New York Sundays July 6, 2009
Posted by coqfosters in NYC.Tags: film, food, life, new york, walking
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So it occurred to me that I hadn’t written in a while, amidst a plethora of somewhat life changing events meant to disturb the banality of the hum drum, 9 to 5, day to day big city life. It’s been a bit of a wild one. The last couple of months since Los Angeles has seen career changes, going home, going around the world and back, in sickness and in rude health, richer and poorer and the rest of that shit they make you go through when you get married to someone, except I’ve been married to myself and isn’t that just always the case?
And of course there’s been no small amount of romance, of love (for fuck’s sake…), of parties and hangovers and rock shows and the morning after the night before, huddled in front of the video games not wanting to come out of my room until 7pm. And a bit of the odd work as well.
But what of it? I guess today I felt compelled to write after taking in La fille de Monaco, and realising that the more things change, yes, the more they stay the same. When I came to New York, by and large, all I had was cinema and music and an open map and despite the meticulous social planning that makes up most of the week, when you want to get away from your life you know that you can always rely on those same things.
I got the A to West 4th and walked across the village, headed into the Angelika, got my ticket, sat down, and got whisked away to that world of French cinema where only the names ever really change. There’s inevitably a bizarre love triangle, beautiful cityscapes, cute girls on scooters, gorgeous women making love to unattractive men (perhaps this is why we go), some twisted crime happens, there’s a wacky plot twist with one of the central characters dying, and then an end to the storyline that defies logic. Yet, I go back time and again because, fuck me, the French have figured out that this shit is gold and when you stop putting Depardieu in everything, it only gets better (no offense mate).
I left the cinema and walked down to the 2/3 at Chambers via Mercer and Church streets, as I wanted to avoid Broadway. Not least because I’d done that walk last week, but because of my longstanding ambition to walk the entire length of Broadway in Manhattan and having not done it yet, not wishing to get bored of it. Church Street was brilliant: garbage strewn everywhere on the street outside the post office at the corner of Canal made it feel like it was the end of the world, like one of those scenes from the opening of 28 Days Later, only without all of the evil undead and about 3,000 miles away. But otherwise, very much like that. There’s something alluring about Tribeca, it looks like it might actually be a fantastic place to live, quiet weekends and cornershop cafes amongst the bustling weekday activity of suits and deals. There was something a bit off though about the air quality, a slightly foul like something’s still lingering in the air down there from when the towers fell just around the corner, but that’s probably reading too much into it and one could come over all spiritual here but that’s just not my style.
Eventually made my way down into the platform, felt as if a train was going to hit me from behind as I walked atop the uptown A/C track in the mezzanine at Chambers, eventually making my way over to the 2/3 platform at Park Place. In 20 minutes we’re halfway up the island, alighting at 96th to pick up the ritual Sunday evening Pad Kee Mao, running into Walter on Broadway & 101st. Amazing to see your great friends when you least expect it, nowhere near where either of you live, totally by chance. Hit a shake at the Ben & Jerry’s before picking up dinner and rocking back up to 168th on the 1. And it was a truly stunning evening in the heights, blue skies giving way to red and orange through the clouds as the sun set over New Jersey and the Hudson River as I walked home.
Anyhow, that was about 4 hours of the long holiday weekend, the rest of it wasn’t worth discussing, but I’m amazed at how throughout the excitement, boredom, frustration, happiness, and the rest of the shit that’s happened over the course of the last few years, throughout all that’s changed, the interests that gave me something to work from when I moved here are still doing the business. Without the passion for culture and exploration I don’t know where I’d be, so cheers to NYC for today, back to work tomorrow, and I’ll write about the rest of the shit later. Perhaps even by next time I’ll have finished the Broadway Walk.
Le vent nous portera October 26, 2008
Posted by coqfosters in All your life, NYC.Tags: europe, life, music, new york, walking
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There is a certain greyness about New York in the autumn that is really quite evocative. Walking down the street is a bit like being the Bittersweet Symphony video, although usually I only knock over one or two grannies on a leisurely day out. But it does feel very cinematic.
I was out running errands on a grey day last weekend and stumbled into an incredible little market, completely out of the way on 25th street in what served as a carpark during the week. You’d only find it on accident, I don’t think anyone knew it was going to be there. But what characters! Fabulous African style masks, chandeliers and lamps that would look lovely cleaned up and restored to their full glory, art prints they’d tell you were rare, but probably weren’t. They’d tell you anything to move it. Old wedding gowns, hanging right there in the street! It was a very raw experience. Came across a great looking Shirley Bassey record but wasn’t going to be bothered for five bucks. Next time.
When I was a kid my parents always used to drag us round these horrible shopping trips, looking for nothing in particular. Markets, furniture stores, bric-a-brac… I don’t recall them ever buying anything on a single day out to one of these places. We had too much stuff anyway. The shoe’s on the other foot though now and I’ve started to become quite inspired by old stuff, design, etc. You walk through a market and wonder what it would be like to have a mansion and outfit it with all this ridiculous stuff from another time. Still a bit of a modernist at heart though.
I still get nostalgic for London. Defining experiences here seem to reinforce my memories of time in London. That market run reminded me of going up to Wembley before they destroyed the stadium and walking through the market on site there. After work on Friday I walked up to Penn Station. Penn Station is a defining cultural landmark I think, but more than anything else walking through the ticket hall reminded me of Victoria. Not as a straight comparison – they are aesthetically quite different – but the mood, experience, and atmosphere are essentially the same. I took the 1 train to Columbus Circle. I go into work later than most people and leave later than most people so I’m never really on packed trains. Instead of reminding me of what it’s like to be on a packed train in NYC at rush hour, it brought back memories of being crammed in a Central Line train out of Oxford Circus.
Even the nights out bring back the memories. I went out to see Late of the Pier play their CMJ showcase, followed by a James Lavelle DJ set and a masterclass in electrorock from Soulwax. LOTP were something else, and the Astralwerks crew looked quite pleased. James Lavelle was probably on for twice as long as he should have been, but the set made me think back to my first ever dance festival experience, at Creamfields, watching people go mad for sets by Carl Cox and Darren Emerson. Jonny Flaws was with me last night and pointed out that seeing a rock band is about experiencing the band, but seeing a DJ is about experiencing the moment with your friends. There’s a lot of truth to that. Pete Tong was the MC on the night and I remember listening to his old mixes on Radio 1 online back when I lived at home. Soulwax are geniuses and no mistake – they even audaciously managed to cover Daft Punk’s Robot Rock in what was an unbelievable set.
Despite the large nights, it’s been a fairly chill out mood lately. I hear the Kings of Leon album everywhere but all I want to deal in is Charlotte Gainsbourg, Sia, Gomez, Emiliana Torrini, Noir Desir’s quieter, moodier moments… and French cinema. I feel like despite all of this English nostalgia a trip to France is really on the cards. Paris is calling, perhaps by the death of 2008 but likelier at the birth of 2009. The time is coming to create new memories for which to become nostalgic, and I need them desperately, because unfortunately those critical moments are not being inspired by work anymore. I guess the market in a vacant carpark on a side street ends up being a relevant metaphor after all: if there’s nothing of interest you’re being supplied with, time to step off the beaten path to find something inspiring. Otherwise the grey days become less evocative of strong feelings and more of an obvious metaphor for life in their own right. It’s time to get to work and plot the next adventure. It can’t come soon enough.
Schönbuch September 11, 2008
Posted by coqfosters in All your life.Tags: europe, life, walking
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I took today off. Some days you’re just not right. Kevin called this afternoon, to meet up at In Vino Veritas on Saint Nicholas. We had either a late lunch or an early dinner, depending on your point of view or time zone. The Heights were in good form. I’d say rare form, except it’s hardly rare. But nature was kind to us, and the blocks and blocks apartment buildings cut such a rigid contrast across the bright blue sky and clouds that it looked like they were made from cardboard on a movie set.
Kevin’s taking a month to go to Buenos Aires, to learn Spanish, to learn the people, to experience culture. It’s inspiring. It makes me want to take a week or whatever I can take and meet him down there. I start searching for flights… you have to connect in Santiago. Why not go to Santiago? A time ago everything was much more rigid. I had to plan these things. In reality I know I still do.
Last night I sat up looking at maps of Germany. Mainly of places I’d been, that I loved. Back when I had the freedom to get up and go places and not worry about ANYTHING (even though I did). Ludwigsburg Palace. Train lines around Herrenberg and Reutlingen, where I used to explore the towns. Everything’s flat on maps, and it’s a bizarre perspective on what you experience three dimensionally. I looked all around Tübingen, at bus routes, the streets I used to take to get to class. I started dreaming of all the time we spent lazily in the Neckarinsel – lounging with the peacocks – and the Altstadt and Neckarmüller, simply out of having nowhere else to go. I never really bought into that way of thinking though, and tried to spend as much time at the Hauptbahnhof as possible, figuring out where I could go next, nights and weekends. They say the world is your oyster but there’s no point having an oyster if you’re not mining it for pearls.
One afternoon the lady I lived with decided we needed to go up to Bebenhausen, to look at the cloisters. The last thing I needed to look at was more fucking cloisters, considering my entire stay in Germany was punctuated by churches and castles. But we took the bus up to Bebenhausen, before she sent me off on a tour around the place so she could have snacktime in the caff. I could hardly contain my delight at getting out of there, only to find that she and I were going to walk the several miles through Schönbuch nature preserve to get back to the outskirts of town.
We set off first through fields and prairies of beautiful yellow and green grass before making our way up into the proper hills and mountains of the preserve. It was as gorgeous as I was restless. I had yet to learn that sometimes getting there is more about the getting and less about the there. We inevitably got lost, which only frustrated me as much as it delighted her. I quickly learned that if there’s one things Germans love more than tight trousers it’s hiking. It took us hours to get through Schönbuch, it felt like we were trapped on some other planet. It didn’t seem real. She didn’t know where we were going and didn’t care.
Finally she announced we were coming up on a village called Hagelloch. I dismissed that as fantasy, saying it sounded like something out of Lord of the Rings and couldn’t possibly exist. We emerged from the mountains in a field of cows, climbing down paths behind barns. Eventually we came to a cobblestone street, which led to another street, which led to a church. And that was more or less Hagelloch. We waited what seemed like an eternity for a bus. A mother and two children waited with us. The children were crying. It took ages on the local bus to get back to Europaplatz in the centre of Tübingen so that we could walk home, along the canal to Memmingerstrasse where we lived.
I spent a lot of time that summer preoccupied with things back home. As I was walking out of the bakery on Saint Nicholas & 171st tonight, it made me think of all the money I spent on sweets, cakes and ice cream back in Europe, when I didn’t have bills or jobs or anything like that to worry about. So many brilliant things have happened in the intervening years that it’s impossible to say things should have been different, I would never say that. But in the state I found myself in today, there was nowhere I wanted to be more than Schönbuch.
Euro Zero Zero September 1, 2008
Posted by coqfosters in All your life, NYC.Tags: books, film, food, life, music, new york, walking
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The longer I stay here, the more I find myself absorbed by other cultures. I suppose NYC is the best place to be if that’s what you’re looking for, but at the same time, most of the ideals one aspires to achieve in New York are the most bland, monotonous kinds of conformity possible. It still feels like a stepping stone to me, to Europe, but at least more of a gateway than Michigan did.
Going from Michigan to Europe was like going to another planet. You couldn’t explain what it was like to people because they didn’t generally get it, or if they did, they weren’t interested anymore. At least not in understanding life and culture beyond a vacation. Here at least you have options. I’ve
stopped watching films that were even made in America – I’m just not interested anymore. I have that luxury here. There’s always some film playing no one’s ever heard of before. Additionally, I’ve taken more of an interest in French and Spanish culture. I can probably say I’m more interested in Spanish and Latin culture now than at any other point in my life, and that’s in spite of living in a predominantly Spanish speaking neighbourhood, not because of it.
My barber quit the shop I used to frequent, so I followed him over to a new place well down in the lower east side. It’s past where the subway goes (as much as you can be) so it’s a bit more raw, it’s people living life the way it was always lived before rampant commercialisation. The old shop was very trendy (not that I didn’t like it), but the new place is hood. The barber said he wants to get back to the old neighbourhood banter that you just didn’t have in the other place. I guess you do wanna go where everybody knows your name. They certainly didn’t know mine. When I walked in they looked at me like I was from another planet. I loved it. Underground hip hop mixtapes on the stereo, the shit you want to hear. And Kanye. Every mixtape always seems to have Kanye. I can’t think of anyone else that mainstream that still retains that much cred. And he’s not even from the 5. It was a good time and great to walk around a part of the LES that you felt had nothing to do with boutiques, clubs, or Santogold (but everything to do with great cupcakes).
Eventually I made my way uptown for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Javier Bardem was as inspirational as Woody’s choice of scenery this time around. Barça, Oviedo and instantly another place to add to the long list of future experiences. I thought it was great. I realised it was as mainstream as any film I’ve seen in a long time. I don’t go to see mainstream films anymore and as such don’t really see many disappointing films. It’s a nice change. Kept the Spanish theme by listening to the new Los Bunkers album, definitely an album of the year challenger (see previous post). They surely must be the pride of Chile – they are making the album Oasis and Franz Ferdinand have been trying and failing to make for 10 years. How has the Spanish speaking population of the Americas not fallen completely and utterly in love with them?
On a similar tip, I bought a wonderful book a couple of weeks back, from the Taschen collection, simply titled Latin American Graphic Design. It’s basically a 500+ page graphic encyclopaedia of all of the best, most inspirational designers and their work from Mexico on South. I’ve been thinking of starting my own label, and every good label has a logo, and great design concepts, and I’m being influenced by so much fantastic stuff.
I decided to stay in on Saturday night and contemplate these future plans, before picking up a spot of Thai food. I wandered down to Morningside Heights to Thai Market. On the way back was stopped by a very kind, well spoken yet weak looking man soliciting donations. He proceeded to tell me he had full blown AIDS and lifted up his shirt to reveal an array of lesions. Needless to say, when you’re just walking back to the train with your takeaway that’s the last thing you’re really expecting to see. The experience has stayed with me since… I can’t get over how in the richest country in the world, someone with full blown AIDS can be essentially lying in the gutter. It’s the human face of Profit Over People: so obsessed playing Risk abroad for economic imperial gains and oil, while we can’t even take care of what we’ve already got at home. It does make one think: I think music is essential to life, but we work so hard every day to create a very superficial kind success. Instead of being as relevant as we think we are, are we not just a support service soundtracking the lives of those people performing work of real relevance in the world today? Food for thought.
Spent Sunday afternoon walking around Soho. After a ritual indulgence of Mango Madness at Beard Papa, did a spot of shopping and enjoying the afternoon, before heading back uptown for Ne le Dis à Personne (Tell No One). It might be one of the finest films I’ve ever watched, and instantly reignited my interest in French culture. I have to say it was one of the only times I’ve watched a film and actually thought to myself, “my god I’m seeing something really special and magnificent here.” I didn’t want it to end. I literally sat there wishing I could spend the entire night watching the story unfold. It was the second film in a month I’d seen François Berléand give a wonderful performance (after A Girl Cut In Two, this time in a supporting role however), and the combination of a stunning lead performance from François Cluzet and absolutely magical direction and writing from Guillaume Canet was to be treasured. I can’t stop gushing about it, but I really can’t gush enough!
A good long weekend, all in all. Still a bit to come and lots coming up in the next couple of weeks. Starting to plan out my next few trips – domestic and international – and looking forward to good people and good shows. Just hoping to continue keeping my dissatisfaction and malaise with vocation and sentience in check with cultural stimulation. Onwards and upwards.
Scatterday July 28, 2008
Posted by coqfosters in NYC.Tags: life, new york, walking
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Black out all the worlds of men…
By all accounts it’s been a bit of a rough week but I won’t bore you with the macabre details. After taking care of some business, making plans, canceling plans (which seems to happen an awful lot), I headed out in search of mild adventure on Saturday night. Somewhere along the way, this did not materialise and I ended up in Times Square, which is the opposite of anything that could even be mildly in any universe construed as “adventurous.”
That being said, sometimes getting there is all the adventure you need. It’s amazing to me sometimes how I live just a block from Broadway up in WaHI and yet never really appreciate all that is there. Time Out recently called it the #3 most soulful neighbourhood in Manhattan and it’s not hard to see why. I walked to the subway a bit further away from usual and it was marvellous seeing all the guys on the sidewalk playing dominos, kids selling Santa Maria candles (not sure what they’re called) on the side of the street, the ice cream and peanut vendors, families hanging out down the barbershop, and fantastic music – and not reggaeton for once! – coming out from all angles. I’ve never been to see In The Heights but you can see how they could have been so inspired to write about it up here.
It was one of those nights when every song on my iPod was perfect, and you never have to skip a single track. Klaxons… Golden Skans. I picked up my bass guitar again for the first time in ages and tore up my fingers playing this. Los Bunkers… Chile’s best band, so inspired I went down to Virgin Megastore to try and find the import of their new album in Times Square. No Luck. Manics… Solitude Sometimes Is. Incredible to walk through the chaos of the epicentre of tourist mayhem, all of the bright lights, and not notice a single thing. As if everything was in slow motion. The Verve… Velvet Morning. If nothing else a timely reminder of how great, relevant, exciting and unstoppable a rock band can be. Until they stop themselves.
I came out of the subway facing the Novotel, where Jonny and I stayed 3 years ago almost to the day. I remember we went out walking at night trying to find food after coming back from Siren Festival, not knowing where to look or what we were looking for. We seriously considered some shithole pub where they sold $25 burgers simply because “That’s New York.” It’s amazing how I couldn’t pick a single one of those places out now, but all of the sudden the few places with cheap eats staffed by folks from all corners of the tri-state, up all hours of the night to cater to anyone who even cast a longing glance in their direction, were standing out from all angles. Mind, there is something so charming about that desperate naïvety that I wish I had more of and possibly don’t celebrate quite enough when I do quite ignorantly display it these days.
After finding a record I liked at Virgin, I wandered over to the grocery store, which at 10pm was quite desolate. It brought back memories of all of those late night Meijer runs we used to take before, during and after college. When the entire massive supermarket was almost yours to roam, running and sliding up and down aisles, playing video games, becoming nauseated by the fluorescent lighting, pondering all of the cool things to make and do if we just had THAT thing. People who grocery shop after hours are the same all over. It’s bizarrely one of those banal experiences which restores some faith in humanity, that no matter how much we like to bomb the shit out of each other and denigrate each other’s worth according to race, gender, title, income, we all look the same at 10pm in the dairy aisle.
As a bit of a luxury I bought a giant glass bottle of chocolate milk from some farm upstate. I lugged it back to the train and started chatting to some Scandinavian guy about how to get to 145th on the local train. I don’t mind the trains going local so much at night anymore. There’s something about being hidden away underground which is slightly more novel at night when there aren’t places to be. I finally got home and drank half the bottle of milk immediately. It struck me simultaneously odd, disconcerting and reassuring that in and amongst 8 million others, most of us are in some way or another alone. In doing essentially nothing, I felt like I found everything.
Nesoteric June 29, 2008
Posted by coqfosters in NYC.Tags: books, checklist, film, food, lfc, new york, walking
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Today was brilliant. It’s one of those days where you accomplish nothing you really set out to accomplish, everything you planned goes wrong and as a result of this, you get to experience a bunch of other things you hadn’t intended that are all actually quite fantastic.
Meant to head down to IFC Center for the Asian Film Festival, but unfortunately the film I wanted to see was sold out. Hastily made, cancelled, and remade plans with Vicarhelmet for something later that night. Picked up some Beard Papa and ended up walking through a fantastic street market on Bleecker Street – great for people watching. It spontaneously started pissing down which sent everyone scattering like mad. Made my way up to the Adidas store on Houston to pick up the new Liverpool kit before dropping into the LES to check out a few of those ever so trendy lifestyle shops and a slice at Rosario’s.
At this point it turned into an absolute torrential downpour and with no uptown trains running in the vicinity I was sort of caught in no man’s land. Had to run from scaffold to scaffold, ducking under awnings every step of the way so as not to be completely soaked through my t-shirt (no umbrella – never carry one). About this time I spotted a cozy little caff – Le French Diner. Walked in and there’s French talk radio on, which the owner – apparently called Zucco – quickly shifts over to some tastefully trendy French radio station playing what I guess I’d call urban pop classics. Orchard Street was absolutely deserted and once I got settled in, it started properly gnashing it down outside. I can’t remember the last time it stormed like that here. Zucco whipped up the biggest “grand mocha” I’ve ever seen and I had a relaxing afternoon, digging into the latest Wired, listening to the track Basement Jaxx sampled on Red Alert and watching the rain come down. One would have thought for a second they were in the 18th arrondissement…
Eventually made my way back to Broadway, a spot of – mercifully – stress free shopping in Soho as the rain must have scared off the tourists. Hit the R up to Union Square for a round of bargain hunting down the Strand. Picked up a great piece from the Taschen collection on East German design as well as a bit of a heftier read on the art and architecture of Basel and Zürich. There’s something really quite inspiring about Swiss and German design but I feel I’m going to have to actually apply myself to create before I start to come off all Nathan Barley, swanning about town with no particular motivation or end product.
Eventually met up with Vicarhelmet for a nice stroll through Chelsea before heading up to hell Times Square for a quick run in to the Virgin Megastore. It all came back to France when I spotted Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon digitally restored on DVD in the bargain racks. A total classic and having watched White Mane last week it’s one of those things I’m quite happy to own.
Finally, walked up to Columbus Circle, grabbing dinner on the way and started thinking about Aqueduct Racetrack and how I’ve never seen horse racing and actually, might quite like to check it out. I appreciate how pretentious most of this must sound to the casual observer but there’s something really quite satisfying about getting to a stage where you more accurately reflect your interests. There comes a point where I’ve been fortunate enough to actualise some ambitions. I hope I will be able to keep track of many more such actualisations in this journal in future.
