Week 2: Another day, another Blogger.

So I’m sorry to stress you all out with the anticipation of another week’s Blog entry, but patience is a virtue, after all. This week has been, as one might expect, a mix of things.

I suppose I should begin with the much anticipated Apres-Ski/Eurotrash party, an excellent theme if there was one. God decided to show his disapproval of the whole proceedings by whipping up a series of relentless tornadoes in the backyard, making construction of cardboard hottubs all but impossible. But after considerable effort and much high drama (and several roles of packing tape), the thing was done and we eagerly anticipated the joy of our future clients. Now for those of who don’t know this side of me, I’m not much good at parties. Sure, you quite correctly think me sociable, witty, charming and debonair, but secretly I’m very shy and find it difficult to chatter in the way that such events expect one to. I end up asking boring questions and getting bored responses and then getting bored myself. I don’t know what it is that people who have fun at parties find to talk about, or rather shout about. Talking was all but impossible in the din of Jackson’s turntabling and the crush of likely 100 people in a small kitchen. I escaped upstairs to “my” kitchen where I hid out and demonstrated the correct way to sleep in a hammock to all those who would listen, and by and by found myself with an interesting group of people engaged in surprisingly frank conversation about the trombone. Mike (I think it is Mike) was a trombone player, and Jessica was a cello player, and some very passionate hipster was insisting that we see how similar the two instruments are. Something about them both being guttural and passionate, the soul of the streets or something. Anyway, all this erudite conversation was interrupted when Tania, fully dressed in Eurotrash costume (including blonde wig, etc.), jumped into the hot tub (which by this time was overflowing with a bottle of bubblebath which had been dumped in). She was soon joined by Birthday Boy Jackson, and some aging lady keen to show off her new bikini in January. The details, alas, are a blur now, but the photos should speak for themselves. I went to bed with the beats still pumping around 430 or so.

The rest of the week was much less enchanting. I had forgotten how onerous job-hunting can be. It is very difficult to maintain a balance between enjoying my time in NYC, scrambling to find a job, and do all the million other things I feel obliged to do. In fact, there is a considerable amount of pressure all around – whatever one is doing there is a sense of guilt, or a sense that I really ought to be doing something else, either enjoying myself more or working harder or something. The job hunt goes poorly, I think. I find several positions which I think might be interesting, and then find the don’t pay very well, and then reluctantly apply anyway and then don’t get a call for an interview. I suspect it is all about who you know in this city, and though my networking skills are up on bust, I don’t think the people at Tony’s Pizza are likely to get me work any time soon. And money just burns out of one’s wallet here, in spite of my sound investment in little tupperwares to transport tuna bagelwiches everywhere and thus reduce my dependency on $2 pizza slices.

So that part of life really sucks right now. As does being stuck in this kitchen waiting for the plumber to arrive. I spent 48 hours in this house, upstairs in the kitchen with the door closed to avoid intimate encounters with Buddy, who is overwhelmingly affectionate and causes small white boils to emerge on every part of me he touches. So I was definitely getting a little depressed, a little crazy on a few of these days.

But I also managed to get out in the evenings with some success and take in some very good free lecturing. On Monday I went with Leah (a woman from Calgary on a sort of ACAD program to spend a term in NYC) to a panel discussion of Whitney Biennale curators. (Thanks to my social coordinator Merry Chellas, continuing to provide me with all the best things to do in the city – it is easier than having to look in the Village Voice all the time). I knew the WB was a political event, but I didn’t realize quite how fierce it could be, and the discussion provoked some good thinking about what an “American” show should be, who the audience is for a show of that kind, and the nature of the show in an age of endless Biennials and festivals all over the world. No longer the art-world, but now the age of the art-industry.

Tuesday night I had to choose between Mike Kelly and Barbara Kruger talking about Rucha’s Course of Empire paintings (the American submission to the Venice this year – UG, what first-year crapola, but at least it is painting again), a talk about the JFK assassination at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, and a reading by Michael Winter and Joel Hynes, two members of the St. John’s literary scene. Well, the Ruscha talk was cancelled, and JFK somehow took precedence over Newfie ranting (sorry, b’ys), and I learned, as you might expect, that the CIA did it. Which is nothing new at all. Obviously. But it was nice to hear again. Just for the record, I think the assassination of JFK is the single most important event outside of the World Wars to occur in the twentieth century. It marked the point at which the United States formally lost its democratic status, as all countries do when they experience a military coup. And I love how we have managed to alienate anyone who takes an interest in this key political moment, and talk about the JFK assassination in the same context as “conspiracy theories”, alien abductions, and the X files, as if taking an interest in presidential assassination puts you in the same league as Bigfoot watchers. Whoo boy.

Wednesday I went nuts, but was sufficiently recovered by Thursday to attend a talk by an artist and a philosopher on the subject of forgiveness, political art, and Adorno. The philosopher was one of the world’s leading Adorno scholars, a real superstar, and he gave an absolutely stunning performance, twisting commonplace assumptions into ideological critiques. Of course we have Unforgiving Art, and an Unforgivable Country, not because our artists are harsh or our country evil, but because art is not the sort of thing which can forgive, and countries not the sorts of things which can be forgiven. Art, in its attempts to become politically involved, circumvents its possibility of involvement by entering into the “exchange relation”. The power of art is in its autonomy, of being the single arena in which non-coercive human activity is at least possible. By trying to become overtly “political”, art cedes its greatest asset, concedes that the exchange relation is the only game in town, and effectively closes, rather than opens, the bounds of political debate. Thus spake Adorno in a nutshell. The artist, on the other hand, spoke intelligently but also annoyingly intelligibly, and seemed to only get about half of what was at stake in Adorno, reinforcing all my worst stereotypes. But all in all an interesting discussion, and though I left feeling lonely and cold, it seemed rather appropriate.

Friday I met up with an old NSCAD friend of Renato’s (thanks Renato!). After two weeks of email tag, we finally connected and had a talk about life in the big city. She seems to be doing very well here, extremely busy with a million projects all at once. She’s a genuine New Media artist – not video projections but robotics, interactive robotic whatnots. It was a bit hard to keep up with her and all her projects, something about robotic purses, small-pox paintings, mechanical latex paintings based on Amish quilt designs – you get the idea. Overwhelming, but another Williamsburg Character to add to my growing pantheon.

I’m sure this is all sounding like I’ve been having a marvelous time – the magic of the written synopsis which obliterates hours and hours of staring out of windows, waking up too late, answering endless phone-solicitations and playing solitaire. In fact, I have been spending so much time alone, and so much time reading “Oracle Night” by Paul Auster that I felt for a moment that I became a character in one of his novels. His writing is a bit like that. I found myself seeing my actions as events, bits of narrative leading to coincidental occurrences, like it all fit together in some sort of sensible manner. I found myself wanting to write (and judging by the length of this entry, this desire is still present!). Learning solitude is tricky, like learning French. You can’t just sit there and do it, you have to practice it every damn day, go a bit crazy with it, and hopefully come out the other side a new, more fully separated person. Perhaps a strange ambition. But somehow doing a re-write of Cocaine Cowboys seems to me an easier project than figuring out these bloody paintings of mine.

But I did have a good time yesterday, my first real stereotypical New York sort of day. I met up with Leah around lunchtime and went into Chelsea to see some galleries. No longer feeling the pressure of being a tourist, we were able to find the right balance between looking at places and pausing to rest, not having to worry about fitting it all in. We had a fine little lunch of Clam Chowder (with bacon – very brave for two veggies) and buttermilk battered red onion rings. Mmmmm. No work really knocked my socks off, except perhaps some rather clever animations involving hands clapping, and some paintings by Nicky Nodjoumi (like Neo Rausch). Also, yes, an exhibition of Jim Shaw’s thrift store paintings. I’m so ahead of my time its not even funny.

Chelsea is an interesting place. In a way, it turns the art into a wal-mart. A single massive area where you can window shop, finding eventually exactly what you hoped to find. In Calgary, where there are four or five important galleries, you go into each of them, and tend to give the art inside at least fifteen minutes of fame, thinking about them and giving them the benefit of the doubt. Here, a glance is sufficient to see that a particular gallery is not worth attending, and the work often gets very short shrift. At the same time, on a typical Saturday afternoon in January, there were many more people in any single gallery in Chelsea than ever attend a typical opening in Calgary. These people are not friends and family, they are people! Admittedly often rich people, studenty people, white people, but still and all people who go out and look at art for the hell of it. This is quite an amazing thing to find. Additionally, Chelsea does strange things to one’s head. Often enough, there is a TONNE of schlocky, poorly executed, bland and uninteresting, flat out bad work. This is encouraging. This says to me, “look at how big and broad Art is. Surely I can find a place in here. I mean, if THIS crud is in a Chelsea gallery, than surely I can be too!”. On the other hand, an hour spent in the Dia’s bookstore looking at Ed Templeton, Neo Rausch, Henry Darger, etc. and I am totally bamboozled – what is my interest in Art? Why am I doing this? Why am I doing what I am doing? What am I really interested in? What is good? What matters? Oi. At that point I think I should try to find a job as a plumber.

So much for Chelsea. Hopefully you will get some more Chelsea dispatches in the future. But speaking of plumbers, they are here today. We have no shower, no sinks. But they are here. And so I will shall go and supervise, greatly anticipating some better oral hygiene in the next couple of days. Stay tuned for next week’s post which should include many exciting things – perhaps PS1, the Brooklyn Bridge, a conclusive reading of Zizek, job updates, and a report on the local birds. Yes, the excitement never ends around Williamsburg.

For the photo Library: photos from my unmentioned second sojurn to Elizabeth,New Jersey and its simply fabulous Ikea, and my new abode. Also, to see more of Tania and Jackson (and Ken) in action, check out: www.ehteam.ca

Week One

Note: This is likely really boring, and is intended only for my most enthusiastic fans, and mostly for me so I can keep track of time a bit better. I thought a blog would be better than group email because I have no idea who wants to read any of this and this way I won't inflict anything more than an update notification on anyone. I appreciate your patience. Also, any and all comments will have to be emailed directly to me, as I think that if I open the commentary channel then all sorts of creepy advertisers start posting their junk on here.

So about this time last week I arrived in the big apple, or the big apple’s neighbour, the big crabapple, Brooklyn. After a long flight wondering why I was leaving such good people behind (you all made me feel nice at my various goodbye events), and generally doing my usual existential moping, I was dumped very unceremoniously in front of my new home by an anglophobic cabby (see picture (of home, not cabby)). Hard to understand that a week, only a week, has past. My welcome wasn’t quite as assuring as my departure. The weather was crap, the people were friendly but totally forgetful of how discombolulated a new arrival might be, the house was very smoke filled, the room was very tiny, the phone was in a box somewhere (everyone else was sort of moving in too), etc. etc. I went out prowling my hood, finding it filled with vocal arguing Italians and rain-drenched cranky people in deep hoods, all of whom seemed occupied with shopping at the plethora of dollar stores which seems to be the business of choice for the local merchants. In spite of my reassurances that I was extremely lucky to be living in such a good neighborhood, I remained somewhat unconvinced…

But the next few days quickly turned me into one of those rain-soaked deep-hooders skulking in tacky doorways, as I collected kettles and salt-shakers and cheap shampoos. I quickly began my crime spree, jaywalking, spitting on sidewalks, and yes, garbage rifling where I found this very serviceable office chair on which I now sit. This, apparently, is the easiest way of furnishing one’s apartment. Brooklyners, it seems, have no patience with the idea of a garage sale, and prefer to just dump stuff on the sidewalk where people can haul stuff away for free. However, you can only find so many milk-crates, and so I quickly found the free shuttle bus to the massive IKEA in New Jersey. I used to rail about the parking-lot culture of the huge suburban box store mentality, but stick me for a few days in a place where you cannot buy chick peas or udon noodles (or an inexpensive lighting system called “bobli”) at the local grocery store and I’m on a bus for the burbs. New Jersey is exactly as you imagine it, and so is IKEA. I’m going again tomorrow for a nice rug called “Melby”. So at least I now have something to cook with. I had forgotten how much a pain it is to have to re-stock a kitchen. Apparently my roommates don’t do a whole lot of cooking.

So lessee. I spent my week setting up my living quarters as best I could. I explored Williamsburg, which continues to be the up-and-coming hotspot for all the cool new artists. However, I get the impression that it has been “up-and-coming” since the eighties, so perhaps this label is a little misleading. I did, at least, find a couple good galleries, bookstores, and at least one EXCELLENT place to drink very good tea. I also managed to get out into Manhattan (here referred to as “the city”), where I found extremely elegant “thrift stores”. One of them was selling a baby grand piano. Sarah, Mel, and Palmer: this is nothing like what the Mennonites do.

Entertainment Highlights: 1) Watching a two dollar DVD of Andy Warhol in “Cocaine Cowboys” from the comfort of my hammock in my wee room. 2) Going with Tania and Eric to some ludicrous bands in a funny bar in Greenpoint. There was a raving 18 year old on stage who could just yell his guts out, a mad merging of old Smashing Pumkins with new-wave Interpol all hepped up on some serious latte. Dude sure was angry about something. Then Eric’s friends came on and played 70’s church-organs while wearing space suits. I felt kinda old. But then, I am kinda old. Much more my style was going to see Paul Auster read. He’s a really cool story teller, and it was a great experience to sit there and have him tell a story. He read from “Brooklyn Follies”, which might well be a very suitable book for me to read at the moment. Much less impressive was tonight’s expedition to the Guggenheim (installing a new show, not much to see) and the Whitney. The Gugg promised some “socialist realism”, and while it did have a dozen or so works in a small hallway in the basement, it was just barely worth the subway ride. However, I was intrigued with what I saw. Apparently that stuff is dismissed as propaganda kitsch by the Greenbergian wing who criticized it at the time. But in a few of the paintings, I found something very akin to the American Realist stuff at the Whitney, especially the Hoppers. Hopper’s work is all about absence, the spaces that separate us. The SR stuff I saw also seemed to get at a similar alienation, but this time through a metaphysics of presence, not unlike the creepy presence of the figures in (guess who) Eric Fischl. I expect I’m nuts to find interesting parallels between the two realisms, but. What is the difference between Soviet propaganda and American nostalgia if they make they same pictures? I digress.

So I suppose that is more than anyone wants to read in one sitting. Stay tuned. This week promises great things: A Lars Von Trier film festival, a visit to the NY society for ethical culture, where I will learn what really happened to JFK, a large “apres ski” birthday and housewarming featuring a fully functional cardboard hot tub, more criminal acts (which I am not foolish enough to discuss here), and quite possibly some more serious wondering what the hell I’m doing with my life. My special thanks this week to Palmer and Jessica, whose scotch and chocolate have helped me through the darkest hours…

Much love yall. PS: More photos: Buddy, the dog and fifth member of the household, Tony's Pizza, my second home, and the street on which I live.