It's not that I'm scared of dwarves. It's just that I'm not used to seeing them naked, inches from my face. The crowd of schoolkids behind me are laughing and whooping as if they're at the rollar-derby. But tonight it's only my prim English sensibilities that are getting a bashing.
We've been invited to the closing night of the show at St Anne's Warehouse - part of the Bladerunner-cityscapes Down Under Manhattan Bridge (DUMBO to its friends). They weren't kidding about the Warehouse part. The lobby feels as big as an aircraft hanger, dwarfing even the regular-sized people. It's a fitting introduction for what's to come.
At one point in the middle of the play Torvald screams at Nora: "Small, do you think I'm small?" The company took that one line and spun out a nightmarish melodrama where two-foot men enact their dominace over a simpering range of six-foot women. Five years and half the world later, this is the final night of chirping and humping and ripping the hair off dolls. That's a hell of a long run. I don't know quite whether that's testimony to Ibsen's immortal words, or to the tenacity with which people cling to the few remaining tenants of the freakshow. It's dangerous to laugh at most people - Jews, Blacks, Women, Muslims, Gays - but, for the moment at least, dwarves still seem fair game.
The most disturbing thing about the show only happens on our walk home. The lights of Manhattan are to the right of us, the brownstones of chi-chi Brooklyn Heights to our left.
"I didn't realise about the kid til halfway through." Chris admits.
"What about the kid?" Even from the second row, I tend to miss stuff.
"Y'know, that they weren't a kid. It was an old dwarf woman. I think."
"Are you sure? Shit. I thought it was just a really ugly little girl."
So there you have it Doctor Freud: all sorts of unheimlich for you.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Basketball Diaries
The pretty guy in the corner is telling a pretty good tale about how he and his friend managed to insult some Brits in Thailand, and ended up running for their lives, chased by a pack of wild dogs and wilder Geordies. He's mid-sentence when our book-club leader leans forward and declaims "Oh my God! That's the second person I've seen walk in with a didgeridoo. Oh wait, carry on. It's not a didgeridoo." It's also the second time that she'd interrupted the "story about a fucked-up friend" that she'd demanded at gun point a few minutes previously. I try hard not to roll my eyes. Welcome to the wonderful world of the Boerum Hill book club.
We're supposed to be talking about Jim Carroll's Basketball Diaries, but it's clearly a thinly veiled excuse to air provocatively dirty laundry, and bully everyone else into doing the same. For a group of twenty and thirty-somethings there's a real heady whiff of the school locker rooms about it as, largely unbidden, people take turns to boast of their sexual exploits, law-breaking and myriad and multi hued episodes of wastedness. Smiling, smiling, smiling, I feel like I'm stuck in my own episode of wastedness. I begin to suspect that hell might be one giant book club, where the sinners never get round to talking about the book.
Trying to steer the conversation away from strap-ons and vomit(since I'm determined to finish my over-priced and suspiciously creamy cocktail) I ask whether the vivid story-telling of the book, with its diary format, reminded anyone of the blogosphere. The answer was fast and unanimous.
"No. I would never read a blog." There's a veritable Mexican wave of literary shuddering.
For the first time that night I flash them all a genuine smile, and set to work on my character assassinations.
Safe as houses. Safe as houses.
We're supposed to be talking about Jim Carroll's Basketball Diaries, but it's clearly a thinly veiled excuse to air provocatively dirty laundry, and bully everyone else into doing the same. For a group of twenty and thirty-somethings there's a real heady whiff of the school locker rooms about it as, largely unbidden, people take turns to boast of their sexual exploits, law-breaking and myriad and multi hued episodes of wastedness. Smiling, smiling, smiling, I feel like I'm stuck in my own episode of wastedness. I begin to suspect that hell might be one giant book club, where the sinners never get round to talking about the book.
Trying to steer the conversation away from strap-ons and vomit(since I'm determined to finish my over-priced and suspiciously creamy cocktail) I ask whether the vivid story-telling of the book, with its diary format, reminded anyone of the blogosphere. The answer was fast and unanimous.
"No. I would never read a blog." There's a veritable Mexican wave of literary shuddering.
For the first time that night I flash them all a genuine smile, and set to work on my character assassinations.
Safe as houses. Safe as houses.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Better Talk to the Membership Office
It's like a scene from nineties techno-thriller The Net. I'm a fresh-faced Sandra Bullock still warm from Keanu's sweaty-vested embraces. She's the innocent clerk, staring in confusion at her retro computer screen. I've just swiped my ID, but there's a problem. A big one. Hyde Park Co-op are on to me. Looks like the game's up.
"I'm sorry, do you know a Chris Till?"
"Yes, he's my boyfriend." I've signed him in as a guest, in accordance with their Hippie-Draconian system.
"Well, looks like your membership is suspending until he signs up for some shifts."
"But he's not a co-op member..."
"Well, if you live together..."
"Ha! We don't live together!" In my defense, I've been pretty stalwart about sticking to this line with everyone I've met who might have co-op connections.
"Well, there must be some mistake then. Better talk to the membership office."
Upstairs I have to lie again; first to a young black guy, then to a woman in her thirties with dangerously shrewd eyes. Each time the tale gets taller. By now Chris is living in Manhattan. He only comes here to help me carry my groceries. I flirt with claiming a case of carpal tunnel, but am too scared of the terrible cripple-handed karma that might ensue.
Eventually shrewd-eyed woman sighs and puts me back on the system. The alternative is to call me a liar in the middle of the membership office, and even a miscreant like me knows that that's not very co-operative. Doe-eyed Sandra wins again.
The minute I get home, before I've even taken off my coat, I'm tearing into the Co-op's unsulphered apple rings. They taste so fine, and they're so reasonably priced. Nothing and no-one is ever going to come between us, no matter how strong the system or how many times I have to perjure myself in Park Slope.
"I'm sorry, do you know a Chris Till?"
"Yes, he's my boyfriend." I've signed him in as a guest, in accordance with their Hippie-Draconian system.
"Well, looks like your membership is suspending until he signs up for some shifts."
"But he's not a co-op member..."
"Well, if you live together..."
"Ha! We don't live together!" In my defense, I've been pretty stalwart about sticking to this line with everyone I've met who might have co-op connections.
"Well, there must be some mistake then. Better talk to the membership office."
Upstairs I have to lie again; first to a young black guy, then to a woman in her thirties with dangerously shrewd eyes. Each time the tale gets taller. By now Chris is living in Manhattan. He only comes here to help me carry my groceries. I flirt with claiming a case of carpal tunnel, but am too scared of the terrible cripple-handed karma that might ensue.
Eventually shrewd-eyed woman sighs and puts me back on the system. The alternative is to call me a liar in the middle of the membership office, and even a miscreant like me knows that that's not very co-operative. Doe-eyed Sandra wins again.
The minute I get home, before I've even taken off my coat, I'm tearing into the Co-op's unsulphered apple rings. They taste so fine, and they're so reasonably priced. Nothing and no-one is ever going to come between us, no matter how strong the system or how many times I have to perjure myself in Park Slope.
Monday, February 23, 2009
China-town bus to Boston
"Do you think she's going to carry on talking all the way back."
"Looks like it."
Smoothly taking the cue, the girl behind us remembers another person that she needs to call. For the next twenty minutes she retreats from our very English tutting into bullet-fire Mandarin. To me, crushed up a half foot in front of her face, it sounds like her mouth is out of tune.
Sitting in a taxi earlier that day it had taken us half a news report to realise we were listening to the clipped tones of the BBC World Service. It seems an odd choice for our monosyllabic driver, but I can't imagine he changed it over when we jumped in the back. Everyone knows that Brits are terrible tippers.
American voices - already made so homely by indie rockers and the movies - are now what we expect to hear. Unfortunately this special relationship doesn't work both ways, and oftentimes people look at me like I'm speaking Chinese at them. In my head I chant, I understand you fine, so why can't you understand me?
This is nothing, I tell myself, as I gesture wildly in shops and banks and subway stations. If Americans have problems deciphering English accents, how much more strange for shopkeepers in suburban Japan who may never have heard someone mangling their mother-tongue.
"How mach is this?"
"How moch is this?"
"How muuuch is this?"
Fucking hell, lady. Take a wild guess at what I mean when I'm pointing towards your pile of eggplants and waving a fistful of unfamiliar currency in your uncompremending face.
Usually I just say Eggplant and Quarter Of and 'Erbs and try to quosh the childish thought that it's our language, we had it first.
"Looks like it."
Smoothly taking the cue, the girl behind us remembers another person that she needs to call. For the next twenty minutes she retreats from our very English tutting into bullet-fire Mandarin. To me, crushed up a half foot in front of her face, it sounds like her mouth is out of tune.
Sitting in a taxi earlier that day it had taken us half a news report to realise we were listening to the clipped tones of the BBC World Service. It seems an odd choice for our monosyllabic driver, but I can't imagine he changed it over when we jumped in the back. Everyone knows that Brits are terrible tippers.
American voices - already made so homely by indie rockers and the movies - are now what we expect to hear. Unfortunately this special relationship doesn't work both ways, and oftentimes people look at me like I'm speaking Chinese at them. In my head I chant, I understand you fine, so why can't you understand me?
This is nothing, I tell myself, as I gesture wildly in shops and banks and subway stations. If Americans have problems deciphering English accents, how much more strange for shopkeepers in suburban Japan who may never have heard someone mangling their mother-tongue.
"How mach is this?"
"How moch is this?"
"How muuuch is this?"
Fucking hell, lady. Take a wild guess at what I mean when I'm pointing towards your pile of eggplants and waving a fistful of unfamiliar currency in your uncompremending face.
Usually I just say Eggplant and Quarter Of and 'Erbs and try to quosh the childish thought that it's our language, we had it first.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Spats
There's a pause in the music, and all the couples around us can hear me hiss: Swing me between your legs! Chris grimaces like I'm wrong, and he's right because I stumble as get up the other side, and it's anything but a smooth move. I'm blushing as he leads me into a lindy-turn and wishing I wasn't such a show-off, or had paid more attention in lifts class.
The music's been a little off all night, a couple of high octane numbers that made us sweat out a mad, wild charleston, then lots of early stuff with strange syncopation and hidden beats. We sit out and watch what might be quickstep or foxtrot and then what is definitely collegiate shag, but done like its dancing, not like the strange show our teachers back in London put on. Right hands pointing straight up in the air. Camel step, camel step. There's a woman who could be an unfortunate forty or a very well-kept sixty-five rocking out in a black and white flapper dress and lace gloves. Her hips are probably a little fuller than when she was a girl dancing with clean-shaven sophomores, but she still dances in this nonchalent way like she knows she's the catch of the dancefloor.
There's a few kids our age who look like pretty decent dancers. They're swapping partners and trying out some pretty slick steps. We try to replicate them in the wings, but can't quite get the footwork. But given the fact that we haven't had a chance to dance for months we're not too shabby, we tell ourselves, it'll all come back. What does come back is the animal joy of it, of kicking higher and turning faster and not even thinking about it. We work well together, like two people who've told a story so many times they know when to prompt and when to sit back and let the other one hit the punchline.
The music slows and we corner these swing-kids and ask them where the action is in NYC. One of the baggy-trousered boys mention a place in Midtown.
"There's other stuff, but you always know you can go there on a Thursday night. And they have a beginners class too, which is free."
He says this line about the beginners class again, as if to rub the slight in. We've actually been lindy-hopping for a couple of years now. There are tight smiles all round.
Later, when the music picks up again it's tempting to redeploy the swing-out as a weapon of mass disruption. Baggy-trousered boy is, after all, within kicking distance. We'll give him a bloody beginners class.
The music's been a little off all night, a couple of high octane numbers that made us sweat out a mad, wild charleston, then lots of early stuff with strange syncopation and hidden beats. We sit out and watch what might be quickstep or foxtrot and then what is definitely collegiate shag, but done like its dancing, not like the strange show our teachers back in London put on. Right hands pointing straight up in the air. Camel step, camel step. There's a woman who could be an unfortunate forty or a very well-kept sixty-five rocking out in a black and white flapper dress and lace gloves. Her hips are probably a little fuller than when she was a girl dancing with clean-shaven sophomores, but she still dances in this nonchalent way like she knows she's the catch of the dancefloor.
There's a few kids our age who look like pretty decent dancers. They're swapping partners and trying out some pretty slick steps. We try to replicate them in the wings, but can't quite get the footwork. But given the fact that we haven't had a chance to dance for months we're not too shabby, we tell ourselves, it'll all come back. What does come back is the animal joy of it, of kicking higher and turning faster and not even thinking about it. We work well together, like two people who've told a story so many times they know when to prompt and when to sit back and let the other one hit the punchline.
The music slows and we corner these swing-kids and ask them where the action is in NYC. One of the baggy-trousered boys mention a place in Midtown.
"There's other stuff, but you always know you can go there on a Thursday night. And they have a beginners class too, which is free."
He says this line about the beginners class again, as if to rub the slight in. We've actually been lindy-hopping for a couple of years now. There are tight smiles all round.
Later, when the music picks up again it's tempting to redeploy the swing-out as a weapon of mass disruption. Baggy-trousered boy is, after all, within kicking distance. We'll give him a bloody beginners class.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Rain
It's the first time I've been out of the apartment all day and I've been going stir-cabin fever crazy. My desk is set up so I look out my window at the sky and the street and the man who always seems to be on the roof opposite. Maybe he's practicing to be a cat-burglar. But on a day like this one even he's retreated inside. The snow which was swirling down this morning has turned into mean, persistent rain, and the blue skies I've been counting on have gone. It changes the mood of the whole room. Suddenly the bohemian garrott feels like a nightmare in a Ikea showroom. A showroom where you can't swing a cat. Although if I were a real New Yorker, I wouldn't feel twice about keeping some high-maintenance dog in here. A springer spaniel maybe, or a thoroughbred papillion.
We've run out of pasta which means I officially have a mission which requires me leaving my suddenly claustrophobic two-room apartment. Outside it's black, and the pavement is glossy with rain. I give the piles of rubbish sacks a wide berth, ready to run from any marauding parties of rats. Despite the dangers, I go to the bodega a couple of blocks away rather than the one on my corner. I love the word bodega. Going there makes me feel like Bill-and-Ted, off on an excellent adventure which involves crossing Atlantic Avenue. I really do spend too much time on my own here.
In this bodega the guy behind the counter doesn't spend all his time talking on his cell to Kirghistan. They also have piles of artisanal, organic bread piled up by the door. Boerum Hillites do like their artisanal, organic shit. Every time I go in I hover over the bread, looking at this one loaf of cranberry and walnut loaf. It looks really good. What worries me is that there's always just this one loaf, never more, never less. I'm tempted to make some sort of secret mark on it to see if it really can be the same one as three weeks ago. It wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility. Last time I was in America I left a red pepper in the back of my fridge and only remembered about it two months later. It looked just the same. When you buy 'fresh' milk in America you know it'll be in date for the next six weeks. They do magic, very deeply wrong things to their food here. Maybe even to this poor organic, artisanal cranberry and walnut loaf.
After I pick out some fusilli I make sure to scurry back to the apartment before Chris gets home. He locks me in every morning to keep me safe, and I wouldn't want him to think that I'd escaped.
We've run out of pasta which means I officially have a mission which requires me leaving my suddenly claustrophobic two-room apartment. Outside it's black, and the pavement is glossy with rain. I give the piles of rubbish sacks a wide berth, ready to run from any marauding parties of rats. Despite the dangers, I go to the bodega a couple of blocks away rather than the one on my corner. I love the word bodega. Going there makes me feel like Bill-and-Ted, off on an excellent adventure which involves crossing Atlantic Avenue. I really do spend too much time on my own here.
In this bodega the guy behind the counter doesn't spend all his time talking on his cell to Kirghistan. They also have piles of artisanal, organic bread piled up by the door. Boerum Hillites do like their artisanal, organic shit. Every time I go in I hover over the bread, looking at this one loaf of cranberry and walnut loaf. It looks really good. What worries me is that there's always just this one loaf, never more, never less. I'm tempted to make some sort of secret mark on it to see if it really can be the same one as three weeks ago. It wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility. Last time I was in America I left a red pepper in the back of my fridge and only remembered about it two months later. It looked just the same. When you buy 'fresh' milk in America you know it'll be in date for the next six weeks. They do magic, very deeply wrong things to their food here. Maybe even to this poor organic, artisanal cranberry and walnut loaf.
After I pick out some fusilli I make sure to scurry back to the apartment before Chris gets home. He locks me in every morning to keep me safe, and I wouldn't want him to think that I'd escaped.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Brooklyn low-life
They started to scramble over the sidewalk as soon as we reached the top of the stairs leading out of Hoyt Street subway station. I grimaced as I saw the first one, a flash of tail disappearing into another patch of shadow. But that was only the start of it. As if I was walking out into a nightmare, or the final round of a schadenfreude-laden Japanese quiz show,I found my way was blocked by a sleek river of rats. We'd obviously disturbed them in a feeding frenzy. One after the other they came swarming out of the pile of black bin bags, each one fatter and more toothy than the last. There were dozens of them twitching and squeaking and oozing malevolence, blocking off my only way home. Chris was laughing at me. He'd managed to cross the stream of rodents before it was in full flow. I wasn't laughing. I was squealing like a girl.
Now show me a mouse or two, playing on the tracks in the London underground and I'll be pleased to see the little things thriving in a harsh urban environment. When one ran under my fridge in Mile End I barely looked up from my bowl of porridge. Likewise spiders hold no horrors for me. Even when they're big and close to my face I imagine them as Charlotte and gently ease them on their way.
New York's triumvirate of pests have a harder, nastier edge: rats, roaches, bed-bugs. They have none of the fear of people that the unobtrusive mouse or spider has. It's difficult to assign them benevolent personalities. There was no way that those rats were more scared of me than I was of them. That's whats so galling about those New York pests - they're taking advantage of your good nature.
In Japan we put up cockroach motels around our apartment. Despite being on the fourth floor we still spent half the year being terrorized by the little buggers, who seemed to have a penchant for scuttling towards us when we were at our most vulnerable: sitting on the toilet. The motels were cutesy little cardboard houses containing roach food and sticky floors. We assumed they also used some sort of poison, but not knowing the Japanese character for cyanide we couldn't be sure. We were thrilled when the first nasty little creatures checked in. Soon the motel was at full capacity.
Returning back from a month-long trip to Thailand I prepared to chuck away the traps. I couldn't help but notice that even the long-term guests were still moving, frantically jerking their hairy little legs in a vain attempt to escape. I dropped a dumbbell on the motel. Still they were moving. I threw it out the window. Four storeys below, they were still moving. Finally I threw it in the trash. For all I know those roaches are still stuck in their Hotel California, wondering if they'll ever be able to check-out.
Now show me a mouse or two, playing on the tracks in the London underground and I'll be pleased to see the little things thriving in a harsh urban environment. When one ran under my fridge in Mile End I barely looked up from my bowl of porridge. Likewise spiders hold no horrors for me. Even when they're big and close to my face I imagine them as Charlotte and gently ease them on their way.
New York's triumvirate of pests have a harder, nastier edge: rats, roaches, bed-bugs. They have none of the fear of people that the unobtrusive mouse or spider has. It's difficult to assign them benevolent personalities. There was no way that those rats were more scared of me than I was of them. That's whats so galling about those New York pests - they're taking advantage of your good nature.
In Japan we put up cockroach motels around our apartment. Despite being on the fourth floor we still spent half the year being terrorized by the little buggers, who seemed to have a penchant for scuttling towards us when we were at our most vulnerable: sitting on the toilet. The motels were cutesy little cardboard houses containing roach food and sticky floors. We assumed they also used some sort of poison, but not knowing the Japanese character for cyanide we couldn't be sure. We were thrilled when the first nasty little creatures checked in. Soon the motel was at full capacity.
Returning back from a month-long trip to Thailand I prepared to chuck away the traps. I couldn't help but notice that even the long-term guests were still moving, frantically jerking their hairy little legs in a vain attempt to escape. I dropped a dumbbell on the motel. Still they were moving. I threw it out the window. Four storeys below, they were still moving. Finally I threw it in the trash. For all I know those roaches are still stuck in their Hotel California, wondering if they'll ever be able to check-out.
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