theater at Madison Square Garden, and I swear I’ll never see another show there. Although the performance was exciting and the light show was well done, I’m super-jealous of DC fans who got 2 shows at the 9:30 Club. Also, the audience was so dressed-down that the LO proclaimed them “post-rock”. Not a compliment. I played a game of spotting the rock crowd (people who looked like those you would have seen at a show in 1994), like scoping out VW Bugs on the highway on a long road trip with my parents. No lie, people used to dress up to go out. Sharpen up, people, life’s too short.

And, last criticism, bad swag. The Tshirts were just flat-out ugly. And the album cover and videos are so stylish. Nick, honey, what happened?

I will have to make a shirt and send it to you somehow.

The NY Post is apparently chuffed* that Warhol collaborator and part-time Superstar Brigid Berlin (also know as Polk for her amusing habit of poking shots of speed into her hapless cohorts in the 60s, and daughter of Hearst magnate Richard Berlin and his society wife Honey- only in NYC, my dears) is having an exhibit of her needlepoint recreations of hilarious tabloid front pages. They (the Post) might also be a bit miffed that the coolest one- pictured above- is sporting the masthead of their rival the Daily News.

Papermag’s lovely Kim Hastreiter wrote a nice pithy review you can read here (and see pix of some of the other pillows- the Anna Nicole one is my 2nd favorite).

The pillows are being shown at the Glenn Horowitz Bookstore and Art Gallery at 50 1/2 E. 64th St in Manhattan starting Oct 21. Afterwards you can go to Serendipity3 on 60th Street, splurge on Frozen Hot Chocolate and make snarky glamorous wishes. I’ll see you there.

*Chuffed is Brit-slang for pleased. In case you didn’t know.

Ever wondered what was behind the imposing urban facade of 190 Bowery? NY Magazine has this slideshow accompanying their article claiming that photographer Jay Maisel pulled off “the greatest real estate coup of all time”* when he bought the former Germania Bank building for $102,000 in 1966.

For years I was under the mistaken impression that the coup had been pulled off by poet John Giorno, who lives in the former YMCA building up the street that also once housed William S. “Uncle Bill” Burroughs and is known as the Bunker. Probably I got the wrong idea from an ex-boyfriend of mine who misrepresented it that way while bragging about hanging out there with Uncle Bill back in the late 70s. Poseur.

* I think NY Mag is wrong. The greatest real estate coup of all time is Joseph Papp, Public Theater (the former Astor Library), 1967, $1.

Perhaps it’s a Northeast-centric sort of thing, but I love concord grapes. Something about the dichotomy between the sweet, intense grapey-ness inside the skin and the sour slippery-coolness of the fruit. I love their black skins, I love teasing out the big, easy-to-spit seeds. They remind me of other funky foods I adore, like oysters and caviar and peas. I remember my first taste of those crazy grapes in upstate NY as a child,and I still eat them every fall.

Having lived almost all my days as a hardcore urbanite, in childhood I wanted to be a pioneer, an Indian, a cowgirl, a farmer or pretty much anyone that knew a lot about the outdoors and got to hang out with animals. I dream sometimes of a future gardening self, with a kitchen garden full of vegetables and herbs and a lovely Concord grape arbor.

Then I reflect on how I’ve pretty much killed every houseplant I’ve ever owned and how I’m almost as allergic to sunlight as Dracula, and I return to my indoor pursuits.

My loved one, raised in the great state of Texas, thinks these seasonal treats are absolutely disgusting, disdaining all grapes that dare to contain seeds. Fall has barely begun, and I’m close to polishing off 2 pounds of grapes all on my own. On this autumnal equinox weekend, I can’t recommend them highly enough.

3 months is too stupid long between posts, and I’ve been having so many amusing thoughts. So just pretend with me that it’s March 21, and let’s do this spring thing together.

First of all, trees. Amazing, no? Trees go through the entire life cycle every year, dormancy, budding, sex, work, some creating fruits or dropping seeds, and then withering and dormancy again. The same thing is happening to me, I’m just one very self-involved leaf on a very big tree, covered in billions of self-involved leaves.

And what’s more, the exuberant tree sex of spring makes me drip with slime like a hyperactive snail. For which I consume generic Claritin-D. I sometimes forget I’ve taken it. If you’ve ever had a noxious experience with any Claritin-D-type allergy product, please leave me a comment.

And speaking of the sexy world of spring, have you ever heard of the opalescent squid? They are extremely abundant along the eastern Pacific Coast, are usually about 11″ long, live for a year or two and they have an extraordinary life cycle. On one night, they all come together in an orgiastic frenzy, falling through the water and bringing their snow-white bodies together. The males’ limbs flush red to indicate their receptivity as they grasp the females, then they come apart and the female falls to the ocean floor, deposits her sack of eggs (the seeds of 300+ more opalescent squid) and dies. The males may each mate 3 or 4 times a piece- sexist nature!- and then they also fall to the ocean floor and die. When it’s all over, the starfish come out and carry away the bodies, to snack on later. Somehow the eggs remain untouched, apparently.

Maybe it’s way Hollywoodized, but the depiction of the night of opalescent wonder in the IMAX movie Into the Deep was tremendously affecting and gorgeous. xxx!